Page:Archaeological Journal, Volume 6.djvu/615

NOTICES OF AKCHAEOLOGICAL PUBLICATIONS. 4.;}3 suggest the idea of such objects, and also of certain hidden or symbolical meanings attached to them. That in order to express these signs, the painter must adhere strictly to the forms vrhich were established in the middle ages ; and, for clothing them in the proper colom-s, must have recourse to the principle of colouring discoverable by the rules of heraldry. It seems also necessary, in order for the eye to feel the full etTect of a glass painting, that the spectator should be acquainted with the language of symbolism, and conversant with the heraldic designation of colours ; as, without the latter qualification, his retina might chance to be affected with the impression of mere colours, instead of the brilliancy of gems. The opinions on which this view of glass painting is founded seem to be erro- neous. The idea of a connection between glass painting and heraldry which the author advances, and which is found not only in the above quotations, but pervades the whole work, is a mere crotchet of some lover of heraldry ; and if it were true, could be of no practical importance as applied to the colouring of painted windows, in which so many more varie- ties of colour and shades of colour, necessarily occur, than in heraldry. In attributing superiority to medieval glass paintings over modern ones, the author seems to misapprehend the nature of the principle on which the effect of a glass painting depends, and to confound results due to colouring with those arising from drawing and design. Fully as we are disposed to agree with the author's condemnation of such glass paintings as " the washy Virtues " at New College, Oxford, — in which glass is treated like canvas, dulness is substituted for brilliancy, and weak enamel colouring for the powerful tints produced by using coloured pot-metal and coated glass, — works which 'iolate the essential conditions of the art, and possess neither the beauty of an oil painting on the one hand, nor that of a true glass painting on the other ; — we cannot agree with him in including in this condemnation the works of the first half of the sixteenth centuiy : for in these works the capabilities of the art of glass painting are more highl}' developed than has before or since been the case, ^vithout any violation of its principles. It is true that in many cases hai'mony with the character of the architecture may be better preserved by the employment of glass paintings consisting of an assemblage of strong and distinct colours, than of glass paintings possessing a lighter and more tinted effect ; but it is not fair to attempt to excite prejudice against the works of the first half of the sixteenth century by representing that their effect depends on delicacy of colouring, and the concealment of outlines, elc, as if delicacy of colouring (if a defect) were not equally displayed in many medieval examples, and as if the Cinque-cento artists ever strove to conceal any other leads than those which did not properly constitute the outlines of the design. Equally unfair is it to bring a general charge of indecency against these works, as the result of the art having become "secularised," since, in almost every case in which such indecency does exist, it arises from the artist having adopted some medieval type, the grossness of which, disguised in the original in some degree by the general grotesqueness of the drawing, is exhibited in all its deformity when the subject is more skilfully delineated. We have long entertained the opinion that glass painting ditfers from VOL. VI. 3 M