ARCHITECTURE.

Fig. 283.—Bas-relief on one of the Bronze Gates of St. Peter’s at Rome, representing the Coronation of the Emperor Sigismund by Pope Eugène IV., in 1433. (Sculpture of the Fifteenth Century.)

Fig. 284.—Statuette of St. Avit, in the Church of Notre-Dame de Corbeil, demolished in 1820.(Eleventh Century.)

Fig. 284.—Statuette of St. Avit, in the Church of Notre-Dame de Corbeil, demolished in 1820.

(Eleventh Century.)

Unfortunately for the personal glory of the French sculptors, the historians of the time have scarcely taken the trouble to record their names. In order to discover but a few of them, learned men of modern days have been compelled to undertake laborious researches; while many, and those the most remarkable—worthy, no doubt, to be compared with the greatest Italian artists—are and must remain ever unknown (Fig. 284). The Italians were more fortunate; to them Vasari, their rival and contemporary, has raised a lasting monument. In French art, the list of the sculptors of so many masterpieces must come to a close when we have mentioned Enguerrand, who, from 1201 to 1212, commenced the Cathedral and the Church du Buc, at Rouen, and had for his successor Gautier de Meulan; Robert de Coucy, chief of the body of artists who, in 1211, caused the Cathedral of Rheims to rise loftily from the earth; Hugues Libergier, who rebuilt the ancient basilica of St. Jovin; Robert de Luzarches, the founder, in 1220, of the Cathedral of Amiens, continued after his death by Thomas de Cormont and his son Regnault; Jean, Abbot of St. Germain-des-Prés, who in 1212 undertook the Church of St. Cosme, Paris; that of St. Julien le Pauvre being restored and adorned with sculpture at the same date, from the designs of the abbot and the “brethren” of Longpont (Fig. 285); Jean des Champs, who in 1248 worked at the ancient Cathedral of Clermont; lastly, the two Jeans de Montereau, who at one time as military architects, at another as sculptors of sacred subjects, were at the command of St. Louis, and produced some extraordinary works both of construction and sculpture.

Alsace manifested no less enthusiasm than France for the new architectural system, and sculpture was also subject to a similar development. From Basle to Mayence, the slopes of the Vosges and the long valley of the Rhine, became full of edifices enriched with sculpture and peopled with statues. Erwin of Steinbach (who died in 1318), assisted by Sabina, his daughter, and William of Marbourg, were the most renowned masters in these parts.

Fig. 285.—Bas-relief formerly over the Doorway of St. Julien le Pauvre, Paris, representing St. Julien and St. Basilissa, his wife, conveying in their boat Jesus Christ under the figure of a Leper.(Thirteenth Century.)

Fig. 285.—Bas-relief formerly over the Doorway of St. Julien le Pauvre, Paris, representing St. Julien and St. Basilissa, his wife, conveying in their boat Jesus Christ under the figure of a Leper.

(Thirteenth Century.)

The extraordinary advance that French sculpture made in this age was assisted—if not as regards the higher style of work, which could do without this help, at least in respect to the minor details of the art—by the institution of the fraternities of theConception Notre-Dame. In many towns the sculptors of images and the painters, the moulders, thebahutiers, or carvers in wood, horn, and ivory (Fig. 286), were all united under the same banner. In Germany and Belgium also existedhanses, or guilds, which were in direct communication with those of Alsace, and who accepted as guides French artists of known ability; as, for instance, Volbert and Gérard, architect-sculptors, who were simultaneously engaged in the construction of the Church of the Holy Apostles, Cologne.

Fig. 286.—Fragment of a small Reredos, in carved Bone (Fourteenth Century).Presented by Jean, Duc de Berry, Brother of Charles V., to the church of the ancient Abbey of Poissy.(Museum of the Louvre.)

Fig. 286.—Fragment of a small Reredos, in carved Bone (Fourteenth Century).

Presented by Jean, Duc de Berry, Brother of Charles V., to the church of the ancient Abbey of Poissy.

(Museum of the Louvre.)

With respect to the works commenced or finished in the fourteenth century, the only difficulty is to make a choice among these wonderful monuments of Art; which, however, must be looked upon as the last manifestations of Christian art, properly so-called. We must, however, point out the polychrome sculptures of Chartres, of St. Remy, Rheims; St. Martin, Laon; St. Yved, Braisne; St. Jean des Vignes, Soissons; of the Chartreux, Dijon. In this ducal city we find, in 1357, Guy le Maçon, a celebrated

Fig. 287.—“Le Bon Dieu,” in the old Chapel of the Charnier des Innocents, Paris.(Fifteenth Century.)

Fig. 287.—“Le Bon Dieu,” in the old Chapel of the Charnier des Innocents, Paris.

(Fifteenth Century.)

sculptor; at Bourges, about the same date, Aguillon, of Droues; at Montpellier, between 1331 and 1360, the two Alamans, John and Henry; at Troyes, Denisot and Drouin of Mantes, &c. Beyond France, Matthias of Arras, in 1343, laid the foundations of the Cathedral of Prague, which was to be continued and finished by another French artist, Pierre of Boulogne. Arrested as our attention must be by the statues and bas-reliefs which were multiplied under the porches, in the niches (Fig. 287), and on all the tombs, we can cast but a very cursory glance on the immense number of wood-carvings, figures in ivory, and movable pieces of sculpture, executed byartists who may be divided into two very distinct classes, the Norman and the Rhenish; all of other schools appear to have been nothing but imitators of these.

In 1400 theMaîtrePierre Pérat, architect of three cathedrals, who was at once both civil engineer and sculptor, and one of the greatest masters of whom France can boast, died at Metz, where he was interred with all the honours due to his wonderful talents. Just at the same time a memorable competition was opened at Florence. The object in view was to finish the doors of the Baptistery of St. John. The formal announcement of the competition, which was made all over Italy, did not fail to call forth the most skilful artists. Seven of these were selected, on account of their renown, to furnish designs: they consisted of three Florentines—Filippo Brunelleschi, Donatello, and the goldsmith, Lorenzo Ghiberti; Jacopo della Quercia of Siena; Nicolo Lamberti d’Arezzo; Francesco da Valdambrina; and Simone da Colle, calledde’ Bronzi. To each of these competitors the republic granted one year’s salary, on condition that, at the end of the period, each of them should furnish a panel of wrought bronze of the same size as those of which the doors of St. John were to be composed. On the day fixed for the examination of the works, the most celebrated artists of Italy were summoned. Thirty-four judges were selected, and before this tribunal the seven models were exhibited, in the presence of the magistracy and the public. After the judges had audibly discussed the respective merits of the works, those of Ghiberti, Brunelleschi, and Donatello were preferred. But to whom of the three was the palm to be awarded? They hesitated. Then Brunelleschi and Donatello retired apart and exchanged a few words; after which one of them, commencing to address the assembly, said:—“Magistrates and citizens, we declare to you that in our own judgment Ghiberti has surpassed us. Award him the preference, for our country will thus acquire the greater glory. It is less discredit to us to make known our opinion than to keep silence.”

These doors, at which Ghiberti worked for forty years, with the assistance of his father, his sons, and his pupils, are perhaps the finest work we have in sculptured metal.

At the date when Lorenzo Ghiberti, Donatello, Brunelleschi, and their pupils were the representatives of Florentine sculpture, the French school also produced its masters and its works of Art. Nicholas Flamel, the famous

Fig. 288.—“St. Eloi, Patron of Goldsmiths and Farriers.” A Sculpture of the Fifteenth Century, in the Church of Notre-Dame d’Armançon, at Semur, Burgundy.

writer (écrivain) of the parish of St. Jacques la Boucherie, ornamented the churches and mortuary chapels of Paris with mystical and alchemical (alchimiques) sculptures, of which he was the designer if not the actual artist. Thury executed the tombs of Charles VI. and Isabelle of Bavaria; Claux Sluter, author of the “Ruits de Moïse,” at Dijon, assisted by James de la Barre, multiplied the works of monumental sculpture in Burgundy (Fig. 288). In Alsace, under the impulse of King René, himself an artist, the sculptor’s art produced examples bearing the impress of a remarkable individuality. In the district of Messin, Henry de Ranconval, hisson Jehan, and Clausse, were distinguished. In Touraine, Michael Columb executed the tomb of Francis II., Duke of Brittany; Jehan Juste, that of the children of Charles VIII., as introductory to the mausoleum of Louis XII., which he executed between 1518 and 1530, for the basilica of St. Denis; a German, Conrad of Cologne, assisted by Laurent Wrine, master of the ordnance to the king, cast in metal the effigy for the tomb of Louis XI. In Champagne appeared Jean de Vitry, sculptor of the stalls of the Church of St. Claude (Jura); in Berry, Jacquet Gendre,master-masonandfigure-makerfor the Hôtel de Ville, Bourges, &c.

At the end of the same century, Peter Brucy, of Brussels, exercised his art at Toulouse; the inspiration of the Alsacian artists was developed in the magnificent sculpture of Thann, Kaisersberg, and Dusenbach; while Germany, achieving but a late independence, sheltered the faults of her early genius under the illustrious names of Lucas Moser, Peter Vischer, Schühlein, Michel Wohlgemuth, Albert Dürer (Fig. 289), &c.

In sculptural works, as in every other branch of art, historical sentiment and faith seemed to die out with the fifteenth century. Mediæval art was subjected to protest; the desire seemed to be to re-create beauty of form by going back to the antique; but the emphatically Christian individuality was no longer reached, and this pretendedrenaissance, in which even earnest minds were induced to gratify themselves, only served to exhibit the feeble efforts of an epoch that sought to reproduce the glories of a vanished age. In the time of Charles VIII. and Louis XII., Lombarde-Venetian art, the affected and ingenious imitation of the Greek style, was introduced into France; it suited the common people, and pleased mediocre intellect. The sculptors who came at that period to seek their fortunes at the court of the French kings worked exclusively for the aristocracy, and vied with one another in adorning, with an ardent infatuation for Italian art, the royal and aristocratic palaces which were being built or restored in every direction, such as the Châteaux of Amboise and Gaillon. But they failed to do any injury to French artists, who still remained charged with the works of sacred sculptures; and their style became but slightly, if at all, influenced by this foreign immigration. Even Benvenuto Cellini himself failed to exercise much effect on the vigorous schools of Tours, Troyes, Metz, Dijon, and Angers; his reputation and his works never passed, so to speak, beyond the limits of the court of France, and the brilliant traces they

Fig. 289.—“St. John the Baptist preaching in the Desert.” Bas-relief in Carved Wood by Albert Dürer.(Brunswick Gallery.)

Fig. 289.—“St. John the Baptist preaching in the Desert.” Bas-relief in Carved Wood by Albert Dürer.

(Brunswick Gallery.)

left behind them were confined to the school of Fontainebleau. Ere long, some zealous artists from all the principal centres of the French schools left their country and betook themselves to Italy; among these were Bachelier of Languedoc, Simon and Ligier Richier of Lorraine, Valentine Bousch of Alsace, and Jacques of Angoulême, who had the honour of a victory over his master, Michael Angelo, in a competition of statuary (manyof the former artist’s works now exist in the Vatican); Jean de Boulogne, and several others. Some of them, after they had become celebrated on the other side of the Alps, returned to their native country, bringing back to it their own native genius matured by the lessons of the Italians. There was, therefore, always a French school that preserved its individual characteristics, its generic good qualities and defects, which are so well represented in the sculptures of the Hôtel du Bourgtheroulde, Rouen (Fig. 290).

Fig. 290.—Bas-relief of the Hôtel du Bourgtheroulde, Rouen, representing a Scene in the Interview between Francis I. and Henry VIII., on the Field of the Cloth of Gold.

Michael Angelo was born on the 6th of March, 1475, and died on the 17th of February, 1564, without having shown any signs of decadence; greater, possibly, by his genius than by his works, he is the personification of the Renaissance. It would be, perhaps, irreverent to say that this age was an age of decay; we might fear of desecrating the tomb of Buonarotti if we laid to his charge that his grand boldness led ordinary talents astray; and it is not a pleasant subject of thought that, influenced by two currents of ideas—one coming from Italy, the other from Germany—the art of the century operated to its own suicide. When the very soil itself seemed to be shaken, and the Christian pedestal which had formed both its grandeur and power overturned, what could be donein the way of opposition to the downfall of Art by Jean Goujon, Jean Cousin (Fig. 291), Germain Pilon, François Marchand, Pierre Bontemps, those stars of French sculpture in the sixteenth century?

Fig. 291.—Statue in Alabaster of Philip Chabot, Admiral of France, by Jean Cousin. Formerly in the Church of the Célestins, Paris, now in the Museum of the Louvre.

A final manifestation of the old religious feeling was, however, apparent in the tombs of the Church of Brou, designed by Jean Perréal, the great painter of Lyons, executed by Conrad Meyt, and carved by Gourat and Michael Columb; also in the mausoleum of Francis II., carved by Columb and his family; in the sepulchre of St. Mihiel (Fig. 292) by Richier; of theSaints de Solesme, in the tombs of Langey du Bellay, and of the Chancellor De Birague, by Germain Pilon, &c. But fashion and the prevailing taste now required from artists nothing but profane and voluptuous compositions, and they adopted this line of Art all the more readily, seeing, as they did every day, most beautiful works of Christian sculpture mutilated by a new tribe of Iconoclasts, the Huguenots, who seldom showed mercy to the figured monuments in Catholic churches. The stalls of the Cathedral of Amiens, by Jean Rupin, the rood-loft by Jean Boudin, and a number of other works of the same kind, testify to the irruption of the Greek style, its implantation in religious art, and its hybrid association with pointed architecture. It is, however, only due to our sculptors of the sixteenth century to say, that when they sacrificedthemselves to the requirements of their age in imitating the masterpieces of Italy, they approached the natural grace of Raphael much closer than

Fig. 292.—“The Entombment,” by Richier, in the Church of St. Mihiel (Meuse). (Sixteenth Century.)

Cellini, Primaticcio, or any of the other Italian artists who were settled in France; that they combined in the best possible way the mythologicalexpression of the ancients with our modern ideas, and that, thanks to them, France is enabled to point with pride to a natural art, original and independent, which has been handed down to our days in direct succession by Sarrazain, Puget, Girardon, and Coysevox.

Figs. 293, 294.—Gargoyles on the Palace of Justice, Rouen. (Fifteenth Century.)

The Basilica the first Christian Church.—Modification of Ancient Architecture.—Byzantine Style.—Formation of the Norman Style.—Principal Norman Churches.—Age of the Transition from Norman to Gothic.—Origin and Importance of theOgive.—Principal Edifices in the pure Gothic Style.—The Gothic Church, an Emblem of the Religious Spirit in the Middle Ages.—Florid Gothic.—Flamboyant Gothic.—Decadency.—Civil and Military Architecture: Castles, Fortified Enclosures, Private Houses, Town Halls.—Italian Renaissance: Pisa, Florence, Rome.—French Renaissance: Mansions and Palaces.

WHEN the Christian family, humble and persecuted, was beginning to form itself into congregations; when it was forbidden to consecrate any special edifice to the performance of the services of its religion—a religion which opposed to the gorgeous ceremonies of polytheism the most austere simplicity—any refuge might have seemed good enough which offered to the faithful the means of assembling themselves together in security; any retreat must have appeared sufficiently ornamented which would recall to the disciples of the crucified Saviour the mournful events preceding the glorification of that Divine sacrifice. But when the religion proscribed one day found itself on the next the religion of the State, things changed.

Constantine, in the mighty ardour of his zeal, wished to see the worship of the true God efface in pomp and in magnificence all the solemnities of the heathen world. In expelling the idols from their temples, the idea could not have suggested itself of using these buildings for the new religion, because they were generally of excessively limited dimensions, and the plan on which they were built would have but indifferently answered the requirements of the Christian ceremonial. What was necessary for these services was principally a spacious nave, in which a large congregation could assemble to hear the same word, to join in the same prayer, and to intone the same chants. The Christians sought, therefore, among theedifices then in existence (Fig. 295), for such as would best answer these purposes. Thebasilicaspresented themselves; these buildings served at once as law-courts and places of assembly for tradesmen and money-changers, and were generally composed of one immense hall, with lateral galleries and tribunes adjoining it. The name ofbasilica, derived from the Greek wordbasileus(a king), was given them, according to some writers, from the fact that formerly the kings themselves used to administer justice within their walls; according to others, because the basilica of Athens served as a tribunal of the second archon, who bore the title of king; whence the edifice was calledstoa basiliké(royal porch), a designation of which the Romans preserved only the adjective, the substantive being understood.

Fig. 295.—Basilica of Constantine, at Trèves, transformed into a Fortress in the Middle Ages.

“The Christian basilica,” says M. Vaudoyer, in his learned treatise on architecture in France, “was most certainly an imitation of the heathen basilica; but it is of importance to observe that from one cause or another the Christians, in the construction of their basilicas, very soon substituted for the Grecian architecture of the ancient basilicas a system of arches reposing directly on isolated columns, which served as their supports; a perfectly new contrivance, of which there existed no previous example.This new mode of construction, which has generally been attributed to the want of skill in the builders of this period, or to the nature of the materials they had at their disposal, was, however, to become the fundamental principle of Christian art; a principle characterised by the breaking up of the range of arches, and by the abandonment of the system of rectilinear construction of the Greeks and Romans.

“Indeed, the arcade, which had become the dominant element of Roman architecture, had nevertheless remained subject to the proportions of the Greek orders, of which the entablature served as an indispensable accompaniment; and from this medley of elements so diverse was produced the mixed style which characterises the Greco-Roman architecture. But the Christians, in separating or breaking up the arcade, in abandoning the use of the ancient orders, and in making the column the real support of the arch, laid the foundations of a new style, which led to the exclusive employment of arches and vaults in Christian edifices. The Church of St. Sophia at Constantinople, built by Justinian in the middle of the sixth century, affords the most ancient example of this system of construction by arches and vaults in a Christian church of large dimensions.”

Transported to the East, the Latin style there assumed a new character, owing especially to the adoption and generalisation of the cupola, of which there were some examples in Roman architecture, but only as an accessory; whereas, in what is called Byzantine architecture, this form became dominant, and, as it were, fundamental; thus, at all periods and at each time that the architectural influence of the East made itself felt in the West, we see the cupola introduced into buildings. The Church of St. Vital at Ravenna affords, in its plan (Fig. 296) and in its general appearance, an example of this influence, which is quite Byzantine.

Edifices of Latin architecture, properly so called, are rare, we might almost say that they have all disappeared (Figs. 297and298); but if some churches in Rome, whose foundation dates back to the fifth and sixth centuries, can be considered as specimens of this first period of Christian art, it is in the arrangement of the plan much more than in the details of execution, which for a long subsequent time since have been united with the work of later periods.

In the days when Christianity was so triumphantly established as to have no fear nor scruple to utilise, in the construction of its churches, the ruins

Fig. 296.—Church of St. Vital, at Ravenna. Byzantine style. (Sixth Century.)

of the ancient temples, it generally happened that the architect, conforming himself to new requirements, endeavoured, by a prudent return towards the traditions of the past, to avoid those striking incongruities which would have deprived of all their value the magnificent materials he had at his disposal. Hence arose a style still undecided; hence mixed creations, which it will suffice merely to mention. Then we must not forget—to say nothing of the case in which, as in the old Roman city, Christian basilicas might be built with the marble of heathen sanctuaries—the monuments of this same Rome were still the only models that presented themselves for imitation. Finally, for this architecture which the Christian religion was to create as its own, it was obvious there would be an infancy, an age of groping in the dark and of uncertainty; and at length that there should be a separation from the past, and a gradually experienced feeling of individual strength. (Fig. 299.)

This infancy lasted about five or six centuries; for it was only about the year 1000 that the new style—which we see at first made up of “recollections” and weak innovations—assumed an almost determinate form. This is the period called Norman,[49]which, according to M. Vaudoyer, has left us some monuments that are “the noblest, the simplest, and the severest expression of the Christian temple.”

Fig. 297.—The Church of St. Agnes, at Rome, Latin style (Fifth Century). Restored and debased in the Seventeenth Century.Fig. 298.—The Church of St. Martin, at Tours (Sixth Century). Rebuilt or restored in the Eleventh Century.

Fig. 297.—The Church of St. Agnes, at Rome, Latin style (Fifth Century). Restored and debased in the Seventeenth Century.

Fig. 298.—The Church of St. Martin, at Tours (Sixth Century). Rebuilt or restored in the Eleventh Century.

“Three years after the year 1000, which was supposed was to be the last year of the world,” says the monk Raoul Glaber, “churches were renewed in nearly every part of the universe, especially in Italy and in Gaul, although the greater number were still in a condition good enough to require

Fig. 299.—Remains of the Church of Mouen, in Normandy. Architecture of the Fifth or Sixth Century.

no repairs.” “It was to this period, that is to say, the eleventh century,” adds M. Vaudoyer, “must be assigned the greater number of the ancient churches of France, grander and more magnificent than all those of preceding centuries; it was then, also, the first associations of builders were formed, whereof the abbots and the prelates themselves formed a portion, and which were essentially composed of men bound by a religious vow; the Arts were cultivated in the convents, the churches were built under the direction of bishops; the monks co-operated in works of all kinds.... The plan of the Western churches preserved the primitive arrangement of the Latin basilica—that is, the elongated form and the lateral galleries; the most important modifications were the lengthening of the choir and of the galleries, or of the cross, a free passage established round the apse (Fig. 300); and, lastly, the combination of chapels, which grouped themselves around the sanctuary. In the construction the isolated columns of the nave are sometimes replaced by pillars, the spaces between which are filled up with semicircular arches,

Fig. 300.—Notre-Dame, Rouen, ogival style. (Thirteenth Century.)

and a general system of vaulted roofs is substituted for the ceilings and timber roofs of the ancient Latin basilicas.... The use of bells, which was but sparingly adopted in the East, contributed to give to the churchesof the West a character and an appearance quite their own, and which they owe particularly to those lofty towers that had become the essential part of their façade.”

The façade itself is generally of great simplicity. We enter the edifice by one of three doors, above which runs, in most cases, a little gallery formed of very small columns close to each other, supporting a range of arcades; and these arcades are often ornamented with statues, as we find in the church of Notre-Dame at Poitiers, which—together with the churches of Notre-Dame des Doms, at Avignon; of St. Paul, at Issoire; of St. Sernin, at Toulouse; of Notre-Dame du Port, at Clermont, &c.—may be considered as one of the most complete specimens of Norman architecture.

In churches of this style, as for instance those of St. Front, at Périgueux; of Notre-Dame, at Puy en Velay; of St. Etienne, at Nevers, are seen also some cupolas; but we must not forget that the Byzantine architects, whose migrations towards the West were constantly taking place at this period, could not fail to leave traces of their wanderings, and we must acknowledge that, especially in our own country (France), where Oriental influence was never more than partial, the union of the two architectonic principles produced the happiest results. The Cathedral of Angoulême, for example, is justly regarded as one of the edifices in which Oriental taste harmonises the best with the Norman style.

At the beginning of this period, the bell-towers were of very little importance; but gradually we find them rising higher and higher, and attaining to great elevations. Some cathedrals on the borders of the Rhine, and the Church of St. Etienne at Caen, are examples of the extraordinary height to which these towers were built. In principle, we may add, there was only one bell-tower (Fig. 301); but it generally happened that two were given to churches built or restored after the year 1000: St. Germain-des-Prés had three bell-towers—one over the portal, and one at each side of the transept; certain churches had four and even five bell-towers.

Norman bell-towers are generally square, exhibiting, in stories, two or three ranges of round-arched arcades, and terminating in a pyramidal roof resting on an octagonal base. The Abbey of St. Germain d’Auxerre possesses one of the most remarkable bell-towers of the Norman style; then come, although built subsequently to the principal edifice, those of the Abbaye aux Hommes, at Caen.

Fig. 301.—Ancient Church of St. Paul-des-Champs, at Paris, founded, in the Seventh Century, by St. Eloi. Restored and in part rebuilt in the Thirteenth Century.

The sun’s rays penetrated into the Norman church first through theoculus,[50]a vast round opening intended to admit light into the nave, and situated above the façade, which generally rose in the form of a gableabove one or several rows of small columns on the exterior. A series of lateral windows opened on the side-aisles of the edifice; another was pierced on a level with the galleries; and a third between the vaulted arches of the nave.

The crypt, a sort of subterranean sanctuary, which generally contained the tomb of some beatified saint, or of some martyr to whom the edifice was dedicated, formed very often an integral part of the Norman church. The architecture of the crypt, which had for its ideal object to recall to the mind the period when the offices of the Christian religion were performed in caverns and in catacombs, was generally of a massive and imposing severity, well suited to express the sentiment which must have presided over the earliest Christian buildings.

The Norman style, that is to say, the primitive idea of Christian architecture, freed from its remaining servility to the antique, seems to have caught a glimpse of the definitive formula of Christian art. Many a majestic monument already attested the austere power of this style; and perhaps a final and masterly inspiration would have sufficed, perfection being attained, to cause the researches of themaîtres d’œuvre,[51]made as they felt their way forward, to cease of themselves. Already, too, as a sign of maturity, Norman edifices, instead of remaining in the somewhat too unadorned simplicity of the first period, became gradually ornamented, till in time they resembled, from their base to the summit, a delicate work of embroidery. It is to this florid Norman style, which in France reigns especially to the south of the Loire, that the charming façade of the Church of Notre-Dame de Poitiers (Fig. 302) belongs, which we have already cited as a perfect type of the Norman style itself; the façade of St. Trophimus, at Aries (Figs. 303and304), an example in the general arrangement of which the same character of original unity does not prevail; and that of the Church of St. Gilles, which M. Mérimée cites as the most elegant expression of the florid Norman.

In short, let us repeat it, the Norman style, grandiose in its austerity, still quiet and compact even in its richest phantasy, was on the eve ofindividualisingfor ever, perhaps, Christian architecture; its rounded arches, uniting their full soft curves to the simple profiles of columns, robust even in their lightness, seemed to characterise at one and the same time the

Fig. 302.—Notre-Dame la Grande of Poitiers (Twelfth Century).

elevated calm of hope and the humble gravity of faith. But lo! theogivesprang up; not, indeed, as certain authors have thought they were right in affirming, from an outburst of spontaneous invention, for we find the principle and the application of it not only in many edifices of the Norman period, but even in the architectural contrivances of the most remote times. And it happened that this simple breaking up of the round arch, this “sharpness” of the arch, if we may use the expression, which the Norman builders had skilfully utilised, giving more of slenderness or graceful strength to vaults of great extent, became the fundamental element of a style which, in less than a century, was to shut the future to a tradition dating from six or eight centuries, and which could with justice pride itself on the most beautiful architectural conceptions. (Fig. 305.)

Fig. 303.—Tympanum of the Portal of St. Trophimus, at Arles (Twelfth Century).

From the twelfth to the thirteenth century the transition took place. The Norman style, which is distinguished by its round arch, maintained the struggle with the Gothic style, of which the ogive is the original mark. In the churches of this period we find also, with regard to the ground-plan of edifices, the choir assuming larger dimensions, necessitated no doubt by increased ceremonials in the services. The Latin cross, which was the ground-plan whereon up to this time the greater number of sanctuaries were built, ceased to indicate as precisely as heretofore its outlines; thenave was raised considerably in height, the lateral chapels were multiplied, and often broke the perspective of the side-aisles; bell-towers assumed greater importance, and the placing of immense organs above the principal entrance gave rise to a new system of elevated galleries in this part of the building.

Fig. 304.—Details of the Portal of St. Trophimus, at Arles. (Twelfth Century.)

The churches of St. Remy, Rheims; of the Abbey of St. Denis; ofSt. Nicholas, Blois; the Abbey of Jumiéges; and the Cathedral of Châlons-sur-Marne, are the principal examples of the architecture of the mixed style.

Fig. 305.—Cloister of the Abbey of Moissac, Guyenne. (Twelfth Century.)

It should be remarked that for a long while, in the north of France, the pointed arch had prevailed almost entirely over the round arch, at the time when, in the south, Norman tradition, blended with the Byzantine, still continued to inspire the builders. Nevertheless, the demarcation cannot be rigorously established, for, at the time when edifices of the purest Norman style showed themselves in our (French) northern counties (as, for example, the Church of St. Germain-des-Prés, and the apse of

DECORATION OF LA SAINTE CHAPELLE, PARIS.Thirteenth Century.

DECORATION OF LA SAINTE CHAPELLE, PARIS.

Thirteenth Century.

St. Martin-des-Champs, Paris), we find, at Toulouse, at Carcassonne, at Montpellier, the most remarkable specimens of the Gothic style. At last Gothic architecture gained the day. “Its principle,” says M. Vitet, “is in emancipation, in liberty, in the spirit of association and commerce, in sentiments quite indigenous and quite national: it is homely, and more than that, it is French, English, Teutonic, &c. Norman architecture, on the contrary, is sacerdotal.”

And M. Vaudoyer adds: “The rounded arch is the determinate and invariable form; the pointed arch is the free and indefinite form which lends itself to unlimited modifications. If, then, the Pointed style has no longer the austerity of the Norman, it is because it belongs to that second phase of all civilisation, in which elegance and richness replace the strength and the severity of primordial types.”

It was, moreover, at this period that architecture, like all the other arts, left the monasteries to pass into the hands of lay architects organised into confraternities, who travelled from place to place, and thus transmitted the traditional types; the result of this was that buildings raised at very great distances from each other presented a striking analogy, and often even a complete similitude to each other.

There has been much discussion not only on the origin of the pointed arch, but also as to the beauty and excellence of its form. According to some it was suggested by the sight of many arches interlaced, and only constituted one of those fantastical forms which an art in quest of novelty adopts; others, among whom is M. Vaudoyer, attribute to it the most remote origin, by making it result quite naturally in the first attempts at building in stone,—“from a succession of courses of stone so arranged that each overhung the other;” or else in wooden constructions, “from the greater facility there was in forming with beams a pointed rather than a perfectly rounded arch;” others consider the adoption of the Pointed style, as we said above, as nothing but a proof of the religious independence succeeding the rigid faith of earlier days. A third opinion, again, is that of M. Michiels, who looks on the Pointed style as in some sort an inevitable result of the boldness of the Norman, and who considers the Gothic, of which it is the characteristic, as “expressing the spirit of a period when religious feeling had attained its most perfect maturity, and Catholic civilisation produced its sweetest and most agreeable fruits.”

Fig. 306.—Mayence Cathedral. Rhenish Norman. (Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries).

Whatever may be the merits of these different opinions, into the discussion of which we need not enter, it is now generally assumed that the Pointed style, properly so called, sprang up first within the limits of the ancient Ile-de-France, whence it propagated itself by degrees towards the southern and eastern provinces.

M. Michiels, agreeing on this point with the celebrated architect Lassus, points out that it would be as difficult to attribute the creation of this style to Germany as to Spain. It was in the thirteenth century that the finest Gothic buildings appeared in France; while in Germany, except the churches built, as it were, on the French frontier, we find nothing at that period but Norman churches (Fig. 306); and it is reasonable to suppose that, if we owed the general adoption of the pointed arch to Spain, the introduction of it would have been gradually made through that part of the country situated beyond the Loire, where, however, the Norman style continued to be in great favour when it was almost entirely abandoned in the north of France.

A century sufficed to bring the Pointed style to its highest perfection. Notre-Dame (Fig. 307) and the Sainte-Chapelle, in Paris; Notre-Dame, Chartres; the cathedrals of Amiens (Fig. 308), Sens, Bourges, Coutances, in France; those of Strasbourg, Fribourg, Altenberg, and Cologne, in Germany, the dates of whose construction succeed each other at intervals from the first half of the twelfth to the middle of the thirteenth century, are so many admirable specimens or types of this art, which we may here call relatively new.

To know to what marvellous variety of combinations and effects, by merely modifying it in height and breadth from its original type, this pointed arch, which, taken by itself, might appear the simplest of forms, can attain, one must have passed some time in dividing into the different parts of which it is composed, by an accurate examination of itstout ensemble, such an edifice as Notre-Dame, Paris, or as the Cathedral of Strasbourg; the first of which attracts attention by the sustained boldness of its lines, strong as they are graceful; the second, by its perfectly bold independence, seeming, as it does, to taper away as by enchantment, in order to bear to a surprising height the evidence of its incomprehensible temerity.

We must rise in thought above the edifice to grasp the plan of its first conception; we must, from below, study it on all sides to perceive

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