page_title: Gothic Revival architecture
section_title: Romanticism and nationalism
hierarchical_section_title: Gothic Revival architecture / Romanticism and nationalism
caption_attribution_description: English: Sainte-Clotilde church - Paris Français&#160;: Basilique Saint-Clotilde - Paris VII
context_page_description: Gothic Revival is an architectural movement that began in the late 1740s in England. Its momentum grew in the early 19th century, when increasingly serious and learned admirers of neo-Gothic styles sought to revive medieval Gothic architecture, in contrast to the neoclassical styles prevalent at the time. Gothic Revival draws features from the original Gothic style, including decorative patterns, finials, lancet windows, hood moulds and label stops. By the mid-19th century, it was established as the preeminent architectural style in the Western world.
  The Gothic Revival movement's roots are intertwined with deeply philosophical movements associated with Catholicism and a re-awakening of high church or Anglo-Catholic belief concerned by the growth of religious nonconformism. Ultimately, the "Anglo-Catholicism" tradition of religious belief and style became known for its intrinsic appeal in the third quarter of the 19th century.
context_section_description: French neo-Gothic had its roots in the French medieval Gothic architecture, where it was created in the 12th century. Gothic architecture was sometimes known during the medieval period as the "Opus Francigenum", (the "French Art"). French scholar Alexandre de Laborde wrote in 1816 that "Gothic architecture has beauties of its own", which marked the beginning of the Gothic Revival in France. Starting in 1828, Alexandre Brogniart, the director of the Sèvres porcelain manufactory, produced fired enamel paintings on large panes of plate glass, for King Louis-Philippe's Chapelle royale de Dreux, an important early French commission in Gothic taste, preceded mainly by some Gothic features in a few jardins paysagers.
  The French Gothic Revival was set on sounder intellectual footings by a pioneer, Arcisse de Caumont, who founded the Societé des Antiquaires de Normandie at a time when antiquaire still meant a connoisseur of antiquities, and who published his great work on architecture in French Normandy in 1830. The following year Victor Hugo's historical romance novel The Hunchback of Notre-Dame appeared, in which the great Gothic cathedral of Paris was at once a setting and a protagonist in a hugely popular work of fiction. Hugo intended his book to awaken a concern for the surviving Gothic architecture left in Europe, however, rather than to initiate a craze for neo-Gothic in contemporary life. In the same year that Notre-Dame de Paris appeared, the new French restored Bourbon monarchy established an office in the Royal French Government of Inspector-General of Ancient Monuments, a post which was filled in 1833 by Prosper Mérimée, who became the secretary of a new Commission des Monuments Historiques in 1837. This was the Commission that instructed Eugène Viollet-le-Duc to report on the condition of the Abbey of Vézelay in 1840. Following this, Viollet le Duc set to restore most of the symbolic buildings in France including Notre Dame de Paris, Vézelay, Carcassonne, Roquetaillade castle, the famous Mont-Saint-Michel Abbey on its peaked coastal island, Pierrefonds, and Palais des Papes in Avignon. When France's first prominent neo-Gothic church was built, the Basilica of Saint-Clotilde, Paris, begun in September 1846 and consecrated 30 November 1857, the architect chosen was, significantly, of German extraction, Franz Christian Gau, (1790–1853); the design was significantly modified by Gau's assistant, Théodore Ballu, in the later stages, to produce the pair of flèches that crown the west end.
  Meanwhile, in Germany, interest in the Cologne Cathedral, which had begun construction in 1248 and was still unfinished at the time of the revival, began to reappear. The 1820s "Romantic" movement brought back interest, and work began once more in 1842, significantly marking a German return of Gothic architecture. The Prague cathedral was also completed late. The importance of the Cologne completion project in German-speaking lands has been explored by Michael J. Lewis, "The Politics of the German Gothic Revival: August Reichensperger". Reichensperger was himself in no doubt as to the cathedral's central position in Germanic culture; "Cologne Cathedral is German to the core, it is a national monument in the fullest sense of the word, and probably the most splendid monument to be handed down to us from the past". 
  Because of Romantic nationalism in the early 19th century, the Germans, French and English all claimed the original Gothic architecture of the 12th century era as originating in their own country. The English boldly coined the term "Early English" for "Gothic", a term that implied Gothic architecture was an English creation. In his 1832 edition of Notre Dame de Paris, author Victor Hugo said "Let us inspire in the nation, if it is possible, love for the national architecture", implying that "Gothic" is France's national heritage. In Germany, with the completion of Cologne Cathedral in the 1880s, at the time its summit was the world's tallest building, the cathedral was seen as the height of Gothic architecture. Other major comple
caption: Saint Clotilde Basilica completed 1857, Paris
exif: {"Image Make": "Panasonic", "Image Model": "DMC-LX5", "Image XResolution": "72", "Image YResolution": "72", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "GIMP 2.6.11", "Image DateTime": "2011:05:23 13:35:13", "Image Artist": "", "Image YCbCrPositioning": "Co-sited", "Image ExifOffset": "548", "Image CustomRendered": "Normal", "Image ExposureMode": "Auto Exposure", "Image WhiteBalance": "Auto", "Image DigitalZoomRatio": "0", "Image FocalLengthIn35mmFilm": "24", "Image SceneCaptureType": "Standard", "Image GainControl": "None", "Image Contrast": "Normal", "Image Saturation": "Normal", "Image Sharpness": "Normal", "Image PrintIM": "[80, 114, 105, 110, 116, 73, 77, 0, 48, 50, 53, 48, 0, 0, 14, 0, 1, 0, 22, 0, ... ]", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail Orientation": "Rotated 90 CCW", "Thumbnail XResolution": "180", "Thumbnail YResolution": "180", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "10712", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "6510", "Thumbnail YCbCrPositioning": "Co-sited", "EXIF ExposureTime": "1/500", "EXIF FNumber": "4", "EXIF ExposureProgram": "Landscape Mode", "EXIF ISOSpeedRatings": "80", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0230", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2011:05:17 09:19:23", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2011:05:17 09:19:23", "EXIF ComponentsConfiguration": "YCbCr", "EXIF CompressedBitsPerPixel": "4", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "0", "EXIF MaxApertureValue": "2", "EXIF MeteringMode": "Pattern", "EXIF LightSource": "Unknown", "EXIF Flash": "Flash did not fire, compulsory flash mode", "EXIF FocalLength": "51/10", "EXIF FlashPixVersion": "0100", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "992", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "1498", "EXIF SensingMethod": "One-chip color area", "EXIF FileSource": "Digital Camera", "EXIF SceneType": "Directly Photographed"}