Windows: A Book About Stained & Painted Glass

by Lewis F. Day

251. GRISAILLE PATTERNS, SALISBURY.
“Photo-Tint” by James Akerman, London, W. C.

Churches favourable to the study of Early glass in England are not very many. A series of thirteenth century windows is rare; and good examples, such as the fragments from the S. Chapelle, at South Kensington, are few and far between. The one fine series of medallion windows is at Canterbury Cathedral, in the round-headed lights of the choir. In the clerestory also is some figure work, on a larger scale, but less admirable of its kind. For good thirteenth century grisaille in any considerable quantity one must go to Salisbury, where, fortunately, the aisle windows are near enough to the eye to show the very characteristic patterns of the glass. To sit there in the nave and wait until service is over, is no hardship even to the most ardent glass hunter. The silvery light from the windows facing him at the East end of the aisles is solace and delight enough. Yet more enchanting is the pale beauty of the Five slim Sisters, in the North transept of York Minster; that, however, is gained, to some extent, by the confusion of the pattern, which is not quite typically Early, but begins to show symptoms of a transition stage in design.

To appreciate at its full value the stronger colour of the Early mosaic glass one must cross the Channel. We have nothing in this country to compare in quantity, and therefore for effect, with the gorgeous glass illuminating the great French churches. Reims, for example, Bourges, Le Mans, are perfect treasure houses of jewelled light. But richer than all is Chartres. The windows there are less conveniently placed for study than at Le Mans, but they are grander, and more in number. At Reims the art is coarser, though the magnificence of certain red windows there lives in the memory. Emphatically Chartres is the place to know and appreciate thirteenth century glass. No other great church of the period retains so much of its original glazing; and since it is one of the largest, and the glass is very much of one period, it follows that no church contains so much Early glass. The impression it produces is the more pronounced that there is little else. Except for a modern window or two, one Late Gothic window, and some four or five lights of grisaille, which belong to the second period, the glass throughout this vast building is typically Early. It is well worth a pilgrimage to Chartres only to see it. You may wander about the church for hours at a time, unravelling the patterns of the windows, and puzzling out the subjects of the medallion pictures. To sit there in more restful mood upon some summer afternoon, when the light is softened by a gentle fall of rain, is to be thrilled by the beauty of it all. It is as though, in a dream, you found yourself in some huge cavern, lit only by the light of jewels, myriads of them gleaming darkly through the gloom. It is difficult to imagine anything more mysterious, solemn, or impressive. Yes, Chartres is the place in which to be penetrated by the spirit of Early mediæval glass. There is a story told of a child sitting for the first time in his life in some French church, awed by the great Rose window facing him, when all at once the organ burst into music; and it seemed to him, he said, as if the window spoke. Words could not better express than that the powerful impression of Early mosaic glass, the solemnity of its beauty, the way it belongs to the grandeur of the great church, the something deep in us vibrating in answer to it.

Exceptionally interesting Early glass is to be found in the cathedral of Poitiers; but it is hurt by the white light from other windows. In the case of Early coloured windows it is more than ever true that their intensity can only be appreciated when all the light in the building comes through them. That intensity, as was said, is deepened where, as at Strassburg, the colour of the walls absorbs instead of reflecting light. There the red sandstone of which the church is built gives back so little light that, as you enter the door, you step from sunshine into twilight, in which the glass shines doubly glorious. Some of these (certain of the Kings, for example, on the north side of the nave, each with its huge nimbus eddying, as it were, ring by ring of colour, out to the margin of the niche) are of the thirteenth if not of the twelfth century; but they are typical of no period. The borders framing them are perhaps a century later than the figures. Indeed, the period of this glass is most perplexing to the student of style, until he realises that, after the great fire at the very end of the thirteenth century, remains of earlier glass, spared from the wreck, were incorporated with the newer work. And, not only this, but, what was rare in mediæval days, the fourteenth century designer, in his endeavour to harmonise, as he most successfully did, the old work with the new, gave to his own work a character which was not of his period,—much to the mystification of the student, who too readily imagines that he cannot go far wrong in attributing to the glass in a church a date posterior to its construction.

The cathedral at Strassburg is rich also in distinctly Decorated glass, to all of which the tourist pays no heed. He goes there to see the clock. If he should have a quarter of an hour to spare before noon—at which hour the cock crows and the church is shut—he allows himself to be driven by the verger, with the rest of the crowd, into the transept, and penned up there until the silly performance begins. To hear folk talk of the thing afterwards at the table d’hôte you might fancy that Erwin Von Steinbach had built his masterpiece just to house this rickety piece of mock old mechanism.

252. 14th Century German Glass.