The image of Gothic architecture has always embedded itself into my mind as something unnecessary and ominous, unsuitable and irrelevant to nature. To be honest, I must divulge that my first reaction of the Littlefield home when I viewed it walking by one day had been ¿Is that some kind of haunted house?¿ In fact, I had always related its style to how Gothic furniture was described to be like in an article within the course anthology, biased with my personal preference of simplicity: ¿It is uncomfortable, ornate, and pretentious. Its chairs look like thrones, and its tables and sideboards have a massive presence that can at best be called dignified.¿ (Bump 520) But after reading John Ruskin's description of what ¿Gothicness¿ actually implied, I chose to withdraw my previous perception of irrelevance and am now willing to ¿draw¿ something that I perceive as ugly: ¿Do not draw things that you love, on account of their associations....in general, everything that you think very ugly will be good for you to draw.¿(Ruskin, Bump 600)

A simple, uncluttered mode of life without the conveniences or distractions of civilization: a return to nature. (as defined in Emily's post)
Though I personally prefer the definition of nature to be the one given above, I found it difficult to relate it to the Gothic, as it would not suffice to account for the complexities and intricacies of the that entails with its style. It was then I decided that the more suitable definition of nature to accompany the style needed to ¿emphasize not only an infinite number of things but also their infinite variety.¿ (Bump 597) Hence, nature must be ubiquitous and full of variety in order to show how Gothic architecture uses it as a ¿touchstone¿ to test its relevance.

Like Pallavi, I could not see a practical use of Gothic architecture against elements. However, I realized that the style did not have to physically relate itself with the environment in order to justify its relevance to nature. Instead, I found that it's relationship to nature was through it's symbolism. Rather than adapt physically to the elements of nature, it was built with nature's characteristics in mind by its architects: ¿Exactly in the same manner, we shall find that Gothic architecture has external forms and internal elements. Its elements are certain mental tendencies of the builders, legibly expressed in it; as fancifulness, love of variety, love of richness, and such others.¿ (Ruskin, Bump 538) In effect, the materials used in the construction of the Littlefield home seems to satisfy the ¿love of variety¿ that we also find in nature. The interior construction of the house was constructed from different woods such as curly walnut, birds-eye maple, and vertical curly pine while the exterior was built with different forms of rock. (Bump 404C) In addition, the elements of Gothic as described by Ruskin all seem to fit within the description of nature: ¿Savageness (mountain comparison), Love of Change, Love of Nature, Disturbed Imagination (this one requires a bit of thinking), Rigidity, Generosity¿

Though I still hold a few reservations with the Gothic Style, I am interested in its ability to symbolize nature. Before reading the article, I had only thought of architecture as something that would blend in with nature. Gothic architecture has certainly broadened my horizons.