Fig. 234.—Fragment of a Window presented to the Cathedral of Evreux by the Bishop Guillaume de Cantiers. Fourteenth Century.
The fifteenth century only continues the traditions of the preceding one. The principal works dating from this epoch begin, according to the order of merit, with the window of the Cathedral of Mans, which represents Yolande[31] of Aragon, and Louis II., King of Naples and Sicily, ancestors of the good King René; after them we shall place the windows of the Sainte-Chapelle, Riom; St. Vincent, Rouen; the Cathedral of Tours; and that of Bourges, representing a memorial of Jacques Cœur, &c.
The sixteenth century, although bringing with it, owing to religious troubles, many ravages of new iconoclasts, has handed down to us a variety of numerous and remarkable church-windows. We are, of course, unable to mention them all; but it seems expedient—adopting the rule of most archæologists—to divide them into three branches or schools, which are actually formed by the different styles of the artists of that epoch; the French school, the German school, and the Lorraine school ([Fig. 235]), which partakes of the characteristics of the two preceding.
Fig. 235.—Allegorical Window, representing the “Citadel of Pallas.” (Lorraine work of the Sixteenth Century, preserved in the Library at Strasbourg.)
At the head of the French school figures the celebrated Jean Cousin, who decorated the chapel of Vincennes; he also made for the Célestins monastery, Paris, a representation of Calvary; for St. Gervais, in 1587, the windows representing the “Martyrdom of St. Lawrence,” the “Samaritan conversing with Christ,” and the “Paralytic.” In these works, which belong to a high style of painting, the best method of arrangement, vigorous drawing, and powerful colouring, seem to reflect the work of Raphael. Windows in “grisaille,” made from the cartoons of Jean Cousin, also decorated the Castle of Anet.
Another artist, named Robert Pinaigrier, who, although inferior to Cousin, was much more fertile in production, assisted by his sons Jean, Nicholas, and Louis, and several of his pupils, executed a number of windows for the churches of Paris, of which the greater part have disappeared: Saint-Jacques la Boucherie, the Madeleine, Sainte-Croix en la Cité, Saint Barthélemy, &c. Magnificent specimens of his work still remain at Saint-Merry, Saint-Gervais, Saint-Etienne du Mont, and in the Cathedral of Chartres. Pinaigrier’s works in the decorations of châteaux and the mansions of the nobility are perhaps equally numerous.
At this period several windows were made from the drawings of Raphael, Leonardo da Vinci, and Parmigiano; it may also be remarked that two patterns of the latter’s work were used by Bernard Palissy, who was a glass-maker before he became an enameller, in forming windows in “grisaille” for the chapel of the Château of Ecouen. For the same place, following the style of Raphael, and from the drawings of Rosso, called Maître Roux, Bernard Palissy executed thirty pictures on glass, representing the history of Psyche, which are justly considered as ranking among the most beautiful compositions of the epoch; but it is not now known what has become of these valuable windows, which at the Revolution were transported to the Museum of French Monuments.
They were, it is said, executed under the direction of Leonard of Limoges, who, like all the masters of that school ([Fig. 236]), applied to painting on glass the processes of enamelling, and vice versâ. In the collections of the Louvre and of several amateurs, there are still examples of his composition, on which he employed the best glass-painters of his time; for he could not himself work on all the objects that proceeded from his studios, and which were almost exclusively destined for the king’s palace.