­chapter 23 French 14th-​Century and Other Arts

Françoise Gatouillat

The sparse treatment of 14th-​century in the his- the immoderate use of white glass”. He noted the aban- torical literature looking at the production of stained donment of narrative cycles in favor of tall figures am- glass, is due to the relative scarcity of surviving examples. plified by architectural frames, which are better suited With the exception of recent collective work by French to the immense windows of architecture. He scholars, this chronological period has been relegated to then described changes in design that arose as a con- the margins of the 13th and 15th centuries.1 Its presence sequence of the “invention of silver stain, which modi- is equally limited in broader art historical syntheses,2 fied the character of glass painting”. These observations and the only attempt to treat it specifically remains Jean might be nuanced according to the range of territories Lafond’s contribution to a book dedicated to the history that comprised the kingdom of France at that time. of between 1300 and 1400, which inventories They appear justified at least within the framework of stained glass disseminated across all geographic regions, the Duchy of , incorporated into the royal do- from very different contexts and often with important main in 1204. Normandy remains rich in stained glass gaps in time.3 Some of these examples are now better from both the 13th and 14th centuries, and thus allows known thanks to monographic studies.4 Since the 1953 us to confirm the appropriateness of the division of its publication of Vitraux de France, which provided the history into centuries, an otherwise artificial, a priori, decisive inspiration for subsequent French research, ex- means of classification. Certain evident disparities ef- hibition catalogues have offered useful resources regard- fectively place in opposition the Norman series installed ing works of the period.5 The variety of formal systems during the 13th century in the of , Sées, and stylistic characteristics in use throughout Europe , and various rural buildings,9 and the stained during the first half of the 14th century have now been glass of the 14th century which this province alone is for- placed in greater perspective through comparison with tunate to have preserved in quantity. The cities of Rouen the stained glass of and examples and Évreux possess three major ensembles, to which from other sites,6 and it has been possible to understand we can add dispersed works from Le Mesnil-​Villeman, glass painting in the larger context of figurative arts Saint-​Hymer, and panels originating from Jumièges, through multidisciplinary exhibitions.7 Dives, and others.10 Even a superficial comparison of If one believes Émile Mâle, “nothing resembles a works from these two periods illustrates the radical rup- stained-​glass window of the 13th century less than a ture articulated by Émile Mâle. The 14th century marks stained-​glass window of the 14th”.8 In characterizing the beginning of brighter and more refined stained glass French stained-​glass production after 1300, Mâle first that results in new relationships between the architec- pointed to a simplification of armatures and lead lines ture and its monumental decoration. tied to the increased dimensions of the panes of glass, then to the range of color “made colder [in tonality] by 1 Technical Advances

1 Hérold and David, Vitrail Ve-​XXIe siècles; Aubert, “De 1260 à 1380”; Lafond, “De 1380 à 1500”. The changes brought about in the 14th century have 2 Grodecki and Brisac, Le vitrail gothique, pp. 172–74,​ 195–218;​ Cas- principally been seen in terms of formal and technical telnuovo, Vetrate medievali, pp. 323–​92. 3 Lafond, “Le vitrail du XIVe siècle”. 4 For example Lautier, “Un vitrail parisien à Chartres”; Cothren, Pic- 9 Callias Bey, Chaussé, Gatouillat, and Hérold, Les vitraux de turing the Celestial City, pp. 125–​91. Haute-​Normandie, pp. 332–53​ (Rouen, Cathedral); Callias​ 5 Grodecki, Vitraux de France, pp. 31–​32, 64. Bey and David, Les vitraux de Basse-Normandie​ , pp. 126–​43 6 Westermann-​Angerhausen, Himmelslicht. (Coutances Cathedral), 221–​30 (Sées Cathedral). 7 Benesch and Ebenstein, Europäische Kunst um 1400; Baron, Les 10 See Callias Bey, Chaussé, Gatouillat, and Hérold, Les vitraux fastes du gothique; Gaborit-​Chopin, L’art au temps des rois mau- de Haute-​Normandie, pp. 143–​61 (Évreux), 332–​53 (Rouen dits; Taburet-​Delahaye, Paris 1400; Fliegel, L’art à la cour de Bour- Cathedral), 367–​84 (Rouen, Saint-​Ouen); Callias Bey and gogne. David, Les vitraux de Basse-Normandie​ , pp. 101–03​ (Saint-​ 8 Mâle, “Les miniatures, les vitraux, les peintures murales”, pp. 392–​94. Hymer), 147–​48 (Le Mesnil-​Villeman).

© Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2019 | DOI:10.1163/9789004395718_029​ French 14th-Century Stained Glass and Other Arts 375 problems. There has been considerable progress in the that has been examined on the figures, their architec- understanding of technical questions thanks to his- tural frames, the decorative patterns and the borders, torians of material culture. Studies of sites for the fab- includes silver stain on both white and colored glass, rication of flat glass found in the forests of Normandy applied on the interior and exterior surfaces. The per- have shown a new dynamism at the beginning of the fect mastery of its use proves that it could not have been 14th century; as the number of glassmaking workshops an early experiment, which leads to the hypothesis that increased, particularly in 1302 with the support of King practitioners of such virtuosity were brought from Paris Phillip the Fair, their technological abilities also im- before 1310 to decorate the new necropolis of the arch- proved. These establishments, which supplied, among bishops.16 Although the capital has lost all of its glass others, the building workshops of Paris, produced flat, from the late 13th and 14th centuries, this scenario is circular pieces of blown glass that became increasingly corroborated by the precious quality that ties the en- smooth, thin, and transparent; their size increased from semble from Rouen Cathedral with Parisian art in other the end of the 13th century, reaching a diameter of about media made for the elite who gravitated to the court of 60 cm.11 France.17 For colored glass, which was more expensive to make The geographic proximity of glass painters, gold- than white glass, the process of flashing previously re- smiths, enamellers, and other artists within the city served for red glass became more widely used; the mul- walls of Paris, attested by fiscal documents,18 seems to tiplication of nuances created by the superposition of have created favorable conditions for the transfer of several layers of different colors, which Viollet-​le-​Duc techniques between media that led to the creation of described in later glass, may be seen in analyses of glass silver stain around 1300. If the appearance of the new from the 1330s.12 This new glass revolutionized the prac- technique in English and German stained-​glass pan- tices of its users, allowing them to cut larger pieces, els around 1310 indicates its rapid diffusion,19 a delay which in turn directly influenced the structure of the in its reception is widely observed elsewhere. In the stained-​glass panel as well as the manner of painting southern provinces of the French royal domain, in- it. In addition, the painter’s palette was enriched by the cluding in the cathedrals built at the very end of the new material of silver stain, which allowed glass to be 13th century on the Rayonnant model of the north, tinted in discrete areas rather than through joining sep- a system was developed that perpetuated the use of arate pieces of colored glass with leading.13 panels with colored medallions until very late in the The first stained-​glass ensemble that combined all of 14th century.20 The works produced during the same these factors to establish the new standards of the genre decades in the territories of the Holy Roman Empire was made for the Virgin chapel at Rouen Cathedral, that underline even more the diversity of aesthetic options is, the axial chapel rebuilt by Guillaume de cultivated in other artistic milieux, and the singularity Flavacourt, begun in 1302 and completed before 1310.14 of that of Paris. The formal arrangement of the lateral windows that remain intact – ​a polychrome band of standing figures surrounded by architectural motifs, set between orna- 2 Parisian Stylistic Renewal mental panels of blank glass –​ is part of the tradition of “band windows” that became fashionable in the sec- Because it has survived in abundance in contrast to ond half of the 13th century,15 but their elements also other categories of painting, manuscript illumination, present previously unknown refinements. The paint which saw an unprecedented development in the 14th century, is the necessary reference point for any study of style. Despite the irreducible difference of scale that 11 Philippe, “Chantier ou atelier”; Hérold, “Les verres des separates the two media, stained glass has thus been vitraux”, p. 75. systematically linked to the production of miniatures in 12 Observed by H. Debitus on samples from the church of Paris, the most populated city of Europe for the entire Saint-​Ouen of Rouen (in 1988, unpublished). Viollet-​le-​Duc, Dictionnaire raisonné de l’architecture, vol. 9, p. 442. 13 Lafond, “Essai historique sur le jaune d’argent”; see also Brown, 16 Lautier, “Les débuts du jaune d’argent”. Ch. 1 in this volume. 17 See the examples analyzed in Morrison, Hedeman and 14 Lautier, “Rouen, chapelle de la Vierge de la cathédrale”; Antoine, Imagining the Past in France, pp. 258–​95. Bugslag, “Early fourteenth-​century canopywork in Rouen 18 Lillich, “Gothic glaziers”. stained glass”. 19 See Brown, Ch. 1 in this volume. 15 Lillich, “The band window”; with regard to the grisailles, see 20 Study forthcoming in Blin, David, Gatouillat, and Hérold, Les Lillich, Ch. 17 in this volume. vitraux du Midi de la France.