carpet new trends: medieval

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Wednesday, August 3, 2011

Stained Glass Work of Dante Gabriel Rossetti

Illustration: Dante Gabriel Rossetti. The Fight Between Sir Tristram and Sir Marhaus, 1862.

Dante Gabriel Rossetti produced artwork for these two stained glass window designs in 1862. They were part of a series produced by Edward Burne-Jones, William Morris, Ford Madox Brown, Valentine Princep, Arthur Hughes and Rossetti under the guidance of Morris in the form of his original company of Morris, Marshall, Faulkner & Co that had been set up in the previous year.

The commission was to provide a stained glass sequence of the popular medieval romance of Tristram and Ysoude, for Harden Grange in Yorkshire. Although the Grange no longer exists, luckily the stained glass windows are still with us and are kept at the Bradford Art Galleries and Museum. Although superficially a sequence, the individual glass pieces have much to do with each artist's interpretation and approach to the story; this also includes different levels of ability, Rossetti being classed as a professional fine artist, with William Morris very much on an amateur level.

Although Rossetti was only commissioned to complete two of the stained glass designs, compared to Burne-Jones five, these two tend to be much more dynamic and intense than Burne-Jones pieces and say much about the character of the two differing artists as well as their own unique approach to both the story and its interpretation.

Much of the early work of Morris, Marshall, Faulkner & Co was not in fact the textile and wallpaper design work that was to so much colour our perception of the much later reincarnation of the company as Morris & Co. This early period relied fairly heavily on stained glass commissions. The competition was rigorous and ecclesiastical commissions in particular were heavily fought over. Many traditional companies with long histories in the supply of stained glass work were having to compete against a number of new and innovative companies such as Morris, Marshall, Faulkner & Co who were often set up with the intention of diverting some of the expanded trade in ecclesiastical interiors and accessories, towards themselves. In this respect, Morris used contemporary fine artists in order to try to gain an edge on potential rivals.

Illustration: Dante Gabriel Rossetti. Sir Tristram and La Belle Ysoude, 1862.

Although not always successful ecclesiastically, Morris was adaptable enough to understand the growing market in domestic stained glass. The 1860s saw the architectural potential of the medievalist inspired Gothic Revival, which up to that point had been largely limited to the ecclesiastical; widen its horizons towards the civic and domestic market. In this respect, many public buildings and private estates started to take on the appearance of various forms of medieval inspiration. These buildings in turn, needed interior fittings and accessories. Many of the new companies such as the one Morris initially set up in 1861, soon found themselves supplying a wealth of different interior pieces in the guise of Victorian Gothic.

Stained glass, which had been classed as a needful necessity during the medieval period, was also to become the same for many a domestic home built or rebuilt during the mid-nineteenth century. No domestic home, particularly those that were built to reinforce newfound status, could be considered complete without at least some form of stained glass work. This was very often in the guise of family arms or crests, which were produced in order to copy those aristocratic and long-lived families that had maintained status for many more generations than the newly formed wealth of the nineteenth century.

Considering how mundane much of the domestic stained glass market must have been in the 1860s, it must have seemed a welcome relief to Morris and his clutch of artists, to be producing a series of work featuring such a contemporary theme as a medieval romance. It is sometimes difficult for us to realise that these Victorian medieval themes were very much part of the contemporary world. Just as our present day costume dramas do not in reality signify a true understanding of historical context, but reflect much more about aspects of our own contemporary culture through our continued reinterpretation of themes, so the same was true of the Victorian medieval romances.

Issues of selflessness, duty, fidelity, betrayal, jealousy and lust were all part of the Victorian interpretation of the medieval world and were much more powerful issues than forms of historical accuracy and truth regarding interpretation. In this respect, looking anew at the stained glass work interpretations conceived by Rossetti, although wearing a fine mist of medieval chivalry and romance, the work reflects both the individual beliefs and ideas of the artist, but also that of the culture he inhabited. The story of Tristram and Ysoude as interpreted in stained glass in 1862, is a reflection of the individual characters of six young men, but seen through the prism of the social setting as understood by those living in mid-nineteenth century Britain.

It is always important to see any creative individual within the context of their contemporary society. To interpret work purely from their creative individualism alone can never really give a full understanding of the work involved and indeed, of the creative.

Monday, August 1, 2011

English Tile Pavement from 1340

Illustration: Tile pavement from Higham Ferrers, Northamptonshire, c1340

Decorative tiled floors have been popular for thousands of years and can be found in most regions irrespective of cultural or religious affiliation. The example shown in this article comes from the church of the market town of Higham Ferrers in the county of Northamptonshire, in the middle of England. It was laid in about 1340, although the church is much older and originally dates from 1220. This particular floor would have been laid when the church was being extended during the early fourteenth century.

The pattern is remarkably contemporary in feel and composition, although geometrically abstract pattern work is as ancient as the human species itself. It has and is still used in a staggering variety of disciplines, particularly within many of the textile crafts. Geometrically inspired pattern work was used extensively in the medieval period and therefore it would not be surprising if the example shown here was not also, in some form or another, used for either inspiration or part of the vocabulary of medieval pattern work.

While there have always been differences, sometimes exclusively so, between religious and domestic pattern work, there has also been energised and beneficial crossovers between the two systems. They have never been consistently mutually exclusive, nor should they be. This is true of the wealth of pattern work that was produced in the two big religious cultures that largely helped to form contemporary Europe, North Africa and Western Asia, namely Christianity and Islam.

Although pattern work was not as strong a component of Christianity as it was of Islam, this did not change the fact that it was used regularly across a number of church, abbey and cathedral interiors. While much of the abstract pattern work in Christianity can be traced back to usage in Imperial Rome, Byzantium and Islam were also strong contenders as was the work of many of the tribes that came to settle in Europe. Most of these were eventually to become the foundation stones that formed the nation states of contemporary Europe.

The illustration above, although a copy of the pattern work found on the floor of the church at Higham Ferrers, does not necessarily closely follow either the colour or present state of the floor. This is a Victorian illustration and as always with many Victorian interpretations of ancient and medieval pattern work, it was given to readers, as it would have appeared when newly formed. The nineteenth century saw a prodigious amount of analysis and record making of all available remaining examples from previous eras, whether that be through architecture, or the crafts that often supplied that discipline. In Britain in particular there was a passion for recording its medieval past.

The passion was perhaps initially guided by political events in Europe, rather than the subject matter itself. Because of the French Revolution and then the Napoleonic wars, the British found themselves cut off from European exploration through their Grand Tours. Therefore, during the early nineteenth century mini tours of Britain became popular. Whereas a European Grand Tour would have specifically taken in much of the classical heritage of Europe, the mini tours of Britain took on a different outlook. Classical remains from Imperial Rome have always been thin on the ground in Britain, but medieval remains have always been extensive and covered all of the main cultural eras of the medieval period.

Although there are other factors that go to make up the British early nineteenth century interest in the medieval that was to eventually form the Gothic Revival of the 1830s onwards, denial of the classically motivated Grand Tour was a significant aspect. It could be seen that in some ways at least, the turmoil in Europe helped the British to rediscover and reconnect with their own medieval heritage, rather than that borrowed from Imperial Rome.

Further reading links:
English Medieval Tiles (British Museum Paperbacks)
Old English Tile Designs for Artists and Craftspeople (Dover Pictorial Archives)
English Tilers (Medieval Craftsmen)
Decorated Medieval Floor Tiles of Somerset
Medieval Floor Tiles Of Northern England: Pattern And Purpose: Production Between The 13th And 16th Centuries
Medieval Tile Designs (Dover Pictorial Archives)
Illustrations of medieval romance on tiles from Chertsey abbey
Irish Medieval Tiles (Royal Irish Academy Monographs in Archaeology,)
Medieval Tiles of Wales: Census of Medieval Tiles in Britain
Medieval England: A Social History and Archaeology from the Conquest to 1600 AD
Medieval Decorated Tiles in Dorset
Early Christian and Byzantine Art: Textiles, Metalwork, Frescoes, Manuscripts, Jewellery, Steatites, Stone Sculptures, Tiles, Pottery, Bronzes, Amulets, Coins and other items 4th to the 14th Centuries
Welsh Mediaeval Paving Tiles
Medieval Tiles (Shire Library)
The Cambridge Companion to Medieval English Culture (Cambridge Companions to Culture)
English Medieval Industries: Craftsmen, Techniques, Products
English Medieval Furniture and Woodwork
The People of the Parish: Community Life in a Late Medieval English Diocese (The Middle Ages Series)
When Towns had Walls: Life in a Medieval English Town
A History of Everyday Life in Medieval Scotland (A History of Everyday Life in Scotland)

Monday, July 4, 2011

Medieval English Stained Glass

Illustration: Stained glass design from St Nicholas church, Wilton, Wiltshire, 13th century.

Although stained glass design is often seen and appreciated in the great cathedrals that were scattered across England during the medieval period, these were clearly not the only examples that were produced. Many medium and small churches had examples of stained glass design, some of which have survived into our own period. Although perhaps not necessarily of the quality that could be found in the great cathedrals and abbeys, this does not negate both their importance and their creation within the communities that they served.

The five examples shown in this article portray stained glass design work from various and differing sized churches from the south of England to Staffordshire. They are by no means the best, or the worst, but a very small example of the standard of glass design and decoration that was available to varying parishes throughout England during the long medieval period.

Illustration: Stained glass design of Saint Bernius from Dorchester church, Oxfordshire, 13th century.

Stained and painted glass was both studied and analysed during the nineteenth century, with the Victorian period being a particularly keen consumer of this unique style of work. However, it was not only stained glass designers who used surviving windows and indeed fragments for both inspiration and guidance. Textile, wallpaper, embroidery, printing, wood and metal designers would have been equally intrigued, particularly by the decorative details that were nearly always present in medieval glass design. In fact, it seems difficult to think of many pieces of medieval architecture, sculpture, fine or craft work that did not have some implication and understanding of both pattern and decoration. It is perhaps this inclusion of intrinsic style, colour and pattern that so intrigued the Victorians, who studied, examined and then reconstituted the medieval, transforming it into a wholly contemporary feature of their own era. This became so much the case that today Victorian medieval is seen as a stand-alone decorative style period rather than one that was merely copied.

Illustration: Stained glass design from Stockbury church, Kent, 13th century.

The nineteenth century designer and decorator did not produce a new edition to the medieval, even though inspired by the original. The Gothic Revival explored the various craft systems that had been available during the medieval period, some of which had to be re-learnt from scratch. Interestingly there was a particular emphasis on the amount of colour and pattern that had been available during this early period. There was much talk and detailed discussion concerning the role and extensiveness of painted interior and external walls of churches, as well as the part played by the distinctive coloured areas of stained and painted glass within these interiors. A number of nineteenth century publications concentrated on this aspect of medieval decoration and it was thought important to understand the role that colour played in the medieval world.

Illustration: Stained glass design of the Arms of France from Froyle Church, Hampshire.

To many ordinary people in the medieval world, high saturated and rich colours would have been rarely, if ever seen, apart from those found in nature. The church on the other hand would have been a focus for colour in a number of areas, including stained glass. The sun shining through panels of saturated colour would no doubt have been appreciated by the local population of most small and medium sized churches. Red and blue seems to have been particularly popular choices for decoration, although other colours were also clearly available. This is a world now long gone, and many of the connections with that world have also been broken, leaving us with few remnants in which to fully appreciate the working parameters of the life that ordinary people lived in, as well as the colours and patterns that they would have been aware of, understood and enjoyed.

Illustration: Stained glass design from Bushbury church, Staffordshire.

That much of England's original medieval stained glass work was destroyed through religious zeal, civil war or deliberately removed for 'improvement' is a sad and irreplaceable loss. However, enough remained for the Victorians to reignite a passion for stained glass and to produce a whole range of new work that although perhaps not always at a level with the standard achieved by medieval craftsmen, still allows us to appreciate nineteenth century stained glass as a decorative era in its own right.