Page:Archaeological Journal, Volume 9.djvu/73

over the niche arch, from which the spire of the canopy rises; and even in the pedestals used in the lower tier of lights, which, with the small rayonnated sun on each side, bear considerable resemblance to the pedestals of the early Decorated canopies in the Lady Chapel windows of Wells Cathedral—in the coloured moulding sometimes occurring under the battlements of the tower—in the coloured windows of the spire—in the pot-metal yellow finials occasionally employed—in the shape of the crockets—in the use of flesh-coloured glass to represent the nude parts of several of the principal figures—in the white hair and beards, leaded into pink faces, &c. Yet these, and many other Decorated features, which a practised eye will not fail to detect, are, as it were, merged in the general character of the later style, which displays itself in the broad colouring of the window's, in the general flatness of the composition, which, by the way, is more remarkable in the North, South, and West windows of the Antechapel than in the East windows, where the canopy spires are cut out and surrounded with colour more completely—a circumstance which once induced me to think that these canopies were of earlier date than the rest—in the preponderance of white and yellow stained glass over the pot-metal colours; and, though in a less prominent degree, in the attitudes and draperies of most of the figures, particularly those in the North, South, and West windows—in the drawing, especially of the heads—in the thinness of the black outlines—in the general softness and delicacy of the execution, &c. Smear shading is occasionally used in the canopy-work, but the shadows are generally executed, if I mistake not, in "Smear shading stippled," an invention of the early part of the 14th century, and which differs from "Stipple shading" (the mode commonly adopted in the 15th century) in this, that the lights are left clear in the first instance, instead of being picked out of a stippled ground of Enamel Brown, spread uniformly over the glass. The granulation and depth of the shading are perhaps best shown in the white robe of Eve, in the northernmost West window; but, even in this instance, the shadow is not very coarsely stippled, nor can it be called deep even in its deepest part. There is no instance, in any of the windows, of the practice, adopted with such effect in later times, of making the accidental varieties of depth common in a sheet of coloured