Compare and contrast Romanesque and Gothic architectural styles, citing specific structures to illustrate your points.

Question

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Answer 1

The High Middle Ages were marked by a building boom of churches, and art historians refer to the period of 1050 to 1200 as the Romanesque era for stylistic features reminiscent of ancient Roman architecture including an overall massiveness, thick stone walls, and barrel-vaulted ceilings. The earliest Romanesque pilgrimage church is the Abbey Church of Sainte-Foy, in France. The church has a cross-form plan configured by the nave and the transept. Two square towers flank the entry portal and an octagonal tower marks the intersection of the transept and nave. The round arches of the windows are continued in the interior, which has a barrel-vaulted nave and groin-vaulted aisles. The cathedral at Chartres, France, shows the towering quality of Gothic architecture. The unadorned masses of the Romanesque give way to the ornate, linear, vertical elements that direct the eye upward. Flying buttresses line the nave and apse to contain the outward thrust of the walls. The soaring, open interior spaces were created with ribbed vaulting and pointed arches, a departure from the rounded arches of the Romanesque.