Goldwin Smith Quotes

Every one who has a heart, however ignorant of architecture he may be, feels the transcendent beauty and poetry of the mediaeval churches.

I loved medieval architecture when I was very small; I don't know why.

French architecture always manages to combine the most magnificent underlying themes of architecture; like Roman design, it looks to the community.

The word Gothic, in the sense in which it is generally employed, is wholly unsuitable, but wholly consecrated. Hence we accept it and we adopt it, like all the rest of the world, to characterize the architecture of the second half of the Middle Ages, where the ogive is the principle which succeeds the architecture of the first period, of which the semi-circle is the father.

I love the description of Gothic churches before the printed word, that they were the bibles of the poor.

After about the first Millennium, Italy was the cradle of Romanesque architecture, which spread throughout Europe, much of it extending the structural daring with minimal visual elaboration.

I never weary of great churches. It is my favorite kind of mountain scenery. Mankind was never so happily inspired as when it made a cathedral.

Melrose is the finest remaining specimen of Gothic architecture in Scotland. Some of the sculptured flowers in the cloister arches are remarkably beautiful and delicate, and the two windows - the south and east oriels - are of a lightness and grace of execution really surprising.

Seeing that picture, for me, was like Chartres Cathedral.

I'll see a celadon green room in an 18th century New Hampshire house and just fall in love. Colors stay in my head.

Revived in this country the long forgotten beauties of Gothic architecture.

He was of opinion that what we now vulgarly call the Gothick, ought properly and truly be named Saracenick Architecture refined by the Christians.

There is a spell in mediaeval Art which has had power to bewitch some people into trying, or wishing to try, or fancying that they wish to try or making believe to fancy that they wish to try, to bring back the Middle Ages.

Not even the most secular among us can fail to be uplifted by Christianity's architectural legacy - the great cathedrals. These immense and glorious buildings were erected in an era of constricted horizons, both in time and in space.

And it has some weight, I mean, the whole history of the gargoyles, that's some wonderful stuff.

No student of history can fail to see the moral interest of the Middle Ages, any more than an artist can fail to see their aesthetic interest.

It's hard to explain your emotions when you see a work of art.

As a child, my father's architecture seemed to me to be industrial in a way. It seemed harsh and kind of chilly; I didn't respond to it.

I love '70s organic architecture. I am very influenced by the time when I grew up.

But now I know that it is very important that all buildings should be consistent, that this is the quality of the Gothic cathedral, for instance, that we like.

The building's identity resided in the ornament.

The same sort of thing happened in my dispute with the National Trust book: Follies: A National Trust Guide, which implied that the only pleasure you can get from Folly architecture is by calling the architect mad, and by laughing at the architecture.

I developed a passion for the Middle Ages the same way some people develop a passion for coconuts.

Most buildings, whether they're Gothic cathedrals or Romanesque ones, were high tech for their time.

The church of St. Peter at Berlin, notwithstanding the total difference between them in the style of building, appears in some respects to have a great resemblance to St. Paul's in London.