Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 37.djvu/220

 against Gothic art, which, bids fair to reach such proportions as to once more drive it out of use.

There is nothing more misunderstood at the present day than Gothic architecture. It is popularly supposed that if a building has a sloping roof, and is plentifully adorned with buttresses, pinnacles, towers, arches, balconies, dormers, and similar things, it is in the correct form of that order. Gothic architecture is, indeed, characterized by all these objects in one shape or another; but the mere placing of them in juxtaposition no more produces it than does the placing alongside of each other water, flour, and yeast make bread. It is the proper and due combination of these constituents that produces the desired result in each case. Gothic buildings have sloping roofs, because the style originated in a part of the world where the rainfall was abundant, and some device was needed to throw off the water. They have arched openings, because practical experiments in building have demonstrated that they are the most economic and safe form to use. They have buttresses and pinnacles, because they were necessary to resist the thrust of a vaulted roof. In the best Gothic not one of these forms was used unless it was an essential part of the construction. The moment one is applied to a building for ornamental purposes, or for any object other than as a necessity to its statical condition, the structure ceases to be Gothic and becomes a hybrid without a name.

Gothic architecture never employed a form that was not necessary. In this respect it offers a striking contrast to what is now called modern Gothic, which consists in applying ornament to surfaces and giving them forms which have no real meaning of their own, and are nothing more than ornamentation. A building does not become Gothic simply because it has a gable or a carved door-frame; the principle, the cause which made them Gothic in the old form, is wanting, because from parts of the structure they have become mere pieces of decoration. Gothic architecture is expressed by many forms; but its true character lies not in them, but in the application of sound constructive methods to the science of building. It is this principle that gives it a glory of its own, and it is the violation of this fundamental element which renders the Gothic architecture of the present day so unsatisfactory and so un-Gothic in spirit.

But there is another element of Gothic architecture that calls for consideration, and that is, that notwithstanding it could be varied and each part made to be exactly what it was intended to be without regard to the total effect, the results are perfectly satisfactory from an æsthetic standpoint. It shows, in a conclusive manner, that a building can be erected with the sole aim of being useful and answering exactly the requirements for which it is