thank you so much! I've heard about these architectural styles in school for 10 years, but I still couldn't tell the difference. I also never know what Rococo, Baroque, etc is. But it's smart how you started with a logical explanation and actually showed pictures. Now I finally understand.
The diagrams are bad! The semi-circular arch is not drawn semi-circular. And what is worse, the Gothic arches is NOTHING LIKE a Gothic arch. A Gothic arch is made of two rcs (two parts of the out edge f a circle) that meet at a point. i.e. the arcs cross each other and the point at which they meet is POINTY. 1.The CRUCIAL difference is not the one that is stated first HERE. The CRUCIAL difference is the pointed arch. The pointed arch, being a very flexible engineering solution, led to all sorts of fascinating design possibilities, like ornate window tracery, and ornate ribbed vaults. 2.The next most important feature is the ribbed vault, where the structural members of a roof could be made into thin load bearing arches, with lighter material between. 3.Channelling the weight of the roof onto thin ribs and shafts rather than on whole roofs and whole walls was what led to flying buttresses. Before the ribbed vault, there was no practical use for them. They are a chracteristic of many Gothic cathedrals that are French in style, but not ALL Gothic Cathedrals by any means. Very few Gothic parish churches have them. 4. Channelling the weight of the roof onto thin shafts supported by buttresses is what led to an increase in the size of windows. and reduction of wall surface. 5. Buttresses that just out a long way are typically Gothic. They are usually only FLYING buttresses if they NEED to fly OVER something in particular. Generally they are flying over the roof of the aisles on either side of the church. 6. They are used when there is a ribbed vault. If the church doesn't have a ribbed vaulted nave (the main central part of the building) then there is no need for flying buttresses. . If you have a look at the outside of York Minster, for example, you will find that its whole magnificent Eastern end, with huge Gothic windows, does not have any flying buttresses. Why? Because the ribbed vault is not stone. It is constructed of wood, and the weight of the walls is enough to hold it in place. (It does have them at the west end) 7. The choice of pictures in the recognition test is a bit random. Mainly because the producer has concentrated on West Front pictures, but focuses the questions on the number and size of windows. If "windows" are the criteria, then side views provide the best evidence. The west front of a cathedral very rarely has any large windows low down. (They often have sculpture). On the other hand, the window/s above the west portal will be as big as they could make it at the time (often the biggest window in the building). In English cathedrals the Romanesque (Norman) west front has generally had a great big window put in at a later date (See Rochester Cathedral and Southwell Cathedral). However, the West Front is one of the very best indicators of STYLE. It is good to be able to recognise when a radical change has been made, and a big window (for example) looks like a different period. 8. When looking at Gothic arches to identify a building, remember that the shape is very flexible. It may have an arch based on an equilateral triangle, a very sharply pointed arch, a wide flattened arch or even one that comes to a flame-like point on top.
What on earth do you mean by a "Greek arch"? It also wrong to say that Romanesque architecture had "Roman arches". They had semi-circular arches, like the arches that had been used by the Romans. Towards the end of he Romanesque period, some churches used pointed arches, while remaining in other ways completely Romanesque i styl.
another good difference could be the use of rose windows embedded within the pointed arch in Gothic period and absence of it in romanesque or that romanesque used barrel or groin vaults therefore needed thicker walls and columns but use of ribbed vaults in gothic saved them the trouble
I saw the Abbey of St. Remi at a final exam, and I panicked because it has both elements. In the same exam, I had the Tournai Cathedral. Was my teacher mean and sneaky or what? I wrote Gothic on both and prayed.
SERIOUS ERRORS SOME of this video is correct. The identifications of the buildings are correct. But the presentation is seriouslt WRONG in several ways. DIAGRAMS At 0:05 That arch, which is being described as a Romanesque arch, after the style of the Romans, is NOT the sort of arch used in either the Roman or the Romanesque period. The arch should be a PERFECT SEMI-CIRCLE. You don't need to be a student of architecture to see that this is wrong, and WHY it is wrong. It should be EXACTLY half a circle. That is not a very hard thing to draw on a computer. So the person presenting this has been VERY CARELESS. At 2:25 you have what the presenter is calling a "Gothic arch". Is this a Gothic arch? NO!. A Gothic arch is drawn with two parts of a perfect circle, "arcs", that meet each other at a point. Everything is wrong with the way this is drawn. The arcs are not proper arcs. They do not rise neatly from the walls. They are not meeting at a proper point where they intersect at the top. The carelessness of these two drawings warns anyone who has studied ANY high school geometery that you cannot trust what you re being told here. INFORMATION. Building a tall church using the round arch. 0:25 "We are going to build a really tally church" The viewer needs to understand that for a start, the round arch was used for openings i.e. doors and windows. SOME churches, but only SOME , had stone roofs constructed with arches. MOST large buildings had wooden roofs with ordinary timber frames. But you can tell he building is Romanesque by its doors and windows and decorations. IF the building had a stone, arched roof (called a "vault" pr. volt) THEN it would have ery thick walls, and perhaps big square buttresses. 1:48 MAJOR ERROR. The presenter is showing you Flying Buttresses as if THEY were the NEXT STAGE of development. This is VERY WRONG. The next stage of development is the "pointed arch" The pointed arch is MORE EFFICIENT than the semi-circular arch, even without buttresses. Yes, some churches with lovely stone-vaulted roofs of pointed arches have NO buttresses at all, and MOST Gothic churches have NO FLYING BUTTRESSES. It is that pointed arch that is BY FAR the most important feature. The Flying Buttress developed as an efficient way of channelling the weight of a very high stone vault down to the ground, and on advantage is that it leaves lots of room for large windows. So first the semi circular arch, then the pointed arch, then the flying buttress. LOOKING AT THE PICTURES Try to be aware of which end of the building you are looking at. You cannot compare a person's butt with another person's face. (Well, not usually!) Keep in mind that almost all the elaborate Medieval buildings are churches or cathedrals. (There are also castles, palaces, town halls and warehouses) But here we are looking at church architecture. A church can be tiny or large, but a cathedral (where a bishop rules) is often HUGE ( 300 -500 ft long and 70-100 feet high internally). A stone vault gives wonderful protection of the wooden roof catches alight (as at Notre Dame. OK, so the church usually runs from west to east with the main entrance "portals" at the west, and internally, the most holy part of the building, where the Mass is conducted, at the east. The morning sun shines through the big eastern windows, and in the evening, the sun lights up the churches "west front" or "facade". Frome the outside, the two ends of the builing look entirely different. At the west, the exterior is impressive. At the east, the Interior is impressive....... and the buttresses all stick out at the back, like the wooden supports to a stage setting. Good luck with looking at Romanesque and Gothic architecture. You will find a good description of Romanesque architecture at ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-asMYYYBfYcg.html
