How to Study Architecture by Charles H. Caffin (reading the story of the .TXT) 📖

This phase was represented in English Gothic by a gradual stiffening of the tracery into rigid forms and barren repetitions. Because of the insistence on rectangular motives it is known as Perpendicular.

The windows were decorated with stained glass, the most beautiful remains of which are to be found in the Cathedral of Chartres. They show a prevalence of blue and violet tones and are composed of small pieces of glass, joined by leading. This French method was also imitated in England, as in the early windows of Canterbury; but by degrees an English style was adopted, in which the pieces of glass were much larger, and the subject consisted of large figures beneath traceried canopies, in imitation of the carved work of the sculptors.

In the decoration of columns the French long preserved the Corinthian type, but in place of the acanthus, used foliage forms studied directly from nature. The forms at first were freely conventionalised; but by degrees, as the skill of the carver increased, became more and more naturalistic and thereby less finely decorative. The corresponding progress in England is from conventionalised nature to frankly naturalistic imitation and thence to a somewhat dry and barren conventionalism.

Sculpture.—A conspicuous feature of Gothic decoration is the figure sculpture. It was used with profusion, especially in France, where the monumental treatment of the west fronts gave freest scope for the multiplication of niches, filled with statues. The deeply recessed portals, for example, were flanked with tiers of figures, which were also prolonged into the recessed planes of the arched top, while the lunette, or half-moon space between the arch and the horizontal top of the door, was filled with reliefs of the Saviour or Madonna. Meanwhile, figures beneath canopies stretched in a band across the upper part of the façade, or stood singly in niches that penetrated the surface of buttresses; until, in time, every vantage point, whether within or without the edifice, was enriched with statues. The noblest period of this efflorescence was the thirteenth century, when the French “imagers,” particularly, attained a remarkable balance between truth to nature and decorative convention. The statues seem to have grown into human shape out of the very material of the edifice and retain its character. With increasing cleverness, this magnificent conventionalisation passed into naturalistic imitation and the statues seem to be something added for elaboration’s sake.

Contrast to Classic.—Gothic architecture, though it developed through Romanesque and Early Christian out of Roman, presents an almost complete contrast to Classic style. It is an expression of many individualities rather than of conformity. Plans are more or less uniform; generally basilican in France, cruciform in England. But the superstructure, while embodying certain common features, exhibits the freedom of individual treatment, as each city or monastery vied with others in a mighty effort to excel.

A cathedral embodies such miracles of audacity and aspiration, that one scarcely looks in it for that complete harmony of proportion which distinguishes a Classic temple. The latter was the product of men who had ceased to believe in the deities they professed to honour and had made a religion, according as they were Hellenes or Romans, of abstract perfection or of systematised order.

Gothic cathedrals, on the other hand, were the material and spiritual expression of intense religious devotion and of civic pride and freedom. They were the memorials, not of old nations in the decline of their political and social ideals, but of young races, struggling toward nationalism and fired with the splendour of dawning aspirations. No level line of entablature, resting upon columns ever so stately, could embody such elevated enthusiasm. It must mount into the sky, with soaring lines and vaulting arches, spires and pinnacles, ever straining upward; giving voice to the grandeur of concerted uplift. Some of the cathedrals grew up from ground to ridge roof and towers under the guiding mind of one architect; more represent the continuous growth of the community; but in either case embody in their variety and organised complexity the Soul of the Crowd.

For one must not think of them only as temples of worship. They embraced also the functions now distributed in schools and libraries. They were the shrines of the culture of their day, in which the truths of religion, legends of saints, and the mysteries of belief were unfolded in sculpture, paintings, and stained glass.

Asymmetries or Refinements.—In order to ensure their monopoly the gilds of masons of the Middle Ages jealously preserved the secrets of their art. Accordingly, there are no written treatises of the period. Moreover, with the advent of the Renaissance the Gothic was held in contempt and the indifference to it continued until about the middle of the nineteenth century. Then, in the renewed enthusiasm for Mediæval architecture, buildings were studied, measurements taken, and plans of the old churches and cathedrals were drafted. But the surveyors, having measured the distance between one pair of piers on opposite sides of the nave and between two piers on one side, plotted the plan as if these measurements were uniform throughout the whole nave. In this and in other matters they assumed that the design was symmetrical. The contrary, however, in the case of many churches and cathedrals, has been proved by the recent researches of Professor William H. Goodyear, whose work in connection with Hellenic, Byzantine, and Romanesque refinements or asymmetries has been noted already.

His researches, which have covered most of the Gothic edifices of Italy, many of the most important churches and cathedrals in France, and some in England, prove that the “mysteries” of the Mediæval gilds included asymmetrical refinements. The most important deviations from mechanical formality are as follows:

1. Widening of the Nave in a vertical direction. Where this occurs, each side of the nave leans outward; three methods being employed, though not more than one appears in a given church. In one case, there is a continuous and absolutely straight outward inclination from floor to vaulting. In another, the outward inclinations recede from floor to vaulting in delicate vertical curves. In the third, the piers are perpendicular up to the arcade capitals, where the inclination begins and is continued in straight lines through the triforium and clerestories. In this last case, the angle, formed by the two lines, produces in the large scale of the building the effect of a curve.

The widening in all cases tends to offset the perspective illusion of vertical lines converging toward the vaulting; but also appears to have been preferred for other aesthetic reasons.

Instances of continuous widening in straight lines are found in the Cathedral and Church of St. Ouen, in Rouen. Continuous widening combined with vertical curvature occurs at Canterbury; while the perpendicular pier, combined with inclined vaulting-shafts, triforium and clerestories is found in Amiens and Rheims.

2. Horizontal Curvature in Plan. Where this occurs, one of five methods is adopted.

In the first, the piers are set on parallel curves, which consequently are convex to the nave on one side and concave to the nave on the other. In the second, both curves are concave to the nave, which thus widens slightly from both ends toward the centre. In the third, both curves are convex to the centre. In the fourth, the curves are parallel, but reverse their direction at or near the choir, in the form of an attenuated S, or “Hogarth’s line of beauty.” In all the above instances the curves start at the bases of the piers and continue in the triforium, clerestory and roof parapets; in certain cases being also repeated in the outer aisle walls.

The fifth system is connected with a special phase of the Widening. For, in this case, the piers are set on a straight line and with the triforium and clerestory are perpendicular from floor to ceiling. That is to say, at the west end and the crossing; but, in between, from both ends, the piers gradually lean outward with an increasing inclination toward the centre of the nave. Thus result curves, concave to the interior, which, however, since the bases of the piers are on straight lines, are found only in the triforium, clerestory and parapet walls. Lichfield Cathedral presents an example; Rheims another, but with a difference. For while the widening in Lichfield begins at the pavement, that of Rheims starts at the arcade capitals.

3. So-called Perspective illusions. These were intended to emphasise the effect of the choir and generally to increase the suggestion of size and distance. This was accomplished in three ways.

a. By making the nave arcade and the outside walls converge toward the choir.

b. By lowering the height of the arches as they approach the choir.

c. By reducing the width of the arches as they approach the choir.

The result of all these asymmetries is to create an impression of elasticity in place of rigidity; an impression, in fact, of life; of the flexible, varied movement of organic growth.