Page:A history of architecture on the comparative method for the student, craftsman, and amateur.djvu/329

 GOTHIC AKCHITKCTURE IN EUROPE. 27I architects to practise economy in their use, the characteristic mouldings of the Mediaeval period exhibiting much less waste of material than those common in Classic times. In the Middle Ages it was the constructional features them- selves to which an attractive form was given, and in this particular, the architecture of this period stands in close relation to Greek art. The same principle of truth was upheld, but the form had changed, and it was no longer the self-contained Greek temple, reposeful in the severity of horizontal lines, but a complex, restless structure whose aspiring tendencies found expression in vertical grouping, unity being obtained by the exact and necessary correlation between all the parts. Although many, if not most, of the architectural features were founded primarily on structural necessity, yet others were the expression of artistic invention and of aesthetic requirements. Form, in the best types of architecture, is not the result of caprice, but is only the expression of the structural necessities. If the column is a real support and has an expanded capital it is for the purpose of supporting a particular load ; if the mouldings and ornaments have particular developments it is because they are necessary, and if the vaults are divided by ribs it is because they are so many sinews performing a necessary function. The spire was evolved from no utilitarian requirements, but was a sign of the communal spirit — and an indication of municipal prosperity, of which it formed an outward and visible expression. The architecture was adapted to a structure of small stones with thick mortar joints, and was a compromise between the concrete walling and the jointed stones (without mortar) of the Romans. The military organization, which had helped to mould the Roman style, was wanting in the Gothic period, stone having to be sought in various quarries from- different proprietors and transported by voluntary aid, or by workmen who were forced labourers, doing as little as possible, and taken away, ever and anon, to fight in their owners' battles. As to the material at hand, the Gothic architects of Western Europe possessed stone which was strong and hard, and could be split into thin pieces, but had not at their disposal either the marble of Pentelicus or the blocks of granite which the Romans procured from Corsica, the Alps, and the East ; thus they were absolutely compelled to erect considerab'e buildings with thin courses of stone, whereas the Greeks erected small buildings with enormous blocks of marble, conditions naturally influencing the forms of each style of architecture. Romanesque architecture consisted of walling formed of a rubble core between two faces of stone- work, but at the beginning of the thirteenth century, loftier and