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diff --git a/31415.txt b/31415.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..88bd660 --- /dev/null +++ b/31415.txt @@ -0,0 +1,7707 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Stained Glass Work, by C. W. Whall + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Stained Glass Work + A text-book for students and workers in glass + +Author: C. W. Whall + +Release Date: February 27, 2010 [EBook #31415] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK STAINED GLASS WORK *** + + + + +Produced by Suzanne Shell, ismail user and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + + + +Transcribers Note: The italic text is denoted as _italic_. + + + + + "_. . . And remembering these, trust Pindar for the truth of his + saying, that to the cunning workman--(and let me solemnly enforce + the words by adding, that to him only)--knowledge comes + undeceitful._" + + --RUSKIN ("Aratra Pentelici"). + + "_'Very cool of Tom,' as East thought but didn't say, 'seeing as + how he only came out of Egypt himself last night at bed-time.'_" + + --("Tom Brown's Schooldays"). + + + + + THE ARTISTIC CRAFTS SERIES + OF TECHNICAL HANDBOOKS + EDITED BY W. R. LETHABY + + STAINED GLASS WORK + + + + +[Illustration: CUTTING AND GLAZING + +_Frontispiece_ (_See p. 137_)] + + + + + STAINED GLASS WORK + A TEXT-BOOK FOR STUDENTS + AND WORKERS IN GLASS. BY + C. W. WHALL. WITH DIAGRAMS + BY TWO OF HIS APPRENTICES + AND OTHER ILLUSTRATIONS + + NEW YORK + D. APPLETON AND COMPANY + MCMXIV + + + + + Printed by BALLANTYNE, HANSON & CO. + at the Ballantyne Press, Edinburgh + + + + + _To his Pupils and Assistants, who, if they + have learned as much from him as he has + from them, have spent their time profitably; + and who, if they have enjoyed learning as + much as he has teaching, have spent it happily; + this little book is Dedicated by their Affectionate + Master and Servant,_ + + _THE AUTHOR._ + + + + +EDITOR'S PREFACE + + +In issuing these volumes of a series of Handbooks on the Artistic +Crafts, it will be well to state what are our general aims. + +In the first place, we wish to provide trustworthy text-books of +workshop practice, from the points of view of experts who have +critically examined the methods current in the shops, and putting aside +vain survivals, are prepared to say what is good workmanship, and to set +up a standard of quality in the crafts which are more especially +associated with design. Secondly, in doing this, we hope to treat design +itself as an essential part of good workmanship. During the last century +most of the arts, save painting and sculpture of an academic kind, were +little considered, and there was a tendency to look on "design" as a +mere matter of _appearance_. Such "ornamentation" as there was was +usually obtained by following in a mechanical way a drawing provided by +an artist who often knew little of the technical processes involved in +production. With the critical attention given to the crafts by Ruskin +and Morris, it came to be seen that it was impossible to detach design +from craft in this way, and that, in the widest sense, true design is an +inseparable element of good quality, involving as it does the selection +of good and suitable material, contrivance for special purpose, expert +workmanship, proper finish, and so on, far more than mere ornament, and +indeed, that ornamentation itself was rather an exuberance of fine +workmanship than a matter of merely abstract lines. Workmanship when +separated by too wide a gulf from fresh thought--that is, from +design--inevitably decays, and, on the other hand, ornamentation, +divorced from workmanship, is necessarily unreal, and quickly falls into +affectation. Proper ornamentation may be defined as a language addressed +to the eye; it is pleasant thought expressed in the speech of the tool. + +In the third place, we would have this series put artistic craftsmanship +before people as furnishing reasonable occupations for those who would +gain a livelihood. Although within the bounds of academic art, the +competition, of its kind, is so acute that only a very few per cent. can +fairly hope to succeed as painters and sculptors; yet, as artistic +craftsmen, there is every probability that nearly every one who would +pass through a sufficient period of apprenticeship to workmanship and +design would reach a measure of success. + +In the blending of handwork and thought in such arts as we propose to +deal with, happy careers may be found as far removed from the dreary +routine of hack labour as from the terrible uncertainty of academic art. +It is desirable in every way that men of good education should be +brought back into the productive crafts: there are more than enough of +us "in the city," and it is probable that more consideration will be +given in this century than in the last to Design and Workmanship. + + * * * * * + +Our last volume dealt with one of the branches of sculpture, the present +treats of one of the chief forms of painting. Glass-painting has been, +and is capable of again becoming, one of the most noble forms of Art. +Because of its subjection to strict conditions, and its special glory of +illuminated colour, it holds a supreme position in its association with +architecture, a position higher than any other art, except, perhaps, +mosaic and sculpture. + +The conditions and aptitudes of the Art are most suggestively discussed +in the present volume by one who is not only an artist, but also a +master craftsman. The great question of colour has been here opened up +for the first time in our series, and it is well that it should be so, +in connection with this, the pre-eminent colour-art. + +Windows of coloured glass were used by the Romans. The thick lattices +found in Arab art, in which brightly-coloured morsels of glass are set, +and upon which the idea of the jewelled windows in the story of Aladdin +is doubtless based, are Eastern off-shoots from this root. + +Painting in line and shade on glass was probably invented in the West +not later than the year 1100, and there are in France many examples, at +Chartres, Le Mans, and other places, which date back to the middle of +the twelfth century. + +Theophilus, the twelfth-century writer on Art, tells us that the French +glass was the most famous. In England the first notice of stained glass +is in connection with Bishop Hugh's work at Durham, of which we are told +that around the altar he placed several glazed windows remarkable for +the beauty of the figures which they contained; this was about 1175. + +In the Fabric Accounts of our national monuments many interesting facts +as to mediaeval stained glass are preserved. The accounts of the building +of St. Stephen's Chapel, in the middle of the fourteenth century, make +known to us the procedure of the mediaeval craftsmen. We find in these +first a workman preparing white boards, and then the master glazier +drawing the cartoons on the whitened boards, and many other details as +to customs, prices, and wages. + +There is not much old glass to be studied in London, but in the museum +at South Kensington there are specimens of some of the principal +varieties. These are to be found in the Furniture corridor and the +corridor which leads from it. Close by a fine series of English coats of +arms of the fourteenth century, which are excellent examples of +Heraldry, is placed a fragment of a broad border probably of late +twelfth-century work. The thirteenth century is represented by a +remarkable collection, mostly from the Ste. Chapelle in Paris and +executed about 1248. The most striking of these remnants show a series +of Kings seated amidst bold scrolls of foliage, being parts of a Jesse +Tree, the narrower strips, in which are Prophets, were placed to the +right and left of the Kings, and all three made up the width of one +light in the original window. The deep brilliant colour, the small +pieces of glass used, and the rich backgrounds are all characteristic of +mid-thirteenth-century glazing. Of early fifteenth-century workmanship +are the large single figures standing under canopies, and these are good +examples of English glass of this time. They were removed from +Winchester College Chapel about 1825 by the process known as +restoration. + +W. R. LETHABY. + +_January 1905._ + + + + +AUTHOR'S PREFACE + + +The author must be permitted to explain that he undertook his task with +some reluctance, and to say a word by way of explaining his position. + +I have always held that no art can be taught by books, and that an +artist's best way of teaching is directly and personally to his own +pupils, and maintained these things stubbornly and for long to those who +wished this book written. But I have such respect for the good judgment +of those who have, during the last eight years, worked in the teaching +side of the art and craft movement, and, in furtherance of its objects, +have commenced this series of handbooks, and such a belief in the +movement, of which these persons and circumstances form a part, that I +felt bound to yield on the condition of saying just what I liked in my +own way, and addressing myself only to students, speaking as I would +speak to a class or at the bench, careless of the general reader. + +You will find yourself, therefore, reader, addressed as "Dear Student." +(I know the term occurs further on.) But because this book is written +for students, it does not therefore mean that it must all be brought +within the comprehension of the youngest apprentice. For it is becoming +the fashion, in our days, for artists of merit--painters, perhaps, even +of distinction--to take up the practice of one or other of the crafts. +All would be well, for such new workers are needed, if it was indeed the +_practice_ of the craft that they set themselves to. But too often it is +what is called the _designing_ for it only in which they engage, and it +is the duty of every one speaking or writing about the matter to point +out how fatal is that error. + +One must provide a word, then, for such as these also here if one can. + +Indeed, to reckon up all the classes to whom such a book as this should +be addressed, we should have, I think, to name:-- + +(1) The worker in the ordinary "shop," who is learning there at present, +to our regret, only a portion of his craft, and who should be given an +insight into the whole, and into the fairyland of design. + +(2) The magnificent and superior artist, mature in imagination and +composition, fully equipped as a painter of pictures, perhaps even of +academical distinction, who turns his attention to the craft, and +without any adequate practical training in it, which alone could teach +its right principles, makes, and in the nature of things is bound to +make, great mistakes--mistakes easily avoidable. No such thing can +possibly be right. Raphael himself designed for tapestry, and the +cartoons are priceless, but the tapestry a ghastly failure. It could not +have been otherwise under the conditions. Executant separated from +designer by all the leagues that lie between Arras and Rome. + +(3) The patron, who should know something of the craft, that he may not, +mistrusting, as so often at present, his own taste, be compelled to +trust to some one else's Name, and of course looks out for a big one. + +(4) The architect and church dignitary who, having such grave +responsibilities in their hands towards the buildings of which they are +the guardians, wish, naturally, to understand the details which form a +part of their charge. And lastly, a new and important class that has +lately sprung into existence, the well-equipped, picked +student--brilliant and be-medalled, able draughtsman, able painter; +young, thoughtful, ambitious, and educated, who, instead of drifting, as +till recently, into the overcrowded ranks of picture-making, has now the +opportunity of choosing other weapons in the armoury of the arts. + +To all these classes apply those golden words from Ruskin's "Aratra +Pentelici" which are quoted on the fly-leaf of the present volume, while +the spirit in which I myself would write in amplifying them is implied +by my adopting the comment and warning expressed in the other sentence +there quoted. The face of the arts is in a state of change. The words +"craft" and "craftsmanship," unheard a decade or two ago, now fill the +air; we are none of us inheritors of any worthy tradition, and those who +have chanced to grope about for themselves, and seem to have found some +safe footing, have very little, it seems to me, to plume or pride +themselves upon, but only something to be thankful for in their good +luck. But "to have learnt faithfully" one of the "ingenuous arts" (or +crafts) _is_ good luck and _is_ firm footing; we may not doubt it who +feel it strong beneath our feet, and it must be proper to us to help +towards it the doubtless quite as worthy or worthier, but less +fortunate, who may yet be in some of the quicksands around. + +It also happens that the art of stained glass, though reaching to very +high and great things, is in its methods and processes a simple, or at +least a very limited, one. There are but few things to do, while at the +same time the principles of it touch the whole field of art, and it is +impossible to treat of it without discussing these great matters and the +laws which guide decorative art generally. It happens conveniently, +therefore, as the technical part requires less space, that these things +should be treated of in this particular book, and it becomes the +author's delicate and difficult task to do so. He, therefore, wishes to +make clear at starting the spirit in which the task is undertaken. + +It remains only to express his thanks to Mr. Drury and Mr. Noel Heaton +for help respectively, with the technical and scientific detail; to Mr. +St. John Hope for permission to use his reproductions from the Windsor +stall-plates, and to Mr. Selwyn Image for his great kindness in revising +the proofs. + +C. W. WHALL. + +_January 1905._ + + + + + CONTENTS + + PAGE + + EDITOR'S PREFACE xi + + AUTHOR'S PREFACE xvii + + + PART I + + CHAPTER I + + Introductory, and Concerning the Raw Material 29 + + + CHAPTER II + + Cutting (elementary)--The Diamond--The Wheel--Sharpening--How + to Cut--Amount of Force--The + Beginner's Mistake--Tapping--Possible and + Impossible Cuts--"Grozeing"--Defects of the + Wheel--The Actual Nature of a "Cut" in + Glass 33 + + + CHAPTER III + + Painting (elementary)--Pigments--Mixing--How to + Fill the Brush--Outline--Examples--Industry--The + Needle and Stick--Completing the Outline 56 + + CHAPTER IV + + Matting--Badgering--How to preserve Correctness of + Outline--Difficulty of Large Work--Ill-ground + Pigment--The Muller--Overground Pigment--Taking + out Lights--"Scrubs"--The Need of a + Master 72 + + + CHAPTER V + + Cutting (advanced)--The Ideal Cartoon--The Cut-line--Setting + the Cartoon--Transferring the Cut-line + to the Glass--Another Way--Some Principles + of Taste--Countercharging 83 + + + CHAPTER VI + + Painting (advanced)--Waxing-up--Cleanliness--Further + Methods of Painting--Stipple--Dry + Stipple--Film--Effects of Distance--Danger of + Over-Painting--Frying 94 + + + CHAPTER VII + + Firing--Three Kinds of Kiln--Advantages and Disadvantages--The + Gas-Kiln--Quick Firing--Danger--Sufficient + Firing--Soft Pigments--Difference in + Glasses--"Stale" Work--The Scientific Facts--How + to Judge of Firing--Drawing the Kiln 105 + + + CHAPTER VIII + + The Second Painting--Disappointment with Fired + Work--A False Remedy--A Useful Tool--The + Needle--A Resource of Desperation--The Middle + Course--Use of the Finger--The Second Painting--Procedure 118 + + + CHAPTER IX + + Of Staining and Aciding--Yellow Stain--Aciding--Caution + required in Use--Remedy for Burning--Uses + of Aciding--Other Resources of Stained + Glass Work 129 + + + CHAPTER X + + Leading-Up and Fixing--Setting out the Bench--Relation + of Leading to mode of Fixing in the + Stone--Process of Fixing--Leading-Up Resumed--Straightening + the Lead--The "Lathykin"--The + Cutting-Knife--The Nails--The Stopping-Knife--Knocking + Up 133 + + + CHAPTER XI + + Soldering--Handling the Leaded Panel--Cementing--Recipe + for Cement--The Brush--Division of + Long Lights into Sections--How Joined when + Fixed--Banding--Fixing--Chipping out the Old + Glazing--Inserting the New and Cementing 144 + + + + + PART II + + CHAPTER XII + + Introductory--The Great Questions--Colour--Light--Architectural + Fitness--Limitations--Thought--Imagination--Allegory 154 + + + CHAPTER XIII + + Of Economy--The Englishman's Wastefulness--Its + Good Side--Its Excess--Difficulties--A Calculation--Remedies 156 + + + CHAPTER XIV + + Of Perfection--In Little Things--Cleanliness--Alertness--But + not Hurry--Realising your Conditions--False + Lead-Lines--Shutting out Light--Bars--Their + Number--Their Importance--Precedence--Observing + your Limitations--A Result of + Complete Training--The Special Limitations of + Stained Glass--Disguising the Lead-Line--No full + Realism--No violent Action--Self-Effacement--No + Craft-Jugglery--Architectural Fitness founded + on Architectural Knowledge--Seeing Work _in + Situ_--Sketching in Glass--The Artistic Use of + the Lead--Stepping Back--Accepting Bars and + Leads--Loving Care--White Spaces to be Interesting--Bringing + out the "Quality" of the + Glass--Spotting and Dappling--"Builders-Glazing" + _versus_ Modern Restoring 163 + + + CHAPTER XV + + A Few Little Dodges--A Clumsy Tool--A Substitute--A + Glass Rack--An Inconvenient Easel--A + Convenient Easel--A Waxing-up Tool--An + Easel with Movable Plates--Making the + most of a Room--Handling Cartoons--Cleanliness--Dust--The + Selvage Edge--Drying a + "Badger"--A Comment 182 + + + CHAPTER XVI + + Of Colour 198 + + + CHAPTER XVII + + Of Architectural Fitness 234 + + CHAPTER XVIII + + Of Thought, Imagination, and Allegory 248 + + + CHAPTER XIX + + Of General Conduct and Procedure--Amount of + Legitimate Assistance--The Ordinary Practice--The + Great Rule--The Second Great Rule--Four + Things to Observe--Art _v._ Routine--The + Truth of the Case--The Penalty of Virtue in + the Matter--The Compensating Privilege--Practical + Applications--An Economy of Time + in the Studio--Industry--Work "To Order"--Clients + and Patrons--And Requests Reasonable + and Unreasonable--The Chief Difficulty the + Chief Opportunity--But ascertain all Conditions + before starting Work--Business Habits--Order--Accuracy--Setting + out Cartoon Forms--An Artist + must Dream--But Wake--Three Plain Rules 264 + + + CHAPTER XX + + A String of Beads 290 + + + APPENDIX I + + Some Suggestions as to the Study of Old Glass 308 + + + APPENDIX II + + On the Restoring of Ancient Windows 315 + + APPENDIX III + + PAGE + + Hints for the Curriculum of a Technical School for + Stained Glass--Examples for Painting--Examples + of Drapery--Drawing from Nature--Ornamental + Design 321 + + + NOTES ON THE COLLOTYPE PLATES 327 + + THE COLLOTYPE PLATES 337 + + GLOSSARY 369 + + INDEX 373 + + + + +PART I + + +CHAPTER I + +INTRODUCTORY, AND CONCERNING THE RAW MATERIAL + + +You are to know that stained glass means pieces of coloured glasses put +together with strips of lead into the form of windows; not a picture +painted on glass with coloured paints. + +You know that a beer bottle is blackish, a hock bottle orange-brown, a +soda-water bottle greenish-white--these are the colours of the whole +substance of which they are respectively made. + +Break such a bottle, each little bit is still a bit of coloured glass. +So, also, blue is used for poison bottles, deep green and deep red for +certain wine glasses, and, indeed, almost all colours for one purpose or +another. + +Now these are the same glass, and coloured in the same way as that used +for church windows. + +Such coloured glasses are cut into the shapes of faces, or figures, or +robes, or canopies, or whatever you want and whatever the subject +demands; then features are painted on the faces, folds on the robes, and +so forth--not with colour, merely with brown shading; then, when this +shading has been burnt into the glass in a kiln, the pieces are put +together into a picture by means of grooved strips of lead, into which +they fit. + +This book, it is hoped, will set forth plainly how these things are +done, for the benefit of those who do not know; and, for the benefit of +those who do know, it will examine and discuss the right principles on +which windows should be made, and the rules of good taste and of +imagination, which make such a difference between beautiful and vulgar +art; for you may know intimately all the processes I have spoken of, and +be skilful in them, and yet misapply them, so that your window had +better never have been made. + +Skill is good if you use it wisely and for good end; but craft of hand +employed foolishly is no more use to you than swiftness of foot would be +upon the broad road leading downwards--the cripple is happier. + +A clear and calculating brain may be used for statesmanship or science, +or merely for gambling. You, we will say, have a true eye and a cunning +hand; will you use them on the passing fashion of the hour--the morbid, +the trivial, the insincere--or in illustrating the eternal truths and +dignities, the heroisms and sanctities of life, and its innocencies and +gaieties? + +This book, then, is divided into two parts, of which the intention of +one is to promote and produce skilfulness of hand, and of the other to +direct it to worthy ends. + +The making of glass itself--of the raw material--the coloured glasses +used in stained-glass windows, cannot be treated of here. What are +called "Antiques" are chiefly used, and there are also special glasses +representing the ideals and experiments of enthusiasts--Prior's "Early +English" glass, and the somewhat similar "Norman" glass. These glasses, +however, are for craftsmen of experience to use: they require mature +skill and judgment in the using; to the beginner, "Antiques" are enough +for many a day to come. + +_How to know the Right and Wrong Sides of a Piece of "Antique" +Glass._--Take up a sheet of one of these and look at it. You will notice +that the two sides look different; one side has certain little +depressions as if it had been pricked with a pin, sometimes also some +wavy streaks. Turn it round, and, looking at the other side, you still +see these things, but blurred, as if seen through water, while the +surface itself on this side looks smooth; what inequalities there are +being projections rather than depressions. Now the side you first looked +at is the side to cut on, and the side to paint on, and it is the side +placed inwards when the window is put up. + +The reason is this. Glass is made into sheets by being blown into +bubbles, just as a child blows soap-bubbles. If you blow a soap-bubble +you will see streaks playing about in it, just like the wavy streaks you +notice in the glass. + +The bubble is blown, opened at the ends, and manipulated with tools +while hot, until it is the shape of a drain-pipe; then cut down one side +and opened out upon a flattening-stone until the round pipe is a flat +sheet; and it is this stone which gives the glass the different texture, +the dimpled surface which you notice. + +Some glasses are "flashed"; that is to say, a bubble is blown which is +mainly composed of white glass; but, before blowing, it is also dipped +into another coloured glass--red, perhaps, or blue--and the two are then +blown together, so that the red or blue glass spreads out into a thin +film closely united to, in fact fused on to, and completely one with, +the white glass which forms the base; most "Ruby" glasses are made in +this way. + + + + +CHAPTER II + + Cutting (elementary)--The Diamond--The Wheel--Sharpening--How to + Cut--Amount of Force--- The Beginner's Mistake--Tapping--Possible + and Impossible Cuts--"Grozeing"--Defects of the Wheel--The Actual + Nature of a "Cut" in Glass. + + +No written directions can teach the use of the diamond; it is as +sensitive to the hand as the string of a violin, and a good workman +feels with a most delicate touch exactly where the cutting edge is, and +uses his tool accordingly. Every apprentice counts on spoiling a guinea +diamond in the learning, which will take him from one to two years. + +Most cutters now use the wheel, of which illustrations are given (figs. +1 and 2). + +[Illustration: FIGS. 1 AND 2.] + +The wheels themselves are good things, and cut as well as the diamond, +in some respects almost better; but many of the handles are very +unsatisfactory. From some of them indeed one might suppose, if such a +thing were conceivable, that the maker knew nothing of the use of the +tool. + +For it is held thus (fig. 5), the pressure of the _forefinger_ both +guiding the cut and supplying force for it: and they give you an _edge_ +to press on (fig. 1) instead of a surface! In some other patterns, +indeed, they do give you the desired surface, but the tool is so thin +that there is nothing to grip. What ought to be done is to reproduce the +shape of the old wooden handle of the diamond proper (figs. 3 and 4). + +[Illustration: FIGS. 3 AND 4.] + +The foregoing passage must, however, be amplified and modified, but this +I will do further on, for you will understand the reasons better if I +insert it after what I had written further with regard to the cutting of +glass. + +_How to Sharpen the Wheel Cutter._--The right way to do this is +difficult to describe in writing. You must, first of all, grind down the +"shoulders" of the tool, through which the pivot of the wheel goes, for +they are made so large that the wheel cannot reach the stone (fig. 6), +and must be reduced (fig. 7). Then, after first oiling the pivot so that +the wheel may run easily, you must hold the tool as shown in fig. 8, and +rub it swiftly up and down the stone. The angle at which the wheel +should rest on the stone is shown in fig. 9. You will see that the angle +at which the wheel meets the stone is a little _blunter_ than the angle +of the side of the wheel itself. You do not want to make the tool _too +sharp_, otherwise you will risk breaking down the edge, when the wheel +will cease to be truly circular, and when that occurs it is absolutely +useless. The same thing will happen if the wheel is _checked_ in its +revolution while sharpening, and therefore the pivot must be kept oiled +both for cutting and sharpening. + +[Illustration: FIG. 5.] + +[Illustration: FIGS. 6 and 7.] + +It is a curious fact to notice that the tool, be it wheel or diamond, +that is _too sharp_ is not, in practice, found to make so good a cut as +one that is less sharp; it scratches the glass and throws up a line of +splinters. + +_How to Cut Glass._--Hold the cutter as shown in the illustration (fig. +5), a little sloping towards you, but perfectly upright laterally; draw +it towards you, hard enough to make it just _bite_ the glass. If it +leaves a mark you can hardly see it is a good cut (fig. 10B), but if it +scratches a white line, throwing up glass-dust as it goes, either the +tool is faulty, or you are pressing too hard, or you are applying the +pressure to the wheel unevenly and at an angle to the direction of the +cut (fig. 10A). Not that you can make the wheel _move_ sideways in the +cut actually; it will keep itself straight as a ploughshare keeps in its +furrow, but it will press sideways, and so break down the edges of the +furrow, while if you exaggerate this enough it will actually leave the +furrow, and, ceasing to cut, will "skid" aside over the glass. As to +pressure, all cutters begin by pressing much too hard; the tool having +started biting, it should be kept only _just biting_ while drawn along. +The cut should be almost _noiseless_. You think you're not cutting +because you don't hear it grate, but hold the glass sideways to the +light and you will see the silver line quite continuous. + +Having made your cut, take the glass up; hold it as in fig. 11, press +downward with the thumbs and upward with the fingers, and the glass will +come apart. + +[Illustration: FIG. 8.] + +[Illustration: FIG. 9.] + +[Illustration: FIG. 10, A and B] + +[Illustration: FIG. 11.] + +But you want to cut shaped pieces as well as straight. You cannot break +these directly the cut is made, but, holding the glass as in fig. 12, +and pressing it firmly with the left thumb, jerk the tool up by little, +sharp jerks of the fingers _only_, so as to tap along the underside of +your cut. You will see a little silver line spring along the cut, +showing that the glass is dividing; and when that silver line has sprung +from end to end, a gentle pressure will bring the glass apart. + +[Illustration: FIG. 12.] + +This upward jerk must be sharp and swift, but must be calculated so as +only just to _reach_ the glass, being checked just at the right point, +as one hammers a _nail_ when one does not want to stir the work into +which the nail is driven. A _pushing_ stroke, a blow that would go much +further if the glass were not there, is no use; and for this reason +neither the elbow nor the hand must move; the knuckles are the hinge +upon which the stroke revolves. + +[Illustration: FIG. 13.] + +[Illustration: FIG. 14.] + +But you can only cut certain shapes--for instance, you cannot cut a +wedge-shaped gap out of a piece of glass (fig. 13); however tenderly you +handle it, it will split at point A. The nearest you can go to it is a +curve; and the deeper the curve the more difficult it is to get the +piece out. In fig. 14 A is an average easy curve, B a difficult one, C +impossible, except by "groseing" or "grozeing" as cutters call it; that +is, after the cut is made, setting to work to patiently bite the piece +out with pliers (fig. 15). + +[Illustration: FIG. 15.] + +Now, further, you must understand that you must not cut round all the +sides of a shaped piece of glass at once; indeed, you must only cut one +side at a time, and draw your cut right up to the edge of the glass, and +break away the whole piece which _contains_ the side you are cutting +before you go on to another. + +Thus, in fig. 16, suppose the shaded portion to be the shape that you +wish to cut out of the piece of glass, A, B, C, D. You must lay your +gauge _anglewise_ down upon the piece. Do not try to get the sides +parallel to the shapes of your gauge, for that makes it much more +difficult; angular pieces break off the easiest. + +[Illustration: FIG. 16.] + +Now, then, _cut the most difficult piece first_. That marked 1. Perhaps +you will not cut it quite true; but, if not, then shift the gauge +slightly on to another part of the curve, and very likely it may fit +that better and so _come_ true. + +Then follow with one of those marked 2 or 3. Probably it would be safest +to cut the larger and more difficult piece first, and get _both_ the +curved cuts right by your gauge; then you can be quite sure of getting +the very easy small bit off quite truly, to fit into its place with both +of them. Go on with 4, and then with one of those marked 5 or 6. +Probably it would still be best to cut the curved piece first, unless +you think that shortening it by cutting off the small corner-piece first +will make the curved cut easier by making it shorter. + +In any case you must only cut one side at a time, and break it away +before you make the cut for another side. + +Take care that you do not go back in your cut. You must try and make it +quite continuous onwards; for if you go back in the cut, where your tool +has already thrown up splinters, it will spoil your tool and spoil your +cut also. + +Difficult curves, that it is only just possible to get out by groseing, +ought never to be resorted to, except for some very sufficient reason. A +cartoonist who knows the craft will avoid setting such tasks to the +cutter; but, unfortunately, many cartoonists do _not_ know the craft. If +people were taught the complete craft as they should be, this book would +not have been written. + +Here let me say that we cannot possibly within the narrow limits of it +go thoroughly into all the very wide range of subjects connected with +glass--the chemistry, the permanence, the purity of materials. With the +exception of the practice of the craft, probably we shall not be able to +go thoroughly into any one of them; but I shall endeavour to _mention_ +them all, and to do so sufficiently to indicate the directions in which +work and research and experiment may be made, for they are all three +much needed in several directions. + +It becomes, for instance, now my task, in modifying the passage some +pages back as I promised, to go into one of these subjects in the light +of inquiries made since the passage in question was written; and I let +it for the time being stand just as it was, without the additional +information, because it gives a picture of how such things crop up and +of the way in which such investigations may be made, and of how useful +and pleasant they may be. + +Here then let us have-- + + +A LITTLE DISSERTATION UPON CUTTING. + +Through the agent for the wheel-cutter in England I communicated with +the maker and inventor in America, and told him of our difficulties and +perplexities over here, and chiefly with regard to two points. First, +the awkwardness of the handle, which causes the glaziers here to use the +tool bound round with wadding, or enclosed in a bit of india-rubber +pipe; and, secondly, the bluntness of the "jaws" which hold the wheel, +and which must be ground down (and are in universal practice ground +down), before the tool can be sharpened. + +His reply called attention to a number of different patterns of handle, +the existence of which, I think, is not generally known, in England at +any rate, and some of which seem to more or less meet the difficulties +we experience, most of them also being made with malleable iron handles, +so that fresh cutting-wheels can be inserted in the same handle. His +letter also entered into the question of the actual dynamics of +"cutting," maintaining, I think rightly, that a "cut" is made by the +edge of the wheel (this not being very sharp) forcing the particles of +the glass down into the mass of it by pressure. + +With regard to the old-fashioned pattern of tool which we chiefly use in +this country, the very sufficient explanation is that they continue to +make it because we continue to demand it, a circumstance which, as he +declares, is a mystery to the inventor himself! Nevertheless, as we do +so, and, in spite of the variety of newer tools on the market, still go +on grinding down the jaws of our favourite, and wrapping round the +handle with cotton-wool, let us try and put this matter straight, and +compare our requirements with the advantages offered us. + +There are three chief points to be cleared up. (1) The actual nature of +a "cut" in glass; (2) the question of sharpening the tool and grinding +down of the jaws to do so; and (3) the "mystery" of our preference for a +particular tool, although we all confess its awkwardness by the means we +take to modify it. + +(1) With regard, then, to the nature of a "cut" in glass I am disposed +entirely to agree with the theory put forward by the inventor of the +wheel, which an examination of the cuts under the microscope, or even a +6 diameter lens, certainly also tends to confirm. + +What happens appears to my non-scientific eyes to be this. + +Glass is one of the most fissile or "splittable" of all materials; but +it is so just in the same way that ice is, and just in the opposite way +to that in which slate or talc is. + +Slate or talc splits easily into thin layers or laminae, _because it +already lies in such layers_, and these will come apart when the force +is applied between them: but _it will only split into the laminae of +which it already is composed, and along the line of the fissures which +already exist between them_. + +Glass, on the contrary (and the same is true of ice, or for that matter +of currant-jelly and such like things), appears to be a substance which +is the same in all directions, or nearly so, and therefore as liable to +split in one direction as in another, and is so loosely held together +that, once a splitting force is applied, the crack spreads very rapidly +and easily, and therefore smoothly and in straight lines and in even +planes. + +The diamond, or the wheel-cutter, is such a force. Being pressed on to +the surface, it forces down the particles, and these start a series of +small vertical splits, sometimes nearly through the whole thickness of +the glass, though invisibly so until the glass is separated. And mark, +that it is the _starting_ of the splits that is the important thing; +there is no object in making them _deep_, it is only wasted force; they +will continue to split of themselves if encouraged in the proper way +(see Plates IX. and X.). Try this as follows. + +Take a bit of glass, say 3 inches by 2, and make the very smallest dint +you can in it, in the middle of the narrowest dimension. You cannot make +one so small that the glass will hold together if you try to break it +across. It will break across in a straight line, springing from each end +of the tiny cut. The cut may be only 1/8 of an inch long; less--it may +be only 1/16, 1/32--as small as you will, the glass will break across +just the same. + +Why? + +Because the cut has _started_ it splitting at each end; and the material +being the same all through, the split will go straight on in the +direction in which it has started; there is nothing to turn it aside. + +So also the pressure of the wheel starts a continuous split, or series +of splits, _downwards_, into the thickness of the glass. No matter how +small a distance these go in, the glass will come asunder directly +pressure is applied. + +Now, if you press too hard in cutting, another thing takes place. + +Imagine a quantity of roofing-slates piled flat one on top of another, +all the piles being of equal height and arranged in two rows, side by +side, so close that the edges of the slates in one row touch the edges +of those in the other row, along a central line. + +Wheel a wheelbarrow along that line over the edges of both. + +What would happen? + +The top layer of slates would all come cocking their outer edges up as +the barrow passed over their inner ones, would they not? + +Now, just so, if you press hard on your glass-cutting wheel, it will +press down the edges of the groove, and though there are no layers +_already made_ in the glass, the pressure will _split off_ a thin layer +from the top surface of the glass on each side in flakes as it goes +along (Plate X., D, E). + +This is what gives the _noise_ of the cut, c-r-r-r-r-r-; and as the +thing is no use the noise is no use; like a good many other things in +life, the less noise the better work, much cry generally meaning little +wool, as the man found out who shaved the pig. + +But the wheel or the diamond is not quite the same as the wheel of the +wheelbarrow, for it has a _wedge-shaped_ edge. Imagine a barrow with +such a wheel; what _then_ would happen to your slates? besides being +cocked up by the wheel, they would also be _pushed out_, surely? + +This happens in glass. You must not imagine that glass is a rigid thing; +it is very elastic, and the wedge-like pressure of the wheel pushes it +out just as the keel of a boat pushes the water aside in ripples (Plate +X., D, E). + +All these observations seem to me to bear out the theory of the +inventor, and perhaps to some extent to explain it. I am much tempted to +carry them further, and ask the questions, why a penknife as well as a +wheel will not make a cut in glass, but will make a perfectly definite +scratch on it if the glass is placed under water? and why this line so +made will yet not serve for separating the glass? and why a piece of +glass can be cut in two (roughly, to be sure, but still cut in two) with +a pair of scissors under water, a thing otherwise quite impossible? + +But I do not think that the knowledge of these questions will help the +reader to do better stained-glass windows, and therefore I will not +pursue them. + +(2) The question of sharpening the tool is soon disposed of. + +If the tool is to be sharpened, the jaws must be ground down, whether +the maker grinds them down originally or whether we do it. Is sharpening +worth while, since the tool only costs a few pence? + +Well, it's a question each must decide for himself; but I will just +answer two small difficulties which affect the matter. + +If grinding the jaws loosens the pivot, it can be hammered tight again +with a punch. If sharpening wears out the oil-stone (as it undoubtedly +does, and oil-stones are expensive things), a piece of fine polished +Westmoreland slate will do as well, and there is no need to be chary of +it. Even a piece of ground-glass with oil will do. + +(3) But now as to the handle. I am first to explain the amusing +"mystery" why the old pattern shown in fig. 1 still sells. + +It is because the British working-man _is convinced that the wheels in +this handle are better quality than any others_. + +Is he right, or is it only an instance of his love for and faith in the +thing he has got used to? + +Or can it be that all workmen do not know of the existence of the other +types of handle? In case this is so, I figure some (fig. 17). Or is it +that the wheel for some reason runs less truly in the malleable iron +than in the cast iron? + +[Illustration: FIG. 17.] + +Certain it is that the whole trade here prefers these wheels, and I am +bound to say that as far as my experience goes they seem to me to work +better than those in other handles. + +But as to all the handles themselves, I must now voice our general +complaint. + +(1) They are too light. + +For tapping our heavy antique and slab-glasses we wish we had a heavier +tool. + +(2) They are too thin in the handle for comfort, at least it seems so to +me. + +(3) The three gashes cut out of the head of the tool decrease the +weight, and if these were omitted the tool would gain. Their only use +that I can conceive of is that of a very poor substitute for pliers as a +"groseing" tool, if one has forgotten one's pliers. But (as Serjeant +Buzfuz might say) "who _does_ forget his pliers?" + +The whole question of the handle is complicated by the fact that some +cutters rest the tool on the forefinger and some on the middle finger in +tapping, and that a handle the sections of which are calculated for the +one will not do equally well for the other. + +But the whole thing resolves itself into this, that if we could get a +tool, the handle of which corresponded in all its curves, dimensions, +and sections with the old-established diamond, I think we should all be +glad; and if the head, wheel, and pivot were all made of the quality and +material of which fig. 1 is now made, but with the handle as I describe, +many of us, I think, would be still more glad; and if these remarks lead +in any degree to such results, they at least of all the book will have +been worth the writing, and will probably be its best claim to a white +stone in Israel, as removing one more solecism from "this so-called +twentieth century." + +I shall now leave this subject of cutting for the present, and describe, +up to about the same point, the processes of painting, taking both on to +a higher stage later--as if, in fact, I were teaching a pupil; for as +soon as you can cut glass well enough to cut a piece to paint on, you +should learn to paint on it, and carry the two things on step by step, +side by side. + + + + +CHAPTER III + + Painting (elementary)--Pigments--Mixing--How to Fill the + Brush--Outline--Examples--Industry--The Needle and + Stick--Completing the Outline. + + +The pigments for painting on glass are powders, being the oxides of +various minerals, chiefly iron. There are others; but take it thus--that +the iron oxide is a red pigment, and the others are introduced, mainly, +to modify this. The red pigment is the best to use, and goes off less in +the firing; but, alas! it is a detestably ugly _colour_, like red lead; +and, do what you will, you cannot use it on white glass. Against clear +sky it looks pretty well in some lights, but get it in a sidelight, or +at an angle, and the whole window looks like red brick; while, seen +against any background except clear sky, it always looks so from all +points of view. There are various makers of these pigments. Some +glass-painters make their own, and a beginner with any knowledge of +chemistry would be wise to work in that direction. + +I need not discuss the various kinds of pigment; what follows is a +description of my own practice in the matter. + +_To Mix the Pigment for Painting._--Take a teaspoonful of red +tracing-colour, and a rather smaller spoonful of intense black, put them +on a slab of thick ground-glass about 9 inches square, and drop clean +water upon them till you can work them up into a paste with the +palette-knife (fig. 18); work them up for a minute or so, till the paste +is smooth and the lumps broken up, and then add about three drops of +strong gum made from the purest white gum-arabic dissolved in cold +water. Any good chemist will sell this, but its purity is a matter of +great importance, for you want the maximum of adhesiveness with the +minimum of the material. + +Mix the colour well up with the knife; then take one of those +long-haired sable brushes, which are called "riggers" (fig. 19), and +which all artists'-colourmen sell, and fill it with the colour, diluting +it with enough water to make it quite thin. Do not dilute all the +pigment; keep most of it in a tidy lump, merely moist, as you ground it +and not further wetted, at the corner of your slab; but always keep a +portion diluted in a small "pond" in the middle of your palette. + +[Illustration: Fig. 18.] + +_How to Fill the Brush with Pigment._--Now you must note that this is a +heavy powder floating free in water, therefore it quickly sinks to the +bottom of your little "pond." _Each time you fill your_ _brush you must +"stir up the mud_," for the "mud" is what you want to get in your brush, +and not only so, but you want to get your brush _evenly full_ of it from +tip to base, therefore you must splay out the hairs flat against the +glass, till all are wet, and then in taking it off the palette, +"twiddle" it to a point quickly. This takes long to describe, but it +does not take a couple of seconds to do. You must have the patience to +spend so much pains on it, and even to fill the brush very often, nearly +for each touch; then you will get a clear, smooth, manageable stroke for +your outline, and save time in the end. + +[Illustration: FIG. 19.] + +_How to Paint in Outline._--Make some strokes (fig. 20) on a piece of +glass and let them dry; some people like them to stick very tight to the +glass, some so that a touch of the finger removes them; you must find +which suits you by-and-by, and vary the amount of gum accordingly; but +to begin, I would advise that they should be just removable by a +moderately hard rub with the finger, rather less hard a rub than you +close a gummed envelope with. + +Practise now for a time the making of strokes, large and small, dark and +light, broad and fine; and when you have got command of your tools, set +yourself the task of doing the same thing, _copying an example placed +underneath your bit of glass_. You will find a hand-rest (fig. 21) an +assistance in this. + +[Illustration: FIG. 20.] + +It is difficult to give any list of examples suitable for this stage of +glass, but the kind of line employed on the best _heraldry_ is always +good for the purpose. The splendid illustrations of this in Mr. St. +John-Hope's book of the stall-plates of the Knights of the Garter at +Windsor, examples of which by the author's courtesy I am allowed to +reproduce (figs. 22-22A), are ideal for bold outline-work, and +fascinatingly interesting for their own sake. In most of these there is +not only excellent practice in _outline_, and a great deal of it, but, +mixed with it, practice also in flat washes, which it is a good thing to +be learning side by side with the other. + +[Illustration: FIG. 21.] + +And here let me note that there are throughout the practice of +glass-painting _many_ methods in use at every stage. Each person, each +firm of glass-stainers, has his own methods and traditions. I shall not +trouble to notice all these as we come to them, but describe what seems +to me to be the best practice in each case; but I shall here and there +give a word about others. + +For instance: if you use sugar or treacle instead of gum, you get a +rather smoother-working pigment, and after it is dry you can moisten it +as often as you will for further work by merely breathing on the +surface; and perhaps if your aim is _outline only_, it may be well to +try it; but if you wish to pass shading-colour over it you must use gum, +for you cannot do so over treacle colour; nor do I think treacle serves +so well for the next process I am to describe, which here follows. + +[Illustration: FIG. 22.] + +[Illustration: FIG. 22A.] + + +_How to complete the Outline better than you possibly can by One +Tracing._--When you take up a bit of glass from the table, after having +done all you can to make a correct tracing, you will be disappointed +with the result. It will have looked pretty well on the table with the +copy showing behind it and hiding its defects, but it is a different +thing when held up to the searching daylight. This must not, however, +discourage you. No one, not the most skilful, could expect to make a +perfect copy of an original (if that original had any fineness of line +or sensitiveness of touch about it) by merely tracing it downwards on +the bench. You must put it upright against the daylight, and mend your +drawing, freehand, faithfully by the copy. + +These remarks do not, in a great degree, apply to the case of hard +outlines specially prepared for literal translation. I am speaking of +those where the outline is, in the artistic sense, sensitive and +refined, as in a Botticelli painting or a Holbein drawing, and to copy +these well you want an easel. + +For this small work any kind of frame with a sheet of glass in it, and a +ledge to rest your bit of glass on and a leg to stand out behind, will +do, and by all means get it made (fig. 23); but do not spend too much on +it, for later on you will want a bigger and more complicated thing, +which will be described in its proper place--that is to say, when we +come to it; and we shall come to it when we come to deal with work made +up of a number of pieces of glass, as all windows must be. + +[Illustration: FIG. 23.] + +This that you have now, not being a window but a bit of glass to +practise on, what I have described above will do for it. + +_A note to be always industrious and to work with all your might._--I +advise you to put this work on an easel; but this is not the way such +work is usually done;--where the work is done as a task (alas, that it +could ever be so!) it is held listlessly in the left hand while touched +with the right; but no artist can afford to be at this disadvantage, or +at any disadvantage. + +Fancy a surgeon having to hold the limb with one hand while he uses the +lancet with the other, or an astronomer, while he makes his measurement, +bunglingly moving his telescope by hand while he pursues his star, +instead of having it driven by the clock! + +You cannot afford to be less keen or less in earnest, and you want both +hands free--ay! more than this--your whole body free: you must not be +lazy and sit glued to your stool; you must get up and walk backwards and +forwards to look at your work. Do you think art is so easy that you can +afford to saunter over it? + +Do, I beg you, dear reader, pay attention to these words; for it is true +(though strange) that the hardest thing I have found in teaching has +been to get the pupil to take the most reasonable care not to hamper and +handicap himself by omitting to have his work comfortably and +conveniently placed and his tools and materials in good order. You shall +find a man going on painting all day, working in a messing, muddling +way--wasting time and money--because his pigment has not been covered up +when he left off work yesterday, and has got dusty and full of "hairs"; +another will waste hour after hour, cricking his neck and squinting at +his work from a corner, when thirty seconds and a little wit would move +his work where he would get a good light and be comfortable; or he will +work with bad tools and grumble, when five minutes would mend his tools +and make him happy. + +An artist's work--any artist's, but especially a glass-painter's--should +be just as finished, precise, clean, and alert as a surgeon's or a +dentist's. Have you not in the case of these (when the affair has not +been too serious) admired the way in which the cool, white hands move +about, the precision with which the finger-tips take up this or that, +and when taken up use it "just _so_," neither more nor less: the +spotlessness and order and perfect finish of every tool and material, +from those fearsome things which (though you prefer not to dwell on +their uses) you cannot help admiring, down to the snowy cotton-wool +daintily poked ready through the holes in a little silver beehive? Just +such skill, handling, and precision, and just such perfection of +instruments, I urge as proper to painting. + +_What Tools are wanted to complete the Outline._--I will now describe +those tools which you want at this stage, that is, _to mend your outline +with_. + +[Illustration: FIG. 24.] + +You want the brush which you used in the first instance to paint it +with, and that has already been described; but you also want points of +various fineness to etch it away with where it is too thick; these are +the needle and the stick (fig. 24); any needle set in a handle will do, +but if you want it for fine work, take care that it be sharp. "How +foolish," you say; "as if you need tell us that." On the contrary,--nine +people out of ten need telling, because they go upon the assumption that +a needle _must_ be sharp, "as sharp as a needle," and cannot need +sharpening,--and they will go on for 365 days in a year wondering why a +needle (which _must_ be sharp) should take out so much coarser a light +than they want. + +Now as to "sticks"; if you make a point of soft wood it lasts for three +or four touches and then gets "furred" at the point, and if of very hard +wood it slips on the glass. Bamboo is good; but the best of all--that is +to say for broad stick-lights--is an old, sable oil-colour brush, +clogged with oil and varnish till it is as hard as horn and then cut to +a point; this "clings" a little as it goes over the glass, and is most +comfortable to use. + +I have no doubt that other materials may be equally good, celluloid or +horn, for example; the student must use his own ingenuity on such a +simple matter. + +_How to Complete the Outline._--With the tools above described complete +the outline--by adding colour with the brush where the lines are too +fine, and by taking it away with needle or stick where they are too +coarse; make it by these means exactly like the copy, and this is all +you need do. But as an example of the degree of correctness attainable +(and therefore to be demanded) are here inserted two illustrations +(figs. 25 and 26), one of the example used, and the other of a copy made +from it by a young apprentice. + +[Illustration: FIG. 25.] + +[Illustration: FIG. 26.] + + + + +CHAPTER IV + + Matting--Badgering--How to preserve Correctness of + Outline--Difficulty of Large Work--Ill-ground Pigment--The + Muller--Overground Pigment--Taking out Lights--"Scrubs"--The Need + of a Master. + + +Take your camel hair matting-brush (fig. 27 or 28); fill it with the +pigment, try it on the slab of the easel till it seems just so full that +the wash you put on will not run down till you have plenty of time to +brush it flat with the badger (fig. 29). + +Have your badger ready at hand and _very clean_, for if there is any +pigment on it from former using, that will spoil the very delicate +operation you are now to perform. + +Now rapidly, but with a very light hand, lay an even wash over the whole +piece of glass on which the outline is painted; use vertical strokes, +and try to get the touches to just meet each other without overlapping; +but there is a very important thing to observe in holding the brush. If +you hold it so (fig. 30) you cannot properly regulate the pressure, and +also the pigment runs away downwards, and the brush gets dry at the +point; you must hold it so (fig. 31), then the curve of the hair makes +the brush go lightly over the surface, while also, the body of the brush +being pointed downwards, the point you are using is always being +refilled. + +[Illustration: FIG. 27.] + +[Illustration: FIG. 28.] + +[Illustration: FIG. 29.] + +It takes a very skilful workman indeed to put the strokes so evenly side +by side that the result looks flat and not stripy; indeed you can hardly +hope to do so, but you can get rid of what "stripes" there are by taking +your badger and "stabbing" the surface of the painting with it very +rapidly, moving it from side to side so as never to stab twice in the +same spot; this by degrees makes the colour even, by taking a little off +the dark part and putting it on the light; but the result will look +mottled, not flat and smooth. Sometimes this may be agreeable, it +depends on what you are painting; but if you wish it to be smooth, just +give a last stroke or two over the whole glass sideways, that is to say, +holding the badger so that it stands quite perpendicular to the glass, +move it, _always still perpendicular_, across the whole surface. You +must not sway it from side to side, or kick it up at the end of each +stroke like a man white-washing; it must move along so that the points +of the hairs are all just lightly touching the glass all the time. + +[Illustration: FIG. 30.] + +_How to Ensure the Drawing of a Face being kept Correct while +Painting._--If you adopt the plan of doing the first painting over an +unfired outline, you must be very careful that the outline is not +brushed out of drawing in the process. If you have sufficient skill it +need not be so, for it is quite possible--if all the conditions as to +adhesiveness are right--and if you are light-handed enough--to so lay +and badger the "matt" that the outline beneath shall only be gently +softened, and not blurred or moved from its place. But in any case the +best plan is at the same time that you trace the outline of a head on to +the glass to trace it also with equal care on to a piece of tracing +paper, and arrange three or four well-marked points, such as the corner +of the mouth, the pupil of the eye, and some point on the back of the +head or neck, so that these cannot possibly shift, and that you may be +able at any time to get the tracing back into its proper place, both on +the cartoon and on the piece of glass on which you are to paint the +head. On which piece of glass also your first care should be that these +three or four points should be clearly marked and unmovable; then during +the whole progress of the painting you will always be able to verify the +correctness of the drawing by placing your piece of tracing paper over +the glass, and so seeing that nothing has shifted its place. + +[Illustration: FIG. 31.] + +It requires a good deal of patience and practice to lay matt +successfully over unfired outline. It is a question of the amount and +quality of the gum, the condition of your brush, even the dryness or +dampness of the air. You must try what degree of gum suits you best, +both in the outline and in the matt which you are to pass over it. Try +it a good many times on a slab of plain glass or on the plate of your +easel first, before you try on your painting. Of course it's a much +easier thing to matt successfully over a small piece than over a large. +A head as big as the palm of your hand is not a very severe test of your +powers; but in one as large as the _whole_ of your hand, say a head +seven inches from crown to chin, the problem is increased quite +immeasurably in difficulty. The real test is being able to produce in +glass a real facsimile of a head by Botticelli or Holbein, and when you +can do that satisfactorily you can do anything in glass-painting. + +Do not aim to get _too much_ in the first painting, at any rate not till +you have had long practice. Be content if you get enough modelling on a +head to turn the outline into a more sensitive and artistic drawing than +it could be if planted down, raw and hard, upon the bare, cold glass. +After all it is a common practice to fire the outline separately, and +anything beyond this that you get upon the glass for first fire is so +much to the good. + +But besides the quality of the _gum_ you will find sometimes differences +in the quality or condition of the _pigment_. It may be insufficiently +ground; in which case the matt, in passing over, will rasp away every +vestige of the outline, so delicate a matter it is. + +You can tell when colour is not ground sufficiently by the way it acts +when laid as a vertical wash. Lay a wash, moist enough to "run," on a +bit of your easel-slab; it will run down, making a sort of +seaweed-looking pattern--clear lanes of light on the glass with a black +grain at the lower end. Those are the bits of unground material: under a +100-diameter microscope they look like chunks of ironstone or road +metal, or of rusty iron, and you'll soon understand why they have +scratched away your tender outline. + +You must grind such colour till it is smooth, and an old-fashioned +_granite_ muller is the thing, not a glass one. + +Now, after all this, how am I to excuse the paradox that it is possible +to have the colour ground _too_ fine! All one can say is that you "find +it so." It can be so fine that it seems to slip about in a thin, oily +kind of way. + +It's all as you find it; the differences of a craft are endless; there +is no forecasting of everything, and you must buy your experience, like +everybody else, and find what suits you, learning your skill and your +materials side by side. + +Now these are the chief processes of painting, as far as laying on +colour goes; but you still have much of your work before you, for the +way in which light and shade is got on glass is almost more in "taking +off" than in "putting on." You have laid your dark "matt" all over the +glass evenly; now the next thing is to remove it wherever you want light +or half-tone. + +[Illustration: FIG. 32.] + +_How to Finish a Shaded Painting out of the Even Matt._--This is done in +many ways, but chiefly with those tools which painters call "scrubs," +which are oil-colour hog-hair brushes, either worn down by use, or +rubbed down on fine sandpaper till they are as stiff as you like them +to be. You want them different in this: some harder, some softer; some +round, some square, and of various sizes (figs. 32 and 33), and with +these you brush the matt away gently and by degrees, and so make a light +and shade drawing of it. It is exactly like the process of mezzotint, +where, after a surface like that of a file has been laboriously produced +over the whole copper-plate, the engraver removes it in various degrees, +leaving the original to stand entirely only for the darkest of all +shadows, and removing it all entirely only in the highest lights. + +[Illustration: FIG. 33.] + +There is nothing for this but practice; there is nothing more to _tell_ +about it; as the conjurers say, "That's how it's done." You will find +difficulties, and as these occur you will think this a most defective +book. "Why on earth," you will say, "didn't he tell us about this, about +that, about the other?" + +Ah, yes! it is a most defective book; if it were not, I would have taken +good care not to write it. For the worst thing that could happen to you +would be to suppose that any book can possibly teach you any craft, and +take the place of a master on the one hand, and of years of practice on +the other. + +This book is not intended to do so; it is written to give as much +information and to arouse as much interest as a book can; with the hope +that if any are in a position to wish to learn this craft, and have not +been brought up to it, they may learn, in general, what its conditions +are, and then be able to decide whether to carry it further by seeking +good teaching, and by laying themselves out for a patient course of +study and practice and many failures and experiments. While, with regard +to those already engaged in glass-painting, it is of course intended to +arouse their interest in, and to give them information upon, those other +branches of their craft which are not generally taught to those brought +up as glass-painters. + + + + +CHAPTER V + + Cutting (advanced)--The Ideal Cartoon--The Cut-line--Setting the + Cartoon--Transferring the Cut-line to the Glass--Another Way--Some + Principles of Taste--Countercharging. + + +We have only as yet spoken of the processes of cutting and painting in +themselves, and as they can be practised on a single bit of glass; but +now we must consider them as applied to a subject in glass where many +pieces must be used. This is a different matter indeed, and brings in +all the questions of taste and judgment which make the difference +between a good window and an inferior one. Now, first, you must know +that every differently coloured piece must be cut out by itself, and +therefore must have a strip of lead round it to join it to the others. + +Draw a cartoon of a figure, _bearing this well in mind_: you must draw +it in such a simple and severe way that you do not set impossible or +needlessly difficult tasks to the cutter. Look now, for example, at the +picture in Plate V. by Mr. Selwyn Image--how simple the cutting! + +You think it, perhaps, too "severe"? You do not like to see the leads so +plainly. You would like better something more after the "Munich" school, +where the lead line is disguised or circumvented. If so, my lesson has +gone wrong; but we must try and get it right. + +You would like it better because it is "more of a picture"; exactly, but +you ought to like the other better because it is "more of a window." +Yes, even if all else were equal, you ought to like it better, _because_ +the lead lines cut it up. Keep your pictures for the walls and your +windows for the holes in them. + +But all else is _not_ equal: and, supposing you now standing before a +window of the kind I speak of, I will tell you what has been sacrificed +to get this "picture-window" "like a picture." _Stained-glass_ has been +sacrificed; for this is _not_ stained-glass, it is painted glass--that +is to say, it is coloured glass ground up into powders and painted on to +white sheets of glass: a poor, miserable substitute for the glorious +colour of the deep amethyst and ruby-coloured glasses which it pretends +to ape. You will not be in much danger of using it when you have handled +your stained glass samples for a while and learned to love them. You will +love them so much that you will even get to like the severe lead line +which announces them for what they are. + +But you must get to reasonably love it as a craft limitation, a +necessity, a thing which places bounds and limits to what you can do in +this art, and prevents tempting and specious tricks. + +_How to Make a "Cut-line."_--But now, all this being granted, how are we +to set about getting the pieces cut? First of all, I would say that it +is always well to draw most, if not all, of the necessary lead lines on +the cartoon itself. By the necessary lead lines I mean those which +separate different colours; for you know that there _must_ be a +lead line between these. Then, when these are drawn, it is a question of +convenience whether to draw in also the more or less optional lead lines +which break up each space of uniform colour into convenient-sized +pieces. If you do not want your cartoon afterwards for any other purpose +you may as well do so: that is, first "set" the cartoon if it is in +charcoal or chalk, and then try the places for these lead lines lightly +in charcoal over the drawing: working thus, you can dust them away time +after time till they seem right to you, and then either set them also or +not as you choose. + +A good, useful setting-mixture for large quantities is composed by +mixing equal parts of "white polish" and methylated spirit; allowing it +to settle for a week, and pouring off all that is clear. It is used in +the ordinary way with a spray diffuser, and will keep for any length of +time. + +The next step is to make what is called the cut-line. To do this, pin a +piece of tracing-cloth over the whole cartoon; this can be got from any +artist's-colourman or large stationer. Pin it over the cartoon with the +dull surface outwards, and with a soft piece of charcoal draw lines 1/16 +to 1/8 of an inch wide down the centre of all the lead lines: remove the +cloth from the cartoon, and if any of the lines look awkward or ugly, +now that you see them by themselves undisguised by the drawing below, +alter them, and then, finally, with a long, thin brush paint them in, +over the charcoal, with water-colour lamp-black, this time a true +sixteenth of an inch wide. Don't dust the charcoal off first, it makes +the paint cling much better to the shiny cloth. + +When this is done, there is a choice of three ways for cutting the +glass. One is to make shaped pieces of cartridge-paper as patterns to +cut each bit of glass by; another is to place the bits of glass, one by +one, over the cut-line and cut freehand by the line you see through the +glass. This latter process needs no description, but you cannot employ +it for dark glasses because you cannot see the line through: for this +you must employ one of the other methods. + +_How to Transfer the Cutting-line on to the Glass._--Take a bit of glass +large enough to cut the piece you want; place it, face upwards, on the +table; place the cut-line over it in its proper place, and then slip +between them, without moving either, a piece of black "transfer paper": +then, with a style or hard pencil, trace the cutting-line down on to the +glass. This will not make a black mark visible on the glass, it will +only make a _grease_ mark, and that hardly visible, not enough to cut +by; but take a soft dabber--a lump of cotton-wool tied up in a bit of +old handkerchief--and with this, dipped in dry whitening or powdered +white chalk, dab the glass all over; then blow the surface and you will +see a clear white line where the whitening has stuck to the greasy line +made by the transfer paper; and by this you can cut very comfortably. + +But a third way is to cut the shape of each piece of glass out in +cartridge-paper; and to do this you put the cut-line down over a sheet +of "continuous-cartridge" or "cartoon" paper, as it is called, and press +along all the lines with a style or hard pencil, so as to make a furrow +on the paper beneath; then, after removing the cut-line, you place a +sheet of ordinary window-glass below the paper and cut out each piece, +between the "furrows" leaving a _full_ 1/16 of an inch. This sixteenth +of an inch represents the "heart" or core of the future _lead_; it is +the distance which the actual bits of glass lie one from the other in +the window. You must use a very sharp penknife, and you will find that, +cutting against _glass_, each shape will have quite a smooth edge; and +round this you can cut with your diamond. + +This method, which is far the most accurate and craftsmanly way of +cutting glass, is best used with the actual diamond: in that case you +feel the edge of the paper all the time with the diamond-spark; but in +cutting with the wheel you must not rest against the edge of the paper; +otherwise you will be sure to cut into it. Now, whichever of all these +processes you employ, remember that there must be a _full_ 1/16 of an +inch left between each piece of glass and all its neighbours. + +The reason why you leave this space between the pieces is that the core +of the lead is about that or a little less in thickness: the closer the +glass fits to this the better, but no part of the glass must go _nearer_ +to its neighbour than this, otherwise the work will be pressed outwards, +and you will not be able to get the whole of the panel within its proper +limits. + +[Illustration: FIG. 34] + +Fig. 34 is an illustration of various kinds and sizes of lead; showing +some with the glass inserted in its place. By all means make your leads +yourself, for many of those ready made are not lead at all, or not pure +lead. Get the parings of sheet lead from a source you can trust, and +cast them roughly in moulds as at fig. 35. Fig. 36 is the shears by +which the strips may be cut; fig. 37 is the lead-mill or "vice" by which +they are milled and run into their final shape; fig. 38 the "cheeks" or +blocks through which the lead passes. The working of such an instrument +is a thing that is understood in a few minutes with the instrument +itself at hand, but it is cumbrous to explain in writing, and not worth +while; since if you purchase such a thing, obviously the seller will be +there to explain its use. Briefly,--the handle turns two wheels with +milled edges 1/16 of an inch apart; which, at one motion, draw the lead +between them, mill it, and force it between the two "cheeks" (fig. 38), +which mould the outside of the lead in its passage. These combined +movements, by a continuous pressure, squeeze out the strip of lead into +about twice its length; correspondingly decreasing its thickness and +finishing it as it goes. + +[Illustration: FIG. 35.] + +[Illustration: FIG. 36.] + +[Illustration: FIG. 37.] + +_Some principles of good taste and common sense with regard to the +cutting up of a Window; according to which the Cartoon and Design must +be modified._--Never disguise the lead line. Cut the necessary parts +first, as I said before; cut the optional parts _simply_; thinking most +of craft-convenience, and not much of realism. + +[Illustration: FIG. 38.] + +Do not, however, go to the extent of making two lead lines cross each +other. Fig. 39 shows the two kinds of joint, A being the wrong one +(as I hold), and B the right one; but, after all, this is partly a +question of taste. + +Do not cut borders and other minor details into measured spaces; cut +them hap-hazard. + +[Illustration: FIG. 39.] + +Do not cut leafage too much by the outlines of the groups of leaves--or +wings by the outlines of the groups of feathers. + +Do not outline with lead lines any forms of minor importance. + +Do not allow the whole of any figure to cut out dark against light, or +light against dark; but if the figure is ever so bright, let an inch or +two of its outline tell out as a dark against a spot of still brighter +light; and if it is ever so dark, be it red or blue as strong as may be, +let an inch or two of its outline tell out against a still stronger dark +in the background, if you have to paint it pitch-black to do so. + +By this "countercharging" (as heralds say), your composition will melt +together with a pleasing mystery; for you must always remember that a +window is, after all, only a window, it is not the church, and nothing +in it should stare out at you so that you cannot get away from it; +windows should "dream," and should be so treated as to look like what +they are, the apertures to admit the light; subjects painted on a thin +and brittle film, hung in mid-air between the light and the dark. + + + + +CHAPTER VI + + Painting (advanced)--Waxing-up--Cleanliness--Further Methods of + Painting--Stipple--Dry Stipple--Film--Effects of Distance--Danger + of Over-Painting--Frying. + + +I have mentioned all these points of judgment and good taste we have +just finished speaking of, because they are matters that must +necessarily come before you at the time you are making the cartoon, the +preliminary drawing of the window, and before you come to handle the +glass at all. + +But it is now necessary to tell you how the whole of the glass, when it +is cut, must be fixed together, so that you can both see it and paint +upon it as a whole picture. This is done as follows:-- + +First place the cut-line (for the making of which you have already had +instructions) face upwards on the bench, and over it place a sheet of +glass, as large at least as the piece you mean to paint. Thick +window-glass, what glass-makers call "thirty-two ounce sheet"--that is, +glass that weighs about thirty-two ounces to the square foot--will do +well enough for very small subjects, but for anything over a few square +feet, it is better to use thin plate-glass. This is expensive, but you +do not want the best; what is called "patent plate" does quite well, and +cheap plate-glass can often be got to suit you at the salvage stores, +whither it is brought from fires. + +Having laid your sheet of glass down upon the cut-line, place upon it +all the bits of glass in their proper places; then take beeswax (and by +all means let it be the best and purest you can get; get it at a +chemist's, not at the oil-shop), and heat a few ounces of it in a +saucepan, and _when all of it is melted_--not before, and as little +after as may be--take any convenient tool, a penknife or a strip of +glass, and, dipping it rapidly into the melted wax, convey it in little +drops to the points where the various bits of glass meet each other, +dropping a single drop of wax at each joint. It is no advantage to have +any extra drops along the _sides_ of the bits; if each _corner_ is +properly secured, that is all that is needed (fig. 40). + +Some people use a little resin or tar with the wax to make it more +brittle, so that when the painting is finished and the work is to be +taken down again off the plate, the spots of wax will chip off more +easily. I do not advise it. Boys in the shop who are just entering their +apprenticeship get very skilful, and quite properly so, in doing this +work; waxing up yard after yard of glass, and never dropping a spot of +wax on the surface. + +It is much to be commended: all things done in the arts should be done +as well as they can be done, if only for the sake of character and +training; but in this case it is a positive advantage that the work +should be done thus cleanly, because if a spot of wax is dropped on the +surface of the glass that is to be painted on, the spot must be +carefully scraped off and every vestige of it removed with a wet duster +dipped in a little grit of some kind--pigment does well--otherwise the +glass is greasy and the painting will not adhere. + +[Illustration: FIG. 40.] + +For the same reason the wax-saucepan should be kept very clean, and the +wax frequently poured off, and all sediment thrown away. A bit of +cotton-fluff off the duster is enough to drag a "lump" out on the end of +the waxing-tool, which, before you have time to notice it, will be +dribbling over the glass and perhaps spoiling it; for you must note that +sometimes it is necessary to re-wax down _unfired_ work, which a drop of +wax the size of a pinhole, flirted off from the end of the tool, will +utterly ruin. How important, then, to be cleanly. + +And in this matter of removing such spots from _fired_ work, do please +note that you should _use the knife and the duster alternately_ for +_each spot_. Do not scrape a batch of the spots off first and then go +over the ground again with the duster--this can only save a second or +two of time, and the merest fraction of trouble; and these are ill saved +indeed at the cost of doing the work ill. And you are sure to do it so, +for when the spot is scraped off it is very difficult to see where it +was; you are sure to miss some, in going over the glass with a duster, +and you will discover them again, to your cost and annoyance, when you +matt over them for the second painting: and, just when you cannot afford +to spare a single moment--in some critical process--they will come out +like round o's in the middle of your shading, compelling you to break +off your work and do now what should have been done before you began to +paint. + +But the best plan of all is to avoid the whole thing by doing the work +cleanly from the first. And it is quite easy; for all you have to do is +to carry the tool horizontally till it is over the spot where you want +the wax, and then, by a tilt of the hand, slide the drop into its place. + +_Further Methods of Painting._--There are two chief methods of treating +the matt--one is the "stipple," and the other the "film" or badgered +matt. + +_The Stipple._--When you have put on your matt with the camel-hair +brush, take a stippling brush (fig. 41) and stab the matt all over with +it while it is wet. A great variety of texture can be got in this way, +for you may leave off the process at any moment; if you leave it off +soon, the work will be soft and blurred, for, not being dry, the pigment +will spread again as soon as you leave off: but, if you choose, you can +go on stippling till the whole is dry, when the pigment will gather up +into little sharp spots like pepper, and the glass between them will be +almost clear. You must bear in mind that you cannot use scrubs over work +like the last described, and cannot use them to much advantage over +stipple at all. You can draw a needle through; but as a rule you do not +want to take lights out of stipple, since you can complete the shading +in the single process by stippling more or less according to the light +and shade you want. + +[Illustration: FIG. 41.] + +A very coarse form of the process is "dry" stippling, where you stipple +straight on to the surface of the clear glass, with pigment taken up off +the palette by the stippling brush itself: for coarse distant work this +may be sometimes useful. + +Now as to film. We have spoken of laying on an even matt and badgering +it smooth; and you can use this with a certain amount of stipple also +with very good effect; but you are to notice one great rule about these +two processes, namely, that the same amount of pigment _obscures much +more light used in film than used in stipple_. + +Light _spreads_ as it comes through openings; and a very little light +let, in pinholes, through a very dark matt, will, at a distance, so +assert itself as to prevail over the darkness of the matt. + +It is really very little use going on to describe the way the colour +acts in these various processes; for its behaviour varies with every +degree of all of them. One may gradually acquire the skill to combine +all the processes, in all their degrees, upon a single painting; and the +only way in which you can test their relative value, either as texture +or as light and shade, is to constantly practise each process in all its +degrees, and see what results each has, both when seen near at hand and +also when seen from a distance. It is useless to try and learn these +things from written directions; you must make them your own, as precious +secrets, by much practice and much experiment, though it will save you +years of both to learn under a good master. + +But this question of distance is a most important thing, and we must +enlarge upon it a little and try to make it quite clear. + +Glass-painting is not like any other painting in this respect. + +Let us say that you see an oil-painting--a portrait--at the end of the +large room in some big Exhibition. You stand near it and say, "Yes, that +is the King" (or the Commander-in-Chief), "a good likeness; however do +they do those patent-leather boots?" But after you have been down one +side of the room and turn round at the other end to yawn, you catch +sight of it again; and still you say, "Yes, it's a good likeness," and +"really those boots are very clever!" But if it had been your own +painting on _glass_, and sitting at your easel you had at last said, +"Yes,--_now_ it's like the drawing--_that's_ the expression," you could +by no means safely count on being able to say the same at all distances. +You may say it at ten feet off, at twenty, and yet at thirty the shades +may all gather together into black patches; the drawing of the eyelids +and eyes may vanish in one general black blot, the half-tones on the +cheeks may all go to nothing. These actual things, for instance, _will_ +be the result if the cheeks are stippled or scrubbed, and the shade +round the eyes left as a _film_--ever so slight a film will do it. Seen +near, you _see the drawing through the film_; but as you go away the +light will come pouring stronger and stronger through the brush or +stipple marks on the cheeks, until all films will cut out against it +like black spots, altering the whole expression past recognition. + +Try this on simple terms:-- + +Do a face on white glass in strong outline only: step back, and the face +goes to nothing; strengthen the outline till the forms are quite +monstrous--the outline of the nose as broad as the bridge of it--still, +at a given distance, it goes to nothing; the expression varies every +step back you take. But now, take a matting brush, with a film so thin +that it is hardly more than dirty water; put it on the back of the glass +(so as not to wash up your outline); badger it flat, so as just to dim +the glass less than "ground glass" is dimmed;--and you will find your +outline look almost the same at each distance. It is the pure light that +plays tricks, and it will play them through a pinhole. + +And now, finally, let us say that you may do anything you _can_ do in +the painting of glass, so long as you do not lay the colour on too +thick. The outline-touches should be flat upon the glass, and above all +things should not be laid on so wet, or laid on so thick, that the +pigment forms into a "drop" at the end of the touch; for this drop, and +all pigment that is thick upon the glass like that, will "fry" when it +is put into the kiln: that is to say, being so thick, and standing so +far from the surface of the glass, it will fire separately from the +glass itself and stand as a separate crust above it, and this will +perish. + +Plate IX. shows the appearance of the bubbles or blisters in a bit of +work that has fried, as seen under a microscope of 20 diameters; and if +you are inclined to disregard the danger of this defect as seen of its +natural size, when it is a mere roughness on the glass, what do you +think of it _now_? You can remove it at once by scraping it with a +knife; and indeed, if through accident a touch here and there does fry, +it is your only plan to so remove it. All you can scrape off should be +scraped off and repainted every time the glass comes from the kiln; and +that brings us to the important question of _firing_. + + + + +CHAPTER VII + + Firing--Three Kinds of Kiln--Advantages and Disadvantages--The + Gas-Kiln--Quick Firing--Danger--Sufficient Firing--Soft + Pigments--Difference in Glasses--"Stale" Work--The Scientific + Facts--How to Judge of Firing--Drawing the Kiln. + + +The way in which the painting is attached to the glass and made +permanent is by firing it in a kiln at great heat, and thus fusing the +two together. + +Simple enough to say, but who is to describe in writing this process in +all its forms? For there is, perhaps, nothing in the art of +stained-glass on which there is greater diversity of opinion and +diversity of practice than this matter of firing. But let us make a +beginning by saying that there are, it may be said, three chief +modifications of the process. + +First, the use of the old, closed, coke or turf kiln. + +Second, of the closed gas-kiln. + +And third, of the open gas-kiln. + +The first consists of a chamber of brick or terra-cotta, in which the +glass is placed on a bed of powdered whitening, on iron plates, one +above another like shelves, and the whole enclosed in a chamber where +the heat is raised by a fire of coke or peat. + +This, be it understood, is a slow method. The heat increases gradually, +and applies to the glass what the kiln-man calls a "good, soaking heat." +The meaning of this expression, of course, is that the gradual heat +gives time for the glass and the pigment to fuse together in a natural +way, more likely to be good and permanent in its results than a process +which takes a twentieth part of the time and which therefore (it is +assumed) must wrench the materials more harshly from their nature and +state. + +There are, it must be admitted, one or two things to be said for this +view which require answering. + +First, that this form of kiln has the virtue of being old; for in such a +thing as this, beyond all manner of doubt, was fired all the splendid +stained-glass of the Middle Ages. + +Second, that by its use one is entirely preserved from the dangers +attached to the _misuse_ of the gas-kiln. + +But the answers to these two things are-- + +First, that the method employed in the Middle Ages did not invariably +ensure permanence. Any one who has studied stained-glass must be +familiar with cases in which ancient work has faded or perished. + +The second claim is answered by the fact, I think beyond dispute, that +all objections to the use of the gas-kiln would be removed if it were +used properly; it is not the use of it as a process which is in itself +dangerous, but merely the misuse of it. People must be content with what +is reasonable in the matter; and, knowing that the gas-kiln is spoken of +as the "quick-firing" kiln, they must not insist on trying to fire _too_ +quick. + +Now I have the highest authority (that of the makers of both kiln and +pigment) to support my own conviction, founded on my own experience, in +what I am here going to say. + +Observe, then, that up to the point at which actual fusion +commences--that is, when pigment and glass begin to get soft--there is +no advantage in slowness, and therefore none in the use of fuel as +against gas--no possible _disadvantage_ as far as the work goes: only it +is time wasted. But where people go wrong is in not observing the vital +importance of proceeding gently when fusion _does_ commence. For in the +actual process of firing, when fusion is about to commence, it is indeed +all-important to proceed gently; otherwise the work will "fry," and, in +fact, it is in danger from a variety of causes. Make it, then, your +practice to aim at twenty to twenty-five minutes, instead of ten or +twelve, as the period during which the pigment is to be fired, and +regulate the amount of heat you apply by that standard. The longer +period of moderate heat means safety. The shorter period of great heat +means danger, and rather more than danger. + +Fig. 42 is the closed gas-kiln, where the glass is placed in an enclosed +chamber; fig. 43 is the open gas-kiln, where the gas plays on the roof +of the chamber in which the glass lies; fig. 44 shows this latter. But +no written description or picture is really sufficient to make it safe +for you to use these gas-kilns. You would be sure to have some serious +accident, probably an explosion; and as it is absolutely necessary for +you to have instruction, either from the maker or the experienced user +of them, it is useless for me to tell lamely what they could show +thoroughly. I shall therefore leave this essentially technical part of +the subject, and, omitting these details, speak of the few _principles_ +which regulate the firing of glass. + +[Illustration: FIG. 42.] + +[Illustration: FIG. 43.] + +[Illustration: FIG. 44.] + +And the first is to _fire it enough_. Whatever pigment you use, and with +whatever flux, none will be permanent if the work is under-fired; indeed +I believe that under-firing is far more the cause of stained-glass +perishing than the use of untrustworthy pigment or flux; although it +must always be borne in mind that the use of a soft pigment, which will +"fire beautifully" at a low heat, with a fine gloss on the surface, is +always to be avoided. The pigment is fused, no doubt; but is it united +to the glass? What one would like to have would be a pigment whose own +fusing-point was the same, or about the same, as that of the glass +itself, so that the surface, at least, of the piece of glass softens to +receive it and lets it right down into itself. You should never be +satisfied with the firing of your glass unless it presents two +qualifications: first, that the surface of the glass has melted and +begun to run together; and second, that the fused pigment is quite +glossy and shiny, not the least dull or rusty looking, when the glass is +cool. + +"What one would like to have." + +And can you not get it? + +Well, yes! but you want experience and constant watchfulness--in short, +"rule of thumb." For every different glass differs in hardness, and you +never know, except by memory and constant handling of the stuff, exactly +what your materials are going to do in the kiln; for as to +standardising, so as to get the glass into any known relation with the +pigment in the matter of fusing, the thing has never, as far as I know, +been attempted. It probably could not be done with regard to all, or +even many, glasses--nor need it; though perhaps it might be well if a +nearer approach to it could be achieved with regard to the manufacture +of the lighter tinted glasses, the "whites" especially, on which the +heads and hands are painted, and where consequently it is of such vital +importance that the painting should have careful justice done to it, and +not lose in the firing through uncertainty with regard to conditions. + +Nevertheless, if you observe the rule to fire sufficiently, the worst +that can happen is a disappointment to yourself from the painting having +to an unnecessary extent "fired away" in the kiln. You must be patient, +and give it a second painting; and as to the "rule of thumb," it is +surprising how one gets to know, by constant handling the stuff, how the +various glasses are going to behave in the fire. It was the method of +the Middle Ages which we are so apt to praise, and there is much to be +said for practical, craftsmanly experience, especially in the arts, as +against a system of formulas based on scientific knowledge. It would be +a pity indeed to get rid of the accidental and all the delight which it +brings, and we must take it with its good and bad. + +The second rule with regard to the question of firing is to take care +that the work is not "stale" when it goes into the kiln. Every one will +tell you a different tale about many points connected with glass, just +as doctors disagree in every affair of life. In talking over this matter +of keeping the colour fresh--even talking it over with one's practical +and experienced friends generally--one will sometimes hear the remark +that "they don't see that delay can do it much harm;" and when one asks, +"Can it do it any good?" the reply will be, "Well, probably it would be +as well to fire it soon;" or in the case of mixing, "To use it fresh." +Now, if it would be "as well"--which really means "on the safe +side"--then that seems a sufficient reason for any reasonable man. + +But indeed I have always found it one of the chiefest difficulties with +pupils to get them to take the most reasonable precautions to _make +quite sure_ of _anything_. It is just the same with matters of +measurement, although upon these such vital issues depend. How weary one +gets of the phrase "it's not far out"--the obvious comment of a +reasonable man upon such a remark, of course, being that if it is out +_at all_ it's, at any rate, _too_ far out. A French assistant that I had +once used always to complain of my demanding (as he expressed it) such +"rigorous accuracy." But there are only two ways--to be accurate or +inaccurate; and if the former is possible, there is no excuse for the +latter. + +But as to this question of freshness of colour, which is of such +paramount importance, I may quote the same authority I used before--that +of the _maker of the colour_--to back my own experience and previous +conviction on the point, which certainly is that fresh colour, used the +same day it is ground and fired the same day it is used, fires better +and fires away less than any other. + +The facts of the case, scientifically, I am assured, are as follows. The +pigment contains a large amount of soft glass in a very fine state of +division, and the carbonic acid, which all air contains (especially that +of workshops), will immediately begin to enter into combination with the +alkalis of the glass, throw out the silica, and thus disintegrate what +was brought together in the first instance when the glass was made. The +result of this is that this intruder (the carbonic acid) has to be +driven out again by the heat of the kiln, and is quite likely to disturb +the pigment in every possible way in the process of its escape. I have +myself sometimes noticed, when some painted work has been laid aside +unusually long before firing, some white efflorescence or +crystallisation taking place and coming out as a white dust on the +painted surface. + +Now it is not necessary to know here, in a scientific or chemical sense, +what has actually taken place. Two things are evident to common sense. +One, that the change is organic, and the other that it is +unpremeditated; and therefore, on both grounds, it is a thing to avoid, +which indeed my friend's scientific explanation sufficiently confirms. +It is well, therefore, on all accounts to paint swiftly and +continuously, and to fire as soon as you can; and above all things not +to let the colour lie about getting stale on the palette. Mix no more +for the day than you mean to use; clean your palette every day or nearly +so; work up all the colour each time you set your palette, and do not +give way to that slovenly and idle practice that is sometimes seen, of +leaving a crust of dry colour to collect, perhaps for days or weeks, +round the edge of the mass on your palette, and then some day, when the +spirit moves you, working this in with the rest, to imperil the safety +of your painting. + +_How to Know when the Glass is Fired Sufficiently._--This is told by the +colour as it lies in the kiln--that is, in such a kiln that you can see +the glass; but who can describe a colour? You have nothing for this but +to buy your experience. But in kilns that are constructed with a +peephole, you can also tell by putting in a bright iron rod or other +shining object and holding it over the glass so as to see if the glass +reflects it. If the pigment is raw it will (if there is enough of it on +the glass to cover the surface) prevent the piece of glass from +reflecting the rod; but directly it is fired the pigment itself becomes +glossy, and then the surface will reflect. + +This is all a matter of practice; nothing can describe the "look" of a +piece of glass that is fired. You must either watch batch after batch +for yourself and learn by experience, or get a good kiln-man to point +out fired and unfired, and call your attention to the slight shades of +colour and glow which distinguish one from the other. + +_On Taking the Glass out of the Fire._--And so you take the glass out of +the fire. In the old kilns you take the fire away from the glass, and +leave the glass to cool all night or so; in the new, you remove it and +leave it in moderate heat at the side of the kiln till it is cool enough +to handle, or nearly cold. And then you hold it up and look at it. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + + The Second Painting--Disappointment with Fired Work--A False + Remedy--A Useful Tool--The Needle--A Resource of Desperation--The + Middle Course--Use of the Finger--The Second Painting--Procedure. + + +And when you have looked at it, as I said just now you should do, your +first thought will be a wish that you had never been born. For no one, I +suppose, ever took his first batch of painted glass out of the kiln +without disappointment and without wondering what use there is in such +an art. For the painting when it went in was grey, and silvery, and +sharp, and crisp, and firm, and brilliant. Now all is altered; all the +relations of light and shade are altered; the sharpness of every +brush-mark is gone, and everything is not only "washed out" to half its +depth, but blurred at that. Even if you could get it, by a second +painting, to look exactly as it was at first, you think: "What a waste +of life! I thought I had done! It was _right_ as it was; I was pleased +so far; but now I am tired of the thing; I don't want to be doing it all +over again." + +Well, my dear reader, I cannot tell you a remedy for this state of +things--it is one of the conditions of the craft; you must find by +experience what pigment, and what glass, and what style of using them, +and what amount of fire give the least of these disappointing results, +and then make the best of it; and make up your mind to do without +certain effects in glass, which you find are unattainable. + +There is, however, one remedy which I suppose all glass-painters try, +but eventually discard. I suppose we have all passed through the stage +of working very dark, to allow for the firing-off; and I want to say a +word of warning which may prevent many heartaches in this matter. I +having passed through them all, there is no reason why others should. +Now mark very carefully what follows, for it is difficult to explain, +and you cannot afford to let the sense slip by you. + +I told you that a film left untouched would always come out as a black +patch against work that was pierced with the scrub, however slightly. + +Now, herein lies the difficulty of working with a very thick matt; for +if it is thick enough on the cheek and brow of a face to give strong +modelling when fired, _then whenever it has passed over the previous +outline-painting, for example, in the eyes, mouth, nostrils, &c., you +will find that the two together have become too thick for the scrub to +move._ + +Now you do not need, as an artist, to be told that it is fatal to allow +_any_ part of your painting to be thus beyond your control; to be +obliged to say, "It's too dark, but unfortunately I have no tools that +will lighten it--it will not yield to the scrub." + +However, a certain amount can be done in this direction by using, on the +shadows that are _just_ too strong for the scrub, a tool made by +grinding down on sandpaper a large hog-hair brush, and, of these, what +are called stencil-brushes are as good as any (fig. 45). + +You do not use this by dragging it over the glass as you drag a scrub, +but by _pricking_ the whole of the surface which you wish to lighten. +This will make little pinholes all over it, which will be sufficient to +let the patch of shadow gently down to the level of the surrounding +lighter modelling, and will prevent your dark shadows looking like +actual "patches," as we described them doing a little way back. + +[Illustration: FIG. 45.] + +Further than this you cannot go: for I cannot at all see how the next +process I am to describe can be a good one, though I once thought, as I +suppose most do, that it would really solve the difficulty. What I +allude to is the use of the needle. + +_Of Work Etched out with a Needle._--The needle is a very good and +useful tool for stained glass, in certain operations, but I am now to +speak of it as being used over whole areas _as a substitute for the +scrub, in order to deal with a matt too dense for the scrub to +penetrate._ + +The needle will, to be sure, remove such a matt; that is to say, will +remove lines out of it, quite clear and sharp, and this, too, out of a +matt so dense, that what remains does not fire away much in the kiln. +Here is a tempting thing then! to have one's work unchanged by the fire! +And if you could achieve this without changing the character of the work +for the worse, no doubt this method would be a very fine thing. But let +me trace it step by step and try to describe what happens. + +You have painted your outline and you put a very heavy matt over it. + +Peril No. 1.--If your matt is so dense that it will not _fire off_, it +must very nearly approach the point of density at which it will _fry_. +How then about the portions of it which have been painted on, as I have +said, over _another_ layer of pigment in the shape of the _outline_? +Here is a _danger_. But even supposing that all is safe, and that you +have just stopped short of the danger point. You have now your dense, +rich, brown matt, with the outline just showing through it. Proceed to +model it with the needle. The first stroke will really frighten you; for +a flash of silver light will spring along after the point of the needle, +so dazzling in contrast to the extreme dark of the matt that it looks as +if the plate had been cut in two, while the matt beside it becomes +pitch-black by contrast. Well, you go on, and by putting more strokes, +and reducing the surrounding darkness generally, you get the drawing to +look grey--but you get it to look like a grey _pen-drawing_ or +_etching_, not like a painting at all. We will suppose that this seems +to you no disadvantage (though I must say, at once, that I think it a +very great one); but now you come to the deep shadows; and these, I need +hardly say, cut themselves out, more than ever, like dark patches or +blots, in the manner already spoken of. You try pricking it with the +brush I have described for that operation, and it will not do it; then +you resort to the needle itself, and you are startled at the little, +hard, glittering specks that come jumping out of the black shadow at +each touch. You get a finer needle, and then you sharpen even that on +the hone; and perhaps then, by pricking gingerly round the edges of the +shadows, you may get the drawing and modelling to melt together fairly +well. But beware! for if there is one dot of light too many, the +expression of the head goes to the winds. Let us say that such a thing +occurs; you have pricked one pinhole too many round the corner of the +mouth. + +What can you do? + +You take your tracing-brush and try to mend it with a touch of pigment; +and so on, and so on; till you timidly say (feeling as if you had been +walking among egg-shells for the last hour), "Well, I _think_ it will +_do_, and I daren't touch it any more." And supposing by these means you +get a head that looks really what you wanted; the work is all what +glass-painters call "rotten"; liable to flake off at the least touch; +isolated bits of thick crust, cut sheer out from each other, with clear +glass between. + +In short, the thing is a niggling and botching sort of process to my +mind, and I hope that the above description is sufficiently life-like to +show that I have really given it a good trial myself--with, as a result, +the conclusion certainly strongly borne home to me, that the delight of +having one's work unchanged by the fire is too dearly purchased at the +cost of it. + +_How to get the greatest degree of Strength into your Painting without +Danger._--Short of using a needle then, and a matt that will only yield +to that instrument, I would advise, if you want the work strong, that +you should paint the matt so that it will just yield, and only just, and +that with difficulty, to the scrub; and, before you use this tool, just +pass the finger, lightly, backwards and forwards over the matted +surface. This will take out a shimmer of light here and there, according +to the inequalities of the texture in the glass itself; the first +touches of the scrub will not then look so startling and hard as if +taken out of the dead, even matt; and also this rubbing of the finger +across the surface seems to make the matt yield more easily to the tool. +The dust remaining on the surface perhaps helps this; anyhow, this is as +far as you can go on the side of strength in the work. You can of course +"back" the work, that is, paint on the back as well as the front--a mere +film at the back; but this is a method of a rather doubtful nature. The +pigment on the back does not fire equally well with that on the front, +and when the window is in its place, that side will be, you must bear in +mind, exposed to the weather. + +I have spoken incidentally of rubbing the glass with the finger as a +part of painting; but the practice can be carried further and used more +generally than I have yet said: the little "pits" and markings on the +surface of the glass, which I mentioned when I spoke of the "right and +wrong sides" of the material, can be drawn into the service of the +window sometimes with very happy effect. Being treated with matt and +then rubbed with the finger, they often produce very charming varieties +of texture on the glass, which the painter will find many ways of making +useful. + +_Of the Second Painting of Glass after it has been Fired._--So far we +have only spoken of the appearance of work after its first fire, and its +influence upon choice of method for _first painting_; but there is of +course the resource which is the proper subject of this chapter, namely, +the second painting. + +Very small work can be done with one fire; but only very skilful +painters can get work, on any large scale, strong enough for one fire to +serve, and that only with the use of backing. Of course if very faint +tones of shadow satisfy you, the work can be done with one fire; but if +it is well fired it must almost of necessity be pale. Some people like +it so--it is a matter of taste, and there can be no pronouncement made +about it; but if you wish your work to look strong in light and +shade--stronger than one painting will make it--I advise you, when the +work comes back from the fire and is waxed up for the second time +(which, in any case, it assuredly should be, if only for your judgment +upon it), to proceed as follows. + +First, with a tracing-brush, go over all the lines and outlined shadows +that seem too weak, and then, when these touches are quite dry, pass a +thin matt over the whole, and with stippling-brushes of various sizes, +stipple it nearly all away while wet. You will only have about five +minutes in which to deal with any one piece of glass in this way, and in +the case of a head, for example, it needs a skilful hand to complete it +in that short space of time. The best plan is to make several "shots" at +it; if you do not hit the mark the first time, you may the second or the +third. I said "stipple it nearly all away"; but the amount left must be +a matter of taste; nevertheless, you must note that if you do not remove +enough to make the work look "silvery," it is in danger of looking +"muddy." All the ordinary resources of the painter's art may be brought +in here: retouching into the half-dry second matt, dabbing with the +finger--in short, all that might be done if the thing were a +water-colour or an oil-painting; but it is quite useless to attempt to +describe these deftnesses of hand in words: you may use any and every +method of modifying the light and shade that occurs to you. + + + + +CHAPTER IX + + Of Staining and Aciding--Yellow Stain--Aciding--Caution required in + Use--Remedy for Burning--Uses of Aciding--Other Resources of + Stained-Glass Work. + + +Yellow stain, or silver stain as some call it, is made in various ways +from silver--chloride, sulphate, and nitrate, I understand, are all +used. The stain is laid on exactly like the pigment, but at the back of +the glass. It does not work very smoothly, and some painters like to mix +it with Venice turpentine instead of water to get rid of this defect; +whichever you use, keep a separate set of tools and a separate palette +for it, and always keep them clean and the stain fresh mixed. Also you +should not fire it with so strong a heat, and therefore, of course, you +should never fire pigment and stain in the same batch in the kiln; +otherwise the stain will probably go much hotter in colour than you +wish, or will get muddy, or will "metal" as painters call it--that is, +get a horny, burnt-sienna look instead of a clear yellow. + +_How to Etch the Flash off a Flashed Glass with Acid._--There is only +one more process, having to do with painting, which I shall describe, +and that is "aciding." By this process you can etch the flash off the +flashed glasses where you like. The process is the same as etching--you +"stop-out" the parts that you wish to remain, just as in etching; but +instead of putting the stopping material over the whole bit of glass and +then scratching it off, as you do in copper-plate etching, it is better +for the most part to paint the stopping on where you want it, and this +is conveniently done with Brunswick black, thinned down with turpentine; +if you add a little red lead to it, it does no harm. You then treat it +to a bath of fluoric acid diluted with water and placed in a leaden pan; +or, if it is only a touch you want, you can get it off with a mop of +cotton-wool on a stick, dipped in the undiluted acid; but be careful of +the fumes, for they are very acrid and disagreeable to the eyes and +nose; take care also not to get the acid on your finger-ends or nails, +especially into cuts or sore places. For protection, india-rubber +finger-stalls for finger and thumb are very good, and you can get these +at any shop where photographic materials are sold. If you do get any of +the acid on to your hands or into a cut, wash them with diluted +carbonate of soda or diluted ammonia. The acid must be kept in a +gutta-percha bottle. + +When the aciding is done, as far as you want it, the glass must be +thoroughly rinsed in several waters; do not leave any acid remaining, or +it will continue to act upon the glass. You must also be careful not to +use this process in the neighbourhood of any painted work, or, in short, +in the neighbourhood of any glass that is of consequence, the fumes from +the acid acting very strongly and very rapidly. This process, of course, +may be used in many ways: you can, by it, acid out a diaper pattern, red +upon white, white upon red; and blue may be treated in the same fashion; +the white lights upon steel armour, for instance, may be obtained in +this way with very telling effect, getting indeed the beautiful +combination of steely blue with warm brown which we admire so in +Burne-Jones cartoons; for the brown of the pigment will not show warm on +the blue, but will do so directly it passes on to the white of the +acided parts. This is the last process I need describe; the many little +special refinements to be got by playing games with the lead lines; by +thickening and thinning them; by _doubling_ glass, to get depth and +intensity, or to blend new tints;--these and such like are the things +that any artist _who does his own work and practises his own craft_ can +find out, and ought to find out, and is bound to find out, for +himself--they are the legitimate reward of the hand and heart labour +spent, as a craftsman spends them, upon the material. Suffice it to say +that in spite of the great skill which has been employed upon +stained-glass, ancient and modern, and employed in enormous amount; and +in spite of the great and beautiful results achieved; we may yet look +upon stained-glass as an art in which there are still new provinces to +explore--walking upon the old paths, guided by the old landmarks, but +gathering new flowers by the way. + +We must now, then, turn our attention to the mechanical processes by +which the stained-glass window is finished off. + + + + +CHAPTER X + + Leading-Up and Fixing--Setting out the Bench--Relation of Leading + to mode of Fixing in the Stone--Process of Fixing--Leading-Up + Resumed--Straightening the Lead--The "Lathykin"--The + Cutting-Knife--The Nails--The Stopping-Knife--Knocking Up. + + +You first place your cut-line, face upward, upon the bench, and pin it +down there. You next cut two "straight-edges" of wood, one to go along +the base line of the section you mean to lead up, and the other along +the side that lies next to you on the bench as you stand at work; for +you always work _from one side_, as you will soon see. And it is +important that you should get these straight-edges at a true right +angle, testing them carefully with the set-square. Fig. 46 represents a +bench set out for leading-up. + +You must now build the glass together, as a child puts together his +puzzle-map, one bit at a time, working from the base corner that is +opposite your left hand. + +But first of all you must place a strip of extra wide and flat lead +close against each of your straight-edges, so that the core of the lead +corresponds with the outside line of your work. + +[Illustration: FIG. 46.] + +It will be right here to explain what relation the extreme outside +measurement of your work should bear to the daylight sizes of the +openings that it has to fill. I think we may say that, whatever the +"mouldings" may be on the stone, there is always a flat piece at exact +right angles to the face of the wall in which the window stands, and it is +in this flat piece that the groove is cut to receive the glass (fig. 47). + +[Illustration: FIG. 47.] + +Now, as the glazed light has to _fill_ the daylight opening, there must +obviously be a piece beyond the "daylight" size to go into the stone. By +slipping the glazed light in _sideways_, and even, in large lights, by +_bending_ it slightly into a bow, you can just get into the stone a +light an inch, or nearly so, wider than the opening; but the best way is +to use an extra wide lead on the outside of your light, and bend back +the outside leaf of it both front and back so that they stand at right +angles to the surface of the glass (fig. 48). By this means you can +reduce the size of the panel by almost 1/4 of an inch on each side; you +can push the panel then, without either bending or slanting it much, up +to its groove; and, putting one side as far as it will go _into_ the +groove, you can bend back again into their former place the two leaves +of the lead on the opposite side; and when you have done that slide +_them_ as far as they will go into _their_ groove, and do the same by +the opposite pair. You will then have the panel in its groove, with +about 1/4 of an inch to hold by and 1/4 of an inch of lead showing. Some +people fancy an objection to this; perhaps in very small windows it +might look better to have the glass "flush" with the stone; but for +myself I like to see a little _showing_ of that outside lead, on to +which so many of the leads that cross the glass are fastened. Anyway you +must bear the circumstance in mind in fixing down your straight-edges to +start glazing the work; and that is why I have made this digression by +mentioning now something that properly belongs to fixing. + +[Illustration: FIG. 48.] + +Now before beginning to glaze you must stretch and straighten the lead; +and this is done as follows (fig. 49--_Frontispiece_). + +Hold the "calm" of lead in your left hand, and run the finger and thumb +of your right hand down the lead so as to get the core all one way and +not at all twisted: then, holding one end firmly under your right foot, +take tight hold of the other end with your pliers, and pull with nearly +all your force in the direction of your right shoulder. Take care not to +pull in the direction of your face; for if you do, and the lead breaks, +you will break some of your features also. It is very important to be +careful that the lead is truly straight and not askew, otherwise, when +you use it in leading, the glass will never keep flat. The next +operation is to open the lead with a piece of hard wood, such as boxwood +or _lignum-vitae_ (fig. 50), made to your fancy for the purpose, but +something like the diagram, which glaziers call a "lathykin" (as I +understand it). For cutting the lead you must have a thin knife of good +steel. Some use an old dinner-knife, some a palette-knife cut +down--either square across the blade or at an angle--it is a matter of +taste (fig. 51). + +[Illustration: FIG. 50.] + +[Illustration: FIG. 51.] + +Having laid down your leads A and B (fig. 52), put in the corner piece +of glass (No. 1); two of its sides will then be covered, leaving one +uncovered. Take a strip of lead and bend it round the uncovered edge, +and cut it off at D, so that the end fits close and true against the +_core_ of lead A. And you must take notice to cut with a perfectly +_vertical_ cut, otherwise one side will fit close and the other will +leave a gap. + +[Illustration: FIG. 52.] + +In fig. 53 A represents a good joint, B a bad one. Bend it round and cut +it off similarly at E. Common sense will tell you that you must get the +angle correct by marking it with a slight incision of the knife in its +place before you take it on to the bench for the final cut. + +Slip it in, and push it in nice and tight, and put in piece No. 2. + +[Illustration: FIG. 53] + +But now look at your cut-line. Do you see that the inner edges of pieces +2, 3, and 4 all run in a fairly smooth curve, along which a _continuous_ +piece of lead will bend quite easily? Leave, then, that edge, and put +in, first, the leads which divide No. 2 from No. 3, and No. 3 from No. +4. Now don't forget! the long lead has to come along the inside edges of +all three; so the leaf of it will overlap those three edges nearly 1/8 +of an inch (supposing you are using lead of 1/4 inch dimension). You +must therefore cut the two little bits we are now busy upon _1/8 of an +inch short of the top edge of the glass_ (fig. 54), for the inside leads +only _meet_ each other; it is only the _outside_ lead that overlaps. + +[Illustration: FIG. 54.] + +_How the Loose Glass is held in its place while Leading._--This is done +with nails driven into the glazing table, close up against the edge of +the lead; and the best of all for the purpose are bootmakers' "lasting +nails"; therefore no more need be said about the matter; "use no other" +(fig. 55). + +[Illustration: FIG. 55.] + +And you tap them in with two or three sharp taps; not of a hammer, for +you do not want to waste time taking up a fresh tool, but with the end +of your leading-knife which is called a "stopping-knife" (fig. 56), and +which lead workers generally make for themselves out of an oyster-knife, +by bending the blade to a convenient working angle for manipulating the +lead, and graving out lines in the lower part of the handle, into which +they run solder, terminating it in a solid lump at the butt-end which +forms an excellent substitute for a hammer. + +[Illustration: FIG. 56.] + +Now as soon as you have got the bits 1, 2, 3, 4 in their places, with +the leads F, G and H, I between them, you can take out the nails along +the line K, F, H, M, one by one as you come to them, starting from K; +and put along that line one lead enclosing the whole lot, replacing the +nails outside it to keep all firm as you work; and you must note that +you should look out for opportunities to do this always, whenever there +is a long line of the cut-line without any abrupt corners in it. You +will thus save yourself the cutting (and afterwards the soldering) of +unnecessary joints; for it is always good to save labour where you can +without harm to the work; and in this case the work is all the better +for it. + +Now, when you have thus continued the leading all the way across the +panel, put on the other outside lead, and so work on to a finish. + +When the opposite, outside lead is put on, remove the nails and take +another straight-edge and put it against the lead, and "knock it up" by +hitting the straight-edge until you get it to the exact size; at the +same time taking your set-square and testing the corners to see that all +is at right angles. + +Leave now the panel in its place, with the straight-edges still +enclosing it, and solder off the joints. + + + + +CHAPTER XI + + Soldering--Handling the Leaded Panel--Cementing--Recipe for + Cement--The Brush--Division of Long Lights into Sections--How + Joined when Fixed--Banding--Fixing--Chipping out the Old + Glazing--Inserting the New and Cementing. + + +If the leads have got _tarnished_ you may brush them over with the wire +brush (fig. 57), which glaziers call a "scratch-card"; but this is a +wretched business and need never be resorted to if you work with good +lead and work "fresh and fresh," and finish as you go, not letting the +work lie about and get stale. Take an old-fashioned tallow "dip" candle, +and put a little patch of the grease over each joint, either by rubbing +the candle itself on it, or by melting some of it in a saucepan and +applying it with a brush. Then take your soldering-iron (fig. 58) and +get it to the proper heat, which you must learn by practice, and proceed +to "tin" it by rubbing it on a sheet of tin with a little solder on it, +and also some resin and a little glass-dust, until the "bit" (which is +of copper) has a bright tin face. Then, holding the stick of solder in +the left hand, put the end of it down close to the joint you wish to +solder, and put the end of the iron against it, "biting off" as it were, +but really _melting_ off, a little bit, which will form a liquid drop +upon the joint. Spread this drop so as to seal up the joint nice and +smooth and even, and the thing is done. Repeat with all the joints; then +turn the panel over and do the opposite side. + +[Illustration: FIG. 57.] + +[Illustration: FIG. 58.] + +_How to Handle Leaded Lights._--I said "turn the panel over." But that +brings to mind a caution that you need about the handling of leaded +lights. You must not--as I once saw a man do--start to hold them as a +waiter does a tray. You must note that thin glass in the sheet and also +leaded lights, especially before cementing, are not rigid, and cannot be +handled as if they were panels of wood; you must take care, when +carrying them, or when they lean against the wall, to keep them as +nearly upright as they will safely stand, and the inside one leaning +against a board, and not bearing its own weight. And in laying them on +the bench or in lifting them off it, you must first place them so that +the middle line of them corresponds with the edge of the bench, or +table, and then turn them on that as an axis, quickly, so that they do +not bear their own weight longer than necessary (figs. 59 and 60). + +_How to Cement a Leaded Light._--The next process is the cementing of +the light so as to fill up the grooves of the lead and make all +weather-proof. This is done with a mixture composed as follows:-- +Whitening, 2/3 to plaster of Paris 1/3; add a mixture of equal +quantities of boiled linseed-oil and spirit of turpentine to make a +paste about as thick as treacle. Add a little red lead to help to harden +it, some patent dryer to cause it to dry, and lamp-black to colour. + +This must be put in plenty on to the surface of the panel and well +scrubbed into the joints with a hard fibre brush; an ordinary coarse +"grass brush" or "bass brush," with wooden back, as sold for scrubbing +brushes at the oil shops, used in all directions so as to rub the stuff +into every joint. + +But you must note that if you have "plated" (_i.e._ doubled) any of the +glass you must, before cementing, _putty_ those places. Otherwise the +cement may probably run in between the two, producing blotches which you +have no means of reaching in order to remove them. + +[Illustration: FIG. 59.] + +You can, if you like, clean away all the cement along the edges of the +leads; but it is quite easy to be too precise and neat in the matter and +make the work look hard. If you do it, a blunted awl will serve your +turn. + +[Illustration: FIG. 60.] + +One had better mention everything, and therefore I will here say that, +of course, a large light must be made in sections; and these should not +exceed four feet in height, and less is better. In fixing these in their +place when the window is put up (an extra wide flat lead being used at +the top and bottom of each section), they are made to overlap; and if +you wish the whole drainage of the window to pass into the building, of +course you will put your section thus--(fig. 61 A); while if you wish +the work to be weather-tight you will place it thus--(fig. 61 B). It is +just as well to make every question clear if one can, and therefore I +mention this. Most people like their windows weather-tight, and, of +course, will make the overlapping lead the top one; but it's a free +country, and I don't pretend to dictate, content if I make the situation +clear to you, leaving you to deal with it according to your own fancy. +All is now done except the banding. + +[Illustration: FIG. 61 A.] + +[Illustration: FIG. 61 B.] + +_How to Band a Leaded Light._--Banding means the putting on of the +little ties of copper wire by which the window has to be held to the +iron crossbars that keep it in its place. These ties are simply short +lengths of copper wire, generally about four inches long, but varying, +of course, with the size of the bar that you mean to use; and these are +to be soldered vertically (fig. 62) on to the face of the light at any +convenient places along the line where the bar will cross. In fixing the +window, these wires are to be pulled tight round the bar and twisted up +with pliers, and the twisted end knocked down flat and neat against the +bar. + +And this is the very last operation in the making of a stained-glass +window. It now only remains to instruct you as to what relates to the +fixing of it in its place. + +_How to Fix a Window in its Place._--There is, almost always, a groove +in the stonework to receive the glass; and, except in the case of an +unfinished building, this is, of course, occupied by some form of plain +glazing. You must remove this by chipping out with a small mason's +chisel the cement with which it is fixed in the groove, and common sense +will tell you to begin at the bottom and work upwards. This done, +untwist the copper bands from the bars and put your own glass in its +place, re-fixing the bars (or new ones) in the places you have +determined on to suit your design and to support the glass, and fixing +your glass to them in the way described, and pointing the whole with +good cement. The method of inserting the new glass is described at p. +135. + +[Illustration: FIG. 62.] + +But that it is good for a man to feel the satisfaction of knowing his +craft thoroughly there would be no need to go into this, which, after +all, is partly masons' work. But I, for my part, cannot understand the +spirit of an artist who applies his art to a craft purpose and has not, +at least, a strong _wish_ to know all that pertains to it. + + + + +PART II + + +CHAPTER XII + + Introductory--The Great Questions--Colour--Light--Architectural + Fitness--Limitations--Thought--Imagination--Allegory. + + +The foregoing has been written as a handbook to use at the bench, and +therefore I have tried to keep myself strictly to describing the actual +processes and the ordinary practice and routine of stained-glass work. + +But can we leave the subject here? + +If we were speaking of even the smallest of the minor arts and crafts, +we should wish to say something of why they are practised and how they +should be practised, of the principles that guide them, of the spirit in +which they should be undertaken, of the place they occupy in human +affairs and in our life on earth. How much more then in an Art like +this, which soars to the highest themes, which dares to treat, which is +required to treat, of things Heavenly and Earthly, of the laws of God, +and of the nature, duty, and destinies of man; and not only so, but must +treat of these things in connection with, and in subservience to, the +great and dominant Art of Architecture? + +We must not shrink, then, from saying all that is in our mind: we must +ask ourselves the great questions of all art. We must investigate the +How of them, and even face the Why. + +Therefore here (however hard it be to do it) something must be said of +such great general principles as those of colour, of light, of +architectural fitness, of limitations, of thought and imagination and +allegory; for all these things belong to stained-glass work, and it is +the right or wrong use of these high things that makes windows to be +good or to be bad. + +Let us, dear student, take the simplest things first, not because they +are the easiest (though they perhaps are so), but because they will +gradually, I hope, warm up our wits to the point of considering these +matters, and so prepare the way for what is hardest of all. + +And I think a good subject to begin with is that of Economy generally, +taking into consideration both time and materials. + + + + +CHAPTER XIII + + Of Economy--The Englishman's Wastefulness--Its Good Side--Its + Excess--Difficulties--A Calculation--Remedies. + + +Those who know work in various countries must surely have arrived at the +conclusion that the Englishman is the most wasteful being on the face of +the globe! He only thinks of getting through the work, or whatever it +may be, that he has purposed to himself, attaining the end immediately +in view in the speediest manner possible without regard to anything +else, lavish of himself and of the stuff he works with. The picture +drawn by Robert Louis Stevenson in "Treasure Island" of John Silver and +his pirates, when about to start on their expedition, throwing the +remainder of their breakfast on the bivouac fire, careless whence fresh +supplies might come, is "English all over." This is the character of the +race. It has its good side, this grand disdain--it wins Battles, +Victoria Crosses, Humane Society's medals, and other things well worth +the winning; brings into port many a ship that would else be lost or +abandoned, and, year in, year out, sends to sea the lifeboats on our +restless line of coast. It would be something precious indeed that would +be worth the loss of it; but there is a medium in all things, and when a +master sees--as one now at rest once told me he often had seen--a cutter +draw his diamond down a bit of the margin out of which he had just cut +his piece, in order to make it small enough to throw away, without being +ashamed, under the bench, he must sometimes, I should think, wish the +man were employed on some warlike or adventurous trade, and that he had +a Hollander or Italian in his place, who would make a whole window out +of what the other casts away. + +At the same time, it must be confessed that this is a very difficult +matter to arrange; and it is only fair to the workman to admit that +under existing conditions of work and demand, and even in many cases of +the buildings in which the work is done, the way does not seem clear to +have the whole of what might be wished in this matter. I will point out +the difficulties against it. + +First, unless some system could be invented by which the amount of glass +issued to any workman could be compared easily and simply with the area +of glazed work cut from it, the workman has no inducement to economise; +for, no record being kept of the glass saved, he knows that he will get +no credit by saving, while the extra time that he spends on economy will +make him seem a slower workman, and so he would be blamed. + +Then, again, it is impossible to see the colour of glass as it lies on +the bench; he has little choice but to cut each piece out of the large +sheet; for if he got a clutter of small bits round him till he happened +to want a small bit, he would never be able to get on. + +There is no use, observe, in niggling and cheese-paring. There should be +a just balance made between the respective values of the man's time and +the material on which it is spent; and to this end I now give some +calculations to show these--calculations rather startling, considered in +the light of what one knows of the ordinary practices and methods. + +The antique glasses used in stained-glass work vary in price from 1s. a +foot to 5s., the weight per foot being about 32 oz. + +The wage of the workmen who have to deal with this costly material +varies from 8d. to 1s. per hour. + +The price of the same glass thrown under the bench, and known as +"cullet," is L1 per TON. + +Let us now do a little simple arithmetic, which, besides its lesson to +the workers, may, I think, come as a revelation even to some employers +who, content with getting work done quickly, may have hardly realised +the price paid for that privilege. + + 1 ton = 20 cwt. + x 4 + -- + 80 qrs. + x 28 + --- + 640 + 32 oz. = 2 lb., 160 + ----- + therefore / 2) 2240 lbs. + ----- + 1120 = number of square feet in a ton. + +The worth of this at 1s. a foot (whites) is:-- + + / 20) 1120 ( L56 PER TON. + 100 + ---- + 120 + 120 + +At 2s. 6d. per foot (the best of pot-metal blues, and rubies +generally):-- + + 56 + 56 + 28 + --- + 2-1/2 times 56 = 140 L140 PER TON. + +At 5s. a foot (gold-pink, and pale pink, venetian, and choice glasses +generally):-- + + 56 + x 5 + --- + L280 PER TON. + +Therefore these glasses are worth respectively--56 times, 140 times, and +280 times as much upon the bench as they are when thrown below it! And +yet I ask you--employer or employed--is it not the case that, +often--shall we not say "generally"?--in any given job as much goes +below as remains above if the work is in fairly small pieces? Is not the +accompanying diagram a fair illustration (fig. 63) of about the average +relation of the shape cut to its margin of waste? + +[Illustration: FIG. 63.] + +Employers estimate this waste variously. I have heard it placed as high +as two-thirds; that is to say, that the glass, when leaded up, only +measured one-third of the material used, or, in other words, that the +workman had wasted twice as much as he used. This, I admit, was told me +in my character as _customer_, and by way of explaining what I +considered a high charge for work; but I suppose that no one with +experience of stained-glass work would be disposed to place the amount +of waste lower than one-half. + +Now a good cutter will take between two and three hours to cut a square +foot of average stained-glass work, fairly simple and large in scale; +that is to say, supposing his pay one shilling an hour--which is about +the top price--the material he deals with is about the same value as his +time if he is using the cheapest glasses only. If this then is the case +when the highest-priced labour is dealing only with the lowest-priced +material, we may assume it as the general rule for stained-glass +cutting, _on the average_, that "_labour is less costly than the +material on which it is spent_," and I would even say much less costly. + +But it is not to be supposed that the little more care in avoiding waste +which I am advocating would reduce his speed of work more than would be +represented by two pence or three pence an hour. + +But I fear that all suggestions as to mitigating this state of things +are of little use. The remedy is to play into each other's hands by +becoming, all of us, complete, all-round craftsmen; breaking down all +the unnatural and harmful barriers that exist between "artists" and +"workmen," and so fitting ourselves to take an intelligent interest in +both the artistic and economic side of our work. + +The possibility of this all depends on the personal relations and +personal influence in any particular shop--and employers and employed +must worry the question out between them. I am content with pointing out +the facts. + + + + +CHAPTER XIV + + Of Perfection--In Little Things--Cleanliness--Alertness--But not + Hurry--Realising your Conditions--False Lead-Lines--Shutting out + Light--Bars--Their Number--Their Importance--Precedence--Observing + your Limitations--A Result of Complete Training--The Special + Limitations of Stained-Glass--Disguising the Lead-Line--No full + Realism--No violent Action--Self-Effacement--No + Craft-Jugglery--Architectural Fitness founded on Architectural + Knowledge--Seeing Work _in Situ_--Sketching in Glass--The Artistic + Use of the Lead--Stepping Back--Accepting Bars and Leads--Loving + Care--White Spaces to be Interesting--Bringing out the "Quality" of + the Glass--Spotting and Dappling--"Builders-Glazing" _versus_ + Modern Restoring. + +The second question of principle that I would dwell upon is that of +_perfection_. + +Every operation in the arts should be perfect. It has to be so in most +arts, from violin-playing to circus-riding, before the artist dare make +his bow to the public. + +Placing on one side the question of the higher grades of art which +depend upon special talent or genius--the great qualities of +imagination, composition, form and colour, which belong to mastership--I +would now, in this book, intended for students, dwell upon those minor +things, the doing of which well or ill depends only upon good-will, +patience, and industry. + +Anyone can wash a brush clean; any one can keep the colour on his +palette neat; can grind it all up each time it is used; can cover it +over with a basin or saucer when his work is over; and yet these things +are often neglected, though so easy to do. The painter will _neglect_ to +wash out his brush; and it will be clogged with pigment and gum, get +dry, and stick to the palette, and the points of the hair will tear and +break when it is removed again by the same careless hand that left it +there. + +Another will leave portions of his colour, caked and dry, at the edges +of his palette for weeks, till all is stale; and then, when the spirit +moves him, will some day work this in, full of dirt and dust, with the +fresher colour. Everything, everything should be done well! From the +highest forms of painting to tying up a parcel or washing out a +brush;--all tools should be clean at all times, the handles as well as +the hair--there is _no excuse_ for the reverse; and if your tools are +dirty, it is by the same defect of your character that will make you +slovenly in your work. Painting does not demand the same actual +_swiftness_ as some other arts; nevertheless each touch that you place +upon the glass, though it may be deliberate, should be deft, athletic, +perfect in itself; the nerves braced, the attention keen, and the powers +of soul and body as much on the alert as they would need to be in +violin-playing, fencing, or dissecting. + +This is not to advocate _hurry_. That is another matter altogether, for +which also there is no excuse. Never hurry, or ask an assistant to +hurry. Windows are delayed, even promises broken (though that can scarce +be defended), there may be "ire in celestial minds"; but that is all +forgotten when we are dead; and we soon shall be, but not the window. + +Another thing to note, which applies generally throughout all practice, +is the wisdom, of getting as near as you can to your conditions. For +instance, the bits of glass in a window are separated by lead lines; +pitch-black, therefore, against the light of day outside. Now, when +waxed up on the plate in the shop for painting, these will be separated +by thin cracks of light, and in this condition they are usually painted. +Can't you do better than that? Don't you think it's worth while spending +half-an-hour to paint false lead lines on the back of the plate? A +ha'p'orth of lamp-black from the oil-shop, with a little water and +treacle and a long-haired brush, like a coach-painter's, will do it for +you (see Plate XIII.). + +Another thing: when the window is in its place, each _light_ will be +surrounded with stone or brick, which, although not so black as the +lead lines, will tell as a strong dark against the glass. See therefore +that while you are painting, your glass is surrounded by dark, or at any +rate not by clear, glittering light. Strips of brown paper, pinned down +the sides of the light you are painting, will get the thing quite near +to its future conditions. + +As you have been told, the work is fixed in its place by bars of iron, +and these ought by no means to be despised or ignored or disguised, as +if they were a troublesome necessity: you must accept fully and +willingly the conditions of your craft; you must pride yourself upon so +accepting them, knowing that they are the wholesome checks upon your +liberty and the proper boundaries of the field in which you have your +appointed work. There should, in any light more than a foot wide, be +bars at every foot throughout the length of the light; and these bars +should be 1/2 inch, 3/4 inch, or 1 inch in section, according to the +weight of the work. The question then arises: Should the bars be set out +in their places on the paper, before you begin to draw the cartoon, or +should you be perfectly free and unfettered in the drawing and then +_make_ the bars fit in afterwards, by moving them up and down as may be +needed to avoid cutting across the faces, hands, &c. + +I find more difficulty in answering this than any other _technical_ +question in this book. I do not think it can be answered with a hard and +fast "Yes" or "No." It depends on the circumstances of the case. But I +incline towards the side of making it the rule to put the bars in first, +and adapt the composition to them. You may think this a surprising view +for an artist to take. "Surely," you will say, "that is putting the cart +before the horse, and making the more important thing give way to the +less!" But my feeling is that reasonable limitations of any kind ought +never to be considered as hindrances in a work of art. They are part of +the problem, and it is only a spirit of dangerous license which will +consider them as bonds, or will find them irksome, or wish to break them +through. Stained-glass is not an independent art. It is an accessory to +architecture, and any limitations imposed by structure and architectural +propriety or necessity are most gravely to be considered and not lightly +laid on one side. And in this connection it must be remembered that the +bars cannot be made to go _anywhere_ to fit a freely designed +composition: they must be approximately at certain distances on account +of use; and they must be arranged with regard to each other in the whole +of the window on account of appearance. + +You might indeed find that, in any single light, it is quite easy to +arrange them at proper and serviceable distances, without cutting across +the heads or hands of the figures; but it is ten chances to one that you +can get them to do so, and still be level with each other, throughout a +number of lights side by side. + +The best plan, I think, is to set them out on the side of the +cartoon-paper before you begin, but not so as to notice them; then first +roughly strike out the position your most important groups or figures +are to occupy, and, before you go on with the serious work of drawing, +see if the bars cut awkwardly, and, if they do, whether a slight +shifting of them will clear all the important parts; it often will, and +then all is well; but I do not shrink from slightly altering even the +position of a head or hand, rather than give a laboured look to what +ought to be simple and straightforward by "coaxing" the bars up and down +all over the window to fit in with the numerous heads and hands. + +If, by the way, I see fit in any case to adopt the other plan, and make +my composition first, placing the bars afterwards to suit it, I never +allow myself to shift them from the level that is convenient and +reasonable for anything _except_ a head; I prefer even that they should +cut across a hand, for instance, rather than that they should be placed +at inconvenient intervals to avoid it. + +The principle of observing your limitations is, I do not hesitate to +say, the most important, and far the most important, of all principles +guiding the worker in the right practising of any craft. + +The next in importance to it is the right exercise of all legitimate +freedom _within_ those limitations. I place them in this order, because +it is better to stop short, by nine-tenths, of right liberty, than to +take one-tenth of wrong license. But by rights the two things should go +together, and, with the requisite skill and training to use them, +constitute indeed the whole of the practice of a craft. + +Modern division of labour is much against both of these things, the +observance of which charms us so in the ancient Gothic Art of the Middle +Ages. + +For, since those days, the craft has never been taught as a whole. +Reader! this book cannot teach it you--no book, can; but it can make +you--and it was written with the sole object of making you--_wish_ to be +taught it, and determine to be taught it, if you intend to practise +stained-glass work at all. + +Modern stained-glass work is done by numerous hands, each trained in a +special skill--to design, or to paint, or to cut, or to glaze, or to +fire, or to cement--but none are taught to do all; very few are taught +to do more than one or two. How, then, can any either use rightful +liberty or observe rightful limitations? They do not know their craft, +upon which these things depend. And observe how completely also these +two things depend upon each other. You may be rightly free, _because_ +you have rightly learnt obedience; you know your limitations, and, +_therefore_, you may be trusted to think, and feel, and act for +yourself. + +This is what makes old glass, and indeed all old art, so full of life, +so full of interest, so full of enjoyment--in places, and right places, +so full even of "fun." Do you think the charming grotesques that fill up +every nook and corner sometimes in the minor detail of mediaeval glass or +carving could ever be done by the method of a "superior person" making a +drawing of them, and an inferior person laboriously translating them in +_facsimile_ into the material? They are what they are because they were +the spontaneous and allowed license and play of a craftsman who knew his +craft, and could be trusted to use it wisely, at any rate in all minor +matters. + + +THE LIMITATIONS OF STAINED-GLASS. + +The limitations of stained-glass can only be learnt at the bench, and by +years of patient practice and docile service; but it may be well to +mention some of them. + +_You must not disguise your lead line._ You must accept it willingly, as +a limitation of your craft, and make it contribute to the beauty of the +whole. + +"But I have a light to do of the 'Good Shepherd,' and I want a landscape +and sky, and how ugly lead lines look in a pale-blue sky! I get them +like shapes of cloud, and still it cuts the sky up till it looks like +'random-rubble' masonry." Therefore large spaces of pale sky are +"taboo," they will not do for glass, and you must modify your whole +outlook, your whole composition, to suit what _will_ do. If you must +have sky, it must be like a Titian sky--deep blue, with well-defined +masses of cloud--and you must throw to the winds resolutely all idea of +attempting to imitate the softness of an English sky; and even then it +must not be in a large mass: you can always break it up with +branched-work of trees, or with buildings. + +_There should be no full realism of any kind._ + +_No violent action must assert itself in a window._ + +I do not say that there must not, in any circumstances, be any violent +action--the subject may demand it; but, if so, it must be so disguised +by the craftsmanship of the work, or treated so decoratively, or so +mixed up with the background or surroundings, that you do not see a +figure in violent action starting prominently out from the window as you +stand in the church. But, after all, this is a thing of artistic sense +and discretion, and no rules can be formulated. The Parthenon frieze is +of figures in rapid movement. Yet what repose! And in stained-glass you +must aim at repose. Remember,--it is an accessory to architecture; and +who is there that does not want repose in architecture? Name me a great +building which does not possess it? How the architects must turn in +their graves, or, if living, shake in their shoes, when they see the +stained-glass man turned into their buildings, to display himself and +spread himself abroad and blow his trumpet! + +Efface yourself, my friend; sink yourself; illustrate the building; +consider its lines and lights and shades; enrich it, complete it, make +people happier to be in it. + +_There must be no craft-jugglery in stained-glass._ + +The art must set the craft simple problems; it must not set tasks that +can only be accomplished by trickery or by great effort, disproportioned +to the importance of the result. But, indeed, you will naturally get the +habit of working according to this rule, and other reasonable rules, if +you yourself work at the bench--all lies in that. + +_There must be nothing out of harmony with the architecture._ + +And, therefore, you must know something of architecture, not in order to +imitate the work of the past and try to get your own mistaken for it, +but to learn the love and reverence and joy of heart of the old +builders, so that your spirit may harmonise with theirs. + +_Do not shrink from the trouble and expense of seeing the work_ in situ, +_and then, if necessary, removing it for correction and amendment._ + +If you have a large window, or a series of windows, to do, it is often +not a very great matter to take a portion of one light at least down and +try it in its place. I have done it very often, and I can assure you it +is well worth while. + + +OF MAKING A SKETCH IN GLASS. + +But there is another thing that may help you in this matter, and that is +to sketch out the colour of your window in small pieces of glass--in +fact, to make a scale-sketch of it in glass. A scale of one inch to a +foot will do generally, but all difficult or doubtful combinations of +colour should be sketched larger--full size even--before you venture to +cut. + +_Work should be kept flat by leading._ + +One of the main _artistic_ uses of the leadwork in a window is that, if +properly used, it keeps the work flat and in one plane, and allows far +more freedom in the conduct of your picture, permitting you to use a +degree of realism and fulness of treatment greater than you could do +without it. Work may be done, where this limitation is properly accepted +and used, which would look vulgar without it; and on the other hand, the +most Byzantine rigidity may be made to look vulgar if the lead line is +misused. I have seen glass of this kind where the work was all on one +plane, and where the artist had so far grasped proper principles as to +use thick leads, but had _curved these leads in and out across the folds +of the drapery as if they followed its ridges and hollows_--the thing +becoming, with all its good-will to accept limitations, almost more +vulgar than the discredited "Munich-glass" of a few years ago, which +hated and disguised the lead lines. + +_You must step back to look at your work as often and as far as you +can._ + +_Respect your bars and lead lines, and let them be strong and many._ + +_Every bit of glass in a window should look "cared for."_ + +If there is a lot of blank space that you "don't know how to fill," be +sure your design has been too narrowly and frugally conceived. I do not +mean to say that there may not be spaces, and even large spaces, of +plain quarry-glazing, upon which your subject with its surrounding +ornament may be planted down, as a rich thing upon a plain thing. I am +thinking rather of a case where you meet with some sudden lapse or gap +in the subject itself or in its ornamental surroundings. This is apt +specially to occur where it is one which leads rather to pictorial +treatment, and where, unless you have "canopy" or "tabernacle" work, as +it is called, surrounding and framing everything, you find yourself at a +loss how to fill the space above or below. + +Very little can be said by way of general rule about this; each case +must be decided on its merits, and we cannot speak without knowing them. +But two things may be said: First, that it is well to be perfectly bold +(as long as you are perfectly sincere), and not be afraid, merely +because they are unusual, of things that you really would like to do if +the window were for yourself. There are no hard and fast rules as to +what may or may not be done, and if you are a craftsman and designer +also--as the whole purpose of this book is to tell you you must be--many +methods will suggest themselves of making your glass look interesting. +The golden rule is to handle every bit of it yourself, and then you will +_be_ interested in the ingenuity of its arrangement; the cutting of it +into little and big bits; the lacework of the leads; thickening and +thinning these also to get bold contrasts of strong and slender, of +plain and intricate; catching your pearly glass like fish, in a net of +larger or smaller mesh; for, bear in mind always that this question +relates almost entirely to the _whiter_ glasses. Colour has its own +reason for being there, and carries its own interest; but the most +valuable piece of advice that I can think of in regard to stained-glass +_treatment_ (apart from the question of subject and meaning) is to _make +your white spaces interesting_. + +The old painters felt this when they diapered their quarry-glazing and +did such grisaille work as the "Five Sisters" window at York. Every bit +of this last must have been put together and painted by a real craftsman +delighting in his work. The drawing is free and beautiful; the whole work +is like jewellery, the colour scheme delightfully varied and irregular. +The work was loved: each bit of glass was treated on its merits as it +passed through hand. Working in this way all things are lawful; you may +even put a thin film of "matt" over any piece to lower it in tone and give +it richness, or to bring out with emphasis some quality of its texture. +Some bits will have lovely streaks and swirling lines and bands in +them--"reamy," as glass-cutters call it--or groups of bubbles and spots, +making the glass like agate or pebble; and a gentle hand will rub a little +matt or film over these, and then finger it partly away to bring out its +quality, just as a jeweller foils a stone. This is quite a different thing +from smearing a window all over with dirt to make it a sham-antique; and +where it is desirable to lower the tone of any white for the sake of the +window, and where no special beauties of texture exist, it is better, I +think, to matt it and then take out simple _patterns_ from the matt: not +_outlined_ at all, but spotted and streaked in the matt itself, +chequered and petalled and thumb-marked, just as nature spots and +stripes and dapples, scatters daisies on the grass and snowflakes in the +air, and powders over with chessboard chequers and lacings and "oes and +eyes of light," the wings of butterflies and birds. + +So man has always loved to work when he has been let to choose, and when +nature has had her way. Such is the delightful art of the basket and +grass-cloth weaver of the Southern seas; of the ancient Cyprian potter, +the Scandinavian and the Celt. It never dies; and in some quiet, +merciful time of academical neglect it crops up again. Such is the, +often delightful, "builders-glazing" of the "carpenters-Gothic" period, +or earlier, when the south transept window at Canterbury, and the east +and west windows at Cirencester, and many such like, were rearranged +with old materials and new by rule of thumb and just as the glazier +"thought he would." Heaven send us nothing worse done through too much +learning! I daresay he shouldn't have done it; but as it came to him to +do, as, probably, he was ordered to do it, we may be glad he did it just +so. In the Canterbury window, for instance, no doubt much of the old +glass never belonged to that particular window; it may have been, +sinfully, brought there from windows where it did belong. At Cirencester +there are numbers of bits of canopy and so forth, delightful +fifteenth-century work, exquisitely beautiful, put in as best they could +be; no doubt from some mutilated window where the figures had been +destroyed--for, if my memory serves me, most of them have no figures +beneath--and surrounded by little chequered work, and stripes and +banding of the glaziers' own fancy. A modern restorer would have +delighted to supply sham-antique saints for them, imitating +fifteenth-century work (and deceiving nobody), and to complete the +mutilated canopies by careful matching, making the window entirely +correct and uninteresting and lifeless and accomplished and forbidding. +The very blue-bottles would be afraid to buzz against it; whereas here, +in the old church, with the flavour of sincerity and simplicity around +them, at one with the old carving and the spirit of the old time, they +glitter with fresh feeling, and hang there, new and old together, +breaking sunlight; irresponsible, absurd, and delightful. + + + + +CHAPTER XV + + A Few Little Dodges--A Clumsy Tool--A Substitute--A Glass Rack--An + Inconvenient Easel--A Convenient Easel--A Waxing-up Tool--An Easel + with Movable Plates--Making the most of a Room--Handling + Cartoons--Cleanliness--Dust--The Selvage Edge--Drying a "Badger"--A + Comment. + + +Here, now, follow some little practical hints upon work in general; mere +receipts; description of time-saving methods and apparatus which I have +separated from the former part of the book; partly because they are +mostly exceptions to the ordinary practice, and partly because they are +of general application, the common-sense of procedure, and will, I hope, +after you have learnt from the former parts of the book the individual +processes and operations, help you to marshal these, in order and +proportion, so as to use them to the greatest advantage and with the +best results. And truly our stained-glass methods are most wasteful and +bungling. The ancient Egyptians, they say, made glass, and I am sure +some of our present tools and apparatus date from the time of the +Pyramids. + + +A CLUMSY KILN-FEEDER. + +What shall we say, for instance, of this instrument (fig. 64), used for +loading some forms of kiln? + +[Illustration: FIG. 64.] + +The workman takes the ring-handle in his right hand, rests the shaft in +the crook of his left elbow, puts the fork under an iron plate loaded +with glass and weighing about forty pounds, and then, with tug and +strain, lifts it, ready to slip off and smash at any moment, and, +grunting, transfers it to the kiln. A little mechanical appliance would +save nine-tenths of the labour, a stage on wheels raised or lowered at +will (a thing which surely should not be hard to invent) would bring it +from the bench to the kiln, and _then_, if needs be, and no better +method could be found, the fork might be used to put it in. + +Meanwhile, as a temporary step in the right direction, I illustrate a +little apparatus invented by Mr. Heaton, which, with the tray made of +some lighter substance than iron, of which he has the secret, decreases +the labour by certainly one-third, and I think a half (fig. 65). + +[Illustration: FIG. 65.] + +It is indeed only a sort of half-way house to the right thing, but, +tested one against the other with equal batches of plates, its use is +certainly less laborious than that of the fork. And that is a great +gain; for the consequence of these rough ways is that the kiln-man, whom +we want to be a quiet, observant man, with plenty of leisure and with +all his strength and attention free to watch the progress of a process +or experiment, like a chemist in his laboratory, has often two-thirds of +it distracted by the stress of needless work which is only fit for a +navvy, and the only tendency of which can be towards turning him into +one. + +[Illustration: FIG. 66.] + + +A GLASS-RACK FOR WASTE PIECES. + +Then the cutter, who throws away half the stuff under his bench! How +easy it would be, if things were thought of from the beginning and the +place built for the work, to have such width of bench and space of +window that, along the latter, easily and comfortably within reach, +should run stages, tier above tier, of strong sheet or thin plate glass, +sloping at such an angle that the cuttings might lie along them against +the light, with a fillet to stop them from falling off. Then it would be +a pleasure, as all handy things are, for the workman to put his bits of +glass there, and when he wanted a piece of similar colour, to raise his +head and choose one, instead of wastefully cutting a fresh piece out of +the unbroken sheet, or wasting his time rummaging amongst the bits on +the bench. A stage on the same principle for _choosing_ glass is +illustrated in fig. 67. + +But it is in easels that improvement seems most wanted and would be most +easy, and here I really must tell you a story. + + +AN INCONVENIENT EASEL. + +Having once some very large lights to paint, against time, the friends +in whose shop I was to work (wishing to give me every advantage and to +_save time_), had had special easels made to take in the main part of +each light at once. But an "Easel," in stained-glass work, meaning +always the single slab of plate-glass in a wooden frame, these were of +that type. I forget their exact size and could hazard no guess at their +weight, but it took four men to get one from the ground on to the bench. +Why, I wanted it done a dozen times an hour! and should have wished to +be able to do it at any moment. Instead of that it was, "Now then, Bill; +ease her over!" "Steady!" "Now lift!" "All together, boys!" and so +forth. I wonder there wasn't a strike! But did no one, then, ever see in +a club or hotel a plate-glass window about as big as a billiard-table, +and a slim waiter come up to it, and, with a polite "Would you like the +window open, sir?" quietly lift it with one hand? + +[Illustration: FIG. 67.] + + +A CONVENIENT EASEL. + +Fig. 68 is a diagram of the kind of easel I would suggest. It can either +stand on the bench or on the floor, and with the touch of a hand can be +lifted, weighing often well over a hundredweight, to any height the +painter pleases, till it touches the roof, enabling him to see at any +moment the whole of his work at a distance and against the sky, which +one would rather call an absolute necessity than a mere convenience or +advantage. + +Some of these things were thought out roughly by myself, and have been +added to and improved from time to time by my painters and apprentices, +a matter which I shall say a word on by-and-by, when we consider the +relations which should exist between these and the master. + + +AN IMPROVED TOOL FOR WAXING-UP. + +Meanwhile here is another little tool (fig. 69), the invention of one of +my youngest "hands" (and heads), and really a praiseworthy invention, +though indeed a simple and self-evident matter enough. The usual tool +for waxing-up is (1) a strip of glass, (2) a penknife, (3) a stick of +wood. The thing most to be wished for in whatever is used being, of +course, that it _should retain the heat_. This youth argued: "If they +use copper for soldering-bits because it retains heat so well, why not +use copper for the waxing-up tool? besides, it can be made into a pen +which will hold more wax." + +[Illustration: FIG. 68.] + +[Illustration: FIG. 69.] + +So said, so done; nothing indeed to make a fuss about, but part of a +very wholesome spirit of wishing to work with handy tools economically, +instead of blundering and wasting. + + +AN EASEL WITH MOVABLE PLATES. + +But to return for a moment to the easel. I find it very convenient not +to have it made all of one plate of glass, but to divide it so that +about four plates make the whole easel of five feet high. These plates +slip in grooves, and can be let in either at the top or bottom, the +latter being then stopped by a batten and thumbscrews. By this means a +light of any length can be painted in sections without a break. For +supposing you work from below upwards, and have done the first five feet +of the window, take out all the glass except the top plate, _shift this +down to the bottom_, and place three empty plates above it, and you can +join the upper work to the lower by the sample of the latter left in its +place to start you. + + +HOW TO MAKE THE MOST OF A ROOM. + +The great point is to be able to get away as far as you can from your +work. And I advise you, if your room is small, to have a fair-sized +mirror (a cheval-glass) and place it at the far end of your room +opposite the easel where you are painting, and then, standing close by +the side of your easel, look at your work in the mirror. This will +double the distance at which you see it, and at the same time present it +to you reversed; which is no disadvantage, for you then see everything +under a fresh aspect and so with a fresh eye. Of course, by the use of +two mirrors, if they be large enough, you can put your work away to any +distance. You must have seen this in a restaurant where there were +mirrors, and where you have had presented to you an endless procession +of your own head, first front then back, going away into the far +distance. + + +HOW TO HANDLE CARTOONS. + +Well, it's really like insulting your intelligence! And if I hadn't seen +fellows down on their hands and knees rolling and unrolling cartoons +along the dirty floor, and sprawling all over the studio so that +everybody had to get out of the way into corners, I wouldn't spend paper +and ink to tell you that by standing the roll _upright_ and spinning it +gently round with your hands, freeing first one edge and then another, +you can easily and quietly unroll and sort out a bundle of a dozen +cartoons, each twenty feet long, on the space of a small hearth-rug; but +so it is (fig. 70), and in just the same way you can roll them up again. + + +NEATNESS AND CLEANLINESS. + +You should have drawers in the tables, and put the palettes away in +these with the colour neatly covered over with a basin when you leave +work. Dust is a great enemy in a stained-glass shop, and it must be kept +at arm's length. + + +YOU MUST TEAR OFF THE SELVAGE EDGE OF YOUR TRACING CLOTH, +otherwise the tracing cloth being all cockled at the edge, which, +however, is not very noticeable, will not lie flat, and you will be +puzzled to know why it is that you cannot get your cut-line straight; +tear off the edge, and it lies perfectly flat, without a wrinkle. + + +HOW TO DRY A BIG BRUSH OR BADGER AFTER IT IS WASHED. + +I expect you'd try to dry it in front of the fire, and there'd be a +pretty eight-shilling frizzle! But the way is this: First sweep the wet +brush downwards with all your force, just as you shake the worst of the +wet off a dripping umbrella, then take the handle of the brush _between +the palms of your hands_, with the hair pointing downwards, and rub your +hands smartly together, with the handle between them, just as an Italian +waiter whisks up the chocolate. This sends the hair all out like a +Catherine-wheel, and dries the brush with quite astonishing rapidity. +Come now! you'd never have thought of that? + +[Illustration: FIG. 70.] + + * * * * * + +And why have I reserved these hints till now? surely these are things of +the work-bench, practical matters, and would have come more conveniently +in their own place? Why have I--do you ask--after arousing your +attention to the "great principles of art," gone back again all at once +to these little matters? + +Dear reader, I have done so deliberately to emphasise the _First_ of +principles, that the right learning of any craft is the learning it +under a master, and that all else is makeshift; to drive home the lesson +insisted on in the former volumes of this series of handbooks, and +gathered into the sentence quoted as a motto on the fly-leaf of one of +them, that "An art can only be learned in the workshop of those who are +winning their bread by it." + +These little things we have just been speaking of occurred to me after +the practical part was all written; and I determined, since it happened +so, to put them by themselves, to point this very lesson. They are just +typical instances of hundreds of little matters which belong to the +bench and the workshop, and which cannot all be told in any book; and +even if told can never be so fully grasped as they would be if shown by +master to pupil. Years--centuries of practice have made them the +commonplaces of the shops; things told in a word and learnt in an +instant, yet which one might go on for a whole lifetime without thinking +of, and for lack of which our lifetime's work would suffer. + +Man's work upon earth is all like that. The things are there under his +very nose, but he never discovers them till some accident shows them; +how many centuries of sailing, think you, passed by before men knew that +the tides went with the moon? + +Why then write a book at all, since it is not the best way? + +Speaking for myself only, the reasons appear to be: First, because none +of these crafts is at present taught in its fulness in any ordinary +shop, and I would wish to give you at least a longing to learn yours in +that fulness; and, second, because it seems also very advisable to +interest the general reader in this question of the complete teaching of +the crafts to apprentices. To insist on the value and necessity of the +daily and hourly lessons that come from the constant presence, handling, +and use of all the tools and materials, all the apparatus and all the +conditions of the craft, and from the interchange of ideas amongst those +who are working, side by side, making fresh discoveries day by day as to +what materials will do under the changes that occur in conditions that +are ever changing. + +However, one must not linger further over these little matters, and it +now becomes my task to return to the great leading principles and try to +deal with them, and the first cardinal principle of stained-glass work +surely is that of COLOUR. + + + + +CHAPTER XVI + +OF COLOUR + + +But how hopeless to deal with it by way of words in a book where actual +colour cannot be shown! + +Nevertheless, let us try. + + * * * * * + +... One thinks of morning and evening; ... of clouds passing over the +sun; of the dappled glow and glitter, and of faint flushes cast from the +windows on the cathedral pavement; of pearly white, like the lining of a +shell; of purple bloom and azure haze, and grass-green and golden spots, +like the budding of the spring; of all the gaiety, the sparkle, and the +charm. + +And then, as if the evening were drawing on, comes over the memory the +picture of those graver harmonies, in the full glow of red and blue, +which go with the deep notes of the great organ, playing requiem or +evening hymn. + +Of what use is it to speak of these things? The words fall upon the ear, +but the eye is not filled. + +All stained-glass gathers itself up into this one subject; the glory of +the heavens is in it and the fulness of the earth, and we know that the +showing forth of it cannot be in words. + +Is it any use, for instance, to speak of these primroses along the +railway bank, and those silver buds of the alder in the hollow of the +copse? + +One thinks of a hint here and a hint there; the very sentences come in +fragments. Yet one thing we may say securely: that the practice of +stained-glass is a very good way to _learn_ colour, or as much of it as +can come by learning. + +For, consider:-- + +A painter has his colour-box and palette; + +And if he has a good master he may learn by degrees how to mix his +colour into harmonies; + +Doing a little first, cautiously; + +Trying the problem in one or two simple tints; learning the combinations +of these in their various degrees of lighter or darker: + +Exhausting, as much as he can, the possibilities of one or two pigments, +and then adding another and another; + +But always with a very limited number of actual separate ones to draw +upon; + +All the infinity of the whole world of colour being in his own hands, +and the difficulty of dealing with it laid as a burden upon his own +shoulders, as he combines, modifies, mixes, and dilutes them. + +He perhaps has eight or ten spots of pure colour, ranged round his +palette; and all the rest depends upon himself. + +This gives him, indeed, one side of the practice of his art; and if he +walks warily, yet daringly, step by step, learning day by day something +more of the powers that lie in each single kind of paint, and as he +learns it applying his knowledge, bravely and industriously, to add +strength to strength, brightness to brightness, richness to richness, +depth to depth, in ever clearer, fuller, and more gorgeous harmony, he +may indeed become a great painter. + +But a more timid or indolent man gets tired or afraid of putting the +clear, sharp tints side by side to make new combinations of pure and +vivid colour. + +And even a man industrious, alert, and determined may lose his way and +get confused amongst the infinity of choice, through being badly taught, +and especially through being allowed at first too great a range, too +wide a choice, too lavish riches. + +A man so trained, so situated, so tempted, stands in danger of being +contented to repeat old receipts and formulas over and over, as soon as +he has acquired the knowledge of a few. + +Or, bewildered with the lavishness of his means and confused in his +choice, tends to fall into indecision, and to smear and dilute and +weaken. + +I cannot help thinking that it is to this want of a system of gradual +teaching of the elementary stages of colour in painting that we owe, on +the one side, the fashion of calling irresolute and undecided tints +"art" colours; and, on the other hand, the garishness of our modern +exhibitions compared with galleries of old paintings. For Titian's +burning scarlet and crimson and palpitating blue; and Veronese's gold +and green and white and rose are certainly not "art colours"; and I +think we must feel the justice and truth of Ruskin's words spoken +regarding a picture of Linnell's:-- + +"And what a relief it is for any wholesome human sight, after sickening +itself among the blank horror of dirt, ditchwater, and malaria, which +the imitators of the French schools have begrimed our various Exhibition +walls with, to find once more a bit of blue in the sky and a glow of +brown in the coppice, and to see that Hoppers in Kent can enjoy their +scarlet and purple--like Empresses and Emperors." (Ruskin, "Royal +Academy Notes," 1875.) + +From this irresolution and indecision and the dull-colour school +begotten of it on the one hand, and from garishness on the other, +stained-glass is a great means of salvation; for in practising this art +the absolute judgment must, day by day, be exercised between this and +that colour, there present before it; and the will is braced by the +necessity of constant choice and decision. In short, by many of the +modern, academical methods of teaching painting, and especially by the +unfortunate arrangement, where it exists, of a pupil passing under a +succession of different masters, I fear the colour-sense is perplexed +and blunted; while by stained-glass, taught, as all art should be, from +master to apprentice, while both make their bread by it, the +colour-sense would be gradually and steadily cultivated and would have +time to grow. + +This at least seems certain: that all painters who have also done +stained-glass, or indeed any other decorative work in colour, get +stronger and braver in painting from its practice. So worked Titian, +Giorgione, Veronese; and so in our days worked Burne-Jones, Rossetti, +Madox-Brown, Morris; and if I were to advise and prate about what is, +perhaps, not my proper business, I would say, even to the student of +oil-painting, "Begin with burnt-umber, trying it in every degree with +white; transparent over opaque and opaque over transparent; trying how +near you can get to purple and orange by contrast (and you will get +nearer than you think); then add sienna at one end and black at the +other to enlarge the range;--and then get a set of glass samples." + +I have said that stained-glass is "a great means of salvation," from +irresolution and indecision on the one hand and from garishness on the +other; but it is only a means--the fact of salvation lies always in +one's own hands--for we must, I fear, admit that "garishness" and +"irresolution" are not unknown in stained-glass itself, in spite of the +resources and safeguardings we have attributed to the material. +Speaking, therefore, now to stained-glass painters themselves, we might +say that these faults in their own art, as too often practised in our +days, arise, strange as it may seem, from ignorance of their own +material, that very material the _knowledge_ of which we have just been +recommending as a safeguard against these very faults to the students of +another art. + +And this brings us back to our subject. + +For the foregoing discussion of painters' methods has all been written +to draw a comparison and emphasise a contrast. + +A contrast from which you, student of stained-glass, I hope may learn +much. + +For as we have tried to describe the methods of the painter in oil or +water colours, and so point out his advantages and disadvantages, so we +would now draw a picture of the glass-painter at work; if he works as he +should do. + +For the painter of pictures (we said) has his colour-box of a few +pigments, from which all his harmonies must come by mixing them and +diluting them in various proportions, dealing with infinity out of a +very limited range of materials, and required to supply all the rest by +his own skill and memory. + +Coming each day to his work with his palette clean and his colours in +their tubes; + +Beginning, as it were, all over again each time; and perhaps with his +heart cold and his memory dull. + +But the glass-painter has his specimens of glass round him; some +hundreds, perhaps, of all possible tints. + +He has, with these, to compose a subject in colour; + +There is no getting out of it or shirking it; + +He places the bits side by side, with no possibility (which the palette +gives) of slurring or diluting or dulling them; he must choose from the +clear hard tints; + +And he has the whole problem before him; + +He removes one and substitutes another; + +"This looks better;" "That is a pleasant harmony;" "Ah! but this makes +it sing!" + +He gets them into groups, and combines them into harmonies, tint with +tint, group with group: + +If he is wise he has them always by him; + +Always ready to arrange in a movable frame against the window; + +He cuts little bits of each; he waxes them, or gums them, into groups on +sheets of glass; + +He tries all his effects in the glass itself; he sketches in glass. + +If he is wise he does this side by side with his water-colour sketch, +making each help the other, and thinking in glass; even perhaps making +his water-colour sketch afterwards from the glass. + +Is it not reasonable? + +Is it not far more easy, less dangerous? + +He has not to rake in his cold and meagre memory to fish out some poor +handful of all the possible harmonies; + +To repeat himself over and over again. + +He has all the colours burning round him; singing to him to use them; +sounding all their chords. + +Is it not the way? Is it not common sense? + +Tints! pure tints! What great things they are. + +I remember an old joke of the pleasant Du Maurier, a drawing +representing two fashionable ladies discussing the afternoon's +occupation. One says: "It's quite too dull to see colours at Madame St. +Aldegonde's; suppose we go to the Old Masters' Exhibition!" + +Rather too bad! but the ladies were not so altogether frivolous as might +at first appear. I am afraid _Punch_ meant that they were triflers who +looked upon colour in dress as important, and colour in pictures as a +thing which would do for a dull day. But they were not quite so far +astray as this! There are other things in pictures besides colour which +can be seen with indifferent light. But to match clear tint against +clear tint, and put together harmonies, there is no getting away from +the problem! It is all sheer, hard exercise; you want all your light for +it; there is no slurring or diluting, no "glazing" or "scumbling," and +it should form a part of the teaching, and yet it never does so, in our +academies and schools of art. A curious matter this is, that a painter's +training leaves this great resource of knowledge neglected, leaves the +whole thing to memory. Out of all the infinite possible harmonies only +getting what rise in the mind at the moment from the unseen. While +ladies who want to dress beautifully look at the things themselves, and +compare one with another. And how nicely they dress. If only painters +painted half as well. If the pictures in our galleries only looked half +as harmonious as the crowd of spectators below them! I would have it +part of every painter's training to practise some craft, or at least +that branch of some craft, which compels the choosing and arranging, in +due proportions for harmony, of clear, sharp glowing colours in some +definite material, from a full and lavish range of existing samples. It +is true that here and there a painter will arise who has by nature that +kind of instinct or memory, or whatever it is, that seems to feel +harmonies beforehand, note by note, and add them to one another with +infallible accuracy; but very few possess this, and for those who lack I +am urging this training. For it is a case of + + "the little more and how much it is, + And the little less and what worlds away." + +Millais hung a daring crimson sash over the creamy-white bed-quilt, in +the glow of the subdued night-lamp, in his picture of "Asleep," and we +all thought what a fine thing it was. But we have not thought it so fine +for the whole art world to burst into the subsequent imitative paroxysm +of crashing discords in chalk, lip-salve, and skim-milk, which has +lasted almost to this day. + +At any rate, I throw out this hint for pupils and students, that if they +will get a set of glass samples and try combinations of colour in them, +they will have a bracing and guiding influence, the strength of which +they little dream of, regarding one of the hardest problems of their +art. + +This for the student of painting in general: but for the glass-painter +it is absolutely essential--the central point, the breath-of-life of his +art. + +To live in it daily and all day. + +To be ever dealing with it thus. + +To handle with the hands constantly. + +To try this piece, and that piece, the little more and the little less. + +This is the be-all and end-all, the beginning and the end of the whole +matter, and here therefore follow a few hints with regard to it. + +And there is one rule of such dominating importance that all other hints +group themselves round it; and yet, strangely enough, I cannot remember +seeing it anywhere written down. + +Take three tints of glass--a purple, let us say, a crimson, and a green. + +Let it be supposed that, for some reason, you desire that this should +form a scheme of colour for a window, or part of a window, with, of +course, in addition, pure white, and probably some tints more neutral, +greenish-whites and olives or greys, for background. + +You choose your purple (and, by-the-bye, almost the only way to get a +satisfactory one, except by a happy accident now and then, is to double +gold-pink with blue; this is the only way to get a purple that will +vibrate, palpitating against the eye like the petal of a pansy in the +sun). Well, you get your purple, and you get your green--not a +sage-green, or an "art-green," but a cold, sharp green, like a leaf of +parsley, an aquamarine, the tree in the "Eve" window at Fairford, grass +in an orchard about sunset, or a railway-signal lamp at night. + +Your crimson like a peony, your white like white silk; and now you are +started. + +You put slabs of these--equal-sized samples, we will suppose--side by +side, and see "if they will do." + +And they don't "do" at all. + +Take away the red. + +The green and the purple do well enough, and the white. + +But you _want_ the red, you say. + +Well, _put back a tenth part of it_. + +And how now? + +Add a still smaller bit of pale pink. + +And how now? + +Do you see what it all means? It means the rule we spoke of, and which +we may as well, therefore, now announce: + +"HARMONY IN COLOUR DEPENDS NOT ONLY UPON THE ARRANGING OF RIGHT COLOURS +TOGETHER, BUT THE ARRANGING OF THE RIGHT QUANTITIES AND THE RIGHT +DEGREES OF THEM TOGETHER." + +To which may be added another, _a propos_ of our bit of "pale pink." + +THE HARSHEST CONTRASTS, EVEN DISCORDS, MAY OFTEN BE BROUGHT INTO HARMONY +BY ADDED NOTES. + +I believe that these are the two, and I would even almost say the only +two, great leading principles of the science of colour, as used in the +service of Art; and we might learn them, in all their fulness, in a +country walk, if we were simple enough to like things because we like +them, and let the kind nurse, Nature, take us by the hand. This very +problem, to wit: Did you never see a purple anemone? against its green +leaves? with a white centre? and with a thin ring of crimson shaded off +into pink? And did you never wonder at its beauty, and wonder how so +simple a thing could strike you almost breathless with pure physical +delight and pleasure? No doubt you did; but you probably may not have +asked yourself whether you would have been equally pleased if the +purple, green, and red had all been equal in quantity, and the pale pink +omitted. + +I remember especially in one particular window where this colour scheme +was adopted--an "Anemone-coloured" window--the modification of the one +splash of red by the introduction of a lighter pink which suggested +itself in the course of work as it went along, and was the pet fancy of +an assistant--readily accepted. + +The window in question is small and in nowise remarkable, but it was in +the course of a ride taken to see it in its place, on one of those +glorious mornings when Spring puts on all the pageantry of Summer, that +the thoughts with which we are now dealing, and especially the thoughts +of the infinite suggestion which Nature gives in untouched country and +of the need we have to drink often at that fountain, were borne in upon +the writer with more than usual force. + +To take in fully and often the glowing life and strength and renewal +direct from Nature is part of every man's proper manhood, still more +then of every artist's artistry and student's studentship. + +And truly 'tis no great hardship to go out to meet the salutary +discipline when the country is beautiful in mid-April, and the road good +and the sun pleasant. The Spring air sets the blood racing as you ride, +and when you stop and stand for a moment to enjoy these things, +ankle-deep in roadside grass, you can seem to hear the healthy pulses +beating and see the wavy line of hills beating with them, as you look at +the sun-warmed world. + +It is good sometimes to think where we are in the scheme of things, to +realise that we are under the bell-glass of this balmy air, which shuts +us in, safe from the pitch-dark spaces of infinite cold, through which +the world is sweeping at eighteen miles a second; while we, with all our +little problems to solve and work to do, are riding warm by this +fireside, and the orange-tip butterflies with that curious pertinacity +of flight which is speed without haste are keeping up their incessant, +rippling patrol, to and fro along the length of every sunny lane, above +the ditch-side border of white-blossomed keck! + +What has all this to do with stained-glass? + +Everything, my boy! Be a human! For you have got to choose your place in +things, and to choose on which side you will work. + +A choice which, in these days, more than ever perhaps before, is one +between such things as these and the money-getting which cares so little +for them. I have tried to show you one side by speaking of a little part +of what may be seen and felt on a spring morning, along a ridge of +untouched hills in "pleasant Hertfordshire:"[1] if you want to see the +other side of things ride across to Buntingford, and take the train back +up the Lea Valley. Look at Stratford (and smell it) and imagine it +spreading, as no doubt it will, where its outposts of oil-mill and +factory have already led the way, and think of the valley full up with +slums, from Lea Bridge to Ponders End! For the present writer can +remember--and that not half a lifetime back--Edmonton and Tottenham, +Brondesbury and Upton Park, sweet country villages where quiet people +lived and farmed and gardened amidst the orchards, fields, and hawthorn +lanes. + +Here now live, in mile after mile of jerry-building, the "hands" who, +never taught any craft or work worthy of a man, spend their lives in +some little single operation that, as it happens, no machine has yet +been invented to perform; month after month, year after year, painting, +let us say, endless repeats of one pattern to use as they are required for +the borders of pious windows in the churches of this land. + +This is the "other side of things," much commended by what is looked on +as "robust common sense"; and with this you have--nothing to do. Your +place is elsewhere, and if it needs be that it seems an isolated one, +you must bear it and accept it. Nature and your craft will solve all; +live in them, bathe in them to the lips; and let nothing tempt you away +from them to measure things by the standard of the mart. + +Let us go back to our sunny hillside. "It is good for us to be here," +for this also is Holy Ground; and you must indeed be much amongst such +things if you would do stained-glass, for you will never learn all the +joy of it in a dusty shop. + +"So hard to get out of London?" + +But get a bicycle then;--only sit upright on it and go slow--and get +away from these bricks and mortar, to where we can see things like +these! those dandelions and daisies against the deep, green grass; the +blazing candles of the sycamore buds against the purple haze of the oak +copse; and those willows like puffs of grey smoke where the stream +winds. Did you ever? No, you never! Well--do it then! + +But indeed, having stated our _principles_ of colour, the practice of +those principles and the influence of nature and of nature's hints upon +that practice are infinite, both in number and variety. The flowers of +the field and garden; butterflies, birds, and shells; the pebbles of the +shore; above all, the dry seaweeds, lying there, with the evening sun +slanting through them. These last are exceedingly like both in colour +and texture, or rather in colour and the amount of translucency, to fine +old stained-glass; so also are dead leaves. But, in short, the thing is +endless. The "wine when it is red" (or amber, as the case may be), even +the whisky and water, and whisky _without_ water, side by side, make +just those straw and ripe-corn coloured golden-yellows that are so hard +to attain in stained-glass (impossible indeed by means of yellow-stain), +and yet so much to be desired and sought after. + +Will you have more hints still? Well, there are many tropical +butterflies, chiefly among the _Pierinf_, with broad spaces of yellow +dashed with one small spot or flush of vivid orange or red. Now you know +how terrible yellow and red may be made to look in a window; for you +have seen "ruby" robes in conjunction with "yellow-stain," or the still +more horrible combination where ruby has been acided off from a yellow +base. But it is a question of the actual quality of the two tints and +also of their quantity. What I have spoken of looks horrible because the +yellow is of a brassy tone, as stain so often is, especially on +green-white glasses, and the red inclining to puce--jam-colour. It is no +use talking, therefore, of "red and yellow"--we must say _what_ red and +_what_ yellow, and how much of each. A magenta-coloured dahlia and a +lemon put together would set, I should think, any teeth on edge; yet +ripe corn goes well with poppies, but not too many poppies--while if one +wing of our butterfly were of its present yellow and the other wing of +the same scarlet as the spot, it would be an ugly object instead of one +of the delights of God. It is interesting, it is fascinating to take the +hint from such things--to splash the golden wings of your Resurrection +Angel as he rolls away the stone with scarlet beads of sunrise, not seen +but _felt_ from where you stand on the pavement below. I want the reader +to fully grasp this question of _quantity_, so I will instance the +flower of the mullein which contains almost the very tints of the +"lemon," and the "dahlia" I quoted, and yet is beautiful by virtue of +its _quantities_: which may be said to be of a "lemon" yellow and yet +can bear (ay! can it _not_?) the little crimson stamens in the heart of +it and its sage-green leaves around. + +And there is even something besides "tint" and "quantity." The way you +_distribute_ your colour matters very much. Some in washes, some in +splashes, some in spots, some in stripes. What will "not do" in one way +will often be just right in the other: yes, and the very way you treat +your glass when all is chosen and placed together--matt in one place, +film in another, chequering, cross-hatching, clothing the raw glass with +texture and bringing out its nature and its life. + +Do not be afraid; for the things that yet remain to do are numberless. +Do you like the look of deep vivid vermilion-red, upon dark cold green? +Look at the hip-loaded rose-briar burning in the last rays of a red +October sunset! You get physical pleasure from the sight; the eye seems +to vibrate to the harmony as the ear enjoys a chord struck upon the +strings. Therefore do not fear. But mind, it must be in nature's actual +colour, not merely "green" and "red": for I once saw the head of a +celebrated tragic actress painted by a Dutch artist who, to make it as +deathly as he could, had placed the ashen face upon a background of +emerald-green with spots of actual red sealing-wax. The eye was so +affected that the colours swung to and fro, producing in a short time a +nausea like sea-sickness. That is not pleasure. + +The training of the colour-sense, like all else, should be gradual; +springing as it were from small seed. Be reticent, try small things +first. You are not likely to be asked to do a great window all at once, +even if you have the misfortune to be an independent artist approaching +this new art without a gradual training under the service of others. Try +some simple scheme from the things of Nature. Hyacinths look well with +their leaves: therefore _that_ green and _that_ blue, with the white of +April clouds and the black of the tree-stems in the wood are colours that +can be used together. + +You must be prepared to find almost a sort of penalty in this habit of +looking at everything with the eye of a stained-glass artist. One seems +after a time to see natural objects with numbers attached to them +corresponding with the numbers of one's glasses in the racks: +butterflies flying about labelled "No. 50, deep," or "75_a_, pale," or a +bit of "123, special streaky" in the sunset. But if one does not obtrude +this so as to bore one's friends, the little personal discomfort, if it +exists, is a very small price to pay for the delight of living in this +glorious fairyland of colour. + +Do not think it beneath your dignity or as if you were shirking some +vital artistic obligation, to take hints from these natural objects, or +from ancient or modern glass, in a perfectly frank and simple manner; +nay, even to match your whole colour scheme, tint for tint, by them if +it seems well to you. You may get help anywhere and from anything, and +as much as you like; it will only be so much more chance for you; so +much richer a store to choose from, so much stronger resource to guide +to good end; for after all, with all the helps you can get, much lies in +the doing. Do what you like then--as a child: but be sure you _do_ like +it: and if the window wants a bit of any particular tint, put it there, +meaning or no meaning. If there is no robe or other feature to excuse +and account for it in the spot which seems to crave for it,--put the +colour in, anywhere and anyhow--in the background if need be--a sudden +orange or ruby "quarry" or bit of a quarry, as if the thing were done in +purest waywardness. "You would like a bit there if there were an excuse +for it?" Then there _is_ an excuse--the best of all--that the eye +demands it. Do it fearlessly. + +But to work in this way (it hardly need be said) you must watch and work +at your glass yourself; for these hints come late on in the work, when +colour, light and shade, and design are all fusing together into a +harmony. You can no more forecast these final accidents, which are the +flower and crown and finish of the whole, than you could forecast the +lost "Chord";-- + + "Which came from the soul of the organ, + And entered into mine." + +It "comes from the soul" of the window. + +We all know the feeling--the climaxes, exceptions, surprises, +suspensions, in which harmony delights; the change from the last bar of +the overture to the first of the opening recitative in the "Messiah," +the chord upon which the victor is crowned in "The Meistersingers," the +59th and 60th bars in Handel's "Every Valley." (I hope some of us are +"old-fashioned" enough to be unashamed of still believing in Handel!) + +Or if it may be said that these are hardly examples of the kind of +accidental things I have spoken of, being rather, indeed, the +deliberately arranged climax to which the whole construction has been +leading, I would instance the 12th (complete) bar in the overture to +"Tannhduser," the 20th and 22nd bar in Chopin's Funeral March, the +change from the minor to major in Schubert's Romance from "Rosamunde," +and the 24th bar in his Serenade (_Staendchen_), the 13th and following +bars of the Crescendo in the Largo Appassionato of Beethoven's Op. 2. Or +if you wish to have an example where _all_ is exception, like one of the +south nave windows in York Minster, the opening of the "Sonata +Appassionata," Op. 57. + +Now how can you forecast such things as these! + +Let me draw another instance from actual practice. I was once painting a +figure of a bishop in what I meant to be a dark green robe, the kind of +black, and yet vivid, green of the summer leafage of the oak; for it was +St. Boniface who cut down the heathen oak of Frisia. But the orphreys of +his cope were to be embroidered in gold upon this green, and therefore +the pattern had first to be added out in white upon a blue-flashed +glass, which yellow stain over all would afterwards turn into green and +gold. And when all was prepared and the staining should have followed, +my head man sent for me to come to the shop, and there hung the figure +with its dark green robe with orphreys of _deep blue_ and _silver_. + +"I thought you'd like to look at it before we stained it," said he. + +"STAIN IT!" I said. "I wouldn't touch it; not for sixpence +three-farthings!" + +There was a sigh of relief all round the shop, and the reply was, "Well, +so we all thought!" + +Just so; therefore the figure remained, and so was erected in its place. +Now suppose I had had men who did what they were told, instead of being +encouraged to think and feel and suggest? + +A serious word to you about this question of staining. It is a resource +very easily open to abuse--to excess. Be careful of the danger, and +never stain without first trying the effect on the back of the +easel-plate with pure gamboge, and if you wish for a very clear +orange-stain, mix with the gamboge a little ordinary red ink. It is too +much the custom to "pick out" every bit of silver "canopy" work with +dottings and stripings of yellow. A _little_ sometimes warms up +pleasantly what would be too cold--and the old men used it with effect: +but the modern tendency, as is the case in all things merely imitative, +is to overdo it. For the old men used it very differently from those who +copy them in the way I am speaking of, and, to begin with, used it +chiefly on _pure white glass_. Much modern canopy work is done on +greenish-white, upon which the stain immediately becomes that +greenish-yellow that I have called "brassy." A little of this can be +borne, when side by side with it is placed stain upon pure white. The +reader will easily find, if he looks for them, plenty of examples in old +glass, where the stain upon the white glass has taken even a _rosy_ +tinge exactly like that of a yellow crocus seen through its white +sheath. It is perhaps owing partly to patina on the old glass, which +"scumbles" it; but I have myself sometimes succeeded in getting the same +effect by using yellow-stain on pure white glass. A whole window, where +the highest light is a greenish white, is to me very unpleasant, and +when in addition yellow-stain is used, unbearable. This became a fashion +in stained-glass when red-lead-coloured pigments, started by Barff's +formula, came into general use. They could not be used on pure white +glass, and therefore pure white glass was discarded and greenish-white +used instead. I can only say that if the practice of stained-glass were +presented to me with this condition--of abstaining from the use of pure +white--I would try to learn some useful trade. + +There is another question of ideals in the treatment of colour in +stained-glass about which a word must be said. + +Those who are enthusiastic about the material of stained-glass and its +improvement are apt to condemn the degree of heaviness with which +windows are ordinarily painted, and this to some extent is a just +criticism. But I cannot go the length of thinking that all matt-painting +should be avoided, and outline only used; or that stained-glass material +can, except under very unusual conditions and in exceptional situations, +be independent of this resource. As to the +slab-glasses--"Early-English," "Norman," or "stamped-circles"--which are +chiefly affected by this question, the texture and surface upon which +their special character depends is sometimes a very useful resource in +work seen against, or partly against, background of trees or buildings; +while against an entirely "borrowed" light perhaps, sometimes, it can +almost dispense with any painting. The grey shadows that come from the +background play about in the glass and modify its tones, doing the work +of painting, and doing it much more beautifully. But this advantage +cannot always be had, for it vanishes against clear sky. It is all, +therefore, a question of situation and of aspect, and I believe the +right rule to be to do in all cases what seems best for every individual +bit of glass--that each piece should be "cared for" on its merits and +"nursed," so to speak, and its qualities brought out and its beauty +heightened by any and every means, just as if it were a jewel to be cut +(or left uncut) or foiled (or left unfoiled)--as Benvenuto Cellini would +treat, as he tells you he _did_ treat, precious stones. There is a +fashion now of thinking that gems should be uncut. Well, gems are hardly +a fair comparison in discussing stained-glass; for in glass what we aim +at is the effect of a composition and combination of a multitude of +things, while gems are individual things, for the most part, to be +looked at separately. But I would not lay down a rule even about gems. +Certainly the universal, awkward, faceting of all precious stones--which +is a relic of the mid-Victorian period--is a vulgarity that one is glad +to be rid of; but if one _wants_ for any reason the special sparkle, +here or there, which comes from it, why not use it? I would use it in +_stained-glass_--have done so. If I have got my window already brilliant +and the whites pure white, and still want, over and above all this, my +"Star of the Nativity," let us say, to sparkle out with a light that +cannot be its own, shall I not use a faceted "jewel" of glass, forty +feet from the eye, where none can see what it is but only what it does, +just because it would be a gross vulgarity to use it where it would +pretend to be a diamond? + +The safe guide (as far as there can be a _guide_ where I have maintained +that there should not be a _rule_) is, surely, to generally get the +depth of colour that you want by the glass itself, _if you can_, and +therefore with that aim to deal with rich, full-coloured glass and to +promote its manufacture. But this being once done and the resource +carried to its full limit, there is no reason why you should deny +yourself the further resource of touching it with pigment to any extent +that may seem fit to you as an artist, and necessary to get the effect +of colour and texture that you are aiming at, in the thing seen as a +whole. As to the exaggeration of making accidental streaks in the glass +do duty for folds of drapery, and manufacturing glass (as has been done) +to meet this purpose, I hold the thing to be a gross degradation and an +entire misconception of the relation of materials to art. You may also +lay this to mind, as a thing worthy of consideration, that all old glass +was painted, and that no school of stained-glass has ever existed which +made a principle of refusing this aid. I would never argue from this that +such cannot exist, but it is a thing to be thought on. + +Throw your net, then, into every sea, and catch what you can. Learn what +purple is, in the north ambulatory at York; what green is, in the east +window of the same, in the ante-chapel of New College, Oxford, and in +the "Adam and Eve" window in the north aisle at Fairford; what blue and +red are, in the glorious east window of the nave at Gloucester, and in +the glow and gloom of Chartres and Canterbury and King's College, +Cambridge. And when you have got all these things in your mind, and +gathered lavishly in the field of Nature also, face your problem with a +heart heated through with the memory of them all, and with a will braced +as to a great and arduous task, but one of rich reward. For remember +this (and so let us draw to an end), that in any large window the spaces +are so great and the problems so numerous that a _few_ colours and +groupings of colour, however well chosen, will not suffice. Set out the +main scheme of colours first: those that shall lead and preponderate and +convey your meaning to the mind and your intended impression to the eye. +But if you stop here, the effect will be hard and coarse and +cold-hearted in its harmonies, a lot of banging notes like a band all +brass, not out of tune perhaps, but craving for the infinite embroidery +of the strings and wood. + +When, therefore, the main relations of colour have been all set out and +decided for your window, turn your attention to _small_ differences, to +harmonies _round_ the harmonies. Make each note into a chord, each tint +into a group of tints, not only the strong and bold, but also the subtle +and tender; do not miss the value of small modifications of tint that +soften brilliance into glow. Study how Nature does it on the petals of +the pansy or sweet-pea. You think a pansy is purple, and there an end? +but cut out the pale yellow band, the orange central spot, the faint +lilacs and whites in between, and where is your pansy gone? + + * * * * * + +And here I must now leave it to you. But one last little hint, and do +not smile at its simplicity. + +For the problem, after all, when you have gathered all the hints you can +from nature or the past, and collected your resources from however +varied fields, resolves itself at last into one question--"_How shall I +do it in glass?_" And the practical solving of this problem is in the +handling of the actual bits of coloured glass which are the tools of +your craft. And for manipulating these I have found nothing so good as +that old-fashioned toy--still my own delight when a sick-bed enforces +idleness--the kaleidoscope. A sixpenny one, pulled to pieces, will give +you the knowledge of how to make it; and you will find a "Bath-Oliver" +biscuit-tin, or a large-sized millboard "postal-roll" will make an +excellent instrument. But the former is best, because you also then have +the lid and the end. If you cut away all the end of the lid except a rim +of one-eighth of an inch, and insert in its place with cement a piece of +ground-glass, and then, inside this, have another lid of clear glass +cemented on to a rim of wood or millboard, you can, in the space between +the two, place chips of the glasses you think of using; and, replacing +the whole on the instrument, a few minutes of turning with the hand will +give you, not hundreds, but thousand of changes, both of the +arrangement, and, what is far more important, of the _proportions_ of +the various colours. You can thus in a few moments watch them pass +through an almost infinite succession of changes in their relation to +each other, and form your judgment on those changes, choosing finally +that which seems best. And I really think that the fact of these +combinations being presented to us, as they are by the action of the +instrument, arranged in ordered shapes, is a help to the judgment in +deciding on the harmonies of colour. It is natural that it should be so. +"Order is Heaven's first law." And it is right that we should rejoice in +things ordered and arranged, as the savage in his string of beads, and +reasonable that we should find it easier to judge them in order rather +than confused. + +Each in his place. How good a thing it is! how much to be desired! how +well if we ourselves could be so, and know of the pattern that we make! +For our lives are like the broken bits of glass, sadly or brightly +coloured, jostled about and shaken hither and thither, in a seeming +confusion, which yet we hope is somewhere held up to a light in which +each one meets with his own, and holds his place; and, to the Eye that +watches, plays his part in a universal harmony by us, as yet, unseen. + +[1] West of the road between Welwyn and Hitchin. + + + + +CHAPTER XVII + +OF ARCHITECTURAL FITNESS + + +Come, in thought, reader, and stand in quiet village churches, nestling +amongst trees where rooks are building; or in gaps of the chalk downs, +where the village shelters from the wind; or in stately cathedrals, +where the aisles echo to the footstep and the sound of the chimes comes +down, with the memory of the centuries which have lived and died. Here +the old artists set their handmark to live now they are gone, and we who +see it today see, if our eye be single, with what sincerity they built, +carved, or painted their heart and life into these stones. In such a +spirit and for such a memorial you too must do your work, to be weighed +by the judgment of the coming ages, when you in turn are gone, in the +same balance as theirs--perhaps even side by side with it. + +And will you dare to venture? Have no fear if you also bring your best. +But if we enter on work like this as to a mere market for our wares, and +with no other thought than to make a brisk business with those that buy +and sell; we well may pray that some merciful scourge of small cords +drive us also hence to dig or beg (which is more honourable), lest worse +befall us! + +And I do not say these things because this or that place is "God's +house." All places are so, and the first that was called so was the bare +hillside; but because you are a man and have indeed here arrived, as +there the lonely traveller did, at the arena of your wrestling. But, +granted that you mean to hold your own and put your strength into it, I +have brought you to these grave walls to consult with them as to the +limits they impose upon your working. + +And perhaps the most important of all is already observed by your +_being_ here, for it is important that you should visit, whenever +possible, the place where you are to do work; if you are not able to do +this, get all the particulars you can as to aspect and surroundings. And +yet a reservation must be made, even upon all this; for everything +depends upon the way we use it, and if you only have an eye to the +showing off of your work to advantage, treating the church as a mere +frame for your picture, it would be better that your window should +misfit and have to be cut down and altered, or anything else happen to +it that would help to put it back and make it take second place. It is +so hard to explain these things so that they cannot be misconstrued; but +you remember I quoted the windows at St. Philip's, Birmingham, as an +example of noble thought and work carried to the pitch of perfection and +design. But that was in a classic building, with large, plain, single +openings without tracery. Do you think the artist would have let himself +go, in that full and ample way, in a beautiful Gothic building full of +lovely architectural detail? Not so: rather would he have made his +pictures hang lightly and daintily in the air amongst the slender +shafts, as in St. Martin's Church in the same town, at Jesus College and +at All Saints' Church, Cambridge, at Tamworth; and in Lyndhurst, and +many another church where the architecture, to say truth, had but +slender claims to such respect. + + * * * * * + +In short, you must think of the building first, and make your windows +help it. You must observe its scale and the spacing and proportions of +its style, and place your own work, with whatever new feeling and new +detail may be natural to you, well within those circumscribing bounds. + +But here we find ourselves suddenly brought sharp up, face to face with +a most difficult and thorny subject, upon which we have rushed without +knowing it. "Must we observe then" (you say) "the style of the building +into which we put our work, and not have a style of our own that is +native to us?" + +"This is contrary to all you have been preaching! The old men did not +so. Did they not add the fancies of their own time to the old work, and +fill with their dainty, branching tracery the severe, round-headed, +Norman openings of Peterborough and Gloucester? Did fifteenth-century +men do thirteenth-century glass when they had to refill a window of that +date?" No. Nor must you. Never imitate, but graft your own work on to +the old, reverently, and only changing from it so far forth as you, like +itself, have also a living tradition, springing from mastery of +craft--naturally, spontaneously, and inevitably. + +Whether we shall ever again have such a tradition running throughout all +the arts is a thing that cannot possibly be foretold. But three things +we may be quite sure of. + +First, that if it comes it will not be by way of any imitative revival +of a past style; + +Second, that it will be in harmony with the principles of Nature; and + +Third, that it will be founded upon the crafts, and brought about by +craftsmen working in it with their own hands, on the materials of +architecture, designing only what they themselves can execute, and +giving employment to others only in what they themselves can do. + +A word about each of these three conditions. + +In the course of the various attempted revivals in architecture that +have taken place during the past sixty years, it has been frequently +urged both by writers and architects that we should agree to revive some +_one_ style of ancient art that might again become a national style of +architecture. It would, indeed, no doubt be better, if we must speak in +a dead language, to agree to use only one, instead of our present +confusion of tongues: but what, after all, is the adopting of this +principle at all but to engage once again in the replanting of a +full-grown tree--the mistake of the Renaissance and the Gothic revival +repeated? Such things never take firm root or establish healthy growth +which lives and goes on of its own vitality. They never succeed in +obtaining a natural, national sympathy and acceptance. The movement is a +scholarly and academic one, and the art so remains. The reaction against +it is always a return to materials, and almost always the first result +of this is a revival of simplicity. People get tired of being surrounded +with elaborate mouldings and traceries and other architectural features, +which are not the natural growth of their own day but of another day +long since dead, which had other thoughts and moods, feelings and +aspirations. "Let us have straightforward masonry and simple openings, +and ornament them with something from Nature." + +So in the very midst of the pampered and enervated over-refinement of +Roman decay, Constantine did something more than merely turn the +conquering eagle back, against the course of the heavens, for which +Dante seems to blame him,[2] when he established his capital at +Byzantium; for there at once upon the new soil, and in less than a +single century, sprang to life again all the natural modes of building +and decoration that, despised as barbaric, had been ignored and +forgotten amid the Roman luxury and sham. + +It is a curious feature of these latest days of ours that this searching +after sincerity should seem to be leading us towards a similar revival; +taking even very much the same forms. We went back, at the time of the +Gothic revival, to the forgotten Gothic art of stained-glass; now tired, +as it would seem, of the insincerity and mere spirit of imitation with +which it and similar arts have been practised, a number of us appear to +be ready to throw it aside, along with scholarly mouldings and +traceries, and build our arts afresh out of the ground, as was done by +the Byzantines, with plain brickwork, mosaic, and matched slabs of +marble. Definite examples in recent architecture will occur to the +reader. But I am thinking less of these--which for the most part are +deliberate and scholastic revivals of a particular style, founded on the +study of previous examples and executed on rigid academic methods--than +of what appears to be a widespread awakening to principles of +simplicity, sincerity, and common sense in the arts of building +generally. Signs are not wanting of a revived interest in building--a +revived interest in materials for their own sake, and a revived practice +of personally working in them and experimenting with them. One calls to +mind examples of these things, growing in number daily--plain and strong +furniture made with the designer's own hands and without machinery, and +enjoyed in the making--made for actual places and personal needs and +tastes; houses built in the same spirit by architects who condescend to +be masons also; an effort here and an effort there to revive the common +ways of building that used to prevail--and not so long ago--for the +ordinary housing and uses of country-folk and country-life, and which +gave us cottages, barns, and sheds throughout the length and breadth of +the land; simple things for simple needs, built by simple men, without +self-consciousness, for actual use and pleasant dwelling; traditional +construction and the habits of making belonging to the country-side. +These still linger in the time-honoured ways of making the waggon and +the cart and the plough; but they have vanished from architecture and +building except in so far as they are being now, as I have said, +consciously and deliberately revived by men who are going back from +academic methods, to found their arts once more upon the actual making +of things with their own hand and as their hand and materials will guide +them. + +This was what happened in the time to which I have referred: in the dawn +of the Christian era and of a new civilisation; and it has special +interest for us of today, because it was not a case of an infant or +savage race, beginning all things from seed; but the revival, as in +Sparta, centuries before it, of simplicity and sincerity of life, in the +midst of enervation, luxury, and decay. + +This seems our hope for the future. + +There has already gathered together in the great field of the arts of +today a little Byzantium of the crafts setting itself to learn from the +beginning how things are actually made, how built, hammered, painted, +cut, stitched; casting aside theories and academical thought, and +founding itself upon simplicity, and sincerity, and materials. And the +architect who condescends, or, as we should rather say, aspires, to be a +builder and a master-mason, true director of his craft, will, if things +go on as they seem now going, find in the near future a band around him +of other workers so minded, and will have these bright tools of the +accessory crafts ready to his hand. This it is, if anything, that will +solve all the vexed questions of "style," and lead, if anything will, to +the art of the times to be. For the reason why the nineteenth century +complained so constantly that it had "no style of architecture" was +surely because it had _every_ style of architecture, and a race of +architects who could design in every style because they could build in +no style; knew by practical handling and tooling nothing of the real +natures and capacities of stone or brick or wood or glass; received no +criticism from their materials; whereas these should have daily and +hourly moulded their work and formed the very breath of its life, +warning and forbidding on the one hand, suggesting on the other, and so +directing over all. + +I have thought fit, dear student, to touch on these great questions in +passing, that you may know where you stand; but our real business is +with ourselves: to make ourselves so secure upon firm standing ground, +in our own particular province, that when the hour arrives, it may find +in us the man. Let us therefore return again from these bright hopes to +consider those particular details of architectural fitness which are our +proper business as workers in glass. + +What, then, in detail, are the rules that must guide us in placing +windows in ancient buildings? But first--_may_ we place windows in +ancient buildings at all? "No," say some; "because we have no right +to touch the past; it is 'restoration,' a word that has covered, in +the past," they say (and we must agree with them), "a mass of artistic +crime never to be expiated, and of loss never to be repaired." "Yes," +say others, "because new churches will be older in half-an-hour-- +half-an-hour older; for the world has moved, and where will you draw +the line? Also, glass has _to be renewed_, you must put in something, +or some one must." + +Let each decide the question for himself; but, supposing you admit that +it is permissible, what are the proper restrictions and conditions? + +You must not tell a lie, or "match" old work, joining your own on to it +as if itself were old. + +Shall we work in the style of the "New art," then--"_l'art Nouveau_"? +the style of the last new poster? the art-tree, the art-bird, the +art-squirm, and the ace of spades form of ornament? + +Heaven in mercy defend us and forbid it! + +Canopies are venerable; thirteenth-century panels and borders are +venerable, the great traditional vestments are so, and liturgy, and +symbolism, and ceremony. These are not things of one age alone, but +belong to all time. Get, wherever possible, authority on all these +points. + +Must we work in a "style," then--a "Gothic" style? + +No. + +What rule, then? + +It is hard to formulate so as to cover all questions, but something +thus:-- + +Take forms, and proportions, and scale from the style of the church you +are to work in. + +Add your own feeling to it from-- + +(1) The feeling of the day, but the best and most reverent feeling. + +(2) From Nature. + +(3) From (and the whole conditioned by) materials and the knowledge of +craft. + +Finally, let us say that you must consider each case on its merits, and +be ready even sometimes perhaps to admit that the old white glass may be +better for a certain position than your new glass could be, while old +_stained-glass_, of course, should always be sacred to you, a thing to +be left untouched. Even where new work seems justifiable and to be +demanded, proceed as if treading on holy ground. Do not try crude +experiments on venerable and beautiful buildings, but be modest and +reticent; know the styles of the past thoroughly and add your own fresh +feeling to them reverently. And in thought do not think it necessary to +be novel in order to be original. There is quite enough originality in +making a noble figure of a saint, or treating with reverent and +dignified art some actual theme of Scripture or tradition, and working +into its detail the sweetness of nature and the skill of your hands, +without going into eccentricity for the sake of novelty, and into weak +allegory to show your originality and independence, tired with the +world-old truths and laws of holy life and noble character. And this +leads us to the point where we must speak of these deep things in the +great province of thought. + +[2] Paradise, canto vi. 1. + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII + +OF THOUGHT, IMAGINATION, AND ALLEGORY + + +"_The first thing one should demand of a man who calls himself an artist +is that he has something to say, some truth to teach, some lesson to +enforce. Don't you think so?_" + +Thus once said to me an artist of respectable attainment. + +"_I don't care a hang for subject; give me good colour, composition, +fine effects of light, skill in technique, that's all one wants. Don't +you think so?_" + +Thus once said to me a member of a window-committee, himself also an +artist. + +To both I answered, and would answer with all the emphasis possible--No! + +The _first_ duty of an artist, as of every other kind of worker, is to +know his business; and, unless he knows it, all the "truths" he wishes +to "teach," and the lessons he wishes to enforce, are but degraded and +discredited in the eyes of men by his bungling advocacy. + +On the other hand, the artist who has trained himself to speak with the +tongues of angels and after all has nothing to say, is also, to me, an +imperfect being. What follows is written, as the whole book is written, +for the young student, just beginning his career and feeling the +pressure and conflict of these questions. For such I must venture to +discuss points which the wise and the experienced may pass by. + +The present day is deluged with allegory; and the first thing three +students out of four wish to attempt when they arrive at the stage of +original art is the presentation, by figures and emblems, of some deep +abstract truth, some problem of the great battle of life, some force of +the universe that they begin to feel around them, pressing upon their +being. Forty years ago such a thing was hardly heard of. In the +sketching-clubs at the Academies of that day, the historical, the +concrete, or the respectably pious were all that one ever saw. We can +hardly realise it, the art of the late sixties. The pre-Raphaelite +brotherhood, as such, a thing of the past, and seemingly leaving few +imitators. Burne-Jones just heard of as a strange, unknown artist, who +wouldn't exhibit his pictures, but who had done some queer new kind of +stained-glass windows at Lyndhurst, which one might perhaps be curious +to see when we went (as of course we must) to worship "Leighton's great +altar-piece." Nay, ten years later, at the opening of the Grosvenor +Gallery, the new, imaginative, and allegorical art could be met with a +large measure of derision, and _Punch_ could write, regarding it, an +audacious and contemptuous parody of the "Palace of Art"; while, abroad, +Botticelli's _Primavera_ hung over a door, and the attendants at the +_Uffizii_ were puzzled by requests, granted grudgingly (_if_ granted), to +have his other pictures placed for copying and study! Times have +altogether changed, and we now see in every school competition--often +set as the subject of such--abstract and allegorical themes, demanding +for their adequate expression the highest and deepest thought and the +noblest mood of mind and views of life. + +It is impossible to lay down any hard and fast rule about these things, +for each case must differ. There is such a thing as _genius_, and where +that is there is but small question of rules or even of youth or age, +maturity or immaturity. And even apart from the question of genius the +mind of childhood is a very precious thing, and "the thoughts of youth +are long, long thoughts." Nay, the mere _fact_ of youth with its trials, +is a great thing; we shall never again have such a chance, such fresh, +responsive hearts, such capacity for feeling--for suffering--that school +of wisdom and source of inspiration! It is well to record its lessons +while they are fresh, to jot down for ourselves, if we can, something of +the passing hours; to store up their thoughts and feelings for future +expression perhaps, when our powers of expression have grown more worthy +of them; but it is not well to try to make universal lessons out of, or +universal applications of, what we haven't ourselves learned. Our own +proper lesson at this time is to learn our trade; to strengthen our weak +hands and train the ignorance of our mind to knowledge day by day, +strenuously, and only _spurred on by_ the deep stirrings of thought and +life within us, which generally ought to remain for the present +_unspoken_. + +A great point of happiness in this dangerous and critical time is to +have a definite trade; learnt in its completeness and practised day by +day, step by step, upwards from its elements, in constant subservience +to wise and kind mastership. This indeed is a golden lot, and one rare +in these days; and perhaps we must not look to be so shielded. This was +the sober and happy craftsmanship of the Middle Ages, and produced for +us all that imagery and ornature, instinct with gaiety and simplicity of +heart, which decorates, where the hand of the ruthless restorer has +spared it, the churches and cathedrals of Europe. + +But in these changeful days it would be rash indeed to forecast where +lies the sphere of duty for any individual life. It may lie in the +reconstruction by solitary, personal experiment, of some forgotten art +or system, the quiet laying of foundation for the future rather than +building the monument of today. Or perhaps the self-devoted life of the +seer may be the Age's chief need, and it is not a Giotto that is wanted +for the twentieth century but a Dante or a Blake, with the accompanying +destiny of having to prove as they did-- + + "si come sa di sale + Lo pane altrui, e com'h duro calle + Lo scendere e'l salir per l'altrui scale."[3] + +But, however these things be, whether working happily in harmony with +the scheme of things around us, and only concerned to give it full +expression, or not; whether we are the fortunate apprentices of a +well-taught trade, gaining secure and advancing knowledge day by day, or +whether we are lonely experimentalists, wringing the secret from +reluctant Nature and Art upon some untrodden path; there is one last +great principle that covers all conditions, solves all questions, and is +an abiding rock which remains, unfailing foundation on which all may +build; and that is the constant measuring of our smallness against the +greatness of things, a thing which, done in the right spirit, does not +daunt, but inspires. For the greatness of all things is ours for the +winning, almost for the asking. + +The great imaginative poets and thinkers and artists of the +mid-nineteenth century have drawn aside for us the curtain of the world +behind the veil, and he would be an ambitious man who would expect to +set the mark higher, in type of beauty or depth of feeling, than they +have placed it for us; but all must hope to do so, even if they do not +expect it; for the great themes are not exhausted or ever to be +exhausted; and the storehouse of the great thought and action of the +past is ever open to us to clothe our nakedness and enrich our poverty; +we need only ask to have. + +"Ah!" said Coningsby, "I should like to be a great man." + +The stranger threw at him a scrutinising glance. His countenance was +serious. He said in a voice of almost solemn melody-- + +"Nurture your mind with great thoughts. To believe in the heroic makes +heroes."[4] + +All the great thoughts of the world are stored up in books, and all the +great books of the world, or nearly all, have been translated into +English. You should make it a systematic part of your life to search +these things out and, if only by a page or two, try how far they fit +your need. We do not enough realise how wide a field this is, how great +an undertaking, how completely unattainable except by carefully +husbanding our time from the start, how impossible it is in the span of +a human life to read the great books unless we strictly save the time +which so many spend on the little books. Ruskin's words on this subject, +almost harsh in their blunt common sense, bring the matter home so well +that I cannot refrain from quoting them.[5] + +"Do you know, if you read this, that you cannot read that--that what you +lose today you cannot gain to-morrow? Will you go and gossip with your +housemaid, or your stable-boy, when you may talk with queens and kings; +or flatter yourselves that it is with any worthy consciousness of your +own claims to respect that you jostle with the common crowd for entrie +here, and audience there, when all the while this eternal court is open +to you, with its society wide as the world, multitudinous as its days, +the chosen, and the mighty, of every place and time? Into that you may +enter always; in that you may take fellowship and rank according to your +wish; from that, once entered into it, you can never be outcast but by +your own fault; by your aristocracy of companionship there, your own +inherent aristocracy will be assuredly tested, and the motives with +which you strive to take high place in the society of the living, +measured, as to all the truth and sincerity that are in them, by the +place you desire to take in this company of the Dead." + +This is the great world of BOOKS that is open to you; and how shall you +find your way in it, in these days, amongst the plethora of the second +and third and fourth rate, shouting out at you and besieging your +attention on every stall? It is no more possible to give you entire +guidance towards this than to give complete advice on any other problem +of life; your own nature must be your guide, choosing the good and +refusing the evil in the degree in which itself is good or evil. But one +may name some landmarks, set up some guide-posts, and the best of all +guidance surely is not that of a guide-post, but that of a guide, a +kindly hand of one who knows the way, to take your hand. + +Do you ask for such a guide? A man of our own day, in full view of all +its questions from the loftiest to the least, and heart and soul engaged +in them, with deep and sympathetic wisdom born of his own companionship +with all the great thoughts of the ages? One surely need not hesitate a +moment in naming as the one for our special needs the writer we have +just quoted. + +Scattered up and down the whole of his works is constant reference to +and commentary upon the great themes of all ages, the great creeds of +all peoples. + +"Queen of the Air," "Aratra Pentelici," "Ariadne Florentina," "The +Mornings in Florence," "St. Mark's Rest," "The Oxford Inaugural +Lectures," "The Bible of Amiens," "Fors Clavigera." + +With these as portals you can enter by easy steps into the whole +universe of great things: the divine myth and symbolism of the old pagan +world (as we call it) and of more recent Christendom; all the makers of +ancient Greece and Italy and of our own England; worship and kingship +and leadership, and the high thought and noble deed of all times. And +clustering in groups round these centres is the world of books. All +Theology, Philosophy, Poetry, Sacred History; Homer, Plato, Virgil, the +Bible, and the Breviary. The great doctors and saints, kings and heroes, +poets and painters, Gerome and Dominic and Francis; St. Louis and +Coeur-de-Lion; Dante, St. Jerome, Chaucer, and Froissart; Botticelli, +Giotto, Angelico; the "Golden Legend"; and many another ancient or +modern legend and story or passage from the history of some great and +splendid life, or illuminating hint upon the beauties of liturgy and +symbolism. They, and a hundred other things, are all gathered up and +introduced to us in Ruskin's books; and we are shown them from the exact +standpoint from which they are most likely to appeal to us, and be of +use. There never was a great world made so easy and pleasant of entrance +for the adventuring traveller; you have only to enter and take +possession. + +Do you incline towards myth and symbolism and allegory--the expression +of abstract thought by beautiful figures? Read the myths of Greece +expounded to you in their exquisite spirituality in the "Queen of the +Air." Or is your bent devotion and the devout life, expressed in +thrilling story and gorgeous colour? Read, say, the life of St. +Catherine or of St. George in the "Golden Legend." Or are you in love, +and would express its spring-time beauty? Translate into your own native +language of form and colour "The Romaunt of the Rose." + +For the great safeguard and guide in the perilous forest of fancy is to +find enough interest in the actual facts of some history or the +qualities of some heroic character, whether real or fabled, round which +at first you may group your thought and allegory. Listen to _them_, and +try to formulate and illustrate _their_ meaning, not to announce your +own. Do not set puzzles, or set things that will be puzzling, without +the highest and deepest reasons and the apostleship urgently laid upon +you so to do--but let your allegory surround some definite subject, so +that men in general can see it and say, "Yes, that is so and so," and go +away satisfied rather than puzzled and affronted; leaving the inner few +for whom you really speak, the hearts that, you hope, are waiting for +your message, to find it out (and you need have no fear that they will +do so), and to say, "Yes, that _means_ so and so, and it is a good +thought." + +For, remember always that, even if you conceive that you have a mission +laid upon you to declare Truth, it is most sternly conditioned by an +obligation, as binding as itself and of as high authority, to set forth +Beauty: the holiness of beauty equally with the beauty of holiness. No +amount of good intent can make up for lack of skill; it is your business +to know your business. Youth always would begin with allegory, but the +ambition of the good intention is generally in exactly the reverse +proportion to the ability to carry it out in expression. But the true +allegory that appeals to all is the presentment of noble natures and of +noble deeds. Where, for most people at any rate, is the "allegory" in +the Theseus or the Venus of Milo? Yet is not the whole race of man the +better for them? + +Work, therefore, quietly and continually at the great themes ready set +for you in the story of the past and "understanded of the people," while +you are patiently strengthening and maturing your powers of art in +safety, sheltered from yourself, and sheltered from the condemnation due +to the too presumptuous assumption of apostleship. For it is one thing +to stand forth and say, "_I_ have a message to deliver to the world," +and quite another to say, "_There is_ such a message, and it has fallen +to me to be its mouthpiece; woe is me, because I am a man of unclean +lips." It is needless, therefore--nay, it is harmful--to be always +breaking your heart against tasks beyond your strength. Work in some +little province; get foothold and grow outwards from it; go on from +weakness to strength, and then from strength to the stronger, doing the +things you _can_ do while you practise towards the things you hope to +do, and illustrating impersonal themes until the time comes for you to +try your own individual battle in the great world of thought and +feeling; till, mature in strength equal to the portrayal of great +natures, the Angels of God as shown forth by you may be recognised as +indeed Spirit, and His Ministers as flaming Fire. + +There is even yet one last word, and that is, in all the _minor_ +symbolism surrounding your subjects, to observe a due proportion. For +you may easily be tempted to allow some beautiful little fancy, not +essential to the subject, to find expression in a form or symbol that +will thrust itself unduly on the attention, and will only puzzle and +distract. + +Never let little things come first, and never let them be allowed at all +to the damage, or impairing, or obscuring of the simplicity and dignity +of the great things; remembering always that the first function of a +window is to have stately and seemly figures in beautiful glass, and not +to arrest or distract the attention of the spectator with puzzles. Given +the great themes adequately expressed, the little fancies may then +cluster round them and will be carried lightly, as the victor wears his +wreath; while, on the other hand, if these be lacking no amount of +symbolism or attribute will supply their place. "_Cucullus non facit +monachum_," as the old proverb says--"It is not the hood that makes the +monk," but the ascetic face you depict within it. Indeed, rather beware +of trusting even to the ordinary, well-recognised symbols in common use, +and being misled by them to think you have done something you have not +done; and rather withhold these until the other be made sure. Get your +figures dignified and your faces beautiful; show the majesty or the +sanctity that you are aiming at in these alone, and your saint will be +recognised as saintly without his halo of glory, and your angel as +angelic without his tongue of flame. + + * * * * * + +In my own practice, when drawing from the life, I make a great point of +keeping back all these ornaments and symbols of attribute, until I feel +that my figure alone expresses itself fully, as far as my powers go, +without them. No ornament upon the robe, or the crosier, or the sword; +above all, no circle round the head, until--the figure standing out at +last and seeming to represent, as near as may be, the true pastor or +warrior it claims to represent--the moment arrives when I say, "Yes, I +have done all I can,--_now_ he may have his nimbus!" + +[3] + + "how tastes of salt + The bread of others, and how is hard the passage + To go down and to go up by other's stairs." + + --_Paradise,_ xvii. 58. + +[4] Coningsby, Book iii. ch. i. + +[5] "Sesame and Lilies," Lecture 1. + + + + +CHAPTER XIX + + Of General Conduct and Procedure--Amount of Legitimate + Assistance--The Ordinary Practice--The Great Rule--The Second Great + Rule--Four Things to Observe--Art _v._ Routine--The Truth of the + Case--The Penalty of Virtue in the Matter--The Compensating + Privilege--Practical Applications--An Economy of Time in the + Studio--Industry--Work "To Order"--Clients and Patrons--And + Requests Reasonable and Unreasonable--The Chief Difficulty the + Chief Opportunity--But ascertain all Conditions before starting + Work--Business Habits--Order--Accuracy--Setting out Cartoon + Forms--An Artist must Dream--But Wake--Three Plain Rules. + + +Having now described, as well as I can, the whole of your equipment--of +hand, and head, and heart--your mental and technical weapons for the +practice of stained-glass, there now follow a few simple hints to guide +you in the use of them; how best to dispose your forces, and on what to +employ them. This must be a very broken and fragmentary chapter, full of +little everyday matters, very different to the high themes we have just +been trying to discuss--and relating chiefly to your conduct of the +thing as a business, and your relationships with the interests that +surround you; modes of procedure, business hints, practical matters. I +am sorry, just as you were beginning (I hope) to be warmed to the +subject, and fired with the high ambitions that it suggests, to take and +toss you into the cold world of matter-of-fact things; but that is life, +and we have to face it. Open the door into the cold air and let us bang +at it straight away! + +Now there is one great and plain question that contains all the rest; +you do not see it now, but you will find it facing you before you have +gone very far. The great question, "Must I do it all myself, or may I +train pupils and assistants?" + +Let us first amplify the question and get it fairly and fully stated. +Then we shall have a better chance of being able to answer it wisely. + +I have described or implied elsewhere the usual practice in the matter +amongst those who produce stained-glass on a large scale. In great +establishments the work is divided up into branches: designers, +cartoonists, painters, cutters, lead workers, kiln-men: none of whom, as +a rule, know any branch of the work except their own. + +Obviously one of the principal contentions of this book is against the +idea that such division, as practised, is an ideal method. + +On the other hand, you will gather that the writer himself uses the +service of assistants. + +While in the plates at the end are examples of glass where everything +has been done by the artists themselves (Plates I., II., III., IV., +VII.). + +I must freely confess that when I first saw in the work of these men the +beauty resulting from the personal touch of the artist on the whole of +the cutting and leading, a qualm of doubt arose whether the practice of +admitting _any_ other hand to my assistance was not a compromise to some +extent with absolute ideal; whether it were not the only right plan, +after all, to do the whole oneself; to sit down to the bench with one's +drawing, and pick out the glass, piece by piece, on its merits, +carefully considering each bit as it passed through hand; cutting it and +trimming it affectionately to preserve its beauties, and, later, leading +it into its place with thicker or thinner lead, in the same careful +spirit. But I do not think so. I fancy the truth to be that the _whole_ +business should be opened up to all, and afterwards each should +gravitate to his place by natural fitness. For the cartoonist _once +having the whole craft_ requires more constant practice in drawing to +keep himself a good cartoonist than he would get if he also did all the +other work of each window; quantity being in this matter even essential +to quality. I think we must look for more monumental figures, achieved +by the delegation of minor craft matters, in short, by co-operation. +Nevertheless, I have never felt less certainty in pronouncing on any +question of my craft than in this particular matter; whether, to get the +best attainable results, one should do the whole of the work oneself. On +the other hand, I never felt _more_ certainty in pronouncing on any +question of the craft, than now in laying down as an absolute rule and +condition of doing good work at all: that one should be _able_ to do the +whole of the work oneself. _That_ is the key to the whole situation, but +it is not the whole key; for following close upon it comes the rule that +springs naturally out of it; that, being a master oneself, one must make +it one's object to train all assistants towards mastership also: to give +them the whole ladder to climb. This at least has been the case with the +work of my own which is shown in the other collotypes. There has been +assistance, but every one of those assisting has had the opportunity to +learn to make, and according to the degree of his talent is actually +able to make, the whole of a stained-glass window himself. There is not +a touch of painting on any of the panels shown which is not by a hand +that can also cut and lead and design and draw, and perform all the +other offices pertaining to stained-glass noted in the foregoing pages. + +Speaking generally, I care not whether a man calls himself Brown, or +Brown and Co., or, co-operating with others, works under the style of +Brown, Jones and Robinson, so long as he observe four things. + +(1) Not to direct what he cannot practise; + +(2) To make masters of apprentices, or aim at making them; + +(3) To keep his hand of mastery over the whole work personally at all +stages; and + +(4) To be prepared sometimes to make sacrifices of profit for the sake +of the Art, should the interests of the two clash. + +Such an one we must call an artist, a master, and a worthy craftsman. It +is almost impossible to describe the deadening influence which a routine +embodying the reverse of these four things has upon the mind of those +who should be artists. Under this influence not only is the subdivision +of labour which places each successive operation in separate hands +accepted as a matter of course, but into each operation itself this +separation imports a spirit of lassitude and dulness and compliance with +false conditions and limited aims which would seem almost incredible in +those practising what should be an inspiring art. To men so trained, so +employed, all counsels of perfection are foolishness; all idea of +tentative work, experiment, modification while in progress, is looked +upon as mere delusion. To them work consists of a series of never-varied +formulas, all fitting into each other and combined to aim at producing a +definite result, the like of which they have produced a thousand times +before and will produce a thousand times again. + +"With us," once said, to a friend of the writer, a man so trained, "it's +a matter of judgment and experience. It's all nonsense this talk about +seeing work at a distance and against the sky, and so forth, while as to +the ever taking it down again for retouching after once erecting it, +that could only be done by an amateur. We paint a good deal of the work +on the bench, and never see it as a whole until it's leaded up; but then +we know what we want and get it." + +"We know what we want!" To what a pass have we come that such a thing +could be spoken by any one engaged in the arts! Were it wholly and +universally true, nothing more would be needed in condemnation of wide +fields of modern practice in the architectural and applied arts, for, +most assuredly it is a sentence that could never be spoken of any one +worthy of the name of artist that ever lived. Whence would you like +instances quoted? Literature? Painting? Sculpture? Music? Their name is +legion in the history of all these arts, and in the lives of the great +men who wrought in them. + +For a taste-- + +Did Michael Angelo "know what he wanted" when, half-way through his +figure, he found the block not large enough, and had to make the limb +too short? + +Did Beethoven know, when he evolved a movement in one of his concerted +pieces out of a quarrel with his landlady? and another, "from singing or +rather roaring up and down the scale," until at last he said, "I think I +have found a motive"--as one of his biographers relates? Tennyson, when +he corrected and re-corrected his poems from youth to his death? Duerer, +the precise, the perfect, able to say, "It cannot be better done," yet +re-engraving a portion of his best-known plate, and frankly leaving the +rejected portion half erased?[6] Titian, whose custom it was to lay +aside his pictures for long periods and then criticise them, imagining +that he was looking at them "with the eyes of his worst enemy"? + +There is not, I suppose, in the English language a more "perfect" poem +than "Lycidas." It purports to have been written in a single day, and +its wholeness and unity and crystalline completeness give good colour to +the thought that it probably was so. + + "Thus sang the uncouth swain to the oaks and rills, + While the still morn went out with sandals gray; + He touched the tender stops of various quills, + With eager thought warbling his Doric lay: + And now the sun had stretched out all the hills, + And now was dropt into the western bay: + At last he rose, and twitched his mantle blue; + To-morrow, to fresh woods and pastures new." + +Yet, regarding it, the delightful Charles Lamb writes:[7]-- + +"I had thought of the _Lycidas_ as of a full-grown beauty,--as springing +with all its parts absolute,--till, in evil hour, I was shown the +original copy of it, together with the other minor poems of its author, +in the library of Trinity, kept like something to be proud of. I wish +they had thrown them in the Cam, or sent them, after the later cantos of +Spenser, into the Irish Channel. How it staggered me to see the fine +things in their ore!--interlined, corrected, as if their words were +mortal, alterable, displaceable at pleasure; as if they might have been +otherwise, and just as good; as if inspiration were made up of parts, +and those fluctuating, successive, indifferent! I will never go into the +workshop of any great artist again, nor desire a sight of his picture, +till it is fairly off the easel; no, not if Raphael were to be alive +again, and painting another Galatea." + +But the real truth of the case is that whatever "inspiration" may be, +and whether or not "made up of parts," it, or man's spirit and will in +all works of art, has to _deal with_ things so made up; and not only so, +but also as described by the other words here chosen: _fluctuating_, +_successive_, and _indifferent_. You have to deal with the whole sum of +things all at once; the possible material crowds around the artist's +will, shifting, changing, presenting at all stages and in all details of +a work of art, infinite and continual choice. "Nothing," we are told, +"is single," but all things have relations with each other. How much +more, then, is it true that every bit of glass in a window is the centre +of such relations with its brother and sister pieces, and that nothing +is final until all is finished? A work of art is like a battle; conflict +after conflict, manoeuvre after manoeuvre, combination after +combination. The general does not pin himself down from the outset to +one plan of tactics, but watches the field and moulds its issues to his +will, according to the yielding or the resistance of the opposing +forces, keeping all things solvent until the combinations of the strife +have woven together into a soluble problem, upon which he can launch the +final charge that shall bring him back with victory. + +So also is all art, and you must hold all things in suspense. Aye! the +last touch more or less of light or shade or colour upon the smallest +piece, keeping all open and solvent to the last, until the whole thing +rushes together and fuses into a harmony. It is not to be done by +"judgment and experience," for all things are new, and there are no two +tasks the same; and it is impossible for you from the outset to "know +what you want," or to know it at any stage until you can say that the +whole work is finished. + +"But if we work on these methods we shall only get such a small quantity +of work done, and it will be so costly done on a system like that you +speak of! Make my assistants masters, and so rivals! put a window in, +and take it out again, forsooth!" What remedy or answer for this? + +Well--setting aside the question of the more or less genius--there are +only two solutions that I can see:--an increase in industry or a +possible decrease in profit, though much may be accomplished in +mitigation of these hard conditions, if they prove _too_ hard, by a good +and economical system of work, and by time-saving appliances and +methods. + +But, after all, you were not looking out for an easy task, were you, in +this world of stress and strain to have the privileges of an artist's +life without its penalties? Why, look you, you must remember that +besides the business of "saving your soul," which you may share in +common with every one else, _you_ have the special privilege of +_enjoying for its own sake your personal work in the world_. + +And you must expect to pay for that privilege at some corresponding +personal cost; all the more so in these days when your lot is so +exceptional a fortune, and when to enjoy daily work falls to so few. +Nevertheless, when I say "enjoy" I do not mean that art is easy or +pleasant in the way that ease is pleasant; there is nothing harder; and +the better the artist, probably the harder it is. But you enjoy it +because of its privileges; because beauty is delightful; because you +know that good art does high and unquestioned service to man, and is +even one of the ways for the advancing of the kingdom of God. + +That should be pleasure enough for any one, and compensation for any +pains. You must learn the secret of human suffering--and you can only +learn it by tasting it--because it is yours to point its meaning to +others and to give the message of hope. + +In this spirit, then, and within these limitations, must you guide your +own work and claim the co-operation of others, and arrange your +relationships with them, and the limits of their assistance and your +whole personal conduct and course of procedure:-- + +To be yourself a master. + +To train others up to mastery. + +To keep your hand over the whole. + +To work in a spirit of sacrifice. + +These things once firmly established, questions of procedure become +simple. But a few detached hints may be given. I shall string them +together just as they come. + +_An Economy of Time in the Studio._--Have a portion of your studio or +work-room wall lined with thin boarding--"picture-backing" of 1/8 inch +thick is enough, and this is to _pin things on to_. The cartoon is what +you are busy upon, but you must "think in glass" all the time you are +drawing it. Have therefore, pinned up, a number of slips of paper--a +foolscap half-sheet divided _vertically_ into two long strips I find +best. + +On these write down every direction to the cutter, or the painter, or +the designer of minor ornament, _the moment it comes into your mind_, as +you work at the charcoal drawing. If you once let the moment pass you +will never remember these things again, but you will have them +constantly forced back upon your memory, by the mistranslations of your +intention which will face you when you first see your work in the glass. +This practice is a huge saving of time--and of disappointment. But you +also want this convenient wall space for a dozen other needs; for +tracings and shiftings of parts, and all sorts of essays and suggestions +for alteration. + +_That we should work always._--I hope it is not necessary to urge the +importance of _work_. It is not of much use to work only when we _feel +inclined_; many people very seldom do feel naturally inclined. Perhaps +there are few things so sweet as the triumph of working _through_ +disinclination till it is leavened through with the will and becomes +enjoyment by becoming conquest. To work through the dead three o'clock +period on a July afternoon with an ache in the small of one's back and +one's limbs all a-jerk with nervousness, drooping eyelids, and a general +inclination to scream. At such a time, I fear, one sometimes falls back +on rather low and sordid motives to act as a spur to the lethargic will. +I think of the shortness of the time, the greatness of the task, but +also of all those hosts of others who, if I lag, must pass me in the +race. Not of actual rivals--or good nature and sense of comradeship +would always break the vision--but of possible and unknown ones whom it +is my habit to club all together and typify under the style and title of +"that fellow Jones." And at such a time it is my habit to say or think, +"Aha! I bet Jones is on his back under a plane tree!"--or thoughts to +that effect--and grasp the charcoal firmer. + +It is habits and dodges and ways of thinking such as these that will +gradually cultivate in you the ability to "stand and deliver," as they +say in the decorative arts. For, speaking now to the amateur (if any +such, picture-painter or student, are hesitating on the brink of an art +new to them), you must know that these arts are not like +picture-painting, where you can choose your own times and seasons: they +are always done to definite order and expected in a definite time; and +that brings me to speak of the very important subject of "Clients." + +_Of Clients and Patrons._--It must, of course, be left to each one to +establish his own relations with those who ask work of him; but a few +hints may be given. + +You will get many requests that will seem to you unreasonable and +impossible of carrying out--some no doubt will really be so; but at +least _consider them_. Remember what we said a little way back--not to +be set on your own allegory, but to accept your subject from outside and +add your poetic thought to it. And also what in another place we said +about keeping all "solvent"--so do with actual suggestion of subject and +with the wishes of your client: treat the whole thing as "raw material," +and all surrounding questions as factors in one general problem. Here +also Ruskin has a pregnant word of advice--as indeed where has he +not?--"A great painter's business is to do what the public ask of him, +in the way that shall be helpful and instructive to them."[8] You cannot +always do what people ask, but you can do it more often than a +headstrong man would at first think. + +I was once doing a series of small square panels, set at intervals in +the height of some large, tall windows, and containing Scripture +subjects, the intermediate spaces being filled with "grisaille" work. +The subjects, of course, had to be approximately on one scale, and +several of them became very tough problems on account of this +restriction. However, all managed to slip through somehow till we came +to "Jacob's Ladder," and there I stood firm, or perhaps I ought rather +to say _stuck fast_. "How is it possible," I said to my client, "that +you can have a picture of the 'Fall' in one panel with Eve's figure +taking up almost the whole height of it, and have a similar panel with +'Angels Ascending and Descending' up and down a ladder? There are only +two ways of doing it--to put the ladder far off in a landscape, which +would reduce it to insignificance, and besides be unsuitable in glass; +or to make the angels the size of dolls. Don't you see that it's +impossible?" No, he didn't see that it was impossible. What he wanted +was "Jacob's Ladder"; the possibility or otherwise was nothing to him. +He said (what you'll often hear said, reader, if you do stained-glass), +"I don't, of course, know anything about art, and I can't say how this +could be done; that is the artist's province." + +It was in my younger days, and I'm afraid I must have replied to the +effect that it was not a question of art but of common reason, and that +the artist's province did not extend to making bricks without straw or +making two and two into five; and the work fell through. But had I the +same thing to deal with now I should waste no words on it, but run the +"ladder" right up out of the panel into the grisaille above; an +opportunity for one of those delightful naive _exceptions_ of which old +art is so full--like, for instance, the west door of St. Maclou at +Rouen, where the crowd of falling angels burst out of the tympanum, bang +through the lintel, defying architecture as they defied the first great +Architect, and continue their fall amongst the columns below. "Angels +Descending," by-the-bye, with a vengeance! And if the bad ones, why not +the good? I might just as well have done it, and probably it would have +been the very thing out of the whole commission which would have +prevented the series from being the tame things that such sometimes are. +Anyway, remember this--for I have invariably found it true--that _the +chief difficulty of a work of art is always its chief opportunity_. A +thing can be looked at in a thousand and one ways, and something +dauntingly impossible will often be the very thing that will shake your +jogtrot cart out of its rut, make you whip up your horses, and get you +right home. + +BUT + +Observe this--that all these wishes of the client should be most +strictly ascertained _beforehand_; all possibility of midway criticism +and alteration prevented. Thresh the thing well out in the preliminary +stages and start clear; as long as it _is_ raw material, all in +solution, all hanging in the balance--you can do anything. It is like +"clay in the hands of the potter," and you can make the vessel as you +please: "Out of the same lump making one vessel to honour and another to +dishonour." But when the work is _half-done_, when colour is calling out +to colour, and shape to shape, and thought to thought, throughout the +length and breadth of the work; when the ideas and the clothing of them +are all fusing together into one harmony; when, in short, the thing is +becoming that indestructible, unalterable unity which we call a Work of +Art:--then, indeed, to be required to change or to reconsider is a real +agony of impossibility; tearing the glowing web of thought, and form, +and fancy into a destruction never to be reconstructed, and which no +piecing or patching will mend. + +There are many minor points, but they are really so entirely matters of +experience, that it hardly seems worth while to dwell upon them. Start +with recognising the fact that you must try to add business habits and +sensible and economical ways to your genius as an artist; in short, +another whole side to your character; and keep that ever in view, and +the details will fall into their places. + +_Have Everything in Order._--Every letter relating to a current job +should be findable at a moment's notice in an office "letter basket," +rather wider than a sheet of foolscap paper, and with sides high enough +to allow of the papers standing upright in unfolded sheets, each group +of them behind a card taller than the tallest kind of ordinary document, +and bearing along the top edge in large red letters--Roman capitals for +choice--the name of the work: and it need hardly be said that these +should be arranged in alphabetical order. For minor matters too small +for such classification it is well to have, in the _front_ place in the +basket, cards dividing the alphabet itself into about four parts, so +that unarranged small matters can be still kept roughly alphabetical. +When the work is done, transfer all documents to separate labelled +portfolios--a folded sheet of the thickest brown paper, such as they put +under carpets, is very good--and store them away for reference. Larger +portfolios for all _templates_, tracings, or architects' details or +drawings relating to the work. If you have not a good system with regard +to the ordering of these things, believe me the mere _administration_ of +a very moderate amount of work will take you _all your day_. + +So also with _measurement_. + + +ON ACCURACY IN MEASUREMENT. + +In one of Turgenieff's novels a Russian country proverb is +quoted--"Measure thrice, cut once." It is a golden rule, and should be +inscribed in the heart of every worker, and I will add one that springs +out of it--"Never trust a measurement unless it has been made by +yourself, or for yourself--to your order." + +The measurements on architects' designs, or even working drawings, can +never be trusted for the dimensions of the built work. Even the +builders' templates, by which the work was built, cannot be, for the +masons knock these quite enough out, in actual building, to make your +work done by these guides a misfit. Have your own measurements taken +again. Above all, beware of trusting to the supposed verticals or +horizontals in built work, especially in tracery. A thing may be +theoretically and intentionally at a certain angle, but actually at +quite a different one. If level is important, take it yourself with +spirit-level and plumb-line. + +With regard to accuracy of work _in the shop_, where it depends on +yourself and the system you observe, I cannot do better than write out +for you here the written notice by which the matter is regulated in my +own practice with regard to cartoons. + +_"Rules to be Observed in Setting out Forms for Cartoons._ + +"In every case of setting out any form, or batch of forms, for new +windows the truth of the first long line ruled must be _tested_ by +stretching a thread. + +If the lath is proved to be out, it must at once be sent to a joiner to +be accurately 'shot,' and the accuracy of _both_ its edges must then be +tested with a thread. + +The first right angle made (for the corner of the form) must also be +tested by raising a perpendicular, with a radius of the compasses not +less than 6 inches and with a needle-pointed pencil, and by the +subjoined formula and no other. + +From a given point in a given straight line to raise a perpendicular. +Let A B be the given straight line (this must be the _long_ side of the +form, and the point B must be one corner of the base-line): it is +required to raise from the point B a line perpendicular to the line A B. + +[Illustration: FIG. 71.] + +(1) Prolong the line A B at least 6 inches beyond B (if there is not +room on the paper, it must be pinned on to a smooth board, and a piece +of paper pinned on, so as to meet the edge of it, and continue it to the +required distance). + +(2) With the centre B (the compass leg being in all cases placed with +absolute accuracy, using a lens if necessary to place it) describe the +circle C D E. + +(3) With the centres C and E, and with a radius of not less than 9 +inches, describe arcs intersecting at F and G. + +(4) Join F G. + +Then, if the work has been correctly done, the line F G will _pass +through the point_ B, and be perpendicular to the line A B. If it does +not do so, the work is incorrect, and must be repeated. + +When the base and the springing-line are drawn on the form, the form +must be accurately measured from the bottom upwards, and _every foot +marked on both sides_. Such markings to be in fine pencil-line, and +to be drawn from the sides of the form to the extreme margin of the +paper, and you are not to trust your eye by laying the lath flat down +and ticking off opposite the inch-marks, but you are to stand the lath +on its edge, so that the inch-marks actually meet the paper, and then +tick opposite to them. + +Also if there are any bars in the window to be observed, the places of +these must be marked, and it must be made quite clear whether the mark +is the middle of the bar or its edge; and all this marking must be done +lightly, but very carefully, with a needle-pointed pencil. + +In every case where the forms are set out from templates, the accuracy +of the templates must be verified, and in the event of the base not +being at right angles with the side, a true horizontal must be made from +the corner which is higher than the other (the one therefore which has +the obtuse angle) and marked within the untrue line; and all +measurements, whether of feet, bars, or squaring-out lines, or levels +for canopies, bases, or any other divisions of the light, must be made +upwards FROM THIS TRUE LEVEL LINE." + +These rules, I suppose, have saved me on an average an hour a day since +they were drawn up; and, mark you, an hour of _waste_ and an hour of +_worry_ a day--which is as good as saving a day's work at the least. + +An artist must dream; you will not charge me with undervaluing that; but +a decorator must also wake, and have his wits about him! Start, +therefore, in all the outward ordering of your career with the three +plain rules:-- + +(1) To have everything orderly; + +(2) To have everything accurate; + +(3) To bring everything and every question to a point, _at the time_, +and clinch it. + +[6] "Ariadne Florentina," p. 31. + +[7] "A Saturday's Dinner." + +[8] "Aratra Pentelici," p. 253. + + + + +CHAPTER XX + +A STRING OF BEADS + + +Is there anything more to say? + +A whole world-full, of course; for every single thing is a part of all +things. But I have said most of my say; and I could now wish that you +were here that you might ask me aught else you want. + +A few threads remain that might be gathered up--parting words, hints +that cannot be classified. I must string them together like a row of +beads; big and little mixed; we will try to get the big ones more or +less in the middle if we can. + +Grow everything from seed. + +All seeds that are living (and therefore worth growing) have the power +in them to grow. + +But so many people miss the fact that, on the other hand, _nothing else_ +will grow; and that it is useless in art to transplant full-grown trees. + +This is the key to great and little miseries, great and little mistakes. + +Were you sorry to be on the lowest step of the ladder? Be glad; for all +your hopes of climbing are in that. + +And this applies in all things, from conditions of success and methods +of "getting work" up to the highest questions of art and the "steps to +Parnassus," by which are reached the very loftiest of ideals. + +I must not linger over the former of these two things or do more than +sum it up in the advice, to take anything you can get, and to be glad, +not sorry, if it is small and comes to you but slowly. Simple things, +and little things, and many things, are more needed in the arts today +than complex things and great and isolated achievements. If you have +nothing to do for others, do some little thing for yourself: it is a +seed, presently it will send out a shoot of your first "commission," and +that will probably lead to two others, or to a larger one; but pray to +be led by small steps; and make sure of firm footing as you go, for +there is such a thing as trying to take a _leap_ on the ladder, and +leaping off it. + +So much for the seed of success. + +The seed of craftsmanship I have tried to describe in this book. + +The seed of ornament and design, it is impossible to treat of here; it +would require as large a book as this to itself: but I will hazard the +devotion of a page each to the A and the B of my own A B C of the +subject as I try to teach it to my pupils, and put them before you +without comment, hoping they may be of some slight use. (See figs. 72 +and 73.) + +But though I said that nothing will grow but seed, it does not, of +course, follow that every seed will grow, or, if it does, that you +yourself will reap the exact harvest you expect, or even recognise it in +its fruitage as the growth of what you have sown. Expect to give much +for little, to lose sight of the bread cast on the waters, not even sure +that you will know it again even if you find it after many days. You +never know, and therefore do not count your scalps too carefully or try +to number your Israel and Judah. Neither, on the other hand, allow your +seed to be forced by the hothouse of advertising or business pushing, or +anything which will distract or distort that quiet gaze upon the work by +which you love it for its own sake, and judge it on its merits; all such +sidelights are misleading, since you do not know whether it is intended +that this or that shall prosper or both be alike good. + +How many a man one sees, earnest and sincere at starting, led aside off +the track by the false lights of publicity and a first success. Art is +peace. Do things because you love them. If purple is your favourite +colour, put purple in your window; if green, green; if yellow, yellow. +Flowers and leaves and buds because you love them. Glass because you +love it. It is not that you are to despise either fame or wealth. +Honestly acquired both are good. But you must bear in mind that the +pursuit of these separately by any other means than perfecting your work +is a thing requiring great outlay of TIME, and you cannot afford to +withdraw any time from your work in order to acquire them. + +[Illustration: FIG. 72. Design consists of arrangement. Let us practise +arrangement separately, and on its simplest terms. Take the simplest +possible arranged form, and make all ornament spring from this, without, +for a considerable time changing its character, or making any additions +of a different character to it. If we are not then to do this what +resource have we? we may change its direction. Proceed then to do so, +observing a few very simple rules. 1. Do the work in single "stitches" +2. & to each arm of the cross in turn. 3 keep a record of each step; +that is, as soon as you have got any definite developement from your +original form, put that down on paper and leave it, drawing it over +again and developing from the second drawing. The fourth rule is the +most important of all: 4. Keep "on the spot" as much as possible, i.e. +take a number of single steps from the point you have arrived at, not a +number of consecutive steps leading farther from it. For example: "b" +here is a single step from "a", you do one thing. I do not want you to +go on developing from it [fig. "b"] as "c", "d" & "e" until you have +gone back to fig. "a" and made all the immediately possible steps to be +taken from it, one of wh. is shown, fig "f." + +[Illustration: a] + +[Illustration: b] + +[Illustration: c] + +[Illustration: c] + +[Illustration: d] + +[Illustration: e] + +[Illustration: f]] + +[Illustration: FIG. 73. Seed of design as applied to Craft & Material. +Suppose you have three simple openings. (fig. 'a'.) garret windows, or +passage windows, we will suppose, each with a central horizontal bar: +and suppose you have a number of pieces of glass to use up already cut +to one gauge, and that six of these fill a window, can you get any +little variety by arrangement on the following terms. 1. Treating both +upper and lower ranges alike 2. Allowing yourself to halve them, +vertically only. 3. Not wasting any glass. 4. Not halving more than two +in each light. How is this, fig. b? you despise it? so absurdly simple? +It is the key to all simple ornament in leaded glass. Exhaust all the +possible varieties, there are at least nine. Do them. That's all. + +[Illustration: A] + +[Illustration: B] + +[Illustration] + +[Illustration] ] + +In these days and in our huge cities there are so many avenues open to +celebrity, through Society, the Press, Exhibition, and so forth, that a +man once led to spend time on them is in danger of finding half his +working life run away with by them before he is aware, while even if +they are successful the success won by them is a poor thing compared to +that which might have been earned by the work which was sacrificed for +them. It becomes almost a profession in itself to keep oneself +notorious. + +To spend large slices out of one's time in the mere putting forward of +one's work, _showing_ it apart from _doing_ it, necessary as this +sometimes is, is a thing to be done grudgingly; still more so should one +grudge to be called from one's work here, there, and everywhere by the +social claims which crowd round the position of a public man. + + * * * * * + +There are strenuous things enough for you in the work itself without +wasting your strength on these. We will speak of them presently; but a +word first upon originality. + +Don't _strive_ to be original; no one ever got Heaven's gift of +invention by saying, "I must have it, and since I don't feel it I must +assume it and pretend it;" follow rather your master patiently and +lovingly for a long time; give and take, echo his habits as Botticelli +echoed Filippo Lippi's, but improve upon them; add something to them if +you can, as he also did, and pass then on, as he also did, to the +_little_ Filippo--Filippino--making him a truer and sweeter heart than +his father, out of the well of truth and sweetness with which +Botticelli's own heart was brimming. Do this, but at the same time +expect with happy patience, as a boy longs for his manhood, yet does not +try to hasten it and does not pretend to forestall it, the time when +some fresh idea in imagination, some fresh method in design, some fresh +process in craftsmanship, will come to you as a reward of patient +working--and come by accident, as all such things do, lest you should +think it your own and miss the joy of knowing that it is not yours but +Heaven's. + +And when this comes, guard it and mature it carefully. Do not throw it +out too lavishly broadcast with the ostentation of a generous genius +having gifts to spare. Share it with proved and worthy friends, when +they notice it and ask you about it, but in the meanwhile develop and +cultivate it as a gardener does a tree. And this leads me to the most +important point of all--namely, the value, the all-sufficing value, of +_one_ new step on the road of Beauty. If such is really granted you, +consider it as enough for your lifetime. One such thing in the history +of the arts has generally been enough for a century; how much more, +then, for a generation. + +For indeed there is only one rule for fine work in art, that you should +put your whole strength, all the powers of mind and body into every +touch. Nothing less will do than that. You must face it in drawing from +the life. Try it in its acutest form, not from the posed, professional +model, who will sit like a stone; try it with children, two years old or +so; the despair of it, the exhaustion: and then, in a flash, when you +thought you had really done somewhat, a still more captivating, +fascinating gesture, which makes all you have done look like lead. Can +you screw your exhaustion up _again,_ sacrifice all you have done, and +face the labour of wrestling with the new idea? And if you do? You are +sick with doubt between the new and the old. You ask your friends; you +probably choose wrong; your judgment is clouded by the fatigue of your +previous toil. + +But you have gained strength. That is the real point of the thing. It is +not what you have done in this instance, but what you have become in +doing it. Next time, fresh and strong, you will dash the beautiful +sudden thought upon the paper and leave it, happy to make others happy, +but only through the pains you took before, which are a small price to +pay for the joy of the strength you have gained. + +This is the rule of great work. Puzzle and hesitation and compromise can +only occur because you have left some factor of the problem out of +count, and this should never be. Your business is to take all into +account and to sacrifice everything, however fascinating and tempting it +may be in itself, if it does not fit in as part of an harmonious +_whole_. Remember in this case, when loth to make such sacrifice, the +old saying that "there's as good fish in the sea as ever came out." +Brace yourself to try for something still better. Recast your +composition. If it is defective, the defect all comes from some want of +strenuousness as you went along. It is like getting a bit of your figure +out of drawing because your eye only measured some portion of it with +one or two portions of the rest and not with the whole figure and +attitude. Every student knows the feeling. So in your composition: you +may get impossible levels, impossible relations between the subject and +the surrounding canopy: perhaps one coming in front of the other at one +point and the reverse at another point. You drew the thing dreamily: you +were not alert enough. And now you must waste what you had got to love, +because though it's so pretty it is not fitting. + +But sometimes it will happen that some line of your composition is thus +hacked off by no fault of yours, by some mismeasurement of a bar by your +builder, or some change of mind or whim of your client, who "likes it +all but"---- (some vital feature). As we have said, this is not quite a +fair demand to be made upon the artist, but it will sometimes occur, +whatever we do. Pull yourself together, and, before you stand out about +it and refuse to change, consider. Try the modification, and try it in +such an aroused and angry spirit as shall flame out against the +difficulty with force and heat. Let the whole thing be as fuel of fire, +and the reward will be given. The chief difficulty may become--it is +more than an even chance that it does become--the chief glory, and that +the composition will be like the new-born Phoenix, sprung from the +ashes of the old and thrice as fair. + +Then also strike while the iron is hot, and work while you're warm to +it. When you have done the main figure-study and slain its difficulty +you feel braced up, your mind clear, and you see your way to link it in +with the surroundings. Will you let it all get cold because it is toward +evening and you are physically tired, when another hour would set the +whole problem right for next day's work; now, while you are warm, while +the beauty of the model you have drawn from is still glowing in you with +a thousand suggestions and possibilities? You will do in another hour +now what would take you days to do when the fire has died down--if you +ever do it at all. + +It is after a day's work such as this that one feels the true delight of +the balm of Nature. For conquered difficulty brings new insight through +the feeling of new power; and new beauties are seen because they are +felt to be attainable, and by virtue of the assurance that one has got +distinctly a step nearer to the veil that hides the inner heart of +things which is our destined home. + +It is after work like this, feeling the stirrings of some real strength +within you, promising power to deal with nature's secrets by-and-by, +that you see as never before the beauty of things. + +The keen eyes that have been so busy turn gratefully to the silver of +the sky with the grey, quiet trees against it and the watery gleam of +sunset like pale gold, low down behind the boughs, where the robin, half +seen, is flitting from place to place, choosing his rest and twittering +his good-night; and you think with good hope of your life that is +coming, and of all your aspirations and your dreams. And in the +stillness and the coolness and the peace you can dwell with confidence +upon the thought of all the Unknown that is moving onward towards you, +as the glow which is fading renews itself day by day in the East, +bringing the daily task with it. + +You feel that you are able to meet it, and that all is well; that there +are quiet and good things in store, and that this constant renewal of +the glories of day and night, this constant procession of morning and +evening as the world rolls round, has become almost a special possession +to you, to which only those who pay the price have entrance, an +inheritance of your own as a reward of your endeavour and acquired +power, and leading to some purposed end that will be peace. + + * * * * * + +Stained-glass, stained-glass, stained-glass! At night in the lofty +church windows the bits glow and gloom and talk to one another in their +places; and the pictured angels and saints look down, peopling the empty +aisles and companioning the lamp of the sanctuary. + + * * * * * + +The beads worth threading seem about all threaded now, and the book +appears to be done. Thus we have gone on then, making it as it came to +hand, blundering, as it seems to me, on the borders of half a dozen +literary or illiterate styles, the pen not being the tool of our proper +craft; but on the whole saying somehow what we meant to say: laughing +when we felt amused, and being serious when the subject seemed so, our +object being indeed to make workers in stained-glass and not a book +about it. Is it worth while to try and put a little clasp to our string +of beads and tie all together? + +There was a little boy (was he six or seven or eight?), and his seat on +Sunday was opposite the door in the fourteenth-century chancel of the +little Norman country church. There the great, tall windows hung in the +air around him, and he used to stare up at them with goggle-eyes in the +way that used to earn him household names, wondering which he liked +best. And for months one would be the favourite, and for months another +would supplant it; his fancy would change, and now he liked this--now +that. Only the stone tracery-bars, for there was no stained-glass to +spoil them. The broad, plain flagstones of the floor spread round him in +cool, white spaces, in loved unevenness, honoured by the foot-tracks +which had worn the stone into little valleys from the door and through +the narrow, Norman chancel-arch up towards the altar rails, telling of +generations of feet, long since at rest, that had carried simple lives +to seek the place as the place of their help or peace. + +Plain rush-plaited hassocks and little brass sconces where, on lenten +nights, in the unwarmed church, glimmered the few candles that lit the +devotion of the strong, rough sons of the glebe, hedgers and ditchers, +who came there after daily labour to spell out simple prayer and praise. +But it was best on the summer Sunday mornings, when the great spaces of +blue, and the towering white clouds looked down through the diamond +panes; and the iron-studded door, with the wonderful big key, which his +hands were not yet strong enough to turn, stood wide open; and outside, +amongst the deep grass that grew upon the graves, he could see the +tortoise-shell butterflies sunning themselves upon the dandelions. Then +it was that he used to think the outside the best, and fancy (with +perfect truth, as I believe) that angels must be looking in, just as +much as he was looking out, and gazing down, grave-eyed, upon the little +people inside, as he himself used to watch the red ants busy in their +tiny mounds upon the grass plot or the gravel path; and he wondered +sometimes whether the outside or the inside was "God's House" most: the +place where he was sitting, with rough, simple things about him that the +village carpenter or mason or blacksmith had made, or the beautiful +glowing world outside. And as he thought, with the grave mind of a +child, about these things, he came to fancy that the eyes that looked +out through the silver diamond-panes which kept out the wind and rain, +mattered less than the eyes that looked in from the other side where +basked the butterflies and flowers and all the living things he so +loved; awful eyes that were at home where hung the sun himself in his +distances and the stars in the great star-spaces; where Orion and the +Pleiades glittered in the winter nights, where "Mazzaroth was brought +forth in his season," and where through the purple skies of summer +evening was laid out overhead the assigned path along which moved +Arcturus with his sons. + + + + +APPENDIX I + +SOME SUGGESTIONS AS TO THE STUDY OF OLD GLASS + + +Every one who wants to study glass should go to York Minster. Go to the +extreme west end, the first two windows are of plain quarries most +prettily leaded, and showing how pleasant "plain-glazing" may be, with +silvery glass and a child-like enjoyment of simple patterning, +unconscious of "high art." But look at the second window on the north +side. What do you see? You see a yellow shield? Exactly. Every one who +looks at that window as he passes at a quick walk must come away +remembering that he had seen a yellow shield. But stop and look at it. +Don't you _like_ it--_I_ do! Why?--well, because it happens to be by +good luck just _right_, and it is a very good lesson of the degree in +which beauty in glass depends on juxtaposition. I had thought of it as a +particularly beautiful bit of glass in quality and colour--but not at +all! it is textureless and rather crude. I had thought of it as old--not +at all: it is probably eighteenth-century. But look what it happens to +be set in--the mixture of agate, silver, greenish and black quarries. +Imagine it by itself without the dull citron crocketting and pale +yellow-stain "sun" and "shafting" of the panel below--without the black +and yellow escutcheon in the light to its right hand--even without the +cutting up and breaking with black lead lines of its own upper half. In +short, you could have it so placed that you would like it no better, +that it would _be_ no better, than the bit of "builder's glazing" in the +top quatrefoil of the next window, which looks like, and I fancy is, of +almost the very same glass, but clumsily mixed, and, fortunately, +_dated_ for our instruction, 1779. + +I do not know any place where you can get more study of certain +properties of glass than in the city of York. The cathedral alone is a +mine of wealth. The nave windows are near enough to see all necessary +detail. There is something of every period. And with regard to the nave +and clerestory windows, they have been so mauled and re-leaded that you +need not be in the least afraid of admiring the wrong thing or passing +by the right. You can be quite frank and simple about it all. For +instance, my own favourite window is the fifth from the west on the +south side. The old restorer has coolly slipped down one whole panel +below its proper level in a shower of rose-leaves (which were really, +I believe, originally a pavement), and, frankly, I don't know (and +don't care) whether they are part of his work in the late eighteenth +century or the original glass of the late fourteenth. I rather incline +to think that they came out of some other window and are bits of +fifteenth-century glass. The same with the chequered shield of Vernon in +the other light. I daresay it is a bit of builder's glazing--but isn't +it jolly? And what do you think of the colour of the little central +circle half-way up the middle light? Isn't it a flower? And look at the +petal that's dropped from it on to the bar below! or the _whole_ of the +left-hand light; well, or the middle light, or the right-hand light? If +that's not colour I don't know what is. I doubt if it was any more +beautiful when it was new, perhaps not so beautiful. Compare it, for +example, with the window in the same wall (I think next to it on the +west, which has been "restored"). The window exactly opposite seems one +of the least retouched, and the least interesting; if you think the +yellow canopies disagreeable in colour don't be ashamed to say so: they +are not unbeautiful exactly, I think, but, personally, I could do with +less of them. Yet I should not be surprised to be assured that they are +all genuine fourteenth-century. In the north transept is the celebrated +"Five Sisters," the most beautiful bit of thirteenth-century "grisaille" +perhaps in existence. That is where we get our patterns for +"kamptulicon" from; but we don't make kamptulicon quite like it. If you +want a sample of "nineteenth-century thirteenth-century" work you have +only to look over your left shoulder. + +A similar glance to the right will show you "nineteenth-century +fifteenth-century" work--and show it you in a curious and instructive +transition stage--portions of the two right-hand windows of the five +being old glass worked in with new, while the right-hand one of all is a +little abbot who is nearly all old and has shrunk behind a tomb, +wondering, as it seems to me, "how those fellows got in," and making up +his mind whether he's going to stand being bullied by the new St. Peter. +In the south transept opposite, all the five eastern windows are +fifteenth-century, and some of them very well preserved, while those in +the southern wall are modern. The great east window has a history of its +own quite easily ascertainable on the spot and worthy of research and +study. Then go into the north ambulatory, look at the third of the big +windows. Well, the right-hand light; look at the bishop at the top in a +dark red chasuble, note the bits of dull rose colour in the lower dress, +the bit of blackish grey touching the pastoral staff just below the edge +of the chasuble, look at the bits of sharp strong blue in the +background. Now I believe these are all accidents--bits put in in +releading; but when the choir is singing and you can pick out every +separate note of the harmony as it comes down to you from each curve of +the fretted roof, if you don't think this window goes with it and is +music also, you must be wrong, I think, in eye or ear. But indeed this +part of the church and all round the choir aisles on both sides is a +perfect treasure-house of glass. + +If you want an instance of what I said (p. 212) as to "added notes +turning discord into harmony," look at the _patched_ east window of the +south choir aisle. Mere jumble--probably no selection--yet how +beautiful! like beds of flowers. Did you ever see a bed of flowers that +was _not_ beautiful?--often and often, when the gardener had carefully +selected the plants of his ribbon-bordering; but I would have you think +of an old-fashioned cottage garden, with its roses and lilies and +larkspur and snapdragon and marigolds--those are what windows should be +like. + +In addition to the minster, almost every church in the city has some +interesting glass; several of them a great quantity, and some finer than +any in the cathedral itself. And here I would give a hint. _Never pass a +church or chapel of any sort or kind_, _old or new, without looking in._ +You cannot tell what you may find. + +And a second hint. Do not make written pencil notes regarding colour, +either from glass or nature, for you'll never trouble to puzzle them out +afterwards. Take your colour-box with you. The merest dot of tint on the +paper will bring everything back to mind. + +Space prevents our making here anything like a complete itinerary +setting forth where glass may be studied; it must suffice to name a few +centres, noting a few places in the same district which may be visited +from them easily. I name only those I know myself, and of course the +list is very slight. + +YORK. And all churches in the city. + +GLOUCESTER. Tewkesbury, Cirencester. + +BIRMINGHAM. (For Burne-Jones glass.) Shrewsbury, Warwick, Tamworth, +Malvern. + +WELLS. + +OXFORD. Much glass in the city, old and new. Fairford. + +CAMBRIDGE. Much glass in the city, old and new. + +CANTERBURY. + +CHARTRES. (If there is still any left unrestored.) St. Pierre in the +same town. + +SENS. + +TROYES. AUXERRE. + +Of the last two I have only seen some copies. For glass by Rossetti, +Burne-Jones, and Madox-Brown, consult their lives. + +There are many well-known books on the subject of ancient glass, +Winston, Westlake, &c., which give fuller details on this matter. + + + + +APPENDIX II + +ON THE RESTORING OF ANCIENT WINDOWS + + +Let us realise what _is_ done. + +And let us consider what _ought to be done_. + +A window of ancient glass needs releading. The lead has decayed and the +whole is loose and shaky. The ancient glass has worn very thin, pitted +almost through like a worn-out thimble with little holes where the +alkalis have worked their way out. It is as fragile and tender as an old +oil-painting that needs to be taken off a rotten canvas and re-lined. If +you examine a piece of old glass whose lead has had time to decay, you +will find that the glass itself is often in an equally tender state. The +painting would remain for years, probably for centuries yet, if +untouched, just as dust, without any attachment at all, will hang on a +vertical looking-glass. But if you scrape it, even only with the +finger-nail, you will generally find that that is sufficient to bring +much--perhaps most--of the painting off, while both sides of the glass +are covered with a "patina" of age which is its chief glory in quality +and colour, and which, or most of which, a wet handkerchief dipped in a +little dust and rubbed smartly will remove. + +In short, here is a work of art as beautiful and precious as a picture +by Titian or Holbein, and probably, as being the chief glory of some +stately cathedral, still more precious, which ought only to be trusted +to the gentle hands of a cultivated and scientific artist, connoisseur, +and expert. The glass should all be handled as if it were old filigree +silver. If the lead is so perished that it is absolutely impossible to +avoid taking the glass down, it should be received on the scaffold +itself, straight from its place in the stone, between packing-boards +lined with sheets of wadding--"cotton-wool"--attached to the boards with +size or paste, and with, of course, the "fluffy" side outwards. These +boards, section by section, should be finally corded or clamped ready +for travelling _before being lowered from the scaffold_; if any pieces +of the glass get detached they should be carefully packed in separate +boxes, each labelled with a letter corresponding to one placed on the +section as packed, so that there may be no chance of their place ever +being lost, and when all is done the whole window will be ready to be +gently lowered, securely "packed for removal," to the pavement below. +The ideal thing now would be to hire a room and do the work on the spot; +but if this is impossible on account of expense and the thing has to +bear a journey, the sections, packed as above described, should be +themselves packed, two or three together, as may be convenient, in an +outer packing-case for travelling. It should be insured, for then a +representative of the railway must attend to certify the packing, and +also extra care will be taken in transit. + +Arrived at the shop, the window should be laid out carefully on the +bench and each bit re-leaded into its place, the very fragile pieces +between two bits of thin sheet-glass. + +Unless this last practice is adopted _throughout_, the ordinary process +of cementing must be omitted and careful puttying substituted for it. +While if it _is_ adopted the whole must be puttied _before_ cementing, +otherwise the cement will run in between the various thicknesses of +glass. It would be an expensive and tedious and rather thankless +process, for the repairer's whole aim would be to hide from the +spectator the fact that anything whatever had been done. + +What does happen at present is this. A country clergyman, or, in the +case of a cathedral, an architectural surveyor, neither of whom know by +actual practice anything technically of stained-glass, hand the job over +to some one representing a stained-glass establishment. This gentleman +has studied stained-glass on paper, and knows as much about cutting or +leading technically and by personal practice, as an architect does of +masonry, or stone-carving--neither more nor less. That is to say, he has +made sketch-books full of water-colour or pencil studies, and endless +notes from old examples, and has never cut a bit of glass in his life, +or leaded it. + +Well, he assumes the responsibility, and the client reposes in the +blissful confidence that all is well. + +Is all well? + +The work is placed in the charge of the manager, and through him it +filters down as part of the ordinary, natural course of events into the +glazing-shop. Here this precious and fragile work of art we have +described is handed over to a number of ordinary working men to treat by +the ordinary methods of their trade. They know perfectly well that +nobody above them knows as much as they, or, indeed, anything at all of +their craft. Division of labour has made them "glaziers," as it has made +the gentlemen above stairs, who do the cartoons or the painting, +"artists." These last know nothing of glazing, why should glaziers know +anything of art? It is perfectly just reasoning; they do their very +best, and what they do is this. They take out the old, tender glass, +with the colour hardly clinging to it, and they put it into fresh leads, +and then they solder up the joints. And, by way of a triumphant wind-up +to a good, solid, English, common-sense job, with no art-nonsense or +fads about it, they proceed to scrub the whole on both sides with stiff +grass-brushes (ordinarily sold at the oil-shops for keeping back-kitchen +sinks clean), using with them a composition mainly consisting of exactly +the same materials with which a housemaid polishes the fender and +fire-irons. That is a plain, simple, unvarnished statement of facts. You +may find it difficult of belief, but this is what actually happens. This +is what you are having done everywhere, guardians of our ancient +buildings. You'll soon have all your old windows "quite as good as new." +It's a merry world, isn't it? + + + + +APPENDIX III + + Hints for the Curriculum of a Technical School for + Stained-Glass--Examples for Painting--Examples of Drapery--Drawing + from Nature--Ornamental Design. + + +_Examples for Painting._--I have already recommended for outline work +the splendid reproductions of the Garter Plates at Windsor. It is more +difficult to find equally good examples for _painting_; for if one had +what one wished it would be photographed from ideal painted-glass or +else from cartoons wisely prepared for glass-work. But, in the first +case, if the photographs were from the best ancient glass--even +supposing one could get them--they would be unsatisfactory for two +reasons. First, because ancient glass, however well preserved, has lost +or gained something by age which no skill can reproduce; and secondly, +because however beautiful it is, all but the very latest (and therefore +not the best) is immature in drawing. It is not wise to reproduce those +errors. The things themselves look beautiful and sincere because the old +worker drew as well as he could; but if we, to imitate them, draw less +well than we can, we are imitating the _accidents_ of his production, +and not the _method_ and _principle_ of it: the principle was to draw as +well as he could, and we, if we wish to emulate old glass, must draw as +well as _we_ can. For examples of Heads nothing can be better than +photographs from Botticelli and other early Tuscan, and from the early +Siennese painters. Also from Holbein, and chiefly from his drawings. +There is a flatness and firmness of treatment in all these which is +eminently suited to stained-glass work. Hands also may be studied from +the same sources, for though Botticelli does not always draw hands with +perfect mastery, yet he very often does, and the expression of them, as +of his heads, is always dignified and full of sweetness and gentleness +of feeling; and as soon as we have learnt our craft so as to copy these +properly, the best thing is to draw hands and heads for ourselves. + +_Examples of Drapery._--To me there is no drapery so beautiful and +appropriate for stained-glass work in the whole world of art, ancient or +modern, as that of Burne-Jones, and especially in his studies and +drawings and cartoons for glass; and if these are not accessible, at +least we may pose drapery as like it as we can, and draw it ourselves +and copy it. But I would, at any rate, earnestly warn the student +against the "crinkly-crankly" drapery imitated from Duerer and his +school, which fills up the whole panel with wrinkles and "turnovers" +(the linings of a robe which give an opportunity for changing the +colour), and spreads out right and left and up and down till the poor +bishop himself (and in nine cases out of ten it _is_ a bishop, so that +he may be mitred and crosiered and pearl-bordered) becomes a mere peg to +hang vestments on, and is made short and dumpy for that end. + +There is a great temptation and a great danger here. This kind of work, +where every inch of space is filled with ornament and glitter, and +change and variety and richness, is indeed in many ways right and good +for stained-glass; which is a broken-up thing; where large blank spaces +are to be avoided, and where each little bit of glass should look "cared +for" and thought of, as a piece of fine jewellery is put together in its +setting; and if craftsmanship were everything, much might be said for +these methods. There is indeed plenty of stained-glass of the kind more +beautiful as _craftsmanship_ than anything since the Middle Ages, much +more beautiful and cunning in workmanship than Burne-Jones, and yet +which is little else but vestments and curtains and diaper--where there +is no lesson taught, no subject dwelt on, no character studied or +portrayed. If we wish it to be so--if we have nothing to teach or learn, +if we wish to be let alone, to be soothed and lulled by mere sacred +_trappings_, by pleasant colours and fine and delicate sheen and the +glitter of silk and jewels--well and good, these things will serve; but +if they fail to satisfy, go to St. Philip's, Birmingham, and see the +solemnities and tragedies of Life and Death and Judgment, and all this +will dwindle down into the mere upholstery and millinery that it is. + +_Drawing from Nature._--There is a side of drawing practice almost +wholly neglected in schools, which consists, not in training the eye and +hand to correctly measure and outline spaces and forms, but in training +the finger-ends with an H.B. pencil point at the end of them to +illustrate texture and minute detail. It is necessary to look at things +in a large way, but it is equally necessary to look at them in a small +way; to be able to count the ribs on a blade of grass or a tiny +cockle-shell, and to give them in pencil, each with its own light and +shade. I find the whole key to this teaching to lie in one golden +rule--_not to frighten or daunt the student with big tasks at first_. A +single grain of wheat, not a whole ear of corn; some tiny seed, tiny +shell; but whatever _is_ chosen, to be pursued with a needle-pointed +pencil to the very verge of lens-work. I must yet again quote Ruskin. +"You have noticed," he says,[9] "that all great sculptors, and most of +the great painters of Florence, began by being goldsmiths. Why do you +think the goldsmith's apprenticeship is so fruitful? Primarily, because +it forces the boy to do small work and mind what he is about. Do you +suppose Michael Angelo learned his business by dashing or hitting at +it?" + +_Ornamental Design._--It is impossible here to enter into a description +of any system of teaching ornament. At p. 294 I have given just as much +as two pages can give of the seed from which such a thing may spring. +In some of the collotypes from the finished glass the patterns on quarry +or robe which spring from this seed may be traced--very imperfectly, but +as well as the scale and the difficulties of photography and the absence +of colour will allow. + +What I find best, in commencing with any student, is to start four +practices together, and keep them going together step by step, side by +side, through the course, one evening for each, or some like division. + +_Technical Work._--Cutting, glazing, &c. + +_Painting Work._--By graduated examples, from simple outline up to a +head of Botticelli. + +_Ornament_, as described; and + +_Drawing from Nature_, in the spirit and methods we have spoken of. + +Moulding the whole into a system of composition and execution, tempered +and governed as it goes along by judiciously chosen reading and +reference to examples, ancient or modern. + +[9] "Ariadne Florentina," p. 108. + + + + +NOTES ON THE COLLOTYPE PLATES + + +It is obvious that stained-glass cannot be adequately shown in +book-illustration. + +For instance, we cannot have either the scale of it or the colour--two +rather vital exceptions. These collotypes are, therefore, put forth as +mere diagrams for the use of students, to call their attention to +certain definite points and questions of treatment, and no more +pretending than if they were black-board drawings to give adequate +pictures of what glass can be or should be. + +This is one reason, too, for the omission of all attempt to reproduce +ancient glass. It was felt that it should not be subjected to the +indignity of such very imperfect representation, and especially as so +many much larger books on the subject exist, where at least the _scale_ +is not so ill-treated. + +But, besides, if one once began illustrating old glass, one would +immediately seem to be setting standards for present-day guidance, and +this could only be done (_if done_) with many annotations and exceptions +and with a much larger range of examples than is possible here. + +The following illustrations, therefore, show the attempts of a group of +workers who have endeavoured to carry into practice the principles set +forth in this book. It has not been found possible in all cases to get +photographs from the actual glass--always a very difficult thing to do. +The illustrations can be seen much better by the aid of a moderately +strong reading-lens. + +PLATE I.--_Part of East Window, St. Anselm's, Woodridings, Pinner, by +Louis Davis._ The design, cartoons, and cut-line made, all the glass +chosen and painted, and the leading superintended by the artist. + +[Illustration: I.--Part of Window. St. Anselm's, Woodridings, Pinner.] + +PLATE II.--_Another portion of the same window, by the same. Scenes from +the Life of St. Anselm._ Executed under the same conditions as the +above. The freehand drawing and the varying thickness of the leads in +the quarry work should be noted. + +[Illustration: II.--Part of Window. St. Anselm's, Woodridings, Pinner.] + +PLATE III.--_Window in St. Peter's Church, Clapham Road--"Blessed are_ +_they that Mourn," by Reginald Hallward._ The _whole_ of the work in +this instance, including cutting, leading, &c., is done by the artist +himself. As an instance of how little photography can do, it is worth +while to describe such a small item as the _scroll_ above the figure. +This is of glass most carefully selected (or most skilfully treated with +acid), so that the ground work varies from silvery-white to almost a +pansy-purple, and on this the verse is illuminated in tones varying from +pale primrose to the ruddiest gold--the whole forming a passage of +lovely colour impossible to achieve by any system of "copying." It is +work like this and the preceding that is referred to on p. 266. + +[Illustration: III.--Window. St. Peter's Church, Clapham.] + +PLATE IV.--_Central part of Window in Cobham Church, Kent, by Reginald +Hallward._ Executed under the same conditions as the preceding. + +[Illustration: IV.--Part of Window. Cobham Church, Kent.] + +PLATE V.--_Part of Window in Ardrahan Church, Galway--"St. Robert" by +Selwyn Image._ From the cartoon. See p. 83. + +[Illustration: V.--Part of Window. Ardrahan, Galway.] + +PLATE VI.--_Two Designs for Domestic Glass, by Miss M. J. Newill._ From +the cartoons. + +[Illustration: VI.--From Cartoons for Domestic Glass.] + +PLATE VII.--_"The Dream of St. Kenelm," by H. A. Payne._ The author had +the pleasure of watching this work daily while in progress. It was done +entirely by the artist's own hand, by way of a specimen "masterpiece" of +craftsmanship, and the aim was to use to the full extent every resource +of the material. + +[Illustration: VII.--Window. "The Dream of St. Kenelm."] + +PLATE VIII.--_Six "Quarries"--"Day and Night," "The Spirit on the Face +of the Waters," "Creation of Birds and Fishes," "Eden," and "The Parable +of the Good Seed," by Pupils of H. A. Payne, Birmingham School of Art._ +These lose very much by reduction, and should be seen with a lens +magnifying 2-1/2 diameters. They are the designs of the pupils +themselves (boys in their teens), and are examples of bold outline +_untouched after tracing_. They are more elaborate than would be +desirable for _ordinary_ quarry glazing; being intended for interior +work on a screen, to be seen close at hand with borrowed light. + +[Illustration: VIII.--Quarries. (Size of originals, 4-1/2 by 4 ins.)] + +PLATE IX.--_Micro-photographs_. 1. _A piece of outline that has "fried" +in the kiln._ Magnified 20 diameters. See p. 104. + +2. _A small Diamond seen from above._ Magnified 10-1/2 diameters. The +white horizontal line is the cutting edge. + +3. _A larger Diamond that has been "re__set_." That is to say, +_re-ground_: the diagonal marks like a St. Andrew's Cross show the +grinding down of the old facets by which the new cutting edge has been +produced. Magnified 10-1/2 diameters. + +4. No. 2 _seen from the side_. Magnified 10-1/2 diameters; the cutting +edge faces towards the left. + +[Illustration: IX.--Micro-photographs from details connected with Glass +Work.] + +PLATE X.--_Micro-photographs of Glass-cutting_ Very difficult to +explain. "A" is a sheet of glass seen _in section_ multiplied 15-1/2 +diameters. The black marks along the _top edge_ are diamond-cuts, good +and bad, coming _straight towards the spectator_. The two outside ones +are very _bad_ cuts, far too violent, and have split off the surface of +the glass. Of the two inner ones the left-hand one is an ideally good +cut, no disturbance of the surface having occurred; the right-hand a +fairly good one, but a little unnecessarily hard. Passing over B for the +present--C is a similar piece of glass also magnified 15-1/2 diameters, +with _wheel-cuts_ seen endwise (coming towards the spectator). The one +on the left is a very bad cut, the surface of the glass having actually +split off in flakes, the next to it is a perfect cut where the surface +is intact, and note that though not a quarter so much pressure has been +employed, the split downward into the glass is deeper and sharper than +in the violent cut to the left, as is also the case with the two other +moderately good cuts to the right. + +D, E--_Wheel-cuts._ In these we are looking down upon the surface of the +glass. They are bad cuts, multiplied 20 diameters; the direction of the +cut is from left to right. In the upper figure the flake of glass is +split completely off but is still lying in its place. In the lower one +the left-hand half is split, and the right-hand only partially so, +remaining so closely attached to the body of the glass as to show (and +in an especially beautiful and perfect manner) the rainbow-tinted +"Newton's rings" which accompany the phenomenon of "Interference," for +an explanation of which I must refer the reader to an encyclopaedia or +some work on optics. _Good_ cuts seen from above are simply lines like a +hair upon the glass, but the diamond-cut is a coarser hair than the +wheel-cut. + +If you now hold the illustration _upside down_, what then becomes the +top edge of section C shows a wheel-cut seen sideways along the section +of the glass which it has divided, the direction of this cut being from +left to right. + +In the same way section "A" seen upside down gives the appearance of a +_diamond_-cut, also from left to right, and multiplied 15-1/2 diameters, +while "B" held in the same position gives the same cut multiplied 78 +diameters. The nature of these things is discussed at p. 48. + +In their natural colour, and under strong light, they are very beautiful +objects under the microscope. Even a 10-diameter "Steinheil lens," or +still better its English equivalent, a Nelson lens, will show them +fairly, and some such instrument, opening out a new world of beauty +beyond the power of ordinary vision, ought, one would think, to be one +of the possessions of every artist and lover of Nature. + +The illustrations that follow are from the work of the author and his +pupils conjointly. Those in which no _design_ has been added are for +clearness' sake described as "by the author"; but it is to be understood +that in all instances the transcribing of the work _in the glass_ has +been the work of pupils under his supervision. All design of diaper, +canopy, lettering, and quarries is so, in all the examples selected. + +[Illustration: X.--Micro-photographs. Diamond and Wheel Cuts seen in +Section and Plan.] + +PLATE XI.--_From Gloucester Cathedral--"St. Boniface" by the author and +his pupils._ + +[Illustration: XI.--Part of Window. Gloucester Cathedral.] + +PLATE XII.--_From the same--"The Stork of Iona" and "The Infant Church," +by the same._ Canopies from Oak and Ivy. + +[Illustration: XII.--Part of Window. Gloucester Cathedral.] + +PLATE XIII.--_Portion of a Window in progress (destined for Ashbourne +Church), by the author._ This has been specially photographed _on the +easel_, to show how near, by the use of false leadlines, &c., the work +can be got, during its progress, to approach to its actual conditions +when finished. + +[Illustration: XIII.--Portion of Unfinished Window, photographed from +Work on the Easel.] + +PLATE XIV.--_Drawings from Nature, by the author's pupils._ Pieced +together from various drawings by three different hands; made in +preparation for design of Oak "canopy." See p. 324 and Plate XI. + +[Illustration: XIV.--Drawings from Nature, in Preparation for Design.] + +PLATE XV.--_Part of East Window of School Chapel, Tonbridge, by the +author._ From the cartoon: the figure playing the dulcimer is underneath +the manger, above which is seated the Virgin and Child. + +[Illustration: XV.--Part of Window. Tonbridge School Chapel, +photographed from the Cartoon.] + +PLATE XVI.--_Figure of one of the Choir of "Dominations." From +Gloucester, by the author and his pupils._ + +[Illustration: XVI.--Part of Window. Gloucester Cathedral.] + +The names of the pupils whose work appears in Plate VIII. are J. H. +Saunders and R. J. Stubington. In Plate XIV. A. E. Child, K. Parsons, +and J. H. Stanley; and in the Plates XI. to XVI. J. Brett, L. Brett, A. +E. Child, P. R. Edwards, M. Hutchinson, K. Parsons, J. H. Stanley, J. E. +Tarbox, and E. A. Woore. The cuts in the text are by K. Parsons and E. +A. Woore. + + + + +GLOSSARY + + +_Antiques_, coloured glasses made in imitation of the qualities of +ancient glass. + +_Banding_, putting on the copper "ties" by which the glazed light is +attached to the supporting bars. + +_Base_, (1) the light-tinted glass, white, greenish or yellow, on which +the thin film of ruby or blue is imposed in "flashed" glasses; (2) the +support of the niche on which the figure stands in "canopy work." + +_Borrowed light_, a light not coming direct from daylight, but from the +interior light of a building as in the case of a _screen_ of glass. (The +result is similar when a window is seen against near background of trees +or buildings.) + +_Calm_ (of lead), the strip of lead, 3 to 4 feet long, as used for +leading up the glass. + +_Canopy_ or "tabernacle work," the architectural framing in imitation of +a carved niche in which the figure is placed. The vertical supports +(sometimes used alone to frame in the whole light) are called +"shafting." + +_Cartoon_, the design of the window, full size, on paper. + +_Chasuble_, the outermost sacrificial vestment of a bishop or priest. + +_Cope_, the outermost ceremonial and processional vestment of a bishop +or priest. + +_Core_ (of lead), the crossbar of the "H" section as shown in fig. 34. + +_Crocketting_, the ornamenting of any architectural member at intervals +with sculptured bosses or crockets. + +_Cullet_, the waste cuttings of glass. Generally used over again in +greater or less quantity as an ingredient in the making of new glass. + +_Cut-line_, the tracing (containing the lead lines only) by which the +work is cut and glazed. + +_Flux_, the solvent which assists the melting of the metallic pigments +in the kiln. Various materials are used, _e.g._ silica and lead, but +unfortunately borax also is used, and I would warn the student to buy no +pigment without a guarantee from the manufacturer that it does not +contain this tempting but very dangerous and unstable ingredient. (See +p. 112). + +_Form_, the sheet of "continuous cartridge" or cartoon paper on which +the dimensions, &c., are marked out for drawing the cartoon. + +_Gauge_, (1) the shaped piece of paper by which the diamond is guided in +cutting; (2) the standard of size and shape in any piece of repeated +work (as quarry-glazing). + +_Grisaille_ (from Fr. _gris_, grey), work where a pattern, generally +geometrical, in narrow coloured bands, is superimposed on a background +of whitish, grey, or greenish glass diapered with painted work in +outline or slight shading. + +_Groseing_, the biting away the edge of the glass with pliers to make it +fit. With regard to this word and to the term "calm," I have never found +any one who could give a reason for the name or an authority as to its +spelling, the various spellings suggested for the _latter_ word +including Karm, Calm, Carm, Kaim, and even Qualm! But while writing this +book I in lucky hour consulted the treatise of Theophilus, and was +delighted to find both words. The term he applies to the leads is +"Calamus" (a reed), while his term for what we should call pliers is +"Grosarium ferrum" (groseing iron). So that this question is set at rest +for ever. Glaziers must henceforth accept the classic spellings "Calm" +and "Groseing," and one may suppose they will be proud to learn that +these everyday terms of their craft have been in use for 900 years, and +are older than Westminster Abbey. + +_Lath_, the ruler, 3 to 8 feet long, and marked with inches, &c., used +in setting out the "forms." + +_Lathykin_, doubtless old English "a little lath," described p. 137. + +_Lasting-nails_, described p. 141. + +_Leaf_ (of lead), the two uprights of the "H" section (fig. 34). + +_Muller_, a piece of granite or glass, flat at the base, for grinding +pigment, &c. + +_Obtuse_, an angle having a wider opening than a right-angle or +"perpendicular." + +_Orphreys_ (_aurifrigia_, from Lat. _aurum_, gold), the bands of +ornament on ecclesiastical vestments. + +_Patina_, the film produced on various substances by chemical action +(oxidation, sulphurisation, &c.), either artificially, as in bronze +sculpture, or by age, as in glass. + +_Plating_, the doubling of one glass with another in the same lead. + +_Quarries_, the diamond, square, or other shaped panes used in +plain-glazing. + +_Reamy_, wavy or streaky glass. (See p. 179.) + +_Scratch-card_, a wire brush to remove tarnish from lead before +soldering (p. 144). + +_Setting_, fixing a charcoal or chalk drawing on the paper by means of a +spray of fixative. + +_Shafting_, see "Canopy." + +_Shooting_ (in carpentry), the planing down of an edge to get it truly +straight. + +_Squaring-out_, enlarging (or reducing) any design by drawing from point +to point across proportional squares. + +_Stippling_, described p. 100. + +_Stopping-knife_, the knife by which the glass and lead are manipulated +in leading-up. + +_Tabernacle work_, see "Canopy." + +_Template_, the form in paper, card, wood, or zinc, of _shaped_ +openings, by which the correct figure is set out on the cartoon-form. + + + + + INDEX + + + Accidental qualities in glass, value of, 114 + + Accuracy in setting out forms, 286 + + Accuracy of measurement, 115, 285 + + Accuracy of work in the shop, rules for, formula for right + angles, 286 + + Aciding, 130 + + Action, violent, to be avoided, 173 + + Advertising, 293 + + Allegory, 248 + + Allegory, true allegory the presentment of noble natures, 260 + + Ancient buildings, sacredness of, 245 + + Ancient glass, 171, 314, 321, 328 + + "Antique" glasses, 31 + + Architectural fitness, 234 + + Architecture, harmony with, 174 + + Architecture, stained-glass accessory to, 168 + + Architecture, subservient to, 155, 236 + + Armour, by use of aciding in flashed blue glass, 131 + + Art colours, 201 + + Artist, right claim to the title, 269 + + "Asleep," Millais' picture of, 209 + + Assistants, to be trained to mastership, 268 + + Auxerre, centre for study of glass, 315 + + + Backing, 126 + + Badger, 72, 74 + + Badger, how to dry, 193 + + Banding, 151 + + Barff's formula for pigment, 226 + + Bars, 151, 159, 167 + + Bars and lead lines, 166, 176 + + "Beads," a string of, 190 + + Beethoven, colour, 224, 271 + + Bicycle, use of, 216 + + Birds, 217 + + Birmingham, Burne-Jones windows, 236, 324 + + Boniface, St., a question of staining, 224 + + Books, 255, 257 + + Borax, untrustworthy as flux, 370 + + Borrowed light, 227 (and Glossary) + + Botticelli, 64, 78, 250, 297, 322 + + Brown, Madox, 203 + + Brush, how to fill, 58 + + Builders' glazing, 180 + + Buntingford, ride from, 216 + + Burne-Jones, 131, 203, 236, 250, 324 + + Burning, 129 + + Burnt umber, 203 + + Butterfly, 217 + + "Byzantium of the crafts," 243 + + Byzantine revival, 241 + + + "Calm" of lead, 137 (and Glossary) + + Cambridge, Burne-Jones windows, 237 + + Cambridge, centre for study of glass, 314 + + Cambridge, King's College, for blue and red, 230 + + Canopies, 245 + + Canopy, 177, 300 + + Canterbury, centre for study of glass, 314 + + Canterbury, for blue and red, 230 + + Cartoons, 83, 192 + + Cathedrals, 178, 180, 215, 230, 234, 238, 246, 282, 314 + + Cellini, 228 + + Cement and cementing, 147 + + Centres for study of glass, 314, 315 + + Chartres, centre for study of glass, 230, 314 + + Chartres, for blue and red, 230 + + Chief difficulty (in art) the chief opportunity, 301 + + Chopin, 223 + + Cirencester windows, 180 + + Cleanliness, 67, 164, 193 + + Clients, 279 + + Collotypes, notes on, 327-336 + + Colour, 198-231 + + Comfort in work, 67 + + Commission, one's first, 292 + + Conditions, importance of ascertaining at commencement, 283 + + Conduct, general, 264 + + Constantine and Byzantium, 240 + + Co-operation, 163, 265, 268, 274-6 + + Corn-colour, 217-218 + + Countercharging, 94 + + Covering up the pigment, 164 + + Craft, complete teaching of, 174, 197 + + Craftsman, right claims to the title, 269 + + Craftsmanship, revival of, 243 + Middle Ages, 252 + + Cullet, value of, 159 + + Curriculum, 321-326 + + Cut-in glass, 49 + + Cut-line, 85, 89 + + Cutter and cartoonist, 44 + + Cutting, 37, 42, 47, 87, 162 + + Cutting, advanced, 83 + + Cutting-knife, 138 + + Cutting-wheel (_see_ Wheel-cutter) + + + Dahlia, colour of, 218 + + Dante or Blake, perhaps needed today, 253 + + Dante on Constantine, 240 + + Dappling, 163 + + Dentist, precision of a, 67 + + Design, 167, 175, 325 + + Diamond, 33, 88, 331 + + Difficulty conquered brings new insight and new power, 302 + + Difficulty, the chief opportunity in a work of art, 282 + + Directing assistants, clearness in, promptness in, 277 + + Discords harmonised by added notes, 212 + + Distance, effect of, 102, 192 + + Division of labour, 170, 269 + + Docketing of papers, system of, 284 + + Dodges, a few little, 182 + + Doubling glass, 132 + + Drapery, 230, 322 + + Drawing from Nature, 324 + + Drawing, Ruskin's advice on fineness in work, 325 + + Du Maurier, 207 + + Duerer, revision of his work, 271 + + Dutch artist's portrait of actress, 220 + + + "Early English" glass, 31, 227 + + Easels, 186, 191 + + Eccentricity to be avoided, 247 + + Economy, 156, 158 + + Egyptians, 182 + + English wastefulness, 156 + + Etching (_see_ Aciding) + + Examples for painting, 321 + + Examples for stained-glass work, Holbein, 322 + + Expression, influence of distance on, 102 + + + Faceting of stones and glass, 228, 332 + + Fairford, green in Eve window, 211, 230 + + Fairford, old glass in, 314 + + False lead lines, 166 + + Fame and wealth good, but not at expense of work, 296 + + Fancy, safe guide in, 259 + + Film, 94, 101 + + Fine work in art, 298-303 + + Finish in work, precision and cleanliness, 67 + + Firing, 105-119 + + First duty of an artist, 248 + + Five Sisters window, 178, 311 + + Fixing, 135, 151 + + "Flashed" glass, 33 + + Flatness, desirable, obtained by leading, 176 + + Flowers, 217 + + Flux, 370 + + Forms, accuracy of, 286-289 + + Fresh methods and ideas come accidentally, 298 + + Freshness of work, advantage of, 116 + + Fried work, how to remove, 104 + + Frying, 104 + + + Garish colour, 202 + + Garter plates, 61, 62, 70, 71 + + Gas-kiln, 108-10 + + Gauge for cutting, how to make, 88 + + General conduct, 264 + + Giotto, 252 + + Giorgione, 203 + + Glass, ancient, 328 + + Glass, how made, 32 + + Glass, how to wax up on plate, 95 + + Glass in relation to stonework, 134 + + Glass, Munich, 84, 176 + + Glass, Norman, 227 + + Glass, old, 308, 315 + + Glass, painted, 84 + + Glass-painter's methods described, 205 + + Glass-painting compared with mezzotint, 81 + + Glass-painting compared with oil-painting, 200 + + Glass, Prior's, 31 + + Glass, value of accidental qualities in, 114 + + Glasses, "antique," 31 + + Glazing, 151, 180 + + Glossary, 369 + + Gloucester for blue and red, 230 + + Gloucester, centre for study of glass, 314 + + "God's house," 235 + + Gold pink, value of, 160 + + Good Shepherd, 172 + + Gothic revival, the, 239 + + Groseing, 43 (and Glossary) + + Groseing tool, substitute for, 55 + + "Grozeing" (_see_ Groseing) + + Gum-arabic, 58 + + Gum, quality and quantity of, 77 + + + Handel, 223 + + Handling leaded lights, 146 + + Hand-rest, 61 + + Harmony in colour, the great rule of, 211 + + Harmony, universal, 234 + + Harmony with architecture, 174 + + Heaton's kiln-feeder, 184 + + Hertfordshire, ride through, 215 + + Holbein, 64, 78, 316, 322 + + Hollander, thrift of, 157 + + Hurry to be avoided, 165 + + Hyacinths and leaves, colour of, 221 + + + Image, Selwyn, 83 + + Imagination, 248, 259 + + Industry, 65, 278 + + _In situ_, to try work, 175 + + Inspiration, nature of, discussed, 273 + + Italian, thrift of, 157 + + + "Jacob's ladder," difficulty, 280 + + Joints, good and bad, 140 + + Jugglery, craft, to be avoided, 174 + + + Kaleidoscope, 232 + + Kiln-feeder, a clumsy, 183 + + Kilns, 105 + + King, portrait of, 102 + + Knives, cutting and stopping, 138, 142 + + "Knocking up," 144 + + + Labour and material, cost of, 162 + + Lamb, Charles, on Milton's _Lycidas_, 272 + + Large work, difficulty of, 77 + + _L'Art Nouveau_, 245 + + Lasting nails, 141 + + Lathykin, 137 (and Glossary) + + Lea Valley, description of, 215 + + Lead, 89 + + Lead, "calm" of, 137 (and Glossary) + + Lead, 90, 132, 137 + + Lead-line, 84, 172 + + Lead-lines, false, 166 + + Lead-mill, 91 + + Lead, purity of, 90 + + Lead, outer lead showing, 136 + + Leaded lights, how to handle, 146 + + Leading, 133 + + Leadwork, artistic use of, 176 + + Leadworkers, wage of, 159 + + Light, 227 (and Glossary) + + Lights, 72, 146, 151 + + Limitations, 154, 170 + + Linnell's colour, 202 + + _Lycidas_, perfection of, 271 + + Lyndhurst, windows at, 237, 250 + + + Maclou, St., at Rouen, 282 + + Man's work, nature of, 196 + + Master, book no substitute for, 82 + + Master, need of, 82, 195 + + Material and labour, cost of, 162 + + Matting, 72 + + Matting-brush, 73, 75 + + Matting over unfired outline, 76 + + "Measure thrice, cut once," 285 + + Measurement, accuracy of, 115, 285 + + Measurement, relation of glass to the stonework, 134 + + Meistersingers, the, 223 + + Mezzotint compared with glass-painting, 81 + + Michael Angelo, 271 + + Middle Ages, craftsmanship of, 252 + + Millais' picture of "Asleep," 209 + + "Millinery and upholstery" in glass, to avoid, 324 + + Morris, 203 + + Muller, 79 + + Munich glass, 84, 176 + + Music, illustration derived from, 223 + + + Nails, 141 + + Nativity, star of, 229 + + Nature, 213, 217, 302, 324, 335 + + Neatness, 96 + + Needle, 68, 123 + + New College, 230 + + Niggling, no use in, 158 + + "Nimbus," withheld till the figure is finished, 263 + + "Norman" glass, 227 + + Novelty not essential to originality, 247 + + Numbers attached to natural objects, 221 + + + Oil-painting and glass-painting compared, 198 + + Oil stone, substitutes for, 53 + + Old glass, 171, 308, 314, 321 + + Orange-tip butterfly, 214 + + Order, "Heaven's first law," 233 + + Orderliness, 284 + + Originality not to be striven after, 297 + + Ornament, system of teaching, 325 + + Outline, 59-82 + + Overpainting, danger of, 120 + + Oxford, centre for study of glass, 314 + + Oxford, New College, for green, 230 + + Oxide (_see_ Pigment) + + + Painted glass, 84 + + Painter and glass-painter contrasted, 199 + + Painting, 56, 94, 118, 321 + + Painting, heaviness of, objected to by some, 227 + + Painting, rule regarding amount of, 229 + + Pansy, colour of, 232 + + Patrons, 264 + + Parthenon frieze, repose of, 173 + + Perfection, 163 + + Perpendicular, rules for raising a, 286 + + Peterborough, Gothic tracery in Norman openings, 238 + + Pictures, criticism on, 208 + + Pigment, 164, 226 + + Pigment, mixture of, 57 + + Pigment, oxide of iron, 57 + + Pigment, soft, danger of, 112 + + Pigment, unpleasant red, 57 + + Plain glazing, removing, 151 + + Plating, 147 + + Pliers, 43 + + Poppies, 218 + + Prices of stained glasses, 159 + + Principles of old work to be imitated, not accidents, 322 + + Prior's glass, 31 + + Publicity, danger of wasting time on pursuit of, 296 + + _Punch_, parody of the "Palace of Art," 250 + + Pupils' work, 335 + + Putty, substitute for cement in plated work, 318 + + Putty, to be used when glass is doubled, 147 + + + Quarries, 331 + + Quarry glazing, with subject, 177 + + + Rack for glass samples, 186 + + Realism to be avoided, 173 + + Recasting of composition, 301 + + Removing the plain glazing, 151 + + Repose in architectural art, 174 + + Rest for hand, 61 + + Restoration, 181, 245, 315 + + Resurrection, sunrise in, 219 + + Revivals, architectural, 239 + + Rich and plain work, 177 + + Right angles, formula for, 286 + + Roman decadence, 240 + + Room, to make the most of, 192 + + Rose-briar, colour of, in sunset, 220 + + Rossetti, 203 + + Ruby glass, 33 + + Ruby glass, value of, 160 + + "Rule of thumb," 113 + + Rules for work, 264, 286 + + Ruskin, 202, 255, 325 + + + Sacredness of ancient buildings, 245 + + Schubert, 223 + + "Scratch-card," 144 + + Scrubs, 81 + + Sea-weeds, 217 + + Second painting, 118, 126, 127 + + Sections, how to join together in fixing, 150 + + Sections, large work made in, 150 + + "Seed," everything grown from, 291 + + Seed of ornament, 294 + + Selvage edge, to tear off, 193 + + Sens, centre for study of glass, 315 + + Setting mixture, 86 + + Sharpening diamonds, 33 + + Siennese painters, good work to copy in glass, 322 + + Single fire, 127 + + Sketching in glass, 175 + + Soldering, 144 + + Sparta, revival of simplicity in, 243 + + Special glasses, 227 + + Spotting, 163 + + Spring morning, ride on a, 214 + + Squaring outlines, 286 + + Stain, 129 + + "Stain it!", 225 + + Stain overfiring, result of, 129 + + Stained-glass, accessory to architecture, 168 + + Stained-glass, ancient, to be held sacred, 245 + + Stained-glass, definition and description of, 29 + + Stained-glass, diapering, spotting, and streaking, 179 + + Stained-glass, joys of, 303 + + Stained-glass, loving and careful treatment of, 177 + + Stained-glass, new developments of, 132 + + Stained-glass, prices of material, 159 + + Stained-glass, subservient to architecture, 155, 236 + + Stained-glass _versus_ painted glass, 84 + + Staining, 225 + + Stale colour, danger of, 165 + + Stale work, disadvantage of, 114 + + Standardising, 113 + + Stencil brush, 121 + + Stepping back to inspect work, 176 + + Stevenson, R. L., 156 + + Stick, 68 + + Stipple, 99, 101 + + Stippling brush, 100 + + Stonework, relation of glass to, 134 + + Stopping-knife, 142 + + Streaky glass, imitating drapery, 230 + + Strength in painting, limits of, 125 + + Stretching the lead, 137 + + Style, 237, 246 + + Subject, right limits to importance of, 248 + + Sufficient firing, test of, 117 + + Sugar or treacle as substitute for gum, 62 + + Surgeon, precision of a, 67 + + Symbolism, proportion in, 262 + + + Tabernacle (_see_ Canopy) + + Tamworth, 237 + + Tapping, 41 + + Taste, some principles of, 92 + + Technical school, curriculum of, 321 + + Templates to be verified, 289 + + Tennyson, his constant revision, 271 + + Texture of glass, use of, 126 + + Theseus, 260 + + Thought, imagination, allegory, 248 + + Ties for banding, 151 + + Thrift, 157 + + Time saved by accuracy and method, 290 + + Time-saving appliances, 277 + + Tinning the soldering iron, 145 + + Tints, method of choosing, 210 + + Titian, 173, 203, 271, 316 + + Tradition, 238, 242 + + Troyes, centre for study of glass, 315 + + Trying work _in situ_, 175 + + Turgenieff, proverb on accuracy, 285 + + Turpentine (Venice), 129 + + Tuscan painters, good work to copy in glass, 322 + + + "Upholstery and millinery" in glass, to avoid, 324 + + + Venus of Milo, 260 + + Veronese, 203 + + Village church, untouched, picture of, 305 + + Violent action to be avoided, 173 + + + Wage of lead workers, 159 + + Waste, proportion of, to finished work, 162 + + Wastefulness, English, 156 + + Wax, best, 95 + + Wax, removing spots of, 98 + + Waxing-up, 95 + + Waxing-up, tool for, 188 + + Wells, centre for study of glass, 314 + + Wheel-barrow, comparison with wheel-cutter, 51 + + Wheel-cutters, 34, 35, 47, 53, 54, 56 + + White, pure, value of, 227 + + White spaces to be interesting, 178 + + Work in the shop, rules for, 286 + + + Yellow and red together, 218 + + Yellow, certain tints hard to obtain, 217 + + Yellow stain, 129 + + York, centre for study of glass, 314 + + York Minster, glass in, 230, 308, 313 + + + + +THE END + + Printed by BALLANTYNE, HANSON & CO. + Edinburgh & London + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Stained Glass Work, by C. 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