Institute of Carpenters

This work is an outcome of my lifetime involvement in building and woodwork together with my academic studies in Gothic structures which led to my doctoral thesis, submitted in 2013 at Lancaster University. At the request of the examiners I extended my thesis to include Gothic influence on 19th century furniture and a senior member of the university staff suggested this latter work be made into a book. So Cutting Edge is getting these papers prior to their extended book form.

In these articles we will deal with the effect of the Gothic concept on the design of woodwork, especially furniture. In Part 1 the concept of Gothic style will be explored together with a structural overview of Gothic buildings. These will be British Gothic because that is my field of expertise. Part 2 will follow with an investigation into medieval Gothic furniture of which very little remains.

The residue of the Gothic style in Britain influenced Tudor, Elizabethan, Jacobean and Commonwealth (English Civil War period) buildings and furniture. Some post-true Gothic furniture will be considered in Part 3. And in part 4 we will examine ‘Gothic Revival’ furniture. In Part 5 ‘Modern Gothic’ as a concept will be explored. Part 6 will bring these papers to the conclusion where the influence of Gothic style on modernism and modern design especially related to furniture will be revealed.

Part 1. The Gothic ‘Style’.

Some words are negative and state what a person or thing is not rather than what they are. Gentile, Infidel, Barbarian and Heathen are all this type of word. Gothic is such a word, it mainly implies that the building, etc., is not designed on classical lines. Its earliest usage in Britain is believed to be in the 17th century. From the last half of the 15th century the Renaissance had began to spread in Western Europe, starting even earlier in Italy. This rebirth was based on Greek and Roman antiquity. That old style, common in western Europe, which was not based on classical (Greek or Roman) principles and proportions needed to be called something that labelled it as not belong to this new learning; a derogatory word was needed, and that word chosen was Gothic.
When new ideas start to spread they are often applied without truly being understood. The Tudor Period (1485-1603) was a time when both Gothic and classical ideas were mixed. Hampton Court exemplifies this where classical motifs were fixed on Gothic forms. The first famous English architect to adopt classical principles in any kind of complete and logical way was Inigo Jones (1573-1652). So in 17th century Britain, the term Gothic was now applied to architecture that was not in the latest fashionable style.

This of course does not mean that no one built in the Gothic style after Jones, when they did they were simply old fashioned. All this applies to the upper classes and the wealthy who can afford to either fashionable or reactionary. The average working man’s buildings whether they are his home, workshop, farm or church showed no marked change before or after the Renaissance ideas had reached Britain. Eventually ideas and motifs from classical building did filter down to the vernacular buildings (those built by other than the famous or named architects or builders. (As opposed to polite architecture.)

If we jump a few hundred years we eventually find someone categorizing the stages in the evolution of Gothic architecture. Thomas Rickman (1776-1841) published a series of his lectures in 1817, titled An Attempt to Discriminate the Styles of Architecture in England. Although this was a very slim publication it fixed the names and dates of the various sub-styles within the Gothic category. Apart from Rickman including Norman (Romanesque) architecture within the Gothic genera, the rest of the categories remain in use to this day. Early English is the earliest form of Gothic and follows the Norman. The dates are rather elastic but 1150-1250 is assumed as this period. The Decorated Gothic follows from 1250-1350, with the final Perpendicular Gothic following from 1350 till the Tudor period begins (c1485).

What defines Gothic?

Having fixed “Gothic” into a historic time-table we now need to recognise it. Certain macroscopic features are essential, but they are not sufficient to define it completely. First and foremost Gothic structures are architectonic, that is to say heavy, blockish, solid in nature, but, they are not as heavy as Saxon and Norman structures. In Britain Gothic buildings have pointed windows, getting bigger and wider in proportion as we progress from Early English with thin tall Lancet windows, sometimes in groups of three making one larger window. See diagrams 1a and 1b and Photograph 1. If these three lancets are fused into one window we get the shape of a Decorated Gothic window, all we need to add is some tracery, see Diagrams 2a and 2b, Many experts believe these last mentioned stage is with its complex tracery the most sublime of the whole Gothic period.

Towards the end of this Decorated Period most of Europe, Britain included, was ravaged by the “Black Death”, between a quarter to a half of the population died. This created a shortage of skilled craftsmen in all spheres of work. Certainly the strict guild system which controlled craftsmanship and set rates of pay broke down completely. It became a suppliers market. Many people took to masonry and carpentry that had not the knowledge or skills of the medieval craftsmen of the Decorated period. This produced two opposing outcomes. Simplification of some of the design because of the lack of skill and confidence of the craftsmen; and, some completely innovative ideas that helped create some of the finestwoodwork and stonework of the middle ages. This third stage is known as the Perpendicular Gothic. See diagram 3 and Photograph 2.

The structural evolution of Gothic architecture had to resolve two opposing themes. The first of these is the limitation of building in stone (or later in brick) which is strong in compression and weak in tension. This dictates that the structure has to have a mass of masonry to transmit loads to the ground. The second development in the evolution of Gothic is the growth in window size. There was a need for a great mass of masonry but also for other practical reasons as colour and art played a larger part in life, especially in worship, larger areas of windows were required. When windows replaced walls the masonry mass was still required, so an extra piece of wall was built at right angles to the piers between the windows. These became stepped counterforts (popularly known as buttresses). See Diagram 4. Also as the building became larger and more complex the weight of the roof and the stone vaulting, which was another Gothic development, needed to be transmitted to the ground; this led to flying buttresses. See Diagram 5.

So we have these structural elements: Heavy, massy walls and piers, large pointed windows, counterforts, vaulting and flying buttresses. Smaller Gothic buildings exist without counterforts and flying buttress which often work together. They are still Gothic because they obviously belong to the same style of building.

Diagram 6 shows a section through a larger Gothic church showing how flying buttresses transfer weight to the counterforts. Incidentally, the combined wall or pier and the counterforts make up the buttress. Although the macroscopic features of British and French Gothic have been briefly explained above it is now essential that we should look at some additional details. Additional is perhaps not the right word as they are an integral part of what makes Gothic buildings. We will look at the definitions of Gothic by two famous Victorian characters.

John Ruskin’s definition of Gothic.

John Ruskin (1819-1900) the art critic and polymath, wrote The Stones of Venice in 1851 to 1853, in this he actually sets out to define ‘Gothic’. He is writing about Venetian Gothic which is very different from English and French, but nevertheless what is has to say in this definition is both unexpected and profound. What he has to say in couched in terms of morality, a common Victorian trait. Ruskin’s definition is in six parts (1) and he calls them mental characteristics:

Savageness (2); Another word for this character is rudeness, and implies a type of ruggedness which relates to the type of mountainous and craggy terrain that Ruskin loved. Ruskin had a dislike of overworked materials. In ‘Respecting Ideas of Power’ from Modern Painters I (1843) he says ‘there are sources of pleasure in a … roughly hewn block, which is wanting in …. the polished marble.’ (3) And in ‘The Lamp of Memory’ from The Seven Lamps of Architecture (1849) he writes of public buildings: “Better the rudest work that tells a story or records a fact, than the richest without meaning.”(4) The stonework used in northern European Gothic buildings, in the sizes and general finish of the building stone, is of itself rugged and rude.

Changefulness (5) – The exposed stones, bricks or timbers are affected by their environment; they discolour, erode unevenly and take on additional colour with the surface growth of mosses and lichen. Allowing this series of changes to take place and accepting the loss of sharp arrises is part of the mellowing process. In ‘The Lamp of Truth’ Ruskin states that “The proper colours of architecture are those of the natural stone, and I would fain see these taken advantage of to the full. Every variety of hue, from pale yellow to purple, passing through reds and browns, is entirely at our command, nearly every kind of green and grey is also attainable.” (6)

Ruskin was in favour of a degree of variety, and he did not approve of a series of capitals or window tracery that were the same. Decorative detail being the same and repeated, was the product of mass or machine production and this was at the cost of the individual craftsman’s creativity. In ‘The Lamp of Truth’ Ruskin compares a machine-made ornament in stone to a paste diamond. (7)

Variety and change are encouraged in Gothic buildings, the craftsmen allowed degrees of freedom to carry out their own designs. But the main noticeable aspect of changefulness is brought out when the building is viewed retrospectively. Many Romanesque and Gothic buildings are palimpsests, built over a fairly long period of time or added to over the centuries. And in true Gothic tradition, these different periods reflect the fashions of their day. Unity is provided by scale and the macroscopic ‘design’ but the elements making up this reflect great individuality both in detail and in fashion.

Naturalism (8) –  This changefulness or dynamism can be dependent on the environment. But, there is an additional facet here: the form and detail of the decoration. Ruskin perceives that the subject of art should be nature, and actually states:

For as soon as the workman is left free to represent what subject he chooses, he must look to the nature that is around him for material, and will endeavour to represent it as he sees it, with more or less accuracy according to the skill he possesses, and with much play of fancy, but with small respect for law. (9)

If the inspiration for decoration is taken from the natural world, it is a stylized response because of the limitations of the materials and the limitations of size and shape. The structural geometry which is equally if not more important also dictates stylization of the natural forms.

Grotesqueness (10) –  Ruskin devotes one small paragraph to Grotesqueness in ‘The Nature of Gothic,’ but it is a natural outcome of what has gone before in this list of mental characteristics. Having admitted that nature should be the inspiration for art and decoration, Ruskin has allowed for ‘fancy’. Grotesqueness can be seen as part of several inevitable extensions to nature.

Other living creatures are assumed to exist, beside those tangible ones seen daily. They may be metaphysical or they may be partially understood descriptions in the tales of travellers. The Mappa Mundi has many examples of this kind of accidental chimera. The medieval period had many books of these and other, perhaps metaphysical, animals. Such bestiaries were used for inspiration in illumination, stained glass and carvings.

Rigidity (11) – Romanesque architecture achieved its structural rigidity by means of mass and over-design (making elements larger than strictly necessary). But here Ruskin is including what we would call today durability and the even more modern concept of Sustainability. In the ‘Lamp of Memory’ Ruskin expresses this requirement for durability or sustainability:

I cannot but think it an evil sign of a people when their houses are built to last for one generation only . . . I say that if men lived like men, their houses would be temples—temples which we would hardly dare to injure, and in which it would make us holy to be permitted to live. (12): (8: 225-226)

What Ruskin is complaining against in this passage is the poor workmanship of the houses that causes them to last only a short time.

A relatively modern practice is to prepare a Life Cycle Analysis for a new building. This LCA gives the building a theoretical length of life, and the costs engendered by maintenance and replacement of components is taken into account, with the end result being a period of time allocated to the building, after which it is not economical to maintain it. It is a type of planned obsolescence that is actually scientifically designed into the maintenance programme for the building. This means that buildings that are structurally still sound are pulled down because it is not economical to carry on maintaining, repairing or replacing the fittings. This is against all that Ruskin is saying here: the building and the materials used and labour employed have more than a monetary value.

Rigidity of the structure is reflected in the solid tectonic nature of Romanesque and Gothic buildings, but this is misleading because these structures do move. Late Medieval timber-framed buildings have lasted partly because they have been able to flex, to move slightly instead of break. Today rigidity itself is seen as a problem in certain buildings and a built-in degree of flexibility is seen as a good thing.

Gothic structures portray a type of active rigidity in that they use the forces positively. The best example, here, is the pinnacle. The pinnacle is used because of its weight, bearing down on the joint between flying buttress and the buttress of the wall, it changes the direction of the sum of forces at work and directs this force more vertically down rather than outward. See Diagram 6.

Redundancy (13) – This kind of redundancy does not refer to the over-design used because of ignorance mentioned above. It is a positive virtue, embodying the spirit of generosity; it is used in the sense of sacrifice —going the extra mile.(14) This sacrifice is not made in fear of collapse but for service (by inference to God). This attitude is exemplified by the furniture produced by a Christian Sect called the Shakers (15) who believed (as did the pious medieval builder) that service needed to be sacrificial because all work was done for God. If only the basic amount of labour and expense was used in the manufacture of a building for sacred or civic use then some devotion was lacking either to God or the secular authorities.

A W N Pugin.

The next great Victorian is very different and although they were part contemporaries Pugin chose to ignore Ruskin and Ruskin liked to give the impression that he ignored Pugin. This latter would have been hardly possible because Pugin’s short life (1812-1852) was so productive producing both design details and great building designs. I believe his output and influence made him the greatest Victorian designer and architect, arguably the greatest ever. His father Augustus Charles Pugin (1762-1832) was a draughtsman of Gothic details to John Nash (1752-1835) the famous Regency architect. AWN Pugin started out as a carpenter working behind stage on scenery and making mechanical devices for use in the theatre. He was a talented artist and sailor, but above all the most famous Gothic architect. Like Ruskin, Pugin believed that Gothic architecture was superior to classical architecture morally and set out to prove in a witty and entertaining book titled Contrasts published in 1836. Contrasts is almost a comic it is so graphic with humorous drawings contrasting medieval (Gothic) buildings and society favourably with classical and modern equivalents with comical little details dotted about the serious work.

But it is in another of his books The True Principles of Pointed or Christian Architecture 1841 that he states his famous maxims:
The two great rules for design are these: that there should be no features about a building which are not necessary for convenience, construction, or propriety; 2nd, that all ornament should consist of enrichment of the essential construction of the building. (16)

These two rules are so important that they became the basis of the Arts and Crafts Movement and every earnest architect has given them lip-service. But for Pugin they were what made true Gothic great.

Conclusion to Part 1 Gothic Style.

To summarize: Gothic is heavy, but not too heavy; Gothic buildings aspire to have large windows in temperate regions; they have pointed windows and doorways; exposed decorative timber ceilings or stone vaulting; larger Gothic buildings have flying buttress and counterforts; they use applied heavy pieces like pinnacles to redirect forces; they have most of those characteristics stated by Ruskin: Changefulness, Naturalism, Grotesqueness, Rigidity and Redundance; and have that honesty beloved by Pugin. All these different facets make Gothic structures, they do not all have to apply.
So having seen the definitions that go into making a building Gothic we are open to move on into the field of woodwork. The next Part will deal with medieval furniture both domestic and ecclesiastical. We will attempt to see if the criteria used above can be applied to these smaller artefacts.

The late Dr Brian K Hodgson, Ph.D, LCGI, FIOC, FFB, MIMWoodT, AIMMM (MIWSc)
North West Region

References
(1) John Ruskin, The Works of John Ruskin (Library Edition) Vol 1-39. Edited by E T Cook and Alexander Wedderburn, London, George Allen, Vol 10. 1903-1912, p184.
(2) Ibid. 10. 184-204 (3) Ibid. 3. 128.
 (4) Ibid. 8. 230 (5) Ibid. 10. 204-214.
(6) Ibid. 8. 80 (7) Ibid. 82-83.
 (8) Ibid. 10. 215-239  (9) Ibid. 10. 215.
 (10) Ibid. 10. 239 (11) Ibid. 10. 239-243.
(12 ) Ibid 8. 225-226 (13) Ibid. 10. 243-261.
(14) Matthew Ch 5 v 21.
(15) Michael Horsham, The Art of the Shakers, London, Apple Press, 1989, p. 34.
(16) AWN Pugin, The True Principles of Pointed or Christian Architecture, London, John Weale, 1841. P. 2.

This article first appeared in the August 2014 issue of Cutting Edge. As part of the IOC membership, IOC members receive quarterly editions of Cutting Edge magazine and access to all back issues online.

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