St. Remi213.St. Remi, Reims.
Fifteenth century glass, with us “Perpendicular,” in France“Flamboyant,” in Germany “Interpenetrated,” may, for convenience’ sake, be taken to include so much of Gothic as may be found lingering in the sixteenth century.
TheSixteenth centuryis more properly the period of the Renaissance. It is better not to apply to it the Italian term “cinque-cento,” since the greater part of it is not of the purely Italian character which that would imply.
Seventeenth century glassis to be distinguished from that of the sixteenth mainly inasmuch as it shows more markedly that decadence which had already begun to set in before the year 1600. It may be conveniently described as Late Renaissance.
Eighteenth century glassis not of sufficient account to be classed.
It will be seen that the dates above given do not quite coincide with those of Winston, who gives Early English to 1280, Decorated to 1380, and Perpendicular to 1530. There is here no thought of impugning his accuracy; but it seems more convenient not to distinguish a new style until the work begins markedly to differ from what had gone before, especially when the marked difference happens conveniently to coincide with the beginning of a new century; and Winston himself says of Perpendicular work (and implies as much of Decorated) that the style “can hardly be said to have become thoroughly established” until the beginning of the new century.
We have thus a century of Middle Gothic, the fourteenth century. What goes before is Early Gothic or Romanesque, as the case may be; what comes after is Late Gothic, coœval for a quarter of a century or more with the Renaissance.
Detail from Medallion Windows
214.Detail from Medallion Windows at Canterbury.
The first thing which strikes one in Early Glass is either its deep rich, jewelled colour (Canterbury, Chartres), or its sober, silvery, greyness (Salisbury; Five Sisters, York). Exception to this alternative occurs mainly in very early ornamental glass (circa.1300—S. Denis; S. Remi, Reims; Angers), in which white and colour are somewhat evenly mixed. Early figure work occurs also occasionally in colour on a white ground. The design of the richer class of windows consists largely of figure work. The design of “grisaille” windows consists mainly of ornamental pattern.
Mosaic Diaper215.Mosaic Diaper.
Composition.—Rich windows are of three kinds: medallion windows, rose windows, figure and canopy windows. Jesse windows form an exception. (Chapter XXIX.)
1.Medallion Windowsare the most characteristic of the period (Chapter XII.). These contain figure subjects, on a quite small scale, within medallion shapes set in ornament (Canterbury, Chartres, etc.).
In the very earliest medallion windows (Angers, Poitiers) the ordered scheme of the medallioned window is sometimes interrupted by subjects not strictly enclosed in medallions. Or else, perhaps (Chartres), the subjects take the form ofpanels one above the other—they can scarcely be called medallions—with little or no ornament between.
After the first few years of the thirteenth century, however, the figure medallions (circles, quatrefoils, etc.) occur, as a rule, one above the other throughout the length of the light, with perhaps a boss of ornament between; the interstices being filled, in English glass with ornamental scrollwork, in French with geometric diaper (opposite).
Detail of Medallion Window216.Detail of Medallion Window, Chartres.
In the broad windows of Norman churches (pages 123,124) the medallions are proportionately large, and are subdivided into four or five divisions, each of which is devoted to a separate picture. In our narrower lancet lights there is no occasion for that.
The figures in medallion subjects are few and far apart, standing comparatively clear-cut against a plain background (page 325); compacter groups indicate a later period. Landscape is symbolised rather than represented by a conventional tree or so; a town by an arch or two, a battlemented wall, or the like.
Medallions are framed by lines of colour and beaded bands of white, but they do not, as a rule, separate themselves very markedly from their ornamental surroundings. The effect is one rather indeterminate glory of intense colour.
Except in quite the earliest medallion windows, the strong iron bars supporting the glass are, as a rule, bent (above), to follow the outline of the medallions. That was done in no other period.
2.Rose Windowsoccur mainly in French churches. They are a variation upon the medallion window. A great Rose window (Chartres, Bourges, etc.) may be regarded as a series of radiating medallion lights, with subjects relatively fewer in number, and a greater proportion of pattern work. Occasionally they consist of pattern work altogether. Smaller Roses (the only form of tracery met with in quite Early work) contain very often a central circular medallion subject, the cusps or foils round it being occupied with ornament, all in rich colour, even though the lights below it be in grisaille.
Bars in Medallion Windows
217.Bars in Medallion Windows.
3.Figure and Canopy Windows(page 40) are more proper to the clerestory and triforium of a church, but they are not entirely confined to a far-off position.
With regard to them it should be mentioned that figures under canopies, sitting, or more often standing—one above theother in long, narrow lights—occur throughout the Gothic periods, and even in Renaissance glass. The characteristic thing about the Early ones is the stiffness and comparative grotesqueness of the figures and the modesty of the canopy. This last is of small dimensions. It may be merely a trefoiled arch (page 40). Usually it is more architectural (page 46), gabled, with a little roofing, and perhaps a small tower or two rising above, not beautiful. It is in fairly strong colours. It is so little conspicuous that it is not at first sight always distinguishable from the background to the figure. Occasionally the figure has no canopy at all. The saint stands front face, straight up in his niche, in a constrained and cramped position, occupying its full width, which is obviously insufficient. His feet rest in an impossible manner upon a label bearing his name; or, if that be inscribed upon a label in his hand, or on the background behind him, then he stands upon a little mound of green to represent the earth (page 40).
Figure and canopy alike are archaic in design, and rudely drawn. It is seldom that a figure subject on a smaller scale is introduced below the standing figure, as was frequently the case in later work. Groups of figures are characteristically confined to medallion windows.
Le Mans
218.Le Mans.
The Borderis a feature in Early glass. It is broad. In medallion windows it measures sometimes as much as one-fourth the width of the light. It takes up, that is to say, perhaps half the area of the window. It consists of foliated ornament similar in character to that between the medallions. Very broad borders occasionally include smaller figure medallions. In figure and canopy windows the borders are less, and simpler. Sometimes they consist merely of broad bands of colour interrupted by rosettes of other colours. Circumstances of proportion, and so on, influence the width of the border; but a broad border is characteristic of the Early period.
Chartres219.Chartres.
In Rose windows the border is of less account, and is confined, as a rule, to the outer ring of lights, or, it may be, to their outer edge.
Auxerre220.Auxerre.
Detail.—Ornamental detail is severely conventional. In very Early work (page 327) it has rather the character of Romanesque ornament, with straplike stalks interlacing, often enriched by a beaded, zig-zag, or other pattern, which may be either painted upon it or picked out of solid brown.
Early in the thirteenth century foliage assumes the simpler Gothic form, with cinque-foiled, or more often trefoiled, leafage (as here shown).
When it begins to be more naturalistic it is a sign of transition to the Decorated period. In Germany something of Romanesque flavour lingered far into the thirteenth century (page 330). There is properly no Early Gothic period there. Heraldry is modestly introduced into Early glass. The Donor is occasionally represented on quite a small scale in the lower part of a window, his offering in his hand; or he is content to be represented by a small shield of arms.
Colour.—The glass in Early windows is uneven in substance, and, consequently, in colour. This is very plainly seen in the “white” glass, which shades off, according to its thickness, from greenish or yellowish-white to bottle colour. The colour lies also sometimes in streaks of lighter and darker. This is especially so in red glass. The shades of colour most usually employed for backgrounds are blue and ruby. White occurs, but only occasionally.
Patchwork of Grisaille
221.Patchwork of Grisaille, Salisbury.J. Akerman, Photo-lith, London, W. C.
The Early palette consists of:—
White, greenish, and rather clouded; red, rubylike, often streaky; blue, deep sapphire to palest grey-blue, oftenest deep; turquoise-blue, of quite different quality, inclining to green; yellow, fairly strong, but never hot; green, pure and emerald-like, or deep and even low in tone,but only occasionally inclining to olive; purple-brown, reddish or brownish, not violet; flesh tint, actually lighter and more pinkish shades of this same purple-brown. In very early work the flesh is inclined to be browner.
S. Kunibert222.S. Kunibert, Cologne.
It must be remembered that, though the palette of the first glaziers was restricted, the proceeding of the glass-makers was so little scientific that they had no very great control over their manufacture. No two pots of glass, therefore, came out alike. Hence a great variety of shades of glass, though produced from a few simple recipes. They might by accident produce, once in a way, almost any colour. A pot of ruby sometimes turned out greenish-black. Still, the colours above mentioned predominate in Early work, and are clearly those aimed at.
Workmanship.—The glazing of an Early window is strictly a mosaic of small pieces of glass. Each separate colour in it is represented by a separate piece of glass, or several pieces.
The great white eyes, for example, of big clerestory figures are separate pieces of white glass, rimmed with lead, and held in place by connecting strips of lead, which give them often very much the appearance of spectacles (page 40). In work on a sufficiently large scale the hair of the head and beard are also glazed in white, or perhaps in some dark colour, distinct from the brownish-pink flesh tint peculiar to the period (same page). No large pieces of glass occur.
S. Kunibert223.S. Kunibert, Cologne.
Upon examination the window proves to be netted over with lines of lead jointing, much of which is lost in the outlines of the design.
In large clerestory figures and the like, masses of one colour occur, but they are made up of innumerable little bits of glass, by nomeans all of one shade of colour; whence the richness in tone.
S. Jean-aux-Bois224.S. Jean-aux-Bois.
Painting.—In Early glass painting plays a very subordinate part. Only one pigment is used, and that not by way of colour, but to paint out the light and define form.
Details of figure and ornament are traced in firm strong brush lines.
Lines mark the exaggerated expression of the face, the close folds of the spare drapery wrapped tightly round the figure, the serration of foliage, and so on (pages 33,37,324). Lines, in the form of sweeping brush strokes or cross-hatching, are used also to emphasise such shading (not very much) as may be indicated in thirteenth century work, or perhaps it should rather be said that the lines of shading are supplemented very often by a coat of thin brown paint, not always very easily detected on the deep-coloured glass of the period.
White Windows, or “Grisaille.”—Grisaille assumes in France the character of interlacing strapwork all in white. Sometimes this is quite without paint (page 25). Plain work of the kind occurs also with us; but it is dangerous to give a date to simple glazing. That at Salisbury (page 26) is probably not of the very earliest.
In France, as with us, such strapwork is associated with foliated detail, traced in strong outline upon the white glass and defined by a background of cross-hatched lines which go for a greyer tint (above).
After the beginning of the thirteenth century, this strapwork is sometimes in colour, or points of colour are introduced in the shape of rosettes, etc., and in the border (pages 137,138).
In England there is from the first usually a certain amount of coloured glass in grisaille windows (pages 141,332). Sometimes there is a considerable quantity of it (Five Sisters, York); but it never appears to be much. The effect is always characteristically grey and silvery.
Grisaille
225.Grisaille, Salisbury.J. Akerman, Photo-lith, London, W. C.
So long as the painted foliage keeps closely within the formallines of strapwork, etc., it is, at all events in English glass, a sign of comparatively early thirteenth century work.
Later in the century the scroll winds rather more freely about the window (page 143).
The omission of the cross-hatched background and the more natural rendering of the foliation (page 386) announce the approach to the Decorated period.
Figure subjects in colour, planted, as it were, upon grisaille or quarry lights (Poitiers, Amiens), and grisaille borders to windows with figures in rich colour (Auxerre), are of exceptional occurrence.
Winston gives the year 1280 as the limit of the Early period, but there seems no absolute reason for drawing the line at that date. The use of stain, which was the beginning of a new departure in glass, does not pronounce itself before the fourteenth century. It seems, therefore, more convenient to include the last twenty years of the century in the first period, and to call it thirteenth century, accepting the more naturalistic type of foliage, when it occurs, as sign of transition; for, apart from that, the later thirteenth century work is not very markedly different from what was done before 1280.
Decorated or Intermediate Gothic.—Decorated glass grows characteristically livelier in colour than Early glass; at first it becomes warmer, owing to the use of more yellow, then lighter, owing to the use of white. It does not divide itself so obviously into coloured and grisaille.
The figure subjects include, as time goes on, more and more white glass. The grisaille contains more colour.
Figures and figure subjects are now very commonly used in combination with grisaille ornament in the same window. That is a new and characteristic departure (page 159).
S. Urbain
226.S. Urbain, Troyes.
Composition.—Figure windows occur, indeed, with little or no ornament, in which case the subjects are piled one above the other, in panels rather than medallions, or under canopies. When the canopies are insignificant the result is one apparently compact mass of small figure work, as deep and rich perhaps in colour (S. Sebald’s, Nuremberg) as an Early medallion window; but the colour is not so equally distributed; it occurs more in patches.
Decorated canopies, however, are usually, after the first few years, of sufficient size to assert themselves as very conspicuous patches of rather brassy yellow, which in a window of several lights (and windows now almost invariably consist of two or more lights) form a band (or if there are two or more tiers of canopies, a series of bands) across the window.
In the case of grisaille windows also, figures or figure subjects are introduced either in the form of shaped panels or under little canopies, and take the form of a band or bands of comparatively rich colour across a comparatively light window.
When these canopies are themselves pronounced, the window shows alternate bands of figures (rich), canopies (yellowish), and ornamental pattern (whitish). In any case these horizontal bands across the window mark departure from the earlier style.
Châlons227.Châlons.
Canopies.—Canopies occur now over subjects as well as single figures.
The canopy is designed in flat elevation. Any indication of perspective betokens the end of the period. It has broadish shafts, usually for the most part white, which terminate in pinnacles (page 155). It has seldom any architectural base: the figures stand upon grass or pavement. It has usually a three-cusped arch, and above that a pointed gable decorated with crockets and ending in a finial. Crockets and finial are usually in strong, brassy yellow. Above are pinnacles and shrinework in white and colour, including as a rule a fair amount of yellow.
It may rise to a great height, dwarfing the figure beneath it. This occurs very especially in German work.
Sometimes the most conspicuous thing in the window isthis disproportionate canopy. Its very disproportion is characteristic of the period.
In German work one great brassy canopy will frequently be found stretching right across the several lights of the window, over-arching a single subject. This triptich-like composition will occupy, perhaps, two-thirds of the height of the window. The background behind the pinnacles of this canopy may be either of one colour or of geometric diaper in mosaic (elsewhere characteristic of the Early period), finished off by a more or less arbitrary line—a cusped arch, for instance—above which is white glass. This kind of canopy has, by way of exception, an architectural base.
Another German practice is to fill the window with huge circular subject medallions, occupying the entire width of the window, and intersected by the mullions.
Single-light windows have sometimes a central elongated medallion or panel subject (without canopy), above and below which is ornamental grisaille.
Early Decorated Figure228.Early Decorated Figure, Troyes.
Borders.—All windows have, as a rule, borders; but they are narrower than in Early work.
Tracery lights, which now form a conspicuous part of the window, are, as a rule, also each separately bordered, often with a still narrower border in colour, or it may be only a line of colour.
Grisaille windows have usually coloured borders, foliaged or heraldic (asabove). The border does not necessarily frame the light at its base; very often there is an inscription there. Between the coloured border and the stonework is still invariably a marginal line of white glass.
Sometimes, more especially in tracery, this white line is broad enough to have a pattern painted upon it, in which case there is no coloured border. Or this white border line may be enriched at intervals by rosettes or blocks of colour upon it. Or, again, it may be in part tinted with pale yellow stain.
Some such border is usually carried round each separate tracery light, with the result that Decorated tracery may usually be distinguished at a glance from later work by a certain lack of breadth about it.
There is no need to say more about Decorated tracery, seeing that the idea of this epitome is to enable the amateur to form some opinion as to the period of a window, and not to prompt the designer. The geometric character of the stonework proclaims the period, and, unless there is something in the design of the glass to indicate a later date, it may be taken to belong to it. It cannot well be earlier if it fits.
S. Ouen229.S. Ouen, Rouen.
Stain.—Yellow stain is proof positive that the glass is not much earlier than the fourteenth century, for it is only about that time that the process of staining white glass yellow was discovered. The occurrence therefore of white and colour upon the same piece of glass—i.e., not glazed up with it, but stained upon it, is indicative of Middle or Late Gothic.
Stained yellow is always purer and clearer than pot-metal; when pale it inclines to lemon, when dark to orange. It is best described as golden. In comparison with it pot-metal yellow is brownish or brassy.
This yellow stain warms and brightens Decorated windows, especially those in grisaille. It naturally does away witha certain amount of glazing, for colour is now not entirely mosaic. Bands of yellow ornament in white windows, if stained, have lead on one side of them at most.
The hair of angels comes to be stained yellow upon white glass, which towards the fifteenth century takes the place of the flesh tint.
Figures.—Figures are still rather rudely drawn. They do not always fill out their niches, which, indeed, frequently overpower them. In attitude they pose and would be graceful. There is some swing about their posture, but it is often exaggerated. Drapery becomes more voluminous, fuller and freer, as shownopposite.
At the back of the figure hangs commonly a screen diapered damask-fashion—the diaper often picked out of solid paint.
14th Century German230.14th Century German.
Grisaille.—The distinguishing characteristics of Decorated grisaille are fully described in the chapter dealing with it. It has usually a coloured border. The foliated pattern no longer follows the lines of the white or coloured strapwork, but it does not interlace with the straps (pages 163,333).
Coloured bosses adorn the centre of the grisaille panels. Frequently these take the form of heraldic shields, planted, as it were, upon the grisaille.
The practice of cross-hatching the background to grisaille foliage dies out in France and England. In Germany it survives throughout the period; or, it may be, the background is coated with solid paint, and the cross-hatching is in white lines scratched out of that.
Naturalism.—The foliation of the ornament is now everywhere naturalistic. That is the surest sign of the period, at first the only sign of change. In grisaille patterns and in coloured borders you can identify the rose, the vine, the oak, the ivy, the maple, and so on (pages 162,166,168).
In Germany, the design of ornamental windows consists often of naturalistic foliage in white and colourupon a coloured ground, the whole rich, but not so rich as Early glass (pages 171et seq.). There also occur windows stronger in colour than ordinary grisaille, designed on lines more geometric than those of French or English glass of the period (page 170).
Wells231.Wells.
Colour.—Glass gets less streaky, evener, and sometimes lighter in tint, as time goes on. Flesh tint gets paler and pinker, and at last white; “white” glass gets more nearly white.
Much blue and ruby continue to be used; but more green is introduced, and more yellow, often the two in combination. In fact, there is a leaning towards combinations of green and yellow, rather than the red and blue so characteristic of Early glass. Green is frequently used for backgrounds. The pure bright emerald-like green gives way to greens inclining more to olive. In some German windows, green, yellow, and purple-brown predominate. Occasionally, in the latter part of the century, pale blue is modified by yellow stain upon it, which gives a greenish tint.
Painting.—Outline is still used; but it becomes more delicate. Shading is still smeared on with a brush. But in the latter half of the century it was the practice to stipple it, so as to soften the edges and give it a granular texture. This is not quite the same thing as the “stipple or matt shading” described onpage 64, where the glass was entirely coated with a stippled tint and the lights brushed out.
Decorated glass is plentiful in England and Germany, not so abundant in France.
Perpendicular Glass.—By the fifteenth century the glass painter had quite made up his mind in favour of more light. He makes use of glass in larger sheets, and of lighter and brighter colour. His white is especially purer than before, and he uses it in much greater quantities.
Figures, S. Mary’s
232. FIGURES, S. MARY’S, ROSS.
So decidedly is this so, that a typical fifteenth century window strikes you as a screen of silvery-white glass in which are set pictures or patches of more or less brilliant, rather than intensely deep, colour.
Design.—Design takes, for the most part, the form of figure and canopy windows, schemed somewhat on the same lines as in the Decorated period—the subjects, that is to say, cross the window in horizontal bands.
But there is so much white glass in the canopy work—it is practically all in white (as stone) touched with stain (as gilding)—and it so entirely surrounds the figure subjects, that you do not so much notice the horizontal bands (into which the subjects really fall when you begin to dissect the design) as the mass of white in which they are embedded.
Canopies.—The larger Perpendicular windows are now crossed by stone transoms, so that very long lights do not, as a rule, occur.
Each light has a canopy, without any enclosing border (233). The canopy stands, as it were, in the window opening, almost filling it, except that, above, behind the topmost pinnacles, are glimpses of red or blue background, not separated from the stonework by so much as a line of white, heretofore of almost invariable occurrence. The hood and base of canopy are shown in misunderstood perspective, indicating usually a three-sided projection (page 342).
Its shafts and base rest upon the ground, on which are painted grass and foliage, all in white and stain. When standing figures occupy the place of honour, the base may very likely include a small subject, illustrative of a scene in the life of the personage depicted above. Or the base may be a sort of pedestal (page 179).
The figures usually stand upon a chequered mosaic pavement in black and white, or white and stain, not very convincingly foreshortened (page 185).
Perpendicular Canopy233.Perpendicular Canopy.
In the canopy may be little windows of pot-metal colour, and in the base perhaps a spot or two of colour; but, whatever the amount of pot-metal (never much) or of stain (often a good deal), the effect is always silvery-white; and as time goes on the canopy becomes more solidly and massively white. The groining at the back of the niche just above the figures is a feature of the full-blown style. The vault is usually stained, less often glazed in pot-metal. There is more scope for this coloured groining in windows where the canopy runs through several lights. That is more common in France and Germany than with us. In English work each light has, as a rule, its own canopy.
In France, and more especially in Germany, the canopies are not seldom in yellow instead of white, golden in effect instead of silvery. Sometimes white and yellow canopies alternate (Nuremberg, Munich). The German canopy is often more florid, and less distinctly architectural than the English.
Perpendicular canopies are more in proportion to the figures under them than Decorated. Usually they are important enough to be a feature in the window, if not the feature. Sometimes, however, they are quite small and insignificant (East window, York), in which event the subjects appear more like a series of small panels, one above the other. In that case there is likely to be a large amount of white glass in the subjects themselves (pages 252,339). Possibly the background is white. In any case, there is usually a fair share of white glass in the drapery of figures. The faces also are almost invariably white, often with stained hair; and this white flesh is characteristic of the period.
Figure and Canopy Windows
234. FIGURE AND CANOPY WINDOWS, BOURGES.
Until the turn of the century, landscape or architectural accessories are, to a large extent, in white and stain, against a blue or ruby ground.
Variety of colour in the background (or a further amount of white) is introduced by means of a screen of damask behind the figure, shoulder high, above which alone appears the usual blue or ruby background, diapered. The screen may be of any colour: purple-brown is not uncommon. When scale permits, the damask pattern is often glazed in colours, or in white and stain upon pot-metal yellow.
Heraldic shields are more conspicuous than ever in the design. Donors and their patron saints are often important personages in the foreground of the picture.
Tracery.—Tracery lights being now more of the same shape as the lights below, the glass is designed on much the same plan. That is to say, they also contain little figures under canopies. These are often entirely, or almost entirely, in white and stain, only here and there a point of colour showing in the background, more especially about their heads.
Trefoiled, quatrefoiled, three-sided, or other openings not adapted to canopy work, have usually foliated ornament in white and stain, with border line of white and stain, the background painted in solid brown. Inscribed scrolls and emblematical devices in white and stain also occur in the smaller tracery lights.
Grisaille.—Grisaille takes almost invariably the form of quarries. The pattern of the quarries consists ordinarily of just a rosette or some such spot in the centre of the glass, delicately outlined and filled in with stain. A band of canopied figures sometimes crosses quarry windows, the pinnacles of the canopies breaking into the quarries above. Figures occur also often in white and stain, against a quarry ground, without canopy, standing perhaps on a bracket, or on a mere label or inscription band (York Minster). Occasionally we get subjects altogether in white and stain, without quarry glazing. In Germany unpainted roundels, or circular discs of white glass, take the place of quarries (page 292).
Fairford235.Fairford.
Detail of Ornament.—The detail of Perpendicular foliage is no longer very naturalistic; it has often the appearance of being embossed or otherwise elaborated. It is most commonly in white with yellow stalks.
Borders.—The border is no longer the rule, except in quarry windows. It is now very rarely used to frame canopies. Where it occurs it is usually in the form of a “block” border, differingonly from that of the Decorated period by the character of the painted detail. Borders all in white and stain also occur.
The border does not follow the deeply cut foils of the window head. These are occupied each by its separate round of glass painted with a crown, star, lion’s head, or other such device, in white and stain, against which the coloured border stops.
Stain.—Abundant use of beautiful golden stain is typical of the period. Stain is always varied, sometimes shading off by subtle degrees from palest lemon to deep orange. The deliberate use of two distinct tones of stain, as separate tints, say of a damask pattern, argues a near approach to the sixteenth century. So does the use of stain upon pot-metal yellow.
Scraps of Late Gothic Detail
236. SCRAPS OF LATE GOTHIC DETAIL.
Other signs of the mature style are:—
1. The very careful choice of varied and unevenly coloured glass to suggest shading or local colour.
2. The use of curious pieces of accidentally varied ruby to represent marble, and the like.
3. The abrasion of white spots or other pattern on flashed blue (the abrasion of white from ruby begins with the second half of the century).
4. The introduction of distant landscape in perspective, and especially the representation of clouds in the sky, and other indications of attempted atmospheric effect.
5. The treatment of several lights as one picture space, without canopy.
Colour.—White glass is cooler and more silvery, more purely white. Red glass is less crimson, often approaching more to a scarlet colour. Blue glass becomes lighter, greyer; sometimes it is of steely quality, sometimes it approaches to pale purple. More varieties of purple-brown and purple are used. Purer pink occurs.
Drawing.—In the fifteenth century the archaic period of drawing is outgrown. Figures are often admirably drawn, more especially towards the end of the period, at which time the folds of drapery are made much of.
Painting.—Painting is much more delicate. The method adopted is that of stippling (page 64).
Figure and ornament alike are carefully shaded, quarry patterns and narrow painted borders excepted.
For a long while painters hesitated to obscure the glass much; they shaded very delicately, and used hatchings, and asort of scribble of lines, to deepen the shadows. As a result the shading appears sometimes weak, but the glass is always brilliant.