There are also several sixteenth century windows, the most noteworthy one being a Tree of Jesse in the east end of the southerly chapel. A large figure of the Virgin holding the Infant Jesus is shown standing on the vine just at the point where the branches separate. Jesse’s descendants, drawn to a smaller scale, are emerging from blossoms all about the Virgin, whom they are intently regarding.
Although the fifteenth century glass in La Madeleine is not so splendid as some we have seen elsewhere, it is in such quantity and variety as to afford valuable facilities for comparison and study. There is also good glass to be seen in the church of Notre Dame. The picturesque old-world flavour of Verneuil will perhaps make it a greater favourite with us than some towns possessing more important windows.
On leaving Verneuil, whether we decide to return to Paris via Chartres, or to link this trip on to the next by passing directly to Evreux and thence to Rouen, we may, by means of a slight detour, go through Nonancourt. If we do, we should delay there long enough to enter the church to see the low fifteenth century windows along the nave aisles, as well as the larger Renaissance ones that stretch in a long row around the whole length of the clerestory. It will be worth the few additional kilometres to the automobilist, although hardly demanding the breaking of a railway journey.
CHARTRES
Besides its wondrous cathedral, Chartres has another though a more modest sanctuary which also possesses its original glazing almost intact. This is the church of St. Pierre, a unique example of the glazier’s attempt to meet the objection of light obstruction charged against the thirteenth century mosaic method. His treatment of the clerestory lights is of peculiar interest. There are no transepts. Around the clerestory each window is divided perpendicularly in half, one side being glazed in colour and the other in soft grisaille. The only difference in the nave clerestory is that there each window is divided perpendicularly into three instead of two, the middle division in each case containing colour work and the two outside ones, grisaille. This method of glazing, plus the fact that the triforium is pierced, produces the desired amount of illumination within, but one can hardly say that it is produced in an altogether satisfactory manner. It is inevitable that this sandwiching of strips of colour between others of grisaille should reduce the value of the tints and dull their glow. The effect is very strange—it is as if tall shutters of dark hue had been prepared for grisaille windows, but that these shutters had only been put up on one side of each. Whether one admires it or not, the method is novel, and worth examining. The new demand for more light has been met, but we have not yet reached the perfection of church illumination. For this we must wait until the fully elaborated canopy panels of the fifteenth century, for in those the glazier hit upon just the right proportion of colour and translucency by means of convincingly complete designs containing no jarring contrasts. It is well if one defers this inspection of St. Pierre, and does not go to it straight from the sombre glories of the cathedral. Such an immediate comparison will render it difficult to realise what an agreeable experience the smaller edifice affords for the student of glass (see page [67]).
Do not fail to go into the Lady Chapel to see the delightful set of twelve enamels representing the Apostles, by many considered the chef d’œuvre of the master of that craft, Leonard Limousin. They are remarkable not only for their delicious combination of tones and shades, but also for their unusually large size (two feet high by one foot broad). One is not surprised at the great care everywhere apparent in their workmanship when one learns that they were ordered by Francis I, who, however, did not live to see them finished. His son, Henry II, presented them to Diane de Poitiers for her Château d’Anet.
Before leaving St. Pierre, observe how excellently the architect adjusted the relative heights of the bays, triforium and clerestory; so graceful is the result that we depart with the impression of an edifice of unusually agreeable proportions.