Part 2 (1/2)
One more source, at least, there was at which the early glazier drew inspiration--namely, the art of jewel setting. Coloured gla.s.s, as was said a while ago, was itself probably first made only in imitation of precious stones, and, being made in small pieces, it had to be set somewhat in the manner of jewellery. In all probability the enameller himself wrought at first only in imitation of jewellery, and afterwards in emulation with it.
Just as white gla.s.s was called crystal, and no doubt pa.s.sed for it, so coloured gla.s.s actually went by the name of ruby, sapphire, emerald, and so on. It is recorded even (falsely, of course) how sapphires were ground to powder and mixed with gla.s.s to give it its deep blue colour; indeed, this wilful confusion of terms goes far to explain the mystery of the monster jewels of which we read in history or the fable which not so very long ago pa.s.sed for it. Stories of diamond thrones and emerald tables seem to lead straight into fairyland; but the gla.s.s-worker explains such fancies, and brings us back again to reality.
Bearing in mind, then, the preciousness of gla.s.s, and the well-kept secrecy with regard to its composition, it is not beyond the bounds of supposition that the glazier of the dark ages not only intended deliberately to imitate jewellery, but meant that his gla.s.s should pa.s.s with the ignorant (we forget how very ignorant the ma.s.ses were) for veritably precious stones.
Even though we exempt glaziers from all charge of trickery, it was inevitable that they should attempt to rival the work of the jeweller, and to do in large what he had done only in small. That certainly they did, and with such success that, even when it comes to gla.s.s of the twelfth, and, indeed, of the thirteenth century, when already pictorial considerations begin to enter the mind of the artist, the resemblance is unmistakable.
[Ill.u.s.tration: 9. ARAB GLAZING IN PLASTER.]
Try to describe the effect of an early mosaic window, and you are compelled to liken it to jewellery. Jewelled is the only term which expresses it. And the earlier it is the more jewel-like it is in effect.
So long as the workman looked upon his gla.s.s as a species of jewellery, it followed, as a matter of course, from the very estimation in which he held his material, that he did not think of obscuring it by paint--defiling it, as he would have held. It is not so much that he would have been ashamed to depend on the painter to put his colour right, as that the thought of such a thing never entered his mind; he was a glazier. It was the painter first thought of that, and his time had not yet come.
Possibly it may have occurred to the reader, _apropos_ of the diagram on page 10, in which it was shown how far the glazier could go towards the production of a map in gla.s.s, that that was not far. Certainly he does not go very far towards making a chart of any geographical value, but he does go a long way towards making a window; for the first and foremost qualities in coloured gla.s.s are colour and translucency--and for translucent colour the glazier, after the gla.s.s-maker, is alone responsible. It is in some respects very much to be deplored that the Gothic craftsman so early took to the use of supplementary painting, which in the end diverted his attention from a possible development of his craft in a direction not only natural to it but big with possibilities never to this day realised.
Of richly jewelled Gothic gla.s.s all innocent of paint, no single window remains to us; but there are fairly numerous examples extant of pattern windows glazed in white gla.s.s, whether in obedience to the Cistercian rule which forbade colour, or with a view to letting light into the churches--and it is to churches, prevalent as domestic gla.s.s may once have been, we must now go for our Gothic windows.
[Ill.u.s.tration: 10. GLAZING IN PLASTER, SOUTH KENSINGTON MUSEUM.]
Some of this white pattern work is ascribed to a period almost as early as that of any gla.s.s we know; but it is almost impossible to speak positively as to the date of anything so extremely simple in its execution; in which there is no technique of painting to tell tales; and which, when once ”storied” windows came into fas.h.i.+on, was probably left to the tender mercies of lesser craftsmen, who may not have disdained to save themselves the trouble of design, and to repeat the old, old patterns.
The earlier glazier, it was said, painted, figuratively speaking, in gla.s.s. It is scarcely a figure of speech to say that he drew in leadwork.
This mode of draughtsmans.h.i.+p was employed in all strictly mosaic gla.s.s; but it is in the white windows (or the pale green windows, which were the nearest he could get to white, and which it is convenient to call white) that this drawing with the leads is most apparent--in patterns, that is to say, in which the design is formed entirely by the leadwork.
You have only to look at such patterns as Nos. 11 to 17, to see how this was so; they are all designed in outline, and the outline is given in lead. It is perfectly plain there how every separate line the glazier laid down in charcoal upon his bench stood for a strip of lead. And, looking at the gla.s.s, we see that it is the lead which makes the pattern. It is no straining of terms to call this designing in the lead. The ingenuity in designing such patterns as those below and opposite, which is very considerable, consists in so scheming them that every lead line shall fulfil alike a constructive and an artistic function; that is to say, that every line in the design shall be necessary to its artistic effect, that there shall be no lead line which is not an outline, no outline which is not a lead.
[Ill.u.s.tration: 11. PLAIN GLAZING, BONLIEU.]
It is not always that the glazier was so conscientious as this. M.
Viollet le Duc pointed out, in the most helpful article in his famous Dictionary of Architecture, under the head of _Vitrail_, how in the little window from Bonlieu, here ill.u.s.trated, the mediaeval craftsman resorted to a dodge, more ingenious than ingenuous, by which he managed to economise labour. Each separate lead line there does not enclose a separate piece of gla.s.s. The lines are all of lead; but some of them are mere dummies, strips of metal, holding nothing, carried across the face of the gla.s.s only, and soldered on to the more businesslike leads at each end. The extent of _bona fide_ glazing is indicated in the right-hand corner of the drawing. I confess I was inclined at first to think that Viollet le Duc might, in ascribing this gla.s.s to the twelfth century, very possibly have dated it too far back; for this is the kind of trick one would more naturally expect from the later and more sophisticated workman; but I have since come upon the same device myself, both at Reims and Chalons, in work certainly as old as the thirteenth century. You see, cutting the gla.s.s was the difficulty in those days, and sometimes it was s.h.i.+rked.
It should be noted that the subterfuge employed at Bonlieu and in the specimens from Chalons, opposite, was not in order to evade any difficulty in glazing--the designs present none--but merely to save trouble. There would have been more occasion for evasion in executing the design from Aix-la-Chapelle (14), where the sharp points of the fleur-de-lys give background shapes difficult for the glazier to cut. It will be noticed that to the left of the panel one of the points joins the necking-piece, which holds the fleur-de-lys together. That is a much more practical piece of glazing than the free point, which presents a difficulty in cutting the background, indicative of the late period to which the gla.s.s belongs. The earlier mediaeval glazier worked with primitive tools, which kept him perforce within the bounds of simplicity and dignified restraint.
[Ill.u.s.tration: 12. CHaLONS.]
In white windows, so called, he did not by any means confine himself wholly to the use of what it is convenient to call ”white gla.s.s.” From a very early date, perhaps from the very first, he would enrich it with some slight amount of colour. Having devised, as it were, a lattice of white lines, as in the left-hand pattern from Salisbury (overleaf), it was a very simple thing to fill here and there a division of his design with a piece of coloured instead of white gla.s.s, as in the pattern next to it in order. The third pattern, to the right, shows how he would even introduce a separate jewel of colour, perhaps painted, which had to be connected with the design by leads forming no part of the pattern.
[Ill.u.s.tration: 13. CHaLONS.]
Colour spots are more ingeniously introduced in the example from Brabourne Church, Kent, (said to be Norman) where the darker tints are ingeniously thrown into the background. But here again, although this is perhaps as early a specimen of glazing as we have in this country, the glazier resorts in his central rosettes to the aid of paint.
[Ill.u.s.tration: 14. AIX-LA-CHAPELLE.]
[Ill.u.s.tration: 15. SOUTH TRANSEPT, SALISBURY.]
It will be observed that in the marginal lines which frame this window, and again in the white bands in two out of the three patterns from Salisbury, leads are introduced which have only a constructional use, and rather confuse the design. That they do not absolutely destroy it is due to its marked simplicity, and to the proportion of the narrow bands to the broad s.p.a.ces. This is yet more clearly marked in the very satisfactory glazing designs from S. Serge at Angers. The fact is, there is a limit to the possibilities of design, such as that from Sens (page 96), in which literally only four leads (viz., those from the points of the central diamond shape) are introduced wholly and solely for strength; and when it comes to windows of any considerable size, such as clerestory windows, to which plain glazing is peculiarly suited, leads which merely strengthen become absolutely necessary. The art of the designer consists in so scheming them that they shall not seriously interfere with the pattern.