AHIS 120g 1st Edition Lecture 13Current LectureHigh Gothic art in France- The political and economic stability of France during the 13th century encouraged the continued growth of cities, an ideal context for producing monumental architecture.Rebuilding of Chartes Cathedral- The rebuilding of Chartes Cathedral after the fire of 1194 marks the next step in the development of Gothic architecture. - Its crypt houses Chartes’s most important possession: remnants of a tunic said to have been worn by the Virgin Mary, to whom the cathedral is dedicated. - To provide room for large numbers of visitors without disturbing worshippers, there is a wide aisle running the length of the nave and around the transept. o Worshippers entered the building through the old west portal and passed through a relatively low narthex. o It would have taken time for the visitor to adjust to the interior. - By eliminating the gallery, the designers of Chartes imposed a three-part elevation on the wall.o Shafts attached to the piers at Chartes stress the continuity of the vertical lines and guide our eye upward to the vaults, which appear as diaphanous webs stretched across the slender ribs. o Quadripartite, or four-part, vaults now replace the sexpartite vaults of Early Gothic buildings. - In Chartres, the buttresses are visible only outside the building. o Flying buttresses—arch bridges that reach upward to the critical spots between the clerestory windows where the outward thrust of the nave vault is concentrated. o The flying buttresses were also designed to resist the considerable wind pressure on the high-pitched roof. This method of anchoring vaults owed its origin to functional considerations, but the flying buttress is also an integral aesthetic and expressive feature of the building. - Chartes still retains most of its more than 180 original stain-glassed windows. o They act mainly as diffusing filters that change the quality of daylight, giving it the poetic and symbolic values so highly praised by the Abbot Suger. o This ‘miraculous light’ creates the intensely mystical experience that lies at the heart of Gothic spirituality. o An immense rose window, the large medallion of glass in the center of the façade, is an iconic sculptural element of the High Gothic.- Amiens Cathedralo The High Gothic style defined at Chartes reaches its climax at a generation later in the interior of Amiens cathedral.o The height of the nave is the dominant achievement both technically and aesthetically at Amiens.  The height of the Amiens nave arcade creates a soaring effect; it alone is almost 70 feet.  The complete nave rises 140 feet above the ground. There is also an increased vertical integration through the use of shafts that rise directly through the capitals of the piers. - Reims Cathedralo The coronation cathedral of the kings of France.o The portals on the west façade of Reims cathedral project forward as gabled porches, with windows in place of tympana above the doorways. o Every detail except the rose window has become taller and narrower than before. Pinnacles—small pointed elements capping piers, buttresses and other architectural forms—everywhere accentuate restless upward movement.o Individual study of sculptures of distinctive style and quality is given to the sculpture of the west portal. Gothic classicism reached its climax at