gothic: st.-denis and the first cathedrals
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Gothic: St.-Denis and the First Cathedrals. Basilica of St.-Denis, Paris, apse and triforium of the choir, 1231 . French Gothic. English Gothic. German Gothic. Spanish Gothic. Italian Gothic. Conventional ways of classifying Gothic architecture. French Gothic: classic balance. - PowerPoint PPT PresentationTRANSCRIPT
Gothic: St.-Denis and the First Cathedrals
Basilica of St.-Denis, Paris, apse and triforium of the choir, 1231
French Gothic
English Gothic
German Gothic
Spanish Gothic
Italian Gothic
French Gothic: classic balance Late Gothic: decorative
Conventional ways of classifying Gothic architecture
Textbook for Part 3: Concentrated Focus on the Gothic Great Church, 1200-1400 C.E.
Abbot Bernard of Clairvaux (1090-1153) Cistercian order
Abbot Suger of St.-Denis (1081-1151) Benedictine order
“What is the good of displaying all this gold in the church? You display the statue of a saint . . . and you think that the more overloaded with colors it is, the holier it is. And people throng to kiss it – and are urged to leave an offering; they pay homage to the beauty of the object more than to its holiness. . . . Oh vanity! vanity! and folly even greater than the vanity! The church sparkles and gleams on all sides, while its poor huddle in need; its stones are gilded, while its children go unclad; in it the art lovers find enough to satisfy their curiosity, while the poor find nothing there to relieve their misery.”
“We maintain that the sacred vessels should be enhanced by outward adornment, and nowhere more than in serving the Holy Sacrifice, where inwardly all should be pure and outwardly all should be noble. . . . If, according to the word of God and the prophet’s command, the gold vessels, the gold phials, and the small gold mortars were used to collect the blood of goats, the calves, and a red heifer, then how much more zealously shall we hold our gold vases, precious stones, and all that we value most highly in creation, in order to collect the blood of Jesus Christ.”
Gothic abbey church of St.-Denis, Parischoir 1140-44
Romanesque abbey church of Fontenay 1139-47
Choir of St.-Denis, furnishings from ca. 1140-44
St. Denis: Suger’s twin-towered façade (1137-40)replaced Carolingian westwork
Carolingian St.-Denis, 768-75
Suger’s St.-Denis
new narthex
St.-Denis façade, center portal with Last Judgment (Romanesque), 1137-40
Abbot Suger on light: “de materialibus ad immaterialia” (“from the material to the immaterial”): a declaration of Neoplatonic theology?
Colored light and air in the choir of St.-Denis
supposedly inspired by a 9th-cen manuscript of an anonymous 6th-century author now known as the Pseudo-Dionysius whom Suger took to be St. Denis himself
colored light and air in the choir of St.-Denis
Choir of St.-Denis, 1140-44
pointed arch or arc brisé (“broken arch”)
rib vaults
Choir of St.-Denis
Choir of St.-Denis
rib vaults facilitate vaulting irregular bay shapes
rib vaults
Choir of St.-Denis
New goals for ecclesiastical architecture to express the theology of light → Gothic architecture
Choir of St.-Denis
Erwin Panofsky’s contribution to study of Gothic architecture
Wilson shakes up conventional divisions and periodizations: The origins of French Gothic do not begin with St.-Denis
Choir of St.-Denis, 1140-44
Île-de-France region (Gothic’s birthplace)
The Norman Contribution
St.-Étienne abbey, Caen, France, 1060-77
Romanesque St.-Étienne abbeyCaen (Normandy), France, 1060-77
Early Christian San Paolo fuori le MuraRome, Italy, 385-392
Romanesque St.-Étienne abbeyCaen (Normandy), France, 1060-77
Angled position of diagonal ribs and capitals
Primacy accorded to the bay Filling of spaces above the springings of vaults
Hollowed out wall (Norman thick wall)
The Burgundian Contribution
tall proportioning of nave and nave arcades
sharply pointed arches
bold bay-defining members
overall verticality
earliest pointed-arched rib vault is in Durham’s high nave vault (1120-1133)
St.-Pierre-de-Monmartre, Paris, 1133-47
Clues in smaller churches in the Ile-de-France
Wilson: “skeletonized walls”
St.-Pierre-de-Monmartre, Paris, 1133-47
Clues in smaller churches in the Ile-de-France
Wilson: “skeletonized walls”
Norman St.-Etienne at Caen Anglo-Norman Durham Groin vault in Autun
St.-Martin-des-Champs, Paris, 1130s
Clues in smaller churches in the Ile-de-France
buttresses:narrowness of depth
high placing in relation to vault springings
Wilson: there is no trace of originality of the architectural means employed by the unnamed designer (32).
Romanesque Cathedral of St.-Lazare, Autun, France, 1120-46 w/ 15th-cen. Gothic additions
Romanesque Cathedral of St.-Lazare, Autun, France, 1120-46
the pilasters: “self-conscious, knowing, modernizing distortions of the very antiquity to which these same buildings are so powerfully attached” (Trachtenberg 2000, 203n11).
Conrad’s Speyer Cathedral, 1030-61Constantine’s Basilica (aula nova) at Trier, 305-312
Façade of Constantine’s Basilica (aula nova) at Trier, 305-312
Henry IV’s Speyer Cathedral, 1080sConrad’s Speyer Cathedral, 1030-61
Romanesque Cluny III in photo montage recon. of crossingrecon. of nave
Cluny III: “scattered, episodic, fragmentary, often superficial modernist gestures” (187).
rib vaults of Chartres Cathedral, 1194-1260groin vaults of Speyer Cathedral, 1080s
Nôtre-Dame, Parisb. 1150-55, nave 1170-80, extensive rebuilding in 1220s
Nôtre-Dame, Paris
nave elevation looking west
1150-55
nave elevation looking east