DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.29899#0149
Bk. III. Ch. YIII.
CENTRAL FRANCE.
129
masonic lodges of Germany in the 14th centuiy destroyed the art.
When freemasonry became so powerful as to usurp to itself the
designing as well as the execution of churches and other buildings,
there was an end of true art, though accompanied by the production
of some of the most wonderful specimens of stone-cutting and of con-
structive skill that were ever produced. This, however, is “ building,”
not architecture ; and though it may excite the admiration of the
vulgar, it never will touch the feelings of the true artist or the man
of taste.
This decline of true art had nowhere shown itself during the 13th
century, with which we are concerned at present. Then architecture
was truly progressive : every man and every class in the country lent
their aid, each in his own department, and all worked together to pro-
duce those wonderful buildings which still excite our admiration. The
masons performed their part, and it was an important one : but neither
to them nor to their employers, such as the Abbé Suger, Maurice de
Sully, Robert de Lusarches, or Fulbert of Chartres, is the whole merit
to be ascribed, but to all classes of the French nation, carrying on
steadily a combined movement towards a well-defined end.
In the following pages, therefore, it will not be necessary to recur
to the freemasons nor their masters—at least not more than incidentally
-—till we come to Germany. Nor will it be necessary to attempt to
define who was the architect of any particular building. The names
usually fixed upon by antiquaries after so much search are merely
those of the master-masons or foremen of the works, who had nothing
whatever to do with the main designs of the buildings. The simpie
fact that all the churches of any particular age are so like to one
another, both in plan and detail, and so nearly equal in merit, is alone
sufficient to prove howlittle the individual had to do with their design,
and how much was due to the age and the progress the style had
achieved at that time. This, too, has always proved to be the case,
not only in Europe, but in every corner of the world, and in every age
when architecture has been a true and living art.
VOL. II.
K
CENTRAL FRANCE.
129
masonic lodges of Germany in the 14th centuiy destroyed the art.
When freemasonry became so powerful as to usurp to itself the
designing as well as the execution of churches and other buildings,
there was an end of true art, though accompanied by the production
of some of the most wonderful specimens of stone-cutting and of con-
structive skill that were ever produced. This, however, is “ building,”
not architecture ; and though it may excite the admiration of the
vulgar, it never will touch the feelings of the true artist or the man
of taste.
This decline of true art had nowhere shown itself during the 13th
century, with which we are concerned at present. Then architecture
was truly progressive : every man and every class in the country lent
their aid, each in his own department, and all worked together to pro-
duce those wonderful buildings which still excite our admiration. The
masons performed their part, and it was an important one : but neither
to them nor to their employers, such as the Abbé Suger, Maurice de
Sully, Robert de Lusarches, or Fulbert of Chartres, is the whole merit
to be ascribed, but to all classes of the French nation, carrying on
steadily a combined movement towards a well-defined end.
In the following pages, therefore, it will not be necessary to recur
to the freemasons nor their masters—at least not more than incidentally
-—till we come to Germany. Nor will it be necessary to attempt to
define who was the architect of any particular building. The names
usually fixed upon by antiquaries after so much search are merely
those of the master-masons or foremen of the works, who had nothing
whatever to do with the main designs of the buildings. The simpie
fact that all the churches of any particular age are so like to one
another, both in plan and detail, and so nearly equal in merit, is alone
sufficient to prove howlittle the individual had to do with their design,
and how much was due to the age and the progress the style had
achieved at that time. This, too, has always proved to be the case,
not only in Europe, but in every corner of the world, and in every age
when architecture has been a true and living art.
VOL. II.
K