figures at Chartres and in most other thirteenth century windows have
them, and their counterparts may be found in the canopies over the
sculptured figures on the porches outside. They occur also at
Canterbury over some of the surviving figures from the clerestory, but
it is noteworthy that whereas at Canterbury the canopies are round
arched (and the same is true of the architecture in the medallion
windows), at Chartres they are nearly all either cusped or pointed,
which I take as additional evidence in support of my opinion that the
Canterbury work is the older of the two.
[Illustration: PLATE XIX
ST. MARGARET, WEST WINDOW OF NORTH AISLE OF NAVE, YORK MINSTER
Fourteenth Century]
In thirteenth century work these canopies are a fairly unobtrusive
feature, but in the next period they were destined, as we shall see
later, to be developed out of all reason or proportion.
FOOTNOTES:
[9] This is a later feature, and found at Bourges and elsewhere.
[10] The miraculous budding of Aaron's rod was considered a type of
the Virgin Birth.
VII
OTHER THIRTEENTH CENTURY WINDOWS
[Sidenote: Salisbury and Peterborough.]
A single band of craftsmen might, as far as we can now tell, have been
responsible for nearly all the stained glass that was produced at any
one time in the twelfth century in England and the north of France;
but by the time the Trinity Chapel at Canterbury was finished, a great
many such bands must have been at work, yet all deriving their art
from the same source--the school of Chartres, St. Denis, and
Canterbury. The output was enormous, especially in the first half of
the thirteenth century. I have already spoken of Lincoln, but
Salisbury and Peterborough were once rich in glass of the thirteenth
century, that of Peterborough--now destroyed--being known to have been
given, some of it at least, as early as 1214, and York has the famous
"Five Sisters."
[Sidenote: Bourges.]
In France, Bourges is only second to Chartres for the quantity and
interest of its early glass, which was certainly begun long before the
windows of Chartres were finished. Every one knows the rose windows of
Notre Dame at Paris, and besides these Amiens, Beauvais, Laon, Rheims,
Tours, Soissons, Auxerre, and in fact nearly all the great cathedrals
of France, contain glass of the period, while fragments of it are to
be found in many parish churches both in England and France.
[Sidenote: Westwell.]
At Westwell in Kent, for instance, is a Jesse Tree of 1240-1250 which
is well worth study, in which the details of the foliage resemble
fragments of one at Salisbury and another at Troyes, and show the
development that had taken place from the Jesse Trees of Chartres and
St. Denis.
It is impossible, however, in the limits of this work to describe even
all the important windows of this period, and I have taken those I
have already described as typical of their time and as together
showing the progress of the development of the art.
[Illustration: PLATE XX
ST. STEPHEN, FROM SOUTH AISLE OF NAVE, YORK MINSTER
Fourteenth Century]
[Sidenote: The Sainte Chapelle.]
The most complete example of the work of the latter part of the
thirteenth century is the Sainte Chapelle in Paris, built by St. Louis
to contain the Crown of Thorns, which he had purchased with other
relics from the Emperor of Constantinople, who was then in need of
ready money. The Chapel was consecrated in 1248, but although some at
least of the windows are said to have been prepared beforehand and to
have been in their place on that occasion, yet the series was
certainly not completed till after the death of St. Louis in 1270, as
that event is represented in one of them.
The glass has unfortunately suffered a good deal from restoration, and
it is difficult now to say quite how much beauty it once had, but it
must be confessed that at present it gives one none of the joy and
wonder of Chartres. Yet the very design of the Chapel shows the
importance which the art had now attained, for the building is
constructed entirely with a view to being filled with stained glass,
being in fact a mere glass-house with no wall spaces at all. If the
colour effect may be judged of from the specimens of the original
glass now in South Kensington Museum, the place must have been a
wondrous Aladdin's cave of jewels, but at the same time it may be
doubted whether the arrangement was a wise one. The windows at
Chartres gain immensely by the spaces of gloom between them, whereas
here the eye gets no rest.
In detail, apart from colour, the work shows a certain falling off.
The artist seems to have been cramped by the necessity of adapting the
medallion window to such narrow lights. One misses the fine broad
border which does so much to "pull together" the earlier medallion
windows. The borders at the Sainte Chapelle are narrow and
uninteresting, and even so the medallions have sometimes to overlap
them.
[Sidenote: Work of Clement of Chartres at Rouen.]
On the other hand, the work of Clement of Chartres in Rouen Cathedral,
which is as late as 1290-1295, is as good as anything that was done in
the thirteenth century. Besides a great many broken remains of
thirteenth century work in the nave, there are five complete windows
in the ambulatory of the apse. Two of these between them illustrate
the story of Joseph, and are particularly beautiful. One of them
(Plate XIV.) is signed by Clement of Chartres, and the other is
obviously by the same hand. I should hesitate, however, to say
positively that the other three are his work too, but I think two of
them may be. Of these, one contains in its lowest section the story of
the Good Samaritan, with other subjects above which I have not
identified, and the other--a very good one--the story of St. Julian,
which is a parallel to that of Oedipus except that, being Christian,
it ends with atonement and forgiveness.
The fifth window illustrates the Passion, Resurrection, and Ascension
of Christ. It is hardly as good as the others, and is very red and hot
in general colour. The filling in, of yellow suns on a blue ground, is
very unlike any other thirteenth century work. On the whole this
window seems to me to show a certain restlessness, indicative of the
change of style that was so soon to follow. The redness, however, may
perhaps be intentional, as being appropriate to the subject, for of
the three twelfth century windows in the west end of Chartres
Cathedral, the one which illustrates the Passion is far redder than
the others.
The iron-work of these windows shows a return to the straight-bar
system, but the relation of the medallions to the iron-work is, as may
be seen by the illustration, wholly different to what it was in the
twelfth century. By the end of the thirteenth century the bent
iron-work has wholly disappeared.
Before leaving the Early Period I must touch upon another of its
developments, namely, the grisaille window.
[Sidenote: Grisaille windows.]
Side by side with the richly coloured windows which we have been
considering, there had grown up during the thirteenth century a style
of window in which a wholly different effect was aimed at. These are
what are called grisaille windows, in which the bulk of the glass is
white, only studded here and there with jewels of colour and with,
perhaps, a coloured border, the surface of the white glass being
variegated and ornamented with delicate patterns in painted line work.
The effect of this in old glass is very beautiful,--there are few
things lovelier than "the Five Sisters" at York,--but all modern
attempts to imitate it have been hopeless failures, looking like so
much transparent paper. Perhaps our modern white glass is too clear
and hard-looking, or the difference may be merely that between the
work of those who are artists and those who are not.
The causes which led to the development of this style of window were
probably two: one, the desire for more light, of which the richly
coloured windows admitted but little; and the other, simply economy,
for a window of this sort could be produced comparatively cheaply.
Then, too, the Cistercians, whose rule, adopted in the twelfth
century, prohibited the use of colour altogether, had shown what could
be done in patterns of white glass and lead alone.
Unless you count the "gryphon windows" in St. Denis, which are mainly
the work of Viollet-le-Duc, grisaille seems almost wholly a
development of the thirteenth century. It is interesting to see that
just as the design of the coloured window seems always to have been
conceived as a light pattern on a dark ground, so the earliest
grisaille, even though the quantity of white far exceeds the colour,
still seems to have been conceived as a white pattern on a coloured
ground, the ground being, as it were, almost entirely hidden by the
pattern. Later this idea gets reversed, and the coloured pieces are
mere jewels or lines contained in the pattern.
In a white window the leads, from their greater thickness, are more
conspicuous than the traced lines of the painting, and in consequence
it is upon the leads that the artist depends for the main features of
his design. The earliest grisaille windows may be divided into two
classes: those in which the pattern is formed of narrow "straps" of
white glass interlacing or seeming to interlace; and the other in
which the leads form a flat geometrical pattern, as at Lincoln. The
painted pattern on the glass consists of branching scroll work in
simple outline, forming stems and the round-lobed leaves which were
the thirteenth century convention for foliage. In the earlier work the
ground is covered with delicate cross-hatching, which at a distance
resolves itself into a pearly grey, against which the scroll work
stands out white. At first, too, the painted pattern is, so to speak,
contained within the leading, and merely enriches and emphasizes the
pattern formed by it; but in later work, towards the end of the
century, it becomes independent of the leading and grows through it,
spreading over the surface of the window in graceful curves like a
creeper over a trellis. The influence of the medallion window is often
seen in contemporary grisaille, of which the design frequently
consists of interlacing medallions of strap-work of the same shape as
those in the coloured windows.
[Sidenote: Rheims.]
[Sidenote: Angers, Soissons, and Chartres.]
The ornament surrounding some of the figures in the triforium of St.
Remi at Rheims, and which Mr. Westlake considers to date from about
1200, contains so much colour as to be hardly grisaille, and the same
may be said of one of the lancets in the north transept of Lincoln
Cathedral, of which the others contain grisaille of a later date.
There is, however, some very early thirteenth century grisaille--true
grisaille, with interlacing bands--at St. Serge at Angers, and some at
Soissons of about 1230. Chartres has four or five grisaille windows,
of the middle of the century or a little earlier, in the apsidal
chapels. These have broad, richly coloured borders, a very beautiful
feature, which one finds also at Salisbury.
[Sidenote: Westminster Abbey.]
According to Professor Lethaby[11] the original glazing of Westminster
Abbey, begun in 1253, was, at least in the lower windows, of
grisaille, of which some remains are in the triforium. From the fabric
rolls we know the name of the master-glazier, Lawrence, presumably an
Englishman, and the weekly accounts show wages paid to fourteen
glaziers in all.
[Sidenote: Salisbury.]
The few remains of old glass which that eighteenth century vandal, the
architect Wyatt, has left us at Salisbury include some very beautiful
and interesting specimens of thirteenth century grisaille, of which
the date is, according to Winston, from 1240 to 1270. In most of these
the pattern when analysed is found to be formed of overlapping (not
interlacing) geometrical forms outlined in bands of colour and filled
in with white, painted with patterns of the usual conventional scroll
work on a cross-hatched ground. There are besides, however, some
remains of ornamental glazing of an interesting and rare kind in which
there is no painting whatever, and the pattern is obtained by
lead-work alone, forming diagonal white bands interlacing in various
ways on a white ground, and containing here and there between them
little square dies of blue. Some coloured tracings of these may be
seen in South Kensington Museum.
[Sidenote: "The Five Sisters" of York.]
The finest grisaille windows in England or, for that matter, in the
world, are the five immense lancets which fill the end of the north
transept of York Minster and are known as "the Five Sisters." Their
date is probably about 1260. The iron-work in them is straight-barred,
and the massive main bars, placed every 3½ feet or so, divide the
space between the broad borders into a succession of squares, one
above the other, each one of which is occupied by a medallion--a
different shape in each light--outlined with a narrow band of colour,
and having bosses of colour at the centre and between the medallions.
One hardly can trace the plan of the painted pattern on the white,
which besides is much confused with centuries of breakage and repair,
and one is only conscious of it as texture, which indeed is its
_raison d'être_. Five feet wide, and towering to a height of more than
50 feet, each "sister" is a shimmering mass of pearl and silver,
delicately veined and jewelled with colour to give quality to its
whiteness.
[Illustration: PLATE XXI
THE NATIVITY, UPPER PART OF EAST WINDOW OF NORTH AISLE, ALL
SAINTS', NORTH STREET, YORK
Fourteenth Century]
[Sidenote: "Quarries."]
The same tendency that caused the artist to substitute mosaic diaper
for the scroll work in the setting of his medallions in coloured
windows led him in time to fill large spaces of his grisaille windows
with painted "quarries." "Quarries" (from the French _carré_) are
small diamond-shaped panes, and were then the quickest and most
economical way of glazing any given space. Sometimes towards the end
of the century the painted pattern ran over the quarries independently
of them, but more often in the thirteenth century each quarry was a
repetition of the next, the whole thus forming a regular diaper.
Sometimes each quarry has a thick black line painted parallel to two,
or sometimes all four, of its sides at a distance of three quarters of
an inch or so, leaving the space between it and the lead blank while
the rest of the quarry is patterned. The effect of this when glazed
together is that of interlacing white bands on a ground of pattern.
Apart from economy, the principal motive for the use of grisaille in
windows was, as I have said, the need for light. In the Cathedral of
Chartres, where there is no grisaille except that in the chapels
already mentioned, and where practically all the other windows are
filled with richly coloured glass, it is quite difficult to read in
the nave on a dull day. It is possible, therefore, that in some
churches a certain number of windows may have been deliberately
reserved for grisaille.
[Sidenote: Combination of grisaille and figure work.]
It is not, however, till the very end of the thirteenth century, and
then only rarely, that coloured figures and grisaille were combined in
the same light as shown in the example from Poitiers in Plate XV.,
though this is a salient feature of the style of the succeeding
period. In the clerestory windows of the choir of St. Pierre at
Chartres, which belong to the closing years of the century, the
problem has been attacked in an interesting and unique manner, but as
the glass in that church really marks the transition to the succeeding
period, I shall deal with it later.
[Sidenote: Conclusion of the Early Period.]
I must now leave the Early Period. If I have devoted a larger space to
it than I have to give to either of those succeeding, it is because to
me it is the most interesting of all. In all later work artists seem,
by comparison, unsatisfied and trying, sometimes with more, sometimes
with less, success, to reconcile opposing ideals in their work. Never
again does one find the same perfect understanding of the limitations
of the material, together with such daring and grandeur of conception,
and such depth and earnestness in the ideas expressed.
[Illustration: PLATE XXII
ST. JOHN, FROM EAST WINDOW OF SOUTH AISLE, ST. MARTIN'S, MICKLEGATE,
YORK
Fourteenth Century]
FOOTNOTE:
[11] "_Westminster Abbey and the Kings' Craftsmen._"
VIII
THE STYLE OF THE SECOND PERIOD
Although the earliest known work in the style of the Second Period may
possibly date from a little before 1300, and although the transition
to the succeeding style had certainly begun by 1380, yet, roughly
speaking, the limits of the period are those of the fourteenth
century, and it is not unusual to speak loosely of the style as the
fourteenth century style in glass.
The interest of the period lies perhaps rather in its tendencies and
development than in its actual achievements, which by general consent
are inferior not only to those of the First, but to those of the
Third, Period. It is a period of transition and uncertainty, of the
loss of old ideals when men "follow wandering fires."
[Sidenote: Weakening of the religious motive.]
Most of all does one notice the change of mental attitude. The fierce
missionary zeal for the Faith, the mystic symbolism, has gone. The
wonderful two hundred years which produced St. Bernard, St. Francis,
St. Dominic, St. Louis and the Crusades, and which saw most of the
great cathedrals built are over, and a reaction sets in. Never again
do we find a whole people, from princes to ploughmen, neglecting their
personal affairs and combining to build and decorate worthily a
glorious house of God. Churchmen are growing comfortable and
apathetic, if not corrupt, and laymen are either uninterested in
religion or critical. Towards the end of the century this feeling
gives rise to Wyclif's movement and we get _Piers Plowman_, with its
fierce denunciation of the means by which money was obtained for
windows and of "lordings" who "writen in windowes of their well
deedes."
With the religious motive thus weakened the artist seems to have
interested himself chiefly in the technical side of his art,--he may
even have talked of "Art for Art's sake,"--and the usual result
follows. The lack of the underlying and unifying motive produces a
want of proportion in the parts. The canopies become much more
important than the figures under them; narrative subjects become much
more rare, and when they occur have none of the dramatic intensity of
those of the past age. Instead we have an endless series of single
figures of saints, without character and each in exactly the same
affected attitude, like an elongated letter S. In search of
inspiration the artist turns to the study of nature and the literal
reproduction of plant forms in ornament. In the figures too, although
the attitudes are conventional the drawing of drapery is less so, and
towards the end of the period the artist is tentatively feeling his
way towards modelling.
[Sidenote: Progress in technique.]
One thing indeed we find during this time, which is within the power
of every artist in times of artistic dearth, namely, a steady
grappling with practical problems offered by the changed conditions,
whereby the way was cleared for the new life that came into the art in
the succeeding age. For instance, by showing how coloured figure work
could be combined with grisaille in the same window they solved the
problem of lighting; by the invention of the silver stain they made it
possible to make white glass more interesting and to blend it better
with colour; while in drawing they made steady progress towards a
style more in keeping with the standards of the time.
[Sidenote: Characteristics.]
The outward and visible characteristics of this period as compared
with the preceding one are as follows:--
(1) The simplification of the iron-work.
(2) The invention and use of silver stain.
(3) The combination of figure work and grisaille.
(4) The extraordinary development of the canopy.
(5) The style of drawing the figure.
(6) The use of natural plant forms in ornament.
(7) The quality of the glass, and the colours used.
(8) The use of painted diaper patterns on the coloured backgrounds.
* * * * *
[Illustration: PLATE XXIII
ST. BARNABAS, FROM CLERESTORY OF NAVE OF ST. PIERRE, CHARTRES
Early Fourteenth Century]
[Sidenote: Tracery]
[Sidenote: The iron-work.]
(1) _The Simplification of the Iron-Work._--The windows of the twelfth
century had been huge single lights, but the thirteenth century had
seen the gradual evolution of tracery, beginning with the grouping of
lancets in pairs under a rose light above. Gradually each lancet was
again subdivided into a pair of lights and a rose, the spandrils were
pierced, till, at the close of the century, the glazier had to design
his window to fit a row of narrow lancets divided by slender mullions,
which above branched into an elaborate mass of tracery containing a
multitude of roses, quatrefoils, trefoils and little openings of
all shapes and sizes. With this division of the window into
comparatively narrow lights the need for the elaborate iron lattice of
the preceding age disappeared, its work being now largely taken up by
the stone-work. Instead of lights from six to nine feet wide the
glazier had now to deal with lights three and a half feet wide at
most, and often much narrower, and in consequence all that was
necessary was a series of horizontal bars connecting the mullions,
which themselves take the place of the upright bars of former days. In
windows of this time, then, and later, massive rebated bars are fixed
horizontally in the stone-work at intervals of between three and four
feet, and these with the mullions really form the framework into the
square openings of which the panels of the glazing were inserted
separately. Between, and parallel with, these massive bars, three or
four light "saddle-bars" are fixed on the inside of the glass, which
keep the panel in its place, the glass being attached to them by means
of strips of lead (called bands) soldered to the lead-work of the
glazing and twisted round the bar. In order to distinguish between the
massive rebated bars which hold the top and bottom of each panel and
these light bars between, I shall speak of the former as "frame-bars,"
the latter by the name they still hold, of "saddle-bars."
The only change from this arrangement which has been made in modern
times (except for the use of copper wire instead of lead for the
"bands") is the omission of the stout frame-bar, the whole of the
weight of the window being now borne by its edges and the saddle-bars.
Not only is this arrangement less sound in construction but it is also
far less decorative. The thick bars at intervals with thin bars
between punctuate the length of the tall windows pleasantly, and are
made use of in the design, which in this way is still based on the
iron-work. In a recent disastrous "restoration" that was made of one
of the windows in the nave of York, the glass was refixed with
saddle-bars all of equal size and the thick frames omitted, and it is
wonderful how the eye misses them.
This arrangement was, of course, only used in windows above a certain
size, in quite small lights the saddle-bars alone being considered
sufficient. It was not, I think, an uncommon arrangement for the
uppermost bar at all events--that at the springing of the arch--to
pass continuously through all the mullions and bind them together.
[Sidenote: Silver stain.]
(2) _The Invention of Silver Stain._--In the early years of the
fourteenth century an important addition was made to the technical
resources of the glass painter by the discovery that if white glass is
painted with a preparation of silver--oxide or chloride may be used,
or even silver in its metallic form, though that is less
convenient--and then subjected to the heat of the kiln, the parts so
painted will be found to be stained yellow, pale or dark according to
the amount of silver used and according also to the composition of the
glass. This is a process quite different from enamelling. It is a true
_stain_, actually penetrating the glass to a slight degree and quite
indelible except by the perishing of the glass itself. The oxide or
chloride of silver is only mixed with other substances, such as yellow
lake, for convenience of application.
[Sidenote: Its first appearance.]