While both the Romanesque and Gothic styles of architecture share the Latin cross cathedral as their subject matters– as well as its related aspects, such as the westworks, rayonnants, corbel, buttresses, clustered columns, and vaults– they differ in their approach.
The Romanesque style of architecture is far more massive, rectangular, and flat, while the Gothic style is increasingly lighter, vertical, and intricate. Romanesque groins are replaced with ribbed vaults, semi-circle arches replaced with ogives, buttresses replaced with flying buttresses, small apertures replaced with large masonry openings, and dim lighting replaced with stained glass illumination, all of which connects to the idea of Romanesque style as grounded and strong and Gothic style as space, light, verticality, and other-worldliness. As such, Gothic style also embellishes with spires, bosses, and sculpture in the trumeau, jambs, and archivolts.