Flamboyant style

flamboyant style, the final development in French Gothic architecture that reached its height in the 15th cent. It is characterized chiefly by ornate tracery forms that, by their suggestion of flames, gave the style its name. Although these free-flowing patterns in lines of double curvature originated in the English Decorated Gothic (early 14th cent.), the French adopted them as the basis of a lavish style quite different from the English original. Flamboyant works exhibit pronounced freedom and exuberance, created by high, attenuated proportions, accumulated and elaborate traceries, and many crockets, pinnacles, and canopied niches. It is believed that the style first appeared in the west facade of the cathedral at Rouen (1370); its culmination is in the Church of St. Maclou, Rouen (1437–50). Other conspicuous examples are the Palais de Justice at Rouen, begun 1482; the west chapels of Amiens Cathedral; the northern spire of Chartres; and the south transept of the cathedral at Beauvais.

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Flamboyant style

Phase of late Gothic architecture in 15th-century France and Spain. It evolved out of the Rayonnant style's increasing emphasis on decoration. Its most conspicuous feature is the dominance in stone window tracery of a flamelike S-shaped curve. Wall surface was reduced to the minimum to allow an almost continuous window expanse. Structural logic was obscured by covering buildings with elaborate tracery. Attractive French examples include Notre-Dame d'Épine near Châlons-sur-Marne, Saint-Maclou in Rouen (c. 1500–14), and the northern spire of Chartres Cathedral. Spanish Flamboyant architects developed their own intricate forms of vaulting with curvilinear patterns; the Capilla del Condestable in Burgos Cathedral (1482–94) and Segovia Cathedral (begun 1525) provide examples. Flamboyant Gothic, which became increasingly ornate, gave way in France to Renaissance forms in the 16th century.

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Flamboyant style

The last phase of French Gothic architecture in the second half of the 15th cent., characterized by flowing and flame-like tracery.