142. TWO WINDOWS, S. MARY’S, SHREWSBURY.
143. Fairford.
The idea is, no doubt, that the shrinework should appear to stand in the opening, and the figure be sheltered under that. The illusion aimed at, it is scarcely necessary to say, is not produced, and in any case would not have been worth producing. On the contrary, the desirable thing to be done was, to acknowledge the window opening, which, except for this pretence, the colour of the design effectually does.
144. The Queen of Sheba before Solomon, Fairford.
A frequent and equally typical arrangement was, where the light was long enough, to make the base itself take the form of a low canopy over a more or less square-proportioned subject, possibly a scene in the life of the Saint pourtrayed above. This gave opportunity of introducing figures on two different scales, without in any way endangering the significance of the more important figure, which, by its size and breadth of colour, asserted itself at a distance from which the smaller subject appeared only a mass of broken colour. The proportions and outline of such a subject are indicated by the Nativity on [page 54], the jagged line at the top of the picture marking the inner line of the canopy work. In German work very commonly the base canopy encloses, as, for example, at Cologne Cathedral, a panel of heraldic blazonry.