120 THE BUILDING NEWS Fen. 9, 1879.
we must accept the bars and leads as necessities,
and work accordingly, it does not follow that stained
glass must therefore be coarse in treatment. If that
were so it would be quite out of place in our
dwelling-rooms, in incongruous juxtaposition with the
rather over-finished furniture of a modern house.
The leads give, it is true, the key of our composition
in glass. Looking at a stained glass window as the
expression of an artist’s thought and feeling, they
give, as it were, the pitch of his voice. But his
utterance need not, therefore, be loud, any more than an
accomplished singer or speaker need shout to fillaroom.
Only he must be practised in his art, as the speaker
and the singer are in theirs, and he must quite know
what power he has, and how to turn it into account.
It is a popular prejudice (with which I am very far
from agreeing) that to a good window /figure-work
isindispensable. Still, single figures, or figure-sub-
jects, may eften be introduced with advantage, and
in domestic work there is not so much danger of that
painful sameness of subject and treatment which de-
tracts from the interest of ecclesiastical work. But
in quarry or grisaille lights, I think the figure work
should also be grisaille in character. Instances of
the way in which it is possible cleverly to introduce
occasional bits of colour in grisaille subjects are
very common in old Perpendicular work. The glass-
painters of that period were often very tricky in the
management of their leads, and knew how to make
the most of every bit of colour they used. M.
Viollet le Duc objects to figures executed in grisaille.
It is an essential condition, he says, of all grisaille,
that every bit of glass should be evenly diapered
with some pattern traced with the brush, and, as in
the case of figures, this law would have to be broken
as far as the heads and flesh are concerned, figures
must not be introduced. Of this argument I will
only say that it seems to me very much like losing
an opportunity for the sake of theory. It is a safe
practice to cover over your white ground with
brushwork, but by no means an inviolable Jaw. But
he has a better reason. He says that there is, about
all grisaille, however bold the design, an appearance
of vibration which makes it difficult to decipher the
pattern—the eye cannot rest upon it without fatigue,
and it is, therefore, a waste of resources to lavish
figure-work upon it. If this be true, it is an ob-
jection to all first-class work in grisaille. But is
this vibration inevitable? I grant that it is a com-
mon effect—or rather defect—of a grisaille, but I
deny that it is a universal one. There are some
figures leaded in grisaille in the Houses of Parlia-
ment that certainly did not vibrate when I saw
them. Of course it fatigues the eye to look long at
a time at any glass through which a pretty strong
light is transmitted; but it is not because we
cannot look at a thing for long at a time that
we should, therefore, refrain from making it as
beautiful as possible. Indeed, even beauty
begins to pall upon you when it is continually
before your eyes. Goethe has a charming little
fable that Beauty came to Jove with the complaint,
why had he made her perishable? and the god
answered that it was only the perishable that he
had endowed with beauty. In the case of glass I
think we should soon weary of it if it were coarse
and uninteresting; and if it were delieate and
beautiful we should haye plenty of opportunities to
appreciate it and enjoy it—at least in domestic
work. The misfortune is that we seldom use
grisaille except where cheapness is a desideratum,
and it results that it is for the most part cheap and
proportionately nasty, though it might be made to
produce the most beautiful effects. Who ever failed
to admire the “Five Sisters of York”? There is
one means by which cheap glass might be improved ;
that is, if the design were used repeatedly, and its
cost thus spread over many windows. I see no
reason why medallions, small subjects, figures, heads,
panels, &c., might not be reserved by the manufac-
turer for cheaper windows. If a man can afford
an original design, so much the better—lct him have
it by all means; but if he cannot afford to pay for
aunique design, give him a good replica. This is
done in the case of tiles, and other manufactures ;
why should it not be done in glass? And yet, a
far as I know, it never is done. Referring to the
introduction of colour in grisaille or quarry lights, I
do not advocate the use of much colour in quarry
lights. Coloured panels, or bosses generally, look
heavy in them, and a rich border has a tendency
towards the same defect, besides diminishing the
apparent size of the window. Perhaps a narrow
line of colour, as an inner border between the white
border and the quarries, and just an oceasional
rosette or ring of colour, is as much as the light
will bear. If you will have more, you may venture,
but it is treading on d angerous ground. In other
gvisaille, much more colour may easily be intro-
duced. Patterns in which intersecting or interlacing
sort I know is in Cologne Cathedral.
bands of colour are the prominent feature may be
very happily designed. The old Decorated and
earlier church work of that character will illustrate
what I mean. Examples are to be seen in the
Chapter House, York, and at Salisbury Cathedral.
Where spots of colour are used there should be
some sort of fairness in the distribution of them—
the plums should not be all in one slice of cake—
and if larger masses occur they should serve asa
focus for these smaller spots. There is breadth
about the arrangement of a broad horizontal band
of panels running through a series of grisaille or
quarry lights which is thoroughly architecturesque,
and admirably opposed to anything like prettiness ;
but very richly-coloured panels in the midst of
comparatively pale grisaille are apt to give one the
rather uncomfortable impression that all the money
has been spent upon them, and the grisaille filled in
for want of further funds. When the masses of
rich colour take the form of heraldic shields or
panels, this inconsistency is less perceptible;
perhaps because a coat of arms, being meant to be
something ostentatious, you are not surprised that
it should monopolise your attention and swamp the
rest of the window. Theoretically I admit to a
certain sentimental sort of prejudice against all
heraldry; but of the admirable effects of which
heraldry is capable in stained glass I think there
can scarcely be two opinions. So that, perhaps, its
beauty justifies the use of heraldry in domestic
windows. In church windows it seems to me utterly
unjustifiable. It is certainly more suggestive of the
ridiculous than of the sublime to see an angel, or
what goes for one, promoted to bear a shield of
arms in glorification of Mr. Smith. I know that
this objection, if carried out, would *‘ exclude
all mundane monuments from our churches,”
but I have no sympathy with the abuse of the me-
morial sentiment that has turned Westminster Abbey
into an old curiosity shop. When I speak of heraldic
work as effective, no one, I hope, will accuse me of
alluding to those little Swiss miniature coats of arms
painted in coloured enamels on glass. ‘“ Effective”
is the last epithet to be applied to that sort of trifling,
I refer, of course, to bold mosaic work, such as one
finds frequently in old Gothic work. There are a
few rather rough scraps (fifteenth century) at South
Kensington, but I think the best old work of the
Good speci-
mens of modern work are not scarce. The designer
has this inducement to use heraldry—that. the laws
of heraldry make it difficult to go wrong in colour.
There are painful proofs that it is possible to fritter
your work away into insignificance, or to use crude
glass for your “tinctures”; but if you adopt the
mosaic system, and use rich glass, you cannot well
help arriving at a boid and good effect of colour—
unless you perpetrate false heraldry. It is really
difficult to make a discord within the limits of
“colour on metal and metal on colour.” Take the
further precaution of adopting a white background,
and you are safe. A white quarry background is
a common expedient in heraldry, and nearly always
looks well; but I can’t help thinking that it should
only be used where the heraldry forms but part of
the window, the rest of it being of quarry-work.
Where there is no other quarry-work, and where,
perhaps (as is often the case), not a single perfect
quarry occurs, it seems to me savage, if not absurd.
The object of querrying is to break up a surface, and
where the background is already sufficiently broken
up by the heraldry, the quarries are superfluous—
unless, as I said, they are accounted for as being a
continuation of the quarry-work above and below.
I have confined myself, so far, chiefly to grisaille
work and to glass approaching to grisaille in charac-
ter, because I have to do to-night with glass adapted
to domestic architecture, where the opportunity of
introducing very richly-coloured windows is com-
paratively scarce. Such richly-coloured glass as we
see at Chartres or Canterbury bears much about the
same relation to very delicate grisaille as fresco-
painting bears to water-colour, The one, at its
grandest, is on a bold scale, to be seen at a distance,
and not to be smelt at—architectural and monumen-
tal in its character—fit for cathedrals. The other,
at its best, is altogether on a smaller scale, admitting
of much closer inspection, and, indeed, by its delicacy
almost demanding it—a refined decoration for our
sitting-rooms.
(To be continued.)
—
AncuirecturAl Musrum.—A conference is to
be held at this museum, Tufton-street, Dean’s-yard,
Westminster, on Thursday, Feb. 15, at four o'clock
p.m., for the purpose of considering the best means
of rendering the collection of greater advantage to
workmen in such trades as require a knowledge of
art,
COMPETITIONS. Worcester.—The Worcester School Board, at its meeting, on the 1st instant, determined to adhere to its previous decision in the matter of the competi- tion for the new schools, notwithstanding the protests which have been addressed to it, Pustic Barn, Hantry.—Thirty-one sets of designs were submitted in this competition. Out of these twelve were first selected, and the number was then reduced to four. After ‘another examination “Mark Well” was selected for the first prize of £30, and “A Competitor” was selected for the prize of £20. he sealed envelopes accom- panying the prize plans were then opened, and it was found that the first prize had been awarded to Mr. Ralph Dain, Henley, and the second to Mr. Charles Lynam, Stoke. The Mayor commented on the fact that the two best plans were by local arechi- tects, which was doubtless due to the greater interest taken in the matter by local architects. Woopereen Cuurcu, NEAR WEDNESBURY.— The design of Mr. Edward Francis Clarke, of Mitre Chambers, London, has been selected from a limited competition, Mr. Edward Holmes, of Bir- mingham, being the adjudicator. We hope to give Mr. Clarke’s interior and exterior views in an early number of the Burtpixe News. —_>—__—- ARCH ZOLOGICAL. Liverroon ArcHrrecruURAL AND ARCH2ZOLOGI- cat Socrery.—The seventh meeting of this session was held at the Royal Institution on Wednesday evening. Mr. T. D. Barry made some remarks upon the sewerage question. ATHENIAN Tomns.—The Chronique des Arts for December 24, 1871, announces that new tombs have been brought to light at Athens, amongst others a funeral monument ornamented by a fine bas-relief representing two female figures larger than life, one seated, the other standing. Excavations have also been undertaken in the environs of the so-called portico of the Eponymi. The result appears to throw discredit on the theory in accordance with which the portico was named. The colossal statues found, of which three are yet preserved, make up but four in all. They supported, after the fashion of caryatides, the entablature of an edifice of which both the name and purpose for the present must remain in doubt, Tue ArcHaorocicAL InstrrutE.—The Feb- ruary meeting, being the first for 1872, of the Archeological Institute, took place on Friday. Some photographs of Raglan Castle were handed round. Mr. Burtt read a paper by Mr. Hewitt on the Medical Prescriptions of the Seventeenth Cen- tury. Mr. Fortnum followed with a paper on early “ Christian Rings,” of which he exhibited an extensive collection. He quoted S. James ii. 2 to prove that rings were worn among the early Christians, and described several varieties of the sacred monogram, the Cross, the anchora spet, and other religious symbols with which these rings are engraved. Among the examples he mentioned was a ring of the Blessed Virgin at Perugia and another at Rome; but he cautiously abstained from any opinion as to their authenticity. — PARLIAMENTARY NOTES. Roya PArKs AND GARDENS.—Mr. Ayrton brought ina Bill, on Wednesday, for the regulation of the Royal parks and gardens. Punitic HEALTH.—Mr. Hibbert, in the absence of tne Presidest of the Local Government Board, gave notice, on Tuesday, that that right hon. gentleman would, on the 16th instant, bring i in a Bill to amend the law re lating to public health. Sir Selwin Ibbet- son also gave notice of a similar motion. INVESTIGATION OF Frres.—Mr. M‘Lagan gave notice that he should bring in a Bill for the inyesti- gation of fires. THe OrpNANCE SurveY.—Mr. Whitworth gave notice of his intention to call attention to the present state of progress of the ordnance survey. —————— Braprorp.—The Rev. W. B. Scruton, of 8. Patrick’s, Bradford, has had a range of school buildings erected in the rear of the church by Mr. A. Neill, from the designs of Mr. Edward Simpson, architect, Bradford, at acost of about £3,500, The schools are in plain Gothic style, two stories in height, and will accommodate betw een 700 and 800 children. ‘The infant school measures 80ft. by 30ft., mixed school 90ft. by 30ft., and middle-class ‘school 30ft. by 16ft. Seven large class rooms are attached ; there are lavatories, cloak rooms, and other modern conyeniences. Adjoining is a_ school- house, or conyent, rine accommodation for six head teachers and twelve pupil-teachers,
