Get Started. It's Free
or sign up with your email address
Gothic Architecture by Mind Map: Gothic Architecture

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

1.1. Ambulatory 1137 - 1140

1.2. First Gothic building

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

1.3. Abbot Suger

1.4. St. Denis --> Pseudo Dionysius

1.4.1. Christian Neo-Platonism

1.4.1.1. Matter = Bad

1.4.1.2. Pure Form = Good

1.4.2. St John's Gospel: God is light

1.4.2.1. Choir: Huge stained glass windows

1.5. 'Heavenly Jerusalem'

1.6. Jesse Window

1.6.1. Part of the new front and choir.

1.6.2. Mystical significance of light.

1.6.2.1. Adding a more holy light

1.6.2.2. Huge contrast to Romanesque churches

1.7. Symbols

1.7.1. Peter and Paul are the pillars of the church

1.7.2. 12 inner columns of the chevet: with disciples/apostles

1.7.3. Outer columns =minor prophets

1.7.4. Rose Window

1.7.5. Trinity of doors

2. Inglostadt, Liebfrauenmunder, from 1425

2.1. Tablet shaped

2.2. Nothing stops the vaults

2.3. Exposed vaults in the side chapels

3. Light

3.1. St Augustine

3.1.1. Matter = bad

3.1.2. Ideal form = good

3.1.3. God is beyond our imagination

3.1.4. God = light

4. Florence Cathedral, begun 1296

4.1. Few windows

5. St Annen, Annaberg, Germanny, begun 1499

5.1. Very light

5.2. No flying buttresses

5.3. Complex vaulting

6. Gothic Art, by Michael Camille

6.1. Gothic as 'a new vision of space'

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

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

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

6.5. Focus was usually the West Front

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

6.6.1. 'walls great and high'

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

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

6.7.1. 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.

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

6.8.1. More urban in France and Germany

6.9. Wells Cathdral, 1230 - 1250

6.9.1. Unlike French Gothic

6.9.2. Focus on depth of portals

6.9.3. On screen-like canopies with 257 statues

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

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

6.12. Rheims Cathedral

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

6.13. 13th Century Gothic we see huge buildings

6.13.1. St. Urbain, Troyes, begun 1260

6.13.1.1. small cathedral

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

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

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

6.13.1.5. Rayonnant Gothic 1260 - 1300

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

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

6.15.1. Connatations of security

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

6.18.2. Rose windows = Virgin Mary

6.19. Latin: many words for light

6.19.1. lumen = light multiplied spacially

6.19.2. lux = light from luminous bodies

6.19.3. splendour = reflected light

6.19.4. lux nova = Suger's choir windows

6.20. Gothic art = metaphysics of light

6.20.1. Pseudo-Dionysius - 5th Century

6.20.1.1. revival during the 12th Century

6.20.1.2. Suger was eager to link with St Denis

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

6.20.2. Light quality changed over the years

6.20.2.1. Chartres is very dark and mysterious

6.20.2.2. "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."

6.20.2.3. 13th Century allowed for more light to enter

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

6.20.3. 1300 - silver staining in stained glass develops

6.20.3.1. white = important

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

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

6.20.5. Canterbury Cathedral

6.20.5.1. 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.'

6.20.5.1.1. 'New spatial experience'

6.20.6. Louis IX: Sainte-Chapelle

6.20.6.1. Essentially a huge reliquarium

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

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

6.20.6.4. Like being ain a huge gemstone

7. Sens Cathedral, begun 1140s

7.1. Continuous shaft with alternate rhythms

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

8.1. Vladislaw Hall 1493 - 1502

9. Milan Cathedral, 1380s

9.1. Most gothic of Italian churches

9.2. Had French and German masons

10. Notre Dame de Paris, 1163 - 1250

10.1. Trying to maximize the light

10.2. Random section in the East = different

11. Chatres Cathedral, 1194 - 1220

11.1. Neoplatonist

11.2. Medieval interest in geometry and proportion

11.3. First of the great High Gothic cathedrals

11.4. Triple portal

11.5. Nave elevation

11.6. Original stained glass

12. High Middle Ages architecure

12.1. France 12th to early 16th Century

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

12.1.2. French Gothic is very streamlined

12.1.3. French Gothic is very streamlined

12.2. Name = derogatory

12.3. Pointed arch

12.4. Flying buttreses

12.4.1. Uniformed vaulting of any plan shape

12.4.2. Increased height

12.4.3. Elimination of non-load bearing walls

12.5. Rib vaulting

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

12.6.1. Need for smaller windows

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

12.7.1. Need for smaller windows

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

12.9. Three Stages

12.9.1. Early Gothic: 1140 - 1200

12.9.2. High Gothic: 1200 - 1260

12.9.3. Rayonnant: 1260 - 1300

13. Batalha, Portugal, 1386 - 1517

13.1. Very ornamented

13.2. Encrusted

13.3. Complex

13.4. Small windows

14. English Gothic

14.1. No 'British Gothic'

14.2. Roche Abbey, South Yorkshire 1247

14.2.1. Transitional Style

14.2.1.1. Pointed arches/windows (Gothic)

14.2.1.2. Round arches/windows (Romanesque)

14.3. Cantebury Cathedral, 1175 - 1185

14.3.1. By William of Sens

14.3.2. Choir very similar to that of Sens Cathedral

14.4. Westminster Abbey, begun 1245

14.4.1. Mostly built 1245 - 1272

14.4.2. The most French of English cathedrals

14.4.3. Nave

14.4.4. Chapter House, c. 1246

14.4.4.1. Lots of glass, minimum masonry

14.5. Salisbury Cathedral, 1220 - 1258

14.5.1. Early English/ 'First Pointed'

14.5.2. Cloister

14.5.3. Specific chapel for the Virgin

14.5.4. Purbeck marble (polished limestone)

14.5.5. Simple lancet windows

14.5.6. Quadpartite vaulting

14.6. Lincoln Cathedral, early 13th Century

14.6.1. Tieceron vaulting

14.6.2. Two sets of transepts

14.6.3. Extra chapel

14.6.4. Small cloisters

14.6.5. High Gothic

14.6.6. First Phase of English Decorated: Geometric

14.6.6.1. Geometrical Tracery

14.7. Elgin Cathedral, 13th Century

14.7.1. Borrowed Lincoln's order of surface

14.7.2. Only cathedral with two towers

14.8. More complex arch sections than the French

14.9. More complex plans than the French

14.9.1. Plan of Notre Dame de Paris

14.9.2. Plan of Lincoln church

14.10. Ely Cathedral c. 1320 - 1350

14.10.1. Second phase of English Decorative Gothic: Curvolinear

14.10.2. Very complex

14.10.3. Every statue is headless thanks to the Reformation

14.11. Gloucester Cathedral 1340 - 1350

14.11.1. Final stage of English Decorative: Perpendicular

14.11.2. Rising verticles

14.11.3. Lierne vaulting

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

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

15. Burgos Cathedral, begun 1221

16. Gothic in Scotland

16.1. Holyrood Abbey, 1128

16.1.1. New religious orders from France

16.1.2. Augustinian

16.2. St Micheal's, Linlithgow

16.2.1. French flamboyant design in the South Transept

16.3. Glasgow Cathedral (early 13th Century)

16.3.1. Lower story for tomb

16.3.2. Simple lancet windows

16.3.3. Wooden vaults

16.4. Melrose Abbey, post 1385

16.4.1. Paid by Richard II as an apology for sacking

16.4.2. By John Morow

16.4.2.1. Closer to French flamboyant work

16.4.2.2. Worked everywhere in Scotland

16.4.2.3. Scotland fought for France in wars

17. Vendôme, La Trinité, 1350

17.1. Flamboyant Gothic

17.2. Very decorative masonry

17.3. Flamme

18. Majorca, Palma Cathedral, begun 1229

18.1. Built on the site of a Mosque

18.2. Soaring to heaven

18.3. Geometric patterns on rose window

19. Beauvais Cathedral, begun 1225

20. Abbeville, St. Gilles

21. Amiens Cathedral, 1270

21.1. Nave

22. La Sainte-Chapelle, 1243 - 1248

22.1. Rayonnant style

22.2. Very tall

22.3. Small interior

22.4. Huge reliquarium

22.5. Very little masonry

22.6. Lots of glass

22.7. Peak of Gothic achieved

23. Bourges Cathedral, 1190 - 1275

23.1. Incredibly streamlined

23.2. Very high arcade

23.3. 144 ft high