Decorated Gothic

“ But, whether thus regarded or not, this church assuredly decides one question conclusively, that of our present capability of Gothic design. It is the first piece of architecture I have seen, built in modern days, which is free from all signs of timidity or incapacity. In general proportion of parts, in refinement and piquancy of mouldings, above all, in force, vitality, and grace of floral ornament, worked in a broad and masculine manner, it challenges fearless comparison with the noblest work of any time. ”

“ No well-educated traveller is now without some consciousness of the meaning of what is commonly and rightly called "purity of style," in the modes of art which have been practised by civilized nations; and few are unaware of the distinctive aims and character of Gothic. The purpose of a good Gothic builder was to raise, with the native stone of the place he had to build in, an edifice as high and as spacious as he could, with calculable and visible security, in no protracted and wearisome time, and with no monstrous or oppressive compulsion of human labour. ”

“ Of all known architectural forms the Gothic corresponds more nearly to the finest impulse in nature itself—that is, to produce the floreated form. The aisles of the trees are no more appealing artistically than those of a great cathedral, and the overhanging branches through which the light falls have not much more charm than some of these perfect Gothic ceilings sustained by their many branching arms of stone. ”

“ 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. ”

“ There are no spires, but pinnacles and statues, and all the rich detail of Gothic architecture, the whole of a venerable gray line. It is in perfect repair, and has not suffered externally, except by the loss of multitudes of statues, gargoyles, and miscellaneous eccentricities of sculpture, which used to smile, frown, laugh, and weep over the faces of these old fabrics. ”

“ I. The first principle of Gothic decoration is that a given quantity of good art will be more generally useful when exhibited on a large scale, and forming part of a connected system, than when it is small and separated. That is to say, a piece of sculpture or painting, of a certain allowed merit, will be more useful when seen on the front of a building, or at the end of a room, and therefore by many persons, than if it be so small as to be only capable of being seen by one or two at a time ”

“ Since, however, the Gothic as well as the revival of the antique principle have extended over all Europe, in order to attain a knowledge of either, we should not confine ourselves to isolated specimens of particular countries. It is only by taking a survey of the entire field of Gothic architecture, that we can rightly comprehend its varied powers. ”

“ Even a likeness to individual species of vegetation soon makes its appearance in the growing style; and an extensive range of flora—answering, in some cases, to that of the locality in which the work was wrought—is used to adorn the Gothic building. But the life derived from nature which appears in Gothic sculpture is no more an independent development than is the constructive system. The elements of Gothic ornament may almost all be traced back to the arts of antiquity. ”

“ Introduce your Gothic line by line and stone by stone; never mind mixing it with your present architecture; your existing houses will be none the worse for having little bits of better work fitted to them; build a porch, or point a window, if you can do nothing else; and remember that it is the glory of Gothic architecture that it can do anything. Whatever you really and seriously want, Gothic will do for you; but it must be an earnest want. It is its pride to accommodate itself to your needs ”

“ It is one of the advantages of Gothic architecture—I use the word Gothic in the most extended sense as broadly opposed to classical—that it admits of a richness of record altogether unlimited. Its minute and multitudinous sculptural decorations afford means of expressing, either symbolically or literally, all that need be known of national feeling or achievement. More decoration will, indeed, be usually required than can take so elevated a character ”

“ For the fact is, that all good Gothic is nothing more than the developement, in various ways, and on every conceivable scale, of the group formed by the pointed arch for the bearing line below, and the gable for the protecting line above; and from the huge, gray, shaly slope of the cathedral roof, with its elastic pointed vaults beneath, to the slight crown-like points that enrich the smallest niche of its doorway, one law and one expression will be found in all. ”

“ But we Northerns are not so easily to be talked out of the powerful, solemn impressions which seize upon the mind at entering a Gothic cathedral. We feel, on the contrary, a strong desire to investigate and to justify the source of this impression. A very slight attention will convince us, that the Gothic architecture displays not only an extraordinary degree of mechanical skill, but also a marvellous power of invention; and, on a closer examination, we recognize its profound significance, and perceive that as well as the Grecian it constitutes in itself a complete and finished system. ”

“ To make the figure itself an architectural support would not be in accordance with the rational spirit of Gothic art. [7] Nor, in true Gothic, are statues set in niches in walls. For in Gothic the wall spaces are small and contain no more substance than is necessary, leaving nothing to spare for recesses. The places occupied by the statues in the buttresses of the Cathedral of Paris are not niches; they do not diminish the mass of the buttress; they constitute really nothing more than decorative forms of set-offs. ”

“ Then, walk to the right, round the south side, to observe the external architecture of the nave, aisles and choir. The latter has the characteristic rounded or apsidal termination of Continental Gothic, whereas English Gothic usually has a square end. Enter by the south portal.
The interior, with single aisles and short transepts (Early Gothic) is striking for its simple dignity, its massive pillars, and its high arches, tho the undeniably noble effect of the whole is somewhat marred to English eyes by the unusual appearance of the unadorned brick walls and vaulting. ”

“ Probably, the most interesting feature of the history of Gothic architecture, at this period, is to be found in the circumstance that, while all of the countries erected Gothic structures along the general lines which had been laid down by its great inventors in the North and Center of France, none of the architects and builders of the century, in other countries, slavishly followed the French models. ”

“ Some Gothic buildings present with their fretted pinnacles, spires, flying buttresses, intersecting and pierced work, in flamboyant tracery, daring vaulting, and inter-penetrating mouldings, a worked-out solution of some intricate mathematical problem. In its complicated phases Gothic construction is more scientific than artistic, however much one may admire the grouping or design of the Gothic pile as a picturesque conception. ”

“ The spirit of display is characteristic of all late Gothic work. Slenderness, minuteness of detail, extreme complexity and intricacy of design, an unrestrained profusion of decoration covering every surface, a lack of largeness and vigor in the conceptions, are conspicuous traits of Gothic design in the fifteenth century, 193 alike in France, England, Germany, Spain, and the Low Countries. ”

“ In any case, these decorations are of very great artistic merit, and of the highest interest as an unique example of French decorative art at the finest period of the thirteenth century, when Gothic architecture had reached its apogee, and was producing masterpieces which served as models for contemporary artists, and even more notably, for those of the early fourteenth century. ”

“ There is no doubt that once every Gothic interior, now grey and sombre, or garish in its clean whitewash and mathematical jointing of painted lines, was entirely covered with the richest possible surface decoration in colours and gold, and the result must have been a gorgeousness and a gaiety of{282} which we know nothing and that would probably shock our sensitive taste to the point of hysteria. ”

“ Those who think that the Gothic architecture came to a perfection all its own by a sort of wonderful manifestation of genius in a single generation, and then stayed there, are sadly mistaken. There was a constant development to be noted all during the Thirteenth Century. This development was always in the line of true improvement, while just after the century closed degeneration began, decoration became too important a consideration, parts were over-loaded with ornament, and the decadence of taste in Gothic architecture cannot escape the eye even of the most untutored. ”

“ With greater knowledge of nature, both geographical and scientific, fresh styles of architecture may and will arise, as much more beautiful, and as much more natural, than the Gothic, as Gothic is more beautiful and natural than the Norman. Till then we must take the best models which we have; use them; and, as it were, use them up and exhaust them. By that time we may have learnt to improve on them; and to build churches more Gothic than Gothic itself, more like grot and grove than even a northern cathedral. ”

“ The origin of what is loosely called Gothic architecture—which is generally considered to include the styles, with their transitions, from Early English to late Perpendicular, or Tudor-Gothic—is not free from obscurity, but it is certain that it began to be employed in ecclesiastical edifices about the time that the Goths settled in Italy, although all the available evidence goes to prove that the style originated and underwent its earliest developments in the north-west of Europe, and penetrated by slow degrees to the south and east. ”

“ There is, indeed, much Gothic, and that of the best period, in which this element is hardly traceable, and which depends for its effect almost exclusively on loveliness of simple design and grace of uninvolved proportion: still, in the most characteristic buildings, a certain portion of their effect depends upon accumulation of ornament; and many of those which have most influence on the minds of men, have attained it by means of this attribute alone. ”

“ No more perfect effort at worthy worship of the Most High has ever been accomplished than is to be seen in the Gothic cathedrals in every country in Europe as they exist to the present day. While the movement began in North France, and gradually spread to other countries, there was never any question of mere slavish imitation, but on the contrary in each country Gothic architecture took on a national character and developed into a charming expression of the special characteristics of the people for whom and by whom it was made. ”

“ In this respect Gothic ornament is in striking contrast to what we find in the so-called revived classic art, where natural objects are treated inorganically, where fruits and flowers are represented as tied up into bunches, or are hung in formal festoons, and where even artificial objects enter largely, as leading elements, into the decorative composition. Everywhere in Gothic art is life, but life ordered by and obedient to the requirements of architectural congruity, so that the resulting conventional character becomes as conspicuous as the living naturalism. ”

“ A fine appreciation of the life of natural organic forms, from which they largely drew their motives for ornament, is displayed by the Gothic carvers, and displayed in an unparalleled degree. Whether in mere ornament—the enrichment of capitals, the running patterns of string-courses, the voussoirs of archivolts,—or in figure or animal sculpture, this expression of life is alike conspicuous. ”

“ In fact, when the groups of shafts became excessively complicated, the expansion of their small abaci was of no use: it was dispensed with altogether, and the mouldings of pier and jamb ran up continuously into the arches.
This condition, though in many respects faulty and false, is yet the eminently characteristic state of Gothic: it is the definite formation of it as a distinct style, owing no farther aid to classical models; and its lightness and complexity render it, when well treated, and enriched with Flamboyant decoration, a very glorious means of picturesque effect. ”

“ All these influences working together, and with them that of classical example and tradition, induced a delicacy of expression, a slightness of salience, a carefulness of touch, and refinement of invention, in all, even the rudest, Italian decorations, utterly unrecognized in those of Northern Gothic: which, however picturesquely adapted to their place and purpose, depend for most of their effect upon bold undercutting, accomplish little beyond graceful embarrassment of the eye, and cannot for an instant be separately regarded as works of accomplished art. ”