Early window at Le Mans.
Almost the earliest glass, however, to which any date can be approximately assigned are the panels in Le Mans Cathedral,[4] which are illustrated by a sketch of Mr. Saint's in Plate I.
In a thirteenth century manuscript preserved at Le Mans it is recorded that Bishop Hoel, who occupied the See from A.D. 1081 to 1097, glazed the windows of the Cathedral with stained glass, "sumptuosa artis varietate," and it is just possible that this glass, which was found in 1850 scattered and glazed up among fragments of a later date, may be part of the glass referred to.
It seems to have formed the lower part of a window representing the Ascension, and consists of figures of the Virgin and the Twelve Apostles "gazing up into Heaven."
The arrangement is very simple. There seems to have been little or no ornament in the window, and the figures in white and coloured draperies, standing on conventionalized hillocks which represent the top of the "high mountain," are relieved against a background of plain colour in alternate panels of red and blue. In this window and for long afterwards the background represents nothing in nature, but merely serves the purpose of throwing up and isolating the figures.
As the glass is not in its original position, one can only guess at its original construction and design. All early windows, as I have said, consisted of separate leaded panels inserted into the openings of a massive metal framework, an arrangement which of necessity governed the design. In this case one would expect the six panels, with their differently coloured backgrounds, each to have filled a separate opening in the framework.
If this is so, however, the panels must have been somewhat cut down, since as at present glazed the limbs and drapery of the figures occasionally overlap into the neighbouring panels. I think it very probable indeed that the glass has been so cut down, and that the window at Poitiers, illustrated in Plate II., though of later date, gives a true idea of the original relation of these panels to the iron-work. It is probable too that the upper part of the Le Mans window was filled with a figure of the ascending Christ on the same plan as that of Poitiers. It is, indeed, only fair to say that the Poitiers window, which is of the end of the twelfth century, throws some doubt on the greater antiquity of that at Le Mans.
There is little or no ornament in the latter, and perhaps there was never much, though it may have once had simple borders between the panels and a rich border like that at Poitiers (not shown in the drawing) surrounding the whole. The technique followed in the painting is precisely that which obtained for nearly three hundred years after. That is to say, as far as possible the effect is obtained by glazing, and the features and folds of drapery are put in with strong, dark, sweeping lines of enamel. The style of the drawing, however, both in the figures and the drapery, is perhaps more purely Byzantine than any later work. The sweeping lines of the drapery are graceful and decorative, but the action of the figures is absolutely conventional. There is none of that feeling for motion which, expressed in line, gives so much vigour and animation to the subject windows of the thirteenth century.
In colour, however, which after all is the most important thing in a window, this glass is splendid, and for the quality of the material and the way in which it has resisted the attacks of time it is superior to much glass of a later date.
III
THE STYLE OF THE FIRST PERIOD
The three periods.
Stained glass from its birth to the Renaissance has been divided by Winston into three main periods, each having broad characteristics peculiar to itself, and which he named after the corresponding architectural styles, Early English, Decorated, and Perpendicular. As, however, these terms only apply to English work, and as the architectural styles do not altogether correspond in date with those of the glass, I prefer to speak simply of the First, Second, and Third Period.
The First lasts from the earliest examples almost to the end of the thirteenth century, and might be subdivided again into twelfth and thirteenth century work, between which there is a distinct difference.
The Second covers nearly the whole of the fourteenth century.
The Third lasts down to the end of the fifteenth century, by which time the influence of the classic Renaissance began to be felt in glasswork, but lingers on in belated examples well into the sixteenth.
Between each of these periods there is a very short transitional period lasting hardly a decade, and occupying the closing years of each century.
It must not be thought, however, that at any time design in stained glass stood still. Its history is rather one of periodic impulses, due no doubt to the work of individual genius, followed in each case by a long and gradual decline, towards the end of which artists began to grow restless and feel about for new modes of expression, and so prepare the way for the next impulse of genius.
The First Period.
The broad characteristics then which distinguish the First Period are—
Its rich colour.
(1) Its Colour.—The colour of the glass in this First Period is of a barbaric richness, unequalled in the succeeding periods. A very deep and splendid blue is used, in contrast with the greyish-blue of later glass, and it is of an uneven tint, which greatly adds to its quality. The ruby,[5] too, is often of a streaky character and of great beauty. These two usually form the dominant colours in the window, the greens, yellows, and purples being used rather to relieve them.
So much is the artist in love with his deep reds and blues, which he nearly always uses for the backgrounds of his figures, that he seldom insults them by painting on them except in so far as is necessary to the drawing, reserving his enamel mainly for the decoration of his whites and paler colours, keeping them in their places by a delicate fret of line and pattern work.
It is only towards the latter part of the period, when the quality of the glass began to fail a little, that he ever covered the whole surface of a blue background with an enamelled diaper, to give it a depth and richness which was lacking in the glass itself.
Except in the grisaille windows to be described later, in which a definitely white effect is aimed at, the amount of colour used in proportion to the white glass is considerably greater than in succeeding periods. Nevertheless the white is always present, running everywhere among the colour like a silver thread, relieving and beautifying it. In fact it was not till modern times that any glass-worker ever thought he could do without it.
Its mosaic character.
(2) The Mosaic Character of the Glass.—The designer depends for his effect primarily upon glass and lead, and builds up his window out of tiny pieces. He had learned the jewel-like effect this gave to his work, and seemed to grudge no labour in it. Take, for example, the Ark at Canterbury in Plate IV. Where a fifteenth century painter would have been content to make the ark of perhaps only one piece of glass, probably of white, getting his detail in enamel and silver stain only, our thirteenth century craftsman has used over fifty pieces, purple, blue, red, yellow, green and white, and that in a space less than a foot square! He was a colourist par excellence, and his waves, too, are blue, greenish-blue and green, with caps of white foam—all a mosaic of glass and lead.
From this dependence for its effect on the actual material used, it follows that the work of no period is more easily damaged than this by so-called "restoration." The introduction of only half a dozen pieces of crudely coloured modern glass is often enough to upset the whole harmony of the colour and to make the window irritating instead of restful to the eye. In France, indeed, so few windows of this period have been left unrestored that the period does not always get justice done it. I doubt if many people honestly get much pleasure from the effect of the windows of the Sainte Chapelle at Paris taken as a whole; but if you notice how much of the original glass is in South Kensington Museum you will understand the reason.
The iron-work.
(3) The Influence of Iron-Work.—The windows of this period consisted from the first, as we have seen, of separate leaded panels inserted into the openings of an iron lattice. This lattice was formed of iron bars of a T-shaped section, the head of the T being outwards, and having staples at intervals on the inner rib, through which light iron bars were thrust and keyed with wedges, to hold the glass in its place.
In the absence of any tracery to assist in the support of the glass, this iron-work in large windows was of a massive character and could not be disregarded in the design. In figure work there were two possible ways of dealing with it: one was to make the figures so large as to be independent of it; and the other was to make the figures so small that a complete figure-subject could be included in one opening of the frame work.
Both these methods were used by the artists of the early period. Where the work is far from the eye, as in the clerestory windows, we usually find large single figures—far larger, often, than life—filling the whole window, like the big angel from Chartres on Plate X. and the smaller and older figure of Methuselah from Canterbury on Plate III. When, on the other hand, the work is near the eye, as in the aisle windows, they used the other method, filling each opening of the iron-work with a small subject-panel like that of Noah and the Dove in Plate IV., thus producing what is called the medallion window.
Medallion windows.
At first the lattice work consisted merely of upright and horizontal bars. These, it is true, sometimes, as in the twelfth century window at Poitiers in Plate II., were manipulated to fit the subject, but more usually the subject fitted the bars.
Bent iron-work.
In the earliest form of medallion window, such as those in west windows at Chartres and some of the earliest ones at Canterbury, the window is divided by the iron-work into a series of regular squares, each of which alternately is filled with a square and a circular figure-subject. Later, however, in the thirteenth century, the iron-work itself was bent into geometric patterns which the medallions were shaped to fit, producing the elaborate designs shown in the insets of the whole windows in Plates IV. and VIII. from Canterbury.
Even when in the latter part of the thirteenth century there was a return, prompted no doubt by motives of economy, to iron-work composed of straight bars, the influence of these elaborate lattices is still seen in the shapes of the medallions, though these are no longer outlined by the iron-work which now passes across or between them. An example of this is shown in Plate XIV. from Rouen Cathedral.
The method of painting.
(4) The Method of Painting.—This consists of vigorous line work in the brown enamel, laid on with a brush in beautiful, firm, expressive strokes on a ground of clear glass. Lettering and patterns are formed by being scratched out clear from a solid coat of enamel. There is no attempt at modelling in planes or at light and shade, and half-tone is only used, as I shall presently explain, to soften the edges of the line work.
Irradiation.
Now the optical law which most affects the technique of stained glass is that of which the effect is known as "irradiation." In an unscientific work it is enough to say that it is the law which causes the filament of an electric light, in reality thin as a hair, to appear when incandescent as thick as a piece of worsted. In the same way it makes the clear spaces of glass appear larger than they really are in proportion to the obscured parts, and also tends to make them look rounded.
From the fact that the glass between the line work was left nearly clear, the work of this period is more affected by irradiation than any other, and the artist had to make his line work very black and thick in order to tell at all, especially in work far from the eye. For instance, if he wished to distinguish the fingers of a hand he separated them with solid black spaces as thick as the fingers themselves.
The line work.
The glass between the line work is left nearly clear, but not quite; for if quite clear the intensity of the light would have bitten into the edge of the black line and made it appear what engravers call a "rotten" line, or even be invisible altogether at a little distance. Therefore the painter softened the edges of his line work by one of two methods. The first, described by Theophilus, though I cannot say for certain that it has been used in any glass I have examined, was to slightly smear the painting when wet with a soft brush. The other, which seems to have been more used, was to edge the dark line work, so to speak, with fainter strokes in semi-transparent half-tone. In work that was meant to be placed near the eye the line work is extraordinarily fine and delicate, while in work that has to be seen from a distance, such as the clerestory windows of a cathedral, we find the whole scale of the execution increased. Lines are there used from half an inch to an inch thick, but in every case the work is equally admirable for its precision and vigour.
The "Matt."
In the later periods the half-tone shading became developed into the "matt" or thin coat of enamel laid evenly all over the surface of the glass, from which, when dry, the lights were brushed out and the line work became more and more delicate. Still, as long as technique remained sound, the strength of shading was really obtained by line work, the matt or half-tone serving its true use in softening the light and making the line work visible.
Renaissance glass painters, in their efforts to produce the effects of oil painting in glass, tried to get rid of the effect of irradiation altogether by dulling the whole surface of the glass, with fatal results to the beauty of the material.
To sum up, although the work of this period may suffer in popular esteem from the drawing being conceived in an archaic convention,—a convention different to our own,—and from having suffered from restoration, the fact remains that at no time did the artist understand better the possibilities and limitations of his art and adopt a sounder technique in regard to them.
IV
TWELFTH CENTURY GLASS
The few examples I have mentioned are the only ones which can with any probability be dated from the eleventh century, but of twelfth century work much more remains.
Poitiers.
The window at Poitiers in Plate II. shows little if any change in style from the Le Mans window in Plate I. It is still almost pure Byzantine, and if I were to judge by style alone I should place this window very early indeed. A fragment of an inscription has, however, been found on it—DITHANC ... BLAS,—which has been thought to mean that the window was the gift of one Maurice de Blason, who became Bishop of Poitiers in 1198. If so, and if we are right in identifying the Le Mans window with Bishop Hoel's glazing, a whole century separates the two.
The probable explanation is that the Byzantine style had lingered on in the south-east of France, as it may well have done, whereas north of the Loire a school had by this time arisen, and had been flourishing for many years, which was producing work both in France and England of a very different and far more advanced character.
The school of Chartres, St. Denis, and Canterbury.
The twelfth and early thirteenth century windows at Chartres, St. Denis, Canterbury and Sens show such resemblance to each other that there can be little doubt of their common origin. As, however, their execution covers a period of at least seventy years, one man cannot have been responsible for them all.
Probably they represent the work of a group of men working together—perhaps never more than half a dozen at one time—under a master who was trained by his predecessor, and who in turn would be succeeded in the leadership by the best of his pupils. Several of these masters in succession must have been men of genius, and thus between them they evolved a style which, carried on by a succession of lesser men, governed design in stained glass for a century to come.
The rise of this school is the first of the periodic impulses to which I have referred, and the work they produced was, for its dignity and grandeur, unequalled for two hundred years—if it has ever been equalled at all.
The figure of Methuselah or "Matusale" in Plate III., which is one of the few remaining of the original figures once in the choir clerestory at Canterbury (it is now in the S. Transept), is a good example of their work, and a comparison of it with the Poitiers window (which is actually later in date but in the older style) shows the greatness of the change they effected. The change is, in fact, that from ancient to modern art: from Byzantine, the last lingering survival of the great classic tradition of Greece, to Gothic, the first expression of the art of the modern world.
Who were these men and where did they come from? Some would have it that there was a great central school at Chartres, but there is little evidence for it. When Abbot Suger built the great abbey of St. Denis, which was dedicated in 1142, he filled it with glass, "painted," says his secretary, Monk William, "with exquisite art by many masters of divers nations" ("de diversis nationibus"). Does this mean that some of them were English or Germans, or only men from other provinces than the Ile de France? No one can say; but they must have been working together to produce the results they did. One statement of the Monk William's leads me to think that the work was done on the spot. He says the work was very costly, because they "used sapphires to colour their glass." Now this is an obvious misunderstanding, due to the practice, in those days, of describing coloured glass by the name of the precious stone it resembled, and such a mistake is most likely to have been made in conversation with the artists themselves.
It is, of course, always possible that they had no permanent headquarters but took up their abode in whatever city their chief work was for the time being, there erected their furnaces, which the description of Theophilus shows to have been simple affairs, and remained there till their work was completed—which must have taken some years in every case—and then moved on to the next work.
Much has been made of the fact that a window in Rouen bears the signature of one Clement of Chartres,—"Clemens vitrearius Carnutensis me fecit,"—but that window is a hundred and forty years later than St. Denis. By that time the whole Cathedral at Chartres had been filled with glass, a task which extended over thirty years; and Clement may well have learned his trade and passed from apprentice to master there. No other artist of the school has signed his name anywhere, nor has Clement anywhere else.
One can tell pretty well the order in which the most important of their work which remains was done. First Chartres and St. Denis,—so near together that one cannot say which came first,—then Canterbury, Sens, and then back to Chartres again, where a fire had destroyed all but the west windows. This, however, probably represents only a small portion of their labours, of which the rest has disappeared. For instance, a few fragments set among later work in York Minster have all the characteristics of this school; and we know that Prior Conrad's choir at Canterbury, which was completed in 1130 and destroyed in 1175, was renowned for the splendour of its glass, which may have been their work too.
A window at Le Mans, rather later than the one illustrated, and which Mr. Westlake thinks may be dated about 1120, shows signs of the new movement. It consists of a series of subjects from the stories of SS. Gervasius and Protasius, and already shows the arrangement of small medallions of simple shape, surrounded by ornament filling the rectangular openings of the iron-work, though from the fact that some of the medallions seem to have been cut down, they are probably not in their original position. In the drawing of the subjects the artist is breaking away from the Byzantine tradition. The new wine is bursting the old bottles. He is a man in love with life, and when he depicts a group of men stoning a saint he likes to make them really throwing, and to show in their faces, as well as he knows how, that they are thorough ruffians.
Next in antiquity to this window, and some twenty or thirty years later (1142-1150), come the earliest of the windows at Chartres and at St. Denis.
Chartres.
In the year A.D. 1134 a terrible fire destroyed the town of Chartres and so damaged the west end of the Cathedral that it had to be pulled down and rebuilt—a work which took some fifteen years to accomplish, while the towers were not finished till twenty years later still. The three windows over the west door were filled with glass some time between 1145 and 1150.
The west windows.
In early times churches seem to have been peculiarly liable to destruction by fire, owing perhaps to the number of wooden buildings by which they were surrounded. The early history of every great cathedral is one of successive disastrous conflagrations, after each of which the building rises once more, larger and more splendid. Thus, in 1194, another fire completely destroyed the whole of the Cathedral with the exception of the newly built west end, which included the three windows in question. These escaped damage, protected perhaps by the immense depth of their embrasures, and still remain almost unimpaired to this day, the largest and most perfect windows of their time that have come down to us. In them one feels that the new movement has found itself and produced a great man.
Two of them, the central one, which is the largest, being some 30 feet high and 10 wide, and that on the south, are medallion windows, containing scenes from the life of Christ. The bars of the iron-work, which are about 3 feet apart, divide them into a series of regular squares, which are filled with square and circular medallions; in the central window the figures in the medallions are relieved against alternate backgrounds of ruby and blue. The ruby of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries is a wonderful colour. It is never of a perfectly even tint, each piece having, as it were, its own character, and the colour seems to have a slightly granulated or "crumbly" texture, which gives it a quality unknown in later glass. So beautiful was it evidently considered that the artist seldom or never attempted to enrich it with painting.
The Jesse tree.
The third window, that on the north, is filled with a "Tree of Jesse."
The subjects of stained-glass windows in this First Period were chosen with one object—the exposition of the Christian Doctrine, and of this the human descent of Christ was an essential part. Accordingly, at all periods in the history of mediæval stained glass we find windows devoted to the representation of "the Tree of Jesse."
The arrangement is always the same as in this window at Chartres. The figure of Jesse lies recumbent at the foot of the window, and from his loins rises the "Tree"—a mass of branching scroll work with conventional foliage, spreading over the whole window, carrying on its branches David and other human ancestors of Christ, and culminating in the Virgin and Christ Himself at the top of the window. On either side are ranged the Prophets who foretold His coming, and the whole, surrounded by a rich border, forms, at Chartres, a mass of jewelled colour some 9 feet wide and 25 feet high.
This window and the one of which a part, identical in design, remains at St. Denis, are the oldest examples I know of a Jesse tree in stained glass, and whether or not they were the first to be made, their design formed a model for others for long after.
La Belle Verrière.
The remainder of the windows in the Cathedral, including the western rose, are of the thirteenth century with one exception—the one in the south choir aisle, which contains the great figure of the Virgin known as "Notre Dame de la Belle Verrière": the only window, as far as I know, to which in former times people knelt by hundreds in adoration, and before which they still occasionally burn a candle.
The Virgin with the Child on her knee sits enthroned in the upper part of the window, and surrounded by angels, on a much smaller scale, incensing and holding candles, while below are medallions illustrating the Marriage at Cana and the Temptation. The angels and the medallions are of the thirteenth century, but the figures of the Virgin and Child with their background are almost certainly of the twelfth. Probably the veneration in which they were held caused them to be rescued from the fire,—hurriedly broken out, perhaps, from the surrounding glass,—and then reset in thirteenth century work after the Cathedral was rebuilt.[6] The Virgin is dressed in a robe of pale greyish-blue, of a colour one seldom sees in later work, relieved against a background of deep ruby, set with jewels of a darker blue. The precision of the colour harmony is wonderful, and no drawing I have seen of the window gives, even in outline, the beautiful poise of the head, bent in gracious benediction.
Although I have said that the workers of this school were breaking away from the Byzantine tradition and looking at life with their own eyes, yet it is never possible for men suddenly to produce work wholly independent of tradition, even when they are foolish enough to try; so we find in this case Greek art, through Byzantine, retains enough influence with these men to give to their work a dignity and restraint which is lacking in that of the thirteenth century. This is very noticeable wherever one gets the two in close juxtaposition, as at Chartres and also at Canterbury. There is an impressive severity of design and a feeling for proportion in the figure of the Virgin in La Belle Verrière which one misses in the surrounding work, which, though very beautiful, is by comparison small and fussy in treatment.
St. Denis.
In the meantime, in 1142, while the west front of Chartres Cathedral was still in progress, the great Abbot Suger had finished the construction of his abbey of St. Denis, near Paris. He was a great patron of the arts, as well as a good man and the first statesman of his age, and he seems to have spared no pains in the decoration of the church and especially in the filling of the windows with stained glass. Of this glass, alas! only the merest remnant is left, consisting of several medallions and part of a "Tree of Jesse." They have been collected and placed in the chapels of the apse of the church, embedded in garishly coloured ornament—the work of M. Gérente, acting under the orders of the great and terrible Viollet-le-Duc—which effectually prevents one taking any pleasure in their beauty. They are, however, very interesting to study. Whether or not they were done before or after the three windows at Chartres it is, I think, impossible to say for certain. The history of the two buildings shows that they must have been done within a few years of each other (two of those at St. Denis contain figures of Suger as donor, and he died in 1152), and they are certainly the work of the same school. The Jesse tree in particular is either a copy, or the original, on a smaller scale, of the one at Chartres, being almost identical in design.
Many of the medallions are interesting from their deeply symbolical character. In one, for instance, is Christ, with the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit, represented, as in the Jesse tree, by doves, each contained in a circle and connected with His breast by rays. With His left hand He unveils a figure labelled "Synagoga," and with His right He crowns another figure labelled "Ecclesia."
Another very curious medallion represents the fœderis arca, "ark of the covenant." A figure of the Almighty supports a crucifix which rises from the ark,—a square box on four wheels,—while round about are the four symbols of the Evangelists. The cross is thus shown as the symbol of God's new covenant with man as the ark was that of the old. A quaint feature is that the artist, while feeling that all four wheels had got to be shown somehow, has been in some difficulty as to how to show the farther pair, and has therefore placed them above the ark, as if resting on it, as an ancient Egyptian artist might have done in his place.
In most of the medallions the teaching of the subject is emphasized and the application pointed out by rhyming Latin hexameters, doggerel in style and innocent of prosody, such as:
Quod Moyses velat, Christi doctrina revelat.
The same feature is found in the glass at Canterbury. None of the verses are identical, but the literary style is the same.
Angers and Chalons.
At Angers there are some remains of twelfth century windows which are thought to be about the same date as those of Chartres and St. Denis, or even a little earlier, and there are some at Chalons, but they cannot be dated with any exactitude, and I have had no opportunity of examining them. Next after these in point of date should, I think, come the earliest of the windows at Canterbury, though nearly thirty years must separate the two.
Fragments at York.
A few fragments in York Minster, however, show where the artists may have been occupied meantime. There are some scraps in the clerestory—scraps of a Jesse window of which the details are almost identical with the St. Denis work—and a medallion representing Daniel in the Lion's Den, which is glazed into the foot of the centre light of the great thirteenth century grisaille windows in the north transept, known as "the Five Sisters." It is a circular medallion filled out to a square form with ornament, no doubt to fit a square of the iron-work, and strongly resembles the St. Denis work.
Canterbury choir.
Of the stained glass of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, which was once the glory of Canterbury Cathedral, only a remnant has escaped the zeal of the Puritans. The minister placed in charge of the Cathedral under the Commonwealth, one Richard Culmer, known to his enemies as "Blue Dick," though I do not know why, relates with glee how he stood on a ladder sixty steps high with a whole pike in his hand and "rattled down proud Beckett's glassie bones."
I own I feel less resentment against "Blue Dick," who at least thought the windows important enough to smash, than against that later vandal Wyatt, who in the eighteenth century sold the glass at Salisbury for the price of the lead in it, or those who even now in many places are letting old glass perish for want of proper care.
Even "Blue Dick" seems to have tired of his pious labours before they were quite finished, for, of the early windows, he has left us two in the north choir aisle, and four in the Trinity Chapel east of the choir, in which most of the old glass remains. Besides these there are many medallions and numerous fragments scattered about in other windows and embedded in the work of the modern restorer, and several large figures from the clerestory, of which the Methuselah in Plate III., now in the south transept, is one.
In the year 1174, four years after Becket's death, the splendid choir built by Prior Conrad in 1130 was completely destroyed by fire, and the monks immediately set about building a new one. Gervase the monk has left a detailed account of the progress of the great work, year by year and pillar by pillar, for the space of ten years, first under the French master-builder, William of Sens, and then under his successor, William the Englishman ("little in body but in workmanship of many kinds acute and honest"), so that we know just when each part of the work was finished. Now in the spring of 1180, he relates, the monks had a great desire to celebrate Easter in the new choir, and to gratify them the master, by a special effort, succeeded in getting the building finished and roofed in almost to the east end of the choir, where he placed a hoarding to keep out the weather.
Since we are told that in this hoarding there were three glass windows, it seems reasonable to suppose that the other windows were glazed too. Now since both the windows in the north choir aisle and, when in its original position, the Methuselah on Plate III. were well to the westward of the point at which the hoarding was erected, I have no doubt that they were in position by this date, in which opinion I am confirmed by the character of the glass itself. That in the Trinity Chapel to the east of the hoarding would naturally be later.
The same arrangement seems to have been followed at Canterbury as elsewhere of having large figures in the clerestory and small medallions in the lower windows.
The Methuselah, which seems to have formed one of a series of Patriarchs,—of which three others remain, which filled the windows in the clerestory of the choir,—is a particularly dignified figure, and it is noticeable that the throne he is seated on is of somewhat the same type as that of Notre Dame de la Belle Verrière at Chartres. As in all windows of this date, the flesh is executed in glass of a brownish-pink colour instead of white, which later on became the rule.
This illustration shows very well the early method of painting. Where possible, as in the rich blue of the background, the glass is left quite clear. The folds of the drapery and the features are drawn in sure and vigorous line work. Diaper is used very sparingly, only when it is necessary to "keep back" and subdue a piece of glass, as in the case of the green cushion to the throne and the border of the tunic. If you can imagine the glass with these pieces left clear or with any other piece diapered, you will see how unerring has been the artist's judgment.[7]
The letters of the inscription are scratched out of a dark ground of enamel. This is the invariable method used in early glass, which indeed is always (except in grisaille, of which more later) conceived as a light design on a dark ground. In the fifteenth century the reverse was the case, and then we get inscriptions in dark lettering on a light ground.
The arched form of the top of the background shows how it once fitted a clerestory light, though doubtless with a border, and the space above has been filled with scroll work of, I think, the same date, which may have come from some of the medallion windows in the choir aisles.
The two medallion windows in the north choir aisle formed part, as we know from an old MS. still in existence, of a series of twelve dealing with the life and parables of our Lord.
In style they very closely resemble the St. Denis work, perhaps a little further developed. Some of the medallions, indeed, are almost identical with those at St. Denis, notably that of the Magi on horseback following the star. The figures are tall and dignified, and both for drawing and decorative placing are far better than much work of the succeeding century. The Calling of Nathaniel is a particularly good panel.
The westernmost of the two windows still retains the early arrangement found at Chartres, the iron-work consisting simply of straight bars dividing it into a series of regular squares, which are filled alternately with circular and square medallions.
The other one of the two has bent iron-work of a very simple design, consisting simply of four circles connected by straight bars, thus marking the transition from one form to another; which is another reason for dating these windows between the west windows of Chartres, where the iron-work is all straight, and those at Sens, where it is nearly all bent. The small scale-sketch in the corner of Plate IV. shows the arrangement of the iron-work and the medallions. The panel of Noah in the Ark is from one of the semicircles on the left side of the window. The spaces between the medallions are filled up with beautiful foliated scroll work, on a ruby ground of the same character as that round the head of Methuselah.
The arrangement of their subjects is so interesting, forming one of the first and most complete examples of a "type and antitype" window, that I shall describe it in some detail.
In each of these two windows the upper two-thirds, or thereabouts, of the glass is in its original position, while the lower panels, smashed by the pike of "Blue Dick," who seems at this point to have got tired of going up his ladder, have been filled with subjects from other windows of the series.
Down the centre run the subjects from the life of Christ, while on each side are the "types" or subjects from the Old Testament which illustrate it. Thus the westernmost of the two, once the second of the series, begins at the top with the Magi following the star, while on one side is Balaam, with the words of his prophecy, "There shall come a star out of Jacob, etc.," and on the other Isaiah, with the words, "The Gentiles shall come to Thy light, and kings to the brightness of Thy rising."
Next below we see in the centre the arrival of the Magi before Herod, illustrated on the left by the Israelites coming out of Egypt, led by Moses, and on the right by the Gentiles leaving a heathen temple containing an idol—a naked blue figure (blue merely because the artist wanted some blue there), and following Christ, by way of a font, towards a Christian altar, while a demon above their heads urges them to return to the idol. As at St. Denis, each of the medallions has a Latin rhyme attached, explaining and enforcing the lesson. Here, for instance, it runs: