Gothic. Architectural style, properly called Pointed, that evolved in Europe (starting with France) from the late C12 until C16, even lingering until C17 and C18 in some places (e.g. Oxford and certain provincial areas). As its correct name suggests, it is the architecture of the pointed arch, pointed rib-vaults, piers with clusters of shafts, deep buttresses (some of the flying type), window-tracery, pinnacles, spires, battlements, and a soaring verticality. While Ancient Egyptian and Greek architecture is columnar and trabeated, Gothic is arcuated, giving an impression of dynamic thrust and counter-thrust. Certain elements of Gothic church architecture, such as the triforium, clerestorey, and Orders found in doorways, had developed in Romanesque architecture. Pointed rib-vaults had been used in Burgundy and Durham, while half-arches or half-barrel-vaults used as buttresses were exploited by English and French Romanesque builders. Fully developed Gothic, however, was not a matter of eclectic motifs being gathered together: it was a remarkably coherent style of logical arcuated forms in which forces were expressed and resisted, and non-structural walls were dissolved into huge areas of glazed window.

First Pointed (Early English) Gothic was used from the end of C12 to the end of C13, though most of its characteristics were present in the lower part of the chevet of the Abbey Church of St-Denis, near Paris (c.1135–44). Windows were first of all lancets, but later contained elementary tracery of the plate type (see tracery), then got larger, divided into lights by means of Geometrical bar-tracery. Once First Pointed evolved with Geometrical tracery it became known as Middle Pointed. Second Pointed work of C14 saw an ever-increasing invention in bar-tracery of the Curvilinear, Flowing, and Reticulated type, where the possibilities of the ogee form were fully exploited in canopies, tracery, and niches, culminating in the Flamboyant style (from c.1375) of the Continent. Second Pointed was relatively short-lived in England, and was superseded by Perpendicular (or Third Pointed) from c.1332, although the two styles overlapped for some time. On the Continent, however (where Perpendicular Gothic was unknown), lace-like patterns of tracery evolved, and churches of great height were erected with highly complex vaulting, as at the Church of St Barbara, Kutná Hora, Bohemia (1512). The Gothic style embraced a complete system of dynamic structure with developed geometries and daring experiments with stone, especially in the final flowering of Flamboyant in Central Europe. Although Gothic was superseded by a revival of interest in the language of Classicism from the Renaissance period, it enjoyed a widespread and scholarly revival in C19. See also gothic revival.

Bibliography

Branner (1965);
Colvin (1999);
Frankl (1960, 2000);
Grodecki (1986);
H. Osborne (1970);
J. Parker (1850);
Rickman (1848);
Toman (ed.) (1998);
Viollet-le-Duc (1875);

Goth·ic / ˈgä[unvoicedth]ik/ • adj. 1. of or relating to the Goths or their extinct East Germanic language, which provides the earliest manuscript evidence of any Germanic language (4th–6th centuries ad).2. of or in the style of architecture prevalent in western Europe in the 12th–16th centuries , characterized by pointed arches, rib vaults, and flying buttresses, together with large windows and elaborate tracery. 3. (also pseudoarchaic Gothick) belonging to or redolent of the Dark Ages; portentously gloomy or horrifying: 19th-century Gothic horror.4. (of lettering) of or derived from the angular style of handwriting with broad vertical downstrokes used in western Europe from the 13th century, including Fraktur and black-letter typefaces.5. (gothic) of or relating to goths or their rock music.• n. 1. the language of the Goths.2. the Gothic style of architecture.3. Gothic type.DERIVATIVES: Goth·i·cal·ly / -ik(ə)lē/ adv.Goth·i·cism / ˈgä[unvoicedth]əˌsizəm/ n.

Gothic of or in the style of architecture prevalent in western Europe in the 12th–16th centuries (and revived in the mid 18th to early 20th centuries), characterized by pointed arches, rib vaults, and flying buttresses, together with large windows and elaborate tracery. English Gothic architecture is divided into Early English, Decorated, and Perpendicular.

The word comes via French or late Latin from Gothi ‘the Goths’, and was used in the 17th and 18th centuries to mean ‘not classical’ (i.e. not Greek or Roman), and hence to refer to medieval architecture which did not follow classical models and a typeface based on medieval handwriting.
gothic novel an English genre of fiction popularized in the 18th to early 19th centuries by Mrs Radcliffe and others, characterized by an atmosphere of mystery and horror and having a pseudo-medieval setting; in Jane Austen's Northanger Abbey (1818), the heroine Catherine Morland's fondness for such novels leads her to suspect her lover's father of having murdered his wife.
Gothic revival the reintroduction of a Gothic style of architecture towards the middle of the 19th century.
Gothic type a typeface with lettering derived from the angular style of handwriting with broad vertical downstrokes used in western Europe from the 13th century, including Fraktur and black-letter typefaces.

Gothic ★★★ 1987 (R)

Mary Shelley (Richardson), Lord Byron (Byrne), Percy Bysshe Shelley (Sands), Claire Clairmont (Cyr), and Dr. John Polidori (Spall) spend the night of June 16, 1816 in a Swiss villa telling each other ghost stories and experimenting with laudanum and sexual partner combinations. The dreams and realizations of the night will color their lives ever after. Interesting premise, well-carried out, although burdened by director Russell's typical excesses. 87m/C VHS, DVD . Julian Sands, Gabriel Byrne, Timothy Spall, Natasha Richardson, Myriam Cyr; D: Ken Russell; W: Stephen Volk; C: Mike Southon; M: Thomas Dolby.

Gothic. An architectural style in N. Europe from early 12th cent. to 16th, and, as Gothic revival, in 19th cent. Thence it is applied to literature and religion to denote the opaquely mysterious—to some, grotesque.