Az Eszterházy Károly Tanárképző Főiskola Tudományos Közleményei. 2004. Vol. 4. Eger Journal of English Studies. (Acta Academiae Paedagogicae Agriensis : Nova series ; Tom. 30)
MATTHEW PALMER The English Cathedral: Prom Description to Analysis
The English Cathedral: from Description to Analysis 79 calls "a mixture of perversity and ignorance" 2 1. When the "French and English artificers were summoned" to Canterbury to inspect the damage after the fire, as Gervase tells us, it is unlikely that they would have been offering the monks a choice of two styles, one French, the other English. When looking at the designs of the two architects who actually carried out the work it is difficult to decide which William came from France and which from England. It is not difficult, however, to list the contrastive features between French and Early English cathedrals: the one broad, the other long, round ambulatories and square ends, western portals and side porches, compact masses and broken up masses, great height and moderate height, vertically and horizontally. However, having drawn up contrasts of this kind one must beware of jumping to too many conclusions. 2 2 Gothic Design As we have already seen the study of Gothic architecture is riddled with many theories. One such notion is structural rationalism, a term most associated with the writings of Eugene Viollet-le-Duc (1814-1879). It believed that structural performance and structural efficiency, of employing "materials according to their qualities and properties", was the be all and end all of the Gothic style. 2 3 Whilst rarely believed today in their entirety Viollet-le-Duc's ideas and those of his followers have led popular art historians to show an unhealthy interest in the heights of vaults, the prominence of flying buttresses and the size of windows, yet sharing a view that the Gothic style was inherently progressive, and that all those who had not caught "world record fever" 2 4 (Gimpel) were either conservative or provincial. Whilst acknowledging that the Gothic was indeed a new style, it was essentially a stylistic transformation which took place in the He-deFrance between 1135 and 1145. Jean Bony defines it in the following terms: "Gothic is anew style in which a new interpretation is given to all the aspects Crossley, Paul "English Gothic Architecture", The Age of Chivalry, eds. Alexander J. and Binski P. (London, Royal Academy of Arts with Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1987), p. 69. Perhaps one of the most famous list of contrasts can be found in Fletcher, op. cit., pp. 500-507. 2 3 Summerson, John, Heavenly Mansions (London, The Cresset Press, 1949), pp. 135— 158; Watkin, op. cit. pp. 23-32; Frampton, Kenneth, Modem Architecture: A Critical History (London, Thames and Hudson, 1980), p. 64. 2 4 Gimpel, Jean, The Cathedral Builders (New York, Grove Press, Inc., 1983), p. 76.
