Stained Glass Tours in EnglandSherrill, Charles Hitchcock
History
Stained Glass Tours in England
Sherrill, Charles Hitchcock
Cathedrals -- England; England -- Description and travel; Glass painting and staining -- England
PERPENDICULAR
Little proof is needed of how greatly the glazier depended upon the
architect, or of how necessary and proper it was that his glazing should
harmonise with the prevailing architectural style. The period we are
about to study affords a striking example of this subserviency of the
window to the building it lights. In no country can there be found a
school whose glass was so dominated by its architecture as was that of
the Perpendicular in England. This Perpendicular style never crossed the
Channel, for the French Gothic of that time, instead of becoming stiff
and regular, grew more flamboyant and elaborated. Another marked
difference is that all the time the English were softening their tints
and striving for a silvery sheet of low tones (Great Malvern, &c.), the
fifteenth century French were, on the contrary, using stronger and more
varied colours than during the century before. To such excellence of
delicate drawing and tints did the English attain in their Perpendicular
windows that it may safely be said that in those respects they were
never surpassed elsewhere. This is particularly noticeable at Ross and
Cirencester. An opportunity to compare the French with the English glass
of that time is afforded by the fact that the French windows of the
Beauchamp Chapel at Warwick will be visited between the distinctively
English ones of Great Malvern and York. This Warwick glass was brought
from France because the contract exacted "Glasse from beyond the Seas,"
and we at once notice the strong hues, which differ so markedly from the
then prevailing English ones. Nothing could be more convenient than the
way in which these particular windows enable us to differentiate between
contemporary glass on opposite sides of the Channel.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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