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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, and can hardly beseen.Difficulty Adequate spacing of the apse columns was the most theapse2 troublesome problem that the French architect of the13th century had to solve, in spite of the fact that hecould make them slighter than the other columns, asthey only received one vaulting rib instead of three.As each bay of the apse radiated from the centre throughthe aisle to the chapel beyond, if the apse columns weretoo far apart the width of the bay at the outer cir-cumference became too great for vaulting. On the otherhand if the convenience of vaulting the aisle alone werestudied the apse columns would be drawn too neartogether. At Paris the architect succeeded in makingthe bays of the apse about as wide as those of thestraight part, by the ingenious method, explained above,of multiplying the columns in the aisle1. Where, as atBourges and Vezelay, there are only five apsidal chapelsthe trouble was less, and more liberal space could be 1 v. sup. p. 79 (Fig. 29), & p. 82. Plate XXXI
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AMIENS CATHEDRAL ch. vn) AMIENS AND BEAUVAIS 123 allowed : but at Amiens there are seven, and the result Amiensis that the apse arches are cramped and the columnscrowded too closely together. The west front (Plate XXXI), which is the work of West frontRobert de Luzarches, is a magnificent composition, perhapsrather overdone with ornament, but still a masterpiece.Compared with Reims I think on the whole Amiens has The facadethe finer facade. The towers here are more solid : at wmiPReimsReims the stage above the portals is pierced, and youlook through and see the flying buttresses of the navebeyond, and this gives an air of weakness : at Amiensthe openings do not begin till above the roof level. Thepediments also over the portals are better managed here,for the clustering tabernacle-work on the middle gable atReims is unhappy. In both fronts the pediments concealmore or less the lower part of the tower buttresses, andthis according to M. Coifs1 puts them both out of thepale of Gothic ar

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