Page:The Classical Heritage of the Middle Ages.djvu/329

 x] ARCHITECTURE 311 with different degrees of strength, affected Sicily, southern France, and the Rhine countries, a circum- stance leading to a divergence of Romanesque styles in France and Germany as well as England. Yet this divergence was due still more to the different charac- teristics of the several peoples, and the various condi- tions under which the Romanesque developed in these countries. In Gothic the possibilities of Romanesque reach their logical conclusions. More analytically and com- pletely the vault determines the rest of the structure. Downward stress and lateral thrusts have been an- alyzed ; they have been gathered up and then dis- tributed in currents of pressure exerted along the lines of the ribs of the vaulting. Each thrust or stress is met by separate support of pillar or colonnette, or by directly coimteracting pressure of pier and flying buttress. Through these the weight and lateral thrusts of the building are conducted downward and outward in channels as definite as the gutters which lead the rain-water from the roof. More especially the devices of rib and flying buttress have facilitated the use of the pointed arch, and have lifted Roman- esque from the earth ; while the confinement of stresses to definite channels has enabled the architect to replace opaque walls with a many-colored trans- lucency of glass, in which the Christian story is painted in the light of heaven. The architectural ornament emphasizes the structure of the building as determined by the requirements of the vault. Constructively, artistically, and symboli- cally, the ornament of a Gothic church completes and