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 the clerestory windows of the nave the change has already come
about. Although in the richness of colouring there is still a
reminiscence of the earlier style, yet the medallion has vanished, and
everywhere, both over single figures and over subject panels, we find
decorated canopies, not yet, however, of exaggerated proportions, and
with a complete absence of yellow stain. In the general arrangement
the same idea is seen as in the choir, but it has had to be adapted to
a different form of window-opening. The nave is part of the original
church of 1225, and the clerestory windows consist, like those of the
Cathedral, of broad lights grouped in pairs, with a rose above each
pair--the germ of tracery. Every alternate pair is entirely filled
with small coloured scenes from the life of a saint,--no longer in
medallions, but each framed under a small white canopy,--but the
windows between them have only a vertical stripe of colour down the
centre of each light containing two large figures, one above the
other, while the rest of the light is filled with grisaille (Plate
XXIII.).
The portrait of a certain abbot as donor enables us to date these nave
windows with fair accuracy as about 1307-8, which makes them slightly
later than the Peter de Dene window in York Minster. The grisaille is,
however, of a distinctly earlier type, having the background still
cross-hatched, but at Chartres one would expect the old traditions to
die hard.
[Sidenote: Fourteenth century glass in Chartres Cathedral.]
There is fourteenth century work in the Cathedral, which is
interesting in its way. The window given, about 1307-10, by "Geoffrey
the Restorer," a canon whose "restoration" of the thirteenth century
windows was of a different kind to that now in vogue, is the work of
an archæologist and an enthusiast for the older style and can hardly
be taken as typical. Very different is the strip of glazing which
Canon Thierry got leave, in 1328, to insert in the foot of one of the
big thirteenth century windows in the south transept to light an altar
he had founded. Even for its date it is remarkable, consisting, as it
does, of figures (Canon Thierry kneeling to the Virgin surrounded by
saints) executed entirely in white and silver stain, without any
coloured glass, placed directly on a background of white and stain
quarries. It is perhaps the first examples of this treatment of
figures, and anything more hopelessly out of keeping with the deep and
solemn colours above it can hardly be imagined, so that it is
difficult to do it justice. An example of _coloured_ figures placed
directly on quarries is the Annunciation, which dates from 1350, in
the south choir aisle, but it is not a very interesting group. The
chapel of St. Piat contains some glass of the latter half of the
century, but the treatment it has received prevents one forming an
opinion of it.
[Sidenote: Evreux.]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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