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rose windows - cathedral window stylesIn medieval christianism, paganism was still prevalent; and there was also an excitement with a mysticism of numbers that reached right back to Pythagoras. The construction of the gothic cathedrals and their windows involved very complex geometries, with on-going challenges to gain stable structures within the circle.
Wheels were, of course, technology: wheels for carts that worked, water wheels, mill wheels, wheels for raising heavy loads, treadmills for providing power, the spread of windmills. This was exciting, a new world was developing. Little detail has come down to us, surviving the intervening eight hundred years or so. One of the great treasures that has survived is the design notebook of Villard de Honnecourt. Who knows, perhaps we can even dream of a perpetual motion machine powering this revolution? Or the devil may be confused by a circular maze on the floor, as can be seen at the west end of the nave of both Chartres and Amiens cathedrals. Eight hundred years later, we must gain clues wherever we may: an illuminated letter in a manuscript, a quick builder’s sketch on the stones underneath the eaves, and most of all from examining the buildings. Rose window styles in a rough chronology:
As the mastery of gothic architecture proceeded, and great areas opened up to the potential for being glazed, shapes developed naturally to fill the appropriate spaces. The circle fitted naturally into the leaping arches, as did lancets into narrower, pointed openings. These times were the true renaissance of Northern Europe, with new techniques, burgeoning populations supported by the development of deep ploughing on the rich soils of the North, and growing knowledge.
West rose window (exterior) at Orvieto
cathedral, Italy Circular windows have a tendency to rotate under the slightest asymmetric pressure. The circle has to be maintained with spokes of a wheel and arches. The outside of the circle is, of course, one continuous arch. All these great buildings, as they developed, were experimental. The centre of the West Rose at Chartres is still, to this day, off-centre by about a foot (30 cm), while the transept roses at Notre-Dame de Paris had to be taken down and redesigned. There is a war between making the window as solid as possible and maximising the glass area, a war between the simple shape and the complexity of the work of art. Let us make circles within circles, as with the glorious Chartres’ west rose. How about some squares, as with Chartres’ north? Elsewhere can be found triangles and pentagons [Laon west rose], some of the most stable of shapes; or perhaps hexagons would be used, or any other shape that took their fancy. Over the next century or two, as the experience of the builders increased, the tracery became more decorative and imaginative. The obvious wheels gave way to the more seemingly organic lines of the flamboyant windows, such as those at Amiens, Sens and Troyes. These are windows with sweeping spirals and ‘paisley’ shapes. Tours has a lozenge rose; and then there is my very special snowflake window at Sees. Below the rose windows was usually a parade of lancets, and often a new moon as a tiara filling the space above. By the mid-fourteenth century [say 1350], the flamboyant style was fully developed. The name flamboyant came from the fiery shapes of the stone tracery, often also blazing with colour. In such windows, all straight lines were eliminated, leaving curving, curling flames. These roses were never to reach the grand scale of the great gothic roses. The more intricate stonework of flamboyant rose windows demanded only the hardest, most consistent stone, which alone could manage the stresses, even if achieving less ambitious sizes. In the fifteenth to sixteenth centuries [1400 to 1599], buildings that had been started centuries earlier were completed with the latest style of stained glass window - the flamboyant.
Extremely well illustrated - the paperback version [title: Rose Windows] has 59 pictures in colour and 82 in black-and-white and densely packed with facts. An ideal primer to be carried around with you on any visit. Like so many books, written by informed hands, it is very badly organised and laid out. My Thames and Hudson glued paper-cover version started falling apart from early on, but always travels in its own protective plastic cover to keep the pages in one place. I cannot resist giving these books five GoldenYaks, if only because I know of nothing better. The new hardback version [title: The Rose Window] is lavishly illustrated with 300 colour and 50 b/w images. While author now has greater experience, the text is less dense and not the sort of thing to carry around in a back pack. Painton Cowen has also produced a very useful directory of stained glass in Britain -
If you want to understand the structure of the great gothic cathedrals, this is the place to go. Some of it gets a bit technical, Mark used polarised light, epoxy plastic models and wind tunnels to work out the the loadings and stresses in some of the great cathedrals. An absolutely fascinating book to read, if you can stand the hard work and the usual technical manual disorganisation. As with Painton, I can not resist giving this book five GoldenYaks, if only because I know of nothing better.
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