Stained Glass

But the most typical and expressive development of ornament is seen in the canopy. This form of architectural ornament no doubt originated in the 12th century, when an architectural unit —generally an arch—was introduced to indicate a building or interior scene. This simple unit became more elaborate during the 13th century, but remained essentially illustrative in inten tion. Then we get as an early characteristic of the i4th century, the elaboration of this detail into purely ornamental features. The architecture is given the value of pure decoration. At first this is rendered in one dimension, and slender pillars and fretted pin nacles, interchanged in colour, form a simple and effective setting for the figures within the framework. But as the architecture itself becomes more elaborate, its representation in the glass develops. By the end of the i4th century we find an elaborate use of perspective. In the 15th century the spirit of play breaks out even here, and the niches are peopled with angels and coy minstrels. As the century advances the canopies grow more com plex, though more representational.

Fifteenth Century.

With this development of the architec tural features of stained glass ornament is perhaps bound up a curious retrogression during the 15th century—the abandon ment of natural plant motives for stylicized diapers. Artists for sook the carefully observed ivy, oak and vine, and introduced instead such dreary motives as that usually described as the "sea weed pattern"—an elongated, shapelessly indented leaf, generally painted in reserve on a blue or ruby glass, and seemingly kept as "stock" to be used whenever the design required an indeterminate background. It was a step towards that still more slipshod expe dient—the stencilled diaper background of the 16th century.

The borders, which had always been an integral part of stained glass design, develop in conformity with the general trend. But their aesthetic function becomes less obvious and they gradually lose decorative value. In the 12th century the border had been the essential framework of the design, enclosing within its definite pattern the otherwise unconfined design.

In the 13th century the border existed as a foil for the sequence of separate designs. Then, in the 14th century, when the sub ject-panel became isolated from its background, the border be came a purely decorative feature, contributing a separate unit to the general aesthetic effect ; in the 12th century the border framed the design—in the i4th it edged the frame of stonework, its naturalistic form suiting this purpose admirably. Then in the 15th century, with its strange efflorescence of canopy work, the border tended to lose all aesthetic justification; it existed merely as a strip dividing the design from the stonework, and providing, as it were, a transition from one to the other. In this role it naturally tended to become more formal in character. Already in the 14th century the typical border of creeping foliage had been varied with alternations of devices such as crowns, chalices, heraldic badges, grotesque animals, small figures of angels, etc. an exceptional example is to be seen in the famous Bellfounders' window in the north aisle of the nave, York minster, where the border consists of bells (outer lights) and musical monkeys (centre light). The 15th century saw some recovery of the sense of colour. Coloured glass of a variety of colours, but too even and flat in tone to be quite satisfactory, became available on the Con tinent and was largely imported into England. Already in 1408

the east window at York minster, made by John Thornton of Coventry, is full of a new vitality and gaiety. The covenants for the execution of the glass in the Beauchamp Chapel, Warwick, which are dated 1447, specifically provide for glazing the windows "with Glasse beyond the Seas, and with no Glasse of England; and that in the finest wise, with the best, cleanest and strongest glasse of beyond the Sea that may be had in England." This window was carried out by John Prudde, one of the greatest of English glass-painters, and the result is versatile in the extreme, the colours, jewelled and counterchanged to the utmost limits of ingenuity, blazing with the greatest richness imaginable.

In Germany also, the development was in consonance with the richness and complexity of late Gothic art in general, and here the development may be particularly associated with the name of Hans Wild, whose principal works date from about 1470 to 1480. His most famous window is in the cathedral at Ulm, and shows great boldness and original fantasy in the use of foliage motives. The window becomes a luxuriant trelliswork of flowering plants and pinnacles in the depths of which the human figures tend almost to disappear.

One characteristic of this period is the development of heraldry in glass. We have practically no knowledge or records of the use of heraldry in stained-glass windows previous to the 14th century, though there are three 13th century shields in the apse windows of Westminster Abbey which serve to indicate an early use of heraldic glass. We know from records that these shields were originally placed in the aisle windows, which were of grisaille. But the particular circumstances which brought heraldic glass into general use are hardly consistent with the spirit of early Gothic art. One of the characteristics of the 14th century is the introduction of the personal element into the .windows. Donors began to desire their portraits within the design of their window ; memorials to the immediate dead began to assume a representational form. At first no attempt at faithful portrayal could be made; the mode and technique of glass-painting at that time forbade it. The shield of arms had therefore the very definite use of identification. But it was soon realized that her aldry had an aesthetic value of its own, and its use multiplied. Glass proved to be especially suitable to the rendering of the formal patterns of the shields, and the brilliancy doubly attractive in this personal emblem. The ground of the shield, which was usually filled in with a diaper pattern, gave the glass-painter an opportunity to exercise his skill in brushwork and his fertility in the invention of decorative motives. The technique of scratch ing a design with a point through a dense ground of colour, al ways a pleasant technique in glass-painting, was encouraged by this development. The glass-painter kept pace with the herald, and did not hesitate to attempt the utmost elaboration of curved shield and exuberant mantling. With the Renaissance heraldic glass took on a more restrained appearance—at least, in England, where the common use of the garter and the wreath tended to confine the design within sober limits. Elsewhere, especially in Switzerland, heraldic glass became, during the course of the 15th and i6th centuries, the most typical use of glass-painting.