GERMANY.—ANALYSIS OF BUILDINGS.
Plan.
The points of difference between German and French Gothic are not so numerous as to render a very minute analysis of the Gothic of Germany requisite in order to make them clear.
The plans of German churches usually show internal piers; and columns occur but rarely. The churches have nave and aisles, transepts and apsidal choir; but they are peculiar from the frequent use of apses at the ends of the transepts, and also from the occurrence, in not a few instances, of an apse at the west end of the nave as well as at the east end of the choir. They are almost invariably vaulted.
As the style advanced, large churches were constantly planned with double aisles, and the western apse disappeared. Some German church plans, notably those of Cologne Cathedral (Fig. [46]) and the great church of St. Lawrence at Nuremberg, are fine specimens of regularity of disposition, though full of many parts.
Fig. 46.—Cologne Cathedral. Ground Plan. (Begun 1248.)
Walls, Towers, and Gables.
The German architects delighted in towers with pointed roofs, and in a multiplicity of them. A highly characteristic feature is a tower of great mass, but often extremely low, covering the crossing. The Cathedral at Mayence shows a fine example of this feature, which was often not more than a low octagon. Western towers, square on plan, are common, and small towers, frequently octagonal, are often employed to flank the choir or in combination with the transepts. These in early examples, are always surmounted by high roofs; in late ones, by stone spires, often of rich open tracery. A very characteristic feature of the round arched Gothic churches is an arcade of small arches immediately below the eaves of the roof and opening into the space above the vaults (Fig. [45]). This is rarely wanting in churches built previous to the time when the French type was followed implicitly.
The gables are seldom such fine compositions as in France, or even in Italy; but in domestic and secular buildings many striking gabled fronts occur, the gable being often stepped in outline and full of windows.
Roofs and Vaults.
Vaults are universal in the great churches, and German vaulting has some special peculiarities, but they are such as hardly come within the scope of this hand-book. Roofs, however, are so conspicuous that in any general account of German architecture attention must be paid to them. They were from very early times steep in pitch and picturesque in outline, and are evidently much relied upon as giving play to the sky-line. Indeed, for variety of form and piquancy of detail the German roofs are the most successful of the [!-- original location of Fig. 47 --] middle ages. The spires, as will have been easily gathered from the descriptions of those at Strasburg, Cologne, &c., became extremely elaborate, and were constructed in many cases entirely of open tracery.
Fig. 47.—Western Doorway of Church at Thann. (14th Century.)
Fig. 48.—Church of St. Catherine at Oppenheim. (1262 to 1439.)
Openings.
Openings are, on the whole, treated very much as the French treated them. A good example is the western doorway at Thann (Fig. [47]); but the use of double tracery in the windows in late examples is characteristic. Sometimes a partial screen of outside tracery is employed in other features besides windows, as may be seen by the very elegant doorway of St. Sebald’s Church at Nuremberg, which we have illustrated (Fig. [49]).
Ornaments.
The ornaments of German Gothic are often profuse, but rarely quite happy. Sculpture, often of a high class, carving of every sort, tracery, and panelling, are largely employed; but with a hardness and a tendency to cover all surfaces with a profusion of weak imitations of tracery that disfigures much of the masonry. The tracery became towards the latter part of the time intricate and unmeaning, and the interpenetrating mouldings already described, though of course intended to be ornamental, are more perplexing and confusing than pleasing: the carving exaggerates the natural markings of the foliage represented, and being thin, and very boldly undercut, resembles leaves beaten out in metal, rather than foliage happily and easily imitated in stone, which is what good architectural carving should be.
The use of coloured building materials and of inlays and mosaics does not prevail to any great extent in Germany, though stained glass is often to be found and coloured wall decoration occasionally.
Fig. 49.—St. Sebald’s Church at Nuremberg. The Bride’s Doorway. (1303-1377.)
Construction and Design.
The marked peculiarities of construction by which the German Gothic buildings are most distinguished, are the prevalent high-pitched roofs, the vaulting with aisle vaults carried to the same height as in the centre, and the employment in certain districts of brick to the exclusion of stone, all of which have been already referred to. In a great part of that large portion of Europe, which is included under the name of Germany, the materials and modes of construction adopted during the middle ages, bear a close resemblance to those in general use in France and England.
Some of the characteristics of German Gothic design have been already alluded to. The German architects display an exuberant fancy, a great love of the picturesque, and even the grotesque, and a strong predilection for creating artificial difficulties in order to enjoy the pleasure of surmounting them. Their work is full of unrest; they attach small value to the artistic quality of breadth, and destroy the value of the plain surfaces of their buildings as contrasts to the openings, by cutting them up by mouldings and enrichments of various sorts. The sculpture introduced is, as a rule, naturalistic rather than conventional. The capitals of piers and columns are often fine specimens of effective carving, while the delicate and ornamental details of the tabernacle work with which church furniture is enriched, are unsurpassed in elaboration, and often of rare beauty. The churches of Nuremberg are specially distinguished for the richness and number of their sculptured fittings. There is, moreover, in some of the best German buildings a rugged grandeur which approaches the sublime; and in the humbler ones a large amount of picturesque and thoroughly successful architecture.
In the smaller objects upon which the art of the architect was often employed the Germans were frequently happy. Public fountains, such for example as the one illustrated in Chapter [II.] (Fig. [10]), are to be met within the streets of many towns, and rarely fail to please by their simple, graceful, and often quaint design. Crosses, monuments, and individual features in domestic buildings, such e.g. as bay windows, frequently show a very skilful and picturesque treatment and happy enrichment.
NORTHERN EUROPE.
Gothic architecture closely resembling German work may be found in Switzerland, Norway and Sweden, and Denmark; but there are few very conspicuous buildings, and not enough variety to form a distinct style. In Norway and Sweden curious and picturesque buildings exist, erected solely of timber, and both there and in Switzerland many of the traditions of the Gothic period have been handed down to our own day with comparatively little change, in the pleasing and often highly enriched timber buildings which are to be met with in considerable numbers in those countries.