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.

Further reading links:
Dante Gabriel Rossetti (Pre-Raphaelite Painters)
Dante Gabriel Rossetti
The Demon and the Damozel: Dynamics of Desire in the Works of Christina Rossetti & Dante Gabriel Rossetti
Tate British Artists: Dante Gabriel Rossetti
Dante Gabriel Rossetti and the Game That Must Be Lost
Collected Writings of Dante Gabriel Rossetti
Recollections of Dante Gabriel Rossetti
Dante Gabriel Rossetti And the Late Victorian Sonnet Sequence: Sexuality, Belief And the Self (Nineteenth Century Series)
The Poetry of Dante Gabriel Rossetti: Modes of Self-Expression
The Correspondence of Dante Gabriel Rossetti 9: The Last Decade, 1873-1882: Kelmscott to Birchington IV. 1880-1882
The Correspondence of Dante Gabriel Rossetti: The Formative Years, 1835-1862: Charlotte Street to Cheyne Walk. II. 1855-1862 (Correspondence of Dante Gabriel Rossetti)
The Pre-Raphaelites: From Rossetti to Ruskin (Penguin Classics)
Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood (Art of Century)
Pre-Raphaelites in Love
Art of the Pre-Raphaelites
The Pre-Raphaelites
Desperate Romantics: The Private Lives of the Pre-Raphaelites
The Pre-Raphaelite Dream: Drawings and Paintings from the Tate Collection
The New Painting of the 1860s: Between the Pre-Raphaelites and the Aesthetic Movement (The Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art)
The Pre-Raphaelites and Their Circle (A Phoenix Book)
Pre-Raphaelite Women Artists

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)

Matthew Digby Wyatt and the Alhambra

Illustration: Matthew Digby Wyatt. Stucco detail from Sala del Tribunal, Alhambra, 1872.

In 1872 the English architect, designer and critic Matthew Digby Wyatt published An Architect's Note-Book in Spain Principally Illustrating the Domestic Architecture of That Country. It covered an extensive journey that Digby Wyatt had made to Spain in 1869. He had never been to Spain before, but he was obviously intrigued and duly came back with many personally drawn sketches, one hundred of which were added to the book. In many respects, the published book of 1872, contains only brief text descriptions, which duly accompany the illustrative plates. Perhaps the author thought that the architectural heritage of Spain should largely speak for itself, or perhaps he felt that by 1872 enough had been said about the architecture of Spain and so he needed to add very little as an extra.

Digby Wyatt's tour was extensive and relatively intense. He visited most, if not all of the cities and regions of Spain, including Granada from which the four examples that illustrate this article were produced. Although some of his sketches tend towards the vague, it is perhaps his close up illustration work of details found at the Alhambra that are the most interesting and informative.

Illustration: Matthew Digby Wyatt. Stucco detail from the Hall of the Ambassadors, Alhambra, 1872.

Digby Wyatt was obviously intrigued, both intellectually and creatively, by the decorative work that had been produced across the whole Alhambra complex and paid due respect to the Islamic craftsmen involved in the task of internal decoration that took generations to achieve. Interestingly, he often either quoted or guided his readers towards Owen Jones and his 1856 publication The Grammar of Ornament. This particular book had keenly championed both the Alhambra complex and Islamic decoration in general, particularly that work which centred around the Islamic culture of Southern Spain and North Africa.

Digby Wyatt and Owen Jones were close friends and both shared a passion for the broader history of the decorative arts that spread much farther than the often more familiar but narrower confines of Europe. Digby Wyatt contributed the text towards two of Jones chapters in The Grammar of Ornament, as well as being involved in a number of Jones projects including the reassembly of the Crystal Palace after its dismantling at the end of the Great Exhibition in 1851. Digby Wyatt produced three of the popular guides, the Byzantine and Romanesque court, Medieval court and Italian court for the new Crystal palace complex at Sydenham. It seems only fitting therefore that Digby Wyatt dedicate the book concerning his extensive sojourn in Spain to his friend Owen Jones.

'My dear Owen,

The last book I wrote I dedicated to my brother by blood; the present I dedicate to you - my brother in art. Let it be a record of the value I set upon all you have taught me, and upon your true friendship. 

Ever yours M. Digby Wyatt.'

It was a very generous and selfless dedication by a man who had every right to be proud of his own achievements but was more than happy to demure to the knowledge accrued by his friend and colleague Owen Jones. Unfortunately, two years later Jones died at the relatively early age of sixty-five. That Digby Wyatt himself was to die three years later at only fifty-six is all the more tragic. These two individuals were key elements in both the design reform movement, but also in the much more scholarly pursuit of the advancement of knowledge concerning the extensive history of the decorative arts.

Illustration: Matthew Digby Wyatt. Mosaic from the Hall of the Ambassadors, Alhambra, 1872.

By trying to understand and through that extend their own personal acknowledgement of the achievement of complexes such as the Alhambra, Jones and Digby Wyatt helped to make Islamic decoration in Europe an informed and much more accessible subject to both study and admire.

One of Digby Wyatt's particular aims in visiting Spain was to try to record what he saw as the fast disappearing architectural heritage of a uniquely creative region of Europe. Through revolution, neglectful indifference and sometimes deliberate vandalism, the often complex and intertwined history of Christian and Islamic Spain was surrendering to the modern world of the later nineteenth century. Many books such as Digby Wyatt's An Architects Note-Book in Spain were not necessarily published by strident conservationists who wished to see the protection of architectural heritage in all regions of the world, but more a case of records or glimpses of the surviving elements of a shared cultural heritage that was swiftly passing into oblivion.

Illustration: Matthew Digby Wyatt. Detail of glass inlay from the Hall of the Ambassadors, Alhambra, 1872.

Many in the nineteenth century saw much of what the general public assumed as fixed and intransigent aspects of the landscape, as in fact vulnerable and dangerously transient. Industrial Europe was fast engulfing areas within industrial and city landscapes, demolishing generations of architectural heritage often in a matter of a few years. That much was irrevocably demolished with the often enthusiastic consent of local authorities and centralised governments, was all the more distressing for those interested in any form of historical concept. That such writers as Digby Wyatt would not recognise much of England today, let alone Spain says much about government collusion with the less than tangible ideal of industrial, rather than creative progress.

Further reading links:
Matthew Digby Wyatt: The First Cambridge Slade Professor of Fine Art: An Inaugural Lecture
Fine Art; A Sketch of Its History, Theory, Practice, and Application to Industry
The Italian Court in the Crystal Palace (Crystal Palace Library Guides)
***RE-PRINT*** The history, theory, and practice of illuminating
The Byzantine and Romanesque Court in the Crystal Palace, Described by M.D. Wyatt and J.B. Waring
The Mediaeval Court In The Crystal Palace (1854)
Notices Of Sculpture In Ivory: Consisting Of A Lecture On The History, Methods, And Chief Productions Of The Art (1856)
**REPRINT** An architect's note-book in Spain : principally illustrating the domestic architecture of that country ... with one hundred of the author's sketches, reproduced by the auto-type mechanical process
Alhambra
The Alhambra (Wonders of the World (Harvard University Press))
ALHAMBRA OF GRANADA
The Alhambra