Stones of Venice, Volume 2 — 16 - Chapter 06, The Nature of Gothic, part 5

§ LXXVI.

There are many subtle sympathies and affections which join to confirm the Gothic mind in this peculiar choice of subject; and when we add to the influence of these, the necessities consequent upon the employment of a rougher material, compelling the workman to seek for vigor of effect, rather than refinement of texture or accuracy of form, we have direct and manifest causes for much of the difference between the northern and southern cast of conception: but there are indirect causes holding a far more important place in the Gothic heart, though less immediate in their influence on design.

Strength of will, independence of character, resoluteness of purpose, impatience of undue control, and that general tendency to set the individual reason against authority, and the individual deed against destiny, which, in the Northern tribes, has opposed itself throughout all ages to the languid submission, in the Southern, of thought to tradition, and purpose to fatality, are all more or less traceable in the rigid lines, vigorous and various masses, and daringly projecting and independent structure of the Northern Gothic ornament: while the opposite feelings are in like manner legible in the graceful and softly guided waves and wreathed bands, in which Southern decoration is constantly disposed; in its tendency to lose its independence, and fuse itself into the surface of the masses upon which it is traced; and in the expression seen so often, in the arrangement of those masses themselves, of an abandonment of their strength to an inevitable necessity, or a listless repose.

§ LXXVII.

There is virtue in the measure, and error in the excess, of both these characters of mind, and in both of the styles which they have created; the best architecture, and the best temper, are those which unite them both; and this fifth impulse of the Gothic heart is therefore that which needs most caution in its indulgence.

It is more definitely Gothic than any other, but the best Gothic building is not that which is _most_ Gothic: it can hardly be too frank in its confession of rudeness, hardly too rich in its changefulness, hardly too faithful in its naturalism; but it may go too far in its rigidity, and, like the great Puritan spirit in its extreme, lose itself either in frivolity of division, or perversity of purpose.

[67] It actually did so in its later times; but it is gladdening to remember that in its utmost nobleness, the very temper which has been thought most adverse to it, the Protestant spirit of self-dependence and inquiry, was expressed in its every line.

Faith and aspiration there were, in every Christian ecclesiastical building, from the first century to the fifteenth; but the moral habits to which England in this age owes the kind of greatness that she has,--the habits of philosophical investigation, of accurate thought, of domestic seclusion and independence, of stern self-reliance, and sincere upright searching into religious truth,--were only traceable in the features which were the distinctive creation of the Gothic schools, in the veined foliage, and thorny fretwork, and shadowy niche, and buttressed pier, and fearless height of subtle pinnacle and crested tower, sent like an "unperplexed question up to Heaven."

[68] § LXXVIII.

Last, because the least essential, of the constituent elements of this noble school, was placed that of REDUNDANCE,--the uncalculating bestowal of the wealth of its labor.

There is, indeed, much Gothic, and that of the best period, in which this element is hardly traceable, and which depends for its effect almost exclusively on loveliness of simple design and grace of uninvolved proportion: still, in the most characteristic buildings, a certain portion of their effect depends upon accumulation of ornament; and many of those which have most influence on the minds of men, have attained it by means of this attribute alone.

And although, by careful study of the school, it is possible to arrive at a condition of taste which shall be better contented by a few perfect lines than by a whole façade covered with fretwork, the building which only satisfies such a taste is not to be considered the best.

For the very first requirement of Gothic architecture being, as we saw above, that it shall both admit the aid, and appeal to the admiration, of the rudest as well as the most refined minds, the richness of the work is, paradoxical as the statement may appear, a part of its humility.

No architecture is so haughty as that which is simple; which refuses to address the eye, except in a few clear and forceful lines; which implies, in offering so little to our regards, that all it has offered is perfect; and disdains, either by the complexity or the attractiveness of its features, to embarrass our investigation, or betray us into delight.

That humility, which is the very life of the Gothic school, is shown not only in the imperfection, but in the accumulation, of ornament.

The inferior rank of the workman is often shown as much in the richness, as the roughness, of his work;

and if the co-operation of every hand, and the sympathy of every heart, are to be received, we must be content to allow the redundance which disguises the failure of the feeble, and wins the regard of the inattentive.

There are, however, far nobler interests mingling, in the Gothic heart, with the rude love of decorative accumulation: a magnificent enthusiasm, which feels as if it never could do enough to reach the fulness of its ideal; an unselfishness of sacrifice, which would rather cast fruitless labor before the altar than stand idle in the market; and, finally, a profound sympathy with the fulness and wealth of the material universe, rising out of that Naturalism whose operation we have already endeavored to define.

The sculptor who sought for his models among the forest leaves, could not but quickly and deeply feel that complexity need not involve the loss of grace, nor richness that of repose; and every hour which he spent in the study of the minute and various work of Nature, made him feel more forcibly the barrenness of what was best in that of man: nor is it to be wondered at, that, seeing her perfect and exquisite creations poured forth in a profusion which conception could not grasp nor calculation sum, he should think that it ill became him to be niggardly of his own rude craftsmanship;

and where he saw throughout the universe a faultless beauty lavished on measureless spaces of broidered field and blooming mountain, to grudge his poor and imperfect labor to the few stones that he had raised one upon another, for habitation or memorial.

The years of his life passed away before his task was accomplished; but generation succeeded generation with unwearied enthusiasm, and the cathedral front was at last lost in the tapestry of its traceries, like a rock among the thickets and herbage of spring.

§ LXXIX.

We have now, I believe, obtained a view approaching to completeness of the various moral or imaginative elements which composed the inner spirit of Gothic architecture.

We have, in the second place, to define its outward form.

Now, as the Gothic spirit is made up of several elements, some of which may, in particular examples, be wanting, so the Gothic form is made up of minor conditions of form, some of which may, in particular examples, be imperfectly developed.

We cannot say, therefore, that a building is either Gothic or not Gothic in form, any more than we can in spirit.

We can only say that it is more or less Gothic, in proportion to the number of Gothic forms which it unites.

§ LXXX.

There have been made lately many subtle and ingenious endeavors to base the definition of Gothic form entirely upon the roof-vaulting;

endeavors which are both forced and futile: for many of the best Gothic buildings in the world have roofs of timber, which have no more connexion with the main structure of the walls of the edifice than a hat has with that of the head it protects; and other Gothic buildings are merely enclosures of spaces, as ramparts and walls, or enclosures of gardens or cloisters, and have no roofs at all, in the sense in which the word "roof" is commonly accepted.

But every reader who has ever taken the slightest interest in architecture must know that there is a great popular impression on this matter, which maintains itself stiffly in its old form, in spite of all ratiocination and definition; namely, that a flat lintel from pillar to pillar is Grecian, a round arch Norman or Romanesque, and a pointed arch Gothic.

And the old popular notion, as far as it goes, is perfectly right, and can never be bettered.

The most striking outward feature in all Gothic architecture is, that it is composed of pointed arches, as in Romanesque that it is in like manner composed of round; and this distinction would be quite as clear, though the roofs were taken off every cathedral in Europe.

And yet, if we examine carefully into the real force and meaning of the term "roof" we shall perhaps be able to retain the old popular idea in a definition of Gothic architecture which shall also express whatever dependence that architecture has upon true forms of roofing.

§ LXXXI.

In Chap.

XIII.

of the first volume, the reader will remember that roofs were considered as generally divided into two parts; the roof proper, that is to say, the shell, vault, or ceiling, internally visible; and the roof-mask, which protects this lower roof from the weather.

In some buildings these parts are united in one framework; but, in most, they are more or less independent of each other, and in nearly all Gothic buildings there is considerable interval between them.

Now it will often happen, as above noticed, that owing to the nature of the apartments required, or the materials at hand, the roof proper may be flat, coved, or domed, in buildings which in their walls employ pointed arches, and are, in the straitest sense of the word, Gothic in all other respects.

Yet so far forth as the roofing alone is concerned, they are not Gothic unless the pointed arch be the principal form adopted either in the stone vaulting or the timbers of the roof proper.

I shall say then, in the first place, that "Gothic architecture is that which uses, if possible, the pointed arch in the roof proper."

This is the first step in our definition.

§ LXXXII.

Secondly.

Although there may be many advisable or necessary forms for the lower roof or ceiling, there is, in cold countries exposed to rain and snow, only one advisable form for the roof-mask, and that is the gable, for this alone will throw off both rain and snow from all parts of its surface as speedily as possible.

Snow can lodge on the top of a dome, not on the ridge of a gable.

And thus, as far as roofing is concerned, the gable is a far more essential feature of Northern architecture than the pointed vault, for the one is a thorough necessity, the other often a graceful conventionality: the gable occurs in the timber roof of every dwelling-house and every cottage, but not the vault; and the gable built on a polygonal or circular plan, is the origin of the turret and spire;[69] and all the so-called aspiration of Gothic architecture is, as above noticed (Vol. I.

Chap.

XII. § VI.

), nothing more than its developement.

So that we must add to our definition another clause, which will be, at present, by far the most important, and it will stand thus: "Gothic architecture is that which uses the pointed arch for the roof proper, and the gable for the roof-mask."

§ LXXXIII.

And here, in passing, let us notice a principle as true in architecture as in morals.

It is not the _compelled_, but the _wilful_, transgression of law which corrupts the character.

Sin is not in the act, but in the choice.

It is a law for Gothic architecture, that it shall use the pointed arch for its roof proper; but because, in many cases of domestic building, this becomes impossible for want of room (the whole height of the apartment being required everywhere), or in various other ways inconvenient, flat ceilings may be used, and yet the Gothic shall not lose its purity.

But in the roof-mask, there can be no necessity nor reason for a change of form: the gable is the best; and if any other--dome, or bulging crown, or whatsoever else--be employed at all, it must be in pure caprice, and wilful transgression of law.

And wherever, therefore, this is done, the Gothic has lost its character; it is pure Gothic no more.

§ LXXXIV.

And this last clause of the definition is to be more strongly insisted upon, because it includes multitudes of buildings, especially domestic, which are Gothic in spirit, but which we are not in the habit of embracing in our general conception of Gothic architecture;

multitudes of street dwelling-houses and straggling country farm-houses, built with little care for beauty, or observance of Gothic laws in vaults or windows, and yet maintaining their character by the sharp and quaint gables of the roofs.

And, for the reason just given, a house is far more Gothic which has square windows, and a boldly gabled roof, than the one which has pointed arches for the windows, and a domed or flat roof.

For it often happened in the best Gothic times, as it must in all times, that it was more easy and convenient to make a window square than pointed; not but that, as above emphatically stated, the richness of church architecture was also found in domestic; and systematically "when the pointed arch was used in the church it was used in the street," only in all times there were cases in which men could not build as they would, and were obliged to construct their doors or windows in the readiest way; and this readiest way was then, in small work, as it will be to the end of time, to put a flat stone for a lintel and build the windows as in Fig. VIII.

; and the occurrence of such windows in a building or a street will not un-Gothicize them, so long as the bold gable roof be retained, and the spirit of the work be visibly Gothic in other respects.

But if the roof be wilfully and conspicuously of any other form than the gable,--if it be domed, or Turkish, or Chinese,--the building has positive corruption mingled with its Gothic elements, in proportion to the conspicuousness of the roof; and, if not absolutely un-Gothicized, can maintain its character only by such vigor of vital Gothic energy in other parts as shall cause the roof to be forgotten, thrown off like an eschar from the living frame.

Nevertheless, we must always admit that it _may_ be forgotten, and that if the Gothic seal be indeed set firmly on the walls, we are not to cavil at the forms reserved for the tiles and leads.

For, observe, as our definition at present stands, being understood of large roofs only, it will allow a conical glass-furnace to be a Gothic building, but will _not_ allow so much, either of the Duomo of Florence, or the Baptistery of Pisa.

We must either mend it, therefore, or understand it in some broader sense.

[Illustration: Fig. VIII.

] § LXXXV.

And now, if the reader will look back to the fifth paragraph of Chap.

III.

Vol. I.

, he will find that I carefully extended my definition of a roof so as to include more than is usually understood by the term.

It was there said to be the covering of a space, _narrow or wide_.

It does not in the least signify, with respect to the real nature of the covering, whether the space protected be two feet wide, or ten; though in the one case we call the protection an arch, in the other a vault or roof.

But the real point to be considered is, the manner in which this protection stands, and not whether it is narrow or broad.

We call the vaulting of a bridge "an arch," because it is narrow with respect to the river it crosses; but if it were built above us on the ground, we should call it a waggon vault, because then we should feel the breadth of it.

The real question is the nature of the curve, not the extent of space over which it is carried: and this is more the case with respect to Gothic than to any other architecture; for, in the greater number of instances, the form of the roof is entirely dependent on the ribs; the domical shells being constructed in all kinds of inclinations, quite undeterminable by the eye, and all that is definite in their character being fixed by the curves of the ribs.

[Illustration: Fig. IX.

] § LXXXVI.

Let us then consider our definition as including the narrowest arch, or tracery bar, as well as the broadest roof, and it will be nearly a perfect one.

For the fact is, that all good Gothic is nothing more than the developement, in various ways, and on every conceivable scale, of the group formed by the _pointed arch for the bearing line_ below, and _the gable for the protecting line_ above; and from the huge, gray, shaly slope of the cathedral roof, with its elastic pointed vaults beneath, to the slight crown-like points that enrich the smallest niche of its doorway, one law and one expression will be found in all.

The modes of support and of decoration are infinitely various, but the real character of the building, in all good Gothic, depends upon the single lines of the gable over the pointed arch, Fig. IX.

, endlessly rearranged or repeated.

The larger woodcut, Fig. X.

, represents three characteristic conditions of the treatment of the group: _a_, from a tomb at Verona (1328); _b_, one of the lateral porches at Abbeville;

_c_, one of the uppermost points of the great western façade of Rouen Cathedral; both these last being, I believe, early work of the fifteenth century.

The forms of the pure early English and French Gothic are too well known to need any notice; my reason will appear presently for choosing, by way of example, these somewhat rare conditions.

[Illustration: Fig. X.

] § LXXXVII.

But, first, let us try whether we cannot get the forms of the other great architectures of the world broadly expressed by relations of the same lines into which we have compressed the Gothic.

We may easily do this if the reader will first allow me to remind him of the true nature of the pointed arch, as it was expressed in § X. Chap.

X.

of the first volume.

It was said there, that it ought to be called a "curved gable," for, strictly speaking, an "arch" cannot be "pointed."

The so-called pointed arch ought always to be considered as a gable, with its sides curved in order to enable them to bear pressure from without.

Thus considering it, there are but three ways in which an interval between piers can be bridged,--the three ways represented by A, B, and C, Fig. XI.

,[70] on page 213,--A, the lintel; B, the round arch; C, the gable.

All the architects in the world will never discover any other ways of bridging a space than these three; they may vary the curve of the arch, or curve the sides of the gable, or break them; but in doing this they are merely modifying or subdividing, not adding to the generic forms.

§ LXXXVIII.

Now there are three good architectures in the world, and there never can be more, correspondent to each of these three simple ways of covering in a space, which is the original function of all architectures.

And those three architectures are _pure_ exactly in proportion to the simplicity and directness with which they express the condition of roofing on which they are founded.

They have many interesting varieties, according to their scale, manner of decoration, and character of the nations by whom they are practised, but all their varieties are finally referable to the three great heads:-- A, Greek: Architecture of the Lintel.

B, Romanesque: Architecture of the Round Arch.

C, Gothic: Architecture of the Gable.

[Illustration: Fig. XI.

] The three names, Greek, Romanesque, and Gothic, are indeed inaccurate when used in this vast sense, because they imply national limitations;

but the three architectures may nevertheless not unfitly receive their names from those nations by whom they were carried to the highest perfections.

We may thus briefly state their existing varieties.

§ LXXXIX.

A.

GREEK: Lintel Architecture.

The worst of the three; and, considered with reference to stone construction, always in some measure barbarous.

Its simplest type is Stonehenge; its most refined, the Parthenon; its noblest, the Temple of Karnak.

In the hands of the Egyptian, it is sublime; in those of the Greek, pure; in those of the Roman, rich; and in those of the Renaissance builder, effeminate.

B.

ROMANESQUE: Round-arch Architecture.

Never thoroughly developed until Christian times.

It falls into two great branches, Eastern and Western, or Byzantine and Lombardic; changing respectively in process of time, with certain helps from each other, into Arabian Gothic and Teutonic Gothic.

Its most perfect Lombardic type is the Duomo of Pisa; its most perfect Byzantine type (I believe), St. Mark's at Venice.

Its highest glory is, that it has no corruption.

It perishes in giving birth to another architecture as noble as itself.

C.

GOTHIC: Architecture of the Gable.

The daughter of the Romanesque;

and, like the Romanesque, divided into two great branches, Western and Eastern, or pure Gothic and Arabian Gothic; of which the latter is called Gothic, only because it has many Gothic forms, pointed arches, vaults, &c. , but its spirit remains Byzantine, more especially in the form of the roof-mask, of which, with respect to these three great families, we have next to determine the typical form.

§ XC.

For, observe, the distinctions we have hitherto been stating, depend on the form of the stones first laid from pier to pier; that is to say, of the simplest condition of roofs proper.

Adding the relations of the roof-mask to these lines, we shall have the perfect type of form for each school.

[Illustration: Fig. XII.

] In the Greek, the Western Romanesque, and Western Gothic, the roof-mask is the gable: in the Eastern Romanesque, and Eastern Gothic, it is the dome: but I have not studied the roofing of either of these last two groups, and shall not venture to generalize them in a diagram.

But the three groups, in the hands of the Western builders, may be thus simply represented: _a_, Fig. XII.

, Greek;[71] _b_, Western Romanesque; _c_, Western, or true, Gothic.

Now, observe, first, that the relation of the roof-mask to the roof proper, in the Greek type, forms that pediment which gives its most striking character to the temple, and is the principal recipient of its sculptural decoration.

The relation of these lines, therefore, is just as important in the Greek as in the Gothic schools.

[Illustration: Fig. XIII.

] § XCI.

Secondly, the reader must observe the difference of steepness in the Romanesque and Gothic gables.

This is not an unimportant distinction, nor an undecided one.

The Romanesque gable does not pass gradually into the more elevated form; there is a great gulf between the two; the whole effect of all Southern architecture being dependent upon the use of the flat gable, and of all Northern upon that of the acute.

I

need not here dwell upon the difference between the lines of an Italian village, or the flat tops of most Italian towers, and the peaked gables and spires of the North, attaining their most fantastic developement, I believe, in Belgium: but it may be well to state the law of separation, namely, that a Gothic gable _must_ have all its angles acute, and a Romanesque one _must_ have the upper one obtuse: or, to give the reader a simple practical rule, take any gable, _a_ or _b_, Fig. XIII.

, and strike a semicircle on its base; if its top rises above the semicircle, as at _b_, it is a Gothic gable; if it falls beneath it, a Romanesque one; but the best forms in each group are those which are distinctly steep, or distinctly low.

In the figure _f_ is, perhaps, the average of Romanesque slope, and _g_ of Gothic.

[Illustration: Fig. XIV.

] § XCII.

But although we do not find a transition from one school into the other in the slope of the gables, there is often a confusion between the two schools in the association of the gable with the arch below it.

It has just been stated that the pure Romanesque condition is the round arch under the low gable, _a_, Fig. XIV.

, and the pure Gothic condition is the pointed arch under the high gable, _b_.

But in the passage from one style to the other, we sometimes find the two conditions reversed;

the pointed arch under a low gable, as _d_, or the round arch under a high gable, as _c_.

The form _d_ occurs in the tombs of Verona, and _c_ in the doors of Venice.

§ XCIII.

We have thus determined the relation of Gothic to the other architectures of the world, as far as regards the main lines of its construction; but there is still one word which needs to be added to our definition of its form, with respect to a part of its decoration, which rises out of that construction.

We have seen that the first condition of its form is, that it shall have pointed arches.

When Gothic is perfect, therefore, it will follow that the pointed arches must be built in the strongest possible manner.

[Illustration: Fig. XV.

] Now, if the reader will look back to Chapter XI.

of Vol. I.

, he will find the subject of the masonry of the pointed arch discussed at length, and the conclusion deduced, that of all possible forms of the pointed arch (a certain weight of material being given), that generically represented at _e_, Fig. XV.

, is the strongest.

In fact, the reader can see in a moment that the weakness of the pointed arch is in its flanks, and that by merely thickening them gradually at this point all chance of fracture is removed.

Or, perhaps, more simply still:--Suppose a gable built of stone, as at _a_, and pressed upon from without by a weight in the direction of the arrow, clearly it would be liable to fall in, as at _b_.

To prevent this, we make a pointed arch of it, as at _c_; and now it cannot fall inwards, but if pressed upon from above may give way outwards, as at _d_.

But at last we build as at _e_, and now it can neither fall out nor in.