Openings.
The treatment of openings gives occasion for one of the most strongly marked points of contrast between French and English Gothic architecture. With us the great windows are unquestionably the prominent features, but with the French the doors are most elaborated. This result is reached not so much by any lowering of the quality of the treatment bestowed upon the windows, but by the greatly increased importance given to doorways.
The great portals of Notre Dame at Paris (Fig. [33]), Rheims, or Amiens (Fig. [35]), and the grand porches of Chartres may be named as the finest examples, and are probably the most magnificent single features which Gothic Art produced in any age or any country; but in its degree the western portal of every great church is usually an object upon which the best resources of the architect have been freely lavished. The wall is built very thick so that enormous jambs, carrying a vast moulded arch, can be employed. The head of the door is filled with sculpture, which is also lavishly used in the sides and arch, and over the whole rises an ornamental gable, frequently profusely adorned with tracery and sculpture, its sides being richly decorated by crockets or similar ornaments, and crowned by a sculptured terminal or finial.
The windows in the earliest periods are simpler than in our E. E., as well as of less slender proportions. In the second and third periods they are full of rich tracery, and are made lofty and wide to receive the magnificent stained glass with which it was intended to fill them, and which many churches retain. Circular windows, sometimes called wheel-windows, often occupy the gables, and are many of them very fine compositions.
Mouldings and Ornaments.
The mouldings of the French first pointed are usually larger than our own. Compared with ours they are also fewer, simpler, and designed to produce more breadth of effect. This may partly result from their originating in a sunshiny country where effects of shade are easily obtained. In the second and third periods they more nearly resemble those in use in England at the corresponding times.
The carving is very characteristic and very beautiful. In the transition and first pointed a cluster of stalks, ending in a tuft of foliage or flowers, is constantly employed, especially in capitals. The use of this in England is rare; and, on the other hand, foliage like E. E. conventional foliage is rare in France. In the second pointed, natural foliage is admirably rendered (Fig. [37]). In the third a somewhat conventional kind of foliage, very luxuriant in its apparent growth, is constantly met with.
This carving is at every stage accompanied by figure-sculpture of the finest character. Heads of animals, statues, groups of figures, and has reliefs are freely employed, but always with the greatest judgment, so that their introduction adds richness to the very point in the whole composition where it is most needed. In every part of France, and in every period of Gothic architecture, good specimens of sculpture abound. Easily accessible illustrations will be found in the west entrance and south transept front of Rouen Cathedral, the porches and portals at Chartres, the choir inclosure of Notre Dame at Paris, and the richly sculptured inclosure of the choir of Amiens Cathedral.
