FRENCH GOTHIC, THIRTEENTH AND FOURTEENTH CENTURIES.
When we compare the two styles whose transition-point we have now reached, and when we consider their characteristic peculiarities, we find that both to a certain extent exemplify nationality rather than time. The technical appellations themselves have indeed come clown to us from a period when science did not concern itself so thoroughly with the charac teristics of style; therefore the denominations, though we must here retain them, stand upon a false foundation. The only appellation with a national name that will apply to the styles of the foregoing period would not be Romanesque, but Germanic, since, though not altogether confined to Germany, it was only there that it attained to its fullest har mony and importance, only there that it embodied the ideal which was f)rincipally entertained by the Germans.
But that taste which in France brought about so notable a modifi cation of the Romanesque that that style could not there attain to its full harmony ought, if it is to have a national name, to be called the French Style. The Romanesque in France was but a prelude to the development of the Gothic—a style with which the Goths had nothing to do. Not that France alone took part iu the development of the Gothic: we have already_ seen what essential elements were derived from Germany. Nor should it be called French because its further development was confined to France, nor because other nations took it exactly as France developed it and preserved it in its Freud' purity. Even as the Romanesque extended its sway, with national modifications, throughout the whole of the Christian West, and in every land devel oped a different local school, so also did the Gothic, which we have designated as French because France inaugurated it and first used the existing elements until the new style was completely developed.
Deve/opirent qf the have indeed to ask ourselves if we were really justifiable in assigning the French monuments mentioned on p.167 to the Romanesque style. But it is only in France that the course of development from Romanesque to Gothic can be traced in such uninterrupted succession that there is not a link broken, while the alterations which in Germany took place in taste and iu detail, together with the modification of the Romanesque which resulted therefrom,, are evidently the effect of motives brought over from France; and if we wish to trace German Romanesque to its close, we must first fol low up that evolution of French architecture which influenced it. In
order to trace the development of the Gothic style, we must commence where (on page 1Sr) we left the development of French architecture. We there find that church-architecture, which also throughout the Gothic period was the climax of architectural achievement, may be considered as a constructive scaffold by which the entire load, as well as all constructive functions, was relegated to a system of pillars; so that the actual walls subserved no purpose save that of enclosure. Naturally, when this system reached its full artistic development, the walls, in so far as they were not really needed as protecting enclosures, might be dis pensed with; and it is in this direction that development proceeds.
Effect of Me over the already-extensive France of that period there reigned a furore for building, centred in the construc tion of great cathedrals, which rose in all quarters. In some places the effort was made to complete what had been begun at the close of the twelfth century, while in others structures were commenced upon so grand a scale that they were not finished until the following generations, or even until after hundreds of years. The long duration of the construction of works so magnificently planned precluded their completion exactly accord ing to the original design. Changes in taste brought about a further development of style before the edifices were completed, and modifications in the plan were the necessary consequence; so that scarcely one of the great edifices exhibits in its entirety the character of a definite period, while most of them, in the various portions which adjoin one another, furnish an image of the development of art during the course of two or three centuries. This length of time, with the consequent change of style, explains the presence of so much that seems unmotiyed and inharmonious in the ensemble, though the susceptible eve is enraptured. with the beauty, the harmony, and the artistic completeness both of indi vidual parts and of those connected portions which belong to the same period.