There is hardly a religious edifice in existence where so many periods
of glass are represented by such uniformly good examples as in St.
Maurice Cathedral at Angers. In a former visit (see page 55) we observed
that its nave contains the greatest amount of twelfth century work which
any French church can show and also that in its choir and transepts
there are many fine medallion windows of the thirteenth century. Now we
will take up the really gorgeous fifteenth century glass, beginning with
the two large west windows of the north transept. So elaborated and full
of architectural detail are they that their canopies alone occupy more
than half the entire window space. We have generally seen the canopy
used only as a frame, but here there is more frame than picture! Each of
these two windows contains four niches enclosing brilliantly-hued
figures, two in the lower half and two in the upper half of each window.
The glass forming the canopy part is much deeper in tone than we have
been accustomed to find, having a strong greenish shade similar to that
found in many English fourteenth century canopies (as, for example,
those in New College Chapel, Oxford). We have noted before that English
glass is generally more highly coloured in the fourteenth than in the
fifteenth century, but the contrary is true in France, where the
fourteenth is much softer in tone than that found in the next century.
These windows provide a case in point. It is perhaps well that they are
so strongly toned, for even as it is, they seem rather pale in
comparison with the early medallion windows all around them. The
embrasures which they fill were built in the thirteenth century and are
therefore larger than those generally found in the fifteenth; the
extremely strong saddle bars necessary to support this great weight of
glass are so noticeable to the observer that they seem to isolate the
panels containing the figures and thus hurt the frame effect of the
canopy. Perhaps the pilgrim will find this comment is hypercritical, for
the windows are undoubtedly very effective. They were given by Bishop
Jean-Michel about 1440.
One is naturally curious to see the work done by an artist in his home
town, for if not of his best, it is apt to be typical and show the
influence which his natural environment exercised upon him. For this
reason we turn with considerable interest to see what was accomplished
by Andre Robin, when called in 1452 to reglaze the rose windows of the
transepts. The stone traceries had been constructed in the thirteenth
century, and though it is difficult to adapt later glass to earlier
framework, the result here has been very successful, much more so than,
for example, in the case of the west rose of the Ste. Chapelle in Paris.
In the north rose window Robin put the Resurrection. Christ is in the
centre and from Him there radiate sixteen elongated panes bearing yellow
and blue angels. The resurrected dead are shown in the act of pushing up
the covers of their tombs, a conventional method of representing them.
Above are little scenes illustrating the occupations of each month of
the year. Upon the south rose there appear the signs of the zodiac, and
below them the Elders of the Apocalypse. In these Elders we may trace a
reference to the splendid set of Apocalypse tapestries which hang around
the interior. The most northerly window on the east side of the transept
is also by Robin. The subject is the Crucifixion, and it was finished in
1499. In Angers there is yet another set of fifteenth century windows,
and to see them we must go to the little church of St. Serge, in whose
choir we have already studied the charming twelfth century grisaille.
These windows are of the canopy type and are placed in the nave
clerestory. There are three on each side, the two westerly ones being of
three broad lancets each and the easterly one of two lancets. The colour
contrasts are good and the architecture in the canopy framing very
convincing, both in size and adjustment.