CHAP. IV. POINTED ARCHITECTURE. 530. The history of the pointed styles on the contineat of Europe is a matter which may be treated in various ways, but the limit within which this portion of our labour is restricted, in order to render it concordant with the space allotted to other subjects, obliges the choice of the headings France, Belgium, Germany, Spain, and Italy, with as near an approach to a chronological arrangement of the buildings that will serve for examples, as the looseness of annalists and the differences in chronicles will permit. This sequence will give the reader a general view of the subject, which will enable him to understand the irregularity of the progress of pointed art in those countries in comparison with the gradual transition and uniform character which are so generally observable in England; and will prepare him for his own particular study of the characteristics of the schools; these are as pumerous as the provinces, almost as numerous as the cities, in the countries to which we refer. He may observe in the following notices several examples of difficulties as to dates; the periods assigned to our examples have been determined by authors who, being natives, may be supposed to have given as much time and learing to the chronology, as English critics have dedicated to the style, of the respective countries. France. The 531. The schools of pointed architecture were confined to certain portions of the country. They arose in the Ile de France, Champagne, Picardy, Burgundy and Bourbon, Maine and Anjou, and Normandy, here named in the order in which. before the middle of the 13th century, the new style was adopted. This did not develope itself until a late period in Bretagne, where a character, which corresponds (in the opinion of M. Viollet le Duc) as much to that of England as to that of Maine and Normandy, was always preserved. style of the royal domain hardly penetrated into Guienne before 1370; and even its official appearance after 1247 at Carcassonne did not procure for it an influence in Auvergne and Provence; they can hardly be said to have ever adopted Gothic architecture. Indeed, the latter district did not belong to France until 1481, and almost passed at once from Įdegenerated romanesque traditions to renaissance art, exhibiting scarcely any mark of the influence of northern Gothic. 532. With regard to ecclesiastical architecture in the south of France, it may be said that the buildin s having arches that are positively pointed, date principally in the 14th and two subsequent centuries, as the cathedrals at Alby and Rhodez, the bell-tower at Mende, and the front of the church of St. Maurice at Vienne. In the south, where the climate resembles that of Italy in not requiring high-pitched roofs, the pointed arch seems a foreig. element; it is there in body, but not in spirit. The architecture is just as before; the pillars are few and thick; the capitals are square, and have large leaves or scrolls; the ornaments are either barbarous or are imitated from classic works; the towers are few and massive; and the fronts always have a pediment of steeper rake than any antique example can show, under which is a doorway having a round arch, or else one so slightly pointed that the point is only detected by a careful eye. 533 Until the middle of the 12th century (a few cases earlier may be exceptional), the semicircular arch appears to have been almost exclusively employed; but immediately afterwards, the style romano-ogical or style roman de transition, exhibits the pointed arch, crocket capitals, and groined vaulting with diagonal ribs, on a crowd of civil and ecclesiastical buildings. There are purely romanesque churches, where the small openings have semicircular heads; the four great arches carrying the pendentives of the central lantern or dome, as has already been noticed (par. 307 ). being pointed. In the centre of France there are churches that are altogether romanesque in plan, in style of decoration, and in ; form of pillars, that have none but pointed openings, proving that a thoroughly defined architectural system had been slowly constituted, which the architects of the 13th century merely rendered more homogeneous and more perfect; these buildings are romanesque, if style depends upon plan, capitals, and form of mouldings; they are pointed, if it depends upon the form of the arch. 534. Amongst the structures which date in the 12th century may be named St. Pierrelez- Bitry, with three circular windows in its apse; St. Martin at Cuise, having a squareended choir like Notre Dame at Conchy; and St. Etienne near Pierrefonds; the cathedral at Tulle; St. Julien at Brioude; St. Nectaire, St. Symphorien, and St Genès at Thiers; St. Nazaire at Carcassonne; with the churches at Mozat, Noirlac, and St. Amand, all being situate in Auvergne; St. Martin at Laon; St. Pierre at L'Assant; St. Pierre at Soissons; and the churches at Braisne and Coucy-le-Chateau. Buildings in They are which the pointed arch seems perfectly secondary to its rival, are the portal of the cat dral at Bayeux and the churches at Conchy, Civray, Senlis, and Vézelay, with those St. Remi at Reims, and of Notre Dame at Chartres, Noyon, and Poitiers. 535. The churches which have domical coverings deserve a short notice. cathedral at Cahors, St. Front (figs. 159 and 160), and St. Étienne de la Cité, both Périgueux, the cathedral at Puy, and the churches at Souillac (fig. 158.), Angoulême, Roulet, and Loches, with the fourteen-sided church at Rieux-Mérinville. 536. A French critic of considerable repute thinks that necessity, facility, and solidity construction, and a gift of varying the decoration, alone prompted the use of the poin arch in the south-east of France, where are buildings showing that arch in their lov portions, while the upper parts have semicircular work of the same age. It theref appears that if the architects in the southern provinces were the first to make the pointed ar they were also the last to adopt the systematic and absolute use of it; and the usual clas fications of the pointed styles cannot serve as perfect indexes to the period of the empl ment of the subdivisions that have been made, although it might have been supposed t the spirit of methodical order which has eminently distinguished the French nation si 1790 would have shown itself in an analysis of the architecture of their country. Τ Comité Historique des Arts et Monuments, has issued the following table as in some s authoritative: Architecture with the round arch. Architecture with the round and pointed arch. Second half of the twelfth century Style Romano-ogiral Architecture with pointed arches. THIRD PERIOD. Roman de transition Style ogiral primaire en lancette Style ogical seconda or rayonnant. Style ogival tertiaire flamboyant. 537. But this list is not universally used, and in reading the works of any French auth on mediæval architecture, it is necessary to ascertain whether he has followed it, or the tal propounded by M. De Caumont as here given (with Mr. Poynter's parallel of Engli periods): Second Epoch 1460 to.... In England. Norman 1066 to 1189 Transition 1189 to 1199 Early English First Epoch (lancet) 1199 to 12 Decorated English 1307 to 1377 Perpendicular English or Tu 1377 to.... For the château, M. de Caumont also proposed the subjoined classification: 1st class. Fifth to tenth century: Primitive 5th class. Fourteenth and first half of teenth century: Second and tertiary pointed. Second half of fifteenth and 6th 538. Before entering into the consideration of the style ogwal, it will be desirable explain that ogive, also written augive, designated originally a diagonal band in groi vaulting formed by the intersection either of barrel vaults or of keel vaults, to both which the terms voûte en croisée d'ogives, or voûte d'ogives, were applicable. As equival to a pointed arch, ogive is merely the popular confirmation of an error committed by the ignorance of some writers in the present century. 539. Heavy roofs, having few ribs with great width of plain intrados, and carried by masses of walling, with small openings, are characteristic of Romanesque work. Its successor was exactly the reverse: the subdivision of roofing into a collection of light ribs with no marked intrados, the growth of the engaged or disengaged pillars into the lines of the vaulting, and the carriage of the weight of the ribs by buttresses that form the resisting points of walls which are merely frames to windows, are distinctive features of the Gothic architecture of the 13th century, with the addition of the pointed arch which had previously been employed in ways that tended to the developement of the style ogival primaire As an example of the transitional character of the style in this period, the two bays, fig 231. from the cathedral in Paris, and fig. 232. from the church of the abbey at St. Denis, may be compared as having been executed respectively at the beginning and end of the period. The sculptors do not seem to have studied nature beyond exhibiting the costume of their period; and if they chose models at all for their foliage, these were furnished by indigenous plants. The great attention paid in the 11th century to ancient literature is clearly responsible for the centaurs and other fabulous creatures then used for Fig. 251. NOTRE DAME, PARIS. ornament. In like manner, the devo 540. Out of the large number of masterpieces in architecture in the 18th century m be selected the cathedrals at Lisieux, Lyon, and Narbonne, executed in the early part that period; Bordeaux and Chalons-sur-Saône belong to the year 1250; and Coutan dates in the last half of that century. Great part of the cathedrals at Bourges, Dij Laon, Nantes, Nevers, Senlis, and Sens; the choir and aisles at Auxerre; the choir a chapels, with the upper part of the nave, at Bayeux; the nave and choir at Séez; t churches at Ourscamp, St. Denis, St. Jean aux-Bois, and St. Maximin; those of Pierre at Avalon, and of St. Victor at Marseilles; the Ste. Chapelle at Paris; the choir the church at St. Nazaire at Carcassonne; the nave and most of the choir of that of: Pierre at Lisieux; the chapels, aisles, and choir of that of St. Julien at Mans; the choir that of St. Nicaise at Rouen; and the Hotel-Dieu at Louvres, were constructed in t course of this period. 541. The cathedrals which are usually taken as affording standards of the style a Fig. 234. PLAN OF REIMS CATHEDRAL. Chartres, Beauvais, Reims, Par Amiens, and Rouen, of whi Reims is perhaps more consiste than Amiens. They are unive sally considered to be two of t finest examples of the style in t world. The former, which w begun 1212, but not quite finish till 1430, is in the form of a Lat cross on the plan (fig. 234.); i length from east to west is 492 fi and its breadth, measured to th extremities of the arms of th transepts, is 190 ft. The width of the transepts is 98 ft., and the towers, 270 ft. from tl ground, are still imperfect, because their open spires have never been erected 542. The cathedral of Amiens, begun 1220 by Robert de Luzarches, but continued an F.R. 251. XXXXXX FLAN OF AMIENS CATHEDRAL. completed, 1269, by Thomas an Regnault de Cormont, except th west front that was not finishe until the end of the 14th centur is 444 ft. long and 84 ft. wi (fig. 237.), and 141 ft high in t nave. It was commenced with two years of the cathedral Salisbury. Of the two, Amie (fig. 236.) is in a more perfect ar advanced state of art than Sali bury, for the French were befor us in adding to the simple beat ties of the former period many graces not adopted by us until the latter. 543. The style ogiral secondaire is considered by some architects to be that in which pointed art arrived at perfection; for they deem that an increase of elegance compensates for a loss af severity: but with the latter the purity of the preceding period seems to be wanting. Nevertheless this style rayonnant has no absolute character; it is rather, as observed by M. Schayes, a system of transition preserving the elements of the style of the 13th century, but modifying them by greater amount of ornament and by more expansion and boldness in the curve of the arch, for the are en tiers point is the true arch of the time. This decoration, this arch, and the tracery of the windows, chiefly mark the style: and in regard to the atter point, figs. 231 and 232 show the difference between the works of the two periods. The sculptors of the 14th century were more skilful than their predecessors; their carving shows more delicacy and finish, while their statues are no longer ideali. ties: an important tendency of the period was an attempt at portrait busts, in some cases resulting in an approach to natural simplicity, although the attitude might be stiff and constrained, as was the case in almost all mediaeval sculpture. The statues assume greater length in the body, and are dressed in ample drapery, cast with some affectation, but still having falling folds slightly bent. Fig. 235. ST. OUES, AT ROUEN. 544. The comparison which was recommended between figs. 231 and 232, may be paralleled with advantage by placing before the reader, fig 238. a fair example of the second period, in the choir of St. Ouen at Rouen, and fig. 239, an equally modest work of the third epoch from the church of St. Maclou, in the same city. 545. Foreign armies and civil wars caused the usual buildings of the 14th century to be fortified houses and city gateways rather than ecclesiastical structures. One church, however, that of St. Ouen, at Rouen, 1318 39, (figs. 238 and 240), exhibits the style in its choir and chapels more perfectly than the ca thedrals at Clermont-Ferrand, Metz, Fig. 239. ST. MACLOU, AT ROUEN. and Perpignan. Other good exan ples are the transepts at Bayeux, the chapels at Narbonne, and the chapter-house with the cloister at Noyon; besides the churches of the Dominicans and of St. Didier at Avignon; that of St. Jacques at Compiègne, and of St. Nizier at Fig. 210. PLAN OF ST. OUEN, AT ROUEN, (before the front was Lyon; the cloister of St. Jeandes-Vignes at Soissons, the palace at Avignon; the hotel-de-ville at St. Omer; the towers of St. Victor at Marseille, and of St. Sernin at Toulouse; and the front of the church of St. Martin at Laon. 546. The third period, the style ogival tertiaire, fleuri, or flamboyant, as it was termed by M. Auguste le Prévost, used the equilateral arch during the 15th and part of the 16th century; but more commonly one, in some cases stilted, with the radii less than the width of the opening (ogive surbaissée or ogire oltu e): the elliptic arch (arc en anse de panier); the ogee arch (arc en accolade); and its reverse (arc en doucine), are not uncommon. The pointed arch seems crushed by its canopies and finials; and the system of false-bearing is carried to so great an extent that the buildings might have been intended to defy the laws of equilibrium. There is great skill shown in the coupe des pierres, and in working them as decoration with extreme delicacy into petrified leaves of the thistle and curled cabbage, or into imitations of |