CONCHES
There are four modest shrines to which every glass lover should contrive to repair, no matter what may be the difficulties in the way nor how much time it may take. Of these four, one at Fairford (near Oxford) is in England, while the other three are in France, and are the Ste. Chapelle in Paris, the village church at Eymoutiers and Ste. Foy at Conches. In each we find the church completely glazed in one period and, furthermore, with the best glass then procurable. The scene that to-day meets our eye in each of these small sanctuaries is practically the same that rewarded the artist the day he completed his work. We have frequently had occasion on our tours to notice how much certain glass would have been improved if contrasting windows could but be removed from the edifice, or the edifice itself in some way changed. There will be no need for any such mental correction of the picture when we visit Conches. Here, after you have closed the door on the twentieth century life outside, you feel that you have turned back the finger of time and are living in the days of that eloquent beauty which speaks out to you from its windows. Perhaps nowhere else will you get the wonderful accord of tone with tone and hue with hue that makes the colour at Conches so radiantly lovely. We find ourselves in a very simple church about twice as long as broad, the only departure from its rectangular plan being a small five-sided chapel which projects from its eastern end. There is nothing to aid the glass in its service of making splendid the interior. In fact, one might add that there is nothing which dares insult it by an offer of so obviously unnecessary assistance. Practically all the windows are of the sixteenth century, and they are so fine that it seems unfair to call particular attention to the elaborate set designed by Aldegrevers, a pupil of Albrecht Dürer. These fill the seven tall windows of two lancets each, which light the eastern chapel and are dated 1520. Of the forty-two subjects upon these windows, those in the upper range show scenes from the life of Christ and those in the lower from that of Ste. Sophia. It is unfair to describe them; they should be seen. At this point we may comment that although it is occasionally possible to convey some idea of an individual panel by technical description, it is useless to attempt, by means of words, to give a reader a just conception of such an interior as the glass produces at Conches. Beside these by Aldegrevers there are eighteen others whose dates, running from 1540 to 1553, show them to be of slightly later construction. In the fourth on the right the allegorical subject contains an unusual detail. A group of figures represent the Liberal Arts, and among them, Music: upon her insignia appears a musical phrase expressed in proper notation. This representation of written music upon glass is extremely rare. We shall see another of the very infrequent instances when we visit Caudebec. Among the finest windows is the fifth on the right, which represents the allegory of the Wine Press. Here the subject is not treated in the usual gruesome fashion. It is not the blood of Christ which serves as the wine but, instead, the juice of grapes which He is crushing in the press. Throughout all these windows the distant landscapes are depicted in much more convincing colouring than is usually found at this time. This seems due to the fact that the light blue glass used for that purpose is left clear of all paint except that needed for delineation. Elsewhere these blue backgrounds often have so much paint upon them as to be rendered partly opaque and therefore incapable of simulating the depth necessary for great distances. In strength as well as in judicious combination of a surprisingly wide range of colours, their century can show few examples to rival these. Not only is their value enhanced by the simplicity of the interior which they decorate, and which, therefore, has nothing to distract our attention from their beauty, but this very beauty is made all the more impressive by the sharp contrast provided by the dullness of the little town outside and the plain exterior of the church which it so glorifies.