Gothic Art

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Gothic Art
Thou has ordered all things in measure and
number and weight (Wisdom 1120b)
Let there be light! (Genesis 13)
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Spread of Gothic black 12th Century, red
13th-14th centuries
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The Reach of Gothic
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The Abbey of St. Denis

• The higher world casts its light on the lower
  world, and, in sensible things, is like a trace
  of purely spiritual things
• St. Denys the Areopagite

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Over the main doorway, Suger had this written

• Whoever thou mayest be, who art minded to praise
  this door,
• Wonder not at the gold, nor at its cost, but at
  the work.
• The work shines in its nobility by shining
  nobly,
• May it illumine the spirit, so that, through its
  trusty lights,
• The spirit may reach the true Light in which
  Christ is the Door.
• The golden door proclaims the nature of the
  Inward
• Through sensible things, the heavy spirit is
  raised to the Truth
• From the depths, it rises to the Light

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St. Denis Ambulatory
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On the Second Sunday of June 1144, the choir of
St. Denis was consecrated

• In this gathering the builders of the very first
  Gothic cathedrals were represented.
• A medieval liturgist, Durand de Mende, said of
  the rite Everything which is here performed
  visibly, evokes God in the soul invisibly, for
  the soul is the true temple of the true GodThe
  church to be consecrated is none other than the
  soul, which must be sanctified

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Transition at Vezelay Early Gothic choir showers
light on Romanesque Nave
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St.-Sernin
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Amiens (476 ext. long, 139 high nave)
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Amiens closer views
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Choir
                                                
                                                  
      Left Saint-Sernin, Toulouse, Romanesque
Pilgrimage Church, c. 1080-1120 Right
Notre-Dame, Amiens, French Gothic Cathedral,
begun 1220
Nave
Ambulatory
Transept
The video to be shown tomorrow explains the
flying buttress, the innovation on which this new
design is founded.
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Romanesque vs. Gothic (Abbey of St. Etienne,
Caen)
Vaulting
Clerestory
Triforium
Main arcade
Nave (1064-1120)
Choir (c. 1200)
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Some Gothic Styles

• Early Gothic beginning around 1140 (St. Denis).
• High Gothic/Rayonnant (St. Chapelle, Paris, 1248)
• Perpendicular (choir of Gloucester cathedral,
  begun 1330)
• Flamboyant (St. Maclou, Rouen, 1500-14, and
  others)

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Rayonnant St. Chapelle

• Rayonnant (Decorated Gothic in England) was
  characterized by the application of increasingly
  elaborate geometrical decoration

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More St. Chapelle

• During the period of the Rayonnant style a
  significant change took place in Gothic
  architecture. After 1250, Gothic architects
  became more concerned with the creation of rich
  visual effects through decoration. This
  decoration took such forms as pinnacles (upright
  members, often spired, that capped piers,
  buttresses, or other exterior elements),
  moldings, and, especially, window tracery.

(Some classify this as Flamboyant)
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More St. Chapelle
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Perpendicular Gloucester (choir)

• The Perpendicular style is a phase of late
  Gothic unique to England. Its characteristic
  feature is the fanvault, which seems to have
  begun as an interesting extension of the
  Rayonnant idea in the cloisters of Gloucester
  cathedral (begun 1337).

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More Gloucester
The Choir
The Tower
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More Gloucester
Vaulting in the nave
Vaulting in the cloisters
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Flamboyant

• In France the Rayonnant style evolved about 1280
  into an even more decorative phase called the
  Flamboyant style. The most conspicuous feature of
  the Flamboyant Gothic style is the dominance
  instone window tracery of a flamelike S-shaped
  curve.
• In the Flamboyant style wall space was reduced
  to the minimum of supporting vertical shafts to
  allow an almost continuous expanse of glass and
  tracery. Structural logic was obscured by the
  virtual covering of the exteriors of buildings
  with tracery,

St. Maclou (Rouen) 15-16th Centuries
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St. Severin-St. Nicholas (Paris)
15th Century
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More St. Maclou
Added beginning of 16th Century
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Leuven, Belgium Town Hall
15th Century
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Milan Cathedral (Duomo)
The biggest and greatest late gothic architecture
in Italy.1386-1577, west front 1616-1813
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Milan Cathedral Flying Buttress