Part 19 (1/2)
[Ill.u.s.tration: 190. EVREUX.]
Figures or figure subjects in formal bands across tall quarry lights are always effective; so are figures planted more casually upon the quarries--kneeling donors, flying angels, or whatever they may be. So again, are figure panels alternating with bosses of ornament; but, if the window occupy a position where the figures can be appreciated, a surrounding of quarries seems hardly of interest enough, and if not, the figures seem rather thrown away. One is tempted to make exception in favour of figures in grisaille, which, if very delicately painted (as for example at S. Martin-c.u.m-Gregory, York), show to advantage on a quarry ground, which has the modesty not to compete with them in interest. The quarries keep their place perfectly as a background; and the slight painting upon them is just enough to give the gla.s.s quality, and to indicate that, however subordinate, it is yet part of the picture.
A quarry window, no less than any other, wants a border, if only to prevent the strongly marked straight lines of lead from appearing to run into the stonework. A simple line of colour with another of white next the mullions is enough for that. Even this is occasionally omitted, more especially in tracery lights, but in that case the gla.s.s seems to lack finish. The most satisfactory border to quarry lights into which otherwise no colour is introduced, is a broadish border of white, painted with pattern and in part stained. A coloured border seems to imply other colour breaking the field of quarries. By itself it is too much or not enough. Its proportion is a thing to be determined in each case on the spot; but even in narrow lights, if they contain bosses of colour (as do those in the transepts at Le Mans) a broad border about one fifth the width of the window, with a broad white line next the stone, is very effective.
The monotony of any great surface of quarry work, has led to the introduction of medallions and the like, even where it is not desired to introduce pot-metal colour. In the window from Evreux, ill.u.s.trated opposite, the effect of the delicately painted little angel medallions, in white on a ground of stain, is all that could be wished. Any little surprise of that kind is always welcome; but, should it occur too frequently, it becomes itself monotonous.
There is no end to the variety of forms in which colour may be introduced into quarry work. It is best in the form of patches, and not in the form of lines between the quarries as occurs occasionally, at Poitiers, for example, at Rouen cathedral, and at Chalons (page 167).
[Ill.u.s.tration: 191. QUARRY WINDOW, EVREUX.]
Big rosettes, discs, wreaths, rings of colour, and the like, are more effective than small spots. They need not be heavy, there may be any amount of white in them. In narrow lights, they may sometimes with advantage come in front of the border; that admits of the biggest possible medallion, and it is best to have such features large and few.
Mean little rosettes are too suggestive of the contractor; in the church of S. Ouen, at Rouen, one is uncomfortably reminded of him--it would be so easy to estimate for gla.s.s of that kind at so much the foot! Heraldic s.h.i.+elds form often peculiarly effective colour-patches in quarry windows, more especially because of the accidental arrangement of colour they compel. There is a point at which symmetry of colour palls upon the eye.
[Ill.u.s.tration: 192. LINCOLN.]
The even surface of quarry lights all in white and stain is broken sometimes by an occasional band of inscription, which may either take the line of the quarries, or cross them in the form of a label. At Evreux some quarry lights are most pleasingly interrupted by square patches of inscription in yellow, or, which is still more satisfactory, in white. In the same cathedral there is a very interesting instance of inscription, in letters some five or six inches high, leaded in blue upon a quarry ground.
[Ill.u.s.tration: 193. GERMAN QUARRY BORDER.]
[Ill.u.s.tration: 194. EARLY ENGLISH QUARRY.]
The patterns with which quarries are painted naturally followed the ordinary course of grisaille. In the thirteenth century the designs were strongly outlined, and showed clear against a cross-hatched ground; which, however, did not, as a rule, extend to the lead, but a margin of clear gla.s.s was left next to it, in acknowledgment of the quarry shape.
The combination of quarries and strap ornament in the example at Lincoln (page 287) is unusual, but the quarries themselves are, but for the absence of a clear line next the leads, characteristically of the thirteenth century. The quarry border from Nuremberg (above) is rather later in character. In that case also, as it happens, there is no marginal line of clear gla.s.s. The typical treatment is shown below.
Later, as in other grisaille, the cross-hatched ground was omitted; and the foliage took, of course, more natural form. It was presently more delicately traced (page 290), and more often than not tinted in yellow stain. Consistently with the more natural form of leaf.a.ge the design in fourteenth century work was often one continuous growth trailing through the window, and pa.s.sing behind the marginal band of stain which now usually emphasised the top sides of the quarries. Often a futile attempt was made (page 286) to give the appearance of interlacing to these bands, but that was nullified by the stronger lead lines. True, interlacing was only possible where, as in some earlier work, the bands were continued on all four sides of the quarry, so that the lead fell into its place as inters.p.a.ce between two interlacing bands. It was better when there was no pretence of interlacing (below). Additional importance was sometimes given to the marginal band by tracing a pattern upon it, or, as on page 291, painting it in brown, and then picking out geometric tracery upon it. There came a time when marginal lines were omitted altogether. That was the usual, though not invariable, practice in the fifteenth century, by which time the draughtsman had apparently learnt to husband his inventive faculty. The continuous growth of the pattern, as well as the marginal acknowledgment of the lead lines, died out of fas.h.i.+on, and quarries were mostly painted sprig fas.h.i.+on. The character of these sprigs will be best judged from the specimens on page 289, some of the most interesting given in ”Shaw's Book of Quarries.”
Quarry patterns do not, of course, occur in that profuse variety; it is seldom that more than two patterns are found in a single window, often there is only one. The range of design in quarries of this kind is limited only by the invention of the artist. It includes both floral and conventional ornament, animal and grotesque figures, emblems and heraldic badges, cyphers, monograms, mottoes, and so on. There is scope not only for meaning in design, but for the artist's humour; but, when all is said, the Late Gothic pattern windows, now given over entirely to quarry work, are of no great account as concerns their detail. The later quarry patterns are often pretty enough, sometimes amusing, but they go for very little in the decoration of a church. Plentiful as quarry work is everywhere, and characteristic as it is of Perpendicular gla.s.s, there is not much that shows an attempt to do anything serious with the quarry window. All that was done was to paint more or less delicate and dainty patterns upon the little lozenge panes. However, they were traced with a light hand and a sure one, and with a kind of spontaneity which gives them really what artistic charm they have.
[Ill.u.s.tration: 195. QUARRY PATTERNS (SHAW).]
[Ill.u.s.tration: 196. 14TH CENTURY QUARRY.]
[Ill.u.s.tration: 197. 14TH CENTURY QUARRIES.]
The occasional endeavours to get stronger and bolder effects in quarry work were not very successful. At Evreux and at Rouen there are some late quarries painted more after the fas.h.i.+on of bold mosaic diaper; but the effect, though satisfactory enough, is not such as to convince one that that is the better way.
[Ill.u.s.tration: 198. 14TH CENTURY QUARRY.]
To heraldry, and especially to s.h.i.+elds of arms surrounded by mantling (page 293), quarries form an excellent background, but only in the event of there being enough of them left free to show that it is a quarry window upon which the heraldry is imposed, or rather into which it is inlaid. Odds and ends of quarries want to be accounted for, as forming the continuation of the gla.s.s above and below. In the case of a window not a quarry window, it is a mistake to break up the background, as was sometimes done, into quarries, or rather into fragments of quarries. The object of the square or diamond shape is to break up a plain surface. If the ground is naturally broken up by figures, foliage, mantling, or what not, why introduce further quarry lines? They are not in themselves interesting. Their great value is in that they give scale to a window; but that is only on condition that they are seen in their entirety.
[Ill.u.s.tration: 199. ROUND GLa.s.s, ROUNDELS, OR BULL'S-EYES.]
[Ill.u.s.tration: 200. HERALDIC GLa.s.s.]
In Germany the place of quarries was supplied by roundels (page 292) unpainted. What applies to quarries applies in many respects to them; and they have a brilliancy which flat gla.s.s has not. They were usually enclosed in painted borders of white and stain, and have a very delicate and pearly effect; but where (as at S. Peter's, at Cologne) they occur in great quant.i.ty as compared with coloured subjects, these appear to be floating rather uncomfortably in their midst. The Italians, who also used roundels in place of quarries, often let colour into the interstices between them, and also little painted squares or paterae of white and stain. In the sham windows decorating the Sistine Chapel at Rome, separating Botticelli's series of Popes, the pointed s.p.a.ces between the rounds are coloured diagonally in successive rows of red, yellow, and green; but the result is most pleasing where, as at Verona and elsewhere, the little triangular s.p.a.ces are neither of one tint nor yet symmetrically arranged, but distributed in a quasi-accidental and unexpected way. Sometimes it was the little paterae that was in colour and the rest white. In any case, the effect is refined, as it is at Arezzo also, where the monotony of roundels, in sundry clerestory windows, is broken by figure medallions and other features in white and colour. The adaptation of roundels to the circular shape is shown in the portion of a round window from Santa Maria Novella. What more remains to be said about roundels and quarry windows is reserved for the chapter on ”Domestic Gla.s.s.”
[Ill.u.s.tration: 201. QUARRY FROM CHETWODE CHURCH.]
[Ill.u.s.tration: 202. WINDOW IN THE CERTOSA IN VAL D'EMA, FLORENCE.]