Identifier: gothicarchitectu01jackuoft (find matches)
Title: Gothic architecture in France, England, and Italy
Year: 1915 (1910s)
Authors: Jackson, Thomas Graham, Sir, 1835-1924
Subjects: Architecture, Gothic
Publisher: Cambridge, University Press
Contributing Library: Robarts - University of Toronto
Digitizing Sponsor: University of Toronto

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yptian statues, or the Greek primitives,and that apparent rudeness which at first sight is dis-concerting1. The fine early Christ of the royal portalat Chartres is sterner, and more powerful, and that onthe north transept at Reims more human and sympathetic ;the three together combine to make a wonderful present-ment of our divine Lord and Saviour. In comparing these great Gothic churches together itwould, as M. Durand very wisely says, be childish toenquire which to place first. Still, he continues, whatnobody will deny to the cathedral of Amiens, is thatit is the monument in which Gothic art has displayed theplenitude of its system and its resources, where it hasmost closely approached its ideal, where decisive solutionshave been found, and where in a word we have thetype of Gothic construction1. All this is quite true. We have here in perfectionall the system of thrust and counterthrust, necessary tosatisfy Mr Moore. The points of support are isolated, 1 op. cit. p. 51. Plate XXXII
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rfL_ AMIENS CATHEDRAL—West Porta en. vn) AMIENS AND BEAUVAIS 125 and the walls between them are reduced to mere curtains Amiensto enclose the building, made mostly of glass. Eachvaulting rib descends separately on its capital clear ofthe rest, and has its own separate shaft to carry it. Thewhole construction is visibly expressed by the architecturalform. Every problem involved in building a great Gothicchurch is solved, and there seems nothing further to bedone in the way of improvement. It is perhaps this very perfection that to some extent itsrobs it of its interest. You miss that restless energy, that effect6forward push, that yearning and striving for somethingbetter, which characterises all the work of the Romanesqueperiod, and all the earlier Gothic work we have till nowbeen engaged in describing. For their youthful vigouris substituted a classical repose which is alien to thenorthern temper. Revisiting the idols of our youth aftera long interval, one looks at them with a fres

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