Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 09.djvu/89

* GOTHIC ARCHITECTURE. 67 GOTHIC ARCHITECTURE. less outward thrust willi .a given span (see Ruts), but also made it possible to construct vaults of any height, and on any oblong iilan, and thus gave elasticity of form. The pointed form passed then to the next most constructive part of the church — tlie arches dividing nave and aisles, and the main doorways — and only later to the gal- leries, windows, and decorative details. It is im- portant to rememljer that the jxiinted arch used in the Jlohammedan, Sicilian, Burgundian, and other schools has nothing to do with the Gothic st_yle, which is a constructive style following cer- tain definite principles. It is the only thoroughly scientific and logical style of architecture ever developed, one that was absolute master of all materials; one in which nothing was left to chance or individual fancy. Its watchword was frankly to reveal its methods; every structural device showed. It did not spring at once into being, but was a gradual growth, involving, first, the inven- tion of the means to effect constructive concentra- tion and equilibrium; second, to develop the in- fluence of these princi])les on architectural form; third, to give these forms the most artistic ex- pression. France. It originated in France, in the region about Paris, the region of the free communes, where there were no hampering traditions. It connected itself with the Romanesque schools of Normandy, Lombardy, and Picardy. The Ile- de-France alone shows all the prep.aratory stages, between 1100 and 1140, from Morienval to Saint Germer and Saint Denis, which are all but purely Romanesque in their forms, except in the vaulting. Architecture was still in the hands of the monasteries. Then comes the period of transitional Gothic, from c. 11.50 to 1200. includ- ing the great group of earliest cathedrals, Senlis, Noyon, Laon, Sens, and greatest of all, Notre Dame (q.v.) in Paris. In buildings such as these the flying buttress is fully employed ; the eolunui replaces the Romanesque pier; vaults are made higher and perfected in structui'e. But the style is still rather stern and plain. The period of fully developed Gothic of the first half of the thirteenth century, when Notre Dame is com- pleted, and the famous cathedrals of Chartres, Rheinis. Amiens, and Beauvais are built, is the period th.at carries the principles to their logical conclusion in ever.y detail ; Gothic ornament is invented as a system expressed in tracery, in stained glass, in floral and vegetable ornament, in an encyclopirdie scries of ficiired sculpture that made the cathedrals a mirror of the uni- verse as interpreted by media>val thought. Com- plete mastery over material made it possible to raise the main vaults from the 108 feet at Notre Dame to the l(iO feet at Beauvais. Desire for absolute consistency led to the adoption of a Gothic grouped pier instead of the e.arlier coliunn, with members corresponding to the ribs of the vaulting and the moldings of the arcades, so that these lines flowed uninterruptedly upward. The nave of Saint Denis marks (about 1200) the climax of delicacy in, and the close of. the heroic stage, as its apse and facade had marked, a century before, the close of the tentative stage. Champagne. Normandy. Anjou. Burgimdy. and parts of Central France had by the second decade of the thirteenth century accepted the new style as developed around Paris. But neither Auvergne, Brittany, nor the entire South had accepted it as yet. Where it did prevail the multitude of local schools, so clearly marked in llomanesque times, gradually disappeared. An almost uniform type prevailed. In plan: an enlarged choir with aisle and radiating chapels; no crypt; a short tran- sept; three or five aisles; and sometimes a con- tinuous line of aisle chapels. In elevation: a western fagade with two llanking towers, three prominent port.als, and a wlieel or rose window in the centre; no expanse of walls, all the space beteen piers being occupied by windows tilled with tracery and stained glass; an exterior in which figured and ornamental sculpture covered every surface, and flying buttresses m:irked the place of inner piers and vaults: an interior in which the old Romanesque gallery above the aisles dwindled to n, mere base for the great line of clearstory windows, and where scientific knowledge was used to obtain effects of rliythm, of ascending lines, and delicacy of proportions. In the rich decoration the characteristic feature is the abandonment of classic and, indeed, of all traditional design, and the direct recourse to natural fauna and flora for models, which were of the greatest variety and truth. No period has so beautifully reproduced foliage and flowers in AMIENS CATHEDRAL — INTERIOR. stone. There were ditTerences; for example, the facade towers terminate in spires at Chartres Cathedral, while at Notre Dame, Laon, Amiens, and elsewhere they have squ.are terminations. Other differences, though not fundamental, make