The Gothic Cathedral Summary

Castlenden explores areas such the beginning of the structure, the techniques, the structural layout, how the development of the structure took place over the large span of time. The topic that holds most relevance and significance and links them to the previous sources is the chapter in the book “The meaning of the Stonehenge” that brings forth the notion of “the magic circle” that is believed to be one of the reasons behind the building of the monument and it’s use as a ‘cult center’. The magic circle not only has religious implications but also highlights the significance of the society bringing forth the cultural practices, beliefs and values of the natives through carvings on the stones and the Saresen

It's critical that Gothic engineering was fundamentally given to the working of religious abodes. Gothic design is known for the utilization of curves that point strongly upward and flying supports, which allude to structures that hold up substantial dividers. Flying braces make the rich, vertical upward line of Gothic engineering and take into account bigger windows, which Gothic specialists used to showcase splendid recolored glass windows. Renaissance engineering included more Romanesque structures (fabricating a home around a yard, for instance), regularly based around circles rather than the vertical, upward development of Gothic design. In the Renaissance, figure was much more imperative than engineering. Figures, for example, Michelangelo's David demonstrated amazing naturalism and a grasp of the bare human

Robert A. Scott wrote The Gothic Enterprise in an attempt to give readers a bit of insight into the world of cathedrals. He moves from topic to topic, explaining how Gothic Cathedrals came to be, how they were constructed, and who ran them. Two course themes very applicable to Scott’s text are “How Technologies Develop” and “Technology and the Environment.” Over the nearly 500 year period of cathedral building, technologies to make the process easier were developed. For example, the windlass were used to hoist the heaver timbers up to the roofs of the cathedrals. Flying buttresses were also put in place after wind started to become a problem with the building of the spires. This environmental problem, along with others such as flooding at the

Religion has always been a part of our identity. Today, the population wander around the world seeing these wonderful churches and religious buildings all around us. The architectural style of the Middle Ages was very prominent: high stone vaults, internal elevations of multiple stories, rounded arches, and thick walls. This was characterized as Romanesque architecture. Suger revolutionized everything. He reworked these ideas and introduced, to the world, what is now known as the Gothic architectural style.

Of the many classical writers whose works were available to the medieval scholars, the most influential one had to be Plato. In Norman Cantor’s book, he observes that, “Christianity was built as much on Plato as on the Judaic tradition” (Cantor, 18). Because Plato’s work so influential, it would be illuminating to look at exactly what Plato’s ideas were, as well as how they were reinterpreted by medieval scholars. According to Cantor, “To Plato ideas, or conceptual forms, were not idle fantasies, but essential realities. When we refer to ‘justice’ or ‘the state’ or ‘love’, we are actually referring to something that has an independent existence outside our minds” (Cantor, 16). On the other hand, material objects such as a table, which are commonly assumed to have more “reality” than mere ideas, actually have less reality to a Platonist, because “A table would not have come into existence without the idea of a table; it is the idea that gives it shape and reality. Pure, ultimate reality is pure Idea, and the physical world that we touch and see has a reality only insofar as it participates in or is formed by pure Idea” (Cantor, 16).

St. Augustine was a Christian Platonist. He Christianizes many of Plato’s Greek concepts. In Confessions, St. Augustine used many Neo-plationic terms and ideas but in Book VII is when he finally has a revelation about the similarities of Philosophy and Christianity. In class, we have discussed a number of ways in which St. Augustine accepts the ideas of Plato; one of those being the theory of forms. Plato’s theory of forms describes the divine to be in the invisible, perfect, intangible world. St. Augustine believed that Plato’s theory of the forms was compatible with his Christian beliefs because of a vision he had while trying to picture God.

During the Gothic period changes in observation of nature significantly affected the training of artist, physicians, and builders. Artisans began to notice the earthly pleasures of the natural world, drawing, or carving from observation in some cases, while others used model books to perfect their rendering of the natural world. Camille states, “…in Gothic art ‘naturalism’ was not a style that depicted all things uniformly within a singular stylistic vision, like, Impressionism.”(133), he then goes on to say, “Yet, during the Middle Ages as today, nothing was ‘natural’, everything was constructed; when we examine developments in the representation of the vegetable world and the animal world, including the human body itself, we will be examining

Bourges cathedral. At the end of the 12th century: an avant-garde Cathedral for a new world. Retrieved from Patrick, Frank. Artforms. Gothic; page 244-255.

This remarkable improvement in methods indicates the fresh importation of skills from the East and this applies not merely to England but to all Western Europe at that time (“The Flowering” 88). Into three main phases the development of architecture through the period may be divided. The elements of Gothic style and their gradual elaboration over a period of rather more than a century came first at the opening of the 12th century. After the year 1000 there was a fully coordinated Gothic art particularly marked by the invention of windows with baltracy, Jean d’ Orbais probably used it first at Rheims cathedral during the generation following 1211, why the east end was begun. A century followed with classic poise in which an international architecture reached its peak and produce perfect forms of castle and palace, cathedrals enriched with painting patterned tiles, figure sculpture and stained glass (“The Flowering” 92).

The Gothic style, dating between the 12th century and 16th century, began in France and eventually spread throughout the rest of Europe. An example of the first true Gothic church was St. Denis of Paris. Now, it is considered one of our finest artistic periods, but at the time, the term “gothic” did not exactly hold the same meaning it does today. The name came from the Goths and was used rather negatively when describing this style of architecture as they considered it to be similar to the works of the barbarians from which the name was derived.

Renaissance ideas of the relationship of music and cosmology to architecture substantially predate the 15th century and were influential long after it. Discuss.

Horace Walpole’s The Castle of Otranto, is acknowledged by many as the first gothic novel. It was the first of it’s kind and many of the conventions used by Walpole, which put it in a literary genre of it’s own, were continued by authors such as Ann Radcliffe and Matthew Lewis. Many of these defining characteristics can be seen within the very first few pages of the text and for the purposes of this essay, to identify some of these conventions used and the relevance of this text to modernity I shall focus this analysis on the passage between pages twenty-four and twenty-six from the Oxford World’s Classics edition.

The Gothic style was an over exaggerated, awe-inspiring attempt to become closer to God. The worshipper was not only drawn to the altar, but experienced an ascent to heaven at the same time.1 These artistic gems are a grand testament to historical technology and the imaginative approach and vision of skilled craftsmen. The gothic style is one of the most

Gothic art flourished from the 12th century to the 16th century in Europe in response of the Byzantine and Romanesque tradition. Although Gothic is associated with arts, its most prominent use is in architecture, mainly for its pointed arch and flying buttress. To this day, the Gothic style is taken as a ‘label’ for visual arts such as concept art designs, yet the meaning stray from the original context, thus becoming rarely accurate.

The research paper, shall be concerned with discussion Gothic architecture in Europe-namely England, France, Germany, and Italy starting from 12th to the 16th Centuries. Architecture was the most original and lasting form of art during the Gothic Period, which lasted for four centuries starting from the mid 12th century. The impetus for this architecture was the Roman Catholic Church, which sought to portray their houses of worship as something which transcended the realm of mankind. It is interesting to note that many of the Northern European areas were predominately pagan, and only recently brought into the Church. The imagery provided by Gothic structural design was something these peoples could more readily understand, as they