THE DESIGN OF EARLY GLASS.
Design in glass developed itself on lines almost parallel to the
progress of technique. Each, of course, affected the other--how and why
it is now proposed to show.
It is not intended at present to say more than is absolutely necessary
about "Style," in the historic sense--that is reserved for a chapter by
itself--but, as it is convenient to refer to a period of design by its
name, it will be as well at this stage briefly to enumerate the historic
"Periods."
Glass follows, inevitably, the style of architecture of the period.
Accordingly it is divided broadly into Gothic and Renaissance. Gothic,
in its turn, is divided by Rickman (who first attempted to discriminate
between the styles of architecture in England) into three periods.
Winston, who did for English glass what Rickman did for English
architecture, adopts his classification as follows:--Early Gothic--to
about 1280. Decorated Gothic--to about 1380. Perpendicular Gothic--to
about 1530.
Renaissance art has been classified in Italy according to the century,
and in France has been named after the reigning sovereign--François
Premier, Henri Deux, and so on. In England also we make use of the terms
Tudor, Elizabethan, Jacobean, and the like. No one, however, has
attempted to draw subtle distinctions between the periods of Renaissance
glass, for the obvious reason that the best of it was done within a
comparatively short period, and the rest is not of much account. It is
enough, therefore, to mark off two divisions of Renaissance glass. The
first (which overlaps the latest Gothic) may be called Sixteenth
Century, or by the Italian name Cinque-Cento, or simply Renaissance;
whilst the second, which includes seventeenth century and later work, is
sufficiently described as Late glass.
The development of style in other countries was not quite parallel with
its march on this side of the water. The French were always in advance
of us, whether in Gothic or Renaissance; the Germans lagged behind, at
all events in Gothic; but the pace is equal enough for us to group
windows generally into three Gothic and two Renaissance periods--Early,
Middle, and Late Gothic; Early and Late Renaissance. If we do that it
will concern us less, that Early German work is more Romanesque than
Gothic, that Late French work is not Perpendicular but Flamboyant, and
so on.
The accepted classification is determined mainly by the character of the
architectural or ornamental detail of the design. Such architectural or
other detail--that of costume, for example--is of the very greatest use
as a clue to the date of glass. That is a question of archæology; but it
is not so much the dates that artists or workmen have to do with as with
the course of craftsmanship, the development of art. It is convenient
for us to mark here and there a point where art or workmanship has
clearly reached a new stage; it gives us breathing time, a
starting-point on some fresh voyage of discovery; but such points need
be few. The less we bother ourselves by arbitrary subdivisions of style
the better; and Winston himself allows that his divisions are arbitrary.
The student need not very seriously concern himself about dates or
names. People are much too anxious to get a term for everything, and
when they can use the term glibly they fancy they know all about the
thing. It is no doubt easier to commit to memory a few names and a few
dates than to know anything about a craft; but the one accomplishment
will not do in place of the other. A very little real knowledge of art
or practical workmanship will lead you to suspect, what is the truth,
that there is a good deal of fee-fi-fo-fum about the jargon of styles.
It is handy to talk of old work as belonging to this or that broadly
marked historic period; and it is well worth the while of any one
interested in the course of art to master the characteristics of style.
The student should master them as a matter of course; but he must not
take the consideration of period for more than it is worth. Really we
give far too much attention to these fashions of bygone days--fashions,
it must be allowed, on a more or less colossal scale, compared to ours,
but still only fashions.
It is proposed then to allude here only so far to the styles as may be
necessary to explain the progress of design, and especially the design
of stained glass windows.
In dividing Gothic into Early, Middle, and Late Gothic, corresponding
roughly with the thirteenth, fourteenth, and fifteenth centuries, it is
not forgotten that there is an earlier Gothic of the twelfth and perhaps
eleventh centuries, more or less reminiscent of the Romanesque period
preceding it; but English glass begins, to all intents and purposes,
with the thirteenth century, and even in France there is not a very
great quantity of characteristically earlier glass. What there is
differs from thirteenth century work mainly in the Romanesque character
of the figure drawing and ornamental detail, in its deliberately simple
composition, and in the spontaneity of its design. The glazier was still
feeling his way. Any composition to be found in a Byzantine
ivory-carving, enamel, illuminated manuscript, or what not, might just
as well occur in glass. The more familiar types of early Gothic window
design had not yet settled down into orthodoxy. The lines on which the
oldest windows extant were set out are in the main those of the
thirteenth century also. They were more or less suggested by the shape
of the window opening, which, it will be seen, had always had a good
deal to say as to the direction glass design should take.
[Illustration: 58. POITIERS.]
The window openings in Romanesque or Norman-French churches were single
lights, round or pointed arched, rather broad in proportion to their
width. Stained glass, it has been explained, has to be held in its place
by copper wires, soldered to the leadwork, and attached to iron bars let
into the masonry for that purpose. In the case of a very narrow lancet,
such bars would naturally be placed at convenient intervals across the
opening. But for the most part windows were the reverse of narrow, and
the horizontal bars had to be supplemented by vertical stanchions, so
that the window space was divided into rectangular divisions. As a
matter of construction the glass was made in panels, corresponding to
these, and attached to them. It is not surprising, therefore, that these
divisions should often have been accepted as part of the design, or that
the design of the glass should to some extent have followed them. On
page 113 is the skeleton of the upper part of a twelfth century window.
The strong black lines in the diagram show the bars, the finer ones
indicate the main divisions of the design of the glass. It will be seen
that the four strips into which the upright bars divide the window are
not equal, but that the outer divisions are narrower than the inner, so
as to accommodate themselves to the width of the border. Naturally that
was determined always by the proportion of the window; such borders
measured often one-sixth part, or more, of the entire width. The way in
which the central circular shape in the glass breaks across in front of
the border is an instance of the spontaneity and unexpectedness of
design characteristic of the earliest existing work; later one series of
forms would repeat themselves without interruption throughout the length
of the window. When, as above, the centre of a window is occupied by a
great crucifix, or, as below, other such irregularity occurs, it is safe
to conclude that the glass, if not prior to the thirteenth century,
belongs to its first years. It is characteristic of the very early date
of the glass that the bars in the diagrams given do not go out of their
way to follow the outline of the circles, vesicas, quatrefoils, and
other shapes, but on occasion cut relentlessly across them.
[Illustration: 59. POITIERS EAST WINDOW. (Compare with 24.)]
[Illustration: 60. POITIERS, NORTH TRANSEPT.]
The filling out of such a skeleton as those given would in many respects
be much the same in the eleventh, twelfth, or thirteenth century; and
in each case it would be in direct pursuance of the traditions of Early
Christian design. You may see in Byzantine ivories and enamels precisely
the kind of thing that was done in glass; and in the Romanesque
Michaelis Kirche at Hildesheim, is a painted roof, the design of which
might have been carried out, just as it is, in a giant window.
[Illustration: 61. BORDER, ANGERS.]
[Illustration: 62. BORDER, ANGERS.]
The main divisions of the centre part of such a window would each
contain its little "subject" or glass picture; the border and the
interstices between the pictures would be occupied with foliated
ornament; only, the earlier the work, the more pronounced would be the
Romanesque character, alike of the ornament and the figure work. The
broad borders from Angers, above, and the narrower one from Le Mans
(page 327) differ materially from the accepted thirteenth century type
(page 117). Witness how in the Angers glass the stalks of the foliage
frame little panels in the border, and how in the Le Mans work the
stalks take the form of straps, patterned with painted ornament. This
elaboration of the stalks with painted zig-zag, pearlwork, and so on, is
precisely the kind of thing one sees in Byzantine carving and inlay.
The very early spandril from Angers, below, if not markedly Romanesque
in character is yet not of the distinctively Early Gothic type.
[Illustration: 63. ANGERS.]
The shape of each medallion would be emphasised by a series of coloured
lines or fillets framing it. In quite early work the broader of these
would be broken up into blocks of alternating colour; they would be
patterned probably (which in the thirteenth century they would probably
not be), and altogether the effect of the ornament would be more
jewelled. One of these broken and patterned margins is shown in the
vesica-shaped framing to the figure on page 37--belonging, by the way,
to the window given in skeleton on page 114.
The difference between twelfth and thirteenth century pictures is in the
lingering of Byzantine traditions of design in the earlier work, and in
the strictly simple disposition of the figures _en silhouette_ against
the background, as well as in the way the drapery is wrapped closely
round them, so that the figure always explains itself. There is an
expression and a "go" about some of the earliest figures for which we
look in vain later in the thirteenth century. The figures of the
Apostles from the Ascension at Le Mans on page 33 are altogether more
alive than the thirteenth century bishops, for example, on page 276, who
seem by comparison tame and altogether respectable. A certain
exaggeration there is, no doubt, about the action of these earliest
figures, a certain brutality of rendering, as there is also a certain
barbaric quality in the ornament, and, indeed, in the whole effect; but
of its superlative richness there is no manner of doubt. One is even led
to speculate, when one compares it with later work, whether a certain
barbaric character of design does not go to that unrivalled brilliancy.
In the absolute glory of rich colour the very earliest glass has never
been equalled. The advance of glass painting was at the cost of this,
perhaps barbaric, quality.
[Illustration: 64. EARLY ORNAMENT, SALISBURY.]
In the earliest windows the subjects were not invariably enclosed in
medallions; sometimes the square lines of the bars would be accepted
as division enough; these would be framed with lines of colour, and the
design of the portion of the window within the border would consist (as
occasionally at Chartres) of a series of square subjects, each with its
marginal lines, ranged one above the other. For the most part, however,
the design of the earliest richly coloured windows extant took the shape
of little pictures in panels or medallions. Another favourite scheme was
to delineate the Tree of Jesse. The upper portion of such a window is
given on page 117; but further consideration of Jesse windows is
reserved for a separate chapter.
[Illustration: 65. S. REMI, REIMS.]
From the earliest period, no doubt, clerestory or other lights were
often occupied each with a separate figure standing upright; but such of
these as may remain in their places are not readily distinguishable from
thirteenth century work; and the undoubtedly earlier figures--such, for
example, as those in S. Remi at Reims--have been re-set in framework
more or less old, but so as not to tell us anything very authentic about
the setting out of the original windows. Again at Augsburg, where the
figures in the clerestory are said to be the oldest in Germany (to
belong, in fact, to about the year 1000), the windows are bordered with
modern glazing in white. At Reims we have very rudely drawn figures in
rich colour against a deep background, standing with splayed feet upon
little rounds or half rings of colour, representing the earth, their
names inscribed in bold lettering, which forms a band of yellow behind
their heads. At Augsburg the figures, equally rude in drawing, equally
splay-footed, are in white and colour upon a white ground. They stand
upon little hemispheres of Byzantine ornament, and their names are writ
large in black letters upon the white glass around their heads.
Presumably they were framed in a border of pattern work similar to that
surrounding the medallion windows. The ornamental work in the windows at
S. Remi may not always have formed part of the same window with the
figure work--it does not go very happily with it now--but it is probably
of about the same date; and it illustrates, together with some similar
work at S. Denis, near Paris (so "thoroughly restored" as to have lost
its historic value), a kind of pattern work peculiar to the earliest
glass.
As a rule, early glass divides itself naturally into two classes: work
in rich colour, which is what we have hitherto been discussing, and work
in "grisaille," as it is called; that is to say, in which the glass is
chiefly white, or whitish, relieved only here and there by a line or a
jewel of colour.
Occasionally, as at Auxerre, Reims, and Poitiers, rich figure work is
found set in grisaille or framed by it; and in some fragments from
Châlons, now at the _Musée des Arts Décoratifs_ at Paris, coloured
figures are found on a white ground.
You find also in France rich colour-work surrounded by white glass--the
work of a period when the powers that were became possessed of the idea
that they must lighten the interior of their churches, and accordingly
removed so much of the coloured glass as seemed good to their ignorance,
and replaced it with plain glazing. But, as a rule, and apart from the
tinkering of the latter-day ecclesiastic, rich colour and grisaille were
kept apart in early mediæval churches; that is to say, a coloured window
has not enough white in it perceptibly to affect the depth and richness
of its colour, nor a grisaille window enough colour to disturb the
general impression of white light. At Reims and S. Denis, however, you
find ornament in which white and colour are so evenly balanced that they
belong to neither category. The amount of colour introduced into
grisaille was never at any time a fixed quantity; one has to allow
something for the predilection of the artist; but here the amount of
colour makes itself so distinctly felt that the term grisaille no longer
serves to express it.
The design of these patterns was of a rather mechanical type (pages 35,
118, 120) and not in any case very interesting; but it would have been
difficult under any circumstances to produce a very satisfactory effect
by so equally balancing white and colour. The designer falls between two
stools. The well-known gryphon medallions at S. Denis seem at first to
promise something rather amusing in design, but there is no variety in
them:--and no wonder! the greater number of them prove to be new, and
they have all been rearranged by Viollet le Duc. That is as much as to
say, some of the gryphons are of Abbot Suger's time, but the design of
the window is Viollet le Duc's. White and colour are again too evenly
mixed in the heavy-looking English glass at Lincoln shown on page 121,
but that is of the thirteenth century.
It need hardly be said that the earlier the work, the simpler was the
character of the painting, the more deliberately was pigment reserved
for painting out the light, the more strictly was the shading in lines.
But the painted detail was often small; glass was used in small pieces;
subjects themselves were ordinarily small in scale. The largeness of
effect was due first to the actual simplicity of the main lines of the
design, and then to breadth of colour, a breadth of colour all the more
remarkable seeing the small pieces of glass of which the broad surfaces
were of necessity made up.
Of course, too, the earlier the work the more the design was influenced
by the technique of glazing, the more clearly it can be seen how the
glazier designed (as was explained on page 44) in lead lines, and only
made use of paint to fill them out.
[Illustration: 66. S. REMI, REIMS.]
In twelfth century glass the white was greenish and rather horny in
texture; ruby was sometimes streaky, and often tawny or inclined to
orange; blue varied from deep indigo to pale grey, occasionally it was
of the colour of turquoise; yellow, dark or pale, was usually brassy;
green ranged from bluish to pale apple, and from dull to emerald. These
colours, with a rich brownish-purple, the lighter shades of which served
always as flesh tint, made up the glazier's palette. Happily there was
considerable inequality of colour in the material. It deepened, for
example, towards the selvage of the sheet where it was thickest; it had
streaks and bubbles in it; no two batches ever came out of the pot quite
alike; and altogether the rudely made pot-metal was chemically most
imperfect and artistically all that glass should be.
[Illustration: 67. LINCOLN.]
It would be rash in the extreme to formulate any theory as to early
schemes of colour; probably the glazier's main thought was to get
somehow a deep, rich, solemn effect of colour. He secured this very
often by not confusing his tints, and by allowing a single colour so to
predominate that the window impressed you at once as bluish or greenish
or reddish in tone. He was on the whole happiest when he kept his colour
cool; but he produced also red windows which are never to be forgotten.
In the cathedral at Poitiers, where many of the beautiful medallion
windows belong to the very early part of the thirteenth century, the
scheme is usually to adopt a blue background, alike for the medallions
and for the spaces between, relying upon a broad band of ruby, edged
with white pearling, to mark the medallion shapes, which it effectively
does; but these are not the most beautiful windows in the church. One
recognises their date rather by the individuality and spontaneity of the
design than by any distinctly Romanesque character in the detail. It
should be mentioned, also, that at Poitiers, even in windows which seem
not so emphatically to belong to the very beginning of the century, the
early practice of using only straight upright and cross bars is adhered
to. There may be something of local conservatism in that.
[Illustration: 68. BARS IN EARLY MEDALLION WINDOWS.]