Gothic architecture

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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 might be thought, that while Gothic architecture was a great invention in its time and extremely suitable for ecclesiastical or even educational edifices of various kinds, its time of usefulness has passed and that men's widening experience in structural work, ever since, has carried him far away from it. As a matter of fact, most of our ecclesiastical buildings are still built on purely Gothic lines, and a definite effort is made, as a rule, to have the completed religious edifice combine a number of the best features of Thirteenth Century Gothic. ”

“ Why is Gothic architecture better adapted for religious buildings than any Grecian or Oriental style? Because its long aisles, vaulted roofs and pointed arches, leading the vision up to the unseen, tell of mystery, and draw the mind away beyond the visible and concrete to something greater which it hints ”

“ 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. ”

“ Gothic architecture is most beautiful, when it is true, as the modern imitations of it hardly ever are; but it was only in use during four centuries of the Christian era, and is therefore not more ecclesiastical than other forms of architecture. In Gothic, as in all other times, the church builders simply used the current style that was in use for secular buildings as well. ”

“ The style of the architecture is Gothic in so far as it makes use of the pointed arch, but can hardly be described as such without giving a false impression to those who are accustomed to the Gothic of the north; and who think of that style as one of varied, if somewhat gloomy, masses, of irregular arches, pinnacles, and buttresses; colourless save for the lichen that grows between the grey stones, and owing their beauty more to the unwearied inventiveness of their builders' fancy than to any symmetrical unity of design. ”

“ Why, then, should we imagine that because our ideas of family comfort are more perfect than in the days of our forefathers, the style of architecture which they so successfully applied to purposes differing so widely one from another will refuse to accommodate itself to a more complete form of one of the same purposes? Yet people continually tell us that Gothic architecture is feudal and monkish! ”

“ In the American mind Gothic architecture is associated chiefly with ecclesiastical structures and is popularly supposed to be subject to no fixed laws, beyond an adherence to the irregular and picturesque. Given a cruciform ground-plan, a pointed spire, steep roof, narrow arched windows, buttresses, and pinnacles ad libitum, and you have as good a Gothic building as the public taste can appreciate. Here, however, is a nearly square building, covering an area of eighty by about a hundred feet, which is neither a church nor a college, and is without steep roof, spire, buttresses, or pinnacles. ”

“ 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. ”

“ No finer combination of religious, monastic, military, and civil types could be desired in illustration of the art we have agreed to term Gothic Architecture, but which might be more truly entitled: Our National Architecture in the Middle Ages.
Justice indeed demands this tardy homage. Our vast churches, our superb cathedrals, our mighty castles and palace fortresses, the masterpieces that [388] fill our museums—manifestations of artistic power which should move us, not to servile imitation but to fruitful study,—all were the creations of native architects. ”

“ Thick walls were a necessity in a Romanesque edifice, if it were to be stable, but in a Gothic building the walls could be made a mere shell, since all the work was done by an active skeleton, a bone structure of stone, consisting of piers, arches, and buttresses.
To define shortly, Gothic architecture is the art of erecting buildings with vaults whose ribs intersect (concentration of load) and whose thrusts are stopped by buttresses (the grounding of the thrusts) . ”

“ Exactly in the same manner, we shall find that Gothic architecture has external forms, and internal elements. Its elements are certain mental tendencies of the builders, legibly expressed in it; as fancifulness, love of variety, love of richness, and such others. Its external forms are pointed arches, vaulted roofs, &c. And unless both the elements and the forms are there, we have no right to call the style Gothic. It is not enough that it has the Form, if it have not also the power and life. It is not enough that it has the Power, if it have not the form. ”

“ 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. ”

“ There can be no doubt that the principle is pre-eminently in harmony with the genius of Gothic architecture; more so, probably, than with any other; and if those who think it a vice desire to saddle it exclusively on our style, they cannot complain if we, who hold it to be a virtue, at the least, claim for that style the lion’s share of the credit. ”

“ Gothic architecture is thus in no sense an independent, though it is a distinct style. And hence it is not strange that the finest Gothic buildings should retain, as they do, many traces of the Romanesque elements out of which they were evolved. It is a mistake to suppose with M. Colfs that such lingering of older elements necessarily marks a building as wanting in Gothic character. On the contrary, such elements are natural to Gothic, which is an art not only derived from Romanesque, but which is Romanesque recreated. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Thus was produced that remarkable variety in unity of the Gothic cathedrals; thus, also, those singular irregularities and makeshifts, those discrepancies and alterations in the design, which are found in every great work of mediæval architecture. Gothic architecture was constantly changing, attacking new problems or devising new solutions of old ones. In this character of constant flux and development it contrasts strongly with the classic styles, in which the scheme and the principles were easily fixed and remained substantially unchanged for centuries. ”

“ Classic architecture is that of the lintel and impost, involving the idea of rest: Gothic is that of the arch and the flying buttress, involving the idea of life and motion. The two ideas are absolutely opposed to each other. Classic architecture, directly it admits the arch, ceases to be true to itself in any real artistic sense; yet if it refuses to use, and to exhibit the use of the arch, it denies itself wilfully the use of the best known mode of construction. Gothic architects may still, on the other hand, as they always have done, gain much from the teachings of Classic buildings. ”

“ In fine then, Gothic architecture may be shortly defined as a system of construction in which vaulting on an independent system of ribs is sustained by piers and buttresses whose equilibrium is maintained by the opposing action of thrust and counterthrust This system is adorned by sculpture whose motives are drawn from organic nature, conventionalised in obedience to architectural conditions, and governed by the appropriate forms established by ancient art, supplemented by colour design on opaque ground and more largely in glass. ”

“ This principle once found, Gothic architecture reached its most splendid period in a wonderfully short space of time; cathedrals and churches were built everywhere, and before the end of the thirteenth century, the most splendid Gothic buildings were begun or completed. With the end of the thirteenth century Gothic architecture began to decline, lured by the "fascination of the statical tour de force, the craving to bring down to an irreducible minimum the amount of material that would suffice to the stability of a building extravagantly lofty." ”

“ 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 designed, and at the same time be of sufficient beauty to call forth, the commendation of future ages. ”

“ With many a gap, with many a lapse, we have followed the earlier stages of Gothic art in the land where it was born. We have seen how, from the efforts of the monks to cover their Romanesque naves with a permanent stone roof, was evolved the intersecting rib vault which was the basis of Gothic architecture, how for a short time churches used the Romanesque and Gothic systems simultaneously as in Morienval and Poissy, and for another short period the churches were Gothic in essentials while retaining a few traits of the earlier phase. ”

“ 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. ”