Rayonnant

In French Gothic architecture, Rayonnant (French pronunciation: ​[ʁɛjɔnɑ̃]) was the period between c. 1240 and 1350, characterized by a shift in focus away from the High Gothic mode of utilizing great scale and spatial rationalism (such as with buildings like Chartres Cathedral or the nave of Amiens Cathedral) towards a greater concern for two dimensional surfaces and the repetition of decorative motifs at different scales. After the mid-14th century, Rayonnant gradually evolved into the Late Gothic Flamboyant style, though as usual with such arbitrary stylistic labels, the point of transition is not clearly defined.

The name Rayonnant derives from the attempts of 19th-century French art historians (notably Henri Focillon and Ferdinand de Lasteyrie) to classify Gothic styles on the basis of window tracery. Although such efforts are now regarded as mistaken, the resulting terms have to some extent survived (Rayonnant and Flamboyant are still widely used by art historians, though the misleading old term Lancet Gothic has generally given way to High Gothic). On this basis, Focillon and his colleagues adopted the term Rayonnant (from the French word meaning "radiating") specifically to describe the radiating spokes of the rose windows which flourished during this period. (Some sources incorrectly derive the term from the radiating chapels spreading from the apse, however these were not specifically associated with this period and had been a standard feature of Continental architecture since the 11th century on Romanesque buildings like Cluny Abbey and the Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela)

Although elements of the new style can be found at the Cistercian abbey church of Royaumont (begun 1228, now mostly destroyed), perhaps the most important step in the development of the Rayonnant style was the building of the Abbey Church of St Nicaise, in Reims (begun 1231). Although this church was entirely destroyed during the French Revolution, its facade is well known from 18th-century engravings. The architect (Hugues de Libergier) took various existing elements of the Gothic decorative vocabulary and used them to create a very new visual aesthetic. Perhaps the most influential feature of the Church of St Nicaise was its west facade, constructed as a series of pointed gables decorated with crockets and a mixture of blind and open tracery, interspersed with narrow pinnacles. Unlike earlier Gothic west facades, with their clear three-part horizontal and vertical divisions, Libergier's design was more screen-like (indeed it may have been inspired by earlier choir screens) and on a far more human scale than the cavernous doorways of Reims Cathedral. Several key elements of the St Nicaise facade were soon taken up by other architects and can be recognised, for example, in the treatment of the North transept portal of Notre Dame de Paris and around the roof line of the Sainte Chapelle.

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