gothic: introduction

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Gothic Introduction; the divinity of light; Abbot Suger & St. Denis “The Church became the Bible of the poor” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qUgSsm3ASLQ OTIS Watch, listen and, in pairs, think of a question to ask the class.

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Page 1: Gothic: introduction

Gothic

Introduction; the divinity of light; Abbot Suger & St. Denis

“The Church became the Bible of the poor”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qUgSsm3ASLQ OTIS

Watch, listen and, in pairs, think of a question to ask the class.

Page 2: Gothic: introduction

In 1550, Giorgio Vasari, the “father of art history,” first used Gothic as a derogatory term to describe late medieval art & architecture, which he attributed to the Goths and regarded as “monstrous and barbarous.”In the 13th & 14th centuries, however, when the Gothic style was fashionable in most of Europe, people of the time admired Gothic buildings as opus modernum (“modern work”). Both the clergy & the public saw the great cathedrals towering over their towns as an exciting new style. For them, Gothic cathedrals were images of the City of God, the ‘Heavenly Jerusalem’, which they were privileged to build on earth. The Gothic age was a time of prosperity, but also a time of turmoil in Europe. (In 1337 the Hundred Years’ War began between France and England. In the 14th century, a great plague swept over western Europe, killing at least a quarter of its people.) Above all, the Gothic age was a time of profound change in European society: the focus of life shifted from monasteries in the countryside to rapidly expanding cities. In these new Gothic cities, prosperous merchants made their homes, and guilds (professional associations) of scholars founded the first modern universities. The papacy was at the height of its power, and knights throughout Europe fought the Crusades against the Muslims, but at the same time, the independent nations of modern Europe were beginning to take shape. Foremost among them was France.

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Europe around 1200 CE

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http://youtu.be/2EciWH-1ya4 Or http://smarthistory.khanacademy.org/the-birth-of-the-gothic-abbot-suger-and-the-ambulatory-at-st.-denis.html

1)How did Abbot Suger ‘open up’ the architectural space?

2) Why did he do this?

The birth of the Gothic and the divinity of light: Abbot Suger & the Ambulatory at St. Denis

Page 5: Gothic: introduction

Ambulatory and radiating chapels with ribbed vaults, abbey church, Saint-Denis,France, 1140–1144.

Abbot Suger’s remodelling of Saint-Denis marked the beginning of Gothic architecture. Rib vaults with pointed arches spring from slender columns. The radiating chapels have stained-glass windows.

Page 6: Gothic: introduction

A barrel vault (cradle vault, tunnel vault, or wagon vault) has a semicircular cross section. A groin (or cross) vault is formed at the point where two barrel vaults intersect at right angles. In a ribbed vault, there is a framework of ribs or arches under the intersections of the vaulting sections. A fan vault has radiating ribs which form a fanlike pattern.

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Pointed arches channel the weight of the rib vaults more directly downward than do round arches, requiring less buttressing. Pointed arches also make the vaults appear taller than they are.

A major advantage of the Gothic vault is its flexibility, which permits the vaulting of compartments of varying shapes, as seen at Saint-Denis. Pointed arches also channel the weight of the vaults more directly downward than do round arches. The vaults therefore require less buttressing to hold them in place, in turn permitting builders to open up the walls and place large windows beneath the arches. Because pointed arches also lead the eye upward, they make the vaults appear taller than they are. In the above diagram, the crown (F ) of both the Romanesque (b ) and Gothic (c ) vaults is the same height from the pavement, but the Gothic vault seems taller. Both the physical and visual properties of rib vaults with pointed arches aided Gothic builders in their quest for soaring height in church interiors.

Drawings of rib vaults with semicircular (b) and pointed (c) arches

Pointed arches and rib vaults: more windows, more light

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Nave of the Church of Saint Trophime, Arles (France) (late 12th century) to 15th century: ROMANESQUE Chartres Cathedral, France, mostly

(re)constructed between 1194 and 1250: GOTHIC

Page 10: Gothic: introduction

In architecture, a gargoyle is a carved stone ‘grotesque’, often with a spout designed to convey water from a roof and away from the side of a building - thereby preventing rainwater from running down stone walls and eroding them. Combinations of animals (called chimeras) were sometimes only decorative, but are still called gargoyles. Although gargoyles fit every stereotype about evil creatures, they are instead guardians of the structures which they inhabit.

The Gothic Gargoyle

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Sources:Gardner’s ‘Art through the Ages’http://smarthistory.khanacademy.orghttp://www.sacred-destinations.comhttp://www.britannica.com OTIS Art History channel on Youtubehttp://www.romeofthewest.com/2011/08/build-your-own-gothic-cathedral.html

http://youtu.be/24N94rZ7XtU PBS “Building the Great Cathedrals”