Apocalypse then: a bright photograph album
These uncertain spring days feel apocalyptic, with war following hard on plague, and other horsemen jostling for a place like jockeys at a fence in the Grand National.
For a satisfying pictorial companion I recommend Apocalypse: the Great East Window of York Minster by Sarah Brown, with which I have just caught up.
It’s more than a picture book, but it does display in colour on large-format pages each of the window panels depicting scenes from the book of Revelation, or the Apocalypse as it was known when the stained glass was made, just over 600 years ago. Like the vivid subject matter, the window is stupendous. The 18thcentury antiquary Francis Drake called it “the wonder of the world, both for masonry and glazing”.
The East Window in the end wall beyond the high altar of the cathedral is the size of a tennis court – 77ft high and 32ft across. It is the largest expanse of medieval stained glass in the country. The Apocalypse scenes come in nine rows of nine panels. Above are scenes from the Old Testament, and, below, a row of historical figures, such as a crowned and bearded convocation of Edward the Confessor, William the Conqueror and Edward III.
In all the windows, the drawing of the figures is full of character and art. The ensemble is jewel-like. But it is very hard to see the detail from ground level in the Minster. I’d say: read the book, then visit.
It is surprising that we know who made the window – John Thornton. His contract with the Dean and Chapter survives, thanks to a transcription made in the 17th century by another antiquary, James Torre. Thornton, a glazier from Coventry, undertook on August 10 1405 to make the window in three years.
It was a huge enterprise to design the whole thing to the satisfaction of the Dean and the Minster canons, then cut the glass, paint it and fit it together with precise cames (lead joints H-shaped in section). His success reflects teamwork with talented craftsmen.
Other things threatened the project. Two months before Thornton’s contract, the Archbishop of York, Richard Scrope, was beheaded after leading a group of rebels. He must have been a force behind the construction of the window, and was buried, with a reputation for sanctity, close to it in the Minster. The money for the window came from the Bishop of Durham, Walter Skirlaw, and it was fortunate that funds were still available after his death in 1406.
The culture of the time was that of the Canterbury Pilgrims of Geoffrey Chaucer, who had died in 1400. The images in the windows are reminiscent of manuscript illuminations. It was a Gothicising world, with crocketed architectural borders painted on to the windows, framing feathered angels wielding swords, celestial elders crowned and bearded like the kings below them and well-observed horses moving through dramatic scenes.
In a mandorla against a sky of blue fronds, the Virgin Mary, crowned and surrounded by sharp golden rays (like the Virgin of Guadalupe in Mexico a century later) stands out of reach of a great red dragon with seven heads. Babylon is a walled medieval town with tracery and turrets. Men hide behind their hats from the heat of the sun. The Lamb releases the seals of a beautifully bound folio volume. When the second angel sounds the trumpet, mariners go down with their clinker-built craft.
A deep, spiritual work of art, at the shallowest level it’s a photograph album of medieval life.