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
(TRANSITIONAL--GLOUCESTER AND THE WORK OF THE WINCHESTER SCHOOL)
An interesting thing about the design of stained glass in the
fourteenth century is that it never stands still, but changes more
rapidly than at any other period in its history. At Gloucester, not
more than from ten to twenty years after the latest of the windows I
have been describing, the great east window of the Cathedral was
filled with glass, which already faintly foreshadows the change into
the style of the succeeding period.
The Severn valley is rich in glass of the fourteenth century, the work
of a school which may have had its headquarters at Gloucester, where,
in later times, at all events, there were important glass-works,
which may still be seen in seventeenth century views of the city.
The fourteenth century glass at Shrewsbury, Tewkesbury, and Wells is
all of this school, and differs in many little ways from the work at
York, among which are the frequency of the ogival arch and gable in
the canopies, and, at Wells, the presence of foliated brackets which
support the figures. Whether the work in Bristol Cathedral also
belongs to it I am not quite prepared to say.
[Sidenote: The east window of Gloucester Cathedral.]
I have no space, however, to describe these windows, and must return
to the east window of Gloucester Cathedral which is later in style
than any of them. Winston, who has given it the same careful study
that he had devoted to the Peter de Dene window at York, points out
that the coats of arms in it are all those of nobles who took part in
the Campaign of Crècy in 1346 and deduces that the date of the window
is not later than 1350, whereas Westlake thinks it cannot be earlier
than 1360. In either case it is remarkable. To begin with, the tracery
of this immense window, the second largest in England, is pure
Perpendicular, and the earliest important example of it. The glass, on
the other hand, in its architectural detail, style of drawing, and
material used, belongs almost wholly to the Second or Decorated
Period, and it is mainly in its planning and general colour scheme
that we find a hint of approaching change. The perpendicular mullions
and horizontal transoms divide the great window, which is slightly
bowed outwards to give its strength, into a series of horizontal rows
of narrow lights one above the other, fourteen lights in a row, each
light being about two feet wide and from six to nine feet high. The
lower tiers (and originally this was true of the tracery as well) are
filled with quarries, and the upper one of these, the first that
extends all across the window,--for the entrance to the Lady Chapel
makes a gap below it,--is decorated with the splendid row of coats of
arms already mentioned. Above this each light, row upon row, contains
a figure under a canopy, the side shafts of which extend into the
light above and support the canopy there, while the central pinnacle
also extends upwards past the transom and expands into a flat-topped
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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