382 



THE CIVIL ENGINEER AND ARCHITEUrs JOURNAL. 



[Decejibeb, 



DEVELOPMENT OF GEOMETRICAL TRACERY. 



On the Divr/iipment of Genmrtrkal Trarerij. By the Rev. G. A. 

 Poole. — (Paper read at a meetiiifr <if the .Vrchitectural Society 

 of the jVrchdeaconry of Nortliampton ) 



It is sometimes ohjected to one who complains of a defect in 

 any system of wliich he is treating-, that he oui,'ht to produce a 

 remedy for tliis defect. Tliis, as a general proposition, would be 

 at once rejected by every one, and yet, perha])s, every one is alike 

 ready to ai)ply it to those wlioni he does not affect, or of whose 

 treatment of a subject he does not approve. And this, at least, 

 must be admitted, that one who professes that he has seen the evil 

 is not the last from whom the remedy may be expected. And 

 having again and again felt, and professed to have felt, the incon- 

 venience of the arrangement of Rickman, and of every architec- 

 tural classification, where the style which intervenes between the 

 Early English and the fully-developed Decorated is concerned, I 

 shall now endeavour to justify my complaints, and to pi-ove that 

 there is such a generic difference between that style and the Early 

 English and Decorated, on eitlier hand, that it ought to have a 

 distinct place in an architectural system and a distinct name in 

 architectural nomenclature. 



It is at once apparent that the styles of Gothic architecture are 

 arranged very mucli with reference to the character of the windows. 

 Right or wrong this is the case; and right it certainly is in the 

 sense of being obvious and convenient; though it miglit perhaps 

 linve been expected that some more organic part of the structure 

 might have afforded the characteristics of style. It should be 

 considered, however, that the divisions of Gothic architecture are 

 l)ut sub-sections, or species; not kingdoms or genera. They are 

 not analogous with the divisions of animals into vertebrate and 

 molluscous, for this is parallel witli the primary division of archi- 

 tecture into that of tlie arch and of the entablature. These grand 

 divisions, then, being based on organic differences, it does not 

 seem incongruous that tlie minor features of a building — even, if 

 necessary, features far inferior in use and in powers of expression, 

 to the window — should afford the differentials of genera and 

 species. 



The great point is, that the differences be constant and tangible; 

 but here is the difficulty. Tliere are facilities and di(Sculties in 

 all systems, and in all parts of systems. It is easy to separate, in 

 general, between a plant and an animal; it is easy to define the 

 difference between the architecture of the arch and of the entab- 

 lature; but tliere is a debateable province in both cases; in archi- 

 tecture the wliole class of Romanesque buildings; in Zoology the 

 countless species of zoophytes. Again, it may be as easy to dis- 

 tinguish, in general, between Decorated and Perpendicular as 

 between a beast and a bird; but the buildings are countless which 

 have as many of the characters of each style as the ornithorynchus 

 has of the mole and of the duck. I wish this to be distinctly 

 borne in mind all along, lest I should seem to fail in establisliing 

 a distinction; wliereas, it is the very condition of all sucli distinc- 

 tions that they shall have their vanishing point, not to the eye 

 only, as where the sky seems to meet the earth at the horizon, but 

 in the very nature of things. 



And now what do we see, if we follow the forms of windows 

 during the last lialf of the thirteenth and the first half of the 

 fourteenth century? A\'e see them gradually deserting the nar- 

 rowness and simjilicity of the lancet form, till, at last, they have 

 arrived at a great variety and complexity, involving proportionate 

 width of opening and tlie subordination'of many jiarts. We see, 

 in a word, a wide ojiening filled with mullions and tracery. And 

 this tracery is composed, at first, of geometrical figures, following 

 certain laws, and afterwards of figures no longer geometrical, and, 

 though not with(Hit law, yet of tliat free flowing contour, which 

 looks at least without restraint. Now, 1 think you will agree with 

 me, that the first change and the last — the change from Early 

 English to Geometrical, and the change from Geometrical to 

 Flowing Decorated — both demand to be treated as the differentials 

 of a style; the first, that is the mere introduction of tracery, as 

 being, so far as windows are concerned, more important tlian the 

 difference between Norman and Early Knglisli; the latter, tlie 

 change of the laws wliich govern tlie formation of tracerv, as 

 being at least as im]iortant as any difference wliich separates'Per- 

 pendicular from Decorated. In other words, (ieometrical is more 

 unlike Early Englisli tlian Early English is unlike N(U-nian; and 

 60, c.r tibiiiidaiiti. Geometrical and Early English sliould be sepa- 

 rated; and, again, (ieometrical is as unlike Flowing Decorated as 

 Flowing Decorated is unlike Perpendicular; and, tlierefore, if 



the two latter should be distinguished, so also should the two 

 former. 



.And yet. the (Jeometrical is almost always treated as transitional 

 (which, indeed, every style but the first and last must be, in some 

 sense; but I mean that this is so treated as transitional, as if it had 

 no claim to a name and station of its own); it gets no better title 

 than Late Early English, or Early Decorated, as the case may be; 

 the term Geometrical being only adjected to the generic term De- 

 corated, as marking, not a genus, but a variety. If this had no prac- 

 tical result, it would be little worth contending about; but I believe 

 that it really does result in the too great neglect of this style, as 

 a model, and, at the least, a point of departure for modern prac- 

 tice. A style which deserves, but does nut obtain, a substantive 

 position, is sure to be defrauded of more substantial proofs of the 

 estimation in which it ought to be held. 



It is not my intention to enter at length on the process by which 

 tracery was gradually evolved from the juxtaposition and grouping 

 of several lancets. This has been done often enough. I assume 

 that you are all well acquainted with it, and commence from the 

 time at wliich Tracer;/, properly so called, was freely used; from 

 the time, that is, when the portions of wall wliich separated lan- 

 cets were attenuated and moulded into mullions, and when the 

 piercings of window heads had left no portion of intervening 

 stone-work of greater breadth than the interlacing of two equal 

 tracery bars required. 



And now imagine yourselves walking round some great minster 

 at night, when the interior is lighted. I know no better way of 

 coming at the effect of the windows taken apart from the rest of the 

 fabric. Let the nave and south transept be Early English, but 

 let the choir have been built towards the end of the 13th centurv, 

 and, consequently, with windows filled with Geometrical tracery. 

 As you turn the corner of the transe])t and get the first glimpse 

 of the Geometrical choir, you feel yourself carried into a new age 

 of design and of construction. But the north transept is Flowing 

 Decorated, or Perpendicular, I care not which. ,\s you leave the 

 choir, and get a sight of this portion, there are differences, indeed, 

 plain enough, even though the windows only are visible, but they 

 are as nothing compared with the difference between the nave and 

 the choir. Or, in other words, the difference between two kinds of 

 tracery is as nothing compared with the difference between tracery 

 and no tracery. 



But, say some, the only appreciable differences are those of the 

 windows. First, for argument sake, I grant it; but I have shown 

 why differences in the windows may very well become differentials 

 of style. But, secondly, in truth, I deny it. I deny that there 

 are no differences of characteristic details between the Late Early 

 English and the Geometrical, and between the Geometrical and 

 the Early Decorated. And I deny this the more emphatically, 

 because I shall not now stay to point out the differences: I shall 

 merely ask you to take my word for it, that they run through every 

 part of the structure, in composition, in detail, in decoration, even 

 in construction — the lattei', indeed, being demanded by the change 

 in a matter of so great mechanical importance as the relative pro- 

 portions of the windows, which, you will remember, are arched 

 piercings of the outer walls, of no small relative magnitude. 



But, at present, 1 confine myself wholly to the windows, and 

 even yet more exclusively to the tracery, omitting even to notice 

 cusping, the natural correlative of tracery, except where it fol- 

 lows the same laws as the tracery, which, in the Geometrical style, 

 and in that alone, it often does — so much so indeed that a drawing 

 of the tracery of one window may be converted into that of the 

 cusping of anotlier, only by altering the scale. 



The first impression conveyed by a Geometrical window and 

 a Flowing Deciu-ated window side by side, is, that while the 

 former is obviously drawn wliolly with the compasses, the latter 

 seems at least to be drawn in some degree libera manii. Perhaps 

 tliis impression, so far as the Flowing Decorated is concerned, is 

 hardly correct; but you will presently see that it results from cer- 

 tain appreciable causes, and indicates a real difference of prin- 

 ciple in design. Take the simple Geometrical and an e(|ually simple 

 flowing two-light window. The eye at once detects the use of the 

 compasses in the one, and the very centres from which the curves 

 are struck; in the other no single curve is stifliciently simple to be 

 referred, except with considerable effort, to its centre or centres; 

 it seems, indeed, to be drawn without any mechanical aid. Take 

 more complex arrangement, and still the same character is found 

 carried out through 3, -t, 5, fi, 7, 8, 9 liglits. This alone, as it 

 seems to me, is sufficient to demand a separatiiui of the two styles ; 

 for in speaking of design, this very fact, that the designer is put 

 into so different au attitude as that of one who is limited wholly 



