Gothic

On this cast

• Thin wallBehind the ornament the wall is thin: the buttresses take the load, so it can be opened up for glass.
• Pierced parapetA balustrade cut through with quatrefoils, so even the roof edge looks like lace.
• GableThe steep end of the nave roof. Gothic roofs are pitched sharply, and the façade follows.
• Lancet with bar traceryA pointed window split into two lights by a slim stone mullion, with a foiled circle on top: geometric tracery.
• Rose windowA great round window of radiating stone bars and cusped arches, filled with stained glass.
• Portal with archivoltsThe doorway steps inward through pointed arches, the archivolts, each lined with little carved figures.
• Jamb statuesTall saints carved on the shafts flanking the door, half column, half person.
• TympanumThe panel over the doors, carved in registers: here the Last Judgement, with Christ at the top.
• TrumeauThe central pier that splits a wide portal in two and props up the tympanum. It usually carries a statue.
• WimpergA steep, pierced gablet over a portal. It sharpens the upward pull of the whole front.
• Crockets and finialsLittle curled leaves climbing the edges of gables and spires, crowned by a fleur-like finial.
• ButtressA massive pier against the wall that resists the outward push of the stone vaults inside. It steps back as it rises, in set-offs.
• PinnacleA small spire on top of a buttress. Its weight helps turn the thrust down into the buttress, and it looks the part.

How to spot it from the street

1. Pointed arches everywhere
2. Rose windows and stone tracery
3. Buttresses and pinnacles along the sides
4. Steep gables and a strong vertical pull

Where it came from

Gothic began with one choir: Abbot Suger rebuilt the east end of Saint-Denis between 1140 and 1144, joining pointed arches, rib vaults and wide windows into a church filled with coloured light. Within a century the cathedrals of Chartres, Reims and Amiens had pushed the system to its limits.

The trick is in the structure. A pointed arch pushes less sideways than a round one, and the push that remains is caught by buttresses outside the wall, often by flying buttresses that leap over the aisles. The wall between them carries little, so it can become tracery and stained glass. 'Gothic' itself was an insult: Renaissance writers blamed the style on the barbarian Goths.