A Manual of Historic Ornament: Treating upon the evolution, tradition, and development of architecture and other applied arts. Prepared for the use of students and craftsmenGlazier, Richard
History
A Manual of Historic Ornament: Treating upon the evolution, tradition, and development of architecture and other applied arts. Prepared for the use of students and craftsmen
Glazier, Richard
Decoration and ornament -- History; Decoration and ornament, Architectural -- History; Decorative arts -- History
Fairford church, perhaps, contains the finest series of late Gothic
glass A.D. 1500-30. Like the contemporary architecture of the 16th
century, the Renascence now influenced stained glass. The canopy still
survived, but was horizontal or pedimental in form, with purely
classical columns and details. Good examples of this period are the
windows of King’s College Chapel, Cambridge (1520), where rich
Renascence work is introduced into late Gothic mullioned windows. About
1540, transparent enamels were introduced with skill and reticence, but
gradually glass painters began to vie with pictorial oil painting in
effects of light and shade, the ground work or material losing that
beautiful translucent or transmitted colour, which is the chief glory of
stained glass. An example showing the degradation of this art is the
west window of New College, Oxford, painted by Jervas, 1777, from
designs by Sir Joshua Reynolds.
The ornamentation of stained glass naturally followed contemporary
architecture in the treatment of style, differentiated only by the
technical necessities of material. For instance, in the early English
glass (plate 31), the details of the ornament have the characteristic
spiral arrangement and the trefoil foliage of contemporary architectural
ornament, only the foliage is treated more in profile, as being more
suited to the technical necessities of leading and brush work.
Most of the detail, however, shows a strong affinity to French
contemporary ornament, this doubtless was owing to the influence of
French craftsmanship and tradition in the stained glass of that period.
In the 14th century, the English craftsman attained a thorough mastery
over his materials, and consequently the type of ornament followed
English contemporary architecture more closely.
To sum up, stained glass changed through the different periods from the
rich coloured mosaic of the Normans--the equally rich coloured
medallions and grisaille glass of the early Gothic--the decorated
Gothic, with glass in lighter colours, and a prevalence of yellow stain,
culminating in the later Gothic period, when largeness of mass,
lightness, and silvery colour, were the characteristics. A beautiful
treatment of stained glass, dating from the 15th century was used by the
Arabians; this glass, which has a singular gem-like quality, and without
enamel or stain, was let into a framework of plaster, which had been cut
and pierced with geometrical or floral patterns.
Modern stained glass has attained a high degree of perfection in design
and material under Burne Jones, Walter Crane, Frederic Shields and Henry
Holiday, with glass such as that produced by Morris, Powell and Sparrow,
and the American opalescent glass of La Farge and Tiffany.
The individuality of their work, appropriateness of treatment, based
upon the splendid tradition of the past, mark a distinct epoch in
history of stained glass.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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