Page:Charles Moore--Development and Character of Gothic Architecture.djvu/127

Rh Of the majestic aspect of the great west end of a French Gothic cathedral too much in praise can hardly be said, notwithstanding that in it the constructive principles which distinguish the style, and which most excite our wonder and admiration, are least manifest. These façades are sometimes criticised on the ground that they disguise the true character of the structure behind them. It is, perhaps, true that an entirely satisfactory design for a western façade was hardly ever realised in a large Gothic church, though at Paris, Amiens, and Reims we have west fronts of magnificent, and for the most part appropriate, character.

It may be said in behalf of these designs that it is not an imperative principle that a façade should wholly express the structure of the building of which it forms the front. The façade rarely can do this in any architecture. But it may be admitted as a principle that unnecessary concealment of internal arrangements is an architectural offence; and hence those horizontal arcades which connect the towers in the grandest of Gothic fronts, hiding the forms of the gables behind them, may seem at first not easily defensible. It should be remembered, however, that the gable over a Gothic nave is not the true roof, and that the form of the vault is not wholly incongruous with the horizontal arcade. To the eye at least this arcade harmonises well with the total composition—a composition which is determined largely by the great lateral towers; and to the eye, if not in reality, this arcade performs the function of steadying the towers. As for the towers themselves, it would be hard to conceive any more appropriate termination for the aisles. And yet from the front view they quite mask the whole of that wonderful mechanism of flying buttresses which reveals so much of the distinctive character of Gothic art. But it is always easy to get a view which commands the whole structural system, and in such a view we are impressed with the majesty and appropriateness of the mighty towered western front. In fact, criticise it as we may, it is hard to see what better could be done. Without the towers the front would be wanting in that special emphasis and dignity which are appropriate to a great communal edifice. In the smaller and less important churches a treatment like that of transept ends was