14. “Sainte-Anne Portal”,
western façade, Notre-Dame Cathedral,
Paris (France), before 1148.

In situ.

 

 

When a Gothic church construction had progressed to the stage where the nave needed to be concluded with a façade, the artistic spirit usually recovered no matter how difficult the external circumstances. Surely all Gothic master builders intended to perfect a house of God with a pair of mighty towers, or a single, but even more gigantic tower. However, executing their own original ideas, or at least witnessing their implementation, was not granted to all. Lengthy work on the towers dragged on from one artistic family to the next and slackened in proportion to the dwindling enthusiasm of devout donators. Beginning in the mid-sixteenth century, public building interest shifted to different objects altogether. Every successor to construction leadership tried to outshine his predecessor, without worrying whether the first plans had contextualised the façade and the tower in a well considered organism. The most famous example of master builders’ artistic egocentricity is Strasbourg Cathedral, where artistic unity is sacrificed for ambition. Its single northern tower stands in stark contrast to the façade. As such, the tower is a work of art that no one would want to exchange for perfect regularity.

 

It is possible that the architectural artists of the later Gothic period recognised the inner law of the Gothic – symmetry – as a constraint which tried to break their liberated imagination. This could explain certain, often reoccurring differences, such as the uneven handling of nave façades or pairs of towers that were begun at the same time, yet completed one after another. Naturally, the richer is not always the later example: often it was the hardship of the times that forced master builders to employ simplicity and economise. However, the essential feature of the Late Gothic is nonetheless the propensity to the picturesque and a desired liberation from norms, which in the end deviated into empty play with mathematical formulae. In their creative joy the old masters did not feel that this would be the end of the Gothic. The artist who strides ahead in the stream of time always courageously looks ahead, never back with fear.