dramatically and seeming wildly to sprout vault ribs, as in the ambulatory of Saint-
Séverin in Paris.
This extraordinary visual fantasy at the same time is accompanied by the increasingly
“realistic” depiction of flora and fauna seemingly copied from nature. Already present in
the decoration of the Sainte-Chapelle in Paris, this tendency flourished in the 15th
century with the creation of designs based on ever more specific fruits, vegetables, and
foliage now filled with exotic and monstrous animals whose realistic treatment belies
their fantastic origins. The element of fantasy pervades architecture. In this new order, the
transept gables of Notre-Dame at Paris become the dissolving openwork screens of
Louviers or the façade of Saint-Maclou at Rouen. Visual limits are challenged by
illusionary effects, piers without bases or capitals, vault ribs that sprout from walls,
scatter across vaults like unchecked foliage and abruptly vanish into other ribs, piers, and
walls.
Architectural space becomes more unified into total volumes but also more visionary
and illusionistic. In eastern France and in Champagne, this was achieved by using the
hall-church scheme with aisles equal or nearly equal in height to the main nave. But the
illusionism might also rely on the tall, narrow proportions found in the Rayonnant, a
design favored in Parisian churches. The Rayonnant visual linkage of upper zones that
suggested a two-storied elevation became reality in such buildings as Notre-Dame at
Cléry (1429–85), a royal church on the Loire, and later in Saint-Gervais (1494–1502) and
Saint-Étienne du Mont in Paris (after 1494). Moulins cathedral, formerly a collegial
church founded in 1468 for the dukes of Bourbon, repeats this Parisian scheme. In
Normandy, the traditional three-story elevation is maintained, but the treatment of the
second story as a tracery screen obscures its role as the front of a wall passage, as at
Caudebec-en-Caux, Saint-Maclou at Rouen, or the new chevet of Mont-Saint-Michel.
The extraordinary illusionism that redefines architectural space is not only international
(Prague cathedral was begun by a French architect-builder, Matthew d’Arras), but
resulted in a number of striking architectural fantasies: Notre-Dame at Cléry (patroned by
Louis XI after 1467 and practically made into his private chapel); the church of Brou
(1513–32), reflecting the intense love and devotion of Marguerite of Austria for her
short-lived marriage to Philibert of Savoy; the pilgrimage church of Notre-Dame de
l’Épine in Champagne (in the works in the 1440s); Saint-Pol-de-Léon (begun in 1429);
and the rebuilding of Nantes cathedral (begun in 1434). The Flamboyant is the most
neglected period of Gothic architecture because of the prejudices of past generations; but
the neglect of these highly original and inventive architectural fantasies is unwarranted.
The time has come to discard old conceptions and look anew at Late Gothic architecture.
William W.Clark
[See also: AMIENS; ANGERS; AUXERRE; BAYEUX; BOURGES; BROU;
CHAMBIGES, MARTIN; CHARTRES; CLÉRY; CORMONT; COUTANCES; DIJON;
ERWIN DE STEINBACH; GAUTIER DE VARINFROY; GOTHIC ART; JEAN DE
CHELLES; LAON; L’ÉPINE; MENDICANT ART AND ARCHITECTURE; NANTES;
NOYON; PARIS; PIERRE DE MONTREUIL; REIMS; ROBERT DE LUZARCHES;
ROMANESQUE ARCHITECTURE; ROUEN; SAINT-DENIS; SENS; SOISSONS;
TOULOUSE; TROYES]
Bechmann, Roland. Les racines des cathédrales. Paris: Payot, 1984.
Bony, Jean. French Gothic Architecture of the Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries. Berkeley:
University of California Press, 1983.
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