Windows, A Book About Stained & Painted Glass Part 11

It lingered longest in Germany. There is a curious two-light window in Cologne Cathedral, with queer rectangular medallions, of considerable interest, which is probably not very early in date. A not very common type of Decorated medallion window is ill.u.s.trated above. The cutting across the border by medallion or other subjects, is a common thing in fourteenth century gla.s.s (below and opposite), just because such encroachment is obviously a most useful device in dealing with narrow s.p.a.ces. It occurs in some medallion windows (also of the fourteenth century) at the church of Santa Croce, at Florence.

But this was not enough. The Germans went a step further, and carried the medallions boldly across two lights, treating them as a single medallion window with a stone mullion instead of an iron bar up the centre. There is an instance of this at S. Sebald's Church, Nuremberg, and another, more curious than beautiful to see, at Stra.s.sburg. They went further still, and carried the medallions across a three-light window. There is one such at Augsburg, where the medallions almost fill the window, extending to the extreme edge of the outer lights. Indeed, a broad outer border of angels surrounding the great circles is cut short by the side walls. This is at least a means of getting rid of the littleness resulting sometimes from the small medallion treatment, and it is in fact most effective. The broad, sweeping, circular lines also have the appearance of holding the lights together and strengthening them.

[Ill.u.s.tration: 105. FREIBURG.]

This was a thing most needful to be done in Decorated gla.s.s. It was needed sometimes already in Early work. At Clermont-Ferrand the narrow lancets at the end of the South transept are filled, except for a thin white beaded border, with diaper work in rich colour, interrupted at intervals by big rosettes of white, which form two bands of light across the series, and make them seem one group.

[Ill.u.s.tration: 106. DETAILS OF DEC. GERMAN GLa.s.s.]

The deliberate use of horizontal lines (or features giving such lines) in gla.s.s, was clearly the most effective way of counteracting the too upright tendency of the masonry, or rather of preventing it from appearing unduly drawn out; and it became the custom. Even in a comparatively small Decorated window, for example, the figures would usually form a band across it, distinguished from the ornamental shrinework above and below it by a marked difference in colour. In a taller window there would be two, or possibly three, such bands of figures, in marked contrast to their framing. In Germany very often one big frame would cross the window, or the figure subjects would be separated--as at Stra.s.sburg, for example--by bands of arcading, out of which peeped little saints each with a descriptive label in his hand.

A typical English canopy of the period is given on this page. It was commonly enclosed, as here shown, within a border, wide enough to be some sort of acknowledgment of the subdivision of the window, but not wide enough to prevent the colour of the canopy from forming a distinct band across the window. The predominance of a powerful, rather bra.s.sy, yellow in the canopy work, and a contrast in colour between its background and that of the figures, carried the eye without fail across the window. A notable exception to the usual bra.s.siness of the Decorated canopy occurs at Toulouse, where a number of high-pitched gables of the ordinary design, stronger in colour than usual, have crockets and finials of a fresh bright green.

[Ill.u.s.tration: 107. TYPICAL DECORATED CANOPY.]

The Decorated canopy, with its high-pitched gable and tall flying b.u.t.tresses, its hard lines, and its bra.s.sy colour was a characteristic, but never a very beautiful feature in design; and it grew to quite absurd proportions. It was in Germany that it was carried to greatest excess, extending to a height three or four times that of the figure and more; but with us also it was commonly tall enough altogether to dwarf the poor little figure it pretended to protect. Even when it was not preposterously tall, its detail was usually out of all proportion to the figure. Your fourteenth century draughtsman would have no hesitation in making the finial of his canopy bigger than the head (nimbus and all) of the saint under it. Clumsiness of this kind is so much the rule, and disproportion is so characteristic of the middle of the fourteenth century, that, but for some distinctly good ornamental gla.s.s of the period, one might dismiss it as merely transitional, and not worthy of a chapter to itself in the history of gla.s.s design.

[Ill.u.s.tration: 108. S. URBAIN, TROYES.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: 109. NEW COLLEGE, OXFORD.]

Our distinctions of style, as was said, are at the best arbitrary. We may devise a cla.s.sification which shall serve to distinguish one marked type from another, but it is quite impossible to draw any hard-and-fast line between the later examples of one kind and the earlier of another one. We may choose to divide Gothic art into three cla.s.ses, as we may subdivide the spectrum into so many positive colours, but the indeterminate shades by which they gradate each into the other defy cla.s.sification or description.

Certainly the best figure work of the middle period is that which might quite fairly be claimed as belonging, on the one hand, to the end of the Early, or on the other to the beginning of the Late, Gothic period. In the figures from Troyes, for example (page 47 and opposite), the Early tradition lingers; in those from New College (also opposite) the characteristics of Late work begin to appear. In the figure of the headsman on this page there is certainly no sense of proportion. In all the wealth of Decorated figure-and-canopy work at York Minster there is nothing to rank for a moment with the best Early or Perpendicular gla.s.s.

Nor in France, though there is Decorated work in most of the great churches, is there anything conspicuously fine. Even at S. Ouen, at Rouen, there is nothing particularly worthy of note. It is true that the period of the English occupation and the troubles which followed it was not the time when we should expect the arts to flourish there.

[Ill.u.s.tration: 110. EXECUTIONER OF S. JOHN THE BAPTIST, 14TH CENTURY.]

A most characteristic thing in gla.s.s of this intermediate period was the way in which colour and grisaille were a.s.sociated. It has been already told how, before then, white and colour had been used together in the same light--at Auxerre, for example, where, within a broad border of colour, you find an inner frame of grisaille, enclosing a central figure panel of colour. Quite at the beginning of the fourteenth century, if not already at the end of the thirteenth, you find, as at S. Radegonde, Poitiers, upon a ground of grisaille, coloured medallion subjects, or more happily still, little figures, as it were, inlaid, breaking the white surface very pleasantly with patches of unevenly but judiciously dispersed colour--the whole enclosed in a coloured border. But in the fourteenth century the more even combination of white and colour was quite a common thing. Naturally it was introduced in the form of the horizontal bands already mentioned. And indeed it is in windows into which grisaille enters that this band-wise distribution of design is most apparent, and most typical. The designer very commonly conceived his window as in grisaille, crossed by a band or bands of colour, binding the lights together. That may be seen in the chapter-house at York, where you have several series of little subjects, more or less in the shape of medallions, forming so many belts of colour across the five-light grisaille windows, which belts the eye insensibly follows right round the building.

[Ill.u.s.tration: 111. DECORATED BORDERS.]

That is the theory of design. Its practical construction may be better described otherwise. The iron horizontal bars, to the use of which the glaziers had by this time come back, divide the lights each into a series of panels, which panels are filled at York alternately with coloured subjects and ornamental grisaille. Elsewhere perhaps two panels are filled with colour to one of grisaille, or three to one, or _vice versa_. In any case these alternate panels of white and colour, occurring always on the same level throughout the lights composing the window (and often through all the windows along the aisle of a church), range themselves in p.r.o.nounced horizontal strips or bands.

[Ill.u.s.tration: 112. GRISAILLE AND FIGURE.]

This acceptance of the bars as a starting-point in design, and this deliberate counterchange of light and dark, may appear to indicate a very rough-and-ready scheme of design. But any brutality there might be in it is done away with by the introduction of a sufficient amount of white into the coloured bands and of a certain modic.u.m of colour in the bands of white. And that was habitually the plan adopted. Into the subjects it was easy to introduce just as much white as seemed necessary. A little white might be there already in the flesh, which was no longer always represented in flesh-coloured gla.s.s but more and more commonly in white. The usual border at the sides of the grisaille--now reduced to quite modest proportions--perhaps a simple leaf border, as on pages 44, 158, perhaps a still simpler "block" border, as above, served to frame the white, at the same time that it was an acknowledgment once more of the fact that each light forms a separate division of the window. In most cases the introduction of a little colour into the grisaille panel, very often in the form of a rosette, went further to prevent any possible appearance of disconnection between the figures and their ornamental setting. As a matter of fact, so little obvious is the plan of such windows in the actual gla.s.s that it often takes one some time to perceive it.

[Ill.u.s.tration: 113. EVREUX.]

In the nave at York Minster the grisaille is crossed by two bands of coloured figure work. Elsewhere it is crossed by one; but where the figures have canopies, as they often have, that makes again a horizontal subdivision in the coloured portion of the gla.s.s. Sometimes the topmost pinnacles of the coloured canopies will extend into the grisaille above, breaking the harshness of the dividing line; but it is seldom that it appears harsh in the gla.s.s. The fact seems to be that the upward tendency of the long lights is so marked, and the mullions make such a break in any cross line, that there is no fear of horizontal forms p.r.o.nouncing themselves too strongly; the difficulty is rather to make them marked enough. Architects came eventually to feel the want of some more sternly horizontal feature than the glazier could contrive, when they introduced the stone transom, which was a feature of the later Gothic period.

When it was a question of glazing a broad single light of earlier construction, the fourteenth century artist designed his gla.s.s accordingly. Not that he then adopted the thirteenth century manner--it never entered his mind to work in any other style than that which was current in his day; the affectation of bygone styles is a comparatively modern heresy--but he adapted his design equally to help, if not to correct, the shape of the window opening. Accustomed as he was to narrower lights, the broad window of an earlier age appeared to him unduly broad, and his first thought was to make it look narrower. This he did by dividing it into vertical (instead of horizontal) strips of white and colour. That is shown in the window from Troyes (page 159), in which the centre strip of the window, occupied by figures and canopies in colour, is flanked by broad strips of grisaille, and that again by a coloured border. There, as usual, you find some white in the figure work and some colour in the grisaille, always the surest way of making the window look one.

The judicious treatment of a belated lancet window like this goes to show that it was of set purpose that the tall lights of a Decorated window were bound together by ties of coloured gla.s.s. So long as windows were built in many lights, that plan of holding them together was never abandoned. There is a very notable instance of this at Berne, where the four long lights of a Late Gothic window are crossed by lines of canopy work, taking not horizontal but arched lines (a device common enough in German gla.s.s), effectually counteracting the lean and lanky look of the window. Still markedly horizontal lines of subdivision in gla.s.s design are more characteristic of the second Gothic period than of any other.

CHAPTER XV.

MIDDLE GOTHIC GLa.s.s.

Towards the fourteenth century, it seems, a wave of realism swept over Gothic art. So much is this so that a relatively speaking naturalistic form of ornamental detail is the most marked feature of the Decorated period, giving it its name, and, indeed, its claim to be a style.

[Ill.u.s.tration: 114. NORBURY, DERBYs.h.i.+RE.]

No great stress has been laid in the foregoing chapters upon this new departure in naturalism, because it did not so very vitally affect design. When it is said that gla.s.s followed always the fas.h.i.+on of architecture, that is as much as to say that, as the sculptors took to natural instead of conventional foliage, so did the gla.s.s painters; and there is not much more to tell. To trace the development of naturalistic design would lead us far astray. Enough to say that, by the naturalistic turn of its ornamental foliage you may recognise the period called "Decorated." How far that naturalism of Decorated detail may be to the good is a question there is no need here to dispute. It was a new departure. The new work lacked something of the simple dignity and self-restraint which marked the earlier, and it had not yet the style and character which came in the next century of more consistently workmanlike treatment. In so far it was a kind of prelude to Perpendicular work. This is not to deny that excellent work was done in the Decorated period, especially perhaps in gla.s.s, where naturalism, at its crudest, is less offensive than in wood or stone. But there is no getting over the fact that the period was intermediate; and Decorated gla.s.s is in a state of transition (1) between the archaism of the early and the accomplishment of the later Gothic; (2) between the conventional ornament which merely suggests nature and natural foliage conventionally treated; (3) between strong rich colour and delicate silvery gla.s.s. The transition of style is nowhere more plainly to be traced than in the grisaille of the period. At first the character of fourteenth century grisaille did not greatly differ from earlier work, except in the form of the painted detail. That from S. Urbain, Troyes, on page 333, is a typical instance of Early French Transition foliage, in which the scroll is only less strong and vigorous than before. Precisely the same kind of detail is shown again in the lower of the two instances, likewise from Troyes, opposite; but already natural leaves begin to mingle with it; whilst in the ill.u.s.tration above it, though the mosaic border is characteristically early, the foliage in grisaille is deliberately naturalistic. The grisaille at Troyes, by the way, often reminds one of that at York Minster. It is mainly by the naturalistic character of the ivy scroll, or perhaps it would be nearer the mark to say of the leaves upon it, that the design from Norbury, Derbys.h.i.+re (page 162), betrays its later date, by that and the absence of cross-hatching on the background. The glazing of the window is still thoroughly mosaic.

[Ill.u.s.tration: 115. S. PIERRE, CHARTRES.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: 116. DEC. GRISAILLE, S. URBAIN, TROYES.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: 117. CHARTRES.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: 118. EVREUX.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: 119. ROUEN CATHEDRAL.]

There is a different indication of transition in the little panel from S. Pierre at Chartres, almost entirely in white gla.s.s, on page 163. The foliated ornament is here still early in character; but, it will be seen, there is no longer any pretence of leading up the bands of clear gla.s.s in separate strips. They are only bounded on one side by a lead line. That is so again in the three designs from Chartres Cathedral above, where, further, the background is clear of paint; and in those from Evreux, on pages 165, 284. There the background is cross-hatched; but in one case the foliage is naturalistic.

The coloured strapwork in the grisaille from the Lady Chapel of Rouen Cathedral on page 165 is frankly mosaic; but the foliated ends of the straps, gathered together into a central quatrefoil in a quite unusual fas.h.i.+on, indicates the new spirit. The white gla.s.s is there painted with trailing foliage in outline upon a clear ground, not shown in the sketch, which is merely a diagram of the glazing. The grisaille from Stanton S. John, Oxford, here given, still hesitates rather between two opinions. The foliage is naturalistic, but the background is cross-hatched; the broad diagonal bands, patterned with paint, are glazed in colour; the rings of white are not separately leaded. That sort of thing has occurred, as already pointed out, before; but it was not till the fourteenth century, or thereabouts, that the strapwork of white lines, forming so characteristic a feature in Decorated grisaille, are systematically indicated by painted outlines and not glazed in if it could be helped.

[Ill.u.s.tration: 120. STANTON S. JOHN, OXFORD.]

You have only to examine the crossing of the white lines in any of these last-mentioned patterns to see that, now that they are not separately glazed, they do not really interlace as before. It is out of the question that they should.

It is easy enough to glaze up bands so that they shall interlace; but, when some of the drawing lines are lead and some paint, it occurs continually that you want a leaded line to pa.s.s behind a line of clear gla.s.s--which, of course, is a physical impossibility. It follows that the pretended interlacing comes to grief. The pattern is confused (it is worse when there is no hatched background) by the occurrence of leads, stronger than the painted lines, which, so far from playing any part in the design, occur just at the points where they most interfere with it.

[Ill.u.s.tration: 121. CHaLONS.]

That this did not deter them, that they made a s.h.i.+ft with interlacing which does not truly interlace, marks a falling off in what may be called the conscientiousness of the Gothic designers. French and English Decorated grisaille, effective as it often is in the window, is distinctly less satisfactory in design than the common run of earlier work. Its charm is never in its detail.

The patterns may be ingenious and not without grace, but they are never altogether admirable, any more than are the figures.

[Ill.u.s.tration: 122. CHaLONS.]

What you most enjoy in it is the distribution of white and colour; and you enjoy it most when you do not too curiously examine into the detail of the design, when you are satisfied to enjoy the colour, and do not look for form, which after all is of less account in gla.s.s.

[Ill.u.s.tration: 123. REGENSBURG.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: 124. MUNICH MUSEUM.]

So far as effect only is concerned, quarry work, the mere glazing in squares, answers in many places (such, for example, as the clerestories of narrow churches, where you could not possibly enjoy any detail of design that might be there) all the purpose of grisaille; and it was commonly resorted to. But the painting upon such quarries counts for very little; it is far too small and fine in detail to have any effect further than to tone the gla.s.s a little, which would have been unnecessary if the gla.s.s employed had been less clear. In fact, delicate paint on distant clerestory gla.s.s is much ado about very little; and one cannot help thinking that plain glazing would there have answered all the purpose of the most delicately painted pattern work. The fourteenth century glaziers seldom complicated their quarry work by the introduction of bands or straps of colour between the quarries, or by the introduction of colour other than such as might occur in rosettes or s.h.i.+elds and so on, planted upon them, rather than worked into the design. Occasionally, however, as at Chalons-sur-Marne, you come upon an ornamental window (page 167) in which quarries are separated by bands of clear white, a certain amount of colour being introduced in the form of yellow quarries subst.i.tuted at regular intervals for the white. On the same page is another coloured diaper window designed on quarry lines, also at Chalons. In that quarries of white and yellow are separated by a trellis of blue. Something of the sort is to be seen also at S.

Radegonde, Poitiers.

In these cases the painting, as will be seen, is strong enough to hold its own at a considerable distance from the eye, but the effect is not very happy. When, by the way, it was said that delicate painting on distant quarries was lost, it was not meant to imply that strong painting on quarries would be a happy solution of the difficulty. As a matter of experience, it is seldom satisfactory. On the other hand, the common expedient of leading up the coloured backgrounds to figure work in small squares of ruby, green, and so on, was generally the means of securing good broken colour.