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
The three trefoils in the centre of the wheel contain three coats of
arms--the short triangular shields of the thirteenth century, of which
the first is that of Edward I., the leopards of England; the second
the same with a label of five points azure for his son, afterwards
Edward II.; and the third that of Walter de Merton, the founder of the
college. For the most part the other lights contain ornament that is
wholly fourteenth century in character, but the quatrefoil on each
side has a feature which shows the early date of the window. In these
two small figures representing the Annunciation, though themselves in
the style and colouring of the early fourteenth century, are placed
directly on a background of red and blue mosaic diaper, such as one
finds again and again in thirteenth century work in France, and among
the fragments in the South Rose at Lincoln. I have often thought that
thirteenth century glaziers sometimes kept this mosaic filling in
stock, and perhaps the artist of Merton had some left on his hands and
used it up here. In any case it would seem to show that the style in
which he was working was fairly new to his workshop.
[Sidenote: The side windows.]
The fourteen side windows are designed on a plan which is typical of
fourteenth century work both in England and in France, especially
Normandy. The sections into which the glazing is divided by the heavy
iron frame-bars are taken as the units of the design. One in each
light is filled with a coloured panel--a figure under a canopy--and
the rest with grisaille having a coloured boss in the centre of each,
the whole being surrounded by a coloured border. The effect is that of
a range of greenish-white windows just dotted and edged with colour,
and with a single broad band of colour running horizontally through
them all. This plan is common in all early fourteenth century work,
especially in England and Normandy. Evreux is another example, York
nave another, but with two rows of coloured panels, and the window
from Rouen in Plate XXV. is only an elaboration of it forty years
later. At Merton College, however, the canopy has not yet run mad, but
is of modest proportions, figure and canopy together only occupying
one section of glazing.
The grisaille itself is for the most part of "bulged" quarries curving
round the central bosses, but two on each side have true quarries. All
have the trellis pattern formed by doubling the lead with a painted
line and a continuous flowing pattern of foliage--vine, oak, ivy, and
fig--spreading through it over the window from a central stem. Plate
XXVI. is a later example of the same thing, but with the addition of
silver stain, which is nowhere found in the Merton windows.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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