PLATE XXVI
GRISAILLE PATTERN AND BOSS FROM PLATE XXV
Neglect of movement.
With this preoccupation with the truer rendering of form, it is perhaps not surprising that the study of action was neglected. The artist had enough to do to draw his figures and drapery in repose without making them move about and do things, and a contributory cause was, no doubt, the weakening of interest already alluded to in the subjects he had to illustrate. This then is why, whereas in the thirteenth century we find a highly conventional rendering of form allied to naturalism in movement, in the fourteenth, conversely, we find conventional poses and movement allied to a more naturalistic rendering of form.
Comparative study of the illuminated manuscripts of the same period shows exactly the same changes in progress. So closely do the two arts keep pace with each other that I do not think it can be said that at any time either was leading the other. They must have been in very close touch even if they were not, which it is quite possible they often were, practised by the same artists. The lead, if there was a lead, must have come from sculpture.
Natural plant forms in ornament.
(6) The use of Natural Plant Forms in Ornament.—This is another manifestation of the same spirit, and divides the work of the fourteenth century most sharply from that both of the preceding and following periods. The Jesse Trees, and the leafy scrolls and borders of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries belong to no genus known to botanists, but in the fourteenth century it seems as if the artist, the inspiration of religion failing him, had sought it in a rather literal study of Nature. Accordingly in the grisaille and borders of this period we find patterns formed of oak leaves and acorns, ivy leaves, maple, vine, and so on. Plate [XXVI.] is rather an exception in that one cannot name the particular plant; but Plates [XXVIII.] and [XXIX.] contain characteristic examples, and [Plate XXI.] shows a good vine border from York, and some holly leaf grisaille.
Yet the feeling for Nature in these patterns does not go very deep. The artist is, for instance, content to make the oak wreath and twine itself as freely as the vine, and I always feel that his practice is the result of theory rather than the spontaneous expression of love of Nature. The earlier worker was really, I believe, more in tune with Nature than his successor of the fourteenth century. He did not copy her forms in ornament but he followed her principles. He did not copy her forms, because she had taught him to design forms for himself. Nature, it may be observed, does not adorn one object with copies of another, hardly even when she gives her creatures protective colouring and markings, but gives to each the patterning which suits it best. In the same way the ornament of the twelfth and thirteenth century artist is always perfectly suited to its purpose without distracting one's attention; and when his subject requires him to represent a tree or a bush,—such as the fig tree under which Nathanael sits, or the thicket in which the ram is caught, at Canterbury,—though the foliage is that of the shamrock, he knows how to make it grow and live better than his fourteenth century successor. The waves, too, of the Flood in [Plate IV.], conventional though they are, give a real sense of tossing and stormy water.
Change in material.
Fourteenth century colour schemes.
(7) The Quality of Glass and the Colours Used.—At first these differ little from those used in the previous period, but as the fourteenth century proceeds, the rich intense reds and blues, with their "streakiness," their endless variety of tone and texture, which makes each piece of glass a jewel with an individuality of its own, and needing no enrichment, give way to glass of a thinner, flatter quality. In [Plate III.] Mr. Saint has managed to catch and the printer to reproduce something of the quality of these early blues. There is a change too in the proportions of the colours used. The colour schemes of the Early Period are almost always conceived on a basis of red and blue, but now green and yellow become equally important; Plates [XXI.], [XXII.], for example, contain very little blue at all. The canopies when not white are mainly yellow, and this alone is responsible for a very large amount of yellow in the colour scheme—too much, in fact, as a rule. The yellow used at first, till silver stain took its place, was, as I have said, a rather hot unpleasant pot-metal. The green of the First Period had been a rather sharp brilliant colour, used generally in small quantities, and striking a high shrill note among the deep reds and blues, like a clarionet in an orchestra. The typical green of the fourteenth century, on the other hand, which is often used as a background, is a greyer duller colour altogether. [Plate XVI.] and [Plate XXI.] give a fairly good idea of its quality.
White glass for flesh.