apprehension of its principles. English writers generally have understood by Gothic merely a style of building in which pointed arches take the place of round ones, and in which mouldings and other details are treated in a peculiar way. Hence, in treating of the evolution of Gothic, English writers, with hardly an exception, confine themselves to the consideration of these subordinate things. Even Sir Gilbert Scott, who has shown more insight than most others, quite fails to lay hold of the ruling principles and to exhibit them with clearness. And his son, Mr. G. G. Scott, even describes [1] incidentally some of these principles without emphasising them as fundamental.
A recent Belgian writer, regarding the subject from the English standpoint, has published a book, [2] in which it is assumed that Gothic consists in a purely decorative modification of the component members of a building. These members—capitals, bases, mouldings, etc.—he examines without due reference to their mutual adjustments and functional offices, and considers that the more they differ decoratively from corresponding members in the preceding styles, the more Gothic they are. For standards of Gothic form he points to those buildings in which such details depart most widely from the Romanesque types. And others which, in these features, retain the older characteristics he affirms to be on that account not Gothic.
In France the history of the revival of interest in Gothic seems to have derived its impulse from an influence transmitted from England. One of the earliest French writers to show an intelligent interest in the subject was M. de Caumont, who, however, equally with the authors already named, misconceives the nature of Gothic art. Thus, in treating of the transition, he says: "La révolution architectonique qui s'opérait durant la période transitionnelle ne consistait pas seulement dans la substitution de l'ogive au plein-cintre, mais aussi, comme nous le démontrerons, dans l'adoption d'un système nouveau de moulures pour la decoration, et dans l'abandon de la plupart des ornaments usités aux XIe et XIIe siècles." [3]
