The Historians' History of the World 08

One extraordinary circumstance greatly favoured this eagerness to erect edifices devoted to the religious cult. In France, in Italy especially, it had been common rumour that the world was nearing its end and it was thought unnecessary, in this event, to repair churches, and even more useless to build new ones. But when the predicted period arrived and there were no signs of the final catastrophe, alarm diminished, and ashamed to have been misled by pusillanimous fear, people were anxious to make amends for the neglect of altars and sacred places of which they had been guilty. They were not satisfied to pay their debt to religion by rebuilding unsafe churches, but those of whose stability there was no question were torn down on the specious pretext that they were not sufficiently magnificent. To accomplish their aims a society was formed composed of men of every degree, noble and humble, who made themselves in their devotion into carpenters and masons; they offered their services in every direction, hauling carts like beasts of burden or binding themselves to certain religious devotions. The cathedral of Chartres is a monument of the labour of these pious workmen. These strange ideas having been developed towards the end of the eleventh century, the Crusades found in men’s minds a passion for this sort of construction, and they added to the general enthusiasm.

GOTHIC ARCHITECTURE

Several monuments of architecture which still excite our admiration are the fruit of the artistic impulse received from contact with people more devoted to its culture and from the growing fervour of devotion. The sight of Greek and Arab monuments introduced into the West a new taste by which that Syrian, Arab, or Saracen type of architecture, improperly called Gothic, was brought to its highest degree of perfection. Delicately pointed ogive arches replaced the low and ugly openings which timid builders were afraid to raise higher and which presented but narrow outlooks to view. Architects were judged skilful as they were able to astonish by the boldness and daring of their own work. As in the mosques, they loaded upon light and graceful columns enormous masses which seemed upheld by the support of an invisible arm. They cut stones into a thousand different and often most fanciful forms, and set into them painted glass whose brilliant colours were admirably brought out by the rays of the sun. And as if they foresaw the indifference of posterity to their work, they gave it a solidity which has enabled it to go for great lengths of time without care and restoration.

At that time appeared the most magnificent offsprings of Gothic architecture. Then was built the leaning tower of Pisa, which has become a marvel through the injury of time. A Greek architect built at Venice the church of St. Mark, strongly impressed with the degenerate taste of the Greeks. A German conceived the plan of the tower of Strasburg, whose delicate structure seems unable to hold it so high in the air. Suger did not disdain to study architecture; he restored his own abbey church and left an account of his labours. The foundations of Amiens, masterpiece of bold and delicate construction, were laid. La Sainte Chapelle at Paris, less vast but equally delicate in style, was the finest work of the favourite architect whom St. Louis took with him to Asia. We should go on at too great a length were we to enumerate all the superb edifices built in the glorious age of Gothic architecture. Barbaric, perhaps, in ornamentation, these artists have never been equalled in principle, in general design, stone-cutting, in knowledge of arching, and in the majesty of their edifices as a whole.

SCULPTURE AND PAINTING

Sculpture made these temples alive with a host of statues. It has preserved for us the images of many famous men, whose portraits, drawn from nature, we often regret not to know.

Painting was cultivated with greater zeal. Cimabue developed his happy faculties at Florence according to the teaching of some artists from Constantinople. He was the first to show what wonders one could expect from an almost forgotten art, and it is right that he should be placed at the head of all the painters that have appeared since his time.