Gothic Art

“Thou has ordered all things in measure and number and weight”

(Wisdom 11:20b)

“Let there be light!”

(Genesis 1:3)

Spread of Gothic: black 12th Century, red 13th-14th centuries

The Reach of Gothic

The Abbey of St. Denis

“The higher world casts its light on the lower world, and, in sensible things, is like a trace of purely spiritual things”

St. Denys the Areopagite

Over the main doorway, Suger had this written:

“Whoever thou mayest be, who art minded to praise this door,

Wonder not at the gold, nor at its cost, but at the work.The work shines in its nobility; by shining nobly,May it illumine the spirit, so that, through its trusty lights,The spirit may reach the true Light in which Christ is the

Door.The golden door proclaims the nature of the Inward:Through sensible things, the heavy spirit is raised to the

Truth; From the depths, it rises to the Light”

St. Denis Ambulatory

On the Second Sunday of June 1144, the choir of St. Denis was consecrated

• In this gathering the builders of the very first Gothic cathedrals were represented.

• A medieval liturgist, Durand de Mende, said of the rite: “Everything which is here performed visibly, evokes God in the soul invisibly, for the soul is the true temple of the true God…The church to be consecrated is none other than the soul, which must be sanctified…”

Transition at Vezelay: Early Gothic choir showers

light on Romanesque Nave

St.-Sernin

Amiens (476’ ext. long, 139’ high nave)

Amiens closer views

                                                                                                       

Left: Saint-Sernin, Toulouse, Romanesque Pilgrimage Church, c. 1080-1120

Right: Notre-Dame, Amiens, French Gothic Cathedral, begun 1220

Nave

Transept

Choir

Ambulatory

The video to be shown tomorrow explains the flying buttress, the innovation on which this new design is founded.

Romanesque vs. Gothic (Abbey of St. Etienne, Caen)

Nave (1064-1120) Choir (c. 1200)

Main arcade

Triforium

Clerestory

Vaulting

Some Gothic Styles

• Early Gothic beginning around 1140 (St. Denis).

• High Gothic/Rayonnant (St. Chapelle, Paris, 1248)

• Perpendicular (choir of Gloucester cathedral, begun 1330)

• Flamboyant (St. Maclou, Rouen, 1500-14, and others)

Rayonnant: St. Chapelle Rayonnant (Decorated Gothic in England) was

characterized by the application of increasingly elaborate geometrical decoration

More St. ChapelleDuring the period of the

Rayonnant style a significant change took place in Gothic architecture. After 1250, Gothic architects became more concerned with the creation of rich visual effects through decoration. This decoration took such forms as pinnacles (upright members, often spired, that capped piers, buttresses, or other exterior elements), moldings, and, especially, window tracery.

(Some classify this as Flamboyant)

More St. Chapelle

Perpendicular: Gloucester (choir)

The Perpendicular style is a phase of late Gothic unique to England. Its characteristic feature is the fanvault, which seems to have begun as an interesting extension of the Rayonnant idea in the cloisters of Gloucester cathedral (begun 1337).

More Gloucester

The Choir The Tower

More Gloucester

Vaulting in the nave Vaulting in the cloisters

Flamboyant

In France the Rayonnant style evolved about 1280 into an even more decorative phase called the Flamboyant style. The most conspicuous feature of the Flamboyant Gothic style is the dominance instone window tracery of a flamelike S-shaped curve.

In the Flamboyant style wall space was reduced to the minimum of supporting vertical shafts to allow an almost continuous expanse of glass and tracery. Structural logic was obscured by the virtual covering of the exteriors of buildings with tracery,

St. Maclou (Rouen) 15-16th Centuries

St. Severin-St. Nicholas (Paris)

15th Century

More St. Maclou

Added beginning of 16th Century

Leuven, Belgium Town Hall

15th Century

Milan Cathedral (Duomo)

The biggest and greatest late gothic architecture in Italy.1386-1577, west front 1616-1813

Milan Cathedral Flying Buttress