127. Freiburg.
The Germans differed from the rest of us in their frank use of geometric pattern. We habitually disguised it more or less, clothing it most likely with foliation; they used it quite nakedly, and were not ashamed. Instances of this innocent use of geometric form are here given. At Freiburg are quite a number of windows entirely of geometric pattern work. There is a good deal of white glass in them, but they count rather for colour than for grisaille. It would not be quite unfair to say they fall between the two stools. These designs are much more pleasing in the glass than in black and white (where they have rather too much the appearance of floor-cloth), but they are by no means the happiest work of the Germans of that day. Where they were really most successful, more successful than their contemporaries, was in foliated or floral pattern windows, and those of a kind also standing dangerously near midway between colour and grisaille. The method of execution employed in them was to a large extent strictly mosaic; but there is quite a refreshing variety and novelty, as well as very considerable ingenuity, in their design.
128. From Regensburg, Munich Museum.
129. Ivy—Munich Museum.
The window from Regensburg on [page 389] sets out very much as if it were going to be a grisaille window; but it has, in the first place, more colour than is usual in grisaille, and, in the second, it will be seen that the little triangular ground spaces next the border are filled with pot-metal. The contrast of the set pattern and the four coloured leaves crossing each circle with the flowing undergrowth of grisaille is unusual, and so is the cunning alternation of cross-hatching and plain white ground. The designs from Munich Museum on [pages 171 to 174] have nothing in common with grisaille. The design consists of natural foliage chiefly in white, growing tree-like upon a coloured ground up the centre of the light. In the one the stem is waved, in the other it takes a spiral form, in the third it is more naturalistic. But nature is not very consistently followed. What appears like a vine on [page 171] has husks or flowers which it is not easy to recognise; and the ivy here is endowed with tendrils. The border of convolvulus leaves and the hop scroll, [opposite], are unmistakable, though there is some inconsistency between the naturalness of the leaves and the stiffness of their growth. The ivy pattern differs from the others inasmuch as the leaves show light against the yellow ground, whilst the green stem and stalks tell dark upon it, and there is a band of red within the outer border which holds the rather spiky leaves together. The most interesting window of this kind illustrated is that on [page 174], in which the stem is ingeniously twisted into quatrefoil medallion shapes, so as to allow a change in the colour of the ground, and the leaves are designed to go beyond the filling and form a pattern upon the border. The rose is a hackneyed theme enough, but this at least is a new way of working it out. Fourteenth century German windows are altogether more varied in design than contemporary French or English work. The glass is not so much all of one pattern. There are more surprises in it. The Germans treated grisaille in a way very much their own. At the risk of a certain coarseness of execution, they would paint out the background to their natural foliage in solid pigment, or in brown just hatched with lines scratched through to the clear glass. That is very effectively done, for example, at the Church of S. Thomas at Strassburg. It is not contended that this is at all a better plan than that practised in France or England: it is on the whole less happy; but there are positions in which it is more to the purpose; and it has at least the merit of being different; it suggests something better than it accomplishes, and it is a timely reminder that the best methods we know of cannot be accepted as final.