French Gothic architecture

also: Gothique français

style c. 1140-1550 France Europe

French Gothic architecture was born in the 1140s, when Abbot Suger rebuilt the choir of the abbey church of Saint-Denis near Paris and its masons fused pointed arches, rib vaults, and vast windows into a fabric that seemed to dissolve stone into light. From this beginning the style evolved through clearly marked phases: the Early Gothic of Laon and Notre-Dame de Paris, the High Gothic classicism of Chartres, Reims, and Amiens, the glass-walled Rayonnant of the Sainte-Chapelle, and the flamelike Flamboyant of the late Middle Ages. Its structural system - flying buttresses carrying vault thrusts clear of the walls - turned those walls into curtains of stained glass. French Gothic set the standard for cathedral building across Europe and later became the reference point for Gothic Revival architecture worldwide.

Lead image of the Wikipedia article "French Gothic architecture".
Lead image of the Wikipedia article "French Gothic architecture".CC BY 2.5 · source

Defining characteristics

  • Pointed arches that unify vaults of different spans and channel loads downward
  • Ribbed stone vaults concentrating ceiling weight onto slender piers
  • Flying buttresses carrying thrust outside the wall, freeing it for glass
  • Walls dissolved into stained glass: tall lancets, grisaille, and great rose windows
  • Strong verticality, the eye drawn upward along clustered shafts and galleries
  • Sculpted portal programs - column figures and tympana carved around the doors

Key figures

  • Abbot Suger (c. 1081-1151) — Abbot of Saint-Denis whose rebuilding of the abbey choir (consecrated 1144) launched the Gothic style
  • Jean de Chelles (d. 1265) — Master mason who began the Rayonnant north transept of Notre-Dame de Paris
  • Pierre de Montreuil (c. 1200-1267) — Paris-region master mason whose refined Rayonnant work at Saint-Denis set the 13th-century standard

Example works

Sources

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