PASSING OF ROMANESQUE

We only propose to give a very short summary here; all we shall do is to just sketch in a few memoranda which will throw light on the reasons for the extraordinarily rapid transition from Romanesque to Gothic. The early years of the twelfth century witnessed what we have termed the perfected Romanesque style; the closing years of the same twelfth century witnessed “the passing” of Romanesque (the round-arch mode) and the almost universal substitution of a new style, generally known as Gothic.

And first:—the term “Gothic,” now everywhere adopted as the expression for that school of architecture which prevailed throughout the countries of Northern Europe for some four centuries is a curious misnomer.

The term “Gothic,” which was used certainly before the seventeenth century, belongs to the Renaissance period, and was in the first instance, strangely enough, regarded as a term of opprobrium.

Those who invented it were quite clear as to what they intended by the expression. They meant it was something barbarous, because non-classical; some believed it was actually invented by the Goths who overthrew the Roman Empire. Evelyn, for instance, writes, that “the ancient Greek and Roman architecture answered all the perfections required in a faultless and accomplished building, and that the Goths and Vandals demolished these, and introduced in their stead a certain fantastical manner of building, congestions of heavy, dark, melancholy monkish piles, without any just proportion, use or beauty.”[17]

But in time, men came to recognise the glory of what the Renaissance devotees at first scoffed at; but the old term of opprobrium, “Gothic,” remained; and now is universally used to express that splendid school of mediæval architecture which arose out of Romanesque and prevailed for so long a period; the beauty and fitness of which, perhaps somewhat tardily, all the Northern nations have come to recognise with an ungrudging, at times possibly even with an exaggerated admiration.

After all, the leading writers on architecture have come to the conclusion that, different though the Gothic schools are to the Romanesque, they are but one style—Gothic is simply perfected Romanesque. “L’architecture Gothique n’est que la perfectionnement de celle qu’on appelle Romane,” wrote Enlart. Gothic, as Mr. Bond expresses it, “has not supplanted Romanesque, but is its supreme result, the last stage in its development, its apogee, consummation and accomplishment.” So, too, De Lasterie defines “Gothic.”

To sum up certain of the new principles of Gothic architecture. The walls of the Gothic buildings became much slighter—thinner; these walls no longer acted as the thrusts which counteracted the weight of the stone vaults which had become gradually more generally used even in Romanesque buildings, but the weight or thrusts of these stone vaults were stopped by buttresses. In other words, Gothic architecture has been with some justice defined as the art of erecting buttressed buildings.

The principal outward and visible sign of Gothic architecture, however, was the pointed arch. This novel feature, and much of the ornamentation which was rapidly introduced, no doubt came from the East, and must be referred largely to the influence of the Crusades; it was, no doubt, borrowed through acquaintance with Saracenic work in Egypt and Syria. These strange Crusading wars had opened a new world of Art to the Western nations.

The pointed arch was no new feature in the East. As early as A.D. 879 the great Mosque of Tulun had pointed arcades. The principal gateway of the palace of Ctesiphon (fifth century) is pointed. The pointed arch appears in the great aqueduct near Constantinople of the time of Justinian. In many districts in the East it had been for centuries as much the normal form as the round-arch in Europe.

But other outward and visible signs characterised Gothic architecture, which supplanted Romanesque.

Gothic windows became much larger; there was a desire to obtain more light in the churches than had been possible to obtain through the smaller Romanesque windows. These were necessarily small and comparatively inconspicuous for two reasons: the one was, the Romanesque builders trusted, as we have seen, to the vast thickness of their walls to counteract the weight or thrust of the roofs and the upper portions of the buildings, and dreaded any unnecessary weakening of these massive walls by the introduction of large windows.

The other main reason for the smallness of the Romanesque windows was the preciousness and cost of glass in the tenth, the eleventh, and preceding centuries. Glass in the second half of the twelfth century became a much cheaper and less costly material. Then, too, the rapid progress in the art of stained and painted glass in that same century demanded for the display of this new and beautiful art, larger and ever larger windows. The artists in glass painting were no longer content with the small and cramped Romanesque windows, and the general passion for painted glass at once compelled the builders to devise without delay larger spaces in the walls for the display and exercise of the art.

The new large Gothic windows became at once a conspicuous and distinctive feature in the new school. The general introduction of the buttress feature superseded the necessity of depending on the thickness and massiveness of the walls, thus permitting the larger openings that are required for the larger Gothic windows.

The pointed arch brought in its train many novel decorations as well as new constructive features. A new system of mouldings and other ornaments was gradually worked out in the last quarter of the twelfth and even in the earlier years of the thirteenth century.

The massive piers of Romanesque architecture were exchanged for clustered pillars, detached or banded, and crowned with elaborate capitals.

But perhaps one of the most conspicuous changes in the new style was, after all, the beautiful and elaborate tracery which supported and adorned the new windows, ever increasing in size and importance. The old Romanesque windows, small and inconspicuous, were supplanted by the great windows which soon distinguished the new Gothic school, and these windows soon became what is termed traceried windows. The necessary supports of these, known as transoms and mullions, were worked into new and beautiful forms, usually called “Decorated Tracery”; these were divided into geometrical, curvilinear, or flowing tracery, but we avoid in this very short sketch of “Gothic” such technical terms, and simply call attention to certain of the new important features here, which mark the substitution of Gothic for Romanesque form—and term them generally traceried windows.

Later, in England, the more elaborate earlier window tracery was abandoned, and the simpler rectilinear tracery was generally adopted, and a new style of Gothic, known as the “Perpendicular,” became the vogue in our Island.

On reading over the above brief notes on Gothic Architecture, the writer, while conscious that the few details above given were, as far as they went, strictly accurate—felt that something more was wanting—if only a few words—which might suggest that there was a deep inner meaning in Gothic architecture. To express this, some reference must be made to France and the great French church builders; for France—especially the “Domaine Royale”—l’Ile de France—was the native country, the original home of the Gothic school.

The early French Gothic masters in the craft looked upon the building of churches as the most serious of arts, and, as it has been well expressed, the churches they planned were to be “the centre of the life of men, and compared with them, man himself and all his worldly affairs was counted as nothing; their purpose was to provide a place of worship, when worship was held to be the highest function of men, and the problem they set themselves to solve was to make a place worthy of the God to be worshipped.”

The same lofty purpose without doubt inspired the Gothic masters in England and other western countries, though their designs somewhat differed from the great French architects on whose methods and planning we are just now dwelling, as presenting in some respects a marked contrast with the methods and planning of the English Gothic architects.

Now, a most prominent characteristic feature of the grand Gothic cathedrals of France was their exceeding height; to attain this no sacrifice was too great. It has been accurately remarked that the matchless sublimity of the interior of a noble French Cathedral was purchased at the sacrifice of the exterior. And the architects, as time went on, made their churches higher and ever higher.

Again, to quote another’s words:[18] “The interior sublimity of a French cathedral seems to be a triumphant defiance of the attraction of gravity. We know that the slender shafts that soar so straight and high, could not support the vault; but outside there is no concealment of the manner in which it is upheld. Indeed the outside, for all its beauty, is the wrong side of a French cathedral, and is, as it were, a mass of permanent scaffolding to keep all the stones of the interior in their places ... and it is, and it looks a complex mass of straining effort, as the interior looks an effortless miracle.” The innumerable flying buttresses carrying the thrust of the lofty vault to the huge buttresses of the aisles, and so to the ground, have been somewhat quaintly termed “walls standing in slices at right angles to the building which they support but do not enclose, seeming to push and thrust with all their power to keep up the enormous height; all this is very wonderful and beautiful, but it leaves a sense of constant effort to overcome difficulties.”

“What a difference is there in the peace of the long low English cathedral with its insignificant buttresses and unambitious lines ... and, except for the upward pointing of its central tower or spire, seemingly content to remain on earth.”[19]

One of the chief beauties of the Choir of Gloucester is its exceptional “soaring” height, which in common with Westminster Abbey and York, follows the example of the great French cathedrals, though at a great distance, it must be confessed, from the lofty height aimed at and attained in such churches as the Cathedrals of Bourges and Chartres, Amiens, Notre Dame of Paris and Beauvais.

Again, each of the sublime interiors of the Gothic cathedrals of France were, as a rule, the design of one mind—and that of a master-mind. They have been roughly but not inaccurately described as “all of a piece,” as the result of one great effort. “These glorious interiors, each possessing a wonderful unity or harmony, the result of a great and original idea conceived and carried out throughout by one individual genius. For most of the mighty cathedrals in France show a closely reasoned design, and the result presents a marvellous temple for worship.

“Very different indeed are the English Gothic cathedrals; we see here no continuous design, no single idea; we are sensible of no one mighty impulse which in France, sweeping ruthlessly away all that had gone before, planned to raise a building complete and harmonious all through.”

For the English builders, on the other hand, preserved all that had gone before, however imperfect in their eyes, and added here, and changed there, content to suffice for the needs and ideas of the present, “with no sign of anxious ambition for the future; incapable of perfection, because began and ended incessantly, and always without continuous design, yet breathing out an indescribable charm of sympathy almost human in its loving reverence for the results of all past human effort.” Gloucester Cathedral is an admirable example of this loving conservative spirit; with its massive Romanesque Nave, its “decorated” South Aisle, its superb aery Perpendicular Choir, partly veiling, it is true, but not destroying the work of bygone Norman builders; its graceful and exquisite Perpendicular Lady Chapel—the last addition to this great pile—being perfectly different to any other part of the cathedral.

The Gothic builders of France believed, that in raising the interior of their cathedrals to that wonderful height on which successive generations have gazed with awe and admiration, they had found something of the secret of inspiring the worshippers with the feeling that they were indeed worshipping in a Holy House almost worthy of the God they sought; nor were they content with their earlier noble efforts, but kept making their soaring churches, as they built them, higher and ever higher.

The climax of this strain and restless striving was reached in the middle of the thirteenth century, when Eudes de Montreuil, the architect of S. Louis, designed the “splendid folly,” as men love to style it, of Beauvais; there a choir was built higher than any in the world, and with the slenderest support that had ever yet been seen.

It was finished in about thirty years, and twelve years later the vault fell, making a ruin of the whole church, circa A.D. 1284. This superb choir—for the nave was never built—can still be seen and wondered at; the ruin has been skilfully and cleverly repaired, and new supports have been devised, and though the original design is sadly marred and altered, it tells us of that master-mind “who, greatly daring, had planned the mighty structure complete and harmonious, the absolute expression of an ideal of future perfection, but forced to remain incomplete at the last, for the architect longed for the impossible.”

True artist, in spite of his failure, for he aimed at expressing a something higher than himself, which should draw up in sympathy with him all that was best and noblest in those around him. “But Beauvais was a structural impossibility, and the ideal of Beauvais was beyond his reach, and the mighty remains of its solitary choir tells a story of mistaken enterprise and wasted heroism.” It is truly a dream of heaven—but alas! it is only a dream.