ANGERS
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 André 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.