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 GOTHIC

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GOTHIC

of the fundamental structural element in Gothic archi- tecture, but, carried away by enthusiasm for the crowning achievement of the human intellect in the domain of construction, those who have most clearly demonstrated its pre-eminence have usually fallen into the error of declaring this one quality to be the touchstone of Gothic architecture, minimizing the im- portance of all aesthetic considerations, and so deny- ing the name of Gothic to everything where the system of balanced thrusts, ribbed vaulting, and concentrated loads did not consistently appear. Even Professor Moore himself says, " Wherever a framework main- tained on the principle of thrust and counter-thrust is wanting, there we have not Gothic" (Moore, op. cit., I, 8). The result is that all the medieval architec- ture of Western Europe, with the exception of that produced during the space of a century and a half, and chiefly within the limits of the old Royal Domain of France, is denied the title of Gothic. Of the whole body of English architecture produced between 1066 and 1528 it is said, " The English claim to any share in the original development of Gothic, or to the considera- tion of the pointed architecture of the Island as prop- erly Gothic at all, must be abandoned " (Moore, op. cit., Preface to first ed., 8), and the same is said of the con- temporary architecture of Germany, Italy, and Spain. Logically applied, this rule would exclude also all the timber-roofed churches and the ci\'il and military structures erected in France contemporaneously with the cathedrals, and (though this point is not pressed) even the west fronts of such admittedly Gothic edifices as the cathedrals of Paris, Amiens, and Reims. As one of the most recent commentators on Gothic archi- tecture has said, "A definition so restricted carries with it its own condemnation" (Francis Bond, "Gothic Architecture in England", I, 10).

A still greater argument against the acceptance of this structural definition lies in the fact that while, as Professor Moore declares, "the Gothic monument, though wonderful as a structural organism, is even more wonderful as a work of art" (op. cit., V, 190), this great artistic element, which for more than three centuries was predominant through the greater part of Western Europe, existed quite independently of the supreme structural system, and varies only in minor details of racial bias and of presentation, whether it is found in France or Normandy, Spain or Italy, Ger- many, Flanders, or Great Britain — this, which is in itself the manifestation of the underlying impulses and the actual accomplishments of the era it connotes, is treated as an accessory to a structural evolution, and is left without a name except the perfunctory title of " Pointed ", which is even less descriptive than the word Gothic itself.

The structural definition has failed of general ac- ceptance, for the temper of the time is ' increasingly impatient of materialistic definitions, and there is a demand for broader interpretations that shall take cognizance of underlying impulses rather than of ma- terial manifestations. The fact is recognized that around and beyond the structural aspects of Gothic architecture lie other qualities of equal importance and greater comprehensiveness, and, if the word is still to be used in the general sense in which it always has been employed, viz., as denoting the definite architec- tural expression of certain peoples acting under defi- nite impulses and within definite limitations of time, a completely evolved structural principle cannot be used as the sole test of orthodoxy, if it excludes the great body of work executed within that period, and which in all other respects has complete uniformity and a consistent significance.

It may be said of Gothic architecture that it is an impulse and a tendency rather than a perfectly rounded accomplishment; aesthetically, it never achieved perfection in any given monument, or group of monuments, nor were its possibilities ever fully

worked out e.xcept in the category of structural science. Here alone, as Professor Moore has admirably shown, finality was achieved by the cathedral-builders of the Ilc-tlc-Francc, but this fact camiot give to their work exclusive claim to the name of Gothic. The art of any given time is the expression of certain racial cjuali- tics modified by inlieritance, tradition, and environ- ment, and working themselves out under the control of religious and secular impulses. When these ele- ments are sound and vital, combined in the right pro- portions, and operating for a sufficient length of time, the result is a definite style in some one or more of the arts. Such a style is Gothic architecture, and it is to this style, regarded in its most inclusive aspect, that the term Gothic is applied by general consent, and in this sense the word is here used.

Gothic architecture and Gothic art are the aesthetic expression of that epoch of European history when paganism had been extinguished, the traditions of classical civilization destroyed, the hordes of barbarian invaders beaten back, or Christianized and assimi- lated; and W'hen the Catholic Church had established itself not only as the sole spiritual power, supreme and almost unquestioned in authority, but also as the arbi- ter of the destinies of sovereigns and of peoples. Dur- ing the first five centuries of the Christian Era the Church had been fighting for life, first against a dying imperialism, then against barbarian invasions. The removal of the temporal authority to Constantinople had continued the traditions of civilization where Greek, Roman, and Asiatic elements were fused in a curious alembic, one result of which was an architect^ ural style that later, and modified by many peoples, was to serve as the foundation-stone of the Catholic architecture of the West. Here, in the meantime, the condition had become one of complete chaos, but the end of the Dark Ages was at hand, and during the entire period of the sixth century events were occur- ring which could only have issue in the redemption of the West. The part played in the development of this new civilization by the Order of St. Benedict and by Pope St. Gregory the Great cannot be overesti- mated: through the former the Catholic Faith became a more living and personal attribute of the people, and began as well to force its way across the frontiers of barbarism, while by its means the long-lost ideals of law and order were in a measure re-established. As for St. Gregory the Great, he may almost be con- sidered the foundation-stone of the new epoch. The redemption of Europe was completed during the four centuries following his death, and largely at the hands of the monks of Cluny and Pope St. Gregory VII (1073-1085), who freed the Church from secular dominion. With the twelfth century were to come the equally potent Cistercian reformation, the revivi- fying and purification of the episcopate and the secular clergy by the canons regular, the de\-el(iiiment. of the great schools founded in the preceding century, the communes, the military orders, and the Crusades; while the thirteenth century, with the aid of Pope Innocent III, Philip Augustus, St. Louis, and the Franciscans and Dominicans, was to raise to the highest point of achievement the spiritual and ma- terial potentialities developed in the immediate past.

This is the epoch of Gothic architecture. As we analyse the agencies that together were to make pos- sible a civilization that could blossom only in some pre-eminent art, we find that they fall into certain definite categories. Ethnically the northern blood of the Lombards, Franks, and Norsemen was to fiir- nish the physical vitality of the new epoch. Politi- cally the Holy Roman Empire, theCapetian sovereigns of the Franks, and the Dukes of Normandy were to restore that sense of nationality without which creative civilization is impossible, while the paimry, working through the irresistible influence of the iiionaslic iwdcrs gave the underlying impulse. Normandy in Ihctlcv-