DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.29899#0157
Bk. III. Ch. IX. FEENCH GOTIIIC CATHEDRALS.
137
their capitals want simplicity ; the triforium is if anything too plain ;
and at the present day the effect of light in the church is in one
respect reversed, inasmuch as the clerestory retains its painted glass,
which in the side-aisles has been almost totally destroyed, making the
building appear as though lighted from below—an arrangement highly
destructiA' -e of architectural beauty. Notwithstanding all this, it far
surpasses those buildings which preceded it, and is only equalled by
Amiens and those completed afterwards. Their superiority however
arose from the introduction just at the time of their erection of com-
plicated window-tracery, enabling the builders to dispense almost
wholly with solid walls, and to make their clerestories at least one
blaze of gorgeous colouring. By the improvement in tracery then
introduced, they were able to dispose the glass in the most beautiful
forms, and framed in stone, so as to render it, notwithstanding its
extent, still an integral part of the whole building. In this respect
the great height of the clerestory at Amiens, and its exceeding lightness,
give it an immense advantage over the preceding churches, although
this is gained at the sacrifice, to a certain extent, of the sober and
simple majesty of the earlier examples. There is, nevertheless, so
much beauty and so much poetry in the whole effect that it is scarcely
fair to apply the cold rules of criticism to so fanciful and fascinating a
creation.
Externally the same progress is observable in these four cathedrals
as in their interior arrangements. The façade of the cathedral at
Paris (Woodcut No. 626) is simple in its outline, and bold and majestic
in all its parts, and though perhaps a little open to the charge of
heaviness, it is admirably adapted to its situation, and both in design
and proportion fits admirably to the church to which it is attached.
The flanks, too, of the building, as originally designed, must haA re been
singularly beautiful; for, though sadly disfigured by the insertion of
chapels, which obliterate the buttresses and deprive it of that light
and shade so indispensable to architectural effect, there yet remain a
simplicity of outline, and an elegance in the whole form of the building,
which have not often been excelled in Gothic structures.
The lower part of the façade at Chartres (Woodcut No. 627) is
older than that of Paris, and so plain (it might almost be called rude)
as hardly to admit of comparison with it ; but its two spires, of
different ages, are unsurpassed in France. Even in the southern or
older of the two, which was probably finished in the 12th century, we
find all the elements which were so fully developed in Germany and
elsewhere in the following centuries. The change from the square to
the octagon, and from the perpendicular part to the sloping sides of
the spire, are managed with the most perfect art ; and were not the
effect it produces destroyed by the elaborate richness of the other spire,
it would be considered one of the most beautiful of its class. The new
137
their capitals want simplicity ; the triforium is if anything too plain ;
and at the present day the effect of light in the church is in one
respect reversed, inasmuch as the clerestory retains its painted glass,
which in the side-aisles has been almost totally destroyed, making the
building appear as though lighted from below—an arrangement highly
destructiA' -e of architectural beauty. Notwithstanding all this, it far
surpasses those buildings which preceded it, and is only equalled by
Amiens and those completed afterwards. Their superiority however
arose from the introduction just at the time of their erection of com-
plicated window-tracery, enabling the builders to dispense almost
wholly with solid walls, and to make their clerestories at least one
blaze of gorgeous colouring. By the improvement in tracery then
introduced, they were able to dispose the glass in the most beautiful
forms, and framed in stone, so as to render it, notwithstanding its
extent, still an integral part of the whole building. In this respect
the great height of the clerestory at Amiens, and its exceeding lightness,
give it an immense advantage over the preceding churches, although
this is gained at the sacrifice, to a certain extent, of the sober and
simple majesty of the earlier examples. There is, nevertheless, so
much beauty and so much poetry in the whole effect that it is scarcely
fair to apply the cold rules of criticism to so fanciful and fascinating a
creation.
Externally the same progress is observable in these four cathedrals
as in their interior arrangements. The façade of the cathedral at
Paris (Woodcut No. 626) is simple in its outline, and bold and majestic
in all its parts, and though perhaps a little open to the charge of
heaviness, it is admirably adapted to its situation, and both in design
and proportion fits admirably to the church to which it is attached.
The flanks, too, of the building, as originally designed, must haA re been
singularly beautiful; for, though sadly disfigured by the insertion of
chapels, which obliterate the buttresses and deprive it of that light
and shade so indispensable to architectural effect, there yet remain a
simplicity of outline, and an elegance in the whole form of the building,
which have not often been excelled in Gothic structures.
The lower part of the façade at Chartres (Woodcut No. 627) is
older than that of Paris, and so plain (it might almost be called rude)
as hardly to admit of comparison with it ; but its two spires, of
different ages, are unsurpassed in France. Even in the southern or
older of the two, which was probably finished in the 12th century, we
find all the elements which were so fully developed in Germany and
elsewhere in the following centuries. The change from the square to
the octagon, and from the perpendicular part to the sloping sides of
the spire, are managed with the most perfect art ; and were not the
effect it produces destroyed by the elaborate richness of the other spire,
it would be considered one of the most beautiful of its class. The new