Page:Charles Moore--Development and Character of Gothic Architecture.djvu/11

 inspiration for what is best in England, these facts will, of course, be acknowledged with generous frankness so soon as they are seen to be established.

The idea has widely prevailed, and does still prevail, that Gothic was an art common to the nations of the North, and each country has in turn laid claim to superiority of style. This idea, as I endeavour to show, is incorrect, and has arisen largely from a lack of clear analysis of the true Gothic style, and from the habit of classing together, as if they were all of the same nature, various forms of pointed architecture which resemble each other only superficially. The peculiarities exhibited by the different countries have hitherto been taken merely as local variations of this supposed common style; and hence it has become usual to speak of French Gothic, of English Gothic, and of German Gothic, as if these various styles were all equally Gothic. Some writers have, in recent times, gone further, and have claimed for the countries, to which they have respectively belonged, the original invention of Gothic. Thus Rickman begins his well-known and valuable essay by saying: "The science of architecture may be considered in its most extended application to comprehend buildings of every kind; but at present we must consider it in one more restricted, according to which architecture may be said to treat of the planning and erection of edifices, which are composed and embellished after two principal modes: (1) the antique, or Grecian and Roman; (2) the English or Gothic." Some German writers have maintained with equal assurance that to German genius is due the origin and development of Gothic; while the French, though generally manifesting a preference for their own style, have perhaps made no greater claim than either the English or the Germans to its original authorship.

These various and conflicting views have retarded a true understanding of the arts of the Middle Ages; and they have naturally tended to strengthen the disesteem with which, in