Page:Charles Moore--Development and Character of Gothic Architecture.djvu/31

I  principle, the systematic employment of which in architecture constitutes a new style.

In a secondary sense, indeed, it may be admissible to speak of differences of style where there are no differences of constructive principle. Egyptian architecture is, in this sense, a style different from Greek, and arched Roman is a style different from Romanesque. The Romanesque may be broadly divided into two styles—the Eastern and the Western; and the variety of Western Europe may be said to be of one style in North Italy, of another in Southern Gaul, of another in Normandy and England, etc. While of pointed architecture it may be said that there are differences of style, or rather that there are many varieties, some of which are nearer to, and some more remote from, the type which alone is strictly entitled to be called Gothic. But it is only in a secondary sense that it is correct to speak thus of styles in which there are no fundamental structural differences. Pointed architecture is not, in the strict sense, a style distinct from that which is round arched; for pointed arches in apertures do not much differ structurally from round ones. Gothic architecture differs from Romanesque far more fundamentally than by the use of pointed arches in place of round arches, or by the substitution of one decorative system for another. In the midst of such imperfect apprehension as has thus far generally prevailed, and as preliminary to what is to follow on the nature and origin of Gothic art, it will be well for us to seek a clear and unmistakable definition of it, in order that we may have a standard whereby to estimate the degrees of Gothic quality that may appear in the pointed architecture of different countries and at different epochs. Such a definition is afforded in the monumental work of M. Viollet-le-Duc, the Dictionnaire Raisonné de l'Architecture Française. He has therein given a profound and exhaustive illustration of Gothic. He has shown that Gothic architecture came into being as a result of the development of a new constructive system of building. A system which was a gradual evolution out of the Romanesque; and one whose distinctive characteristic is that the whole character of the building is determined by, and its whole strength is made to reside in a finely organised, and frankly confessed, framework, rather than in walls. This framework, made up of piers,