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
This north rose, or Rose of France as it is called, has in its centre
light the Virgin with the Child, in a purple tunic with a blue robe
and nimbus against a ground of rich ruby. In the twelve radiating
lights round her are: above her head, four doves; on her right and
left, four angels,--two on either side,--two incensing and two holding
candles; and below, four six-winged seraphs. Outside these are twelve
kings of Judah, the Virgin's ancestors, and outside these again is a
ring of the Prophets who foretold Christ's coming. Below, in the five
great lancets, is a huge figure of Saint Anne carrying the infant
Virgin, having on her right King David and on her left Solomon, and
beyond these Melchizedek and Aaron, types of Christ as King and High
Priest. Below St. Anne is a great shield with the arms of St. Louis,
but under each of the four other figures is a kind of "predella," in
which are shown, as a contrast: below David, Saul falling on his
sword; below Solomon, Jeroboam worshipping the golden calves; below
Melchizedek, Nebuchadnezzar; and below Aaron, Pharaoh being whirled
away, horse and man, in the Red Sea. In this last scene the artist has
been in a dilemma. The backgrounds of these lancets are alternately
red and blue, and Pharaoh's should have been blue, but it represents
the _Red_ Sea, and the artist has had to get out of the difficulty by
making it a kind of maroon purple.
[Sidenote: The south rose and lancets.]
The idea of the window is the same as that of Jesse Tree: Humanity
preparing, through the ages, for the coming of Christ, and culminating
in His Mother. The rose and lancets opposite show the fulfilment. Here
Christ is seen enthroned in the centre of the rose, as St. John beheld
Him, surrounded by angels and by the four great beasts, and by the
four-and-twenty elders seated on their thrones, in a double ring round
the whole.
In the five lancets below are, in the centre, the Virgin and Child,
and on either side the four Evangelists, borne, by a quaint conceit,
like children on the strong shoulders of the major Prophets. The
general arrangement of the windows is the same, but the detail seems
to me to bear out the supposition that the southern rose is by some
years the earlier of the two. In both windows the outer and the inner
ring of figures are contained in circular medallions, but where in the
south rose the "filling in" is done by means of scroll work, in the
north transept "mosaic diaper" is everywhere used. The borders of the
lancets, too, are of an older type, and more beautiful in the south
transept than in the north.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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