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
other manner from the Continent, for it is known that most of the
sixteenth century glass in England was procured from foreign sources.
Let us leave this moot point to be conclusively decided by others, and
turn to observing and enjoying the glass. The shape of the church is
unusual and requires a brief word of description in order to understand
the placing of the windows. The westerly half consists of the regulation
nave with a broad aisle on each side. Above the nave runs a glazed
clerestory, which, of course, does not extend over the aisles. There are
no transepts. At the middle of the church just where the nave ends there
rises the tower, of the same width as the nave. The clerestory stops on
the nave side of this tower; there is no clerestory above the eastern
half of the church. This easterly half is the same width as that to the
west, but it is all open and not separated into aisles like the other
part. In the southerly wall of the building are six windows and a door,
and in the northerly, seven windows. The clerestory has four lights of
three lancets on each side. Canopies containing figures standing upon
pedestals and with gracefully written scrolls about them are to be found
in all the clerestory windows, and also below in the four most westerly
aisle windows on each side. The figures on the north of the clerestory
represent Roman emperors, and above in the traceries are little devils
on a red ground. Opposite them on the south appear Martyrs and Prophets
of the Faith, appropriately attended in the traceries above by angels on
a blue ground. All the windows thus far described are clearly fifteenth
century; the workmanship is good but not of such marked excellence as is
shown in the eastern part of the church. These latter evidence
remarkably skilful designing, and, furthermore, demonstrate that the
artist understood the medium in which he had to work out his cartoons.
They lean strongly towards the Renaissance type: the colours used are
very good, especially some of the greens. Most of the subjects on the
north are taken from the life of the Virgin, while opposite, across the
choir, appear scenes from the life of Christ, such as the Last Supper,
the Miraculous Draught of Fishes, &c. The sexton delights to tell the
visitor that the towers in the background of the last-named scene are
faithful counterfeits of the towers of Nuremburg, thus proving
conclusively (except to hypercritical cavillers) that Albrecht Dürer
designed them. The story is picturesque, but it is fortunate that the
good man never saw Nuremburg, or his conscience might force the
suppression of this agreeable fiction. It must be admitted, however,
that some of this glass is sufficiently excellent to have been designed
by that great master. The five-lanceted window that fills the end of the
little eastern extension behind the altar has five scenes across its
lower half, while above them, occupying the entire width of the
embrasure, is a fine Crucifixion.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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