Трасерная резьба в готической архитектуре

Type of window design
the racehorse

Tracery is an architectural device by which windows (or screens, panels, and vaults) are divided into sections of various proportions by stone bars or ribs of moulding. Most commonly, it refers to the stonework elements that support the glass in a window. The purpose of the device is practical as well as decorative, because the increasingly large windows of Gothic buildings needed maximum support against the wind. There are two main types: plate tracery and the later bar tracery. The evolving style from Romanesque to Gothic architecture and changing features, such as the thinning of lateral walls and enlarging of windows, led to the innovation of tracery. The earliest form of tracery, called plate tracery, began as openings that were pierced from a stone slab. Bar tracery was then implemented, having derived from the plate tracery. However, instead of a slab, the windows were defined by moulded stone mullions, which were lighter and allowed for more openings and intricate designs. Pointed arch windows of Gothic buildings were initially (late 12th–late 13th centuries) lancet windows, a solution typical of the Early Gothic or First Pointed style and of the Early English Gothic. Plate tracery was the first type of tracery to be developed, emerging in the style called High Gothic. such an example can be seen along the aisle at Lincoln Cathedral Also at Lincoln Cathedral, the east window is an expanded version of this idea with two interior arches, a total of eight lower lights, four small circular lights topped with two larger circles to fill out the interior arches, and finally above all one large circular shape filled with seven smaller circular lights. Geometrical tracery, in its early stages, had a rule of equilateral law, where the tracery design follows the shape of the arch in an equilateral manner. Additional decorative elements can be implemented, such as foliation or the "spherical triangle". The use of spherical triangles is a later adaption and likely reflects religious significance.

Second Pointed (14th century) saw Intersecting tracery elaborated with ogees, creating a complex reticular (net like) design known as Reticulated tracery.

Third Pointed or Perpendicular Gothic developed in England from the later 14th century and is typified by Rectilinear tracery (panel tracery).

The Flamboyant Arch is drafted from four points, the upper part of each main arc turning upwards into a smaller arc and meeting at a sharp, flame like point. These arches create a rich and lively effect when used for window tracery and surface decoration. The form is structurally weak and has very rarely been used for large openings except when contained within a larger and more stable arch. It is not employed at all for vaulting. Some of the most beautiful and famous traceried windows of Europe employ this type of tracery. It can be seen at St Stephen's Vienna, Sainte Chapelle in Paris, at the Cathedrals of Limoges and Rouen in France. In England the most famous examples are the west window of York Minster with its design based on the Sacred Heart, the rich nine light east window at Carlisle Cathedral and the east window of Selby Abbey. Doorways surmounted by Flamboyant mouldings are very common in both ecclesiastical and domestic architecture in France. They are much rarer in England. A notable example is the doorway to the Chapter Room at Rochester Cathedral. The style was much used in England for wall arcading and niches. Prime examples are in the Lady Chapel at Ely, the Screen at Lincoln and externally on the façade of Exeter Cathedral. In German and Spanish Gothic architecture, it often appears as openwork screens on the exterior of buildings. The style was used to rich and sometimes extraordinary effect in both these countries, notably on the famous pulpit in Vienna Cathedral.

The depressed or four centred arch is much wider than its height and gives the visual effect of having been flattened under pressure. Its structure is achieved by drafting two arcs that rise steeply from each springing point on a small radius and then turn into two arches with a wide radius and much lower springing point. This type of arch, when employed as a window opening, lends itself to very wide spaces, provided it is adequately supported by many narrow vertical shafts. These are often further braced by horizontal transoms. The overall effect produces a grid like appearance of regular, delicate, rectangular forms with an emphasis on the perpendicular. It is also employed as a wall decoration in which arcade and window openings form part of the whole decorative surface. The style, known as Perpendicular, that evolved from this treatment is specific to England, although very similar to contemporary Spanish style in particular, and was employed to great effect through the 15th century and first half of the 16th as Renaissance styles were much slower to arrive in England than in Italy and France. It can be seen notably at the East End of Gloucester Cathedral where the East Window is said to be as large as a tennis court. There are three very famous royal chapels and one chapel like Abbey which show the style at its most elaborate: King's College Chapel, Cambridge; St George's Chapel, Windsor; Henry VII's Chapel at Westminster Abbey and Bath Abbey. However, very many simpler buildings, especially churches built during the wool boom in East Anglia, are fine examples of the style.

Most 19th century histories of Gothic architectural style used a series of typological categories based on the evolution of the dominant patterns of window tracery. In terms of the overall development of Gothic architecture, the crucial development was not so much the use of any particular tracery patterns but the transition from plate to bar tracery, which was what made the Rayonnant and subsequent styles possible. To construct traceries proportionately it is important to use the basis of geometry to help create correct angles for the design.

In Gothic tracery, rounded quatrefoils have been used in modern industrial ornament which is used to embellish different parts of a building or certain objects. This is formed with the use of squares as the base and then constructing circles tangent to each side of the square in the center of the side as well as a tangent to each of the circle's sides. This type of construction is used generously in Gothic buildings. For instance, rounded quatrefoils were used in tiled pavements like the ones in the Gloucester Cathedral or in Great Malvern, Worcestershire, England. It was also common in the work of the Chinese and Japanese.

Rounded multifoils are found in different parts of Gothic buildings such as circular windows and pointed windows containing circular lights. These designs can have rings ranging from seven to eleven small circles. They are often seen in England but have become quite popular in French Gothic architecture. This design has been used since medieval times in tiles used in Gothic buildings. The tile pavement used in Jervaulx Abbey in Yorkshire, England, had rings of six and twelve circles inside another circle.

As the complexity of tracery increased, so did the need for masons to draw out their designs in advance, either as a way of experimenting with patterns or as a way of communicating their designs to other craftsmen or to their patrons. Because of the cost and size limitations of parchment sheets, such designs would normally be drawn by incising onto a whitewashed board or a conveniently placed section of flat wall. In the latter case, the wall would be prepared with a thin layer of plaster, which would show the design more clearly. A number of churches and cathedrals still show the faint remains of these tracings (or épures as they are known in France), from where the mason's compass points scratched through the plaster and into the masonry below. (Examples include some experimental 14th century window tracery patterns at the eastern end of the south wall inside the Galillee porch of Ely Cathedral, or the extensive series of tracings on the flat aisle roofs of Clermont Ferrand Cathedral.) A number of major building sites (including Westminster Abbey, Wells Cathedral and York Minster) originally had dedicated tracery chambers, where the architects could prepare their designs in relative comfort. The availability of a large flat floor surface meant that designs could be drawn life size and the individual elements of bar tracery laid out on the plan to test their goodness of fit, before hoisting them up the scaffolding for installation in the actual window openings. This also meant that masons could carry on working through the winter season, when building work would normally grind to a halt. The tracing floors themselves were covered with plaster of Paris, which could be relaid and smoothed down after each set of designs were finished with. The 14th century tracing house at York (also known as the Mason's Loft) survives on the upper storey of the corridor leading to the Chapter House, the complex web of lines and curves scratched into the floor show the countless designs that were worked out in there. The high quality carpentry and the inclusion of a garderobe and fireplace in the York tracing house also indicate the rising status of the architect around the 14th century.