LESSONS IN AECniTECTUEE. 



113 



LESSONS IN ARCHITECTURE. XII. 



GOTHIC ABCHITBCTUBK. 



IN our last lesson wo spoke of tlio rise, decline, and fall of 



Oothio iiivhit. .; ure. Its origin, liko that of some other stylos, 

 . so correctly ascertained as 



to remli . ic il details of much 



interest. It is certain that it began to 



bo employed in ecclesiastical edifices 



about the timo that tho Goths wore 

 . ly, and had been overcome, 



in tlii-ir turn, by tho nations which super- 



si-ilril !': Komans. This system of 



architecture, as wo have already said, 



was practised during tho Middle Ages, 



and continued in use till the sixteenth 



y, when it was supplanted by tho 



I of tho Roman stylo. It was then 



i Gothic from tho architects and 



workmen who were supposed to have 



been engaged in tho planning and erect- 

 ing the edifices which bear this name.; 



and it was held in contempt by tho fol- 

 lowers of Palladio, in Italy, and of Jones, 



in England. Tho Gothic architecture 



differs essentially from the Greek, both 



in construction and appearance. In tho 



latter tho arrangement of tho materials 



depended on their strength in masses, 



which required only to be put together 

 in simple and elegant forms. In tho 

 former, on the contrary, small stones and 

 other materials, which would have been 

 deemed useless by a Greek architect, 

 wore employed in the construction of edi- 

 fices of equal strength, and sometimes 

 even of greater magnificence than tho 

 ancient temples ; for they depended as to 

 their stability, not on tho vertical pres- 

 sure of columns, or the strength of lintels 

 from pillar to pillar, but on tho correct 

 adjustment of tho bearings and thrusts 

 of different arches operating in various 

 directions. Moreover, the Gothic style 

 is easily distinguished from both the 

 Greek and the Roman styles by its slen- 

 der shafts and clustered pillars, its circu- 

 lar, pointed, or angular arches and groins, 



its spires and pinnacles, and its decorations, 



which excel tho latter in variety, number, 



and minuteness. 



Among tho theories which have been pro- 

 posed to account for the origin of this style, 



we may mention an ingenious one which has 



been suggested by Sir James Hall, in his 



" Essay on the Origin, Principles, and His- 

 tory of Gothic Architecture." Ho conceives 



that tho forms of this style may have been 



derived from tho imitation of a rustic dwell- 

 ing, constructed in the following manner: 



Thrust two rows of posts into the ground 



opposite to each other, at an interval equal 



to that between the posts in the rows them- 

 selves, each post rising to the height of 



about three intervals. Apply to each post a 



set of slender rods of willow, thrusting them 



into the ground at its base, and tying them 



in two places, one a little above the ground, 



and the other within about a third port of 



the height, leaving them loose from this 



point upwards, so that they may bo freely 



used in any direction. The rods may be three 



in number to each of the outside corner 



posts, and five to each of tho others, all being 



plowed BO as to cover the inside of the posts, and give it the 



appearance of a bundle of rods. It will be easy now to form 



the skeleton of a thatched roof. For this purpose lot a rod 



from each of two opposite posts be bent at its loose top, so that 



60 N.E. 



CHUECH OF ST. UTIEUJJB DU MONT, PARIS. 



WINDOW OF 13ru CEN- 

 TURY. 



CATHEDEAL OF NOTRE DAME, PARIS. 



they may crow each othr, which giro* u* the form of a pointed 

 arch ; and the sarno being done throughout tho whole extent of 

 tho two opposite rows, an horizontal rod, or ridge bar, being 

 at tho samu timo placed along tho point* of crooning, we 

 have tho appearance of a Gothic arcade. Two rods from each 

 post in the same row are now to be 

 treated in like manner, BO u to form 

 similar arches in both rows, and these 

 aro also to be connected by ridge ban 

 crossing the longitudinal one. Having 

 now employed two rod* of each corner 

 post, and throe of each intermediate 

 one, there still remain one in the former, 

 and two in the hitter, which may be dis- 

 posed of by causing them to pass diago- 

 nally from tho corners of each rectangle, 

 not crossing as in the former oases, but 

 applied side by side, so as to form a con- 

 tinued hoop or semicircle. In this man- 

 ner all the rods are occupied, and a frame 

 is produced capable of supporting thatch 

 or other covering. From tho imitation 

 of a dwelling so constructed the three 

 leading characters of Gothic architecture 

 may be traced, namely, tho pointed arch, 

 the clustered column, and the branching 

 roof. On principles similar to these the 

 ingenious author endeavours to account 

 for the peculiarities of the Gothic win- 

 dows, doors, spires, etc. But it is much to be doubted whether 

 any theory so simple and ingenious as the preceding will account 

 for the origin of a style which emanated from tho numerous and 

 varied applications of tho 

 arch, whether semi-circular or 

 pointed, whether composed of 

 segments of circles crossing 

 each other, or of other curves 

 corresponding to Hogarth's 

 celebrated line of beauty, 

 which was evidently traced 

 by him in the ogeo or cyma 

 (Greek Kvpa, kn'-ma, a wave) 

 of the ancient Greek and 

 Roman architecture, as well 

 as in the Gothic. This curve 

 is in the form of tho letter S without its top and bottom ap- 

 pendages, thus c/3. 



In the churches of the Middle Ages, there were to be seen, 

 as indicated in the preceding theory, endless 

 groups of small columns, immense domes, 

 complicated buttresses, lofty roofs, with bell 

 turrets, and other appurtenances. The finest 

 examples in Europe of the Gothic, or ogival 

 style of architecture, are the great catho 

 drals of Notre Dame at Paris, Bourges, 

 Amiens, Chartres, Rouen, and Rheims. This 

 style, as we have observed, at first pure and 

 simple, and formed of regular curves, be- 

 came so distorted at the close of the short 

 period of its existence, as to lose its very 

 nature, and it then led to the invention ot 

 all the extravagant productions which arose 

 from compound arches, which were only a 

 degradation of the original style, and which 

 soon caused its abandonment. It would be 

 impossible to exhibit, in diagrams, the in- 

 numerable details in architecture and of 

 sculpture which the beautiful edifices of the 

 Middle Ages present, all characterised by the 

 nso of the pointed arch. We give, however, 

 two specimens of the rich ornamentation 

 which crowded the windows and capitals 

 of the columns in the Gothic churches of 

 tho thirteenth and fifteenth centuries. In 

 the sixteenth century, the Greek and Roman arts and architec- 

 ture returned, but only by such a gradual transition, that for a 

 length of timo the pointed arch was employed in the construction 

 of domes, and cf some other important parts of the edifice, of 



WINDOW OF IOTH CKNTCRT. 



