It will be instructive to follow some of the changes which were wrought by the Gothic builders upon this simple scheme, and to see what different character they finally give it, retaining to the last these leading component elements. The development was less rapid here than in the other parts of the building; and, indeed, it was not till near the end of the twelfth century that the distinctly Gothic impress began to predominate over the Romanesque characteristics. Still the germs of the new style appear in the façade of St. Denis—in the larger dimensions of its recessed portals, in the presence of the pointed arch in some of its openings, in the large wheel window of the upper compartment of the central bay, and in the general character of its sculptured enrichments.
A more distinct approach to the Gothic type is shown in the façade of the Cathedral of Senlis (Fig. 5 9), which dates from the end of the twelfth century. Although in main features it is almost the same as that of the Abbaye-aux-Hommes, it nevertheless shows a new spirit—a spirit that bespeaks the vigorous activity of the Gothic genius. Here are the same plain square-edged tower buttresses dividing the front vertically into three bays. The central bay is divided horizontally into three stories by simply moulded string-courses, the upper one of which breaks around both towers and buttresses. The whole width of the central bay in the ground-story is occupied by a recessed portal in five orders with pointed arches, which is probably the earliest of the unparalleled series of portals of distinctly Gothic type which so distinguish the architecture of France in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. Over this portal is a great pointed arched opening of four orders, which must originally have been divided by one or more shafts and a pierced tympanum, but whose present dividing members are incongruous interpolations of a later time. In the third story is a small circular opening of three orders—also filled with tracery of a later date,—and on either side of it is a pointed arched niche [1] of two orders, enshrining a statue. There is a smaller pointed doorway of three orders in the ground-story of each tower bay, the stilted and pierced tympanums of which are of curious design. Above
- ↑ The niche is not a Gothic feature, but as yet the Gothic façade was but beginning to develop.
