Perpendicular style

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Bath Abbey

Perpendicular ( "vertical style") or Rectilinear Style ( "straightforward style") is a for England typical and adjacent areas architectural style of late Gothic . In many sacred and secular buildings of historicism itwas used againin large parts of the British Empire in the 19th and 20th centuries.

term

The term is derived from the Latin word perpendiculum “ Lot , Richtschnur ” and was first used in 1817 by Thomas Rickman , who wrote in his book An Attempt to Discriminate the Styles of English Architecture from the Conquest to the Reformation (“Ein Attempt to distinguish the styles of English architecture from the conquest to the Reformation ”) was looking for names for the epochs of medieval architecture between the year 1066 and the beginning of the Reformation .

characterization

The Perpendicular Style follows on from the Early English and the Decorated Style , making it the third English style of Gothic architecture. It was mainly developed and used between 1330 and 1520. The name refers to the dominant straight lines of the framework with which the high windows and walls are structured. The fan vault is also typical of this style , as can be seen in its purest form in Bath Abbey .

Perpendicular style in vault construction

Westminster Hall

After the decorative exuberance with the use of free ribs and arbitrary Lierne patterns had reached a certain natural end point, a countermovement set in that wanted to set itself apart from the "decorated" with a strict and rigid rectangular line. However, if one looks at the vaults of some of the rooms and cloisters of the “Perpendicular” without any historical bias, the sentence that this is a decorative increase by other means can perhaps be justified.

Nonetheless - or perhaps because of it - the perpendicular style is considered to be the "English national style" which undisputedly ruled for over two hundred years without encroaching on the continent. Its basic forms, determined by the emphasis on horizontal and vertical lines, of slender supports in the tracery windows , could not be transferred to the vaulted structure in this way. Completely new vault shapes were not actually developed. But the usual patterns were changed in a way that suggests more sophisticated sophistication and a refined feeling of space than an abstract departure from decorative excess. However, this only applies to the central nave . The side aisles are often clearly separated by tracery in the arcade arches. In the central nave, the wall and vault are visually strongly drawn together, the design of the vault is based on the structural elements of the windows. While the decorated style aimed to unify all rooms, the Perpendicular only means a single room, usually the central nave.

Here we have to deal with specific shapes of the reticulated and star vaults, which already exist in their basic forms, and later with the mature fan vaults, which represent the most plastic achievement of the perpendicular in this area.

Examples
Choir and east window of Gloucester Cathedral

In Gloucester all leave for the Perpendicular style typical elements found. For Martin Hürlimann, this cathedral is "one of the most important and enigmatic monuments in all of art history". Here “a new world of shapes emerged in one fell swoop”. The Perpendicular style, which began around 1330 with the construction of the chapter house of Old Saint Paul’s Cathedral, which was destroyed in the Great Fire of London in 1666, culminated in the Gloucester Choir (1337-1367). The reticulated vault used here, however, shows no fundamental difference to that of the "Decorated". In addition to the crown rib , a secondary rib formed from lines runs on each side . The entire vault area is covered by a barely visible network of various types of ribs and a multitude of keystones . The diagonal ribs run to the next but one pillar. Quite similar to the net vault of the Lady Chapel (1472–1499), which is actually a Norman pointed barrel vault with stitch caps - without the supporting function of the ribbed net.

The east wing of the honey-colored stone cloister (1351-1377) has the Chapter House of Hereford (around 1350/60) the earliest fully developed fan vaults, with which not only the rest of the cloister was equipped, but those for the set the direction for the entire vaulting of England up to the 17th century. The fan ribs of this shape, which is often compared to a spreading trumpet flower, do not end at a crown rib, but have round delimiting lines, so that clearly separated, semi-cup-shaped fan units are created that tangentially touch their opposite or side counterpart only at one point or in a short line . The horizontal star figure that remains free at the apex is provided with fits, while tracery is also inscribed between the ribs. The profile thickness of the ribs is clearly reduced and adjusted to one another, so that the vault looks like a wide, wavy, finely woven surface and in its internal structure like a cell system, which organically allows new cells to be constantly created.

The most famous designs of this fan shape can be found in Peterborough in the chapel annex behind the Romanesque choir (1483–1500), in the angel tower of the western crossing of Canterbury (1495–1503), in the chapel of Henry VII in Westminster Abbey , London (1503–1519 ) and in King's College Chapel in Cambridge (1446–1515). Here you will find one of the most beautiful perpendicular rooms with a fascinating harmony of the entire architecture. In an extension of a name given by Nikolaus Pevsner , one could speak of a “golden cage”. The pressed belt arches are clearly highlighted, which is why, despite the huge compartments, there is a yoke division corresponding to the wall elevation.

In contrast to the Gloucester cloister, the compartments can not unfold freely at the sides, but meet in a long transverse rib. In addition to the outer round boundary line, you have two more equally spaced ring lines (according to the tracery division of the windows), of which the lower one almost forms a semicircle. The continuity of the vault is ensured by the concentric rings of the compartments, which cover the whole surface with a wave shape that is not disturbed anywhere.

The Chapel of Henry VII in London has a very rare variation of the fan vault. There is no semi-chalice from the wall here, but its center point is drawn into the room and thus forms a hanging vault (see also " Abhängling "), which is crossed and supported above the lower branch by a belt arch that detaches itself from the wall as a free arch , penetrates the chalice and continues above the visible vaulted surface (almost like an umbrella vault ).

A similar construction to this extent was first used in 1480-1483 in the Divinity School in Oxford, where the belt arch remained visible in full length. The London chapel has probably the most magnificent fan vault. Each individual surface is adorned with tracery shapes, including the space between the lower part of the belt arch and the wall pillar - a truly “royal” vault.

A similarly adventurous vault solution can be found in the entrance to the north transept in Gloucester (converted into Gothic style in 1337–1377). Similar in shape to the hanging vaults, it is largely connected to the wall and is taken up by an arch at the lower tip, which tapers narrowly into the room, the upper part of which crosses the portal opening. Hürlimann speaks of a “ stalactite-like vault” (p. 32).

literature

  • James H. Acland: Medieval Structure. The Gothic Vault . University Press, Toronto 1972, ISBN 0-8020-1886-6 .
  • Issam Eldin Abdou Badr: From the vault to the spatial structure . Dielsdorf 1962 (also dissertation, ETH Zurich).
  • Henning Bock : The Decorated Style. Investigations into the English cathedral architecture of the first half of the 14th century (Heidelberger Kunstgeschichtliche Abhandlungen / NF; Vol. 6). Winter, Heidelberg 1962 (also dissertation, Heidelberg University 1962).
  • Johann Josef Böker : English sacred architecture of the Middle Ages . Scientific Book Society, Darmstadt 1984, ISBN 978-3-534-09542-1 .
  • Franz Hart : Art and technology of the vault . Callwey, Munich 1965.
  • John H. Harvey: The Perpendicular Style 1330-1485 . London 1978.
  • Martin Hürlimann : English cathedrals . 3rd edition. Atlantis-Verlag, Zurich 1956.
  • Walter C. Leedy: Fan Vaulting. A Study of Form, Technology and Meaning . London 1978.
  • Nikolaus Pevsner : European architecture. From the beginning to the present . 9th edition Prestel, Munich 2008, ISBN 978-3-7913-3927-6 .
  • Wim Swaan: Art and Culture of the Late Gothic. European visual arts and architecture. From 1350 to the beginning of the Renaissance ("The late Middle Ages"). Herder, Freiburg / B. 1978, ISBN 3-451-17928-8 .

Web links

Commons : Perpendicular Gothic  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Examples

See also

swell

  1. ^ Hürlimann, Martin: Englische Kathedralen Zürich 1948, p. 31