Page:Archaeological Journal, Volume 7.djvu/330

232 REMARKS ON THE COMPLETE GOTHIC as for instance, the various forms of arches and openings, pointed, trefoil, &c., which were gradually developed into tracery and feathering ; others, as this one, Interpenetration, were suppressed as ungenial, by the Gothic style while in its vigour; but in its decline they re-appeared, and had a large share in the disorganisation and overthrow of the style. VL Profjress of Disorcjamsatwu. By the disorganisation of the Gothic style, I mean the suppression and extinction of those principles, the principle of frame-work and the principle of spire-growth for example, which establish a connexion among the different parts, such that each appears to be necessary to the others, or to grow out of the others. In buildings governed by such principles, the parts are all in a necessary relation to the whole, and are thus connected with each other. In this case, the ornamentation of each part is, as it were, a blossoming of the general principle of groTvi:h. But the ornamentation of different parts takes different forms : doors are enriched with frame-work shafts and mouldings, and with sj)ire-growth canopies ; windows with flexible tracery ; vaults with frame-work ribs ; summits of walls and buttresses with pinnacles and turrets ; towers with spires ; and the like. And each of these kinds of decoration may be applied separately to the part to which it is specially appropriate, even if the general mass of the building be destitute of organic connexion, and consist merely of blank walls. This loss of the general organic connexion of a build- ing, while the separate parts were often richly ornamented, is one of the features of the After-Gothic ; and it is obviousl} connected with those perversions of the principles of orna- mentation ill the Gothic style of which I have already spoken. The roof was ornamented, and the windows were ornamented, but the ornamentation of each was only fonciful, not organic. In Germany one of the traditionary aims of the architects tended to draw the ornamented parts further from each other, and thus to break up the organisation. It was a matter of ambition with the Complete Gothic architects to make their churches, and especially their choirs, lofty. It continued to be a matter of ambition with the After-Gothic architects to do the same. The Complete Gothic builders sought their object by constructing the frame-work of vault- ing shafts, window shafts, and pier arch shafts in many orders,