Like most Americans I took Art History in college. First I should explain. In America you go to university and you pick a degree to study. Sometimes people don’t know and they just choose undeclared. The thing about American university is that it’s very open. You’re expected to graduate in 4 years but what you do during those 4 years is wholly up to you. You’re given a basic outline but it’s pretty vague. I can’t remember my basic outline but I know when I got accepted into university in the UK I was completely shocked. Instead of doing what I wanted I was told the classes I was going to take. I hated it. I had gone from taking 20 literature courses, 10 philosophy courses, 8 anthropology courses, a handful of psychology, and some art history thrown in to being told you take this and only this. Screw that. 

But I get their point. I had taken so many credits that I could apply them to 2 bachelors and 2 associates. Whereas the UK system meant I took enough for one degree only. In one way it would have saved me a lot of time but on the other hand I loved school. I loved taking courses in whatever interested me. It’s the reason I know so much. If I could have stayed in school forever I would have. 

One of those many, many courses I took was Art History 1. For our year end thesis we were supposed to choose a topic (from 0 to 1500) to write on. I should have choosen sculpture because it was the one that most interested me the most (the evolution of humanity through the evolution of sculpture), but it was too vague. So instead I chose to write on Gothic Architecture. 

Most Americans think of Gothic as being American gothic and that would be wrong. Gothic architecture actually originated in France. The examples you see in England and the rest of Europe are offshoots of the one true style; the French style. Those bloody French do some things right. 

Gothic architecture is defined by certain characteristics; flying buttresses, pointed arches, ribbed vaults, etc. The primitive humans in the 12th century believed the higher the ceiling the closer to god. So they thought of new and inventive ways to go big or go home. Clever clever humans. It truly is a thing of beauty.