Gothic Architecture Quiz

Architectural Style of Medieval Europe:

• Gothic architecture evolved from Romanesque architecture and was prevalent in Europe from the late 12th to the 16th century.

• The defining design element of Gothic architecture is the pointed or ogival arch, which led to the development of the pointed rib vault and flying buttresses, combined with elaborate tracery and stained glass windows.

• Gothic architecture is commonly found in Christian ecclesiastical architecture, cathedrals, churches, abbeys, and parish churches, as well as castles, palaces, town halls, guildhalls, universities, and private dwellings.

• Many of the finest examples of medieval Gothic architecture are listed with UNESCO as World Heritage Sites.

• With the development of Renaissance architecture, Gothic-style was supplanted by the new style, but in some regions, notably England and Belgium, Gothic continued to flourish and develop into the 16th century.

• Gothic architecture is also known as ogival architecture and was first applied contemptuously during the later Renaissance by those ambitious to revive the architecture of classical antiquity.

• The polymath architect Christopher Wren disapproved of the name Gothic for pointed architecture, comparing it to Islamic architecture, which he called the 'Saracen style'.

• The Gothic style of architecture was strongly influenced by Romanesque architecture, growing population and wealth of European cities, local grandeur, theological doctrines, and technical improvements in vaults and buttresses.

• It was also influenced by the necessity of many churches, such as Chartres Cathedral and Canterbury Cathedral, to accommodate growing numbers of pilgrims and adapted features from earlier styles, such as Islamic architecture.

• The earliest buildings to be considered fully Gothic are the royal funerary abbey of the French kings, the Abbey of Saint-Denis, and the archiepiscopal cathedral at Sens.

• Gothic architecture began in the earlier 12th century in northwest France and England and spread throughout Latin Europe in the 13th century.

• High Gothic was a brief but very productive period, which produced some of the great landmarks of Gothic art, including Chartres Cathedral, an important pilgrimage church south of Paris.The Evolution of Gothic Architecture

• Gothic architecture originated in the 12th century in France with the construction of the Abbey Church of Saint-Denis and was characterized by pointed arches, rib vaults, and flying buttresses.

• The High Gothic style appeared in the 13th century with the whole surface of the clerestory given over to windows, and the use of bar-tracery and quadripartite rib vaults.

• Rayonnant Gothic maximized the coverage of stained glass windows, allowing for increasingly ambitious expanses of glass and decorated tracery, while the Decorated Gothic emphasized the ornamentation of tracery.

• The flamboyant style characterized by the multiplication of the ribs of the vaults, with new purely decorative ribs called tiercons and liernes, and additional diagonal ribs, was definitive in the Late Gothic of continental Europe.

• The Gothic style gradually lost its dominance in Europe in the mid-15th century, with the rise of the Renaissance, which drew upon ancient Roman ruins and classical models.

• Gothic architecture survived the early modern period and flourished again in the 18th and 19th centuries in a revival of the Perpendicular style.

• The defining characteristic of Gothic architecture is the pointed arch, which was widely used in both structure and decoration.

• Gothic rib vaults covered the nave, and pointed arches were commonly used for the arcades, windows, doorways, and tracery.

• The Gothic rib vault was made of diagonal crossing arched ribs that directed the thrust outwards to the corners of the vault, and downwards via slender colonettes and bundled columns, to the pillars and columns below.

• The earlier Gothic rib vaults were divided by the ribs into six compartments, while the later design was simplified, and the rib vaults had only four compartments.

• Gothic architecture allowed for thinner and higher walls filled with windows, as the vaults were supported by the columns and piers.

• The Gothic style was characterized by the use of flying buttresses, which allowed for taller and more complex structures.Overview of Gothic Architecture

• Gothic architecture was characterized by the use of ribbed vaults, pointed arches, and flying buttresses.

• The ribbed vaults evolved from the sexpartite vaults of the Romanesque period to the four-part rib vaults of the Gothic period.

• Gothic architecture in France primarily used four-part rib vaults, while in England, new vaults were invented with more elaborate decorative features, such as tierceron and fan vaults.

• Columns in Gothic architecture were modeled after Roman columns of the Corinthian order, and in the High Gothic period, clustered columns were introduced.

• Flying buttresses were a defining feature of Gothic architecture, allowing buildings to be taller and have thinner walls with more space for windows. They were decorated with heavy stone pinnacles and often contained lead channels to carry rainwater.

• Towers, spires, and flèches were important features of Gothic churches, symbolizing the aspirations of their builders toward heaven. Towers were typically the last part of the structure to be built and were often decorated with elaborate tracery.

• Gothic architecture in Central Europe often followed the French model but added even denser decorative tracery.

• Tracery is an architectural solution by which windows are divided into sections of various proportions by stone bars or ribs of moulding. Gothic tracery evolved from plate tracery to bar-tracery, curvilinear, flowing, and reticulated tracery, and finally to lace-like patterns in the Late Gothic period.

• Gothic architecture was practical as well as decorative, with tracery providing maximum support against the wind for increasingly large windows.

• Gothic architecture was used primarily for churches and cathedrals and was a reflection of the religious fervor of the time.

• Gothic architecture declined in the 16th century, giving way to the Renaissance style, but experienced a revival in the 19th century with the Gothic Revival movement.

• Examples of Gothic architecture include Chartres Cathedral, Notre-Dame de Paris, and Cologne Cathedral.Overview of Gothic Architecture

• Gothic architecture was influenced by Romanesque architecture, growing population and wealth of European cities, national grandeur, theological doctrines, and technical improvements in vaulting and buttresses.

• Gothic cathedrals and churches were usually based on the Latin cross plan with a long nave, transept, and choir, and an eastern end rounded in French churches and rectangular in English churches.

• Each vault of the nave formed a separate cell with its own supporting piers or columns, and the early cathedrals had six-part rib vaults while later cathedrals had the simpler and stronger four-part vaults.

• Gothic architecture was a continual search for greater height, thinner walls, and more light, and the elevations of the cathedrals evolved to have thinner walls, more windows, and more height.

• The façades of Gothic architecture had three portals leading to the nave, with a tympanum above each doorway filled with sculpture, and in the early Gothic, the columns of the doorways took the form of statues of saints.

• In the High Gothic period, the façades grew higher, and had more dramatic architecture and sculpture, with portals crowned with high arched gables filled with sculpture and enormous rose windows.

• Italian Gothic façades added distinctive Italian elements, such as colourful mosaics of biblical scenes and sculpted bronze doors.

• Plate tracery was replaced by bar-tracery in the beginning of the 13th century, and stone bar-tracery was an important decorative element of Gothic styles.

• Rayonnant style was enabled by the development of bar-tracery in Continental Europe and is named for the radiation of lights around a central point in circular rose windows.

• Geometrical tracery characterized the early phase of Middle Pointed style, and Intersecting tracery was elaborated with ogees in Second Pointed style, creating a complex reticular design known as Reticulated tracery.

• Third Pointed or Perpendicular Gothic developed in England from the later 14th century and is typified by Rectilinear tracery, four-centred arches, and unbroken straight mullions from top to bottom.

• Tracery was used on both the interior and exterior of buildings, frequently covering the façades and interior walls of the nave and choir, and often picking up and repeating the designs in the stained glass windows.