A Text-Book of the History of Architecture / Seventh Edition, revised

by A. D. F. Hamlin

CARVING AND SCULPTURE. The general superiority of French Gothic work was fully maintained in its decorative details. Especially fine is the figure sculpture, which in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries attained true nobility of expression, combined with great truthfulness and delicacy of execution. Some of its finest productions are found in the great doorway jambs of the west portals of the cathedrals, and in the ranks of throned and adoring angels which adorned their deep arches. These reach their highest beauty in the portals of Reims (1380). The tabernacles or carved niches in which such statues were set were important elements in the decoration of the exteriors of churches.

FIG. 126.—FRENCH GOTHIC CAPITALS.

a, From Sainte Chapelle, Paris, 13th century. b, 14th-century capital from transept of Notre Dame, Paris. c, 15th-century capital from north spire of Chartres.

Foliage forms were used for nearly all the minor carved ornaments, though grotesque and human figures sometimes took their place. The gargoyles through which the roof-water was discharged clear of the building, were almost always composed in the form of hideous monsters; and symbolic beasts, like the oxen in the towers of Laon, or monsters like those which peer from the tower balustrades of Notre Dame, were employed with some mystical significance in various parts of the building. But the capitals corbels, crockets, and finials were mostly composed of floral or foliage forms. Those of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries were for the most part simple in mass, and crisp and vigorous in design, imitating the strong shoots of early spring. The capitals were tall and slender, concave in profile, with heavy square or octagonal abaci. With the close of the thirteenth century this simple and forcible style of detail disappeared. The carving became more realistic; the leaves, larger and more mature, were treated as if applied to the capital or moulding, not as if they grew out of it. The execution and detail were finer and more delicate, in harmony with the increasing slenderness and lightness of the architecture (Fig. 126 a, b). Tracery forms now began to be profusely applied to all manner of surfaces, and open-work gables, wholly unnecessary from the structural point of view, but highly effective as decorations, adorned the portals and crowned the windows.

LATE GOTHIC MONUMENTS. So far our attention has been mainly occupied with the masterpieces erected previous to 1250. Among the cathedrals, relatively few in number, whose construction is referable to the second half of the century, that of Beauvais stands first in importance. Designed on a colossal scale, its foundations were laid in 1225, but it was never completed, and the portion built—the choir and chapels—belonged really to the second half of the century, having been completed in 1270. But the collapse in 1284 of the central tower and vaulting of this incomplete cathedral, owing to the excessive loftiness and slenderness of its supports, compelled its entire reconstruction, the number of the piers being doubled and the span of the pier arches correspondingly reduced. As thus rebuilt, the cathedral aisle was 47 feet wide from centre to centre of opposite piers, and 163 feet high to the top of the vault. Transepts were added after 1500. Limoges and Narbonne, begun in 1272 on a large scale (though not equal in size to Beauvais), were likewise never completed. Both had choirs of admirable plan, with well-designed chevet-chapels. Many other cathedrals begun during this period were completed only after long delays, as, for instance, Meaux, Rodez (1277), Toulouse (1272), and Alby (1282), finished in the sixteenth century, and Clermont (1248), completed under Napoleon III. But between 1260 or 1275 and 1350, work was actively prosecuted on many still incomplete cathedrals. The choirs of Beauvais (rebuilding), Limoges, and Narbonne were finished after 1330; and towers, transept-façades, portals, and chapels added to many others of earlier date.

The style of this period is sometimes designated as Rayonnant, from the characteristic wheel tracery of the rose-windows, and the prevalence of circular forms in the lateral arched windows, of the late thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries. The great rose windows in the transepts of Notre Dame, dating from 1257, are typical examples of the style. Those of Rouen cathedral belong to the same category, though of later date. The façade of Amiens, completed by 1288, is one of the finest works of this style, of which an early example is the elaborate parish church of St. Urbain at Troyes.

THE FLAMBOYANT STYLE. The geometric treatment of the tracery and the minute and profuse decoration of this period gradually merged into the fantastic and unrestrained extravagances of the Flamboyant style, which prevailed until the advent of the Renaissance—say 1525. The continuous logical development of forms ceased, and in its place caprice and display controlled the arts of design. The finest monument of this long period is the fifteenth-century nave and central tower of the church of St. Ouen at Rouen, a parish church of the first rank, begun in 1318, but not finished until 1515. The tracery of the lateral windows is still chiefly geometric, but the western rose window ([Fig. 112]) and the magnificent central tower or lantern, exhibit in their tracery the florid decoration and wavy, flame-like lines of this style. Slenderness of supports and the suppression of horizontal lines are here carried to an extreme; and the church, in spite of its great elegance of detail, lacks the vital interest and charm of the earlier Gothic churches. The cathedral of Alençon and the church of St. Maclou at Rouen, have portals with unusually elaborate detail of tracery and carving; while the façade of Rouen cathedral (1509) surpasses all other examples in the lace-like minuteness of its open-work and its profusion of ornament. The churches of St. Jacques at Dieppe, and of St. Wulfrand at Abbeville, the façades of Tours and Troyes, are among the masterpieces of the style. The upper part of the façade of Reims (1380–1428) belongs to the transition from the Rayonnant to the Flamboyant. While some works of this period are conspicuous for the richness of their ornamentation, others are noticeably bare and poor in design, like St. Merri and St. Séverin in Paris.

SECULAR AND MONASTIC ARCHITECTURE. The building of cathedrals did not absorb all the architectural activity of the French during the Gothic period, nor did it by any means put an end to monastic building. While there are few Gothic cloisters to equal the Romanesque cloisters of Puy-en-Vélay, Montmajour, Elne, and Moissac, many of the abbeys either rebuilt their churches in the Gothic style after 1150, or extended and remodelled their conventual buildings. The cloisters of Fontfroide, Chaise-Dieu, and the Mont St. Michel rival those of Romanesque times, while many new refectories and chapels were built in the same style with the cathedrals. The most complete of these Gothic monastic establishments, that of the Mont St. Michel in Normandy, presented a remarkable aggregation of buildings clustering around the steep isolated rock on which stands the abbey church. This was built in the eleventh century, and the choir and chapels remodelled in the sixteenth. The great refectory and dormitory, the cloisters, lodgings, and chapels, built in several vaulted stories against the cliffs, are admirable examples of the vigorous pointed-arch design of the early thirteenth century.