Gothic Art
Gothic ArtRomanesque may first be sensed in new structural developments.. Sophisticated but unsatisfactory
attempts to vault the great basilican naves safely, with elements of
Roman, Byzantine, or Eastern origin, impelled progressive Romanesque
engineers, from about 1090 onward, to invent a new type of ribbed
groin-vaulted unit bay, using pointed arches to distribute thrust and
improve the shape of the geometric surfaces. Fifty years of
experimentation produced vaulting that was light, strong, open,
versatile, and applicable everywhere--in short, Gothic vaulting. A whole
new aesthetic, with a new decorative system--the Gothic--was being
evolved as early as 1145. The spatial forms of the new buildings
sometimes caused acoustic difficulties, which may help to account for
the concomitant development of the new polyphonic music that
supplemented the traditional Romanesque plainsong. Romanesque
architecture became old-fashioned, but its heavy forms pleased the
Cistercian monks and, likewise, other conservative patrons in Germany,
Poland, Hungary, Italy, Spain, and Portugal. Thus, buildings that were
essentially Romanesque in spirit continued to be built, even when such
extraordinary Gothic works as the Amiens cathedral were under
construction (begun 1220). (see also Index: Gothic architecture, music,
history of)
The development of proto-Romanesque in the Ottonian period culminated in
the true Romanesque style represented by five magnificent churches on
the international pilgrimage routes leading from central France to the
reputed tomb of St. James at Santiago de Compostela in Spain:
Saint-Martin at Tours (a huge once wooden-roofed basilica that was
rebuilt on the new model beginning about 1050), Sainte-Foy at Conques (
c. 1052-1130), Saint-Martial at Limoges (c. 1062-95), Saint-Sernin at
Toulouse (1077 or 1082-1118), and the new cathedral at Santiago de
Compostela itself (c. 1075-1211). This was a real family of buildings;
each one had a splendid apse with ambulatory (a sheltered place to walk)
and radiating chapels, a transept and nave with aisles and galleries, an
imposing tower system, and beautiful sculptures. Each one was entirely
vaulted, typically, with barrel vaults over the nave, quadrant vaults
(four-part vaults, formed by two intersecting arches) over the
galleries, and groin-vaulted aisles. A little later, at the Cluniac
priory of Saint-�tienne (Nevers, Fr.), such a church was boldly built
with clerestory (part of the nave, choir, and transept walls above the
aisle roofs) windows under the high vault.