The Gothic church plainly originated in a rude adaptation of the forest trees with all their boughs to a festal or solemn arcade, ...as the bands about the cleft pillars still indicate the green withes that tied them. No one can walk in a road cut through pine woods without being struck by the architectural appearance of the grove, especially in winter when the bareness of the trees shows the low arch of the Saxons. In the woods in a winter afternoon one will see as readily the origin of the stained glass window with which the Gothic cathedrals are adorned, in the colors of the western sky seen through the bare and crossing branches of the forest.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »