Development and Character of Gothic Architecture/Chapter 6

by Charles Herbert Moore

 

CHAPTER VI

PROFILES OF THE TWELFTH AND THIRTEENTH CENTURIES IN ENGLAND AND OTHER COUNTRIES

The pointed architecture of England of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries differs from the Gothic of France, in the profiles of its subordinate members, such as capitals, bases, cornices, etc., no less than in its larger structural characteristics. This difference is manifest from the first, and is constant except where, as at Canterbury, the profiles are of French workmanship or design.

In considering these profiles we may begin with those of capitals. Among the earliest as well as the best capitals of the type of which I have already spoken as peculiar to England (in which the round abacus^[1] takes the place of the square) are those of the east transepts of the Cathedral of Lincoln, and among the finest of these are the capitals of the triforium of the north arm, of which Fig. 140 is an illustration. This capital, though it lacks those qualities which distinguish the finest French examples, is of a character which certainly exhibits much to admire. In its main mass it is well formed as a member connecting the slender shaft with its heavy load. The Corinthianesque profile of its bell is at once functional and graceful. The round abacus, a form which agrees better than the square with the arch sections employed, presents no overhanging angles requiring support from crockets. Instead of crockets, therefore, a continuous series of shallow projections, carved into vigorous leaf forms, is carried with graceful art around

FIG. 140.

the bell, just under the abacus, affording that apparent support which the eye requires. Under the conditions involved a more admirable outline than that of the bell of this capital could hardly be devised.

The same general type is, with many beautiful minor variations, carried out in most of the capitals of Bishop Hugh's choir and transept, especially in the wall arcades of the ground story. But associated with them are a few others of curiously different and ill-agreeing character. Of these Fig. 141 affords an illustration. In this capital the

FIG. 141.

round abacus is joined to a bell of thoroughly French design—as may be seen by comparing it with Fig. 113 in the preceding chapter. in which crockets of considerable projection, but having little connection with the abacus, take the place of the more appropriate supporting leaf forms of the former example. These capitals are interesting as affording evidence of the employment of French workmen in

FIG. 142.

company with the more numerous Anglo-Normans and English, and as showing their efforts to adapt their own peculiar modes of design to the local type characterised by the round abacus; but the result is awkward and unsatisfactory. Associated with the round abacus, especially, as in this case, a round abacus of small proportionate diameter, the heavy crockets are meaningless, and spoil the profile of the bell. These crockets are, however, in themselves very beautiful. Their refined execution is in marked contrast with the singular coarseness of execution exhibited by the native sculpture; and with a square abacus, in connection with which such crockets were originally designed, nothing could be finer. Capitals of this distorted French type are curiously mingled with those of the local character in nearly all the arcades of this early portion of Lincoln Cathedral. In the south triforium the entire groups of the first and second bays, counting from the west, are composed of them, while the widely different Anglo-Norman work elsewhere generally prevails. Other capitals in these arcades are still different. They have crockets arranged as in the preceding example, but differing from the French work entirely in design and execution. They are apparently local imitations of the French type; one of them, from an early portion of the west transept, is shown in Fig. 142. This form of capital, with exaggerated crockets, as in the next figure but one, came at length to be very widely employed in the early pointed architecture of England. Fig. 143 exhibits another type of frequent occurrence. It is a modification of the type shown in Fig. 140, but hardly an improvement, since the ornamentation is excessively redundant, having the appearance of a wreath entwined around the bell, whose profile it too much hides. Yet as compared with the later forms of capitals in England it has the merits of comparative compactness, temperance, and considerable beauty.

The tendency to excessive redundance of ornament in capitals became very strong before the middle of the thirteenth century; and this peculiarity, quite as much as the use of the round abacus, characterises the later forms of the so-called early English style. Fig. 144, a capital from the arcade of the north choir screen of Lincoln, is a fair instance of this phase of design; though others might be chosen, as, for instance, some of those of the west façade of

FIG. 143.

Wells, which exhibit even more extravagant forms. The crockets, wandering far out from the bell, and nowhere connected with the abacus, show a singular defect of architectural and artistic aptitude on the part of the native English designers who were by this time, apparently, gaining ascendency.

FIG. 144.

Of still different character are the nearly contemporaneous capitals of the transept and eastern end of the nave of Wells Cathedral. Though wrought by a local school, whose influence did not, I believe, extend beyond Glastonbury, yet these capitals cannot be overlooked in any just survey of the art at this time in England. Their characteristics, of which Fig. 145 exhibits an illustration, differ widely from anything at Lincoln or elsewhere with the exception of Glastonbury itself. Much in them recalls French work, though they are very different from the French capitals of Lincoln. The polygonal abacus, supporting angle crockets, and certain

FIG. 145.

peculiarities of detail and execution, are conspicuously French; while the excessive projection of the crockets is an English characteristic.

A very common type of capital in England in the thirteenth century is that which is simply moulded without any foliate sculpture, as at Westminster Abbey, Salisbury, Beverley, Southwell, and many other churches. It is rarely a capital of good profile, and there is often no well-marked division into bell and abacus. It consists largely of a series ill related of mouldings of various profiles and dimensions, which look as if they might have been turned out on
FIG. 146a lathe. Fig. 146, a capital from the triforium of Beverley, sufficiently illustrates this class. Such capitals give to the interiors in which they occur a bald, hard, and uninteresting effect.

The profile of the abacus in England has, with few exceptions, all of its members, except the lower one, rounded. The upper member, whether in the interior or on the exterior of the building, has usually more or less of the character of a drip-mould, as at A, Fig. 147, from the west transept of Lincoln. Another characteristic profile is B, in the same figure, from the choir screen of Lincoln. Exceptional profiles, showing French influence, are C and D, from Glastonbury and Wells respectively. The astragal in England has usually either the profile shown in Fig. 143, or that shown in Fig. 144, rarely the varied profile of France.

The profiles of bases in the early style are usually like those of the French Gothic in exhibiting various modifications of the ancient Attic type. They are, however, as at

FIG. 146.

A, Fig. 148, frequently composed of a larger number of members than were common either in ancient times or in the Gothic of France. Less refined in outline than French bases—their rounds being often nearly segmental curves rather than finely varied ones—they are very spreading in form, and their hollows are excessively deep-cut. The profiles B, in the same figure, from the nave, and C, from the Presbytery, of Lincoln, are illustrations of some of the best

FIG. 148.

forms; while such poor outlines as A, Fig. 149, from the choir of Ely, P and C, from the triforium of the nave of Lincoln,

FIG. 149.

D, from the triforium of the choir of Hexham, and E, from the clerestory of the choir of Whitby, are not uncommon.

The square plinth, like the square abacus, is unusual in England. The lower member of the base is commonly round in plan, and of the superposed courses of which the

FIG. 150.

base is made up, one or more are usually moulded, as at A, Fig. 150 from the aisle of the choir of Lincoln, and B, in the same figure, from the choir of the Temple Church in London.

FIG. 151.The square plinth being omitted, there was, of course, no place for the angle spur, and the base in the early pointed architecture of England lacks, in consequence, that perfect expression of firm foothold, which is so marked in the bases of the French Gothic. In a few instances, however, where square plinths occur, as in the north porch of Wells, the angle spur is found; but in this porch it is curiously (though very appropriately, since these bases rest on a ledge which is above the eye) placed upon the under side of the torus, as shown in Fig. 151.

The characteristic profile of the string-course in this architecture is made up almost exclusively of curves, as at a, Fig. 152, from the choir of Lincoln. The principle of the drip-mould is partially carried out, but not with such completeness as in the external strings described in the last chapter. The want of steepness in the watershed, its curved outline, and the incision near the lower edge, interrupting the

FIG. 152.

flow of water where it ought to flow quickly, are certainly not appropriate characteristics. These defects, together with the absence of a sharp under edge to cut off the drip, make this profile far less functional than the common French type. Many variations are met with in strings of this same general character, of which b, in the same figure, from Glastonbury, is an example, while often associated with such profiles are others of almost purely French character, as c, from the clerestory of the choir of Lincoln. At Wells, in the mouldings at the level of the impost of the arch over the central portal of the west facade, these two types are curiously brought together, as at d, in the same figure.

In the Gothic of France the corbel table is, from the earliest times, omitted. But in England this feature of the Romanesque style is retained through the whole of the thirteenth century, appearing conspicuously in Salisbury, in the Presbytery of Lincoln, and in many other buildings.

FIG. 153.Internal string-courses do not much differ in profile from those of the exterior, except that the drip-stone form is not always so fully developed in them. A characteristic early example is that shown at e, Fig. 152, which is the string at the level of the window sills in the aisle of the choir of Lincoln. The drip form, however, frequently occurs, as at f, the triforium string of the same choir.

In arch mouldings the Anglo-Norman architects displayed a singular predilection for multiplicity of members varying in profile and separated from each other by deep hollows. In this way a considerable effect of lightness was given to arches that were really very massive. Even in the most purely Norman buildings in England, such as St. Albans, Norwich, Romsey, Ely, Peterborough, and others, the fondness for multiplicity of parts in arch sections is shown by the employment of at least three orders in the main arches, and these orders are not uncommonly again subdivided. This multiplication of orders naturally led to the circular impost section, to which the round abacus was not seldom adjusted, as at Southwell (Fig. 153). And in the early pointed style the round section was soon introduced into each separate order by new arrangements of the rounds, hollows, and fillets, into which these orders were subdivided. One of the distinctly Anglo-Norman peculiarities of arch mouldings appears for the first time, so far as I know, in the hollow which is given to the soffit of the sub-order of the pier arcade in the nave of Malmesbury Abbey (Fig. 154). This type is amplified in the arch mouldings of St. Mary's Church, New Shoreham, and is further developed in the pier arches of the choir of Lincoln (Fig. 155).^[2] In the nave of the same building the arch moulding becomes richer by the addition of a third order, and each order now assumes an almost perfectly segmental outline.

FIG. 154.

FIG. 155.

The practically endless variations of arch profiles which characterise this style need not be examined further, as they consist merely in unessential changes of details. They are, for the most part, merely fanciful, and rarely show any fine artistic qualities. The minute subdivisions and the frequent introduction of narrow fillets, which became constant by the middle of the thirteenth century, produce a hard and linear effect unpleasing to an eye that has become accustomed to the simple and appropriate profiles of the Continent. The greater simplicity of the mouldings in Bishop Hugh's choir at Lincoln is in agreeable contrast with the subdivided contours of the mouldings in the presbytery of the same church; with which the comparison is easily made, since both may be viewed from the same position.

The profiles of vault ribs are not materially different from those of other arches. In the choir of Lincoln the principal ribs of the aisle vaults are almost identical in section with the sub-orders of the pier arches. In this same choir, however, another profile (Fig. 156) occurs which, if it be a part of the original construction, is of curious interest, as exhibiting a character much like that of the vault ribs of Amiens and Beauvais.
FIG. 156. The likeness to these French ribs is in the large round and filleted lower member. This member does not, I believe, appear in France before 1220, and if the rib of Lincoln be a part of the original construction it furnishes an instance of its earlier use in this building. If this be so, it is not impossible that the corresponding profiles in France were derived from England. Indeed, it is altogether probable that there was after the twelfth century, in matters of detail, more or less reaction of the art of the island upon that of the Continent. As the French appear to have derived their first ideas of sexpartite vaulting from the Normans, they would naturally continue to profit by whatever new features might be devised in either Norman or Anglo-Norman art; but whatever they borrowed they recreated and improved. This rib profile of Lincoln is, comparatively, not a fine one. The sharp re-entering angles where the lower fillet joins the round, the absence of re-entering angles as foils to the curves in the composition of the rounds and hollows, and the meaningless drip members above, render it far inferior as a piece of artistic design to the exquisitely simple and graceful profile of Amiens. It is, however, perhaps, more likely that the vaults in which these ribs occur were reconstructed at a later epoch, and that the profile of the rib was then imitated from French examples. This profile is not, I believe, found elsewhere till considerably later, as in the nave and presbytery of the same church, where this lower filleted round is employed in all the ribs.

The difference of spirit between the works of the French Gothic architects and those of the Anglo-Normans is thus manifest hardly less in the respective treatment of mouldings than in modes of construction. Where the French architect kept his orders few, and his arch mouldings simple, confining his chief enrichment mainly to the sculpture of the capitals, the Anglo-Norman multiplies his orders, and subdivides them into wearisome lines, while he is often content to treat his capitals in the same way, denying them the enrichment of sculpture, and thus offering no relief to the endless linear elaboration. And this multiplicity of arch lines is still further increased by the invariable employment of hood mouldings with profiles, in the interior no less than on the exterior, of the drip-stone type.

In such ways the Anglo-Norman lack both of the sense of functional fitness and artistic beauty is almost constantly displayed. The architects of the island never perceived that the lightness and multiplicity of parts in the Gothic style are natural and unsought results of a peculiar constructive system, and not at all mere decorative peculiarities; but regarding the effect of lightness and multiplicity as an end to be sought, they cut up their really heavy piers and arches into an unnecessary, and, as we have seen, often illogical, profusion of small members.

 

In Germany it appears that during the twelfth century no material changes in profiles were made. Capitals retain the peculiar forms of the German-Romanesque, in which the cushion type, in great variety of outline and proportion, mingles with a type which more or less recalls the Roman-Corinthian, as at St. Godard's Church, Hildesheim, the Abbey Church of Königslutter, and many others, while string mouldings retain the flat upper surface of ancient design. The Cathedral of Magdeburg, which exhibits profiles dating from various epochs from early in the thirteenth century to the close of the fifteenth, may, together with the Cathedral of Cologne, sufficiently illustrate the characteristics of such details in German art. The tenacity with which

FIG. 157.

the Germans held on to Romanesque traditional forms is shown at A, Fig. 157, a capital from the choir of Magdeburg, while something of the nature of the early changes which they wrought on French Gothic types is shown at B in the same figure. These are not altogether bad profiles, though they are distinctly inferior in expression and in grace, not only to French, but also to the best Anglo-Norman types, such, for instance, as that shown in Fig. 140. The profile of the abacus of the capital (A, Fig. 157) is that of an inverted Attic base, which, in this pronounced form, is hardly an appropriate one for an abacus, because the projection of the upper moulding is too great to give a good line of support. However little the outline of the abacus may have to do with the real strength of the member, it is important that its general outline should possess an expression of strength—such as a more continuous slope, like that of the French profile, gives. The characteristic base of this epoch (Fig. 158)^[3] is equally far from showing
FIG. 158. a good form. It has none of that subtle relationship of parts which gives to the bases of the French Gothic their appropriate and beautiful character. The equal depths of the scotia and lower torus violate the laws of proportion, while the excessive projection of the upper torus gives an unpleasantly heavy effect.

I will not attempt to exhibit any considerable number of examples of capitals and other profiles of the mediaeval buildings of Germany. The distinctive peculiarities of these profiles were of late development, and do not come out with distinctness earlier than the middle of the thirteenth century. At this time in the choir of Cologne they appear fully developed. They depart widely from the best
FIG. 159. French models, though they recall in some degree the characteristics that were introduced in the declining Gothic of France, from which they are doubtless largely copied. But they even exaggerate the defects of the late French examples, and add new eccentricities that appear to be wholly German. Figure 159,^[4] a capital from the triforium of this choir, illustrates one of the most common types in which the bell is in reality little more than a continuation of the shaft itself. The true capital in this case is, indeed, largely the abacus alone. Whatever appearance of expansion there is below the abacus is mostly given by the sculpture. The astragal is in effect but a band about the shaft, and the sculptured ornament forms no part of the real profile; every characteristic of a functionally expressive capital is wanting. The
FIG. 160. cylindrical form of the shaft above the astragal, in place of a well-shaped bell, is not always so visible as it is in this instance, but it nearly always exists, though it may be more completely covered by the foliage, which sometimes gives the aspect of a better formed capital. The base profile (Fig. 160, from one of the main piers) conforms more nearly with the base profiles of the French Gothic.

The pier archivolts (Fig. 161) have much the character of those of the later Anglo-Norman architecture—the salient members having fillets, and being separated by excessively deep hollows,—giving a linear effect like that of the corresponding mouldings of the Presbytery of Lincoln. As at Lincoln, too, these mouldings are so arranged as to give a round or polygonal section. In the nave of the same building the archivolt is furnished with a richly crocketed hood moulding. In fact, in arch mouldings, and perhaps in other details, the architecture of England seems at this time to have influenced the art of Germany.

FIG. 161.The profiling of cornices and other external strings is largely of French origin, but it is considerably modified by the German taste, and shows a peculiarly hard character unlike that which any other style exhibits.

 

The profiles of the pointed architecture of Italy are very diverse in character. No generally recognised principles seem to have governed the designer in their production. In many cases, especially in capitals and bases,the profiles of the French Gothic are closely approached, while often they are as widely departed from. In his more independent productions in this field the Italian designer displays little inventive aptitude, but follows an apparently capricious fancy with singular disregard of functional needs, and not seldom in violation of all principles of grace and beauty. As might naturally be expected, his native classic bent more or less constantly displays itself, though in the pointed architecture of Italy neither Gothic nor classic principles are ever consistently adhered to.

For illustration of the types of capitals and bases, which have the most Gothic character, we may take those of the

FIG. 162.

nave of Sta. Maria Novella in Florence. Fig. 162 is a group of capitals of one of the lower piers on the south side; they are used only for those members of the pier from which the arches of the lower story spring—the vaulting shafts of the high vaults being continuous in their ascent. Such a group would hardly be out of place in France, though the projection of the lower range of ornaments breaks, rather more than it would in France, the profiles of the bells. The capitals of the piers of Sta. Croce are, in this respect, better in outline; and very fine ones of almost pure Gothic type occur on the small shafts of the exterior of the Church of the Spina in Pisa, as well as in many other churches. But capitals of very inferior character are frequently met with. Perhaps the least admirable types to be found in Italy are those of the Cathedral of Florence which are sufficiently illustrated in Figure 104. As I have before remarked they are hardly capitals at all, but are rather

FIG. 163

sculptured mouldings surrounding the pier below the impost level, where neither capital nor mouldings have any proper place.

Italian bases are almost as various in form as the capitals. The profile (A, Fig. 163), that of the base of the pier in Sta. Maria Novella, is almost of the French variety of the Attic type; and bases of still more French character, especially in connection with small shafts, sometimes occur in the Italian pointed style; but the great pier bases are rarely as good as these of Sta. Maria Novella. They are often, indeed, of very unsatisfactory form. The profile B, Fig. 163, for instance, from the Cathedral of Florence, is almost as poor as the capital of the same pier just noticed. This base, like the capital, consists of a mere series of mouldings, and no distinct and well-formed footing for the body of the pier is provided. It is true that the straight line, a b, in this profile projects a little beyond the face of the pier above, giving somewhat the effect of an enlarged base, but the enlargement is too slight to be readily appreciated by the eye. In the profile C in the same figure, from the base of one of the piers of Sta. Croce, this straight line is advanced considerably beyond the face of the pier, and the character of a base is thus in greater measure secured.

Arch mouldings in the Italian pointed architecture do not exhibit a great variety of profiles. They have, in fact, the simplest profiles which occur in this style. Interior arches are almost without exception perfectly square in section, and without subdivisions or adornments of any kind. They are in some cases, as in Sta. Croce, in two orders—the one advancing but little beyond the other; and sometimes, as in the Cathedral of Florence, a simply bevelled hood moulding is added. Where more than one order occurs their very slight projection gives an effect like that of the fasciæ of the ancient architrave rather than of the arch orders of the styles of the North.

Italian vault ribs are commonly bevelled, but they are rarely otherwise adorned. The diagonal ribs of the Cathedral of Florence, however, have the section shown in Fig. 164, where the use of the cyma recta is one of the many indications of the hold which classic features had on the minds of the builders at this time in Italy. It is always observable that the use which the Italians made of these classic elements was never inventive, as it was with the Gothic architects. They are often associated with elements which differ greatly from those of classic design, but they themselves remain unmodified.

The outside cornice is generally of classic profile; but it is not unfrequently carried on a corbel table, and made to support a parapet, as in the Cathedral of Florence. Other strings conform no less to the classic types, anything like a drip-stone being of rare occurrence in Italy.

FIG. 164.

It is not necessary to examine in detail the profiles of the pointed buildings in Spain; they are, of course, mainly Gothic. But, like the whole structural system, they are French rather than Spanish. What minor, local modifications of outline a thorough examination of them would reveal, I know not, but such modifications, if they exist, are certainly unimportant.

1. This form of abacus occurs in some purely Norman buildings, as in Southwell, Gloucester, and Malmesbury; but in Norman buildings generally the square abacus was employed. The general prevalence of the round form in early pointed buildings is, perhaps, one of the results of the Anglo-Saxon influence, which seems to have been stronger in the modification of details than in that of structural forms.
2. I would emphasise the resemblance of the arch mouldings of Lincoln to those of Malmesbury, because it has been erroneously affirmed by Mr. Parker and others that the choir of Lincoln is a purely English building in which no traces of Norman influence appear.
3. Figures 157 and 158 are copied from Forster.
4. Figures 159, 160, and 161 are copied from Boisserée.