The French art of glass-working became cosmopolitan. It was introduced into Spain and also into the Low Countries under the protection of Charles V. and the Duke of Alba. It even appears to have crossed the Alps; for we know that in 1512 a glass-painter of the name of Claude adorned with his works the large windows of the Vatican; and Julius II. summoned Guillaume of Marseilles to the Eternal City, the pontiff when occupying the sees of Carpentras and Avignon having appreciated his talent. We must not omit to mention, among the Flemish artists who escaped this foreign influence, the name of Dirk of Haarlem ([Fig. 237]), the most celebrated master in this art at the close of the fifteenth century.
Fig. 236.—St. Paul, an Enamel of Limoges, by Etienne Mercier.
While French art was thus spreading over the continent, foreign art
Fig. 237.—Flemish Window (Fifteenth Century), half life-size. Painted in Monochrome, relieved with yellow, by Dirk of Haarlem. (Collection of M. Benoni-Verhelst, Ghent.)
was being introduced into France. Albert Dürer employed his pencil in painting twenty windows in the church of the Old Temple, in Paris, and produced a collection of pictures characterised by vigorous drawing, and warm and intense colouring. The celebrated German did not work alone—other artists assisted him; and, notwithstanding the devastations which took place during the Revolution, in many a church and mansion traces of these skilful masters may still be found; their compositions, which are generally as well arranged as they are executed, are marked with a tinge of German simplicity very suitable to the pious nature of the subjects they represent.
In 1600, Nicholas Pinaigrier placed in the windows of the Castle of La Briffe seven pictures in “grisaille,” copied from the designs of Francis Floris, a Flemish master, who was born in 1520. At this same period Van Haeck, Herreyn, John Dox, and Pelgrin Rösen, all belonging to the school of Antwerp, and other artists who had decorated the windows of most of the churches in Belgium, especially St. Gudule in Brussels, influenced either directly or indirectly the glass-painters of the east and north of France. Another group of artists, the Provençals, imitators of the Italian style, or rather perhaps inspired by the same luminary, the sun of Michael Angelo, trod a similar path to that which Jean Cousin, Pinaigrier, and Palissy had followed with so much renown. The chiefs of this school were Claude, and Guillaume of Marseilles, who, as we have just mentioned, carried their talent and their works into Italy, where they succeeded in educating some clever pupils.
With regard to the school of Messin or Lorraine, it is principally represented by a disciple of Michael Angelo, Valentin Bousch, the Alsatian, who died in 1541 at Metz, where he had executed, since 1521, an immense number of works. The windows of the churches of St. Barbe, St. Nicolas du Port, Autrey, and Flavigny-sur-Moselle, are due to the same school, in which Israel Henriet was also brought up; he became the chief of a school exclusively belonging to Lorraine, at the time when Charles III. had invited the arts to unite under the patronage of the ducal throne. Thierry Alix, in a “Description inédite de la Lorraine,” written in 1590, and mentioned by M. Bégin, speaks of “large plates of glass of all colours,” made in his time in the mountains of Vosges, where “all the herbs and other things necessary to painting” were found. M. Bégin, after having quoted this curious statement, adds that the windows which at that era were produced in the studios of Vosges, and subsequently carried to all parts of Europe, constituted a very active branch of commerce.