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Gothic Architecture by Mind Map: Gothic Architecture

1. English Gothic

1.1. No 'British Gothic'

1.2. Roche Abbey, South Yorkshire 1247

1.2.1. Transitional Style

1.2.1.1. Pointed arches/windows (Gothic)

1.2.1.2. Round arches/windows (Romanesque)

1.3. Cantebury Cathedral, 1175 - 1185

1.3.1. By William of Sens

1.3.2. Choir very similar to that of Sens Cathedral

1.4. Westminster Abbey, begun 1245

1.4.1. Mostly built 1245 - 1272

1.4.2. The most French of English cathedrals

1.4.3. Nave

1.4.4. Chapter House, c. 1246

1.4.4.1. Lots of glass, minimum masonry

1.5. Salisbury Cathedral, 1220 - 1258

1.5.1. Early English/ 'First Pointed'

1.5.2. Cloister

1.5.3. Specific chapel for the Virgin

1.5.4. Purbeck marble (polished limestone)

1.5.5. Simple lancet windows

1.5.6. Quadpartite vaulting

1.6. Lincoln Cathedral, early 13th Century

1.6.1. Tieceron vaulting

1.6.2. Two sets of transepts

1.6.3. Extra chapel

1.6.4. Small cloisters

1.6.5. High Gothic

1.6.6. First Phase of English Decorated: Geometric

1.6.6.1. Geometrical Tracery

1.7. Elgin Cathedral, 13th Century

1.7.1. Borrowed Lincoln's order of surface

1.7.2. Only cathedral with two towers

1.8. More complex arch sections than the French

1.9. More complex plans than the French

1.9.1. Plan of Notre Dame de Paris

1.9.2. Plan of Lincoln church

1.10. Ely Cathedral c. 1320 - 1350

1.10.1. Second phase of English Decorative Gothic: Curvolinear

1.10.2. Very complex

1.10.3. Every statue is headless thanks to the Reformation

1.11. Gloucester Cathedral 1340 - 1350

1.11.1. Final stage of English Decorative: Perpendicular

1.11.2. Rising verticles

1.11.3. Lierne vaulting

1.11.3.1. Developed into fan vaulting in other parts of the cathedral, like at King's College, Cambridge, 1516

1.12. Henry VII chapel, Westminster Abbey, 1503 - 1509

2. High Middle Ages architecure

2.1. France 12th to early 16th Century

2.1.1. As it goes on, it becomes more flamboyant and loses some of it's coherence and logical structure.

2.1.2. French Gothic is very streamlined

2.1.3. French Gothic is very streamlined

2.2. Name = derogatory

2.3. Pointed arch

2.4. Flying buttreses

2.4.1. Uniformed vaulting of any plan shape

2.4.2. Increased height

2.4.3. Elimination of non-load bearing walls

2.5. Rib vaulting

2.6. Spanish and Portuguese Gothic: Very intricate and decorative.

2.6.1. Need for smaller windows

2.7. Italian Gothic = simpler (with the exception of Milan)

2.7.1. Need for smaller windows

2.8. Germany and Central Europe: Very inventive, though self-conscious late Gothic.

2.9. Three Stages

2.9.1. Early Gothic: 1140 - 1200

2.9.2. High Gothic: 1200 - 1260

2.9.3. Rayonnant: 1260 - 1300

3. Royal Abbey of St Denis, Paris (Suger's Rebuilding: 1135 - 1144)

3.1. Ambulatory 1137 - 1140

3.2. First Gothic building

3.2.1. Ribbed vaulting means that the new structure forms new, innovate shapes which were previously impossible.

3.3. Abbot Suger

3.4. St. Denis --> Pseudo Dionysius

3.4.1. Christian Neo-Platonism

3.4.1.1. Matter = Bad

3.4.1.2. Pure Form = Good

3.4.2. St John's Gospel: God is light

3.4.2.1. Choir: Huge stained glass windows

3.5. 'Heavenly Jerusalem'

3.6. Jesse Window

3.6.1. Part of the new front and choir.

3.6.2. Mystical significance of light.

3.6.2.1. Adding a more holy light

3.6.2.2. Huge contrast to Romanesque churches

3.7. Symbols

3.7.1. Peter and Paul are the pillars of the church

3.7.2. 12 inner columns of the chevet: with disciples/apostles

3.7.3. Outer columns =minor prophets

3.7.4. Rose Window

3.7.5. Trinity of doors

4. Chatres Cathedral, 1194 - 1220

4.1. Neoplatonist

4.2. Medieval interest in geometry and proportion

4.3. First of the great High Gothic cathedrals

4.4. Triple portal

4.5. Nave elevation

4.6. Original stained glass

5. Light

5.1. St Augustine

5.1.1. Matter = bad

5.1.2. Ideal form = good

5.1.3. God is beyond our imagination

5.1.4. God = light

6. Sens Cathedral, begun 1140s

6.1. Continuous shaft with alternate rhythms

7. Notre Dame de Paris, 1163 - 1250

7.1. Trying to maximize the light

7.2. Random section in the East = different

8. Bourges Cathedral, 1190 - 1275

8.1. Incredibly streamlined

8.2. Very high arcade

8.3. 144 ft high

9. Amiens Cathedral, 1270

9.1. Nave

10. Beauvais Cathedral, begun 1225

11. La Sainte-Chapelle, 1243 - 1248

11.1. Rayonnant style

11.2. Very tall

11.3. Small interior

11.4. Huge reliquarium

11.5. Very little masonry

11.6. Lots of glass

11.7. Peak of Gothic achieved

12. Vendôme, La Trinité, 1350

12.1. Flamboyant Gothic

12.2. Very decorative masonry

12.3. Flamme

13. Abbeville, St. Gilles

14. Batalha, Portugal, 1386 - 1517

14.1. Very ornamented

14.2. Encrusted

14.3. Complex

14.4. Small windows

15. Burgos Cathedral, begun 1221

16. Majorca, Palma Cathedral, begun 1229

16.1. Built on the site of a Mosque

16.2. Soaring to heaven

16.3. Geometric patterns on rose window

17. Florence Cathedral, begun 1296

17.1. Few windows

18. Milan Cathedral, 1380s

18.1. Most gothic of Italian churches

18.2. Had French and German masons

19. St Annen, Annaberg, Germanny, begun 1499

19.1. Very light

19.2. No flying buttresses

19.3. Complex vaulting

20. Inglostadt, Liebfrauenmunder, from 1425

20.1. Tablet shaped

20.2. Nothing stops the vaults

20.3. Exposed vaults in the side chapels

21. Benedikt Reid/Rejt 1450 - 1531, Prague Castle

21.1. Vladislaw Hall 1493 - 1502

22. Gothic in Scotland

22.1. Holyrood Abbey, 1128

22.1.1. New religious orders from France

22.1.2. Augustinian

22.2. St Micheal's, Linlithgow

22.2.1. French flamboyant design in the South Transept

22.3. Glasgow Cathedral (early 13th Century)

22.3.1. Lower story for tomb

22.3.2. Simple lancet windows

22.3.3. Wooden vaults

22.4. Melrose Abbey, post 1385

22.4.1. Paid by Richard II as an apology for sacking

22.4.2. By John Morow

22.4.2.1. Closer to French flamboyant work

22.4.2.2. Worked everywhere in Scotland

22.4.2.3. Scotland fought for France in wars

23. Gothic Art, by Michael Camille

23.1. Gothic as 'a new vision of space'

23.2. Cathedral architecgture is showing how the church could control and manpulate space on earth

23.3. Gothic as a break with tradition: originally called 'opus francigenum' (French Style/New Style'

23.4. Intricate exteriors to entice people to enter: 'advertisments in stone'

23.5. Focus was usually the West Front

23.6. Like the Heavenly Jerusalem described in teh vision of the Apoocalypse in Revelation 21

23.6.1. 'walls great and high'

23.6.2. 'pure gold, like unto glass' --> Camille: 'crystaline appearance'

23.7. Huge contrast to small, dark homes of most people: showing the church's power and wealth, awed them.

23.7.1. Not everyone liked them. Peter the Chanter (d. 1117), canon at Notre Dame de Paris critized this excess as being like the Tower of Babel.

23.8. England: Cathedrals more isolated from civilization e.g. Salisbury

23.8.1. More urban in France and Germany

23.9. Wells Cathdral, 1230 - 1250

23.9.1. Unlike French Gothic

23.9.2. Focus on depth of portals

23.9.3. On screen-like canopies with 257 statues

23.10. 'Gothic architecture has to be seen as part of this ever-changing spatial performance of the liturgy'

23.11. Cult of the Virgin = one of the greatest incentives in cathedral building

23.12. Rheims Cathedral

23.12.1. sculptural elements of the East end show that this is the most sacred and important part of the church

23.13. 13th Century Gothic we see huge buildings

23.13.1. St. Urbain, Troyes, begun 1260

23.13.1.1. small cathedral

23.13.1.2. exterior is composed so that all the elements seem deatched

23.13.1.3. Camille: shows imagination, 'capacity to build castles in the air'

23.13.1.4. so light: no glass in certain parts of the tracery; just air

23.13.1.5. Rayonnant Gothic 1260 - 1300

23.14. Gothic architecture was planned as they went along, on site

23.15. Sculptures were very often endorsed in a canopy (3D version of the pointed arch)

23.15.1. Connatations of security

23.15.2. The frame was the locus: 'allowed the viewers to position themselves in relation to the representation within' Figure is elevated to a divine level.

23.15.3. Only gargoyles were ever without canopies: their exterior isolation, draine pipes: an 'ungodly ejection from the church'.

23.15.4. Canopies, alongisde crocketed finials and sharply pointed pinnacles were the image of Holy Jerusalem.

23.16. 'Gothic was the creation of a complete space, a total enviornment'.

23.17. Suger: "Some strange region of the universe which neither exists entirely in the slime of the earth non entirely in th epurity of heaven."

23.18. Light was very important: removal of gallery + flying buttresses = larger clerestory windows

23.18.1. Chartres is very gloomy; filtered, jewel-colored light - 'a vision of that other would "garnished with all manner of precious stones"' (Revelation 21)

23.18.2. Rose windows = Virgin Mary

23.19. Latin: many words for light

23.19.1. lumen = light multiplied spacially

23.19.2. lux = light from luminous bodies

23.19.3. splendour = reflected light

23.19.4. lux nova = Suger's choir windows

23.20. Gothic art = metaphysics of light

23.20.1. Pseudo-Dionysius - 5th Century

23.20.1.1. revival during the 12th Century

23.20.1.2. Suger was eager to link with St Denis

23.20.1.3. Christian mystic: God = an "incomprehensible and inaccessible light"

23.20.2. Light quality changed over the years

23.20.2.1. Chartres is very dark and mysterious

23.20.2.2. "This latter glass makes the walls of the church seem not so much garnished with a mosaic of precious stones as disappearing altogether in diaphanous radiance."

23.20.2.3. 13th Century allowed for more light to enter

23.20.2.4. People becoming more partial to materials such as crystals and diamonds, meanwhile, perspective philosophers were looking at refraction of light through the eye

23.20.3. 1300 - silver staining in stained glass develops

23.20.3.1. white = important

23.20.4. Giotto: instead of transporting viewers to a heavenly realm, he's bringing them down to earth

23.20.4.1. Fresco: Italian's main way of defining space - Arena Chapel = coherent, painted narrative

23.20.5. Canterbury Cathedral

23.20.5.1. Pilgrims would literally move down from the dark of the crypts in to the light of the Trinity chapel (1220) where the relics of Thomas Beckett were displayed: v. bright with stained glass windows, each one representing his miracles.'

23.20.5.1.1. 'New spatial experience'

23.20.6. Louis IX: Sainte-Chapelle

23.20.6.1. Essentially a huge reliquarium

23.20.6.2. So much light through windows reflecting off of gilded statues

23.20.6.3. 'chromatic brilliance of Gothic' lost from most buildings due to austerity of later century's tastes

23.20.6.4. Like being ain a huge gemstone