CHAPTER XXIX.

JESSE WINDOWS.

The subjects depicted in stained glass tell the story of the Church, or preach its doctrine. Scenes from the Old Testament, from the Life of Christ, from the legends of the Saints, and so on, recur from the earliest Gothic times, and throughout the period of the Renaissance. These pictures accommodate themselves to the current plans of design, or the plan of design is chosen to suit them, as the case may be.

There is one subject, however, occurring from the first in glass, which does not fall into any of the usual schemes of design, and which, in fact, differs so entirely from any of them, that it forms a class of design apart. The subject, in fact, by way of exception to the rule, not merely affects but determines the decorative form of the window. This subject is the Descent of Christ--in short, the genealogical tree of the Saviour; and the window devoted to its delineation is called a Jesse window. Much freer and more varied scope for composition was offered by this piece of church heraldry than the ordinary medallion or figure and canopy window afforded, and the glazier turned it early to exceedingly decorative use. The tree is shown issuing, as it were, from the loins of Jesse. It bears his descendants, or rather a very arbitrary selection of them (it is as well not to inquire too strictly as to their legitimate right to be there), ending in the Virgin and the Saviour.

The earliest arrangement of a Jesse window is as follows: at the base is the recumbent figure of Jesse; the straight stem of the tree, proceeding from him, is almost entirely hidden by a string of figures, one above the other, occupying the centre part of the window, and represented, for the most part, as Kings; above them is the Virgin, also crowned; and in the arch of the window sits our Lord in Majesty, surrounded by seven doves, to signify the gifts of the Spirit. It is not perhaps quite clear upon what these figures sit. They hold on with both hands to branches of highly conventional Romanesque foliage, springing from the main stem, and occupying the space about the figures in very ornamental fashion. A series of half medallions on each side of this central design contain little figures of attendant prophets--in a sense, the spiritual ancestors of the Saviour. All this is in the deepest and richest mosaic colour, as in the beautiful bluish Jesse window at the West end of the cathedral at Chartres, which belongs to about the middle of the twelfth century. Very much the same kind of thing occurs at Le Mans and elsewhere.

Later the tree more often branched out into loops, forming oval or vesical-shaped spaces, in which the figures sat, as may be seen on page 362. The ground of the window is in that case blue, the background of the figure ruby. Had it been red the figures would probably have been upon blue. This particular instance, by the way, is said to be of the twelfth century, although the ornament has more the character of thirteenth century work. You see also the doves referred to encircling the figure sitting in Majesty, and the figures attendant upon the Virgin. Sometimes these are prophets, sometimes angels; sometimes they stand in little canopy niches, sometimes they are in the midst of the foliage. The fragment from Salisbury on page 117 formed most probably part of a Jesse window. The symbolic doves have often each a nimbus. A single dove represents, of course, the Holy Ghost.

A rather suggestive variation upon the orthodox Early scheme occurs in a window at Carcassonne. Each of the three lights is bordered with a rather geometric pattern. Within the border the central light is designed much on the usual lines: Jesse recumbent below, and above the figures of Kings, sitting each in his own little vesical-shaped space formed by the growth of the tree. In the sidelights, however, the Prophets are provided with the very simplest canopies, one above the other.

An interesting arrangement is to be found in the clerestory of the cathedral at Tours, where the central light of a window has a Tree of Jesse, with the usual oval compartments, corresponding with hexagon-shaped medallions in the two sidelights, in which are depicted scenes presumably appropriate to the subject; it is difficult to make them out with any certainty.

Occasionally what seems at first sight a medallion window resolves itself, as at S. Kunibert, Cologne, into a kind of genealogical tree, enclosing subjects illustrative of the descent of Christ. The rather unusual combination of medallion and vine shown below, also German, is of rather later date.

In the fourteenth century the tree naturally becomes a vine, usually in colour upon a blue or ruby ground, extending beyond the limits of a single light, and crossing not only the mullions, but the borders (which, by the way, often confuse the effect of a Decorated Jesse window). The vine extends also very often into the tracery, where sits the Virgin with the Infant Christ. The figure of our Lord is always, of course, the topmost feature of the tree--in the arms of the Virgin, in the lap of the Father, or sitting in Majesty. A variation upon ordinary practice occurs where the Father supports a crucifix. The figure of Jesse naturally, as at Shrewsbury (page 241), extends across several lights.

Occasionally a figure and canopy window proves to be also a Jesse window--a vine, that is to say, winds about the figures, and connects them with the figure of Jesse; but this combination of canopy work with tree work (as at Wells, some of the detail of which is given overleaf) is confused and confusing. A much happier combination of figures under canopies with tree work occurs in a sixteenth century window at S. Godard, Rouen, which has at the base a series of five figures, above whom spreads the tree, its roots appearing above the head of the central one, who proves to be Jesse.

By the fifteenth century the vine is rather more conventionally treated. It is usually in white and stain upon a coloured ground, or, if the leaves are green, the stems are white and stain. The figures also have more white in their drapery. In the earlier part of the century the main stem branches very often in an angular manner so as to form six-sided bowers for the figures, framing them, perhaps, in a different colour from the general groundwork of the window. Or the various lights of the window may have alternately a blue and a ruby ground. It is rarely that two figures are shown in the width of a single light, either in separate compartments or grouped in one.

Later the tree, oftenest in white and stain, branches more freely, not twisting itself any longer into set shapes or obvious compartments. The figures are, as it were, perched amongst its branches. In French and German work the tree, towards the sixteenth century, is not so necessarily a vine. It may take the form more of scrollwork, white or yellow, and the personages in its midst may be only demi-figures, issuing possibly from vase-like flowers or flower-like ornament.

That is so in a remarkably fine window in the clerestory of the cathedral at Troyes (three lights of which are shown on page 366), where the figures no longer occupy the centre of the lights, but are scattered about from side to side, balanced in a very satisfactory way by their names writ large upon the background. This characteristic lettering gives not only interesting masses of white or yellow on the ruby ground, but horizontal lines of great value to the composition. In the lower part of the window a separate screen of richest yellow marks off the figure of Jesse, and at the same time distinguishes the Donors, together with their family and their armorial bearings, from the merely scriptural part of the design. In earlier windows, it should have been stated, prominence is sometimes given to the really more important personages by drawing them to a much larger scale, or by showing them full-length when the others are only half-length, or by draping them all in white and stain, whilst the rest are in colours not so strongly relieved against the ground.

There are two other rather unusual Jesse windows at Troyes, both of Late Gothic period. The one is at S. Nizier: there the foliage is so rare as to give the effect almost of a leafless scroll. The other is at S. Nicholas: there the tree grows through into the tracery, where it appears no longer, as in the lights below, upon a deep blue ground, but upon yellow, the radiance, as it proves, from the group of the Trinity, into which the tree eventually blossoms.

Quite one of the most beautiful Jesse trees that exist is in a Late Gothic window at Alençon. It is unusual, probably unique in design. The figures, with the exception of Jesse, are confined to the upper lights and tracery, forming a double row towards the top of the window. This leaves a large amount of space for the tree, a fine, fat, Gothic scroll, foliated more after the manner of oak than acanthus leaves, all in rich greens (yellowish, apple, emerald-like) on a greyish-blue ground. It forms a splendid patch of cool colour, contrasting in the most beautiful way with the figures, draped mostly in purple, red, and yellow. The figures issue from great flower-like features as big as the width of the light allows, mostly of red, or purple, or white, with a calyx in green. The Virgin issues from a white flower suggestive of the lily. In the window shown on page 368 the tree blossoms also into a topmost lily supporting the Madonna. A characteristic feature about the Alençon window is, the absence of symmetry in its scheme. Of the eight lights which go to make up its width, only three are devoted, below the springing of the great arch over it, to the Jesse tree. Three others contain a representation of the death of the Virgin, under a separate canopy, and in the two outermost lights are separate subjects on a smaller scale. This kind of eccentricity of composition is by no means unusual. A Jesse window very often occupies only one half or one quarter of a large Late Gothic window. And the strange thing is that the effect is invariably satisfactory, often delightful. You do not miss the symmetry, but enjoy the accidental variety of colour.

In sixteenth century work, and even before that, you meet with windows in which figures are in colours upon a white ground. In that case the tree is usually painted upon the white and stained. So it was in the beautiful Flemish window, parts of which are now dispersed over the East windows of S. George's, Hanover Square, calculated, there, rather to mystify the student of design. In it the grapes, it will be seen (page 216), are glazed in purple pot-metal colour. In the present condition of the window, now that the enamel-brown has partly peeled off, the grape bunches scarcely seem to belong to the rather ghostly vine behind them. That is a misfortune which not uncommonly happens where reliance has been placed upon delicate painting; but for all that this is noble glass, and the figures, as was also not uncommon at the period, are designed with great dignity.

There is distinction, again, in the drawing of the figures in the Jesse at S. Etienne, Beauvais, shown on page 368. That is a splendid specimen of characteristically Renaissance work. Jesse is honoured by a rich canopy of white and stain, which allows of a deep purple background separating him from his descendants. These appear as demi-figures, very richly robed, in strong relief against a pale purplish-blue ground of the atmospheric quality peculiar to the period. The vase-shaped flowers whence they issue are also in rich colour, dark against the ground, as are the variegated fruits and green leaves of the tree, but its branches are of silvery-white, suggesting of birch-bark. This tree-trunk is altogether too realistically treated for the ornamental leafage and still more arbitrary flowers growing from it; but it is a marvellously fine window, masterly in drawing and perfectly painted. And it owes positively nothing to age or accident. Indeed, the effect is somewhat diluted by restoration. Even on the reduced scale of the illustration given, you can detect in the head of the hatless figure to the right a touch of modern French character; and the fine colour of it all is fine in spite of the flatness of tint in the background, for which the nineteenth century must be held responsible.

Except for the confusion caused by the occasional introduction of canopies and borders, a Jesse window may be usually recognised at a glance. In the cathedral at Troyes, however, is what might be mistaken, at first sight, for a Jesse tree. But the recumbent figure is not that of Jesse, but of Christ. He lies, in fact, in the wine press, whence grows a vine bearing half effigies of the Twelve Apostles, and the patron saints of the Donor and his wife, who themselves had places in the lower portion of the sidelights, but the figure of the wife is now missing. The general design and effect of this window, and especially the seriousness of the ornamental portion of it, are such as almost to belie the period of its execution. It is an exceptionally fine window for the year 1625.

This same subject is anticipated in a sixteenth century window (1552) at Conches. There the Saviour treads the blue grapes, and a stream of blood-red wine issues from them. The frame of the press immediately behind him is designed to suggest the cross.

The Jesse window referred to in the north transept at Carcassonne is balanced by a window on the south, which is of peculiarly interesting design, not, to my knowledge, elsewhere to be found in glass, although it occurs in Early Italian painting. It represents the Tree of Life, of Knowledge of Good and Evil--which knowledge appears to be inscribed all over it and the window. It might almost be described as a tree of lettering, for it bears upon its branches (which are labels) and upon its fruit (which are heart-shaped tablets) voluminous inscriptions, not, in the present state of the glass, always easy to decipher, but most effectively decorative. On either side the window, by way of border to the outer lights, is a series of little figures, prophets, or whoever they may be, bearing other inscribed scrolls, mingling with the boughs of the tree, the leaves of which form, as it were, a kind of green and yellow fringe to the inscribed white branches. At the foot of the tree stand Adam and Eve, in the act of yielding to the temptation of the woman-headed serpent coiled round its trunk, and beyond are shown the Ark of Noah and the Ark of the Covenant. Amidst the upper branches is a crucifix, the narrow red cross so inconspicuous that the Christ seems almost to hang upon the tree, and at its summit is the emblem of the pelican, _Qui sanguine pascit alumnos_. This is altogether not only a striking, and, at the same time, most satisfactory window, but an admirable instance of the use of lettering in ornament. Lettering is very often introduced into Jesse windows, and forms sometimes a conspicuous feature in them: how much more use might be made of it is suggested by this Tree of Life.