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 GOTHIC

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GOTHIC

in the facility with which it miglit be used for obtain- ing level crowns in oblong vaulting areas. This stilt- ing of the longitudinal arches was from the beginning almost invariable in France; structurally, it concen- trated the vault thrust on a comparatively narrow vertical line, where it could be easily handled liy the flying buttress; it permitted the largest possible win- dow area in the clerestory, while the composition of lines and the delicately waved or twisted surfaces were so beautiful in themselves that, once discovered, they could not be abandoned by the logical and beauty- loving Franks.

The structural and aesthetic advance was now head- long in its impetuosity. A few years after Bury, St- fiermer de Fly was built, the date assigned by Profes- sor Moore being about 1130. Here we find a building almost as surprising as Jumieges ; for if the date quoted above is correct, the church has no prototype, no pre- ceding stages of experiment. The vaulting, both of (he ambulatory and of the apse, is stilted and has its full complement of ribs, the shafting throughout is finely articulated, the dimensions are stately, the pro- portions just and effective, while the easterly termina- tion is a perfectly developed apse with rudimentary chapels — a chevet in posse. The flying buttresses are still concealed under the triforium roof, and out- wardly the building has no Gothic character whatever; but the Gothic organism is practically complete.

With Abbot Suger's St-Denis, the easterly termina- tion of which is of original construction and is dated 1140, we come to what is almost the fully developed Gothic plan, order and system, together with the true clievet of double apsidal aisles and chapels. This last feature, perhaps the most brilliant in conception and splendid in effect of the several parts of a Gothic church, may have been derived either from the triap- sidal termination of the Carlovingian basilican church, or from the polygonal domed structures of the same epoch. Transitional forms are found throughout the eleventh century, and the development from such a plan as that of St-Generou, on the one hand, or Aa- chen, on the other, to St-Denis presupposes only that ilegree of inventive force and overflowing vitality which, as a matter of fact, existed during the eleventh and twelfth centuries.

With the chevet as fully developed as it now appears in St- Denis, there remains only the gradual perfection antl refinement of the structural system and the gi\'ing it that (|uaUty of distinctive beauty in every aspect that was to be the very flowering of the Catholic civi- lization of the Middle Ages. From the middle of the twelfth century both processes went on apace and simultaneously. Noyon followed immediately, and here, it is maintained, the flying buttress for the first time emerged through the roof, displaying in logical fashion the system of construction, and at the same time bringing the abutment above the spring of the vault, where the greatest thrust actually occurred, while permitting the lowering of the triforium roof so that the clerestory windows might be given greater height and brought into better proportion with the arcade and triforium. Senlis, of the same date, ex- hibits a great advance in mechanical skill and logical exactitude, with an innovation that commands less admiration — the substitution of cylindrical columns for the intermediate piers on the caps of which rest the shafts of the intermediate ribs of the sexpartite vault. Continued in Notre-Dame, Paris, this clever, but unconvincing, device proved to be but an experi- mental form, and was abandoned as unsatisfactory in the greatest monuments of French Gothic, such as Chartres, Reims, Bourges, and Amiens, where recourse was hati to the specifically Gothic compound pier, with the shafts of the transverse ribs, at least, of the vault, brought frankly and firmly down to the pavement.

The cathedral of Paris was begun in 1103 with the choir, and completed in 1235 with the raising of the

western towers. From East to West there is a steady growth in certainty of touch, in structural efficiency, and in the expression through beauty of form and line of the culminating civilization of medievalism. The inloiior order exhibits the defects of the imperfectly iirg;inizcd Norman system, particularly in the lofty, vaulted triforium or gallery, so great in size that there is no rhythm in the relationship of arcade, triforiinn, and clerestory, together with the columnar scheme of Sens and Noyon (the imposing of the vault shafts on the caps of plain cylindrical columns), which must be regarded as a falling back from the perfect articula- tion of the true Gothic system. The plan, however, is nobly developed, the general relations of height and breadth fine to a degree, while in the west front (1210- 35) Gothic design reaches, perhaps, the highest point it ever achieved so far as classical simplicity, power, and proportion are concerned. The seed of Jumieges has developed into full fruition. The fagade of Notre- Dame must rank as one of the few entirely perfect

Interior View of Sens Cathedra

architectural accomplishments of man. With the ca- thedral of Paris, also, the new art shows itself in all its wonderful inclusiveness ; design, as apart from con- structive science, appears full flood in the entire treat- ment of the exterior; the Lombard rose window has been evolved to its final point; decorative detail, both in design and in placing, has become sure and per- fectly competent ; while sculpture, stained glass, and, we know from records, painting have all forged for- ward to a point at least even with the sister art of architecture. In sculpture especially the advance has l)een amazing. For many generations it was held that the restoration of sculpture as a fine art was due to Italy, and specifically to Niccolo Pisano, but as a matter of fact the task was accomplished in France a century before his time. The revival began in the South, where Byzantine remains were numerous and the tradition still lingered. At Clermont-Ferrand, by the end of the eleventh century, a school of competent sculptors had been developed ; Toulouse and Moissac followed suit, and by 1140 the Ile-de-France was pro- ducing works which show "a grace and mastery of de- sign, a truth and tenderness of sentiment, and a fine-