Page:A History of Architecture in All Countries Vol 2.djvu/69

Bk. IV. Ch. V. ST. GEREON, COLOGNE. 53 CHAPTEE V. POINTED STYLE IN GERMANY. CONTEIfTS. History of style — St. Gereon, Cologne — Churches at Gelnhausen — Marburg — Cologne Cathedral — Friburg — Strasburg — St. Stephen's, Vienna — Nurem- berg — Miihlhausen — Erf urth. IT is scarcely necessary to repeat — what has been ah-eacly perhaps sufficiently insisted upon — that the Germans borrowed their pointed style from the French at a period when it had attained its highest degree of perfection in the latter country. At all events, we have already seen that the pointed style was commonly used in France in the first half of the 12th century, and that it was nearly perfect in all essential parts before the year 1200 ; whereas, though there may be here and there a solitary instance of a pointed arch in Germany (though I know of none) before the last-named date, there is certainly no church or building erected in the pointed Gothic style, the date of which is anterior to the first years of the 13th century. Even then it was timidly and reluctantly adopted, and not at first as a new style, but rather as a modification to be employed in conjunction with old forms. This was apparent in the polygonal part of the church of St. Gereon at Cologne (Woodcuts Nos. 505 and 506), commenced in the first year of the 13th century, and vaulted about the year 1212. ^ The plan of the building is eminently German, being in fact a circular nave as contradistinguished from the French chevet, and is a fine bold attempt at a domical building, of Avhich it is among the last examples. In plan it is an irregular decagon, 55 ft. wide over all, north and south, and 66 ft. in the direction of the.axis of the church. Notwithstanding the use of the pointed arch, the details of the building are as imlike the contemporary style of France as is the plan ; and are, in fact, nearly a century behind French examples in the employment of all those expe- dients which give character and meaning to the true pointed style. Another church in the same city, St. Cunibert, is a still more striking example of this. Commenced in the first decade of the 13th century, and dedicated in 1248, the very year in which it is said the foundation-stones of the cathedral were laid, it still retains nearly all i Boisseree, " Nieder Rhein," p. .36.