Chapter 13: Gothic Europe
Preview: “Gothic” was originally a disparaging term applied to medieval art and architecture by
Italians in the 16th century, who considered it crude. In actuality, the art produced in the high
middle ages, between 1140 and 1500, is highly original, expressive and technically innovative. The
finest achievement of the era is the Gothic cathedral, epitomized by the Cathedral of Notre Dame
in Chartres, France. Here we find the characteristic features that set Gothic cathedrals apart from
earlier buildings: pointed arches, masonry rib vaults, flying buttresses, and brilliant colored-glass
windows. The Gothic cathedrals in England are less vertical than their French counterparts, but
English builders pursued unique decorative features such as fan vaults and pendants. In the Holy
Roman Empire, German sculptors continued to employ the heightened emotionalism that had
been established in Ottonian art. Throughout Europe, artists in the Gothic era also produced
remarkable examples of metalwork, relief sculptures, and manuscript illumination that illustrate
Christian themes and increasingly include representations of secular figures.
Key Figures: Abbot Suger, Peter Abelard, Thomas Aquinas, Robert de Luzarches, Thomas de
Cormont, Renaud de Cormont, Gaucher de Reims, Bernard de Soissons, Villard de Honnecourt,
King Louis IX, Blanche of Castile, Nicholas of Verdun, Eugene Viollet-le-Duc, Master Honoré, Robert
and William Vertue, Naumburg Master, Heinrich and Peter Parler, Gerhard of Cologne
Key Cultural & Religious Terms: Scholasticism, disputatio, indulgences, lux nova, Annunciation,
Visitation, opere francigeno, opus modernum
Key Art Terms: stained glass, glazier, flashing, cames, leading, plate tracery, bar tracery, fleur-delis, Rayonnant, Flamboyant, mullions, moralized Bible, breviary, Perpendicular style, ambo,
altarpiece, triptych, pieta
Key Architectural Terms: altar frontal, rib vault, armature, webs, pointed arch, jamb figures,
trumeau, triforium, oculus, flying buttress, pinnacle, vaulting web, diagonal rib, transverse rib,
springing, clerestory, lancet, nave arcade, compound pier (cluster pier), shafts (responds),
ramparts, battlements, crenellations, merlons, crenels, fan vaults, pendants, Gothic Revival,
Hallenkirche (hall church)
Lecture Notes:
Introductory Notes:
France:
Architecture, Sculpture, and Stained Glass:
 Ambulatory and radiating chapels (looking northeast), abbey church, Saint-Denis, France,
1140-1144
o Description:
o Architectural features:
o Function & significance:
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Plan of the east end, abbey church, Saint-Denis
o Description:
o Architectural features & location on plan:
West façade, Saint-Denis, 1135-1140
o Description & significance:
Diagram and drawings of rib vaults with semicircular and pointed arches
o Notes:
Aerial view of Chartres Cathedral, Chartres, France, as rebuilt after 1194
o Description:
West façade, Chartres Cathedral, Chartres, France, ca. 1145-1155
o Description:
o Architectural features:
o Significance:
Royal Portal, west façade, Chartres Cathedral, Chartres, France, ca. 1145-1155
o Description:
o Sculptural subjects:
o Stylistic features:
Old Testament kings and queen, jamb statues, right side of the central doorway of the Royal
Portal, Chartres Cathedral, Chartres, France, ca. 1145-1155
o Description:
o Architectural features:
o Significance:
West façade of Laon Cathedral, Laon, France, begun ca. 1190
o Description:
o Architectural features:
o Significance:
Interior of Laon Cathedral (looking northeast), Laon, France, begun ca. 1190
o Description:
o Architectural features:
o Significance:
Nave elevations of four French Gothic cathedrals at the same scale (after Louis Grodecki)
o Notes:
Notre-Dame (looking north), Paris, France, begun 1163; nave and flying buttresses, ca.
1180-1200; remodeled after 1225
o Description:
o Architectural features:
o Significance:
Cutaway view of a typical French Gothic cathedral
o Architectural features:
Plan of Chartres Cathedral, Chartres, France, as rebuilt after the 1194 fire
o Description:
o Architectural features & location on plan:
o Significance:
Interior of Chartres Cathedral (looking east), Chartres, France, begun 1194
o Description:
o Architectural features:
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o Function & significance:
Stonemasons and sculptors, detail of a stained-glass window in the northernmost radiating
chapel in the ambulatory, Chartres Cathedral, Chartres, France, ca. 1200-1220
o Materials:
o Subject:
o Stylistic features:
o Function and significance:
Virgin and Child and angels (Notre Dame de la Belle Verriére), detail of a window in the
choir of Chartres Cathedral, Chartres, France, ca. 1170, with 13th-century side panels
o Materials:
o Subject:
o Stylistic features:
Rose window and lancets, north transept, Chartres Cathedral, Chartres, France, ca. 1220
o Materials:
o Size/scale:
o Subjects:
o Stylistic features:
o Function & significance:
Saint Theodore, jamb statue, left portal, Porch of the Martyrs, south transept, Chartres
Cathedral, Chartres, France, ca. 1230
o Medium/materials:
o Subject:
o Stylistic features:
o Function & significance:
Porch of the Confessors, Chartres, ca. 1220-1230
o Description:
o Subjects & significance:
Robert de Luzarches, Thomas de Cormont, and Renaud de Cormont, west façade of Amiens
Cathedral, Amiens, France, begun 1220
o Description:
o Architectural features:
o Function & significance:
Robert de Luzarches, Thomas de Cormont, and Renaud de Cormont, interior of Amiens
Cathedral (looking east), Amiens, France, begun 1220
o Description:
o Architectural features:
o Significance:
Robert de Luzarches, Thomas de Cormont, and Renaud de Cormont, vaults, clerestory, and
triforium of the choir of Amiens Cathedral, Amiens, France, begun 1220
o Description:
o Architectural features:
o Significance:
Christ (Beau Dieu), trumeau statue of the central doorway of the west façade, Amiens
Cathedral, Amiens, France, ca. 1220-1235
o Description:
o Stylistic features:
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o Function & significance:
Gaucher de Reims and Bernard de Soissons, west façade of Reims Cathedral, Reims, France,
ca. 1225-1290
o Description:
o Architectural features:
o Function & significance:
Interior of Reims Cathedral, begun 1211
o Description:
o Architectural features:
Annunciation and Visitation, jamb statues on the right side of the central doorway of the
west façade, Reims Cathedral, Reims, France, ca. 1230-1255
o Description:
o Subjects:
o Stylistic features:
o Function & significance:
Interior of the upper chapel (looking northeast), Sainte-Chapelle, Paris, France, 1243-1248
o Description & style:
o Architectural features:
o Function & significance:
Virgin and Child (Virgin of Paris), Notre-Dame, Paris, France, early 14th century
o Description:
o Stylistic features:
o Function & significance:
West façade of Saint-Maclou, Rouen, France, ca. 1500-1514
o Description & style:
o Architectural features:
o Function & significance:
Aerial view of the fortified town of Carcassone (looking west), France. Bastions and towers,
12th-13th centuries, restored by Eugene Viollet-le-Duc in the 19th century
o Description:
o Architectural features:
o Function & significance:
Hall of the cloth guild, Bruges, Belgium, begun 1230
o Description:
o Architectural features:
o Function & significance:
Inner façade and courtyard of the house of Jacques Coeur, Bourges, France, 1443-1451
o Description:
o Architectural features:
o Function & significance:
Book Illumination and Luxury Arts:
 Villard de Honnecourt, figures based on geometric shapes, folio 18 verso of a sketchbook,
from Paris, France, c. 1220-1235
o Medium/materials:
o Size/scale:
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o Subjects:
o Stylistic features:
o Function & significance:
God as Creator of the World, folio 1 verso of a moralized Bible, from Paris, France, ca. 12201230
o Medium/materials:
o Size/scale:
o Subject:
o Stylistic features:
o Function & significance:
Blanche of Castile, Louis IX, and two monks, dedication page (folio 8 recto) of a moralized
Bible, from Paris, France, 1226-1234
o Medium/materials:
o Size/scale:
o Subject:
o Stylistic features:
o Function & significance:
Abraham and the Three Angels, folio 7 verso of the Psalter of Saint Louis, from Paris, France,
1253-1270
o Medium/materials:
o Size/scale:
o Subject:
o Stylistic features:
o Function & significance:
Master Honoré, Samuel Anointing David and Battle of David and Goliath, folio 7 verso of the
Breviary of Philippe le Bel, from Paris, France, 1296
o Medium/materials:
o Size/scale:
o Subjects:
o Stylistic features:
o Function & significance:
Jean Pucelle, Hours of Jeanne d’Evreux, ca. 1325-1328
o Description & significance:
Jean Pucelle, David before Saul, folio 24 verso of the Belleville Breviary, from Paris, France,
ca. 1325
o Medium/materials:
o Size/scale:
o Subject:
o Stylistic features:
o Function & significance:
Virgin of Jeanne d’Evreux, from the abbey church of Saint-Denis, France, 1339
o Medium/materials:
o Size/scale:
o Subject:
o Stylistic features:
o Function & significance:
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Castle of Love, lid of a jewelry box, from Paris, France, ca. 1330-1350
o Medium/materials:
o Size/scale:
o Subject:
o Stylistic features:
o Function & significance:
England:
Architecture:
 Santa Maria, Léon, begun 1254
o Description & significance:
 Mappamundi of Henry III, ca. 1277-1289
o Description & significance:
 Aerial view of Salisbury Cathedral (looking northeast), Salisbury, England, 1220-1258;
west façade completed 1265; spire ca. 1320-1330
o Description:
o Architectural features:
o Function & significance:
 Interior of Salisbury Cathedral (looking east), Salisbury, England, 1220-1258
o Description:
o Architectural features:
o Function & significance:
 Plan of Salisbury Cathedral, Salisbury, England, 1220-1258
o Description:
o Architectural features & location on plan:
o Function & significance:
 Choir of Gloucester Cathedral (looking east), Gloucester, England, 1332-1357
o Description:
o Architectural features:
o Significance:
 Tomb of Edward II, Gloucester, ca. 1330-1335
o Description & significance:
 Robert and William Vertue, fan vaults of the chapel of Henry VII, Westminster Abbey,
London, England, 1503-1519
o Description:
o Function & significance:
Holy Roman Empire:
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Klosterneuburg Altar, refashioned after 1330
o Description & significance:
Nicholas of Verdun, Sacrifice of Isaac, detail of the Klosterneuburg Altar, from the abbey
church at Klosterneuburg, Austria, 1181
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o Medium/materials:
o Size/scale:
o Subject:
o Stylistic features:
o Function & significance:
Nicholas of Verdun, Shrine of the Three Kings, from Cologne Cathedral, Cologne, Germany,
begun ca. 1190
o Medium/materials:
o Size/scale:
o Subject:
o Stylistic features:
o Function & significance:
Death of the Virgin, tympanum of the left doorway of the south transept, Strasbourg
Cathedral, Strasbourg, France, ca. 1230
o Description:
o Stylistic features:
o Function & significance:
Naumburg Master, Crucifixion, west choir screen of Naumburg Cathedral, Naumburg,
Germany, ca. 1249-1255
o Medium/materials:
o Size/scale of statues:
o Subjects:
o Stylistic features:
o Function & significance:
Naumburg Master, Ekkehard and Uta, statues in the west choir, Naumburg Cathedral,
Naumburg, Germany, ca. 1249-1255
o Medium/materials:
o Size/scale:
o Subjects:
o Stylistic features:
o Function & significance:
Equestrian portrait (Bamberg Rider), statue in the east choir, Bamberg Cathedral, Germany,
ca. 1235-1240
o Medium/materials:
o Size/scale:
o Subject:
o Stylistic features:
o Function & significance:
Röttgen Pieta, from the Rhineland, Germany, ca. 1300-1325
o Medium/materials:
o Size/scale:
o Subject:
o Stylistic features:
o Function & significance:
Gerhard of Cologne, aerial view of Cologne Cathedral (looking north), Cologne, Germany,
begun 1248; nave, façade, and towers completed 1880
o Description:
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o Architectural features:
o Significance:
Gerhard of Cologne, interior of Cologne Cathedral (looking east), Cologne, Germany, choir
completed 1322
o Description:
o Architectural features:
o Significance:
Interior of Saint Elizabeth (looking west), Marburg, Germany, 1235-1283
o Description:
o Architectural features:
o Significance:
Peter Parler, interior (looking east) of Heiligkreuzkirche (Church of the Holy Cross),
Schwäbisch Gmünd, Germany, begun 1351
o Description:
o Architectural features:
o Significance:
Concluding notes:
Exercises for Study:
1. Describe the key architectural features introduced in the French cathedral design in the Gothic
era.
2. Describe features that make English Gothic cathedrals distinct from their French or German
counterparts.
3. Describe the late Gothic Rayonnant and Flamboyant styles, and give examples of each.
4. Compare and contrast the following pairs of artworks, using the points of comparison as a
guide.
A. Old Testament kings and queen, jamb statues, Chartres Cathedral (Fig. 13-7); Virgin and Child
(Virgin of Paris), Notre-Dame, Paris (Fig. 13-26)
 Dates:
 Composition/posture of figures:
 Relation to architecture:
B. Saint Theodore, jamb statue, left portal, Porch of the Martyrs, Chartres Cathedral (Fig. 13-18);
Naumburg Master, Ekkehard and Uta, Naumburg Cathedral (Fig. 13-48):
 Dates:
 Subjects:
 Composition/posture of figures:
 Relation to architecture:
C. Interior of Saint Elizabeth, Marburg, Germany (Fig. 13-53); Interior of Laon Cathedral, Laon,
France (Fig. 13-9)
 Dates & locations:
 Nave elevation:
 Aisles:
 Ceiling vaults:
 Other architectural features: