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
Note in the traceries the red angels, poised upon golden wheels. The
most striking feature of this tracery glazing is the liberal use
throughout of written music, generally supported by angels. In some
instances psalms are written on the white sheets, but more often it is
staves of notes. Above the most easterly pair of windows on each side
are groups of angels playing musical instruments and walking about on a
blue sky dotted over with white stars, much resembling the apples on the
trees of children's storybooks. One should observe what an agreeable use
is made of these small angels that people the traceries. The glazier has
skilfully avoided the ugly effect which would have been produced had the
white sheets of music or psalms been continued in a horizontal line
around the chapel, and has so waved this white line up and down that it
becomes as decorative as the labels so common in German glazing. This
appearance of music on glass is rare in England and rarer still in
France. The rich colours demanded by the Earl's executors must have
produced a splendid effect in this chapel when all the embrasures were
glazed as sumptuously as is the east window. Enough remains, however, to
make the Beauchamp Chapel an important station in any stained glass
pilgrimage.
On the other side of the chancel is the vestry, into whose small east
window have been collected six diminutive panels formerly in the
chancel's east window. They date from 1370 and contrast markedly with
some small enamelled scenes in white and yellow stain (dated 1600)
placed in the same embrasure with them. While the contrast is too sharp
to be agreeable, we are afforded a comfortable, near-at-hand opportunity
to observe the great strides which this craft took during that interval
of time.
COVENTRY
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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