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
In France the change of style seems to have occurred very much at the
same time as in England. There is some transitional work in St. Urbain
at Troyes, to which Viollet-le-Duc gives the date 1295. This would
make it a few years earlier in all probability than the Chapter-House
at York, but the type of grisaille is rather earlier too, still
consisting partly, like that at Exeter, of conventional foliage. The
clerestory windows of the fine church of St. Pierre at Chartres,
whatever their precise date, certainly mark the local change from the
previous style.
The church had been begun as early as 1150, but its progress was slow
and it was not completed till 1225, though the choir had been glazed
in 1172.[15] The upper part of this choir was, however, pulled down
in 1270, and rebuilt with large traceried windows, filling all the
wall space of the clerestory. This again was not finished till 1310,
but this date probably refers to the completion of the interior
decoration which was always preceded by the glazing of the windows. On
the whole, I think it is fairly safe to conclude that the choir
windows were done about 1300, or a little before.
The style is still that of the First Period but modified,
experimentally as it were, to suit new conditions. Each window has
four tall narrow lights with tracery above, and every other light is
filled with two large figures placed one above the other each in a
medallion, which is squeezed by the narrowness of the light into an
elongated form, while the space between the medallions is filled in
the old way with mosaic diaper of red and blue. In compliance,
however, with the growing demand for more light in churches, the other
two lights in each window are filled entirely with grisaille. This
would give a lop-sided appearance to a single window, but seen
together with only a slender shaft between window and window, they
form a succession of alternate white and coloured vertical stripes all
round the choir, an interesting and almost unique method of combining
figure and grisaille. Altogether the clerestory windows may be
considered as the very last work of the First Period already modified
and influenced by the spirit of change that was in the air.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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