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‘The high Gothic period (outside Italy) 1250-1300. Up to c[irca]1230[ce],* the major architects of France had been preoccupied with structure and engineering, following the liberating acceptance of the flying buttress. Around 1230[ce], however, they must have realised that building enlarged versions of Chartres Cathedral could no longer constitute progress....’

**

*2048J~1280[ce]

**– ibid [Encylopaedia of Visual Art 4: 602]

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‘However, it is equally apparent that the figurative arts were not in step....* As far as the idea of realism went, earlier 13th-century painters ignored the elements of the 3^rd dimension** almost entirely – although this was one of the things sculptors were successfully exploiting.... Virtually no steps were taken in the exploration of linear perspective, and the pictorial style as a whole seems to have been directed against the sort of experiments in facial description and characterisation common in sculpture. These differences point to a positive sense of fitness and taste, and a strong sense of tradition, to balance against the desire for innovation.’

***

*[Sentence repeated from last previous ts entry]

**{cf [[Redbook8:317-318][19910313:1000]{[Gothic Art (2):] The Discovery of Light (2), Space and Expression}[13th March 1991],] 317}

***– ibid [Encylopaedia of Visual Art 4:] 602

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‘... During the first half of the 13^th century [ce], realism in sculpture was much appreciated. Sculptors seem to have been consciously attempting to impress the physical presence of their work on the spectator by its realistic and humane qualities. This is manifested as much in the extreme realism of some of the carved foliage as in the sometimes startling essays in emotional expressions. The statues of the Wise and Foolish Virgins on the portal of Magdeburg Cathedral show contrasting degrees of smug self-satisfaction and despairing grief and frustration of a sort probably never explored since Classical Antiquity. The changing drapery conventions and the spasmodic classicism may be seen as successive attempts to reach a realistic solution, without sacrificing the aesthetic demands of decorative pattern. However, it is equally apparent that the figurative arts were not in step....*

**

*[Sentence repeated in next ts entry]

** [– ibid (Encylopaedia of Visual Art 4:) 602)]

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‘Twelfth-century[ce] European painting was, for the most part, still dominated by varying degrees of [sic] Byzantium.’

– ibid [Encylopaedia of Visual Art 4:] 601

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([Early Gothic]* Churches in France c[irca]1150[ce])

‘Secondly, it is the beginning of a general development towards greater humanity in figure sculpture. Not all the Chartres west-end sculpture could be called life-like, but the figure of Christ in the centre is strikingly more humane than previous representations of Christ, as at Vézelay or Moissac. This development towards greater humanity is one of the keys to sculpture of the following century. It is not a smooth, even development, but a succession of stylistic fashions with different antecedents and starting points. The result was a series of changes which by any pre-19th-century standards would be regarded as rapid.’

– ibid [Encylopaedia of Visual Art 4:] 597-600

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‘Gothic architectural developments elsewhere in Western Europe [than France and England]* occur slightly later. In Germany, early-13th-century [ce] churches still often appear Romanesque in style, and even the interesting four-storied interior **|of the cathedral of Limburg is so heavy and graceless in its proportions and detail|** that it is surprising to learn that it was begun in c1220, making it a contemporary of Amiens.’

***

*[Square brackets per ms, indicating insertion in ms]

**|NB|**

*** – ibid [Encylopaedia of Visual Art 4:] 596

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‘... The rebuilding of Lincoln Cathedral (1192) showed most clearly the characteristics of this first phase of English Gothic architecture – notably, in the elaborate arch moldings, densely grouped colonnettes, and multiplication of vault ribs – producing a rich effect without any continental rival.

[– ibid (Encylopaedia of Visual Art 4:596)]

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‘The tradition of clusters of towers around the transepts of a great church is Romanesque in origin, and has an extensive history in northern France and the Empire. The results, where completed (or nearly so, as at Laon), offer an exciting configuration of shapes, and its general abandonment in favour of a simple pair of towers at the west end of a church is hard to understand. The change of fashion was probably confirmed at the Cathedral of Notre Dame, Paris; in the 13^th century, * twin western towers became the norm.’

**

*cf Gemini at / just after A~?

** – ibid [Encylopaedia of Visual Art 4:] 596

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‘[Sens Cathedral]* reminds us that, as in many Romanesque buildings, height and size played a part in the aesthetic preoccupations of the age.’

**

*[[Square brackets per ms, indicating insertion in ms]

**– ibid [Encylopaedia of Visual Art 4:595]

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‘The interior elevation of a great church was treated in various ways during this period though almost all the solutions adopted had been invented in their broad outlines * during the Romanesque period.’**

***

*{NB}

**{But} cf [[Redbook8:323][19910314:1020d][Gothic Art (2)(continued (9)):][Gothic into Renaissance][14th March 1991],] 323

***– ibid [Encylopaedia of Visual Art 4:] 595

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‘Cennino Cennini saw (rather less clearly) that artistic creativity in painting depended on the balance struck between the demands of of tradition, the claims of the visible world, and the operation of the artist’s imagination. His writing has great interest because of the difficulty he reveals in framing these somewhat abstract concepts. In fact, the language he used was heavily indebted to Horace’s “Ars Poetica” and to a somewhat cloudy Platonism.’

– ibid [Encylopaedia of Visual Art 4:] 592

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