| Kris Krieger 2005-06-16, 2:34 pm |
| "gruhn" <gruhn@deletehwb.com> wrote in
news:5u0oe.20$RQ3.1075@news.uswest.net:
quote:
> glass
>
> Don't know which steps you are counting so it is hard to comment.
I'm just going by the very general (and probably very incomplete) summaries
I've seen in the few archetectural history books I've looked through...it's
as tho' some genius figured out the flying buttress and then WHAMMO!!!
quote:
> BUT
> (and I'm having a hard time getting pictures on the web to confirm my
> first assertion) we'll go with the "it all started at St. Denis". And
> there, I think you'll find the modest in full display - fairly solid
> walls, small windows, low applied decoration. One of the big
> differences between modest and full gonzo in a gothic cathedral is the
> realization and the boldness to go through with that realization that
> the walls really really don't matter.
Which is (it seems to me) actually counter-intuitive. When I see pictures
of the tall spires and the flying buttresses, my "instinctive feeling" is
that they surely cannot stand - but stand they do. no matter how often I
imagine them, I remain awed by the leap of pure genius, added in with the
incredible pigheadedness, and genius of its own kind, it would take to
carve all that stone, haul the things ever higher, fit them precisely into
place, and have the thing stand for hundreds and hundreds of years (barring
earthquakes).
Talk about Master Builders, wow...
quote:
> Then your big challenge is simply "how thin and how distant"? I wonder
> if / suspect that a new larger intuition of force lines was brought
> about by the gothic.
That's a large part of my own ponderings - to the best of my knowledge
(which admittedly ain't that extensive), nobody has ever founf anything
like the equivalent of modern blueprints, or math calculations.
So I sometimes wonder whether they were work of visual genius, beyond the
obvious (i.e. decoration), something like the savants who can do astounding
calculations in their hads, and often report that they "just picture the
numbers" - is thre some similar ability when it comes to intuiting the
physics of materials, lines of force, vectoring like intricate lacework
through the invisible air...?
((I'm also very interested in how the brain works, so this sort of question
always intrigues me greatly.))
quote:
> Also re: "not long" - there was an immediate lot of building in The
> New Style after the opening of St. Denis.
That's the surprising part. It all jsut seemed to take off, and faster
than one would think horseback and plain old walking would allow.
quote:
> Some of the full gonzo appearance has little to do with structure and
> is just the sculptural froufrou.
It's not the appearance of that, which I'm picturing, tho' - it's those
almost needle-like columns shooting up, taking the weight of heavy shale or
lead or stone roofs, and the "walls" being frail curtains of glass looking
almost as though they're suspended in the air. Strip away the decoration,
and there is the Structure, the skeleton that is more than a skeleton, so
to speak.
quote:
> Not saying it wouldn't be interesting to get inside some of their
> heads and see how they thought and when they knew and when they
> guessed.
Oh yeah!
quote:
>
> I hear you there.
>
>
> Sometimes being amazed is worth not being clinical.
It's a funny thing, that. My degree is in science, so I did take chem and
physics and calc and so on, and I've always enjoyed reading up on science.
But to me, science isn't about taking the woner out of things - it's about
learning enough about the workings of things such that the wonder is
enhanced, not destroyed. I think that is the differnce between science,
and the sort of 'analysis' one often reads or hears, i.e. the mere shallow
recitation of facts and figures.
As with the INca stonework - thre are reasonable theories (and
demonstrations thereof) tht show how the stones could have been hewn and
then fit in place, but the wonder is not in the method, the wonder is in
that these things were conceived and done, and in the
mind/thoughts/'spirit' that drove the hands which drew the plans and worked
the stone. And created things of beauty that continue to make people catch
their breath, and will continue to do so for a very long time.
quote:
>
> Yeah. Cut blocks, make a sample vault... six foot tall.
>
>
> I'd think elsewhere would be in the onsite smithy.
>
>
> M'be, m'be not.
I wonder whether that question has been asked, and researched, in
archaeological or other academic circles? That oculd be an interesting
study.
Hey, get a gov.t grant to go to Europe and poke around <LOL!>
((I'm sure Don will appreciate the "gov.t grant" notion....
......I know, I'm evil <heh heh heh...> ))
--
- Kris M. Krieger
|