Vocabulary

advent — приход, прибытие

rib — ребро

arch — арка

pointed arch — стрельчатая (остроконечная) арка

buttress — контрфорс

flying buttress — аркбутан, арочный контрфорс

sophisticated — изощренный

abbey — аббатство

skill — мастерство

precision — точность'

undulating — волнистый

claim — требование; претензия; притязание; утверждение; заявление

Rayonnant — лучистый (стиль)

Flamboyant — «пламенеющий» (стиль)

choir — место хора в соборе

to retain — удерживать; поддерживать; сохранять

clerestory — верхний ряд окон, освещающий центр высокого

помещения

to attach — прикреплять; присоединять

tracery — ажурная каменная работа; рисунок, узор; переплетение

shaft — ствол

dense — густой, плотный

chapel — часовня

secular — светский, мирской

I. Complete the sentences.

1. At the technical level the Gothic style is characterized by the ribbed vault, the flying buttress, and ...

a) the round arch

b) the bulbous dome

c) the pointed arch

2. The title the "first Gothic building" is given to ...

a) the abbey of Saint-Denis

b) Westminster abbey

c) King's College Chapel

3. In English architecture the usual subdivisians are Early English, Dec­orated and ... styles.

a) Carolingian

b) Flamboyant

c) Perpendicular

4. English architects for a long time retained a liking for ...

a) plain surfaces

b) heavy surface decoration

c) curved surfaces

5. Gothic was essentially the style of... countries.

a) the Buddhist

b) the Orthodox

c) the Catholic

II. Choose the right sentence.

1. The Gothic style developed in most countries of Europe.

a) The Gothic style was associated with the barbarian north.

b) Gothic is represented in many European countries.

c) Paris — for much of this period the home of a powerful and ar­tistically enlightened court — played an especially important role in the history of Gothic art.

2. Canterbury Cathedral was the most influential building in the new fashion.

a) Canterbury Cathedral was the most important structure of the Early English Gothic.

b) Canterbury resembles St. Paul's Cathedral.

c) Canterbury Cathedral was built in the 12th century.

3. English architects retained a liking for heavy surface decoration.

a) English architects preferred restrained decoration.

b) The stained glass of the period was heavily coloured.

c) English architects kept on using ponderous exterior decorations.

4. Gothic was used for cathedrals, churches and monasteries.

a) Gothic was used for industrial buildings.

b) Gothic was used for ecclesiastic structures.

c) In most European countries artists imitated architectural styles from northern France.

Read the text and speak on the reason of imitation of Gothic architecture

NEO-GOTHIC

The architectural movement most commonly associated with Roman­ticism is the Gothic Revival, a term first used in England in the mid-19th century to describe buildings being erected in the style of the Middle Ages and later expanded to embrace the entire Neo-Gothic movement.

The first clearly self-conscious imitation of Gothic architecture for rea­sons of nostalgia appeared in England in the early 18th century. Buildings erected at that time in the Gothic manner were for the most part frivolous and decorative garden ornaments, actually more Rococo than Gothic in spirit. But, with the rebuilding beginning in 1747 of the country house Strawberry Hill by the English writer Horace Walpole, a new and signifi­cant aspect of the revived style was given convincing form; and, by the beginning of the 19th century, picturesque planning and grouping provided the basis for experimentation in architecture. Gothic was especially suited to this aim. Scores of houses with battlements and turrets in the style of a castle were built in England during the last years of the 18th century.

French architects, in particular, Viollet-le-Duc, who restored a range of buildings from the Sainte-Chapelle and Notre-Dame in Paris to the whole town of Carcassonne, were the first to appreciate the applicability of the Gothic skeleton structure, with its light infilling, to a modern age, and the analogy was not lost on subsequent architects at a time when the steel frame was emerging as an important element of structural engineering. Functionalism and structural honesty as ideals in the Modern move­ment were a legacy of the Gothic Revival.

Not surprisingly, the Gothic Revival was felt with most force in those countries in which Gothic architecture itself was most in evidence — En­gland, France, and Germany. Each conceived it as a national style, and each gave to it a strong and characteristic twist of its own.

THE REBIRTH OF CLASSICAL ART

Warming-up

1. What is the meaning of the word "Renaissance"?

2. In what country did this style originate?

3. What do you know about the Renaissance in Russia?

Text 1.

Read the text and tell about the Renaissance in Italy and in Russia.

THE RENAISSANCE

The Renaissance began in Italy, where there was always a residue of clas­sical feeling in art.

Knowledge of the classical style in architecture was derived during the Renaissance from two sources: the ancient classical buildings, particularly in Italy but also in France and Spain and the treatise De architectura by the Roman architect Vitruvius. For classical antiquity and, therefore, for the Renaissance, the basic element of architectural design was the order, which was a system of traditional architectural units. During the Renais­sance five orders were used, the Tuscan, Doric, Ionic, Corinthian, and Composite, with various ones prevalent in different periods. For example, the ornate, decorative quality of the Corinthian order was embraced dur­ing the early Renaissance, while the masculine simplicity and strength of the Doric was preferred during the Italian High Renaissance.

On the authority of Vitruvius, the Renaissance architects found a har­mony between the proportions of the human body and those of their ar­chitecture. There was even a relationship between architectural proportions and the Renaissance pictorial device of perspective.

The concern of these architects for proportion caused that clear, mea­sured expression and definition of architectural space and mass that dif- ferentiates the Renaissance style from the Gothic and encourages in the spectator an immediate and full comprehension of the building.

In the early 15th century an Italian architect Filippo Brunelleschi for­mulated linear perspective, which was to become a basic element of Re­naissance art. At the same time, Brunelleschi investigated ancient Roman architecture and acquired the knowledge of classical architecture and or­nament that he used as a foundation for Renaissance architecture.

His brilliant vork, the loggia of the Ospedale degli Innocenti (1419— 51) was the first building in the Renaissance manner; a very graceful ar­cade was designed with Composite columns, and windows with classical pediments were regularly spaced above each of the arches.

Donato Bramante's Tempietto San Pietro in Montorio (1502) symbol­ized the beginning of the High Renaissance style in Rome. Erected on the supposed site of the martyrdom of St. Peter, the Tempietto is circular in plan, with a colonnade of 16 columns surrounding a small cella, or enclosed in­terior sanctuary.

In 1505 Pope Julius II decided to rebuild St. Peter's, which was in a very poor condition. Bramante prepared plans for a monumental church and in 1506 the foundation stone was laid.

St. Peter's Cathedral is the largest church in the Christian world. It has 29 altars in addition to the high altar, interior length, 187m.,width at front, 26,5 m., length of transept, 137 m. The dome (diameter, 42 m., height, 123 m. to the top of the lantern) was built by Michelangelo.

In Russia the Renaissance is represented by the works of Italian mas­ters (the Moscow Kremlin, the 15th — 16th cc.) The cathedral of the As­sumption was built in 1475—1479 by Aristotile Fioravante on the site of an old church dating back to the reign of Ivan Kalita. By combining the char­acteristic features of the Vladimir-Suzdal and early-Moscow style with Ital­ian Renaissance decoration and construction methods Fioravante produced a masterpiece of lasting beauty. Another example is the Cathedral of the Archangel Michael, designed by Alevisio Novi in 1505-1508.

The Granovitaya Palata Faceted Pulace (1487—91) was built by Russian craftsmen according to the design of Italian architects Marco Ruffo, Aloisio da Carcano, and Pietro Antonio Solari. Its eastern facade is faced with faceted white stones, hence the name.