Chapter VIII: The Style of the Second Period

Although the earliest known work in the style of the Second Period may possibly date from a little before 1300, and although the transition to the succeeding style had certainly begun by 1380, yet, roughly speaking, the limits of the period are those of the fourteenth century, and it is not unusual to speak loosely of the style as the fourteenth century style in glass.

The interest of the period lies perhaps rather in its tendencies and development than in its actual achievements, which by general consent are inferior not only to those of the First, but to those of the Third, Period. It is a period of transition and uncertainty, of the loss of old ideals when men "follow wandering fires."

[Sidenote: Weakening of the religious motive.]

Most of all does one notice the change of mental attitude. The fierce missionary zeal for the Faith, the mystic symbolism, has gone. The wonderful two hundred years which produced St. Bernard, St. Francis, St. Dominic, St. Louis and the Crusades, and which saw most of the great cathedrals built are over, and a reaction sets in. Never again do we find a whole people, from princes to ploughmen, neglecting their personal affairs and combining to build and decorate worthily a glorious house of God. Churchmen are growing comfortable and apathetic, if not corrupt, and laymen are either uninterested in religion or critical. Towards the end of the century this feeling gives rise to Wyclif's movement and we get _Piers Plowman_, with its fierce denunciation of the means by which money was obtained for windows and of "lordings" who "writen in windowes of their well deedes."

With the religious motive thus weakened the artist seems to have interested himself chiefly in the technical side of his art,--he may even have talked of "Art for Art's sake,"--and the usual result follows. The lack of the underlying and unifying motive produces a want of proportion in the parts. The canopies become much more important than the figures under them; narrative subjects become much more rare, and when they occur have none of the dramatic intensity of those of the past age. Instead we have an endless series of single figures of saints, without character and each in exactly the same affected attitude, like an elongated letter S. In search of inspiration the artist turns to the study of nature and the literal reproduction of plant forms in ornament. In the figures too, although the attitudes are conventional the drawing of drapery is less so, and towards the end of the period the artist is tentatively feeling his way towards modelling.

[Sidenote: Progress in technique.]

One thing indeed we find during this time, which is within the power of every artist in times of artistic dearth, namely, a steady grappling with practical problems offered by the changed conditions, whereby the way was cleared for the new life that came into the art in the succeeding age. For instance, by showing how coloured figure work could be combined with grisaille in the same window they solved the problem of lighting; by the invention of the silver stain they made it possible to make white glass more interesting and to blend it better with colour; while in drawing they made steady progress towards a style more in keeping with the standards of the time.

[Sidenote: Characteristics.]

The outward and visible characteristics of this period as compared with the preceding one are as follows:--

(1) The simplification of the iron-work.
(2) The invention and use of silver stain.
(3) The combination of figure work and grisaille.
(4) The extraordinary development of the canopy.
(5) The style of drawing the figure.
(6) The use of natural plant forms in ornament.
(7) The quality of the glass, and the colours used.
(8) The use of painted diaper patterns on the coloured backgrounds.

* * * * *

[Sidenote: Tracery]

[Sidenote: The iron-work.]

(1) _The Simplification of the Iron-Work._--The windows of the twelfth century had been huge single lights, but the thirteenth century had seen the gradual evolution of tracery, beginning with the grouping of lancets in pairs under a rose light above. Gradually each lancet was again subdivided into a pair of lights and a rose, the spandrils were pierced, till, at the close of the century, the glazier had to design his window to fit a row of narrow lancets divided by slender mullions, which above branched into an elaborate mass of tracery containing a multitude of roses, quatrefoils, trefoils and little openings of all shapes and sizes. With this division of the window into comparatively narrow lights the need for the elaborate iron lattice of the preceding age disappeared, its work being now largely taken up by the stone-work. Instead of lights from six to nine feet wide the glazier had now to deal with lights three and a half feet wide at most, and often much narrower, and in consequence all that was necessary was a series of horizontal bars connecting the mullions, which themselves take the place of the upright bars of former days. In windows of this time, then, and later, massive rebated bars are fixed horizontally in the stone-work at intervals of between three and four feet, and these with the mullions really form the framework into the square openings of which the panels of the glazing were inserted separately. Between, and parallel with, these massive bars, three or four light "saddle-bars" are fixed on the inside of the glass, which keep the panel in its place, the glass being attached to them by means of strips of lead (called bands) soldered to the lead-work of the glazing and twisted round the bar. In order to distinguish between the massive rebated bars which hold the top and bottom of each panel and these light bars between, I shall speak of the former as "frame-bars," the latter by the name they still hold, of "saddle-bars."

The only change from this arrangement which has been made in modern times (except for the use of copper wire instead of lead for the "bands") is the omission of the stout frame-bar, the whole of the weight of the window being now borne by its edges and the saddle-bars. Not only is this arrangement less sound in construction but it is also far less decorative. The thick bars at intervals with thin bars between punctuate the length of the tall windows pleasantly, and are made use of in the design, which in this way is still based on the iron-work. In a recent disastrous "restoration" that was made of one of the windows in the nave of York, the glass was refixed with saddle-bars all of equal size and the thick frames omitted, and it is wonderful how the eye misses them.

This arrangement was, of course, only used in windows above a certain size, in quite small lights the saddle-bars alone being considered sufficient. It was not, I think, an uncommon arrangement for the uppermost bar at all events--that at the springing of the arch--to pass continuously through all the mullions and bind them together.

[Sidenote: Silver stain.]

(2) _The Invention of Silver Stain._--In the early years of the fourteenth century an important addition was made to the technical resources of the glass painter by the discovery that if white glass is painted with a preparation of silver--oxide or chloride may be used, or even silver in its metallic form, though that is less convenient--and then subjected to the heat of the kiln, the parts so painted will be found to be stained yellow, pale or dark according to the amount of silver used and according also to the composition of the glass. This is a process quite different from enamelling. It is a true _stain_, actually penetrating the glass to a slight degree and quite indelible except by the perishing of the glass itself. The oxide or chloride of silver is only mixed with other substances, such as yellow lake, for convenience of application.

[Sidenote: Its first appearance.]

Precisely when and where the invention was made and first used we have no means of knowing. We may dismiss the story of the glazier from whose coat a silver button dropped on to the glass he was putting into the kiln, partly because the artist of whom the story is told, one James of Ulm, who worked in Italy and was beatified after his death, was not born till more than a hundred years later. It appears in York Minster, used very sparingly and tentatively, soon after 1300. I am not sure that there are any examples in France that can be dated quite so early, but it was certainly used there by 1310. Its first use was limited to such matters as differentiating the hair, or gold crowns, of figures from their faces, but the nave windows of York Minster show a progressive increase in its use. Yellow pot-metal is there still used for the larger pieces of yellow in the canopy, but an examination of the details in Plates XVII., XVIII. will show that stain is used in places to gild the crockets of the white pinnacles, the beak and claws of the white eagle in the border of XVII.c, and the flowers in the lower part of the border in XVII.a. The pieces that are yellow all over may, I think, be assumed to be pot-metal. It is not, however, till one gets well on in the century, to 1330 or 1340, that one finds such a free use of the stain in the grisaille as that in the windows at St. Ouen at Rouen, of which the detail is given in Plates XXVI.-XXX.

[Sidenote: Combination of figures and grisaille.]

(3) _The Combination of Figures and Grisaille._--This is one of the most noticeable developments of the period. As I have said, it is occasionally attempted in the preceding style towards the close of the period, but in the fourteenth century it is the rule. Small windows are sometimes still filled entirely with colour, but nearly every window of any size, especially in the early part of the century, contains a large proportion of grisaille. In the nave of the Church of St. Pierre at Chartres (Plate XXIII.) the same principle is followed as in the earlier work in the choir, namely, the arranging of the figure-work and grisaille so as to form vertical stripes of alternate white and colour. This plan, however, was not persisted in. The numerous vertical lines formed by the mullions in the newer style of architecture required horizontal lines to balance them, and accordingly we find the usual method in fourteenth century windows is for the coloured masses to be ranged in horizontal bands running right across the window through all the lights. Plate XXV. from St. Ouen at Rouen shows a very typical window of the period. Sometimes there was, as here, one row of coloured panels, sometimes two or more as in the nave of York Minster. It will be noticed that in order to blend the white and colour satisfactorily the designer includes a good deal of white among the colour and a good deal of colour among the white. This latter is no longer dispersed through the white in coloured threads, half suspected, but is collected into bosses and borders where its effect is strong enough to support the principal masses. In fact the key-note of the design--namely, the strong contrast of light and dark in flat masses, necessitated by the combination of colour and grisaille--is repeated everywhere in detail throughout the window of which the parts are thus brought into harmony with the whole.

[Sidenote: The borders.]

This same idea leads to a complete change in the character of the borders. The running scroll work of the preceding age would no longer be appropriate; the vertical lines need breaking rather than emphasizing, and the design of the border usually takes the form of alternate blocks of colour and white or yellow. Plate XXVIII. shows some typical borders from Rouen, borders typical of English as well as French work. It will be noticed that the coloured pieces are usually left blank while the white and yellow are decorated with patterns or foliage blocked out with solid black. The ornament of the tracery lights, which by the way are usually kept pretty full of colour, is designed on the same principle. It consists, in fact, of borders tightly curled up with, sometimes, in the larger lights, a figure or a small coloured medallion in the centre containing a head.

[Sidenote: The bosses.]

The intervals formed by the regular spacing of the thick iron frame-bars are further emphasized by the placing of a coloured boss or small medallion midway between each. This arrangement in some form or other is almost universal in fourteenth century grisaille, the panels contained between the frame-bars being in fact the units of the design. Some of these bosses from Rouen are shown in Plates XXVI., XXVII., XXIX. Here they are purely fantastic in design, but elsewhere, as at York, they frequently have an heraldic motive or even take the form of shields of arms (Plate XVIII.). Heraldic motives are very commonly used too in the borders, as may be seen in the details from York Minster in Plate XVII., the charges from the shield being repeated all up the border, relieved against, or sometimes alternating with blocks of the colour of the field. Symbolic objects such as chalices are sometimes used in the same way, and occasionally we find borders formed of a succession of little figures under canopies, as in the very elaborate example from York in Plate XVIII.

[Sidenote: Quarries.]

As the century proceeds quarries become much the commonest form of grisaille. In Plates XXV., XXVI. they are true quarries, but in the first quarter of the fourteenth century they are sometimes, as, for instance, at York, "bulged" round the central boss, thus forming a sort of cross between quarries and geometric glazing. Grisaille glazed in geometric patterns such as we find at Merton College, at Evreux, and in St. Pierre at Chartres belongs, I think, always to quite the early years of the period, and even then, as may be seen in Plate XXIII., it shows a decided leaning towards quarry-work, and indeed needs little but the straightening of the leads to convert it into quarries altogether.

Continuous painted patterns are now the rule, as shown in Plate XXVI. The cross-hatched grounds disappear, and presently the silver stain is used (as here) to enrich the painting. It will be noticed that the trellis-like pattern produced by painting lines parallel to the leading is still retained.

[Sidenote: The canopy.]

(4) _The Extraordinary Development of the Canopy._--As we have seen, single figures in the preceding period, even at Canterbury, usually had architectural canopies of an unobtrusive kind, of similar design to the sculptured niches which sheltered the statues on the outside of the building. The motive for their adoption by the glazier at this date is not very obvious. They do not in the Early Period form a very important feature in the design, and serve no decorative purpose that the artist could not equally well have attained by the flat ornamentation of which he was a master. However, the glazier seems to have liked the idea when he saw it in stone-work, where it had a practical object, and to have imported it into his own work, where it had none. It must be remembered that when the sculpture was painted in colours, as it was then, the resemblance between it and the stained glass would have been closer than it is now.

However this may be, the canopy in the thirteenth century was a comparatively unobtrusive object, but in the fourteenth century, as the sculptured canopy grew and developed, so did its counterpart in stained glass, till the stained-glass worker seems to have run canopy mad. Not only is it now found over single figures but over subjects too.

It is true there was now a certain practical reason for the tall canopy to be found in the tall and narrow shape of the lights that had to be filled. The human figure was very short and broad in proportion to them, and when it was a case of a group the resulting shape was shorter still, so the canopy offered a convenient way of elongating the design; but the fourteenth century designer developed it, as may be seen in the illustrations, out of all reason, filling it with fantastic detail--angels looking out of the windows, birds perching on the pinnacles, and miniature figures standing like statues in the niches of it--till it quite reduced the figures below it to insignificance. In doing so he was only following the rest of the artistic world, which had all gone wild over the new style of architecture,--with its "passion of pinnacle and fret," as Ruskin called it,--using its details as motives for ornament even where they were least appropriate; but all this expenditure of effort on fantastic and irrelevant detail is really a symptom of the weakening of interest in the principal theme, of which a further sign is the uninteresting treatment of the subjects themselves.

The fourteenth century canopy is, at first at least, always in pure elevation, attempts at perspective not being found till close on the end of the century. Plate XXV. shows both of the forms which are most commonly found, that with a single big crocketted gable and arch spanning the opening, and that with three small ones. I think the former is the earlier form, but they are often, as here, found together.

[Sidenote: The base.]

In the earlier part of the century at all events, there is never an architectural base to the panel as well as a canopy, but both subject and the shafts of the canopy end off below with a straight line at one of the frame-bars. The earliest examples of anything in the nature of a base that I know of are at Wells and in the great east window of Gloucester Cathedral, where the topmost pinnacle of each canopy spreads out into a sort of bracket supporting the next figure above, while the shafts at the side are prolonged upwards into the canopy of that figure, an arrangement suggestive of Perpendicular work. But indeed in its general arrangement, though not in its details, the Gloucester east window, though executed in 1350-1360, contains many hints of the style that was to follow, the stone tracery, in fact, being pure Perpendicular, perhaps the earliest example known.

The canopy work itself is always in the main yellow or white, relieved against a coloured background, and with windows, capitals and other details put in with another colour. In the aisle windows of the nave of York Cathedral, the coloured background, and, at first, the pinnacles of the canopy too, end off square at the top, at one of the frame-bars, just as the panel does at the bottom. As the series proceeds, however, the central pinnacles, as in the "Peter de Dene" window, of which details are given in Plate XVIII., are prolonged above the bar, a tendency which became more and more developed as time went on. In the big window from St. Ouen's at Rouen, shown in Plate XXV., the coloured background, by a rather inept arrangement, is also brought up behind the pinnacles, and has to end in a somewhat meaningless outline.

At first the yellow of the canopies was obtained by the use of a yellow glass, a "pot-metal" (_i.e._ a glass coloured all through in the making) of a not very pleasant colour, but gradually this was superseded by the use of silver stain, by means of which a much lighter and more delicate effect could be obtained. Its introduction was gradual, however, the artist having to feel his way towards the best use of it. As its use increased, coloured glass was less and less used for details of the canopy, the character of which gradually approached more and more to that which it was to have in the following period.

In some of the very earliest windows of the period, such as those in Merton College Chapel and in the chapels of the choir in Evreux Cathedral, small coloured panels, with canopies of quite modest and reasonable proportions, are used to decorate large spaces of grisaille. The growth of the canopy began very soon, however, and where these small canopies are found together with geometric glazing of the grisaille and a complete absence of silver stain, it is fairly safe to assign a date to the window not much later than 1305.

[Sidenote: Figures on quarries.]

Curiously enough, in spite of the fourteenth century fondness for elaborate canopies, we find at the same time another type of window in which they are wholly absent, the figures being placed simply upon a background of quarries. Plate XXIV., one of a series from the clerestory of St. Ouen at Rouen, is an example of this. Here the figures stand, it is true, on little architectural bases (an exception to the rule I mentioned just now), but elsewhere these too are absent.

[Sidenote: The S-like pose.]

(5) _The Style of Drawing the Figure._--The chief characteristic of this in fourteenth century work is its apparent affectation. There seems to have been a sudden revolt from the taste for dramatic force of action which characterized the subject panels of the thirteenth century. Look at Plate XXXI. from Rouen, with its three little panels showing the Annunciation and the Visitation. In each the figure is in exactly the same pose, and that a perfectly meaningless one, like an elongated letter S. Yet this pose seems to have become all the fashion, for it is almost universal in the work of this period, and is found even in such transitional work as the east windows of the antechapel of New College, Oxford, which, in other respects, belong far more to the succeeding period.

Yet in spite of this loss of naturalism in movement, in the actual drawing of forms, both of the figure and of drapery, there is an advance. If you will compare St. Luke from the clerestory of St. Ouen at Rouen in Plate XXIV. with Methuselah from Canterbury in Plate III., you will see the change that has occurred. St. Luke has far less character and force, he is far less alive, his pose and gesture mean nothing, or at most are mildly argumentative, and yet there is a certain sense in which he, and still more his drapery, is better drawn, or if not better, at all events in a more advanced manner. This is more noticeable if you compare St. Luke or the little figures in Plate XXX. with the big angel from Chartres in Plate X., which is not so well drawn as the Methuselah.

[Sidenote: The effort towards grace of form.]

The fact is that the twelfth and thirteenth century convention in figure drawing had served its turn well, but was now worn out. Deriving, originally, as we have seen, out of Greek art in its Byzantine form, it had formed a stock on which the artist of the Early Period had been able to graft his own observation and love of nature, but it had now ceased to satisfy and was therefore abandoned. The progress of drawing in other arts, or at all events in sculpture, had taught men to demand something different. The artist of the late thirteenth century, as the last influence of Greek art died out of his work, had undoubtedly neglected grace of form in his enthusiasm for vigorous and naturalistic movement; and, as so often happens when one quality in art is neglected, a reaction had come, in which people demanded that quality above all others. Consequently, the chief effort of the draughtsman of the fourteenth century, if I understand him rightly, was to bring his drawing of form up to the standard required of him, the S-like attitude, for instance, being merely a trick to get a willowy gracefulness into his figures, especially those of women.

The same tendency is observable in the drawing of drapery. The drapery of the thirteenth century was entirely conventional in the method in which it was drawn, but it was always in movement and helped the action of the figures. Fourteenth century drapery, on the other hand, is always at rest, or at most sweeping with the slow movement of a figure, but its folds are drawn in a much more advanced manner than before, and seem to bear evidence of a certain amount of direct study of actual drapery, either on the part of the artist or of those whom he was following. The ideal of gracefulness shows itself in a love for long and sweeping folds, as may be seen in Plates XXIV., XXX., XXXI.

At first the artist is content to use in his drawing the strong line work of the preceding period, but as the century proceeds this becomes rather more delicate, and he begins to feel his way towards modelling in half-tones. The drapery over the Virgin's knees in Plate XXI. shows this very clearly.

[Sidenote: Neglect of movement.]

With this preoccupation with the truer rendering of form, it is perhaps not surprising that the study of action was neglected. The artist had enough to do to draw his figures and drapery in repose without making them move about and do things, and a contributory cause was, no doubt, the weakening of interest already alluded to in the subjects he had to illustrate. This then is why, whereas in the thirteenth century we find a highly conventional rendering of form allied to naturalism in movement, in the fourteenth, conversely, we find conventional poses and movement allied to a more naturalistic rendering of form.

Comparative study of the illuminated manuscripts of the same period shows exactly the same changes in progress. So closely do the two arts keep pace with each other that I do not think it can be said that at any time either was leading the other. They must have been in very close touch even if they were not, which it is quite possible they often were, practised by the same artists. The lead, if there was a lead, must have come from sculpture.

[Sidenote: Natural plant forms in ornament.]

(6) _The use of Natural Plant Forms in Ornament._--This is another manifestation of the same spirit, and divides the work of the fourteenth century most sharply from that both of the preceding and following periods. The Jesse Trees, and the leafy scrolls and borders of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries belong to no genus known to botanists, but in the fourteenth century it seems as if the artist, the inspiration of religion failing him, had sought it in a rather literal study of Nature. Accordingly in the grisaille and borders of this period we find patterns formed of oak leaves and acorns, ivy leaves, maple, vine, and so on. Plate XXVI. is rather an exception in that one cannot name the particular plant; but Plates XXVIII. and XXIX. contain characteristic examples, and Plate XXI. shows a good vine border from York, and some holly leaf grisaille.

Yet the feeling for Nature in these patterns does not go very deep. The artist is, for instance, content to make the oak wreath and twine itself as freely as the vine, and I always feel that his practice is the result of theory rather than the spontaneous expression of love of Nature. The earlier worker was really, I believe, more in tune with Nature than his successor of the fourteenth century. He did not copy her forms in ornament but he followed her principles. He did not copy her forms, because she had taught him to design forms for himself. Nature, it may be observed, does not adorn one object with copies of another, hardly even when she gives her creatures protective colouring and markings, but gives to each the patterning which suits it best. In the same way the ornament of the twelfth and thirteenth century artist is always perfectly suited to its purpose without distracting one's attention; and when his subject requires him to represent a tree or a bush,--such as the fig tree under which Nathanael sits, or the thicket in which the ram is caught, at Canterbury,--though the foliage is that of the shamrock, he knows how to make it grow and live better than his fourteenth century successor. The waves, too, of the Flood in Plate IV., conventional though they are, give a real sense of tossing and stormy water.

[Sidenote: Change in material.]

[Sidenote: Fourteenth century colour schemes.]

(7) _The Quality of Glass and the Colours Used._--At first these differ little from those used in the previous period, but as the fourteenth century proceeds, the rich intense reds and blues, with their "streakiness," their endless variety of tone and texture, which makes each piece of glass a jewel with an individuality of its own, and needing no enrichment, give way to glass of a thinner, flatter quality. In Plate III. Mr. Saint has managed to catch and the printer to reproduce something of the quality of these early blues. There is a change too in the proportions of the colours used. The colour schemes of the Early Period are almost always conceived on a basis of red and blue, but now green and yellow become equally important; Plates XXI., XXII., for example, contain very little blue at all. The canopies when not white are mainly yellow, and this alone is responsible for a very large amount of yellow in the colour scheme--too much, in fact, as a rule. The yellow used at first, till silver stain took its place, was, as I have said, a rather hot unpleasant pot-metal. The green of the First Period had been a rather sharp brilliant colour, used generally in small quantities, and striking a high shrill note among the deep reds and blues, like a clarionet in an orchestra. The typical green of the fourteenth century, on the other hand, which is often used as a background, is a greyer duller colour altogether. Plate XVI. and Plate XXI. give a fairly good idea of its quality.

[Sidenote: White glass for flesh.]

Another change, which was the natural result, both of the increased amount of white now used in windows and of the introduction of the silver stain, was the gradual substitution of white glass in the flesh of figures for the brownish pink formerly used. Its use afforded an opportunity for getting white in amongst the colour, and so helping to bind the design together, and the fact that the hair, crowns, and mitres of figures could now be stained yellow, rendered it on the whole the most suitable glass for the purpose, and we find it holding the field down to the late sixteenth century, when a pinkish enamel began to be used.

[Sidenote: Painted diapers.]

(8) _The use of Painted Diaper Patterns on the Coloured Backgrounds._--The red and blue backgrounds to the figures in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries needed no further decoration. Their own depth and quality was enough in itself, but the thinner, flatter tones that succeeded them needed enriching and giving texture to, in order to throw the figures up into proper relief; or so the fourteenth century artist seems to have felt, for from the beginning we find his backgrounds usually covered with a diaper painted in enamel.

The method is always the same; the ground having been covered with an even coat of enamel, the pattern is scratched out clear with the point of a stick or a brush handle. Plates XVI., XX., XXI. are typical examples, and show in detail the kind of pattern that was used.

It is very rarely that we find anything of the kind in the previous period. There is, as we have seen, an isolated and early example of it at Canterbury, where a rather paler, poorer blue has been used than in the other windows, but there it is more delicate than in the fourteenth century, the pattern being scratched out of a very thin semi-transparent mat of enamel; and it is found too in some late thirteenth century windows in St. Urbain at Troyes, but in fourteenth century work it is frequently met with even at the beginning of the period, and by the end of the first quarter of the century it is the rule, and remains so throughout the succeeding century as well.