Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 6.djvu/760

 GOTHIC

6S0

GOTTFRIED

halls, palaces, castles, manors, and colleges, and in the towers, chapels, tombs and other memorials paid for by the new orders of rich merchants and affluent courtiers.

The end now came rapidly. In Italy Gothic feeling as well as Gothic forms had disappeared altogether by the end of the fifteenth century, the last flicker of the instinctive art of medievalism, as distinguished from the premeditated artifice of the Renaissance, appear- ing in the work of the Lombardi in Venice, and in such structures as the church of Sta Maria dei Miracoli and the Scuola di San Marco (1480-95). In France some- thing of Gothic romance and intrinsic beauty contin- ued down to 1550 in the vianoirs and chAteaux, while in Germany it dragged along a few decades longer in isolated instances. In Spain the superb central tower of Burgos was built as late as 1567, though already full-fledged Renaissance work was in process in other parts of the Peninsula. In England the sumptuous Perpendicular of the Chapel of Henry VII at West- minster hardened rapidly into the formalities of later Tudor, and ceased wholly as a definite style when the suppression of the monasteries, the separation of the English Church from the Roman obedience, and the imposition of the principles of the dogmatic Refor- mation of Germany on the English people brought church-building to an end. With the final submission of the English during the reign of Elizabeth to a dog- matic revolution they had not invited, but were powerless to resist, came an influ.x of German influence that rapidly wiped out the very tradition of Gothic, except in the case of the universities and in that of the minor domestic building, substituting in its place the most unintelligent use of supposedly classical forms anywhere to be found in the history of the Renais- sance. At Oxford and Cambridge the cultural tradi- tion was strong enough to withstand for a century the complete acceptance of the new fashion, and down to the middle of the seventeenth century the elder tradi- tion persisted in such work as St. John's, Cambridge, and Wadham, Oxford, while its compulsion was so strong as to coerce even Inigo Jones into building the fine garden front of St. John's, Oxford, in a style at least reminiscent of what had been universal two cen- turies before. The same instinctive impulse contin- ued in the case of manors and farmsteads even to a later date, and to this day in certain portions of Eng- land the stone-mason, carpenter, and tile layer pre- serve the old rules and traditions of the craft that have been handed down from father to son for centuries.

From the year 1000 to the year 1500, Catholic Eu- rope had slowly worked out its own form of artistic expression, largely through "the most consummate art of building which the world has achieved" (Prior, " History of Gothic Art in England", I, 7). As pagan- ism had done in Greece, so, and equally, Christianity wrought in the North. Primarily it was an art of church-building and adornment, for the Church was the one concrete and unmistakable fact in life. " While all else was unstable and changeful, she, with her unbroken tradition and her uninterrupted services vindicated the principle of order and the moral con- tinuity of the race The services of monastic

and secular clergy alike, their offices of faith, charity and labour in the field and the hovel, in the school and the hospital as well as in the church were for centuries the chief witness of the spirit of human brotherhood (Norton, " Historical Studies of Church Building in the Middle Ages", I, 16). Therefore, on the heels of the tenth-century triumph of the Church came the eleventh-century passion for church-building; as says Rudolphus, the monk of Cluny, writing in the initlst of it all, " Erat enim instar ac si mundus ipse excutiendo semet, rejecta vetustate, passim candidam ecclesi- aruin vesteni indueret" (It was as if the world, shak- ing itself and putting off the old things, were putting on the white robe of chiirchcs). The old vesture was

indeed cast away and the new "white robe of churches" was of other make. The imderlying laws of the new style were identical with those o{ all other great styles, the vision of beauty was no different in any respect, the forms alone were absolutely new. For five centuries the artistic mode of Western Europe went on its way without a pause, one in spirit wherever it was found. "The motives which inspired these great buildings of this period, the principles which imderlay their forms, the general character of the forms themselves were in their essential nature the same throughout Western Europe from Italy to England. The differences in the works of different lands are but local and external varieties" (Norton, op. cit., I, 10). This universal mode was universally destroyed, and in the space of a few years. With the opening of the fifteenth century the victory of the Renaissance was definitely assured, while it was brought to its comple- tion just a century later. Of the product of these five centuries of activity comparatively little remains intact. As Mr. Prior says, " Western Europe up to the middle of the sixteenth century might be called a treasure house filled with gems of Gothic genius. The desecrations and revolutions of two centuries wrecked one half, swept Gothic churches clear of their ornaments and then levelled to the ground many of the fabrics which they furnished. Of much that was not actually destroyed, carelessness and neglect and the necessities of rebuilding have since made equal havoc At its worst this rebuilding, re-paint- ing, re-carving has been wanton and causeless substi- tution For the next generation to us any

direct acquaintance with the great comprehensive Gothic genius, e.xcept by means of parodies, will be difficult" (A History of Gothic Art in England, I, 3, 4). Enough remains, however, to enable us to recon- struct, at least in imagination, an unique artistic product of Christian civilization, of which it is possible for Professor Norton to say that "it advanced with constant increase of power of expression, of pliability and variety of adaptation, of beauty in design and skill in construction until at last, in the consummate splendour of such a cathedral as that of Our Lady of Chartres or of Amiens, it reached a height of achieve- ment that has never been surpassed" (op. cit., I, 13).

Bond, Gothic Architecture in England (London, 1905); Bran- don, Analysis of Gothic Architecture (London, 1847); de Cau- MONT, Hi^t. de V architecture religieuse du Moyen Age (Paris, 1S41); Cram, The Gothic Quest (New York, 1905); Idem, Ruined Abbeys of Gt. Britain (New Yorlc ,1905); Cummings, History of Architecture in Italy (Boston, 1901); Enlart, Manuel d'arche' ologiefran^ais (Paris, 1902):Idem, Origines anglais du style Flam- boyant (London, 190G); Idem, Origines francais de I' architecture Gothique en Italic (Paris, 1894); Ferguson, Hist, of Architecture (London, 1893); Forster, DenkmHter deutscher Baukunst (Leip- zig, 1855): Lenoir, Architecture monastique (Paris, 1852-56); Lethaby, Mediaeval Art (London and New York, 1904); Idem Westminster Abbey and Craftsmen (iMndoD, 1906); Ui.l.E,L'Arl religieux du Xlll'Siicle en France (Paris, 1902) ; Moore. Gothic Architecture (New Y'ork, 1901); Morris, Gothic Architecture (London, 1893); Norton, Church Building in the Middle Ages (New Y'ork, 1902); Parker, Glossary of Gothic Architecture (Ojfford, 1850); Porter, Mediceval Architecture (New Y'ork, 1909); Prior, Go(Aic ,4 rt in &i(7/and (London, 1900); Idem, The Cathedral Builders (London, 1905); Pugin, Specimens of Gothic Architecture (London,. 1821); Rivoira, Le Origini delta Ar- chitectura Lombarda (Rome, 1901-07); Rupricht-Robeht, L' Architecture normande (Paris, 1885-87); Ruskin, Seven Lamps of Architecture (Orpington, 1891): St. Paul, Histoire monumentale de la France (Paris. 1888): Idem, Les Origines du Gothique Flamboyant de France (Caen, 1907)] Scott, Mediaeval Architecture (London, 1879); Street, Gothic Architecture in Spain (London, 1865); Sharpe, Architectural Parallels (Lon- don, 1848) : SuGER, De Consecratione Eccl. Scti. Dionysii (Paris, 1867): Idem, De Rebus in Administratione sua Gestis (Paris, 1867): Viollet le Due, Dictionnaire raisonne de V architecture Francais (Paris, 1854); Idem, Entretiens sur L' Architecture (Paris. 1863-72).

Ralph Adams Ckam.

Gothic Liturgies. See Mozarabic Rite.

Goths. See O.stkogoths; Visigoths.

Gottfried von Strasburg, one of the greatest of Middle High German epic poets. f his life we know