What is Rayonnant Gothic?
Rayonnant is the middle phase of French Gothic architecture, running from roughly 1240 to 1350. The name comes from the French rayonner, to radiate, after the radiating tracery pattern of the rose windows of the period.
Where it sits between the phases
Rayonnant is French High Gothic in its mature form. The turning point falls around 1250, when architects shifted their attention away from height and mass, the concern of the classic cathedrals at Chartres, Reims and Amiens, towards light and decoration.
| Phase | Period | Focus |
|---|---|---|
| Classic High Gothic | To about 1250 | Height and mass |
| Rayonnant | About 1240-1350 | Light, rectilinear radiating tracery, dissolution of the wall |
| Flamboyant | From about 1350-1400 | Flame like, S shaped mouchette curves |
Characteristics
- Large rose windows with radiating tracery on west and transept fronts. This is the signature of the phase.
- Made possible by the development of bar tracery on the continent.
- Vertical supports are thinned down while the windows grow substantially.
- Triforium and clerestory merge into a single continuous glazed plane. The solid wall disappears and the elevation becomes a screen of tracery, mullions and glass.
- Increasing use of pinnacles, gables used as screens and surface ornament.
Examples
The clearest example is the upper chapel of the Sainte-Chapelle in Paris, about 1241 to 1248. Others are the rebuilding of the nave and transept of the abbey church of Saint-Denis from 1231 onwards and the transept fronts of Notre-Dame in Paris. Amiens Cathedral is regarded as the transition into the new spirit.
A note on using the term
Rayonnant is first of all a French phase label. German takes it over as a loan word with no native equivalent, and the French and German language periodisations of Gothic do not map onto each other one for one. Do not carry a phase name across to buildings in another country without checking what the local convention calls that period.
Related terms
- Gothic
- Flamboyant
- Tracery
- Rose window
- Triforium
- Flying buttress
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