Page:Architectural Review and American Builders' Journal, Volume 1, 1869.djvu/873

 1869.] Architectural Influences. 705 It is further remarked that " the dis- tinctions between heathen and Christian thought, could scarcely be more dis- tinctly stated in words than they are exhibited to the eye in the difference between a Greek temple, and a Gothic cathedral. Even the relation which subsists between Christian and Moham- medan Architecture, strikingly reminds us of the fact that Mohammedanism was but a sort of bastard Christianity." These' remarks are singularly true, and might well be extended further by the citation of other examples. The word " Gothic," as applied to Architecture, is so comprehensive as to render an exact definition of it difficult to give. It comprises all the styles which prevailed in Great Britain, and indeed in the whole of western Europe, during a period of nearly four hundred j-ears, and as the name is of subsequent inven- tion to the general stjdes it is used to designate, it is easily seen that its signi- fication must be of a very extended char- acter. The word originated with the Renaissance architects, being used by them as a term of reproach, and applied to the mediaeval architecture which ex- isted from the middle of the twelfth to the middle of the sixteenth century, and which, consequently, immediately pre- ceded the revival of the classic styles under the name " Renaissance." As to origin, the Gothic is as un- doubtedly indebted to religious senti- ment for it as are the other styles at which we have glanced. Although con- siderable difference of opinion exists, it is most probable that the style was derived directly from nature, the arches and groins being but a copy of the over- arching branches of the forest, and the rows of pillars which characterize Gothic aisles, being imitations of the long avenues of trees which adorned the entrances of noble parks, and country- seats. The idea that the visible manifesta- tions of God, give us the best possible conception of what his hidden and spiritual attributes must be, had long since become a fundamental principle, and, in the age in which Gothic archi- tecture had its birth, this idea was an inborn sentiment throughout civilized Europe. The natural phenomena (wonderful to us in the nineteenth century, but mirac- ulous to those, who lived in the twelfth ;) which are continually manifesting them- selves, go far to prove to us the infinity and ineomprehensibleness of that Power which is the author of them all. It is therefore quite natural that a people who recognized these sentiments, in aiming at the production of such works as should inspire awe and venera- tion, should imitate that which they esteemed the highest and most direct exposition of Divinity — Nature. The earliest example of the fully developed Gothic style is the Cathedral of St. Denis, founded by the Abbe Suger in 1144. Almost contemporary with it are the Cathedrals of Notre Dame de Paris, Rheims, Amiens, Chartres, Beauvais and Bourges, in any of which we may find most of the attractive points which belong to the st3 r le to-day. The invention about the same time of stained glass had a tendency to hasten the development of Gothic architecture, being seized upon by the architects of that epoch as not only highly decorative in itself, but as being more appropriate for paintings than the walls which had been used by the Romanesque architects, for frescoes. This wrought a great change, for it was found that the small circular-arched windows which had been retained after the introduction of pointed arches in the vaulting, were no longer sufficient to light the churches. The windows were enlarged by throw- ing two or three into one, (dividing them only by mullions,) and by making the arches pointed in conformity with the vaulting, thus ensuring a greater uni- formity and fitness in the whole work. The Gothic style appears to have