Gothic Art. Victoria Charles
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a new Gothic cathedral was built or a Romanesque one rebuilt, the first concern was usually the choir. The master builders and their clients invested most of their enthusiasm in it, not least because their main worry was housing the main altar as well as the local, often numerous clergy. Particularly in the initial, exuberant phase the funds provided by the princes of the Church flowed freely. Later, when these funds dried up, citizens were also forced to contribute. Consequently, the enthusiasm strongly diminished under the pressure of ecclesiastical or political turmoil. This explains why the choir structures often far surpass the naves in their richness of creation and artistic decoration. Also, the two sides of the nave are frequently uneven in design, one being more lavish, the other more sober and humble, which may be another indication of the decrease of overall wealth and artistic stamina. Very rarely did Gothic architectural works actually achieve complete balance, even though the law of symmetry was at the spiritual core of the style. The buildings that were completed in the nineteenth century came closest to this ideal.
Western Façade, Notre-Dame Cathedral, Paris, 1190–1250.
Choir, Notre-Dame Cathedral, Paris, begun in 1163.
“Sainte-Anne Portal”, western façade, Notre-Dame Cathedral, Paris, before 1148.
When a Gothic church construction had progressed to the stage where the nave needed to be concluded with a façade, the artistic spirit usually recovered no matter how difficult the external circumstances. Surely all Gothic master builders intended to perfect a house of God with a pair of mighty towers, or a single, but even more gigantic tower. However, executing their own original ideas, or at least witnessing their implementation, was not granted to all. Lengthy work on the towers dragged on from one artistic family to the next and slackened in proportion to the dwindling enthusiasm of devout donators. Beginning in the mid-sixteenth century, public building interest shifted to different objects altogether. Every successor to construction leadership tried to outshine his predecessor, without worrying whether the first plans had contextualised the façade and the tower in a well considered organism. The most famous example of master builders’ artistic egocentricity is Strasbourg Cathedral, where artistic unity is sacrificed for ambition. Its single northern tower stands in stark contrast to the façade. As such, the tower is a work of art that no one would want to exchange for perfect regularity.
It is possible that the architectural artists of the later Gothic period recognised the inner law of the Gothic – symmetry – as a constraint which tried to break their liberated imagination. This could explain certain, often reoccurring differences, such as the uneven handling of nave façades or pairs of towers that were begun at the same time, yet completed one after another. Naturally, the richer is not always the later example: often it was the hardship of the times that forced master builders to employ simplicity and economise. However, the essential feature of the Late Gothic is nonetheless the propensity to the picturesque and a desired liberation from norms, which in the end deviated into empty play with mathematical formulae. In their creative joy the old masters did not feel that this would be the end of the Gothic. The artist who strides ahead in the stream of time always courageously looks ahead, never back with fear.
The full extent of the daring imagination that Gothic master builders placed in their high-flown plans only became fully apparent when the towers of Cologne Cathedral (Illustrations 1, 2, 3) were completed according to the original plans: their proud height of 156 m exceeds the Great Pyramid of Giza by almost twenty metres. The French master builders had similar plans. The ridge turret of Rouen Cathedral reaches the respectable height of 151 m (Illustrations 1, 2); its towers remained incomplete as with most cathedrals. The ambition of Ulm Cathedral’s master builder, Matthias Böblinger, reached even higher: he calculated a height for his tower that, once his plans were accomplished, had risen to the tallest of all towers built so far: 161 m. The tower of Strasbourg Cathedral with its 142 m proves that the old master builders were able to achieve equal results, despite their lack of mechanical aid with which the modern builders finished many of their towers. In other words, the merit of later times is mostly due to increased material wealth. The towers of St. Stephen’s Cathedral in Vienna and Freiburg Cathedral, at 137 m and 125 m respectively, came closest to Strasbourg among the towers that were completed in the Middle Ages.
Therefore, the towers flanking the western façade rarely embody the perfection of its artistic composition. Most often the pièce de résistance of the entire building is the façade itself and in its design the master builders of different countries expressed their individuality most distinctly. As a rule, a façade with two taller towers would feature three portals that lead into the interior – one for each aisle. Usually a gable marking the nave rose above the sculpturally and architecturally most sophisticated middle portal. Its visible part was also richly decorated. The most elaborate decorations could be found on the side walls and the portals’ gable surfaces. Some English and Italian churches in particular extended the sculptures above the portals across the entire western façade.
Sainte-Chapelle (former Royal chapel), Paris, 1241/1244–1248.
Upper Chapel, Sainte-Chapelle (former Royal chapel), Paris, 1241/1244–1248.
Erwin von Steinbach, Western Façade (detail), Notre-Dame Cathedral, Strasbourg, begun in 1176.
The Evangelists, detail of the “Pillar of the Angel”, Notre-Dame Cathedral, Strasbourg, c. 1225–1230.
Gothic Architectural Monuments
During the crusades, traffic among occidental peoples grew and facilitated an easier, faster spread of artistic forms. For the most part the Gothic style owes its spread to this global traffic and its constructive advantages. French building masters first carried seeds to England and into the west of Germany. The seedlings were then transplanted from Germany to the north, east and south of Europe. The pupils often surpassed their masters, but the cradle of the Gothic is unequivocally in France.
The Gothic in France
The innovations at the heart of the French Gothic style, reach back to the eleventh century; but only in the basilica’s choir, built near Paris by statesman and abbot Suger around 1130–1140, did the Gothic appear as a unified system (Illustrations 18, 19). The basilica already contains all elements of the Gothic style: pointed arches, pillars and ribbed vaulting. The church of Saint-Denis is considered to be the “founding construction of the Gothic”. The façade with its double towers, which were erected between 1137 and 1340; the vertical sectioning into three parts with protruding buttresses; the small rose window; and the spires, which were erected after 1144, all carry clear Gothic features. The absence of partitioning walls between the choir chapels offered a new, harmonious, spatial feel – a characteristic that would point to the vastness of later cathedrals. The rose window in the Basilica of St. Denis is the first of its kind. The upper part of the choir and the nave were built from 1231 to 1281.
While the Basilica of St. Denis and a few of its contemporary edifices represent the preparatory stage, the new building method reached a decisive breakthrough in Notre-Dame in Paris (Illustrations 1, 2, 3, 4) and Laon Cathedral.
Plan of Notre-Dame Cathedral, Strasbourg.
The system of the French Gothic found its first complete expression in Notre-Dame in Paris (Illustrations 1, 2, 3, 4) Building commenced in 1163 and the church, which was completed at the beginning of the thirteenth century, except for its two towers, served as a model for most French cathedrals. In particular its façade proved very typical. It consists of three tiers, which are strictly separated by horizontal sectioning: above the three portals is a row of arches adorned with statues. This is the “gallery of kings”, so called because it depicts the kings of Israel; then, above the second tier,