Decorated Doorways.
The doorways of this style possess much the same features as the last, but the mouldings, jamb shafts, etc., are more slender, and generally of finer proportions, the hollows being often filled with the ball flower and square flower instead of the dog tooth. Sometimes the doorways have no pillars, being entirely composed of mouldings which are continuous with those in the architrave. The large single doorways of this period are nearly as large as the double ones of Early English date, and on the sides small buttresses or niches are sometimes placed, and often one finds a series of niches carried up like a hollow moulding, and filled with figures. The figures of this period are not so good as in the previous style, the heads seem too large for the bodies, and in the female figures the breasts are represented as quite flat. Where there are no figures double foliated tracery is often found hanging from one of the outer mouldings, giving an effect of great richness.
Decorated
Buttresses.
The buttresses (see page [17]) in the Decorated style are nearly always worked in stages, and a niche frequently figures on the face of the buttress. Crocketed canopies and other carved decorations are common, and in large buildings they usually terminate in pinnacles, which are sometimes of open work.
A Gothic building attains its effect by the combination of numerous parts, each possessing an individual character of its own. In its loftiness, graceful outlines, and rich effect of light and shade, it speaks of noble aspirations, of freedom, of intellectual thought, of talent and skill, all generously given for a high purpose, the foundation of which was a strong religious enthusiasm, combined with an intense love of the work itself.
Characteristics
of Gothic
Architecture.
Having now arrived at the point where Gothic architecture reached its climax, we may briefly sum up its leading characteristics. It is essentially pointed or vertical; its details are mostly geometrical in its window traceries, clusters of shafts and bases, but this geometric quality is only one of construction and form and not of its inner spirit and motive, for plants copied directly from nature were used in beautiful profusion.
If we compare a large Gothic church with a comparatively small one, we shall find the columns, windows, ornaments of the former are not so very much larger than those of the latter, but that there are double or three times the number of them. This is not the case in a classical building, where each feature has to be enlarged in proportion to the size of the building. It is the constant sub-division of a Gothic Church which adds so to its apparent size.
Ornamentally, the Gothic is the geometrical and pointed elements repeated to their utmost and afterwards combined with the elaboration of natural objects, plants, flowers, etc., growing in the neighbourhood of the work. This is a great feature, but the most striking point in all good Gothic work is the wonderful elaboration of geometric tracery, vesicas, trefoils, quatrefoils and an immense variety of other ornament.
In regard to the sizes of our great churches it may be of interest to note that our longest English cathedral is Winchester. York and Lincoln, although not so long as Winchester, are in superficial area very much larger. The largest English church of a non-cathedral rank is Westminster Abbey, which has, moreover, the distinction of being the loftiest internally; the nave being 104 ft. in height. The largest parish church is that of S. Nicholas, Great Yarmouth, which exceeds in superficial area no fewer than eight of our cathedrals.