The Architecture of Provence and the Riviera

by David MacGibbon

Amongst those who raised their voices most strenuously in this behalf, was the great St Bernard, who even went the length of separating from the Clunisians, and devoted his energy to the encouragement of the new order of the Cistertians, which was destined to play an important part in the future history of the Church and its architecture. Of the severe rules of this order, those relating to the erection of buildings, were amongst the most stringent. These were required to be of the simplest form, and to be entirely free from ornament and decoration of every kind. At first this maxim was strictly adhered to in all the buildings of the Cistertians, which are therefore of the baldest possible description, as the numerous examples hereafter illustrated in Provence and elsewhere show. But this very severity of style seems to have had great influence in clearing the way for the introduction of a new and more natural art, by sweeping away the last remains of the ancient traditional forms, and leaving the course clear for the invention of novel ornamentation derived from natural objects. This may be regarded as the second phase of Provençal art. The first comprised all those primitive structures, the style of which was founded on Roman or classic design. But this second phase discarded all such ornament, and retained only the structural elements which had up to this time been developed. These of course included the use of the pointed arch, which is always employed in the vaulting and all the important structural features, while the round form is frequently retained in the minor arches. Of this bare but vigorous style no finer example can be cited than the Abbey of Thoronet (to be afterwards described), but the whole country abounds (as we shall find) with examples, both large and small, of this reformed or second period of Provençal architecture. After a time the Cistertian strictness was gradually relaxed. The more ornate style of the Clunisians was found to be more in accordance with the feelings and taste of the times; and the Cistertians ultimately came to vie with them in the beauty and richness of their edifices. But, as above pointed out, the traditional Roman and Byzantine elements were entirely banished, and a new and natural system of ornament adopted.

Up to the date which we have now reached the progress of the great monastic centres of Burgundy and the cities of the South had been in advance of that of the Royal Domain, and the Northern provinces generally. But from the end of the twelfth century many circumstances combined to reverse that position. The country of the Franks had become settled—the restless spirit of that people, which had found expression in the Crusades, had exhausted itself; the idea of the one great and holy Roman Empire had passed away, and the various countries of modern Europe were gradually consolidating themselves and forming separate nationalities.

The Feudal system, which tended to break up all general authority, was gradually being subjected to the growing power of a central supreme ruler. Trade and commerce were reviving. The towns and corporations which had grown up under the fostering care of the monasteries, or under the shadow of the great castles of the nobility, were now assuming a more prominent and independent position. They perseveringly pressed their claims on their superiors, whether lay or ecclesiastical, and were by slow degrees obtaining charters and liberties. The Bishops whose sees were connected with the towns encouraged the citizens in this course, with the view of strengthening their own power and importance, so as to enable them to keep pace with and if possible overcome the great influence of their rivals the monasteries. This growth of the popular element in the towns naturally led to the employment of laymen in connection with the designing and execution of the works of the cathedral and other ecclesiastical edifices attached to the various sees.

The monks, who had hitherto been the sole possessors of the requisite knowledge and practical skill, had by their schools, and by the guilds of tradesmen which they had encouraged, sown the seeds which were now springing up in a form they had not looked for, and producing a crop of lay artists, who were soon to leave their old masters behind. The monastic system of carrying on everything according to rule had long held architecture in bondage. Under the new impulse all conventional rules were abandoned, and the artists trusted to the inspiration of nature for their guidance. Hence it followed that whether in planning, in construction, or in ormamentation, the forms so long reverently followed by the architects of the monasteries, were speedily dropped by the lay artists of the towns, and a new art sprung up with the most marvellous rapidity. To the new school of artists nothing which would naturally and logically suit their requirements came amiss. The round arch was the traditional form of the ecclesiastics, but, the lay architects of the North finding (as the builders of the South had long previously done) that the pointed arch was more flexible and amenable to their requirements, forthwith adopted it. This enabled them to overcome what had hitherto been the great difficulty with the round arch, viz., to erect intersecting vaults over spaces of any form, whether square or oblong, and at the same time to keep the apex of all the vaults at any desired height. The transverse arches and the wall arches being thus pointed, soon led in the most natural manner to the window arches within the latter being also made of a pointed shape, so as to conform to the outline of the wall arch, and by an easy transition the pointed arch was soon adopted for all the wall openings as the most flexible, and most in accordance with the spirit of the new style.

In like manner the old conventional forms of decoration, derived from Byzantine carvings and MSS. or from Roman remains, were entirely abandoned, and inspiration in decorative design was sought in the natural flowers and plants of the soil.

The intellectual development, no less than the artistic, of this great period of revival was boldly represented in its architecture. The timid forms of traditional construction were soon left behind, and scientific methods were introduced. The clumsy mode of sustaining the central vault by the half vault of the side aisles was superseded by the bold and beautiful form of the flying buttress, loaded with pinnacles where needed to secure stability. This scientific invention enabled the architects to dispense with heavy walls and to bring the whole pressure of the vaults on to points, where they were discharged by the flying buttresses. The side walls were only required as enclosing screens, not as supports, so that there was free scope and every inducement for the expansion of the windows, which rapidly progressed till the whole building became, in striking contrast to the dark and gloomy structures of the monastic regime, an edifice of marvellous lightness and elegance, illuminated from floor to vault with walls of glowing glass.

The rapid and extensive development of the Gothic style of the North is one of the most remarkable facts in the history of architecture. Within the century following the first appearance of the style in the pointed vaulting of the abbey church of St Denis, erected under the Abbé Suger in 1144, this style reached its highest point. During that period it found expression in most of the great cathedrals of the North of France, such as Paris, Chartres, Sens, Amiens, Beauvais, &c. This occurred contemporaneously with the long and brilliant reign of Philip Augustus, under whom the royal power became consolidated, and the royal domain extended to an extraordinary degree.

As the royal domain extended, its Gothic architecture extended with it, and even passed beyond it, and produced a striking effect on the provinces, such as Provence, not yet absorbed into the kingdom of France. Of this we shall meet with several remarkable examples, as in the cathedrals of Carcassonne and Narbonne, where the designs are pure Northern Gothic, and were furnished by a northern architect. But these and similar structures always strike one as having the appearance of exotics; they are evidently imported plants, not native to the soil. There are also, as we shall see, many other buildings in the South in which some of the features only of the Gothic style are adopted, and which exhibit various attempts to ingraft its details on the native art. But even this is not successful, the buildings having neither the lightness and elegance of the Gothic, nor the massive grandeur of the native style.

In later times, when Provence and a great part of the Riviera had passed into the kingdom of France, its period of vigour and independence had faded away, and its architecture only presents a picture of the various foreign influences under which it lay. This is seen in the examples of the flamboyant work of the French, and in the Italian Gothic introduced by the Genoese, who were long masters of the Riviera. All other architecture, however, soon yielded to the revival of the classic style, which here, amongst so many Roman relics, found a congenial soil.

The great development of Gothic architecture in the North was not limited to churches and other ecclesiastical structures, but extended to every species of building. For it is one of the leading characteristics of Gothic, that it is available for every variety of architectural requirement. It is a free and natural style, not subject to the arbitrary rules of monastic or academic systems, but ready to apply itself in the simplest and most direct manner to all human wants in the way of building. The Gothic lay architects therefore naturally directed their skill to the proper development of Domestic and Castellated Architecture, as well as Ecclesiastical and Monastic. Of the former, many most interesting examples are to be seen in the Southern towns; and of the castellated architecture, we shall meet with not only such splendid examples as the Pope’s Palace at Avignon, and the great castles of Villeneuve and Beaucaire; but we shall also have an opportunity of examining, at Carcassonne and Aigues Mortes, the towns which possess probably the completest and best preserved specimens, now extant, of the military architecture of the Middle Ages.