no means of knowing. We may dismiss the story of the glazier from
whose coat a silver button dropped on to the glass he was putting into
the kiln, partly because the artist of whom the story is told, one
James of Ulm, who worked in Italy and was beatified after his death,
was not born till more than a hundred years later. It appears in York
Minster, used very sparingly and tentatively, soon after 1300. I am
not sure that there are any examples in France that can be dated
quite so early, but it was certainly used there by 1310. Its first use
was limited to such matters as differentiating the hair, or gold
crowns, of figures from their faces, but the nave windows of York
Minster show a progressive increase in its use. Yellow pot-metal is
there still used for the larger pieces of yellow in the canopy, but an
examination of the details in Plates XVII., XVIII. will show that
stain is used in places to gild the crockets of the white pinnacles,
the beak and claws of the white eagle in the border of XVII.c, and the
flowers in the lower part of the border in XVII.a. The pieces that are
yellow all over may, I think, be assumed to be pot-metal. It is not,
however, till one gets well on in the century, to 1330 or 1340, that
one finds such a free use of the stain in the grisaille as that in the
windows at St. Ouen at Rouen, of which the detail is given in Plates
XXVI.-XXX.
[Sidenote: Combination of figures and grisaille.]
(3) _The Combination of Figures and Grisaille._--This is one of the
most noticeable developments of the period. As I have said, it is
occasionally attempted in the preceding style towards the close of the
period, but in the fourteenth century it is the rule. Small windows
are sometimes still filled entirely with colour, but nearly every
window of any size, especially in the early part of the century,
contains a large proportion of grisaille. In the nave of the Church of
St. Pierre at Chartres (Plate XXIII.) the same principle is followed
as in the earlier work in the choir, namely, the arranging of the
figure-work and grisaille so as to form vertical stripes of alternate
white and colour. This plan, however, was not persisted in. The
numerous vertical lines formed by the mullions in the newer style of
architecture required horizontal lines to balance them, and
accordingly we find the usual method in fourteenth century windows is
for the coloured masses to be ranged in horizontal bands running right
across the window through all the lights. Plate XXV. from St. Ouen at
Rouen shows a very typical window of the period. Sometimes there was,
as here, one row of coloured panels, sometimes two or more as in the
nave of York Minster. It will be noticed that in order to blend the
white and colour satisfactorily the designer includes a good deal of
white among the colour and a good deal of colour among the white. This
latter is no longer dispersed through the white in coloured threads,
half suspected, but is collected into bosses and borders where its
effect is strong enough to support the principal masses. In fact the
key-note of the design--namely, the strong contrast of light and dark
in flat masses, necessitated by the combination of colour and
grisaille--is repeated everywhere in detail throughout the window of
which the parts are thus brought into harmony with the whole.
[Sidenote: The borders.]
This same idea leads to a complete change in the character of the
borders. The running scroll work of the preceding age would no longer
be appropriate; the vertical lines need breaking rather than
emphasizing, and the design of the border usually takes the form of
alternate blocks of colour and white or yellow. Plate XXVIII. shows
some typical borders from Rouen, borders typical of English as well as
French work. It will be noticed that the coloured pieces are usually
left blank while the white and yellow are decorated with patterns or
foliage blocked out with solid black. The ornament of the tracery
lights, which by the way are usually kept pretty full of colour, is
designed on the same principle. It consists, in fact, of borders
tightly curled up with, sometimes, in the larger lights, a figure or a
small coloured medallion in the centre containing a head.
[Sidenote: The bosses.]
The intervals formed by the regular spacing of the thick iron
frame-bars are further emphasized by the placing of a coloured boss
or small medallion midway between each. This arrangement in some form
or other is almost universal in fourteenth century grisaille, the
panels contained between the frame-bars being in fact the units of the
design. Some of these bosses from Rouen are shown in Plates XXVI.,
XXVII., XXIX. Here they are purely fantastic in design, but elsewhere,
as at York, they frequently have an heraldic motive or even take the
form of shields of arms (Plate XVIII.). Heraldic motives are very
commonly used too in the borders, as may be seen in the details from
York Minster in Plate XVII., the charges from the shield being
repeated all up the border, relieved against, or sometimes alternating
with blocks of the colour of the field. Symbolic objects such as
chalices are sometimes used in the same way, and occasionally we find
borders formed of a succession of little figures under canopies, as in
the very elaborate example from York in Plate XVIII.
[Illustration: PLATE XXIV
ST. LUKE, FROM CHOIR CLERESTORY OF ST. OUEN, ROUEN
Fourteenth Century]
[Sidenote: Quarries.]
As the century proceeds quarries become much the commonest form of
grisaille. In Plates XXV., XXVI. they are true quarries, but in the
first quarter of the fourteenth century they are sometimes, as, for
instance, at York, "bulged" round the central boss, thus forming a
sort of cross between quarries and geometric glazing. Grisaille
glazed in geometric patterns such as we find at Merton College, at
Evreux, and in St. Pierre at Chartres belongs, I think, always to
quite the early years of the period, and even then, as may be seen in
Plate XXIII., it shows a decided leaning towards quarry-work, and
indeed needs little but the straightening of the leads to convert it
into quarries altogether.
Continuous painted patterns are now the rule, as shown in Plate XXVI.
The cross-hatched grounds disappear, and presently the silver stain is
used (as here) to enrich the painting. It will be noticed that the
trellis-like pattern produced by painting lines parallel to the
leading is still retained.
[Sidenote: The canopy.]
(4) _The Extraordinary Development of the Canopy._--As we have seen,
single figures in the preceding period, even at Canterbury, usually
had architectural canopies of an unobtrusive kind, of similar design
to the sculptured niches which sheltered the statues on the outside of
the building. The motive for their adoption by the glazier at this
date is not very obvious. They do not in the Early Period form a very
important feature in the design, and serve no decorative purpose that
the artist could not equally well have attained by the flat
ornamentation of which he was a master. However, the glazier seems to
have liked the idea when he saw it in stone-work, where it had a
practical object, and to have imported it into his own work, where it
had none. It must be remembered that when the sculpture was painted in
colours, as it was then, the resemblance between it and the stained
glass would have been closer than it is now.
However this may be, the canopy in the thirteenth century was a
comparatively unobtrusive object, but in the fourteenth century, as
the sculptured canopy grew and developed, so did its counterpart in
stained glass, till the stained-glass worker seems to have run canopy
mad. Not only is it now found over single figures but over subjects
too.
It is true there was now a certain practical reason for the tall
canopy to be found in the tall and narrow shape of the lights that had
to be filled. The human figure was very short and broad in proportion
to them, and when it was a case of a group the resulting shape was
shorter still, so the canopy offered a convenient way of elongating
the design; but the fourteenth century designer developed it, as may
be seen in the illustrations, out of all reason, filling it with
fantastic detail--angels looking out of the windows, birds perching on
the pinnacles, and miniature figures standing like statues in the
niches of it--till it quite reduced the figures below it to
insignificance. In doing so he was only following the rest of the
artistic world, which had all gone wild over the new style of
architecture,--with its "passion of pinnacle and fret," as Ruskin
called it,--using its details as motives for ornament even where they
were least appropriate; but all this expenditure of effort on
fantastic and irrelevant detail is really a symptom of the weakening
of interest in the principal theme, of which a further sign is the
uninteresting treatment of the subjects themselves.
The fourteenth century canopy is, at first at least, always in pure
elevation, attempts at perspective not being found till close on the
end of the century. Plate XXV. shows both of the forms which are most
commonly found, that with a single big crocketted gable and arch
spanning the opening, and that with three small ones. I think the
former is the earlier form, but they are often, as here, found
together.
[Sidenote: The base.]
In the earlier part of the century at all events, there is never an
architectural base to the panel as well as a canopy, but both subject
and the shafts of the canopy end off below with a straight line at one
of the frame-bars. The earliest examples of anything in the nature of
a base that I know of are at Wells and in the great east window of
Gloucester Cathedral, where the topmost pinnacle of each canopy
spreads out into a sort of bracket supporting the next figure above,
while the shafts at the side are prolonged upwards into the canopy of
that figure, an arrangement suggestive of Perpendicular work. But
indeed in its general arrangement, though not in its details, the
Gloucester east window, though executed in 1350-1360, contains many
hints of the style that was to follow, the stone tracery, in fact,
being pure Perpendicular, perhaps the earliest example known.
The canopy work itself is always in the main yellow or white, relieved
against a coloured background, and with windows, capitals and other
details put in with another colour. In the aisle windows of the nave
of York Cathedral, the coloured background, and, at first, the
pinnacles of the canopy too, end off square at the top, at one of the
frame-bars, just as the panel does at the bottom. As the series
proceeds, however, the central pinnacles, as in the "Peter de Dene"
window, of which details are given in Plate XVIII., are prolonged
above the bar, a tendency which became more and more developed as time
went on. In the big window from St. Ouen's at Rouen, shown in Plate
XXV., the coloured background, by a rather inept arrangement, is also
brought up behind the pinnacles, and has to end in a somewhat
meaningless outline.
At first the yellow of the canopies was obtained by the use of a
yellow glass, a "pot-metal" (_i.e._ a glass coloured all through in
the making) of a not very pleasant colour, but gradually this was
superseded by the use of silver stain, by means of which a much
lighter and more delicate effect could be obtained. Its introduction
was gradual, however, the artist having to feel his way towards the
best use of it. As its use increased, coloured glass was less and less
used for details of the canopy, the character of which gradually
approached more and more to that which it was to have in the following
period.
In some of the very earliest windows of the period, such as those in
Merton College Chapel and in the chapels of the choir in Evreux
Cathedral, small coloured panels, with canopies of quite modest and
reasonable proportions, are used to decorate large spaces of
grisaille. The growth of the canopy began very soon, however, and
where these small canopies are found together with geometric glazing
of the grisaille and a complete absence of silver stain, it is fairly
safe to assign a date to the window not much later than 1305.
[Sidenote: Figures on quarries.]
Curiously enough, in spite of the fourteenth century fondness for
elaborate canopies, we find at the same time another type of window in
which they are wholly absent, the figures being placed simply upon a
background of quarries. Plate XXIV., one of a series from the
clerestory of St. Ouen at Rouen, is an example of this. Here the
figures stand, it is true, on little architectural bases (an exception
to the rule I mentioned just now), but elsewhere these too are absent.
[Sidenote: The S-like pose.]
(5) _The Style of Drawing the Figure._--The chief characteristic of
this in fourteenth century work is its apparent affectation. There
seems to have been a sudden revolt from the taste for dramatic force
of action which characterized the subject panels of the thirteenth
century. Look at Plate XXXI. from Rouen, with its three little panels
showing the Annunciation and the Visitation. In each the figure is in
exactly the same pose, and that a perfectly meaningless one, like an
elongated letter S. Yet this pose seems to have become all the
fashion, for it is almost universal in the work of this period, and is
found even in such transitional work as the east windows of the
antechapel of New College, Oxford, which, in other respects, belong
far more to the succeeding period.
Yet in spite of this loss of naturalism in movement, in the actual
drawing of forms, both of the figure and of drapery, there is an
advance. If you will compare St. Luke from the clerestory of St. Ouen
at Rouen in Plate XXIV. with Methuselah from Canterbury in Plate III.,
you will see the change that has occurred. St. Luke has far less
character and force, he is far less alive, his pose and gesture mean
nothing, or at most are mildly argumentative, and yet there is a
certain sense in which he, and still more his drapery, is better
drawn, or if not better, at all events in a more advanced manner. This
is more noticeable if you compare St. Luke or the little figures in
Plate XXX. with the big angel from Chartres in Plate X., which is not
so well drawn as the Methuselah.
[Illustration: PLATE XXV
WINDOW WITH LIFE OF ST. GERVAIS, FROM SOUTH CHOIR AISLE, ST. OUEN,
ROUEN
Fourteenth Century]
[Sidenote: The effort towards grace of form.]
The fact is that the twelfth and thirteenth century convention in
figure drawing had served its turn well, but was now worn out.
Deriving, originally, as we have seen, out of Greek art in its
Byzantine form, it had formed a stock on which the artist of the Early
Period had been able to graft his own observation and love of nature,
but it had now ceased to satisfy and was therefore abandoned. The
progress of drawing in other arts, or at all events in sculpture, had
taught men to demand something different. The artist of the late
thirteenth century, as the last influence of Greek art died out of his
work, had undoubtedly neglected grace of form in his enthusiasm for
vigorous and naturalistic movement; and, as so often happens when one
quality in art is neglected, a reaction had come, in which people
demanded that quality above all others. Consequently, the chief effort
of the draughtsman of the fourteenth century, if I understand him
rightly, was to bring his drawing of form up to the standard required
of him, the S-like attitude, for instance, being merely a trick to get
a willowy gracefulness into his figures, especially those of women.
The same tendency is observable in the drawing of drapery. The drapery
of the thirteenth century was entirely conventional in the method in
which it was drawn, but it was always in movement and helped the
action of the figures. Fourteenth century drapery, on the other hand,
is always at rest, or at most sweeping with the slow movement of a
figure, but its folds are drawn in a much more advanced manner than
before, and seem to bear evidence of a certain amount of direct study
of actual drapery, either on the part of the artist or of those whom
he was following. The ideal of gracefulness shows itself in a love for
long and sweeping folds, as may be seen in Plates XXIV., XXX., XXXI.
At first the artist is content to use in his drawing the strong line
work of the preceding period, but as the century proceeds this becomes
rather more delicate, and he begins to feel his way towards modelling
in half-tones. The drapery over the Virgin's knees in Plate XXI. shows
this very clearly.
[Illustration: PLATE XXVI
GRISAILLE PATTERN AND BOSS FROM PLATE XXV]
[Sidenote: Neglect of movement.]
With this preoccupation with the truer rendering of form, it is
perhaps not surprising that the study of action was neglected. The
artist had enough to do to draw his figures and drapery in repose
without making them move about and do things, and a contributory cause
was, no doubt, the weakening of interest already alluded to in
the subjects he had to illustrate. This then is why, whereas in the
thirteenth century we find a highly conventional rendering of form
allied to naturalism in movement, in the fourteenth, conversely, we
find conventional poses and movement allied to a more naturalistic
rendering of form.
Comparative study of the illuminated manuscripts of the same period
shows exactly the same changes in progress. So closely do the two arts
keep pace with each other that I do not think it can be said that at
any time either was leading the other. They must have been in very
close touch even if they were not, which it is quite possible they
often were, practised by the same artists. The lead, if there was a
lead, must have come from sculpture.
[Sidenote: Natural plant forms in ornament.]
(6) _The use of Natural Plant Forms in Ornament._--This is another
manifestation of the same spirit, and divides the work of the
fourteenth century most sharply from that both of the preceding and
following periods. The Jesse Trees, and the leafy scrolls and borders
of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries belong to no genus known to
botanists, but in the fourteenth century it seems as if the artist,
the inspiration of religion failing him, had sought it in a rather
literal study of Nature. Accordingly in the grisaille and borders of
this period we find patterns formed of oak leaves and acorns, ivy
leaves, maple, vine, and so on. Plate XXVI. is rather an exception in
that one cannot name the particular plant; but Plates XXVIII. and
XXIX. contain characteristic examples, and Plate XXI. shows a good
vine border from York, and some holly leaf grisaille.
Yet the feeling for Nature in these patterns does not go very deep.
The artist is, for instance, content to make the oak wreath and twine
itself as freely as the vine, and I always feel that his practice is
the result of theory rather than the spontaneous expression of love of
Nature. The earlier worker was really, I believe, more in tune with
Nature than his successor of the fourteenth century. He did not copy
her forms in ornament but he followed her principles. He did not copy
her forms, because she had taught him to design forms for himself.
Nature, it may be observed, does not adorn one object with copies of
another, hardly even when she gives her creatures protective colouring
and markings, but gives to each the patterning which suits it best. In
the same way the ornament of the twelfth and thirteenth century
artist is always perfectly suited to its purpose without distracting
one's attention; and when his subject requires him to represent a tree
or a bush,--such as the fig tree under which Nathanael sits, or the
thicket in which the ram is caught, at Canterbury,--though the foliage
is that of the shamrock, he knows how to make it grow and live better
than his fourteenth century successor. The waves, too, of the Flood in
Plate IV., conventional though they are, give a real sense of tossing
and stormy water.
[Sidenote: Change in material.]
[Sidenote: Fourteenth century colour schemes.]
(7) _The Quality of Glass and the Colours Used._--At first these
differ little from those used in the previous period, but as the
fourteenth century proceeds, the rich intense reds and blues, with
their "streakiness," their endless variety of tone and texture, which
makes each piece of glass a jewel with an individuality of its own,
and needing no enrichment, give way to glass of a thinner, flatter
quality. In Plate III. Mr. Saint has managed to catch and the printer
to reproduce something of the quality of these early blues. There is a
change too in the proportions of the colours used. The colour schemes
of the Early Period are almost always conceived on a basis of red and
blue, but now green and yellow become equally important; Plates XXI.,
XXII., for example, contain very little blue at all. The canopies when
not white are mainly yellow, and this alone is responsible for a very
large amount of yellow in the colour scheme--too much, in fact, as a
rule. The yellow used at first, till silver stain took its place, was,
as I have said, a rather hot unpleasant pot-metal. The green of the
First Period had been a rather sharp brilliant colour, used generally
in small quantities, and striking a high shrill note among the deep
reds and blues, like a clarionet in an orchestra. The typical green of
the fourteenth century, on the other hand, which is often used as a
background, is a greyer duller colour altogether. Plate XVI. and Plate
XXI. give a fairly good idea of its quality.
[Sidenote: White glass for flesh.]
Another change, which was the natural result, both of the increased
amount of white now used in windows and of the introduction of the
silver stain, was the gradual substitution of white glass in the flesh
of figures for the brownish pink formerly used. Its use afforded an
opportunity for getting white in amongst the colour, and so helping to
bind the design together, and the fact that the hair, crowns, and
mitres of figures could now be stained yellow, rendered it on the
whole the most suitable glass for the purpose, and we find it holding
the field down to the late sixteenth century, when a pinkish enamel
began to be used.
[Illustration: PLATE XXVII
BOSSES, FROM PLATE XXV]
[Sidenote: Painted diapers.]
(8) _The use of Painted Diaper Patterns on the Coloured
Backgrounds._--The red and blue backgrounds to the figures in the
twelfth and thirteenth centuries needed no further decoration. Their
own depth and quality was enough in itself, but the thinner, flatter
tones that succeeded them needed enriching and giving texture to, in
order to throw the figures up into proper relief; or so the fourteenth
century artist seems to have felt, for from the beginning we find his
backgrounds usually covered with a diaper painted in enamel.
The method is always the same; the ground having been covered with an
even coat of enamel, the pattern is scratched out clear with the point
of a stick or a brush handle. Plates XVI., XX., XXI. are typical
examples, and show in detail the kind of pattern that was used.
It is very rarely that we find anything of the kind in the previous
period. There is, as we have seen, an isolated and early example of it
at Canterbury, where a rather paler, poorer blue has been used than in
the other windows, but there it is more delicate than in the
fourteenth century, the pattern being scratched out of a very thin
semi-transparent mat of enamel; and it is found too in some late
thirteenth century windows in St. Urbain at Troyes, but in fourteenth
century work it is frequently met with even at the beginning of the
period, and by the end of the first quarter of the century it is the
rule, and remains so throughout the succeeding century as well.
[Illustration: PLATE XXVIII
BORDERS, FROM PLATE XXV]
IX
EARLY FOURTEENTH CENTURY GLASS IN ENGLAND
(MERTON COLLEGE AND EXETER)