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