Wilhelm Worringer's analysis of the Gothic
Worringer’s identification of a Gothic will to form begins with an analysis of lines found in Northern European ornamentation which offer the visual equivalent of a “ceaseless melody” (55). He begins this analysis by contrasting patterns found in Northern European and Classical ornamental art. Classical ornament, Worringer claimed, structures lines through the use of symmetry in order to create a sense of organic unity. Northern ornament, however, used repetition to create a sense of unbridled change, what Worringer called an “uninterrupted, accelerating, mechanical movement” (56). This asymmetric line, then, found vitality by breaking the organic unity of the forms found in classical ornament.