Gothic Flashcards
Saint-Dennis
Abbot Suger’s remodeling of Saint-Dennis marked the beginning of Gothic architecture. Rib vaults with pointed arches spring from slender columns. Stained glass windows admit divine Lux nova. The builders used exceptionally light rib vaults to eliminate the walls between the radiating chapels.
Chartres Cathedral
The west facade was all that remained after the 1194 fire. Features a rose window. The royal port sculptures proclaim the majesty and power of Christ. The tympana depict, from left to right, Christ’s ascension, the Second Coming, and the infant Jesus in Mary’s lap.
Laon Cathedral
The insertion of a triforium broke up the nave wall and produced the characteristic four-story Early Gothic navel elevation, arcade, tribune gallery, triforium, and clerestory. Features a huge central rose window with deep porches in front of the doorways, and an open structure of towers, all of which characterize it as Gothic, not Romanesque.
Gothic rib vaults
Pointed arches channel the weight of the rib vaults more directly downward than do semicircular arches, requiring less buttressing. They also make the vaults appear taller than they are.
Notre-Dame
King Philip II initiated a building boom in Paris, which quickly became the intellectual capital of Europe. Notre-Dame Cathedral was the first built using flying buttresses.
Flying Buttresses
Masonry struts that transfer the thrust of the nave vaults across the roofs of the side aisles and ambulatory to a tall pier rising above the church’s exterior wall.
Chartres Cathedral after fire
Considered the earliest example of high Gothic architecture. The sculptures of its two transept porches are also prime examples of High Gothic style. The plan features one square (instead of two) in each aisle flanking a single rectangular unit in the nave with a four-part vault. This became the norm for High Gothic church architecture. It also had a three-story elevation consisting of nave arcade, triforium, and clerestory with stained-glass windows almost as tall as the main arcade.
Stained-glass windows
Glaziers made stained-glass windows by fusing layers of colored glass , joining the pieces with lead strips, and painting the details in enamel . These windows transformed natural light into divine light.
Virgin and Child angels of Chartres Cathedral
This stained-glass window miraculously survived the fire. It has an armature of iron bands forming a grid over the entire design.
Amiens Cathedral
The concept of skeletal architecture reached full maturity in the nave and choir. The four-part nave vaults on pointed arches rise an astounding 144 feet above the floor. The choir vault resembles a canopy on bundled masts. The light entering from the clerestory and triforium create a buoyant lightness not normally associated with stone architecture. The deep piercing of the facade left few surfaces for decoration, but sculptors covered the remaining ones with colonettes, pinnacles, and rosettes that nearly dissolve the structures masonry.
Reims Cathedral
Facade reveals High Gothic architect’s desire to replace heavy masonry with intricately framed voids. Stained-glass windows, not stone reliefs fill the three tympana.
Sainte-Chapelle
The architect succeeded in dissolving the walls to such an extent that 6,450 square feet of stained glass account for more than three quarters of the structure.
Virgin of Paris
Elegant and mannered, tender, anecdotal, portrayal of Mary and Jesus as royal mother and son.
Saint-Maclou
Masterpiece of Late Gothic Flamboyant architecture. Its ornate tracery of curves and counter-curves forms brittle decorative webs that mask the small church’s structure.
Bruges cloth guild
Meeting hall is an early example of a new type of secular architecture in the late Middle ages. Its lofty tower competed for attention with the towers of the cathedral.
