Know Yourself

According to legend, and to several Ancient Greek authors including Plato, two words of wisdom were carved into the stone at the entrance of the most important temple of Ancient Greece, the Temple of Apollo in the city of Delphi. Two words that formed the phrase “gnothi seauton,” which literally means “know yourself.”

 

The ruins of the Temple of Apollo, built about 2,300 years ago, can still be visited today

 

Even though the carved stone disappeared long ago, these two words have for over two thousand years been on the western mind. They even made it into the Matrix movies, in one of their Latin forms, “temet nosce”:

 

Screenshot from The Matrix (1999)

 

What makes the phrase so fascinating is that it has been interpreted in so many different ways. Most interpretations today focus on the more literal meaning of the words, as in “know the kind of person you are, know your strengths and weaknesses, know what you want, know what you like,” and so on.

Originally, however, the meaning of the words on the temple stone was thought to be closer to “know your place,” as in “you are just a mortal entering the temple of a god, so be humble. Do not pretend to be more than what you are.”

Inevitably, the opposite was also considered: “Know that you too are a god, that there is something divine about humankind.”

In the 17th-18th century period, the understanding of the phrase was “if you know yourself, you will know humanity as a whole.”

Despite these differences, there is something that all interpretations of the phrase have in common. They all agree that knowing yourself is what you need to become better, no matter what “better” means to you. Unfortunately, most also agree that knowing yourself is one of the hardest things to do.

Spot a Style: Classical Orders

Before the development of modern architecture, what did a government or institution do when it wanted to project an image of power, dignity, and reliability? It used the classical orders in its buildings.

The classical orders are the three different styles of columns that were created in Ancient Greece over 2,000 years ago.

How do you spot them? You look at the top of the column.

The first is the Doric order. With a square top, it is the simplest of the three. The best example of Ancient Greek Doric is considered to be the Parthenon, built between 447BC and 438BC on the Acropolis hill in Athens, to honor the goddess who gave the city its name, Athena.

 

The Parthenon

The Parthenon, detail

 

Here is a much more recent Doric structure, in which the simplicity of the Doric matches the modest character of the figure it honors — The Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C., built between 1914 and 1922:

 

 

The second is the Ionic order. With spirals at the top, it is rounder than the Doric. The best example of the Ancient Greek Ionic is also to be found on the Acropolis in Athens — The Erechtheion, built between 421BC and 406BC:

 

The Erechtheion, detail

 

In 1801 Lord Elgin, a British diplomat in need of money, had his men take a statue from the Erechtheion, along with other parts of the Parthenon. Elgin then sold these pieces to the British Museum, whose building ironically features the same style as the Erechtheion:

 

The British Museum, London, this part built 1825-1852

 

The third is the Corinthian order. With sculpted leaves and tiny spirals as decoration at the top, it is the most ornate of the three. A great example of Ancient Greek Corinthian can be seen at the bottom of the Acropolis in Athens — The Olympieion, also known as the Temple of Olympian Zeus, built between 174BC and 131AD:

 

Temple of Olympian Zeus, detail

 

More recent examples of the Corinthian order include the United States Capitol, built between 1793 and the 1900s:

 

 

The US Capitol actually features all three classical orders, in different parts.

A few other column styles exist, but they are all based on the three classical orders. The square Doric, round Ionic, and leafy Corinthian from Ancient Greece have now been in use for over 2,000 years, and they can be seen in the architecture of government buildings, religious buildings, courts of law, museums, universities, opera houses and more, all around the world.

So when you see a column, look at the top, and you’ll spot the style.

What Nature in Art Reveals

A nation’s character is both shaped and revealed by its relation to nature. Nowhere is this clearer than in the contrasting perceptions and representations of nature in British and American landscape painting. Take a look at these works by one of Britain’s most famous and popular landscape painters, John Constable:

 

John Constable, Dedham Vale (1802), Victoria and Albert Museum, London

 

John Constable, Wivenhoe Park, Essex (1816), National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.

 

John Constable, The Hay Wain (1821), The National Gallery, London

 

John Constable, The Cornfield (1826), The National Gallery, London

 

There is nothing threatening here. Nature is close and familiar. These are simple domestic scenes that convey a strong sense of homeliness and attachment to place.

Now take a look at these American landscapes by Albert Bierstadt:

 

Albert Bierstadt, Rocky Mountains, Lander’s Peak (1863), Fogg Museum, Harvard

 

Albert Bierstadt, Among the Sierra Nevada Mountains, California (1868), The Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, D.C.

 

Albert Bierstadt, Mount Corcoran (1876-77), Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.

 

There is nothing tame here. Nature is wild and overwhelming. Significantly, there is no human presence. When there is, it is dwarfed by a nature that is still to be conquered:

 

Albert Bierstadt, Puget Sound on the Pacific Coast (1870), Seattle Art Museum

 

British painters, such as J.M.W. Turner, also tackled wild, sublime scenes. Those landscapes, however, are rarely on British land, but rather in the Alps or at sea.

When British land is painted, it feels like home. When American land is painted, it feels like a wilderness to be conquered, and that tells you something about the spirit of the two nations.

So when you look at landscape painting, think not only about the celebration of local natural beauty, about the light, the brushwork and atmospheric effects. Also think about the way nature is represented and what it says about national identity, about the way the nation represents itself through its relation to nature, which both shapes and reveals its character.

Spot a Style: Romanesque

Italy’s most famous tower, the Tower of Pisa, started leaning when it was only two floors high. That was a mere five years into the construction work, which started in 1173 and continued, on and off, for nearly two hundred years.

 

 

The reason for the leaning is that the tower is built on ground that is too soft to bear the weight of the building.

While any stone building in any style would probably sink in or lean at the same spot, the Tower of Pisa is built in a style that does not help, the Romanesque. A style that may be summed up in one word. Heavy. In all the senses of the word.

Here is the Pisa Cathedral, also Romanesque but built a century earlier, with the leaning tower on the side:

 

Even though the Gothic developed from the Romanesque and the two were sometimes mixed, these styles can be seen as opposites. Gothic structures are usually tall, pointy and thin, whereas Romanesque structures tend to be rather short, round and thick. Here are the more specific characteristics of the Romanesque, which spans the early 10th to late 12th century period:

– Thick, heavy structures in which the walls bear most of the loads

– Round arches, round towers and columns

– Relatively plain decoration, with little stonework

– Tiny windows, which make for dark interiors

 

 San Vittore alle Chiuse in Marche, Italy, early 11th century. 

Saint-Apollinaire Cathedral in Valence, France, 11th century

 San Martin de Tours Church in Fromista, Spain, 11th century

San Martin de Tours Church interior, with typically round Romanesque arches

 

In Britain, the Norman style of architecture shares similar features, as it is a form of northern Romanesque.

The best places to see Romanesque buildings, especially churches, are in France, Italy, and the north of Spain, in small towns and villages.

If you’re traveling in any of those areas and you see a relatively short, heavy and plain stone structure with tiny windows, chances are it’s Romanesque.

Why Art Stopped Being Beautiful

Who hasn’t heard someone say they don’t like modern art because they think “it’s ugly”?

Despite the subjectivity of the statement, there is some truth in it. Not all, but some of the art produced in the first three decades of the 20th century is indeed characterized by a great shift away from what is traditionally considered beautiful. What matters is no longer the work of art itself, but the process that leads to the work of art, and the questions raised by the process. The best example has to be Marcel Duchamp’s 1917 Fountain, a signed urinal meant to challenge what art is and does:

 

 

This movement away from beauty is a deliberate choice, of course, so the question is: why did western art stop trying to be beautiful?

Think about the period that goes from the late 1850s to the late 1910s. About sixty years. Roughly one lifetime, give or take. Think about what happened in that lifetime.

By the 1850s, the Industrial Revolution is over. It has brought profound social and economic changes, not to mention noise and pollution on an unprecedented scale.

Belief in God is seriously challenged by Darwin’s On the Origin of Species (1859) and The Descent of Man (1871), which outline his theory of evolution and challenge the traditional understanding of humankind and living organisms in general.

Between 1905 and 1917, Einstein publishes articles that revolutionize physics and the understanding of the nature of light, time, space, and gravity.

Starting in 1895, Freud publishes ground-breaking studies that dramatically change the way we think about the human mind, through concepts such as the unconscious and the interpretation of dreams.

Both the universe and humankind become a lot more complex, and a lot more difficult to understand. If this wasn’t unsettling enough, we also have World War I. Total war for the first time in history. 70 million people affected, 9 million dead.

How could artists continue to paint cute little angels fluttering in the clouds? Actually, they stop painting little angels long before the 1900s, but the point is that modern art both reflects and asks challenging questions, in relation with challenging times.

There are positive changes in the period, of course, in medicine and communications, for instance, but in those 60 years, western society has changed so much, so fast, with such devastating consequences, that the old ways of understanding and dealing with the world seem to have failed.

Art can no longer be the same. For some, the traditional forms are no longer relevant and must be replaced by new ones that can deal with the modern world. Hence the shift away from the rules established in the Renaissance and away from the goal of producing works of traditional beauty.

Fasces: an Ambivalent Symbol

In Ancient Rome, those who had the power to punish criminals carried a symbol of that power for all to see, and it can still be seen in many western countries today, including the US. This symbol, called “fasces,” was a bundle of wooden rods tied around an axe with strips of leather:

 

Roman magistrate carrying fasces

 

The rods were for beatings as punishment for petty crimes, and the axe for the most serious offenses. In time, the axe disappeared from fasces carried within Rome, except in times of war. The rods tied with leather remained, a symbol of authority and justice.

Fasces were in continuous use throughout the Roman Kingdom (753BC – 509BC), the Roman Republic (509BC – 27BC) , and the Roman Empire (27BC – 476AD). Therein lies their ambivalence.

When associated with the Republic, the bundle of rods around the axe becomes a symbol of unity and strength. One rod can easily be broken, but many together are much stronger.

That’s why, when the United States rebelled against the British Monarchy and established a republic after the War of Independence (1776-1783), fasces became part of the newly-formed nation’s symbolism. As a result, government buildings and memorials in Washington, D.C., and other cities often feature fasces. Here is perhaps the most famous example:

 

The Lincoln Memorial, Washington, D.C. – Armrests decorated with fasces

 

Here is another one, in the House of Representatives:

 

 

And here, take a look at what George Washington is leaning on in the bronze copy of the Houdon statue in the US Capitol Rotunda:

 

France also adopted fasces after its 1789 revolution, and they remain such a strong symbol of the French Republic that they still adorn French passports today:

 

 

When associated with the Roman Empire, however, the axe supported by the rods becomes a symbol of authoritarian power vested in one leader, who decides who lives and who dies. During World War I, this appealed very much to Benito Mussolini when he decided to create a new political group to promote militarism in Italy.

Mussolini chose fasces as the emblem of this nefarious group of individuals, which gave them their name: fascists. Naturally, the political party they founded in 1921 was called the National Fascist Party, and its ideology quickly became known as fascism.

Emblem of the National Fascist Party, now banned in Italy

 

From the symbol of republican government to the source of the word fascism, fasces are one of the most ambivalent symbols in the West. Fortunately, we mostly get to see their good side.

Le Chat Noir – Montjoye Montmartre

As some have guessed, another significant part of Steinlen’s Le Chat Noir poster is the red halo around the cat’s head, especially the two words written in the halo: “Montjoye Montmartre.”

“Montjoye” is the tongue-in-cheek archaic spelling of “Montjoie,” which is what French soldiers would shout when going into battle in the Middle Ages. This battle cry also included the name of the saint associated with the ruler. The soldiers of the King of France would shout “Montjoie Saint-Denis!” For the soldiers of the Dukes of Burgundy, the cry was “Montjoie Saint-Andrieu!” and so on, depending on allegiances.

In this case, the cry is “Montjoye Montmartre,” which subversively states Le Chat Noir’s allegiance to the Bohemian heart of  fin de siècle Paris, the Montmartre area.

The fact that the words are inside a halo adds religious parody to the political subversion and makes the black cat a saint, to be worshipped by all.

This is exactly the kind of spirit that animated everyone associated with Le Chat Noir, especially its founder, Rodolphe Salis.

In his Ten Years of Bohemian Life (1888), Emile Goudeau tells the story of a night when the Chat Noir followers crowned Salis Emperor of Montmartre, in an elaborate ceremony which involved Salis on stage wearing golden robes and holding a huge scepter.

Goudeau also reports that at the entrance of the cabaret there was a doorman dressed as a Swiss Guard with golden uniform and weapon, whose job was to let artists in and keep soldiers and other followers of orders out. The Swiss Guard was and still is a serious affair in Europe, as the Swiss soldiers were hired for protection by kings and other leaders. Swiss Guards can still be seen today, but only in the Vatican, where they are charged with the protection of the Pope:

Swiss Guard swearing-in ceremony, 2013. Don’t be fooled by the funny-looking uniforms. These guys don’t mess around. 

As the red halo perfectly illustrates, nothing was too serious and no one too powerful to escape Le Chat Noir’s spirit of subversion.

Who doesn’t love a cat with an attitude?

The Black French Cat

Why is the poster of a black cat given the same importance as the Eiffel Tower in every souvenir shop in Paris? Sure, the poster designed by Swiss artist Théophile-Alexandre Steinlen in the 1890s is striking to look at:

And yes, Le Chat Noir — French for The Black Cat — was a famous cabaret, founded by Rodolphe Salis in 1881 in the Montmartre area in Paris, but what makes it so special?

To be precise, Le Chat Noir actually refers to a cabaret, a troop of entertainers, and an arts journal, all created by Salis.

The poster is an ad for the entertainers, who also performed outside of the Paris cabaret and specialized in unique pieces of shadow theater inspired by the Chinese shadow puppet shows. The text on the poster reads “Coming soon, Rodolphe Salis’s Le Chat Noir on tour.”

At the cabaret, any artist could perform on stage, and the audience gave immediate feedback in the form of roaring boos or cheers. Le Chat Noir attracted poets, actors, singers, musicians and other artists, which, for about fifteen years, contributed to making Montmartre the heart of artistic life in Paris.

The Chat Noir cabaret, by Albert Robida

The Chat Noir Journal

What makes Le Chat Noir so special is the attitude of everyone associated with it.

Call it a spirit of creative rebelliousness. A desire to celebrate the free spirits and upset the established order. A spirit expressed through poems and plays, through songs and performances of all kinds given at the cabaret, a spirit celebrated in paintings, drawings and lithographs, by artists such as Steinlen.

The Chat Noir attitude is loud, fun, rowdy and rude, and it takes no form of power or authority seriously. In fact, it takes nothing seriously, except art and its own rebelliousness. In other words, it is very French, and that’s why the black cat poster has such pride of place in every souvenir shop in Paris.

There is one more thing about the Steinlen poster that I have not mentioned yet, one part of the drawing that gives us a great example of the Chat Noir attitude. Can you spot it before the next post?

Renaissance Art Revolution

Representing the world in a realistic way has been a human obsession since cavemen put hand to rock and produced the first pieces of cave art over 30,000 years ago. As we move into the age of ultra-high-definition television screens and the potential for life-like 3D without glasses, let’s take a look at one of the major steps forward taken by artists on the road to a perfect imitation of the world.

In the early 15th century, Renaissance artists revolutionized our representation of the world by embracing three key innovations.

The first is a way of giving the illusion of three-dimensional space with realistic depth. The technique, now known as linear perspective, may have been familiar to the Ancient Greeks and Romans, but there is no evidence of its use in their art. Before the 1300s, space in western art is essentially flat, or unrealistic:

 

Mary Magdalene Announcing the Resurrection, in the St Albans Psalter Manuscript (c.1120s)

The 1300s are a phase of transition after which, in 1420 in Florence, architect Filippo Brunelleschi discovers the correct way of representing space on a flat surface, and in 1435 Alberti publishes a painting manual explaining to other artists how to do it, which gives us this kind of work:

 

Perugino, Delivery of the Keys (c.1481), Sistine Chapel, Vatican

A foreground, middle ground and background, with the perfect illusion of depth, based on the geometry of Alberti’s model:

 

 

The mastery of perspective also allows for the representation of unique viewpoints, including the illusion of looking at a scene from below, as illustrated by Titian’s ceiling paintings from the 1540s, which are kept in the Santa Maria della Salute church in Venice:

Titian, The Sacrifice of Isaac (c.1543)

 

The second innovation is a more accurate representation of light and shadows, which allows artists to create the illusion of volume and texture. A good example is the turban in this 1433 portrait by van Eyck, which can be seen in London’s National Gallery:

 

 

The most striking development coming from this innovation is chiaroscuro, or strong contrast between light and darkness. One of the most dramatic examples of this technique can be found in Caravaggio’s paintings:

 

Caravaggio, The Taking of Christ (1602), National Gallery of Ireland, Dublin

 

The third innovation is in the medium, in what the painters use. In the Middle Ages and Early Renaissance, most western painting is done on wood with tempera, which refers to color pigments mixed with natural glue-like substances such as honey or egg yolk, which can be dissolved in water.

 

Simone Martini, The Angel of the Annunciation (c.1333), tempera on wood, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.

 

In the 15th century in the Netherlands, a different technique of mixing color pigments, invented in Central Asia earlier, is mastered. Oil paint. Mixing the pigments with oil, which cannot be dissolved in water, can give brighter, more intense colors. Raphael’s work in oil is a case in point:

 

Raphael, Madonna of the Grand Duke (c.1505), Palazzo Pitti, Florence

Raphael, Alba Madonna (1511), National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.

Raphael, Transfiguration (c.1520), Pinacoteca Vaticana, Vatican City

Linear perspective, accurate light and shadows, and brighter colors through oil paint combine to give a degree of realism never seen before in the West. Add to that the move away from wood to canvas, and you have the basis of the Renaissance art revolution.

A Marathon Worth Running

In 490BC, Greece is under attack. The Persian Emperor Darius has sent hundreds of warships in order to punish the Greek cities that rebel against his rule and to conquer the few that remain free, especially Athens, which has just become a democracy. After taking control of the sea, the Persian soldiers land for battle on the Greek coast, on the beach of a small town that still exists today. The town’s name? Marathon.

General Miltiades decides to send all Athenian soldiers to Marathon in order to prevent an invasion. When the 10,000 Athenians arrive along with 1,000 allies, they face a Persian force of about 30,000 soldiers, not to mention tens of thousands of sailors and servants. Athens needs help.

One Athenian messenger is sent on the first of three races against time associated with the Battle of Marathon.

Pheidippides runs about 225 km / 140 miles to Sparta in a day and a half to ask for help, but the Spartans are celebrating an important religious festival, the Carnea, which means no fighting for ten days. The Athenians are alone.

The battle begins. The Persians are strong in the center, but Miltiades has anticipated weakness on the Persian left and right, which he uses successfully. The Persians are defeated and run back to their ships. The problem is, they set sail for a landing spot near Athens itself, where there are no soldiers left. The Athenian soldiers have won a great victory, but Athens must be warned.

Now comes the second famous run, which is only a legend. An Athenian — some say the same Pheidippides, others a different messenger — is sent running from Marathon to Athens to report the victory and tell everyone not to surrender the city. The distance is about 40 km / 25 miles. He runs so fast that he dies just after delivering his message: “We are victorious!”

This story is the inspiration for the long-distance race at the first Olympic Games of modern times, in 1896, and has given the race its name, the marathon, as well as its distance of about 42 km / 26 miles, as measured from the modern town of Marathon rather than the site of the battle on the beach.

Map of modern marathon from marathongreece.com, with plenty of toilet stops the soldier probably did not make

Now comes the third and most important race of the Battle of Marathon.

Remember that the Athenian army must get to the coast near Athens before the Persian ships. They have to cover over 40 km / 25 miles on foot, and they have already fought an exhausting battle. One soldier making it in time would have been a feat, but the entire army actually makes it, minus the few who stayed in Marathon. When the Persian ships arrive, the Athenian soldiers are ready for battle, facing the sea. The Persians do not even try to land. Their ships turn away.

This is the first time the Persian army has been defeated by Greeks. Other battles will follow, but the race of the Athenian soldiers from Marathon saves democracy and makes the development of free Athens possible, along with the Golden Age of Greece, during which the foundations of western civilizations are laid.

Now that is a race worth running.

 

Gothic Legacy

It’s all about association. Renaissance masters called the tall and pointy architecture of the Middle Ages “Gothic” by association with the Goths, the tribes who had started invading the Roman Empire in the 3rd century and whose name had become synonymous with a lack of refinement. Then in the 18th century, at the time of the Gothic revival, a new type of scary story developed and was called “Gothic,” by association with the buildings such as castles and churches where the action of the stories often takes place. The rest of the Gothic cultural evolution is about association with these stories, collectively known as Gothic fiction.

In addition to castles and churches, Gothic fiction usually features a gloomy atmosphere, graveyards at night, dark places and moonlight. It is often concerned with the scarier, more disturbing aspects of humanity. Its characters also include ghosts, and creatures such as vampires, werewolves and other monsters, all of which involve a reflection on death, transformation, and what it means to be different.

While Gothic fiction as a genre disappeared quickly because most of the stories were the same, its dark elements continued to influence literature, and then cinema. Think of all the vampire stories in novels, films and TV series, for instance.

Screenshot from Tod Browning’s Dracula (1931) — Bela Lugosi as Dracula, with a victim, under a gigantic Gothic vault

Gothic themes also influenced the dark lyrics and mood of several rock bands in the UK in the early 1980s, such as The Cure. Again by association, these bands were called Gothic, and that, it seems, is how the Gothic subculture was born. It involved not just the dark mood of the songs, but also the clothes and overall style of these bands.

The Gothic subculture is often reduced to white makeup, black clothes and an affinity for melancholy. Like all youth subcultures, however, it is a much more complex set of trends that are constantly evolving. It includes different styles and tastes, with some Goths closer to the obsession with death and decay in line with Medieval Gothic, and others closer to the more Romantic tone of Victorian England, in line with a Gothic Revival sensitivity, which, by the way, does not necessarily involve vampires.

And that’s the Gothic legacy. One word, and 1,500 years of cultural history through association.

Spot a Style: Gothic Revival

How do we go from Medieval Gothic to the Gothic stories that eventually gave us works such as Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1897)?

With the spread of Renaissance values, which included a strong distaste for everything produced in the Middle Ages, Gothic architecture had become unfashionable by the 15th century. Many structures were therefore left incomplete, or were only slowly expanded.

In 18th-century England, however, the Gothic style came back to life, as a reaction to the Neoclassical movement. This Gothic rebirth led to the completion of unfinished buildings and to the construction of new ones, in a style called Gothic Revival. Here are two examples of Medieval Gothic structures only completed in the 18th-19th century period:

Westminster Abbey in London (first phase of construction: 1245-1550s; the towers: 1722-1745):

And the Cologne Cathedral in Germany (first phase: 1248-1473; the towers: 1842-1880):

The most famous Gothic Revival building is perhaps the Palace of Westminster, home of the Parliament of the United Kingdom in London, built between 1840 and 1870:

Also of note, New York’s Saint Patrick’s Cathedral, in Manhattan, built 1858-1878:

Gothic Revival even made it into the 20th century, here with the Washington National Cathedral in Washington, D.C., built 1907-1990:

In contrast, other buildings started out as Gothic, but were then completed in a different style, only to be modified again at the time of the Gothic Revival, resulting in a mix of styles that is particularly common in Italy, where the Gothic first fell out of favor. Case in point, Santa Maria del Fiore, aka the Florence Dome, built between 1296 and 1887 (dome completed in 1436):

How do you make the difference between Gothic and Gothic Revival?

– Time: 12th-15th century Gothic (with a few late Gothic exceptions in the 16th century) vs. 18th-20th century Gothic Revival

– Place: any Gothic building outside of Europe is Revival, but Europe has both

– Stone: Medieval Gothic stone looks much more uneven, and at least 300 years older, but that is not always easy to see

– Iron: Ironwork is absent in Medieval Gothic buildings but used in many Revival ones

– Buttresses: Gothic Revival buildings have smaller flying buttresses, sometimes even no buttresses, new building techniques and materials making them not necessary to support the weight of the building

Now what about those stories? Well, at the time of the Gothic Revival, a new type of story emerged in Britain. These stories were written to thrill the reader with mystery, with scary places and characters, even with horror. Because the action in these stories very often takes place in or around Gothic buildings like churches and castles —which, let’s face it, can be quite scary at night — the stories became known as Gothic stories. Examples include Horace Walpole’s The Castle of Otranto (1764), the first Gothic novel, as well as Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein (1818), and Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1897).

The Gothic was now part of fiction and popular culture, and that is the legacy I will look at in the last post of this series next week.

Spot a Style: Gothic

One word — Gothic — and over 1,500 years of cultural history. That’s what I’ll be looking at in a short series of posts tracing the evolution of one of the most intriguing styles in western civilization, from Medieval religious architecture to genres that remain highly influential in novels, movies, and subcultures.

Let’s start with Gothic architecture, which first developed in the 12th century in France. Why is it called Gothic? Because by the 16th century, Renaissance masters thought this style of building quite unrefined, like the Goths.

The Goths, the original ones, are the Germanic tribes that stormed into the Roman Empire starting in the 3rd century AD from northeast Europe. The Goths eventually destroyed Rome in 476, beginning a new period of western history — the Middle Ages — which lasted about a thousand years.

By association with the Goths, and with the typical Renaissance dislike for all things Medieval, the most striking architecture of the Middle Ages was called Gothic, even though the Goths had nothing to do with it.

Gothic architecture is actually quite refined and technically challenging. A case in point is Notre Dame de Paris, built from 1163 to 1345:

Another is the Lincoln Cathedral, in Lincoln, England, built from 1185 to 1311:

And the Sainte Chapelle in Paris, built in the 1200s:

Hardly uncivilized.

The Gothic has the following features:

– Elongated, pointy structures that rose higher than any before them in Europe. Why so tall and thin? Because the purpose is to raise the human spirit up to heaven and the divine.

– Flying buttresses, i.e. exterior supports to bear the weight of the building. Here are the flying buttresses of the Reims Cathedral in France, in stone and on the 13th-century drawing by Villard de Honnecourt:

– Pointed arches and ribbed vaults as ceiling. Here is the ribbed vault of the Saint-Séverin church in Paris:

– Dramatic use of light through tall and narrow windows

– Use of stained glass to tell Biblical stories in pictures for those who could not read, as in this example from the Chartres Cathedral, in which Saint John drinks poisoned wine but is not hurt:

And in these rose windows, from Notre Dame de Paris and the Sainte Chapelle, with many figures and stories:

Spectacular examples of Medieval Gothic cathedrals can be seen in the French cities of Paris, Reims, Chartres and Amiens. The Lincoln Cathedral in England and the Seville Cathedral in Spain also deserve a special mention. Britain as a whole, Germany, Italy and Spain, as well as parts of Eastern Europe, also have other stunning Gothic structures. Many of them, however, are part of the next phase of Gothic evolution, which I will cover in the next post, along with the rise of Gothic stories.