PLATE XL
SMALL FIGURES IN WHITE AND STAIN, FROM ALL SAINTS',
NORTH STREET, YORK
Fifteenth Century
Though, however, the English fifteenth century craftsmen did not abandon the canopy, they profoundly modified it and made it far more pliant and adaptable. Plates [XXXIV.] and [XXXV.] from York will give a better idea of the canopies of the early fifteenth century than any description. It will be seen that the single overpowering crocketted gable and wall-sided tower of the fourteenth century has disappeared, and in its place we have a froth of pinnacles, windows, buttresses and niches all in white and yellow stain, on a background of colour. The earlier attempt at modelling the canopies in the round, which is seen in the work of the Winchester school, had been abandoned, and although every little shaft has its light and dark side delicately distinguished, this counts for little except to diversify the surface, the forms being expressed principally in strong and simple outline. The extent to which this simplification of outline was carried may be seen in the little crocketted pinnacles, such as those at the bottom of [Plate XXXIV.], which are characteristic of all English work of the time. There is, as you may see, no attempt to draw or model the foliation of the crockets, which are simply knobs outlined in the flat with a thick black line. This method is the salvation of English Perpendicular work, and shows the thorough understanding on the part of our craftsmen of the technical problem. In French work later on in the century, and in much modern pseudo-Gothic work, the attempt is made to express the canopy work in fine lines and delicate modelling, which, in the result, appears confused and indistinct, and too weak for the leading and for the coloured figure work it encloses.
The skilful use of silver stain.
(2) The Increased Amount of White used.—Not only is the canopy white, but there is also as a rule a good deal of white in the figures within it, which are generally relieved against a diapered flat background of colour. Just one figure at New College has the brown-pink flesh colour, and that is its last appearance. Everywhere else one finds white used, the hair, in the case of women and young men, being stained yellow. This large increase in the use of white glass was accompanied, and indeed made possible, by a most delicate and skilful use of the yellow silver stain. This operation, of all others in stained-glass work, calls for the greatest exercise of taste and judgment as well as skill on the part of the craftsman,—experto crede,—and in its use the English workers of the first three-quarters of the fifteenth century stand unrivalled.
Loss of mosaic character.
This use of white in the figures and canopies rendered unnecessary the old fourteenth century plan of dividing the window up into alternate panels of grisaille and colour, and this is abandoned. Another result is the loss of the essentially mosaic character of the older windows. So much could now be expressed with stain and brown enamel on one piece of glass that, although the pieces used were still comparatively small, it was no longer necessary to surround every form with a lead as a matter of course. [Plate XXXVI.] is a good instance of this. The green-striped background to the figures is the work of the restorer and was probably once blue, as in [Plate XXXVII.], and this and the red mantle surcoat and shield are the only forms that it was absolutely necessary to lead in separately. It is true that, either for emphasis or from habit, the artist has outlined the man's knees in lead; but he need not have done so, and it would indeed have been easier not to. In the next plate ([Plate XXXVII.]) the leading on the white takes very little account of the drawing.
Out of these conditions then arose a wholly new attitude towards the leading. Hitherto the disposition of the lead-work had followed naturally and inevitably from the design—the artist drew in lead, so to speak, merely supplementing it with the finer painted line; whereas now the leads had, in part at least, to be so arranged as not to interfere with the drawing, or only to emphasize it when needed, a matter requiring much more thought. A comparison of either of the above plates with [Plate IV.] will illustrate the difference. Hence we find a gradual tendency to use larger pieces of glass and fewer leads (the latter being sometimes concealed behind the iron-work), till by the end of the century the jewel-like quality of the early glass is a thing wholly lost and forgotten.
The method of drawing.
Matt shading.