Page:Charles Moore--Development and Character of Gothic Architecture.djvu/145

Rh grandeur and purity of style of the Gothic monuments of the twelfth century.

The general view of Reims presents a striking consistency and harmony of parts which is equalled by that of few other French cathedrals, notwithstanding that the total composition comprises portions that were wrought at successive periods from 1212 to the early part of the fifteenth century. The earlier and later portions, with exception of the gable of the transept, are hardly seen in the general view. The visible portions of the choir, the transept, and the nave were, for the most part, all built in the thirteenth century, after 1240, about which time the work was recommenced after a delay that followed the construction of the lower portions of the east end. These two examples afford an interesting comparison—the one showing the unadorned condition of external features which is characteristic of the time when structural exigencies were first being successfully met, and the other showing the richness of the full development—when the edifice stands forth clothed in a vast wealth of appropriate adornment. Each condition has its own proper charm; but there is something in the restraint, and even in the severity, of the early structure which holds our admiration almost more than the magnificence of the later one.

We have now, perhaps, examined enough of these structural forms to have gained a fair understanding of them, and of their animating principles. They were the result of an unparalleled impulse which had its source in the social improvement which marked the eleventh century. The numbers of churches that were erected in the Ile-de-France during the first half of the twelfth century is astonishing. No other part of Europe can show anything like it. And this activity continued and gathered force for at least three-quarters of a century after 1150.