Fig. 406.—Forms of Gothic Arches.
a, Pointed; b, Cusped; c, Depressed; d, Flamboyant.
The various styles of English Gothic have their transitional periods that extend and overlap them so much, that makes it extremely difficult in some buildings to determine which style they belong to; the difficulty is usually got over by assigning them to their respective periods as the beginning, middle, or end of a style. We have already noticed Early English, which is the best and purest form of the Gothic in England. In it we see the finest development of window tracery based on geometric lines. Mullions take the place of piers, windows have two or more lights, the beginnings of the flying buttress, pinnacles, crockets (Fig. 397), columns in clusters, round-headed capitals with or without the characteristic trefoil foliage (Fig. 398) known as Early English foliage (Fig. 398), which has been developed from the Romanesque. The ornament called “dog’s tooth” is common to the early examples of this style, and is also a Romanesque decoration (Fig. 399).
The Decorated style is a rich and more ornate phase of the preceding style, and is further marked by the extensive use of the ogee arch in doorways and windows (see Fig. 400A), and by the greater profusion of sculptured foliage, flowers, and ornament in the decoration. The ball flower used in the hollow mouldings is characteristic of this style, as the tooth ornament is of the Early English.
Fig. 407.—Forms of Gothic Tracery.
a, Trefoil; b, Quartrefoil; c, Cinquefoil; d, Cusped Quartrefoil; e, Pointed and Cusped; f, Flamboyant.
The Perpendicular style, as its name denotes, is characterized by its long and narrowly divided windows and similar panellings. Instead of the flowing lines of tracery in the windows, the mullions are of a straight lined and vertical character, and are divided at intervals by transoms, or horizontal divisions. The pedestal (Fig. 402) from Henry VII.’s Chapel is of Perpendicular panelling. The beautiful fan tracery seen in Henry VII.’s Chapel in Westminster Abbey and in Gloucester Cathedral is a variety of this panelling. The doorways in this style have pointed but depressed arches, and as a rule are enclosed with square-headed mouldings or labels. The spandrels formed by this arrangement are filled with tracery and shields. Towers and cornices have battlements, &c. (Fig. 403). A general squareness is given to all the ornaments, and a more severe and dry character is the chief feature of the Perpendicular decoration.
The Flamboyant Gothic style of the Continent is contemporaneous with the English Perpendicular. The panels at Figs. 404 and 405 are very good examples of Flamboyant panel decoration. Forms of Gothic arches and tracery are given at Figs. 406 and 407.
CHAPTER XXI.
RENAISSANCE ARCHITECTURE AND ORNAMENT.
Many things tended to bring about the art of the Renaissance. The great impulse given to learning by the study of the writings of the Greek and Roman poets, lawyers, and philosophers, and the keen study of the rich legacy of art and architecture left by Greece and Rome, may be reckoned among the chief causes which led to the development during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries of the Re-Birth or Renaissance both of literature and art.