Characteristics of Gothic architecture

Gothic architecture is an architectural style that flourished in Europe during the High and Late Middle Ages. It evolved from Romanesque architecture and was succeeded by Renaissance architecture. Originating in 12th century France and lasting into the 16th century, Gothic architecture was known during the period as Opus Francigenum (“French work”) with the term Gothic first appearing during the later part of the Renaissance. Its characteristics include the pointed arch, the ribbed vault (which evolved from the joint vaulting of Romanesque architecture) and the flying buttress. Gothic architecture is most familiar as the architecture of many of the great cathedrals, abbeys and churches of Europe. It is also the architecture of many castles, palaces, town halls, guild halls, universities and to a less prominent extent, private dwellings, such as dorms and rooms.

It is in the great churches and cathedrals and in a number of civic buildings that the Gothic style was expressed most powerfully, its characteristics lending themselves to appeals to the emotions, whether springing from faith or from civic pride. A great number of ecclesiastical buildings remain from this period, of which even the smallest are often structures of architectural distinction while many of the larger churches are considered priceless works of art and are listed with UNESCO as World Heritage Sites. For this reason a study of Gothic architecture is often largely a study of cathedrals and churches.

A series of Gothic revivals began in mid-18th century England, spread through 19th century Europe and continued, largely for ecclesiastical and university structures, into the 20th century.

Characteristics of the Gothic style
While many secular buildings exist from the Late Middle Ages, it is in the cathedrals and great churches that Gothic architecture displays its pertinent structures and characteristics to the fullest advantage. 19th century art historians and critics, used to the Baroque or Neoclassical works of the 17th and 18th centuries, were astounded by the soaring heights of a Gothic cathedral and made note of the extreme length compared to proportionally modest width and accentuating clusters of support colonnettes. This emphasis on verticality and light was applied to an ecclesiastical building was achieved by the development of certain architectural features of the Gothic style that, when together, provided inventive solutions to various engineering problems. As Eugène Viollet-le-Duc observed, the Gothic cathedral, almost always laid out in a cruciform shape, was based on a logical skeleton of clustered columns, pointed ribbed vaults and flying buttresses arranged in a system of diagonal arches and arches enclosing the vault field that allows the outward thrust exerted by the groin vaults to be channeled from the walls and into specific points on a supporting mass. The result of this curvature in the vaults and arches of the church was the casting of indeterminable localised thrust that architects learned to counter with an opposing thrust in the form of the flying buttress and application of calculated weight via the pinnacle. This dynamic system of various constituent elements filling a certain role allowed for the slimming of previously massive walls or replacement thereof with windows. Gothic churches were also very ornamented and highly decorated, serving as a Poor Man’s Bible and a record of their construction in the stained glass windows that admit light into the church interior and some of the gargoyles. These structures, for centuries the principle landmark in a town, would then often be surmounted by one or more towers and pinnacles and perhaps tall spires.

Pointed arch
One of the defining characteristics of Gothic architecture is the pointed (or ogival) arch, and it is used in nearly all places a vaulted shape might be called for structural or decorative consideration, like doorways, windows, arcades, and galleries. Gothic vaulting above spaces, regardless of size, is sometimes supported by richly moulded ribs. The constant use of the pointed arch in Gothic arches and tracery eventually led to the creation of the now extinct term “ogival architecture.”

The pointed arch is also a characteristic feature of Near Eastern pre-Islamic Sassanian architecture that was adopted in the 7th century by Islamic architecture and appears in structures like the Al-Ukhaidir Palace (775 AD), the Abbasid reconstruction of the Al-Aqsa mosque in 780 AD, Ramlah Cistern (789 AD), the Great Mosque of Samarra (851 AD), and the Mosque of Ibn Tulun (879 AD) in Cairo. It also appears in the Great Mosque of Kairouan, Mosque–Cathedral of Córdoba, and several structures of Norman Sicily. Then, it appeared in some Romanesque works in Italy (Cathedral of Modena) Burgundy (Autun Cathedral), later being mastered by Gothic architects for the cathedrals of Notre-Dame de Paris and Noyon Cathedral. The majority view of scholars however is the idea that the pointed arch was a simultaneous and natural evolution in Western Europe as a solution to the problem of vaulting spaces of irregular plan, or to bring transverse vaults to the same height as diagonal vaults, as evidenced by Durham Cathedral’s nave aisles, built in 1093. Pointed arches also occur extensively in Romanesque decorative blind arcading, where semi-circular arches overlap each other in a simple decorative pattern and their points an accident in design. In addition to being able to its applicability to rectangular or irregular shapes, the pointed arch channels weight onto the bearing piers or columns at a steep angle, enabling architects to raise vaults much higher than was possible in Romanesque architecture. When used with other typical features of Gothic construction, a system of mutual independence in dispensing the immense weight of a Gothic cathedral’s roof and vaulting emerges.

Rows of pointed arches upon delicate shafts form a typical wall decoration known as blind arcading. Niches with pointed arches and containing statuary are a major external feature. The pointed arch lent itself to elaborate intersecting shapes which developed within window spaces into complex Gothic tracery forming the structural support of the large windows that are characteristic of the style.

The ribbed vault, another key feature of the Gothic style, has a history just as colorful, having long been adapted for the Roman (Villa of Sette Bassi), Sassanian, Islamic (Abbas I’s Mosque at Isfahan, Mosque of Cristo de la Luz), Romanesque (L’Hôpital-Saint-Blaise), and then Gothic styles. Until the height of the Gothic era, few Western rib vaults matched the complexity of Islamic (mostly Moorish), beginning with experiments in Armenia and Georgia, from the 10th to the 13th centuries, such as ribbed domes (Ani Cathedral and Nikortsminda Cathedral), diagonal arches on a square field (Ani), and arches perpendicular to walls (Homoros Vank). However, the function of these vaults is entirely structural rather than decorative, as in Gothic cathedrals. However, their indrect method of supporting the vault via its shoulders has been found at Casale Monferrato, Tour Guinette, and at a tower at Bayeux Cathedral. One reason for this perhaps is the record of economic and political exchange between some of western Europe and Armenia, which might explain the similarities between Armenian architecture and the ribbed vaults at San Nazzaro Sesia and at Lodi Vecchio in Lombardy and the Abbey of Saint Aubin in Angers. Ribbed vaults saw something of a golden age of development in the Anglo-Norman period, and led to the establishment of French Gothic and outlined many future Gothic solutions to the problem of support with buttresses.

Height
A characteristic of Gothic church architecture is its height, both absolute and in proportion to its width, the verticality suggesting an aspiration to Heaven. A section of the main body of a Gothic church usually shows the nave as considerably taller than it is wide. In England the proportion is sometimes greater than 2:1, while the greatest proportional difference achieved is at Cologne Cathedral with a ratio of 3.6:1. The highest internal vault is at Beauvais Cathedral at 48 metres (157 ft). The pointed arch, itself a suggestion of height, is appearance is characteristically further enhanced by both the architectural features and the decoration of the building.

Verticality is emphasised on the exterior in a major way by the towers and spires, a characteristic of Gothic churches both great and small varying from church to church, and in a lesser way by strongly projecting vertical buttresses, by narrow half-columns called attached shafts which often pass through several storeys of the building, by long narrow windows, vertical mouldings around doors and figurative sculpture which emphasises the vertical and is often attenuated. The roofline, gable ends, buttresses and other parts of the building are often terminated by small pinnacles, Milan Cathedral being an extreme example in the use of this form of decoration. In Italy, the tower, if present, is almost always detached from the building, as at Florence Cathedral, and is often from an earlier structure. In France and Spain, two towers on the front is the norm. In England, Germany and Scandinavia this is often the arrangement, but an English cathedral may also be surmounted by an enormous tower at the crossing. Smaller churches usually have just one tower, but this may also be the case at larger buildings, such as Salisbury Cathedral or Ulm Minster in Ulm, Germany, completed in 1890 and possessing the tallest spire in the world, slightly exceeding that of Lincoln Cathedral, the tallest spire that was actually completed during the medieval period, at 160 metres (520 ft).

On the interior of the building attached shafts often sweep unbroken from floor to ceiling and meet the ribs of the vault, like a tall tree spreading into branches. The verticals are generally repeated in the treatment of the windows and wall surfaces. In many Gothic churches, particularly in France, and in the Perpendicular period of English Gothic architecture, the treatment of vertical elements in gallery and window tracery creates a strongly unifying feature that counteracts the horizontal divisions of the interior structure.

Plan
Most large Gothic churches and many smaller parish churches are of the Latin cross (or “cruciform”) plan, with a long nave making the body of the church, a transverse arm called the transept and, beyond it, an extension which may be called the choir, chancel or presbytery. There are several regional variations on this plan.

The nave is generally flanked on either side by aisles, usually single, but sometimes double. The nave is generally considerably taller than the aisles, having clerestory windows which light the central space. Gothic churches of the Germanic tradition, like St. Stephen of Vienna, often have nave and aisles of similar height and are called Hallenkirche. In the South of France there is often a single wide nave and no aisles, as at Sainte-Marie in Saint-Bertrand-de-Comminges.

In some churches with double aisles, like Notre Dame, Paris, the transept does not project beyond the aisles. In English cathedrals transepts tend to project boldly and there may be two of them, as at Salisbury Cathedral, though this is not the case with lesser churches.

The eastern arm shows considerable diversity. In England it is generally long and may have two distinct sections, both choir and presbytery. It is often square ended or has a projecting Lady Chapel, dedicated to the Virgin Mary. In France the eastern end is often polygonal and surrounded by a walkway called an ambulatory and sometimes a ring of chapels called a “chevet.” While German churches are often similar to those of France, in Italy, the eastern projection beyond the transept is usually just a shallow apsidal chapel containing the sanctuary, as at Florence Cathedral.

Another very characteristic feature of the Gothic style, domestic and ecclesiastical alike, is the division of interior space into individual cells according to the building’s ribbing and vaults, regardless of whether or not the structure actually has a vaulted ceiling. This system of cells of varying size and shape juxtaposed in various patterns was again totally unique to antiquity and the Early Middle Ages and scholars, Frankl included, have emphasised the mathematical and geometric nature of this design. Frankl in particular thought of this layout as “creation by division” rather than the Romanesque’s “creation by addition.” Others, namely Viollet-le-Duc, Wilhelm Pinder, and August Schmarsow, instead proposed the term “articulated architecture.” The opposite theory as suggested by Henri Focillon and Jean Bony is of “spacial unification”, or of the creation of an interior that is made for sensory overload via the interaction of many elements and perspectives. Interior and exterior partitions, often extensively studied, have been found to at times contain features, such as thoroughfares at window height, that make the illusion of thickness. Additionally, the piers separating the isles eventually stopped being part of the walls but rather independent objects that jut out from the actual aisle wall itself.

Light and windows
One of the most ubiquitous elements of Gothic architecture is the shrinking of the walls and inserting of large windows. Notables such as Viollet-le-Duc, Focillon, Aubert, and Max Dvořák contended that this is one of the most universal features of the Gothic style. Yet another departure from the Romanesque style, windows grew in size as the Gothic style evolved, eventually almost eliminating all the wall-space as in Paris’s Sainte-Chapelle, admitting immense amounts of light into the church. This expansive interior light has been a feature of Gothic cathedrals since their inception, and this is because of the function of space in a Gothic cathedral as a function of light that is very widely referred to in contemporary text. The metaphysics of light in the Middle Ages led to clerical belief in its divinity and the importance of its display in holy settings. Much of this belief was based on the writings of Pseudo-Dionysius, a 6th-century mystic whose book, The Celestial Hierarchy, was popular among monks in France. Pseudo-Dionysius held that all light, even light reflected from metals or streamed through windows, was divine. To promote such faith, the abbot in charge of the Saint-Denis church on the north edge of Paris, the Abbot Suger, encouraged architects remodeling the building to make the interior as bright as possible.

Ever since the remodeled Basilica of Saint-Denis opened in 1144, Gothic architecture has featured expansive windows, such as at Sainte Chapelle, York Minster, Gloucester Cathedral. The increase in size between windows of the Romanesque and Gothic periods is related to the use of the ribbed vault, and in particular, the pointed ribbed vault which channeled the weight to a supporting shaft with less outward thrust than a semicircular vault. Walls did not need to be so weighty.

A further development was the flying buttress which arched externally from the springing of the vault across the roof of the aisle to a large buttress pier projecting well beyond the line of the external wall. These piers were often surmounted by a pinnacle or statue, further adding to the downward weight, and counteracting the outward thrust of the vault and buttress arch as well as stress from wind loading.

The internal columns of the arcade with their attached shafts, the ribs of the vault and the flying buttresses, with their associated vertical buttresses jutting at right-angles to the building, created a stone skeleton. Between these parts, the walls and the infill of the vaults could be of lighter construction. Between the narrow buttresses, the walls could be opened up into large windows.

Through the Gothic period, thanks to the versatility of the pointed arch, the structure of Gothic windows developed from simple openings to immensely rich and decorative sculptural designs. The windows were very often filled with stained glass which added a dimension of colour to the light within the building, as well as providing a medium for figurative and narrative art.

Majesty
The façade of a large church or cathedral, often referred to as the West Front, is generally designed to create a powerful impression on the approaching worshipper, demonstrating both the might of God and the might of the institution that it represents. One of the best known and most typical of such façades is that of Notre Dame de Paris.

Central to the façade is the main portal, often flanked by additional doors. In the arch of the door, the tympanum, is often a significant piece of sculpture, most frequently Christ in Majesty and Judgment Day. If there is a central doorjamb or a trumeau, then it frequently bears a statue of the Madonna and Child. There may be much other carving, often of figures in niches set into the mouldings around the portals, or in sculptural screens extending across the façade.

Above the main portal there is generally a large window, like that at York Minster, or a group of windows such as those at Ripon Cathedral. In France there is generally a rose window like that at Reims Cathedral. Rose windows are also often found in the façades of churches of Spain and Italy, but are rarer elsewhere and are not found on the façades of any English Cathedrals. The gable is usually richly decorated with arcading or sculpture or, in the case of Italy, may be decorated with the rest of the façade, with polychrome marble and mosaic, as at Orvieto Cathedral.

The West Front of a French cathedral and many English, Spanish and German cathedrals generally have two towers, which, particularly in France, express an enormous diversity of form and decoration. However some German cathedrals have only one tower located in the middle of the façade (such as Freiburg Münster).

Basic shapes of Gothic arches and stylistic character
The way in which the pointed arch was drafted and utilised developed throughout the Gothic period. There were fairly clear stages of development which did not progress at the same rate or in the same way in every country. Moreover, the names used to define various periods or styles within Gothic architecture differs from country to country. The work of art historians Hans R. Hahnloser and Robert Branner in studying manuscripts and architectural drawings showed that the use of geometric shapes and proportions in squares, circles, semi-circular shapes, and equilateral triangles, abandoned in the Renaissance, was a constant effort in the Middle Ages.

Transverse arches, perpendicular to the upper level of the walls and hidden under gallery roofing, appeared circa 1100 at Durham Cathedral and at Cérisy-la-Forêt and are thought to have been used to facilitate roofing and the construction of wall buttressing, as there was no need to give any further support to already thick Romanesque walls. Used at the nave of Durham and at Caen’s Abbey of Saint-Trinité, this practice would also be used by Gothic architects at Saint-Germer-de-Fly Abbey and Laon Cathedral. Further application and refinement of this technique since the 11th century made the purpose of the transverse clearer, culminating in the late 12th century as architects used its gallery to buttress the upper echelons of a church.

Lancet arch
The simplest shape is the long opening with a pointed arch known in England as the lancet. Lancet openings are often grouped, usually as a cluster of three or five. Lancet openings may be very narrow and steeply pointed. Lancet arches are typically defined as two-centered arches whose radii are larger than the arch’s span.

Salisbury Cathedral is famous for the beauty and simplicity of its Lancet Gothic, known in England as the Early English Style. York Minster has a group of lancet windows each fifty feet high and still containing ancient glass. They are known as the Five Sisters. These simple undecorated grouped windows are found at Chartres and Laon Cathedrals and are used extensively in Italy.

Equilateral Arch
Many Gothic openings are based upon the equilateral form. In other words, when the arch is drafted, the radius is exactly the width of the opening and the centre of each arch coincides with the point from which the opposite arch springs. This makes the arch higher in relation to its width than a semi-circular arch which is exactly half as high as it is wide.

The Equilateral Arch gives a wide opening of satisfying proportion useful for doorways, decorative arcades and large windows.

The structural beauty of the Gothic arch means, however, that no set proportion had to be rigidly maintained. The Equilateral Arch was employed as a useful tool, not as a principle of design. This meant that narrower or wider arches were introduced into a building plan wherever necessity dictated. In the architecture of some Italian cities, notably Venice, semi-circular arches are interspersed with pointed ones.

The Equilateral Arch lends itself to filling with tracery of simple equilateral, circular and semi-circular forms. The type of tracery that evolved to fill these spaces is known in England as Geometric Decorated Gothic and can be seen to splendid effect at many English and French Cathedrals, notably Lincoln and Notre Dame in Paris. Windows of complex design and of three or more lights or vertical sections, are often designed by overlapping two or more equilateral arches.

Flamboyant arch
The Flamboyant Arch is one that is drafted from four points, the upper part of each main arc turning upwards into a smaller arc and meeting at a sharp, flame-like point. These arches create a rich and lively effect when used for window tracery and surface decoration. The form is structurally weak and has very rarely been used for large openings except when contained within a larger and more stable arch. It is not employed at all for vaulting.

Some of the most beautiful and famous traceried windows of Europe employ this type of tracery. It can be seen at St Stephen’s in Vienna, Sainte Chapelle in Paris, at the Cathedrals of Limoges and Rouen in France. In England the most famous examples are the West Window of York Minster with its design based on the Sacred Heart, the extraordinarily rich nine-light East Window at Carlisle Cathedral and the exquisite East window of Selby Abbey.

Doorways surmounted by Flamboyant mouldings are very common in both ecclesiastical and domestic architecture in France. They are much rarer in England. A notable example is the doorway to the Chapter Room at Rochester Cathedral.

The style was much used in England for wall arcading and niches. Prime examples in are in the Lady Chapel at Ely, the Screen at Lincoln and externally on the façade of Exeter Cathedral. In German and Spanish Gothic architecture it often appears as openwork screens on the exterior of buildings. The style was used to rich and sometimes extraordinary effect in both these countries, notably on the famous pulpit in Vienna Cathedral.

Depressed arch
The depressed or four-centred arch is much wider than its height and gives the visual effect of having been flattened under pressure. Its structure is achieved by drafting two arcs which rise steeply from each springing point on a small radius and then turn into two arches with a wide radius and much lower springing point.

This type of arch, when employed as a window opening, lends itself to very wide spaces, provided it is adequately supported by many narrow vertical shafts. These are often further braced by horizontal transoms. The overall effect produces a grid-like appearance of regular, delicate, rectangular forms with an emphasis on the perpendicular. It is also employed as a wall decoration in which arcade and window openings form part of the whole decorative surface.

The style, known as Perpendicular, that evolved from this treatment is specific to England, although very similar to contemporary Spanish style in particular, and was employed to great effect through the 15th century and first half of the 16th as Renaissance styles were much slower to arrive in England than in Italy and France.

It can be seen notably at the East End of Gloucester Cathedral where the East Window is said to be as large as a tennis court. There are three very famous royal chapels and one chapel-like Abbey which show the style at its most elaborate: King’s College Chapel, Cambridge; St George’s Chapel, Windsor; Henry VII’s Chapel at Westminster Abbey and Bath Abbey. However very many simpler buildings, especially churches built during the wool boom in East Anglia, are fine examples of the style.

Symbolism and ornamentation
The Gothic cathedral represented the universe in microcosm and each architectural concept, including the loftiness and huge dimensions of the structure, were intended to convey a theological message: the great glory of God. The building becomes a microcosm in two ways. Firstly, the mathematical and geometrical nature of the construction is an image of the orderly universe, in which an underlying rationality and logic can be perceived.

Secondly, the statues, sculptural decoration, stained glass and murals incorporate the essence of creation in depictions of the Labours of the Months and the Zodiac and sacred history from the Old and New Testaments and Lives of the Saints, as well as reference to the eternal in the Last Judgment and Coronation of the Virgin.

The decorative schemes usually incorporated Biblical stories, emphasizing visual typological allegories between Old Testament prophecy and the New Testament.

Many churches were very richly decorated, both inside and out. Sculpture and architectural details were often bright with coloured paint of which traces remain at the Cathedral of Chartres. Wooden ceilings and panelling were usually brightly coloured. Sometimes the stone columns of the nave were painted, and the panels in decorative wall arcading contained narratives or figures of saints. These have rarely remained intact, but may be seen at the Chapterhouse of Westminster Abbey.

Some important Gothic churches could be severely simple such as the Basilica of Mary Magdalene in Saint-Maximin, Provence where the local traditions of the sober, massive, Romanesque architecture were still strong.

Source From Wikipedia