Page:Charles Moore--Development and Character of Gothic Architecture.djvu/54

30 character of secular building. We are apt to forget that the leading architecture of the Egyptians was that of the temple; that almost the only architecture of the Greeks was that of their temples; that all the best elements of classic Roman architecture were borrowed from Greek temples; that the civil architecture of the Middle Ages was that of the churches modified to meet civil needs; and that the original elements of modern architecture were developed in ancient temples and in mediæval churches.

Finally, the close connection that in all times of living art exists between the work of the hand and the ideas and emotions of the mind is pre-eminently displayed in the art we are considering. So much is this the case that not only is the stamp of thought and feeling impressed upon every fragment of sculpture in the manner that we have already noticed, but more than this, the church edifice was like a vast open page whereon were written in imagery, which the most illiterate could read, the sacred legends and traditions of the common faith. These legends and traditions must be reckoned first among the sources of inspiration which stimulated the imaginations and guided the hands of the artists who wrought upon the fabric. The considerable body of religious literature that had been produced in the early Middle Ages called out the warmest sympathies and the highest aspirations of the people, and filled their minds with devotion to the fabric whose erection was to be, so far as they could make it, a fitting expression of their beliefs and hopes.

In fine then, Gothic architecture may be shortly defined as a system of construction in which vaulting on an independent system of ribs is sustained by piers and buttresses whose equilibrium is maintained by the opposing action of thrust and counterthrust This system is adorned by sculpture whose motives are drawn from organic nature, conventionalised in obedience to architectural conditions, and governed by the appropriate forms established by ancient art, supplemented by colour design on opaque ground and more largely in glass. It is a popular church architecture,—the product of secular craftsmen working under the stimulus of national and municipal aspiration and inspired by religious faith.