Charles Herbert Moore

“ The plastic art of France in the twelfth century does not exhibit any of those superficial attractions which appear at a later date; but it is little inferior to that of any other time or school in expression and essential grace. And of such art there is hardly a more admirable work than this lintel of Senlis. In execution it is no less excellent than in design and sentiment. Wrought in a firm, close-grained stone—which takes a finish almost equal to that attainable in marble—every mass is finely modelled, and every detail is crisply cut. ”

“ A freer spirit of enterprise, a wider experience of life, and a more majestic service were needed to call into activity the highest powers of invention, and fully to develop the genius of the Middle Ages. Yet there are few things more interesting, more instructive, or more beautiful in human history than the way in which these early cowled builders struggled against difficulties and disadvantages, and laid the foundations of an art which was, in the stronger hands of their lay successors, to culminate in the perfections of Chartres and Amiens. ”

“ In this lintel of Senlis there is at once a spiritual beauty and a natural expression in the eager group of welcoming spirits as they press forward, wing softly crowding wing, to aid the awakening soul. No self-consciousness is there, no ostentatious gesture, no vain display of curving plume, or studied fold of garment. All the angelic attendants are absorbed in joyful ministry to the rising spirit, and each figure holds its place in a group of marvellous beauty.
In composition of lines and masses the design is equally beautiful. ”

“ It was not unnatural that such distaste for the pointed style should be felt in Italy, for the style was foreign to Italian genius and Italian traditions. It had been adopted merely as a fashion, and the very modifications which the Italians wrought in it show how little suited it was to their wants. It is, indeed, impossible for a people possessed of an art, which is a natural outgrowth of their wants and tastes, and hence proper to them, to adopt and practise rationally, and to make their own, another art which is an outgrowth of other and different needs and predilections. ”

“ There is a fine system of continuous, radiating, and encompassing curves in the wings and drapery; as well as an artful sympathy of position in the bodies, and repetition of masses in the placing of the heads. It would be difficult to point, in the whole range of plastic art, to a figure of more subtle beauty than that of the angel on the left, who stoops forward to support the shoulder of the Virgin—a figure which is at the same time adroitly employed by the artist to balance, by an opposing form, the rest of the composition. ”

“ But rudeness is by no means a characteristic of Gothic, which is not a product of unmixed Northern genius. For, by the time that Gothic architecture had begun to take form, the mingling of races, that had long been going on, had produced,, in the locality where this art first appeared, a people in whose constitution were happily blended some of the finest characteristics of the Latin and Germanic stocks. It was this people who developed the Gothic style and gave to its marvellous constructive system an equally new and appropriate system of adornment. ”

“ When the system was once developed in buildings of three or more aisles, it was natural to employ a simpler form of it in the construction of buildings of simpler plan. But it is unlikely that architecture like that of the Sainte Chapelle would ever have come into being had buildings of so simple plan only been required. It was the need of vast stone-roofed churches, such as could not be constructed without aisles, that stimulated the genius of the Gothic builders, and led to the remarkable results that fill us to-day with wonder and admiration. ”

“ This ought to be emphasised, for there is no quality to which more of the impressiveness of such sculpture is owing. Multitudinous as are the details which enter into the design of any great cathedral front, there is rarely any scattered effect in the total impression. An harmonious relationship of mass to mass, from largest things to smallest, is maintained. Such breadth is, indeed, a fundamental quality of all good art; but its manifestation is perhaps more remarkable in Gothic architecture than in any other, because of the multitude of subdivisions through which it has to find expression. ”

“ There is thus a marked difference between the adapted naturalism which gave life to early Gothic ornament, and the imitative naturalism which marks the decline of Gothic art.
How, it may be asked, are we justified in ascribing to this early Gothic ornament such supreme merit? Why is it, if the influence of nature adds anything of value to art, that direct and complete imitation, so far as possible, is not good? How can there be any such thing as over-naturalism in sculpture? ”

“ The inert principle of construction, the massive walls, the small apertures, and the horizontal lines of the Romanesque architecture make it still closely akin to the old Roman style. But there are rudiments in it already quickening with latent life, which will completely transform the Romanesque building. The evolution of the Gothic system consisted in gradually perfecting the rudimentary skeleton, so as to make it an independent structure. To every part a complete and independent working efficiency was to be given, and an appropriate artistic, as well as a mechanical value. ”

“ In France, as I have before remarked, the ethnological character of the people was such as to render them the most artistic race of Northern Europe, while their social and political conditions were most favourable to artistic production. The force of natural aptitude, the spirit of national unity as well as of communal independence, and the comparative freedom from ecclesiastical restraints, were all highly conducive to the exercise of that artistic genius which, during the period in which Gothic architecture was developed, was passing from the clergy to the laity. ”

“ Although during the twelfth and early thirteenth centuries the art of painting on the walls of churches, and of otherwise employing colour in architecture, was extensively practised in all the countries of Europe, yet there was nothing in other countries of essentially different character from that which was produced in France. The tenderness of sentiment and elegance of design which give charm to the works of French genius were not, indeed, equalled in other countries ”

“ Artistic qualities are so wrought into the construction, have so little independent existence, that we feel the two principles to be inseparable in this art. The builders were artists; and they invariably wrought with a steady regard for and sense of proportion and harmony, not less than of mechanical propriety. I would especially emphasise this, lest from this somewhat lengthened examination of its structural growth it should be in any measure inferred that Gothic architecture was such a growth merely. ”

“ The west fronts of Senlis, Paris, Amiens, and Reims sufficiently illustrate the development and the characteristics of the French-Gothic façade. Its typical form, as exhibited in the Cathedral of Amiens, is truly a marvel of architectural design. With the given elements and conditions it is hard to see how a more consistent and beautiful product could have been created. The arch, the shaft, the buttress, and the dividing string are employed in it not only with mechanical propriety, but with the most subtle artistic feeling. ”

“ To the great companies of workmen who, in France, wrought together for a common end—each one content to do his best work without thought of individual fame—there was hardly any parallel in Italy. And being an individual product, the work of the sculptor in Italy was naturally more independent of architectural connection than that of the Gothic sculptor had been. It never had such relationship with architecture as had existed in the French Gothic. The Italian regarded it rather as something to be particularly displayed than as a mere architectural auxiliary. ”

“ Early in the twelfth century was brought about in Northern Gaul that fine balance of ethnologic, religious, social, and political influences of which the development of Gothic architecture is among the happiest results. But with the quickly succeeding disturbance of this nice adjustment of conditions the character of the art gradually changed, and a course of decline became inevitable and rapid. If we would truly know Gothic art we must study it in the vigour of its early life. ”

“ Few early pointed buildings in England are any more Gothic in principle than those already noticed. The choir of Ely, the choir and smaller transept of Worcester, the great transept of Lincoln, the choir of Chester, the transept of York, which has no vault, but in place of it a wooden imitation of one, and other similar buildings, present substantially the same characteristics. Westminster Abbey is an exception, and is, after the choir of Lincoln, the most Gothic structure in England, having a complete and continuous vaulting system, including a Gothic system of buttresses. ”

“ The base also—almost always some modification of the Attic type—is equally admirable in its profile, giving, with artful grace, real and apparent stability to the shaft. Indeed, there is hardly a more beautiful thing in Gothic art than one of these base profiles. The proportions of its parts, the use of contrasting angles, and especially the character of the curve of the lower torus, are unsurpassed, if indeed they are equalled by any of the mouldings of antiquity.
In a definition of Gothic architecture none but the truest form of the art properly concerns us. ”

“ In fundamental principles of design the art of Giotto is not inferior to that of any subsequent painter in Italy. It is in little more than skill of drawing and modelling that the art of Raphael, for instance, surpasses that of Giotto. Pictorial treatment may undoubtedly be carried too far for monumental effect; and though the limits of such treatment in wall painting may be difficult to define with precision, it may safely be said that it is always carried too far when mere representation becomes the leading motive of the painter. ”

“ The evils that beset the lives and tempt the souls of men had to be in some way set forth, no less than the good things which he is permitted to enjoy. The unhappy lot of the wicked had to be figured as well as the felicities of the good. Hence conspicuous elements in Gothic sculpture, especially after the beginning of the thirteenth century, are the monstrous and the grotesque. Elements which, in true Gothic—though sometimes, perhaps, introduced in a playful spirit,—have, in the main, a serious purpose. ”

“ There is no undue elaboration or attempt to give the hard stone a look of real hair; but as far as the material would naturally allow the sculptor as suggested it. With special care and tenderness has he wrought the mouth, the thin, gently compressed, lips, the light parted moustache, and the well-formed chin. The drapery is as simple and severe in its lines as is that of the preceding figure; but there is a superior grace of arrangement in the folds, and although the work is wanting in the freedom and skill of later productions, there is no trace of Byzantine convention in its modelling. ”

“ There was a severe and simple beauty in the older design, with its unique rose in the upper triforium, that is not wholly compensated for by the tall new windows which do not fit very well into the old work. The windows, moreover, though their tracery, in its mode of construction and in its lightness, is an advance upon the tracery of Reims, are, in their relation to the building, not so distinctly Gothic; for the windows of Reims completely fill the spaces between the piers of the building, while those of Paris still leave a large wall space remaining. ”