Gothic Influence
The church in the Middle Ages was a place
that all people, regardless of
class, could belong to. As a source of unity,
its influence on art and
architecture was great during this time. As society
drew away from the feudal
system of the Romanesque period, a new spirit of
human individualism began to
take hold; alas, the birth of Gothic. Here, the
Church became a place where
humanity became more acceptable, alas becoming
the ideal place to visual such
new ideals. The beauty and elegance of Gothic
architecture is depicted most in
the great cathedrals of the 12th, 13th and
14th centuries—St. Denis, Notre
Dame, Chartres, Salisbury, Durham,
Amiens, and more. The experience of looking
at one of the great gothic
cathedrals is to look up towards God. Indeed, most
Gothic structures
emphasize the vertical, drawing one’s eyes upwards toward
the heavens with
the awesomeness of God. These cathedrals were built with
towering spires,
pointed arches and flying buttresses giving impressions of
harmony and
luminosity. One of the major accomplishments of the 12th and 13th
centuries
was to develop the engineering mastery of the ribbed vault, pointed
arch and
flying buttress to create a great cathedral that is at once taller,
lighter,
wider, and more elegant than the ones before. Even though the pointed
arch
could support more weight than its predecessors, there was still the
problem
of finding a way to support the heavy masonry ceiling vaults over wide
spans.
In order to support the outward thrust of barrel vaults, vertical
support
walls have to be very thick and heavy. What makes possible the
extensive use of
ribbed vaulting and pointed arches to "open" and "lighten"
the walls and
space of the cathedral is the flying buttress—"an arched bridge
above the
aisle roof that extends from the upper nave wall, where the lateral
thrust of
the main vault is greatest, down to a solid pier." [Jansen, History
of Art, p.
407]. The effect is to add structural strength and solidity to
the building. The
visual appearance of changes from the Early and Later or
High Gothic are clear,
as each cathedral became increasingly narrower and
taller. For instance, compare
the nave elevations of Notre-Dame to Amiens
[Text, fig. 442, p. 333], the
pointed arches of Amiens are significantly
taller and narrower than the much
earlier Notre Dame. The mastery of the
flying buttress allowed medieval builders
to construct taller and more
elegant looking buildings with more complex ground
plans. Encyclopedia
Britannica ’97 describes the "flying" effect of this
buttress of hiding the
masonry supports of the structure: "a semi-detached
curved pier connects with
an arch to a wall and extends (or "flies") to the
ground or a pier some
distance away. The delicate elegance of Gothic cathedrals
is different from
the "Heavy buttresses jutting out between the chapels" of
Romanesque
churches,. From the outside, aesthetic consideration of the flying
buttresses
was significant and "its shape could express support...according to
the
designer’s sense of style." The flying buttress was first used on
a
monumental scale at Notre Dame From the outsider the flying buttresses
create a
seemingly bewildering mass of soaring props, struts, and buttresses,
yet blend
in with the rich sculpture and elaborate portals of the West
fa?ade,
giving the appearance of a three-story layout. [Text. P. 325-326,
fig. 429 (
This contrasts visually with the plans that show the
buttresses "as massive
blocks of masonry that stick out from the building
like a row of teeth."
[Text. P. 325, Fig. 426].) At Chartres the flying
buttress is more unique, the
half arch is made of smaller arches that give
more height to the already
narrower and more vertical walls of the nave., as
well as blending in with the
colonnaded triforium wall of the nave [Text, p.
329, fig. 434, fib. 437]. In
England, the flying buttress appears almost
as an "afterthought" where
verticality is not as important. {English Gothic
style emphasizes a "long,
low, sprawling" character compared to the compact,
vertical of French Gothic.
[Text. P. 336]) Flying Buttresses also made the
personification of Gothic art
possible, as it allowed for almost no structure
support in the walls. The flying
buttress lends the interior illusion of
being "amazingly airy and
weightless" because the masonry supports are hidden
and visible only from the
outside. Since flying buttresses are perpendicular
to the walls, intervening
wall spaces could be "opened" up between the
buttresses. As the walls were
thinner, stained glass windows gradually came
to replace masonry. Later Gothic
cathedrals appear to be only thin skeletal
frames of masonry. Wall surfaces of
High Gothic churches thus have the
appearance of transparent and weightless
curtains. The spiritual and
mysterious quality of light is an important element
of the religious
symbolism of Gothic cathedrals.].While the stained, colored
glass windows of
this period gave the churches novel lighting affects, they did
not make the
churches "lighter" (the glass was heavily colored). While the
use of stained
glass was limited during the Romanesque period, the first
extensive use as in
the rebuilding of St. Denis. As cathedrals became taller and
wider, windows
became larger to allow more space for stained
glass.
Bibliography
Encyclopedia
Britannica ’97. CD-ROM ·
"Gothic Architecture and Art". The Columbia
Encyclopedia, Fifth Edition
Copyright ©1993 · Janson and Janson. "History of
Art".