Page:Archaeological Journal, Volume 7.djvu/332

 234. KEMAEKS ON THE COMPLETE GOTHIC equal height, is very striking ; especially where, as at St. Sebaldus' and St. Lawrence's just mentioned, we advance out of comparatively low side aisles of the nave, into the choir in which the external windows occupy the whole of the height. Such an arrangement is of course excellently adapted for the display of fine coloured glass, and it is so employed in the choirs of those churches. Though the fine scheme of the frame-work of a great church was thus in a great measure broken up by making the ceiling independent of it, there still remained in opera- tion the peculiar mode by which the impression of great space is given to the interior of a Gothic building, and which Mr. Willis has pointed out [Architecture of the Middle Ages, p. 130), namely, the impressing upon the spectator the three dimensions of height, length, and breadth, by employing a different method for each ; the height being suggested by the proportions of a single compartment, whether occupied by the space between two piers with its arch, or by a window ; the length being made impressive by the repetition of many such compartments, and the breadth by the succession of aisles and chapels in a trans- verse direction. And this impressiveness of dimensions survives the use of Gothic details, as may be seen very strikingly in St. Eustache, at Paris. In proportion, however, as the obvious organisation of the edifice was broken up, and the ornamentation confined to detached portions, the Gothic style lost its meaning, and it became a matter of comparative indifference w^hether the decoration of each part consisted of the elements of that style, or of other elements, such, for instance, as might be found in the Roman architecture as preserved or revived iu Italy. The Gothic style had been formed when the scheme of Grecian and Roman architecture had been deprived of its significance by tlic inti'oduction of the arch on pillars, of vaulting on pillars, and of the subordination of the exterior to the interior. As I have elsewhere expressed it, tlic elements of building wdiich had formerly been governed by horizontal arrangements were, by the influences of such practices, disbanded ; and then the Gothic architecture introduced a new reign of order, by rallying their elements in a vertical lino, Avith a corresponding frame-work. But when this frame-work disappeared, the elements of the