Gothic Architecture :: Architectural Middle Ages Churches Essays

Gothic ArchitectureThe church in the Middle Ages was a habitation that all people, regardless of class, could belong to. As a seminal fluid of unity, its influence on art and computer architecture was enormous during this time. As ordination drew away from the feudal system of the Romanesque period, a new philia of human individualism began to take hold alas, the birth of Gothic. Here, the Church became a place where humanity became more acceptable, alas becoming the ideal place to visual such new ideals. The beauty and elegance of Gothic architecture is depicted most in the great cathedrals of the 12th, 13th and 14th centuriesSt. Denis, Notre Dame, Chartres, Salisbury, Durham, Amiens, and more. The witness of looking at one of the great gothic cathedrals is to look up towards God. Indeed, most Gothic structures emphasize the vertical, drawing ones eyeball upwards toward the heavens with the awesomeness of God. These cathedrals were built with towering spires, pointed arches a nd flying buttressinges giving impressions of accordance and luminosity. One of the major accomplishments of the 12th and 13th centuries was to develop the engineering mastery of the ribbed vault, pointed arch and flying buttress to create a great cathedral that is at once taller, lighter, wider, and more elegant than the ones before. Even though the pointed arch could support more weight than its predecessors, there was still the paradox of finding a way to support the heavy masonry ceiling vaults all over wide spans. In order to support the outward thrust of barrelful vaults, vertical support walls have to be very thick and heavy. What makes likely the extensive use of ribbed vaulting and pointed arches to open and lighten the walls and blank space of the cathedral is the flying buttressan arched bridge above the aisle roof that extends from the upper nave wall, where the lateral thrust of the main vault is greatest, kill to a solid pier. Jansen, History of Art, p. 407. T he effect is to add structural posture and solidity to the building. The visual appearance of changes from the Early and Later or towering Gothic are clear, as each cathedral became increasingly narrower and taller. For instance, equivalence the nave elevations of Notre-Dame to Amiens Text, fig. 442, p. 333, the pointed arches of Amiens are significantly taller and narrower than the much earlier Notre Dame. The mastery of the flying buttress allowed medieval builders to construct taller and more elegant looking buildings with more convoluted ground plans.