Influences upon Gothic architecture
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The Gothic style of architecture was strongly influenced by the Romanesque architecture which preceded it. Why the Gothic style emerged from Romanesque, and what the key influences on its development were, is a difficult problem for which there is a lack of concrete evidence because medieval Gothic architecture was not accompanied by contemporary written theory, in contrast to the 'Renaissance' and its treatises.[1][2] A number of contrasting theories on the origins of Gothic have been advanced: for example, that Gothic emerged organically as a 'rationalist' answer to structural challenges;[3] that Gothic was informed by the methods of medieval Scholastic philosophy;[4] that Gothic was an attempt to imitate heaven and the light referred to in various Biblical passages such as Revelation;[5] that Gothic was 'medieval modernism' deliberately rejecting the 'historicist' forms of classical architecture.[6] Beyond specific theories, the style was also shaped by the specific geographical, political, religious and cultural context of Europe in the 12th century onwards (the 'first' Gothic building is considered to have been St Denis, in France in the 1140s by scholarly consensus[7]).