Page:History of the German people at the close of the Middle Ages vol1.djvu/176

 164 HISTORY OF THE GERMAN PEOPLE CHAPTER I ARCHITECTURE In all nations where the artistic sense is a dominant feature architecture may be said to form the nucleus of their art life. In this art, more than in any other, we have a mirror of the striving, knowing, and doing of the people, and it is also the truest expression of the differ- ent movements and tendencies of thought of any given period. It is the most reliable proof of the aesthetic sense and the artistic powers of a nation. It is the direct utterance of the mental and physical wants of the day ; it stands in close relation to contemporary re- ligious thought and feeling, and is the best index of the connection existing between art and social life. It forms the point of convergence of all other branches of art, and may justly be called the national art (Volkskunst) in everv sense of the word. German art, which grew up to greatness in the monasteries, was, like monasticism itself, a national growth, and it reached its climax in architecture towards the end of the Middle Ages. Nowhere did the innate architectural genius of the Teutonic races produce such truly great artists as in Germany. True to the prevailing Christian tendency of thought, this German creative force manifested itself most exu- berantly in the erection of churches and cathedrals. In every part of Germany there arose countless magni- ficent ecclesiastical structures, witnesses of the deep