A similar interest in older structural systems updated and sheathed in complex tracery
patterns characterizes the regional styles of Burgundy and Champagne. One thinks of the
superposed passages of the apse of Saint-Amand-sur-Fion, which must be a reflection of
the design complexity of Saint-Nicaise at Reims, which in turn picks up the lower-level
passage in front of windows seen at both Saint-Remi and the cathedral of Reims.
Likewise, in Burgundy the distinctive regional variant of Rayonnant Gothic usually
includes passages in association with windows, as at Auxerre cathedral, Notre-Dame at
Dijon, and the elegant church at Semur-en-Auxois.
In the south, the Romanesque single-nave tradition of Languedoc provided the
inspiration for comparable Gothic spatial experiments at Toulouse cathedral, among
others. And some of the Angevin experiments with single naves and complex, domed
vaults culminates in the extraordinary lightness and openness of Saint-Serge at Angers
and Candes, among others, in this particularly experimental region. In short, the regional
styles all seem to have more to do with updating older traditions in a climate that favored
experimentation in structure and design than with creating styles in reaction to what was
emanating from the royal domain.
Discarding the outmoded concept of “High Gothic” and reevaluating Rayonnant
Gothic as an equally valid but different approach to design and decoration also permits us
to rethink the assessments of previous generations with regard to the last phase of the
Gothic style, called “Flamboyant” after the elegant reverse curves used in window tracery
that produces patterns resembling tongues of flame. Past generations tended to dismiss
the Flamboyant as “decadent” or “baroque.” To do so fails to recognize two important
aspects of Late Gothic. First, the Flamboyant exists side-by-side with the now
conservative Rayonnant. In other words, the Flamboyant is a logical outgrowth of
Rayonnant tracery patterns, an outgrowth that does not replace the older patterns but
exists with them. More important, in the hands of talented builders the Flamboyant
became the means to expand the limits of Gothic illusionism and to question the very
tenets of architectural design.
The Hundred Years’ War drained the French economy at every level. With resources
stretched thin, building activity practically ceased. Many projects were abandoned or
languished until the recovery in the late 15th century. Flamboyant tracery patterns began
to appear in the last decades of the 14th century, but the major monuments would be
created only after the end of the war and would be built in those areas most devastated by
battles: Picardy, Champagne, Burgundy, the western valley of the Loire, and Normandy,
as well as in Paris itself.
The most identifiable aspect of Flamboyant Gothic is the ogee, or reverse-curve, arch,
which first appeared simply as one more variant in the rich Rayonnant vocabulary. But
by the 15th-century recovery, the patterns had grown more complex and had begun to be
used to impart a sense of dynamics to the lines of the buildings. The ogee arch and the
resulting tracery patterns are used to define the style not only because they are so
immediately identifiable but because they create a sense of continuous, sinuous
movement across the window tracery or around the portals. This dynamism spread to the
patterns of vault ribs and even to the design of piers. Abandoning the traditional visual
and design limits imposed by the presence of bases and capitals, as well as the
volumetrics resulting from colonnettes, the pier could become something dynamic in
design with a plan of delicate scallops. The thin vertical lines swirl upward, twisting
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