DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.29899#0231
Bk. Y. Ch. I.
HISTORICAL NOTICE.
211
while others may have been in wood and have perished. Be that as it
may, however, from the time of Charlemagne we can trace the history
of the style with tolerable distinctness. A considerable impulse was
given to it under the Othos (936-1002), and under the Hohenstaufens
(1138-1268) the old round-arched style reached its culminating point
of perfection. If any style deserves the name of German it is this, as
it was elaborated in the valley of the Rhine, with very little assistance
from any other nation beyond the hints obtained from the close
connection that then existed between the Germans and the inhabitants
of the valley of the Po.
With the house of Hapsburg (1273) a change came over the spirit
of the country. YYhat Germany did in the 18th century was only a
repetition of what she had done in the 13th. At the later epoch she
abandoned her native literature, almost her mother tongue—to speak
French and to copy French fashions, as at the earlier epoch she forsook
her own noble style of art to adopt the French pointed Gothic. Had
she. thoroughly understood and appreciated the French style, it might
have been as well ; but it was foreign to her tastes, she had never
worked it out from the beginning, and it soon in consequence became
exaggerated, and finally degenerated into a display of tricks and tours
de force.
By a strange perversion of historical evidence, the Germans at
one time attempted to appropriate to themselves the credit of the
invention of the pointed style, calling it in consequence German archi-
tecture. The fact being that the pointed style was not only invented
but perfected in France long before the Germans thought of introducing
it ; and when they adopted it, they did so without understanding it,
and fell far short of the perfection to which it was carried by the
French in all the eclifices which they erected in the age of its greatest
development in their own country.
On the other hand, the Germans may fairly claim the invention
of the particular style which prevailed throughout Lombardy and
Germany of which we are now speaking. This style, it is true, never
was fully developed, and never reached that perfection of finish and
completeness which the pointed style attained. Notwithstanding tliis,
it contained as noble elements as the other, and was capable of as suc-
cessful cultivation, ancl had its simpler forms ancl grancler dimensions
been elaborated with the same care ancl taste, Europe might have
possessed a higher style of Mediæval architecture than she has yet
seen. The task, however, was abandoned before it was half completed,
and it is only too probable now that it can never be resumed.
A complete history of this style, worthy of its importance, is still
a desideratum which it is to be hoped the zeal and industry of German
architects will ere long supply, and vindicate their national art from
the neglect it now lies under, by illustrating as it deserves one of the
p 2
HISTORICAL NOTICE.
211
while others may have been in wood and have perished. Be that as it
may, however, from the time of Charlemagne we can trace the history
of the style with tolerable distinctness. A considerable impulse was
given to it under the Othos (936-1002), and under the Hohenstaufens
(1138-1268) the old round-arched style reached its culminating point
of perfection. If any style deserves the name of German it is this, as
it was elaborated in the valley of the Rhine, with very little assistance
from any other nation beyond the hints obtained from the close
connection that then existed between the Germans and the inhabitants
of the valley of the Po.
With the house of Hapsburg (1273) a change came over the spirit
of the country. YYhat Germany did in the 18th century was only a
repetition of what she had done in the 13th. At the later epoch she
abandoned her native literature, almost her mother tongue—to speak
French and to copy French fashions, as at the earlier epoch she forsook
her own noble style of art to adopt the French pointed Gothic. Had
she. thoroughly understood and appreciated the French style, it might
have been as well ; but it was foreign to her tastes, she had never
worked it out from the beginning, and it soon in consequence became
exaggerated, and finally degenerated into a display of tricks and tours
de force.
By a strange perversion of historical evidence, the Germans at
one time attempted to appropriate to themselves the credit of the
invention of the pointed style, calling it in consequence German archi-
tecture. The fact being that the pointed style was not only invented
but perfected in France long before the Germans thought of introducing
it ; and when they adopted it, they did so without understanding it,
and fell far short of the perfection to which it was carried by the
French in all the eclifices which they erected in the age of its greatest
development in their own country.
On the other hand, the Germans may fairly claim the invention
of the particular style which prevailed throughout Lombardy and
Germany of which we are now speaking. This style, it is true, never
was fully developed, and never reached that perfection of finish and
completeness which the pointed style attained. Notwithstanding tliis,
it contained as noble elements as the other, and was capable of as suc-
cessful cultivation, ancl had its simpler forms ancl grancler dimensions
been elaborated with the same care ancl taste, Europe might have
possessed a higher style of Mediæval architecture than she has yet
seen. The task, however, was abandoned before it was half completed,
and it is only too probable now that it can never be resumed.
A complete history of this style, worthy of its importance, is still
a desideratum which it is to be hoped the zeal and industry of German
architects will ere long supply, and vindicate their national art from
the neglect it now lies under, by illustrating as it deserves one of the
p 2