goshawk Vgas-,h6k\ Any of the more powerful accipiters (hawks in the genus Accipiter), primarily short¬ winged, forest-dwelling bird catch¬ ers. Best known is the northern goshawk, which reaches about 2 ft (60 cm) in length with a 4.3-ft (1.3-m) wingspread and has finely barred gray plumage. Long used for falconry, the goshawk takes game as large as foxes and grouse. In the wild it lives in temperate to northern for¬ ests throughout the Northern Hemi¬ sphere, though it has become rare in the British Isles and is declining in North America. Several other species are found in the Southern Hemi¬ sphere.
Gospel Any of the four New Testa¬ ment books narrating the life and death of Jesus. The Gospels of Mat¬ thew, Mark, Luke, and John are placed at the beginning of the New Testa¬ ment and make up about half its total text. Since the 18th century, the first three have been called the Synoptic Gospels, because they give similar accounts of the ministry of Jesus. The term is also applied to apocryphal works of the 2nd century (e.g.. The Gospel of Thomas).
gospel music Form of black American music derived from Pentecos¬ tal church worship services and from spiritual and blues singing. Record¬ ings of Pentecostal preachers’ sermons were immensely popular among African Americans in the 1920s. Taking the scriptural direction “Let everything that breathes praise the Lord” (Psalm 150), Pentecostal churches welcomed timbrels, pianos, banjos, guitars, other stringed instru¬ ments, and even brass into their services. Choirs often featured the extremes of female vocal range in antiphonal counterpoint with the preacher’s sermon. Other forms of gospel music have included the sing¬ ing and acoustic guitar playing of itinerant street preachers; individual secular performers; and harmonizing male quartets, whose acts included dance routines and stylized costumes. Gospel music’s principal compos¬ ers and practitioners included Thomas A. Dorsey, who coined the term; the Rev. C.A. Tindley (1851-1933); the blind wandering preacher Rev. Gary Davis (1896-1972); Sister Rosetta Tharpe (1915—73), whose perfor¬ mances took gospel into nightclubs and theatres in the 1930s; and Maha- lia Jackson. Gospel music was a significant influence on rhythm and blues and soul music, which have in turn strongly influenced contemporary gos¬ pel music.
Gosplan \gos-'plan\ Central board that supervised various aspects of the planned economy of the former Soviet Union. The name is an abbre¬ viation of the Russian for “State Planning Committee.” Established in 1921, Gosplan originally advised the government but assumed a more comprehensive planning role in 1928, when the First Five-Year Plan was adopted in an effort to bring about rapid industrialization and collectiviza¬ tion. Throughout the existence of the Soviet Union it was responsible for translating general economic objectives outlined by the Communist Party into specific national plans. See also command economy, Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.
Gossart Vg6s-art\, Jan or Jan Gossaert or Jan Mabuse
\ma-'bui-z9\ (b. c. 1478, Maubeuge?, France—d. Oct. 1, 1532, Antwerp?) Flemish painter. After a stay in Italy (1508-09), Gossart turned from the ornate style of the Antweip school to the High Renaissance style. Nep¬ tune and Amphitrite (1516) reflects his attempt to assimilate the art of Classical antiquity and the Italian Renaissance. Despite his efforts to develop a fully Italianate style, his nudes seldom avoid the stiffness of his earlier figures, and ultimately he retained the jewel-like technique and
Northern goshawk (Accipiter gentilis).
KARL H. MASLOWSKI
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Gosse ► Gottfried von Strassburg I 783
careful observation of traditional Early Netherlandish art. He was among the first to introduce the Italian Renaissance style into the Low Countries.
Gosse \'gos. Sir Edmund (b. Sept. 21, 1849, London, Eng.—d. May 16, 1928, London) British literary historian and critic. He worked prin¬ cipally as a librarian and translator (of Henrik Ibsen’s plays, among many other works). He wrote the literary histories 18th Century Literature (1889) and Modern English Literature (1897), as well as biographies of Thomas Gray, John Donne, Ibsen, and others, and introduced many works by continental European writers to English readers. Many of his critical essays were collected in French Profiles (1905), and his autobiography, Father and Son (1907), has been much admired.
Goteborg \'y6e-ta-,b6r y \ or Gothenburg \'gath- 3 n-,b3rg\ City (pop., 2001 est.: 471,267), southwestern Sweden. The country’s chief seaport and second largest city, it lies along the Gota River estuary, about 5 mi (8 km) above the Kattegat. Founded in 1603, the city was destroyed in the Kalmar War with Denmark (1611-13) but was refounded in 1619. Many of the early inhabitants were Dutch, who built urban canals and laid out the city centre. A prosperous period began with the completion of the Gota Canal (1832) and the start of a transoceanic shipping service. It retains some historic architecture, and a moat still encircles the old part of the city. The port’s principal exports are automobiles (Volvo), ball bearings, and paper.
Goth Member of a Germanic people whose two branches, the Ostrogoths and the Visigoths, harassed the Roman Empire for centuries. Legend holds that the Goths originated in southern Scandinavia, crossed to the southern shore of the Baltic Sea, and then migrated to the Black Sea in the 2nd century. They raided the Roman provinces in Asia Minor and the Balkan peninsula in the 3rd century and drove the Romans out of the province of Dacia during the reign of Aurelian. In the 4th and 5th centuries, the Visigoths smashed a Roman army, sacked the city of Rome, and created a kingdom in Spain that would last until the Muslim con¬ quests of the 8th century. The Ostrogoths established an important king¬ dom in Italy in the late 5th century that was destroyed by Justinian in the 6th century. The adjective “Gothic” was applied disparagingly and inap¬ propriately to medieval architecture by much later writers.
Gothic, Carpenter See Carpenter Gothic
Gothic architecture Architectural style in Europe that lasted from the mid 12th century to the 16th century, particularly a style of masonry building characterized by cavernous spaces with the expanse of walls broken up by overlaid tracery. In the 12th—13th centuries, feats of engi¬ neering permitted increasingly gigantic buildings. The rib vault, flying buttress, and pointed (Gothic) arch were used as solutions to the problem of building a very tall structure while preserving as much natural light as possible. Stained-glass window panels rendered startling sun-dappled interior effects. One of the earliest buildings to combine these elements into a coherent style was the abbey of Saint-Denis, Paris (c. 1135-44). The High Gothic years (c. 1250-1300), heralded by Chartres Cathedral, were dominated by France, especially with the development of the Ray- onnant style. Britain, Germany, and Spain produced variations of this style, while Italian Gothic stood apart in its use of brick and marble rather than stone. Late Gothic (15th-century) architecture reached its height in Germany’s vaulted hall CHURCHes. Other late Gothic styles include the British Perpendicular style and the French and Spanish Flamboyant style.
Gothic art Architecture, sculpture, and painting that flourished in West¬ ern and central Europe in the Middle Ages. It evolved from Romanesque art and lasted from the mid-12th century to the end of the 15th century. Its loftiest form of expression is architecture, as in the great cathedrals of northern Europe. Sculpture was closely tied to architecture and often used to decorate the exteriors of cathedrals and other religious buildings. Paint¬ ing evolved from stiff, two-dimensional forms to more natural ones. Reli¬ gious and secular subjects were depicted in illuminated manuscripts. Panel and wall painting evolved into the Renaissance style in Italy in the 15 th century, but retained its Gothic features until the early 16th century elsewhere in Europe. See also Gothic architecture.