Stained glass of the middle ages in England and FranceArnold, Hugh
History
Stained glass of the middle ages in England and France
Arnold, Hugh
Art, Medieval; Glass painting and staining -- England; Glass painting and staining -- France
[Illustration: PLATE XIV
WORK OF CLEMENT OF CHARTRES IN ROUEN CATHEDRAL
Late Thirteenth Century]
Among the medallions which have been glazed into the north rose is one
representing the funeral of St. Hugh of Lincoln in 1199, the coffin
being carried by three archbishops and three kings. One of the
kings was William of Scotland, and the other King John of England (the
only occasion on which I know of that monarch appearing in a pleasant
light), but the artist must have put the third king in for the sake of
symmetry as there is no record of his presence.
A curious medallion in the south transept shows Salome dancing before
Herod, not in the languorous Oriental fashion one would have expected
of her, but turning a somersault worthy of the music-hall stage, with
a lavish display of red stockings. A similar treatment of the subject
occurs at Bourges, and also in sculpture over one of the west doors at
Rouen Cathedral.
[Sidenote: The north rose.]
The north rose still retains about three-quarters of its original
glazing, and enables one to make out the design. In the centre is
Christ, and in the four petal-like lights which surround Him are, or
were, figures of the Blessed seated, not in circles but in horizontal
rows. Filling the spandrils between these lights are four trefoils, of
which two still each contain an angel swinging a censer, in an
attitude ingeniously fitted to the shape of the light. Outside these,
sixteen circular lights form a ring round the whole, and once
represented the Second Coming of Christ. At the top is Christ seated
on the rainbow, and in two lights on either side of Him are angels
carrying instruments of the Passion. Next come St. Peter and the other
Apostles, six in one light on each side, and below them, in the lights
level with the centre, are the four archangels sounding trumpets. The
lower half of the circle was probably devoted to the resurrection of
the dead and perhaps their judgment, but of these only one light
remains, showing the dead rising from their graves, the rest being
filled with single figures from elsewhere.
The spandrils between these circles are filled with little triangular
lights forming an inner and an outer ring of sixteen each. Of these
the inner ring is filled with white wavy pointed stars on a red ground
and the outer with similar red stars on a dark blue ground, thus
suggesting the idea--in _colour_ alone, without use of light or shade,
of light and warmth radiating from the centre.[8]
According to Mr. Westlake the central Christ has no stigmata, while
the one in the outer circle has them; but the painting has now
perished too much for me to see this even at close quarters. His
theory is that the centre represents Christ as "The Word,--the
uncreated Wisdom, as Creator, resting,"--and the outer circle shows
His last coming as Judge.
FOOTNOTE:
[8] Were it not for the difference in the source of the light one
would be reminded of Kipling's lines:--
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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