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fAii^'^-^'^

fINE

HARVARD COLLEGE
LIBRARY

JRJN IFERREDT Ta
^ 'TS LIBRARY

BOUGHT WITH

MONEY RECEIVED FROM
UBRARY FINES

THE ARTISTIC CRAFTS SERIES OF
TECHNICAL HANDBOOKS.

Edited by W. R. Lethaby.

npHE series will appeal to handicraftsmen in the industrial
-^ and mechanic arts. It consists of authoritative state-
ments by experts in every field for the exercise of ingenuity,
taste, imagination — the whole sphere of the so-called *' de-
pendent arts."

BOOKBINDING AND THE CARE OF

BOOKS. A Handbook for Amateurs, Bookbinders,
and Librarian^. By Douglas Cockerell. With
1 20 Illustrations and Diagrams by Noel Rooke, and
$ collotype reproductions of binding. i2mo.
$1.2$ net; postage, 12 cents additional.

SILVERWORK AND JEWELRY. A Text-
Book for Students and Workers in Metal. By H.
Wilson. With 160 Diagrams and 16 full-page
Illustrations. i2mo. ;(( 1.40 net ; postage, 12 cents
additional.

WOOD CARVING: DESIGN AND

WORKMANSHIP. By George Jack. With
Drawings by the Author and other Illustrations.

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. $i.^ net.

D. APPLETON AND COMPANY, NEW YORK.

** . . ." j4nd remembering these^ trtut Pindar for the
truth of his saying J that to the cunning woriman — ^and
let me solemnly enforce the 'tvords by odMng^ that to him
only)— 'knowledge comes undeceitfulJ*

— RusKiN (" Aratra Pcntclici").

<« * Very cool of Tom^ as East thought but didnt 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 T'ECHNICAL HANDBOOKS

EDITED BY W. R. LETHABY

STAINED GLASS WORK

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

1905

' ^^' ^\M-^.H.^

jL't- 1:3 1905

^braBX

* \^J^

Pubhshed May^ J906

To his Pupils and Assistants^ whoy if they
have learned as much from him as he has
from themy have spent their time profitably ;
and whoy if they have etyoyed learning as
much as he has teachings have spent it happily ;
this little book it Defeated by their Affectionate
Master and Servant y

THE AUTHOR.

EDITOR'S PREFACE

In issuing these volumes of a series of Editor's
Handbooks on the Artistic Crafts, it will ^retace
be well to state what are our general
aims.

In the first place, we wish to provide
trustworthy text-books of workshop prac-
tice, 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 de-
sign. 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

Editor's of appearance. Such " ornamentation " as
Preface 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 pro-
duction. 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 qua-
lity, 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 orna-
mentation 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, ornamen-
tation, 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 Editor's
people as furnishing reasonable occupa- Preface
tions for those who would gain a liveli-
hood. 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 workman-
ship 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 un-
certainty of academic art. It is desirable
in every way that men of good education
should be brought back into the produc-
tive 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

...

xui

Editor's branches of sculpture, the present treats of
Preface 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 illumi-
nated 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 con-
nection 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 doubtleiss 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 iioo, and there are in

xiv

France many examples, at Chartres, Le Editor's
Mans, and other places, which date back Preface
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 remark-
able 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 draw-
ing 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

Editor's and the corridor which leads from it.

Preface 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-cen-
tury 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.

xvi

AUTHOR'S PREFACE

The author must be permitted to explain Author's
that he undertook his task with some re- Preface
luctance, 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 com-
menced 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

xvii B

Author's my own way, and addressing myself only
Preface ^q 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 dis-
tinction — 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 : —

xviii

( 1 ) The worker in the ordinary " shop/' Author's
who is learning there at present, to our Preface
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 digni-

xix

Author's tary who, having such grave responsibilities
Preface jj^ their hands towards the buildings of
which they are the guardians, wish, natu-
rally, 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, thought-
ful, ambitious, and educated, who, instead
of drifting, as till recently, into the over-
crowded 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 sen-
tence 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 Author's

themselves upon, but only something to Prrfacc

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 pro-
cesses 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, there-
fore, wishes to make clear at starting the
spirit in which the task is undertaken.

It remains only to express his thanks

xxi

Author's to Mr. Drury and Mr. Noel Heaton for
Preface j^gip 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.

xxn

CONTENTS

PACK

Editor's Preface xi Contents

Author's Preface xvii

PART I

CHAPTER I
Introdttctoiy, and Conceniing the Raw Material . 29

CHAPTER II

Cttttins (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

xxiii

Contents CHAPTER IV

PAGB

Matting — Badgering — How to preserve Correctness of
Outline — Difficulty of Large Work — Ill-ground
Pigment — The MuUer — 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 — Ti^ansferring 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 Xiln — Advantages and Disad-
vantages — 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 Piainting
— Procedure ^ • .118

xxiv

CHAPTER IX Contents

PAGB

Of Staining and Adding — Yellow Stain — Adding —
Caution required in Use — Remedy for Burning
— Uses of Adding — 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
— Redpe 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 Calcu-
lation—Remedies 156

XXV

ContenU CHAPTER XIV

PAGB

Of Perfection — In Little Things— Cleanliness— Alert-
ness — 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 ML
Realism — No violent Action — Self-Effacement —
No Craft- Jugglery — Architectural Fitness founded
on Architectural Knowledge — Seeing Work in
5t^if— Sketching in Glass— The Artistic Use of
the Lead — Stepping Back~*Accepting Bars and
Leads — Loving Care — White Spaces to be In-
teresting — Bringing out the " Quality " of the
Glass — Spotting and Dappling — " Builders-Glaz-
ing" v^jtcf Modem Restoring .... 163

CHAPTER XV

A F^w Little Dodges— A Clumsy Tool— A Sub-
stitute — 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 — Clean-
liness— * Dust — The Selvage Edge — Drying a
"Badger'*— A Comment 182

CHAPTER XVI
OfColour 19S

CHAPTER XVII
bf Architectural Fitness . ^ 234

xxvi

CHAPTER XVIII Conteou

FAGB

Of Thoaght, Imagination, and Allegory . . 248

CHAPTER XIX

Of General Conduct and Procedure — Amount of
L^itimate 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 Reason-
able 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

xxvii

Contentt 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

XXVUl

■^

PART I

CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTORY, AND CONCERNING
THE RAW MATERIAL

You are to know that stained glass means Intro-
pieces of coloured glasses put together with ductory
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.

Intro- Now these are the same glass, and

<iuctory 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 what-
ever 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 to-
gether 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 differ-
ence between beautiful and vulgar art ;
for you may know intimately all the pro-
cesses 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 mohre use to you tan Intro-
swiftness of foot would be upon the broad ductory
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 mil
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 ex-
periments of enthusiasts — Prior's ** Early
English " glass, and the somewhat similar
"Norman" glass. These glasses, however,
are for craftsmen of experience to use : they

Intro- require mature skill and judgment in the
ductory 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 de-
pressions 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 Intro-
upon a flattening-stone until the round ductory
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 blow-
ing, 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 Cutting
of the diamond ; it is as sensitive to the (elementary)
hand as the string of a violin, and a good

c 33

Cutting workman feels with a most delicate

(elementary) touch exactly where the cutting edge

is, and uses his tool accordingly.

Every apprentice counts
on spoiling a guinea
diamond in the leam-
ing» which will take
him from one to two
years.

Most cutters now use
the wheel, of which illus-
trations are given (figs, i
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 unsatis-
factory. From some of
them indeed one might
suppose, if such a thing
were conceivable, that
the maker knew noth-
ing of the use of the
tool.
For it is held thus (fig. 5), the pres-
sure of the forefinger both guiding the cut
and supplying force for it: and they

Figs, i and 2.

give you an edge to press
on (fig. i) instead of a sur-
face ! In some other pat-
terns, indeed, they do give
you the desired surnce,
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).

The foregoing passage
must, however, be ampli-
fied 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.

H01V to Sharpen the Wheel
Cutter. — The right way to
do this is difficult to de-
scribe in writing. You
must, first of all, grind
down the " shoulders " of
the tool, through which
the pivot of the wheel

Cutting
{eJementvf}

Figs. 3 and 4,

Cutting goes, for they are made so large that the
(elementary) ^hecl Cannot rcach 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 Cutting
as shown in fig. 8, and rub it swiftly up (elementary)
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 sharpy 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 revolu-
tion while sharpening,
and therefore the pivot must be kept
oiled both for cutting and sharpening.

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

Figs. 6 and 7.

Cutting sloping towards you, but perfectly upright

(elemenury) laterally; draw it towards you, hard

enough to make it just Wte the glass. If

it leaves a mark you can hardly see it is

a good cut (fig, iob), 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. ioa). Not that you can make the
wheel move udeways in the cut actually ;

it will keep itself straight as a ploughshare Cutdag

keeps in its furrow, but it will press side- (elementMy)

ways, and so break down

the edges of the furrow,

while if you exi^erate

this enough it will actually

leave the furrow, and,

ceasing to cut, will "skid "

aside over the glass. As 'iq- »

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
39

Cutting almost noiseless. You think you're not cut-

(elementaiy) (j^g 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. ii, press downward
mth the thumbs and upward with the
fingers, and the glass will come apart.

But you want to cut shaped pieces as

well as straight. You cannot break these Cucuog
directly the cut is made, but, holding the (elementary)
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, shoinng that the
glass is dividing; and when that silver
line has sprung from end to end, a gentle
pressure will wing the glass apart.

Cattiog This upward jerk must be sharp and

(elementary) 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

Fig. 13.

FI6. 14.

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.

But you can only cut certain shapes —
for instance, you cannot cut a wedge-
sha^d gap out of a piece of glass (fig.
1 3) ; however tenderly you handle it, it

will split at point A. The nearest you Cutting
can go to it is a curve; and the deeper (elenieiKwy)
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).

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 ade 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
43

Cutting portion to be the shape that you wish to
(eleroeotary) ^ut 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

Now, then, cut the most difficult piece first.
That marked i. Perhaps you mil not
cut it quite true ; but, if not, then shift
the gauge slightly on to another part of
the curve, ano 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 Cutting

cut the larger and more difficult piece («lcm«ntary)

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 roust 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 pos-
sible 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

Cottbg people were taught the complete craft as
(ekmeoiiry) they should be, this book would not have
been written.

Here let me say that we cannot pos-
sibly within the narrow limits of it go
thoroughly into all the very wide range
of subjects connected with glass — the
chemis^, 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 in-
dicate 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 informa-
tion, 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 — Cuttiog

(elementary)

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 out 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 exist-
ence 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,'* main-
taining, I think rightly, that a ** cut "
is made by the edge of the wheel (this

Ctttting not being very sharp) fordng the particles
(elementary) of the glass down into the mass of it by
pressure.

With regard to the old-fashioned pat-
tern 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 wrap-
ping round the handle with cotton-wool,
let us try and put this matter straight,
and compare our requirements with the
advantages oflFered us.

There are three chief points to be
cleared up. (i) 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 "mys-
tery" of our preference for a particular
tool, although we all confess its awkward-
ness by the means we take to modify it.

(i) 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 micro- Catting
scope, or even a 6 diameter lens, certainly (elementary)
also tends to confirm.

What happens appears to my non-scien-
tific 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 laminse, because U already lies in such
layers^ and these will come apart when
the force is applied between them: but
it will only split into the lamina 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 cur-
rant-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 an-
other, and is so loosely held together that,
once a splitting force is applied, the crack
spreads very rapidly and easily, and there-
fore smoothly and in straight lines and in
even planes.

D 49

Catting The diamond, or the wheel-cutter, is

(clemciitarj) 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 thick-
ness 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 de^y 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 J of an inch long; less —
it may be only A, A — 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

• 50

on in the direction in which it has started ; Cuttibg
there is nothing to turn it aside. (elementary)

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

Cutting top surface of the glass on each side in
(dcmcntory) 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 wheel-
barrow, 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 (?«/, 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 pen-knife
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 Cutting
water ? and why this line so made will yet (elementary)
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 there-
fore 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 ex-
pensive 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.

Cutting (3) But now as to the handle. I am

(elementary) fij-gt to explain the amusing "mystery"

why the old pattern shown
in fig. I 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 malle-
able iron than in the cast
iron ?

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.

U (J

Fig. 17.

But as to all the handles themselves, I Cutting
must now voice our general complaint. (elementary)

( 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, di-
mensions, and sections with the old-estab-
lished diamond, I think we should all be
glad; and if the head; wheel, and pivot
were all made of the quality and material

Cutting of which fig. I is now made, but with the
(elementary) 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 re-
moving 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.

Painting The pigments for painting on glass are

(elementary) powders, being the oxides of various

minerals, chiefly iron. There are others ;

but take it thus — that the iron oxide Paiating
is a red pigment, and the others are in- («l«n»entary)
troduced, 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 cohur^ like red lead ; and,
do what you will, you cannot use it on
white glass. Agunst clear sky it looks
pretty well in some lights, but get it in
a side-light, 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 pig-
ments. 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. i8) ; work them up for a minute or

PiintiDg SO, till the paste is smooth and the lumps
(elementary) 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 maidmum 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.
Fig. 18. ^"^ '" ^^ ^^ Brush with Pig-
ment. — 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 Paintiog

" mud " 13 what you want to get in your (elfmeotary)

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 Hat against the glass, till all are

wet, and then in

taking it off the

palette, " twiddle "

it to a point quickly, i

This takes long to |

desciibe, 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.

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
S9

Painting must find which suits you by -and -by,
(elementary) ^nd 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 com-
mand of your
tools, set your-
self the task
of doing the
same thing,
Fig. 20. copying an ex^

ample placed underneath your bit of glass.
You will find a hand-rest (fig. 21) an
assistance in this.

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
60

the Garter at Windsor, examples of which Painting
by the author's courtesy I am allowed to («l«n«tary)
reproduce (figs. 22~22a), are ideal for
bold outline-work, and fascinatingly inte-
resting 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

FlO. 21.

it is a good thing to be learning side by
side with the other.

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-

Painting working pigment, and after it is dry you

(elementary) ^an moisten it as often as you will for

further work by merely breathing on the

surface ; and perhaps if your aim is outline
onfy, 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
62

PjUDtlDg

(elementary)

«3

Painting treacle colour; nor do I think treacle serves
(dcmcnury) gQ ^^n fQj. ^}^g ^g^t process I am to describe,

which here follows.

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 day-
light. 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, faith-
fully 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 speak-
ing 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 Paintiag
rest your bit of glass on and a leg to stand (elementary)
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 mil 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

Fig. 23.

come to it when we come to deal with work
made up of a number of pieces of glass, as
all windows must be.

This that you have now, not being a
window but a bit of glass to practise
on, what 1 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

E 65

Painting this work on an easel ; but this is not the
(elementary) ^^y such work is usually done; — ^wherc
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, bung-
lingly 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 at-
tention 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 Patntug

materials in good order. You shall find a (cle«cntory)

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 es-
pecially 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 afiluir 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 i(?," neither more nor less:
the spotlessness and order and perfect
finish of every tool and material, from
those fearsome things which (though you

Painting prefer not to dwell on their uses) you can-
(elementary) ^^^ |^g|p admiring, down to the snowy

cotton-wool daintUy 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.

ff^hat 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.

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 fine-
FiG. 24. ness 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
^8

sharp, *'as sharp as a needle/' and can- Painting

not need sharpening, — and they will go (elementary)

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 out-
line — 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

Painting
(elementary)

PaintiDg
(elemenury)

Painting need do. But as an example of the degree
(elemenury) of correctness attainable (and therefore to
be demanded) are here inserted two illus-
trations (figs. 25 and 26), one of the
example used, and the other of a copy
made from it by a young apprentice.

CHAPTER IV

Matting — Badgering — ^How to prciervc Correctness of
Outline — Difficulty of Large Work — Ill-ground
Pigment — The Muller — Overground Pigment —
Taking out Lights—" Scrubs "—The Need of
a Master.

Matting 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
72

piece of glass on which the outline is Matting
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 liush gets dry at the point ; you
must hold it so {fig. 3 1 ), then the curve
of the hair makes the brush go lightly
over, the surface, while also, the body of
73

the brush being pointed downwards, the
point you are using is always being re-
filled.

It takes a very skilful workman indeed

Fig. 39.

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 "
74

the surface of the painting with it very
rapidly, moving it from wde to side so as
never to stab twice in the same spot; this
by degrees makes the colour even, by
taking a little oflF the dark part and
putting it on the light ; but the result
will Jock mottled, not flat and smooth.
Sometimes this may be agreeable, it de-
pends on what you are painting ; but if
you wish it to be
smooth, just give
a last stroke or
two over the
whole glass side-
ways, tnat is to
say, holding the
badger so that it
stands quite per-
pendicular to the
glass, move it,
always stUl perpen-
dicular, 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 movt along
so that the points of the hairs are all just
lightly touching the glass all the time.

How to Ensure the Drawing of a Face
being kept Correct while Painting. — If you
75

MaRiDg

Fig 30.

MatuDg 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
Pig ,, head on to the

glass to trace it
also with equal care on to a piece of tracing
paper,andarrange 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 whidh you are to
paint the head. On which [riece of glass
76

also your first care should be that these Matting
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.

It requires a good deal of patience and
practice to lay matt successfully over un-
fired outline. It is a question of the
amount and quality of the gum, the con-
dition 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 im-
measurably in difficulty. The real test
is being able to produce in glass a real

Matting 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 be-
yond 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 insufiSiciently 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
sufiSiciently 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 Mattiog
bits of unground material : under a
lOO-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
muiler 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 diflFerences
of a craft are endless; there is no fore-
casting 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 oflF" than in "putting on."
You have laid your dark " matt " all over

MattiDg the glass evenly ; now the next thing is
to remove it wherever you want light or
hslf-tone.

How to Finish a Shaded Painting out of
the Even Matt. — ^This is done in many

Fig. 32.

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 6ne sand-paper
till they are as stiff* as you like them to
be. You want them diffierent in this:
80

Some harder, some softer; some round, Matting
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 labori-
ously produced I
over the whole
copper- plate,
the engraver
removes it in
variousd^rees,
leaving the ori-
ginal to stand
entirely only
for the darkest

of all shadows, ^"'' ^^

and removing it alt entirely only in the
highest lights.

There is nothing for this but practice ;
there is nothing more to K// about it; as the
conjurers say, "That's how it's done." You
will find difficulties, and as these occur you
willthinkthis a most defective book. "Why
on earth," you will say, " didn't he tell us
about this, about that, about the other ? "
r 8x

Matting 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 re-
gard to those already engaged in glass-
painting, it is of course intended to arouse
their interest in, and to give them infor-
mation upon, those other branches of
their craft which are not generally taught
to those brought up as glass-painters.

CHAPTER V

Cutting (advaDced) — 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 pro- Cutting
cesses of cutting and painting in themselves, (advanced)
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 differ-
ent 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 !

••

Cutting You think it, perhaps, too "severe**?

(advanced) 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 /r^/ 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 Cutting
love them. You will love them so much (advanced)
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 tempt-
ing and specious tricks.

How to Make a " Cut-line T — 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

Cutting lightly in charcoal over the drawing:

(adyanced) 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 artistVcolourman
or large stationer. Pin it over the cartoon
with the dull surface outwards, and with
a soft piece of charcoal draw lines iV ^^ i
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 Cutting
to, the shiny cloth. (advanced)

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 free-
hand by the line you see through the
glass. This latter process needs no de-
scription, 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

Cutting powdered white chalk, dab the glass all
(advanced) Qygj. . ^j^g^ 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 thi$ 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/«// ^ of an inch. This sixteenth of an
inch represents the " heart " or core of the
future kad; it is the distance which the
actual bits of glass lie one from the other
in the window. You must use a very
sharp pen-knife, 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 ; other-
wise you will be sure to cut into it. Now,
whichever of all these processes you em-
ploy, remember that
there must be a full
iV of an inch left be-
tween each piece of
glass and all its neigh-
bours.

The reason why you
leave this space be-
tween 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 neigh-
bour 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.

Fig. 34 is an illustration of various
kinds and sizes of lead ; showing some
with the glass inserted in its place. By

Fig. 34,

Cutting
(adranced)

Cutting all means make your leads yourself,
(adnaced) 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

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
90

which the lead passes. The working of Cutting
such an instrument is a thing that is («l™nced)
understood in a few minutes with the
instrument itself at hand, but it is cum-
brous to explain in writing, and not worth

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 decreas-
ing its thickness and finishing it as it goes.
9»

Cooiiig Some principles of good lasu and common

(ad»aoced) jgy^g ^fj^ regard to the cutting up of a

Window ; according to which the Cartoon and

Design must be modified. — Never di^iitse

the lead-iine. Cut the necessary parts first.

Fig. 38.

as I said^^before ; cut the optional parts
simply ; thinking most of craft-conveni-
ence, and not much of realism.

Do not, however, go to the extent of
making two lead-ltnes 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.

Do not cut leafage too much by the

Fig. 39.

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

Cutting
(adTanced)

Cutting
(adyanced)

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 PaintiDg — Stipple — Dry
Stipple — Film — Effects of Distance — Danger
of Over-Painting — Frying.

Painting I HAVE mentioned all these points of
(advanced) 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 Paintbg
the glass at all. (adTanced)

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 instruc-
tions) 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

Painting it at a chemist's, not at the oil-shop)*
(advanced) and heat a few ounces of it in a sauce-
pan, and when all of it is melted — not
before, and as little after as may be —
take any convenient tool, a pen-knife 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 comer
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 oflF the
plate, the spots of wax will chip oflF more
easily. I do not advise it. Boys in the
shop who are just entering their appren-
ticeship get very skilful, and quite pro-
perly so, in doing this work ; waxing up
yard after yard of glass, and never drop-
ing 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 Painting
be done thus cleanly, because if a spot of (adT»Dc«l)

Fig. 40.

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
o 97

Painting it removed with a wet duster dipped in a
(advanced) ij^^ig g^t of some kind — pigment does

well — otherwise the glass is greasy and the
painting will not adhere.

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 spoil-
ing 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 ; Painting
you are sure to miss some, in going over (advanced)
the glass with a duster, and you will dis-
cover them again, to your cost and annoy-
ance, 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 pro-

Ptinting cess at any moment ; if you leave it off

(idvanced) sooD, the work will be soft

and blurred, for, not being

dry, the pigment wilt spread

j^in 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.

A very coarse form of the

Fig 4. process is "dry" stippling,

where you stipple straight

on to the sun^e of the dear glass, with

lOO

pigment taken up off the palette by the PamtiBg
stippling brush itself: for coarse distant (a<i^anccd)
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 cer-
tain 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 open-
ings ; and a very little light let, in pin-
holes, 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 m these
various processes ; for its behaviour varies
with every degree of all of them. One
may gradually acquire the skill to com-
bine 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 pro-
cess in all its degrees, and see what results
each has, both when seen near at hand
and also when seen from a distance. It

lOI

Painting is useless to try and learn these things
(adranced) 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 paint-
ing 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 — thafs 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,

1 02

and yet at thirty the shades may all gather Painting
together into black patches ; the drawing (adTanced)
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, wUl be the result
if the cheeks are stippled or scrubbed, and
the shade round the eyes left as 2ifilm —
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 pour-
ing 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 out-
line 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

103

Painting glass " IS dimmed; — and you will find your
(adranccd) outline look almost the same at each dis-
tance. 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 paint-
ing 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

104

does fry, it is your only plan to so remove Painting
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 f ring.

CHAPTER VII

Firing — Three Kinds of Kiln — Advanuges 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 Firing
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
forriis ? 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 modi-
fications of the process.

First, the use of the old, closed, coke
or turf kiln.

Second, of the closed gas-kiln.

105

Firing 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 per-
manent 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

1 06

preserved from the dangers attached to Firing
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 ob-
jections 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 foo quick.

Now I have the highest authority (that of
the makers of both kiln and pigment )to sup-
port my own conviction, founded on my own
experience, in what I am here going to say. i

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

107

Firing 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-im-
portant 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 explo-
sion ; and as it is absolutely necessary for you
to have instruction, either from the maker
or the experienced user of them, it is useless
108

for me to tell lamely what they could show Firing
thoroughly. I shall therefore leave this

essentially tcchmcal part of the subject, and,
omitting these details, speak of the few
principles which regulate the firing of glass.
109

Firing

Firing And the first is to fire it enough. What-

ever 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 re-
ceive 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

112

thumb." For every difFerent glass difFers Firing
in hardness, and you never know, except
by memory and constant handling of the
stuiF, exactly what your materials are going
to do in the kiln ; for as to standardising,
so as to get the glass into any known rela-
tion 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 manu-
facture of the lighter tinted glasses, the
"whites" especially, on which the heads
and hands are painted, and where conse-
quently 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

H 113

Firing 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 ques-
tion of firing is to take care that the work
is not " stale " when it goes into the kiln.
Every one will tell you a diflFerent tale
about many points connected with glass,
just as doctors disagree in every afiFair of
life. In talking over this matter of keep-
ing the colour fresh — even talking it over
with one's practical and experienced friends
generally — one will sometimes hear the re-
mark 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 sufiicient
reason for any reasonable man.

But indeed I have always found it one

114

of the chiefest difficulties with pupils to Firing
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 accu-
racy." 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 im-
portance, 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

.s>

Firing a very fine state of division, and the
carbonic acid, which all air contains (espe-
cially 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 pro-
cess of its escape. I have myself some-
times noticed, when some painted work
has been laid aside unusually long before
firing, some white efflorescence or crystal-
lisation 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 con-
tinuously, and to fire as soon as you can ;

ii6

and above all things not to let the colour Firing
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 im-
peril 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 peep-
hole, 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 ; butdirectly
it is fired the pigment itself becomes glossy,
and then the surface will reflect.

117

FiriDg 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 gkss, and leave the glasis
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 o^ Desperation —
The Middle Course— Use of the Finger— The
Second Painting — Procedure.

The Second And when you have looked at it, as I
Painting said just now you should do, your first
thought will be a wish that you had never
ii8

been born. * For no one, I suppose, ever The Second
took his first batch of painted glass out of Painting
the kiln without disappointment and with-
out 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 cflFects in glass,
which you find are unattainable.

There is, however, one remedy which I

119

The Second suppose all glass-painters try, but eventu-
Paintmg ^^^y 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 care-
fully 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 work-
ing 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, fhen whenever it has passed over the
previous outline-paintings for exampk, in the
eyes^ mouthy nostrils^ &ff., 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

1 20

tools that will lighten it — it will not The Second
yield to the scrub." Paintiiig

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 sand-
paper 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
(^i^ging 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 i
of the surrounding lighter '
modelling, and will pre-
vent your dark shadows '
looking like actual "patches," as we de-
scribed them doing a little way back.

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

The Second I once thought, as I suppose most do, that
Painting it would really solve the .difficulty. What
I allude to is the use of the needle.

Of Work Etched out with a Needk. —
The needle is a very good and useful
tool for stained glass, in certain opera-
tions, but I am now to speak of it as
being used over whole areas as a sub-
stitute for the scrubs 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. I . — If your matt is so dense
that it will not^re offj it must very nearly
approach the point of density at which it
will fry. How then about the portions

122

of it which have been painted on, as I The Second
have said, over another layer of pigment Painting
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
etchings 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

123

The Second described for that operation, and it will
Painting ^Qt 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 fhink 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

124

bits of thick crust, cut sheer out from The Second
each other, with clear glass between. Painting

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

125

The Second surface seems to make the matt yield more
Painting easily to the tool. The dust remaining
on the surface perhaps helps this; any-
how, 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

126

been Fired. — So far we have only spoken of The Second
the appearance of work after its first fire, Painting
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 paint-
ing 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

127

The Second whole, and with stippling-brushes of
Painting 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 skil-
ful 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.

128

CHAPTER IX

Of Staining and Aciding — Yellow Stain — Adding —
Caution required in Use — Remedy for Burning
— Uses of Aciding — Other Resources of Stained-
Glass Work.

Yellow stain, or silver stain as some call Of Stain-
it, is made in various ways from silver — a^-^
chloride, sulphate, and nitrate, I under- ^ °^
stand, 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.

I 129

Of Stain- How to Etch the Flash off a Flashed Glass
ing and ^^'/^ Acid, — ^There is only one more pro-
Aci ing ^^gg^ having to do with painting, which I
shall describe, and that is " aciding/* By
this process you can etch the flash oflF 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 care-
ful of the fumes, for they arc 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
130

where photographic materials arc sold. If 0£ Stain-
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 neighbour-
hood 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

131

Of Stain- parts. This is the last process I need
j?^*°^ describe; the many little special refine-
^ °^ ments to be got by playing games with
the lead-lines; by thickening and thin-
ning 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 em-
ployed 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.

132

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, Leading-
upon the bench, and pin it down there. ^P *"^
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

133

Leading- each of your straight-edges, so that the
Up and core of the lead corresponds with the out-

It will be right here to explain what

relation the extreme outside measurement
of your work should bear to the daylight
azes of the openings that it has to fill.
134

I think we may say that, whatever the Lciding-
" mouldings '* may be on the stone, there Up and
ii always a flat piece at exact right angles """^
to the face of the wall in which the
^ndow stands, and it is in this flat piece
that the groove is cut to receive the glass

(fig- 47).

Now, as the glazed light has to fill
the daylight opening, there must obviously
be a piece beyond die "daylight" size to

go into the stone. By slipping the glazed
light in sidewtefs, and even, in lat^e lights,
by bending it slightly into a bow, you can
just get into the stone a light an inch, or
newly so, wider than the opening; but
the best way is to use an extra wide lead
cm the outside of your light, and bend
back the outside leaf of it both front and
back so that they stand at right angles
135

Leading- to the Surface of the glass (fig. 48). By
Up and this means you can reduce the size of the
"^"^ panel by almost J of an inch on each
side ; you can push the panel then, with-
out 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 pur. You will
then have the panel in its
groove, with about J of an
Fig 48. '^^^^ *° hold by and i of an
inch of lead showing. Some
people fancy an objection to this; per-
haps 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. Any-
way 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 digresMon by
136

mentioning now slomething that properly Leading-
belongs to fixing. I Up and

Now before begirtining to glaze you must **"*^
stretch and straighten the lead ; and this is
done as follows (figjr. 49 — Frontispiece),

Hold the "calmf" of lead in your left
hand, and run thef finger and thumb of
your right hand d own the lead so as to
get the core all one way and not at all
twisted : then, hc^lding one end firmly
under your rigfnt 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^
vit^e (fig. 50), made to your fancy for
the purpose, but something like the dia-
gram, 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,

137

LeadiDg-
Upand
Fixing

138

some a paktte-knife cut down — either
square across the blade or at an angle — it
is a matter of taste (fig. 51).

Having laid down your leads A and
B (fig. 52), put in the corner piece of
glass (No. I ) ; two of its sides will then
be covered, leaving one uncovered. Take

Fig. 52.

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.

In fig. 53 A represents a good joint,
B a bad one. Bend it round and cut it

^39

Leading-
Up and
Finng

Leading- ofF Similarly at E. Common sense will
Up and tell you that you must get the angle
*^**™8 correct by marking it with a slight in-
cision 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.

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

A Fig. 53 B

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 | of an inch (supposing you are
using lead of i inch dimension). You
must therefore cut the two little bits we
are now busy upon | 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.
140

How the Loose Glass is held in its place Leadiog-
tohile Leading. — This is done with nails Up and

Fixing

Fig. 54.
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).

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 lead-
ing-knife which is called a " stop-
ping-knife" (fig. $6), 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
141

Ln^g-
Upaod
Fixing

of the handle, into which they run solder. Leading-
terminating it in a solid lump at the butt- ^f^fjf
end which forms an excellent substitute
for a hammer.

Now as soon as you have got the bits
I, 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
stra^ht-edge and put it against the lead,

^43

Leading-
Upand
Fixing

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.

Soldering

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
144

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,

Fic. 57-
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.

K 145

Solderiog 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
F,G 58 so that the middle line of

■4«

them corresponds with the edge of the Soldering
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, | to plaster of Paris
\ ; 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 pro-

Soldering bably run in between the two, producing
' blotches which you have no means of

reaching in order to remove them.

Fto. 59.

You can, if you like, clean away all the
cement along tfie edges of the leads ; but
it is quite easy to be too precise and neat

148

in the matter and make the work look Solderiog

^J"'*^-

Fig. to.

hard. If you do it, a blunted awl mil
serve your turn.

One had better mention everything,
149

Soldering

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 in-
to the building, of
course you will put
your section thus —
(fig. 6 1 a) ; while if
you wish the work
to be weather-tight
you will place it
thus — (fig. 6 1 b). It is just as well to make
every question clear if one can, and there-
fore 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.

150

Fig. 61 a. Fig. 61 b.

How to Band a Leaded Light. — Banding Soldering
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 stone-
work 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

SolderiDg common sense will tell you to begin at the

Fig. 62.
bottom and work upwards. This done,
152

untwist the copper bands from the bars Soldering
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.

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.

'53

PART II

CHAPTER XII

Introductory — The Great Questions — Colour — Light
— Architectural F itoess — Limitations — Thought

— Imagination — Allegory.

Intro- The foregoing has been written as a hand-
ductory book to use at the bench, and therefore I
have tried to keep myself strictly to de-
scribing the actual processes and the ordi-
nary 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

154

and in our life on earth. How much more Intro-
then in an Art like this, which soars to the ductory
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 subservi-
ence to, the great and dominant Art of
Architecture ?

We must not shrink, then, from saying
all that is in our mind : we must ask our-
selves 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 limita-
tions, 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 beca^use 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

Intro- these matters, and so prepare the way for

ductory ^h^t 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 Calcu-
lation — Remedies.

Of Those who know work in various countries
Economy jnust 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, care-
less whence fresh supplies might come, is

156

" English all over." This is the character Of
of the race. It has its good side, this Economy
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 rest-
less 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 ar-
range ; 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,

157

Of the way docs not seem clear to have the
Economy whole of what might be wished in this
matter. I will point out the difficulties
against it.

First, unless some system could be in-
vented 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 induce-
ment 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 re-
spective 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 start-

158

ling, considered in the light of what one Of
knows of the ordinary practices and Economy
methods.

The antique glasses used in stained-
glass work vary in price from is. 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 IS. per hour.

The price of the same glass thrown
under the bench, and known as " cuUet,"
is £1 per TON.

Let us now do a little simple arith-
metic, which, besides its lesson to the
workers, may, I think, come as a revela-
tion even to some employers who, content
with getting work done quickly, may
have hardly realised the price paid for that
privilege.

I ton = 20 cwt.
80 qrs.

X28^

640
32 0Z.=s2lb., 160

therefore -^ 2)2 240 lbs.

1 1 20 =s number of square feet

in a ton.

159

Of The worth of this at is. a foot (whites)

Economy jg .

-^ 20) 1 1 20{sSs6 PER TON.

100

120
120

At 28. 6d. per foot (the best of pot-
metal blues, and rubies generally) : —

2^ times 56 s 140 5^140 PER TON.

At 5s. a foot (gold-pink, and pale pink,
Venetian, and choice glasses generally) : —

SS2S0 PER TON.

Therefore these glasses are worth re-
spectively — 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 ** gene-
rally " ? — in any given job as much goes
below as remains above if the work is in
fairly small pieces? Is not the accom-
panying diagram a fair illustration (fig.
63) of about the average relation of the
shape cut to its margin of waste ?

160

Employers estimate this waste variously. Of
I have heard it placed as high as two- Economy
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

Fia. 63.
used. This, I admit, was told me in my
character as customer^ and by way of ex-
plaining what I considered a high charge
for work ; but I suppose that no one with
experience of stained-glass work would be
L 161

Of disposed to place the amount of waste
Economy 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, suppos-
ing 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 twopence or threepence 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

162

"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 in-
fluence in any particular shop — and em-
ployers and employed must worry the
question out between them. I am content
with pointing out the facts.

Economy

CHAPTER XIV

Of Perfection — In Little Things — Cleanliness —
Alertness — But not Hurry — Realising your Con-
ditions — 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
L ead - L ine — 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 Modem Restoring.

The second question of principle that I
would dwell upon is that of perfection.

163

Of Per-
fection

Of Per- Every operation in the arts should be

fecdoQ perfect. It has to be so in most arts,
from violin-playing to circus-riding, be-
fore 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 in-
dustry.

Any one 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

164

colour, caked and dry, at the edges of OfPcr-
his palette for weeks, till all is stale ; and fcction
then, when the spirit moves him, will
some day work this in, full of dirt and
dust, with the fresher colour. Every-
thing, 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 de-
liberate, 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

165

Of Per- when we are dead ; and we soon shall be,
fection 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 there-
fore 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

1 66

light you are painting, will get the thing Of Per*
quite near to its future conditions. frction

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 through-
out the length of the light; and these
bars should be | inch, f inch, or i 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 diflSiculty in answering this
than any other technical question in this
book. I do not think it can be answered

167

Of Per- with a hard and fast " Yes " or " No." It
fcction 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 hin-
drances 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 dis-
tances on account of use ; and they must
be arranged with regard to each other in
i68

the whole of the window on account of Of Per-
appearance. fcction

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 be-
fore 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 win-
dow to fit in with the numerous heads
and hands.

If, by the way, I see fit in any case to

169

Of Per- adopt the other plan, and make my com-
fccdon position 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 limita-*
tions 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 to-
gether, 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 observ-
ance of which charms us so in the ancient
Gothic Art of the Middle Ages.

For, since those days, the craft has

170

never been taught as a whole. Reader! Of Per-
this book cannot teach it you — no book Section
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 in-
deed 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

171

Of Per- corner sometimes in the minor detail of
fection 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 m 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.

Tou 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 land-
scape 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

172

do for glass, and you must modify your Of Pcr-
whole outlook, your whole composition, fection
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 reso-
lutely 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

173

Of Per- you must aim at repose. Remember, — it
fectton 13 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-^lass man turned into
their buildings, to display himself and
spread himself abroad and blow his
trumpet !

Efface yourself, my friend ; sink your-
self ; illustrate the building ; consider its
lines and lights and shades ; enrich it, com-
plete it, make people happier to be in it.

There must be no craft-jugglery in stained--
glass.

The art must set the craft simple prob-
lems ; 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 ac-
cording 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 some-

174

thing of architecture, not in order to Of Per-
imitate the work of the past and try to fection
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 neces^
sary, removing it for correction and amend-
ment.

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 combina-
tions of colour should be sketched larger
— full size even — before you venture
to cut.

Of Per- Work should be kept flat by leading.

fection 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 with-
out 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 dis-
guised the lead-lines.

Tou 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.

176

Every bit of glass in a window should look Of Per-
'' cared for y ^^^^^^

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 orna-
mental 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.

M 177

Of Per- There are no hard and fast rules as to
fection 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 inte-
resting. The golden rule is to handle every
bit of it yourself, and then you will be
interested in the ingenuity of its arrange-
ment ; the cutting of it into little and big
bits; the lacework of the leads; thickening
and thinning these also to get bold con-
trasts 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 wA^V^r 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 grisailte 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.

178

The drawing is free and beautiful ; the Of Per-
whole work is like jewellery, the colour fcction
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 difiFerent
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

179

Of Per- and stripes and dapples, scatters daisies on

fection ^j^^ 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

1 80

may have been, sinfully, brought there OfPcr-
from windows where it did belong. At Action
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 unin-
teresting 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 ; irre-
sponsible, absiurd, and delightful.

i8i

CHAPTER XV

A Few Little Dodges — A Clumsy Tool — A Sub-
stitute — A Glass Rack — ^An IncoQTenient Easel
— A Conrenieiit Easel — A Waxing^up Tool —
An Easel with Morable Plates — Making the
most of a Room — Handling Cartoons — Cleanli-
ness — Dust — The Selvage Edge — Drying a
« Badger " — A Comment.

A Few Here, now, follow some little practical
-k!^^^ 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 be-
cause 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 advan-
tage and with the best results. And truly
our stained-glass methods are most waste-
ful and bungling. The ancient Egyptians,
they say, made glass, and I am sure some
182

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 instru-
ment (fig. 64), used for
loading some forms of
kiln ?

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
not be hard to invent) would bring it
from the bench to the kiln, and then^ if

183

A Few

Little
Dodges

Fig. 64.

surely should

A Few

Little

Dodges

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

Fig. 65.

think a half (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 con-
sequence of these rough ways is that the
kiln-man, whom we want to be a quiet,
observant man, with plenty of leisure and
184

with all his strength and attention free to
watch the progress of a process or experi-
ment, like a chemist in his laboratory,

A Few

Little
Dodges

Fig. 66.

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.

185

A Few A GLASS-RACK FOR WASTE PIECES.

Dodges 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 wastefuUy 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
186

shop I was to work
(wishing to give me
every advantage and to
save time, nad 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

Dodgu

187

A Few strike ! But did no one, then, ever see in

T\!^^^ 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 ?

A CONVENIENT EASEL.

Fig. 6 8 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
188

A Few
Litde

189

A Few youngest
Dodge.

" hands " (and heads), and
really a prsuse-
worthy inven-
tion, though
indeed a ^mple
and self-evident
matter enough.
The usual tool
for waxing - up
is (l) 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
..p because it retains
' heat so well, why
Fig. 69. "ot use copper

for the waxing-

up tool ? besides, it can be made into a pen

which will hold more wax,"
190

So said, so done; nothing indeed to A Few
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

191

A Few 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 mir-
rors, 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 in-
telligence ! 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

192

upright and spinning it gently round with A Few
your hands, freeing first one edge and J^^*
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 bo 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 oflF 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-

N 193

AFew
Litile
Dodg«

shilling frizzle ! But the Way is this : First A Few
sweep the wet brush downwards with all J;"^^^
your force, just as you shake the worst ^^*
cff 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 ?

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
tesson insisted on in the former volumes
of this series of handbooks, and gathered

195

A Few into the sentence quoted as a motto on

Little the fly-leaf of one of them, that " An

° ^^' art can only be learned in the workshop

of those who arc 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 de-
termined, 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 common-
places 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 sufi^er.

Man's work upon earth is all like that.
The things are there under his very nose,
but he never discovers them till some acci-
dent shows them ; how many centuries of
sailing, think you, passed by before men
knew that the tides went with the moon ?

196

Why then write a book at all, since A Few
it is not the best way ? Little

Speaking for myself only, the reasons -Lio^ig**
appear to be : First, because none of these
crafts is at present taught in its ful-
ness 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 ques-
tion 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 be-
comes my task to return to the great lead-
ing principles and try to deal with them,
and the first cardinal principle of stained-
glass work surely is that of Colour.

197

CHAPTER XVI

OF COLOUR

Of Colour But how hopeless to deal with it by way
of words in a book where actual colour
cannot be shown 1

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 draw-
ing 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

198

things? The words fall upon the ear, OfCplqur
but the eye is not filled.

All stained-^lass 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 prinu-oses 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 v,ery sentences come in frag-
ments. 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 pal-
ette;

And if he has a good master he m^y
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

199

Of Colour 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 pamt, and as he
learns it applying his knowledge, bravely
and industriously, to add strength to
strength, brightness to brightness, rich-
ness to richness, depth to depth, in ever
clearer, fuller, and more gorgeous har-
mony, he may indeed become z 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 combina-
tions of pure and vivid colour.

200

And even a man industrious, alert, Of Colour
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 con-
tented 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

20I

Of Colour 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 "irre-
solution " 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 ignor-
ance 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.

204

For the painter of pictures (we said) Of Colour
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 ;

205

Of Colour "This looks better;" "That is a
pleasant harmony;*' "Ah! but thi^
makes it sing ! *'

He gets them into groups, and com-
bines them into harmonies, tint with
tint, groupl 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 hstrmonies ;

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.

206

Is it not the Way ? Is it not common Of Colotur
sense ?

Tintfe ! 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 after-
noon's occupation. One says : " It's
quite tob dull to see tolourS 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 dtiU day. But they were not quitfc sd
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 teachirig, and
yet it never does so, in our academies

107

Of Colour and schools of art. A curious matter
this is, that a painter's training leaves
this great resource of knowledge ne-
glected, 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 beauti-
fully 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 har-
monious 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
j 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
208

am urging this training. For it is a Of Colour
case of

** the little more and how much it it,
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 pic-
ture 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 combina-
tions 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.

o 209

Of Colour 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 dominat-
ing 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 satis-
factory 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 gel

ZiQ

your green — not a sage-^recn, or an **art- Of Colour
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 arrang- i
ing of the right quantities and the '
right degrees of them together."

211

Of Colour To which may be added another, hpropos
of our bit of " pale pink."

The harshest contrasts, even dis-
cords, 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 ane-
mone ? 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

212

adopted — an "Anemone-coloured" win- Of Colour

dow — 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

213

Of Colour and stand for a moment to enjoy these
things, ankle-deep in roadside grass, you
can seem to hear the healthy pulses beat-
ing 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

214

such things as these and the money* Of Colour
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 Hert-
fordshire : " ^ 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 Totten-
ham, Brondesbury and Upton Park, sweet
country villages where quiet people lived
and farmed and gardened amidst the or-
chards, fields, and hawthorn lanes.

Here now live, in mile after mile of
jetry-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

1 West of the road between Welwyn and Hitchin,

215

Of Colour 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^lass, 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 up-
right on it and go slow — ^and get away
from these bricks and mortar, to where
we can see things like these ! those dande-
lions and daisies against the deep, green
grass ; the blazing candles of the sycamore

216

buds against the purple haze of the oak Of Colour
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 stsdned-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

217

Of Colour among the Pierina^ 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 combina-
tion where ruby has been acided oflF 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
218

your Resurrection Angel as he rolls away Of Colour

the stone with scarlet beads of sunrise,

not seen but felt from where you stand

on the pavement below. I ^ant 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 quan--

titles: 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 brit^ing out its nature and
its life.

Do not be afraid; for the things that
yet remain to do are numberless. Do

219

Of Colour 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.

220

Hyacinths look well with their leaves : Of Colour
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^, 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 fairy-
land 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 h^lp
anywhere and from anything, and as much

221

Of Colour 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

222

the whole, than you could forecast the Of Colour
lost "Chord";—

*^ Whicb came from the soul of the organ,
And entered into mme/'

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 HandeFs "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 (com-
plete) bar in the overture to "Tann-
hauser," 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 (Standcben)^ the 13th

223

Of Colour 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 Ap-
passionata/' 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 leaf-
age 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
acided 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 stiver.

"I thought you'd like to look at it
before we stained it,'* said he.

224

"Stain it!" I said. "I wouldn't Of Colour
touch it; not for sixpence three-far-
things ! "

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 ques-
tion of staining. It is a resource very
easily open to abuse — to excess. Be care-
ful 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

p 225

Of Colour 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 win-
dow, where the highest light is a greenish
white, is to me very unpleasant, and when
in addition yellow-stain is used, unbear-
able. This became a fashion in stained-
glass when red-lead-coloured pigments,
started by BarfTs 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 prc-
226

sented to me with this condition — of Of Colour
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 improve-
ment are apt to condemn the degree of
heaviness with which windows are ordi-
narily 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 rn
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, some-
times, it can almost dispense with any
painting. The grey shadows that come
from the background play about in the

227

Of Colour glass and modify its tones, doing the
work of paintingy 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 com-
bination 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
jems. 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
228

if one wants for any reason the special Of Colour
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 gener-
ally 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 manu-
facture. 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 pig-
ment to any extent that may seem fit to
you as an artist, and necessary to get the
efiect of colour and texture that you arc
suming at, in the thing seen as a whole.

229

Of Colour As to the exaggeration of making acci-
dental 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 Fair-
ford ; what blue and red are, in the
glorious east window of the nave at
Gloucester, and in the glow and gloom of
Chartres and Ginterbury and King*s Col-
lege, 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
230

heated through with the memory of them Of Colour
ally 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 group-
ings 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 impres-
sion 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.

231

Of Colour 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, re-
solves 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 Ints 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
232

away all the end of the lid except a OfColoor
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 thou-
sand 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

233

Of Colour 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 some-
where 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.

Of Archi-
tectural
Fitness

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 cen-
turies which have lived and died. Here

234

Fitness

the old artists set their handmark to live Of Archi-

now they are gone, and we who see it ^?5^*^

to-day sec, 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 busi-
ness 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

235

Of Archi- you to these grave walls to consult with
tectural them as to the limits they impose upon
^•'»"* your working.

And perhaps the most important of all
is already observed by your hing 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 re-
servation 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 re-
member 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,
236

in that full and ample way, in a beautiful Of Archi-
Gothic building full of lovely architectural tcctural
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 Lynd-
hurst, 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 knowini
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

237

Fitness

Of Archi- they not add the fancies of their own
tectural 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.

238

A word about each of these three con-
ditions.

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 archi-
tecture. It would, indeed, no doubt be
better, if we must speak in a dead lan-
guage, 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 re-
planting 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 move-
ment 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 mould-
ings and traceries and other architectural

239

Of Archi-
tectural
Fitness

Of Archi-
tectoral
Fitness

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 some-
thing 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,^
when he established his capital at Byzan-
tium; 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 for-
gotten 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

* Paradise, canto vi. i.
240

the insincerity and mere spirit of imita-
tion 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 archi-
tecture 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
^)uilding — a revived interest in materials
for their own sake, and a revived practice
of personally working in them and ex-
perimenting with them. One calls to
mind examples of these things, growing
in number daily — plain and strong fur-
niture made with the designer's own
hands and without machinery, and en-
joyed in the making — made for actual
places and personal needs and tastes;

« HI

OfArchi-
tectural
Fitness

Of Archi-
tectural
Fitness

houses built in the same spirit by archi-
tects 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 civilisa-
tion ; and it has special interest for us of

242

to-day, because it was not a ease 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 enerva-
tion, luxury, and decay.

This seems our hope for the future.

There has already gathered together
in the great field of the arts of to-<iay
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 ac-
cessory 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

243

Of Archi.
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Fitness

Fitness

Of Archi- had " no style of architecture " was surely
tectural 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 there-
fore 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

244

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 him-
self ; but, supposing you admit that it is
permissible, what are the proper restric-
tions 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 — "/V/ 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-cen-
tury panels and borders are venerable, the

Of Archi.
tectural
Fitness

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 — z
" Gothic " style ?

No.

What rule, then f

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 —

(i) 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 con-
sider 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

246

seems justifiable and to be demanded,
proceed as if treading on holy ground.
Do not try crude experiments on vener-
able 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, with-
out 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.

OfArchi.

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Fitness

247

CHAPTER XVIII

OF THOUGHT, IMAGINATION, AND

ALLEGORY

Of Thought, " The first thing one should demand of
Imagbation, a man who calls himself an artist is that
Ali^^ A^ has something to say^ some truth to
*gory fg^^f^^ ^^f^g lesson to enforce. "DorCt you

think so f ••

Thus once said to mc an artist of re-
spectable attainment.

" / don^t care a hang for subject; give me
good colour^ composition^ fine effects of lights
skill in technique^ thafs all one wants. 'DorCt
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

248

degraded and discredited in the eyes of Of Thought,
men by his bungling advocacy. Imagination,

On the other hand, the artist who has yyj^ ^
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 be-
ginning his career and feeling the pres-
sure 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 alle-
gory; 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 Aca-
demies 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

249

Of Thought, of the past, and seemingly leaving few
ImaginatioD, imitators. Burne -Joncs just heard of as a
Allccory Strange, unknown artist, who wouldn't ex-
hibit his pictures, but who had done some
queer new kind of stained-^lass 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
yf 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 allego-
rical 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

250

case must differ. There is such a thing as Of Thought,
genius^ and where that is there is but small Imagination,
question of rules or even of youth or age, J^
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 gener-

251

Of Thought, ally ought to remain for the present
Imagination, unspoken.

^y?° A great point of happiness in this dan-

gerous 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 master-
ship. 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 founda-
tion for the future rather than building
the monument of to-day. 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

252

but a Dante or a Blake, with the ac- Of Thought,
companying destiny of having to prove ImagiMtion,
as they did— Allegory

** si come Ba di sale
Lo pane altrui, e com'^ duro calle
Lo scendere e'l salir per I'altrui scale." ^

But, however these things be, whether
working happily in harmony with the
scheme of things around us, and only con-
cerned 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 experimen-
talists, 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

" how tastes of salt
The bread of others^ and how is hard the passage
To go down and to go up by othei^s stairs."

— Paradise f xvii. 58.

253

Of Thought, spirit, docs not daunt, but inspires. For
ImaginattoD, ^hc greatness of all things is ours for the

AJlceorv w^^^^^g* 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 naked-
ness 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 scrutinis-
ing 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."^

All the great thoughts of the world

^ Coningsby, Book iii. ch. i.

254

are stored up in books, and all the great Of Thought,

books of the world, or nearly all, have Imagination,

been translated into English. You should AHcgory

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.^

"Do you know, if you read this, that you
cannot read that — ^that what you lose to-
day 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 your-
selves that it is with any worthy conscious^
ness of your own claims to respect that
you jostle with the common crowd for
entrAe here, and audience there, when all

^ " Sesame and Lilies," Lecture L

255

Of Thought, the while this eternal court is open to you.
Imagination, ^ith its society wide as the world, multi-
Alkgorv tudinous 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 com-
panionship there, your own inherent aris-
tocracy 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 be-
sieging your attention on every stall ? It
is no more possible to give you entire
guidance towards this than to give com-
plete 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,

256

set up some guide-posts, and the best of all Of Thought,
guidance surely is not that of a guide-post, Imagination,
but that of a guide, a kindly hand of one AUcgorv
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 Pente-
lici," "Ariadne Florentina," '*The Morn-
ings 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 sym
bolism of the old pagan world (as we call
it) and of more recent Christendom; all
the makers of ancient Greece and Italy

R 257

Of Thought, and of our own England; worship and
Imagination, kingship and leadership, and the high
. .?°^ thought and noble deed of all times,
^gory ^^^ clustering in groups round these
centres is the world of books. All Theo-
logy, Philosophy, Poetry, Sacred History ;
Homer, Plato, Virgil, the Bible, and the
Breviary. The great doctors and saints,
kings and heroes, poets and painters,
Geromc and Dominic and Francis; St.
Louis and Coeur - de - Lion ; Dante, St.
Jerome, Chaucer, and Froissart; Bot-
ticelli, 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 sym-
bolism and allegory — the expression of
258

abstract thought by beautiful figures ? Of Thought,
Read the myths of Greece expounded to Imagination,
you in their exquisite spirituality in the Allccorv
"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 sur-
round 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 puzzied and aflRronted; leaving the

259

Of Thought, inner few for whom you really speak, the

Imagination, hearts that, you hope, are waiting for your

Alkgory "^^ssage, 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 ap-
peals 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 continu-
ally at the great themes ready set for you
in the story of the past and " understanded
260

of the people," while you are patiently Of Thought,
strengthening and maturing your powers Imagination,
of art in safety, sheltered from yourself, ai?
and sheltered from the condemnation due
to the too presumptuous assumption of
apostleship. For it is one thing to stand
forth and say, " / 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 frojn 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 yoii hope to do, and illustrating im-
personal 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 por-
trayal of great natures, the Angels of God
as shown forth by you may be recog-
nised as indeed Spirit, and His Ministers as
flaming Fire.

There is even yet one last word, and

261

OfThottghty that is, in all the minor symbolism sur-
Imagination, rounding your subjects, to observe a due
All 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 specta-
tor 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 at-
tribute 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 trust-
ing even to the ordinary, well-recognised
symbols in common use, and being misled

262

Allegory

by them to think you have done some- Of Thought,
thing you have not done; and rather Imagination,
withhold these until the other be made ai?"^
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 re-
present — the moment arrives when I say,
"Yes, I have done all I can, — now he may
have his nimbus ! ''

263

CHAPTER XIX

Of General Conduct and Procedure — Amount of
Legitimate Atsistance — 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 Reason-
able 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.

Of General HAVING now described, as well as I can,
Conduct ^j^g whole of your equipment— of hand,
cedure *^^ 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 differ-
ent to the high themes we have just been
trjring to discuss — ^and relating chiefly to
264

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 ques-
tion 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 : de-
signers, cartoonists, painters, cutters, lead-
workers, kiln-men : none of whom, as a

265

Of General
Conduct
and Pro-
cedure

cedure

Of Genenl rule, know any branch of the work except
Conduct their own.

*°^^^!r' Obviously one of the principal conten-
tions 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 arc
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

266

place with thicker or thinner lead, in the Of General
same careful spirit. But I do not think Conduct
so. I fancy the truth to be that the ^cedure"
whole business should be opened up to all,
and afterwards each should gravitate to
his place by natural fitness. For the car-
toonist 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-opera-
tion. 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 one-
self. 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 follow-
ing close upon it comes the rule that

267

Of General springs naturally out of it ; that, being a
Conduct master oneself, one must make it one*s

"^cdur^' ^bj^c^ ^^ 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.

(i) 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
268

the whole work personally at all stages; Of General
and Conduct

(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 deaden-
ing 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 sub-
division of labour which places each succes-
sive operation in separate hands accepted
as a matter of course, but into each opera-
tion 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 inspir-
ing art. To men so trained, so employed,
all counsels of perfection are foolishness ;
all idea of tentative work, experiment,
modification while in prc^ess, 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

269

Of General times before and will produce a thousand
Conduct times again.

cJ^T " W^^^ ^^>" ^^^^ ^*^^' ^^ * ^^^^^ ^^
the writer, a man so trained, " it's a matter

of judgment and experience. It's all non-
sense 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 re-touching 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 uni-
versally 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 i Literature i 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.

270

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 ? Tenny-
son, when he corrected and re-corrected his
poems from youth to his death ? Dlirer,
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 ? ^
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

Of General
Conduct
and Pro-
cedure

* "Ariadne Florentina," p. 31.

271

Of General give good colour to the jthought that it
Conduct probably was so.

and Pro- ^ ^

cedure ** 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 : ^ —

" 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 some-
thing 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! — inter-
lined, 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, succes-

* " A Saturday's Dinner."
272

and Pro-
cedure

sivc, indifferent ! I will never go into the Of General
workshop of any great artist again, nor Conduct
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, chang-
ing, presenting at all stages and in all
details of a work of art, infinite and con-
tinual 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 rela-
tions 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 combina-

s 273

and Pro-
cedure

Of General tion. The general does not pin himself
Conduct 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 "judg-
ment and experience," for all things are
new, and there are no two tasks the same;
and it is impossible for you from the out-
set 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,

274

forsooth ! " What remedy or answer for Of General

this ? Conduct

Well — setting: aside the question of the ^^^^^

. » . , ^ , cedure

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 appli-
ances 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 privi-
leges 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 " T do not mean that art is easy
or pleasant in the way that ease is pleasant ;

275

and Pro-
cedure

OfGcfneral there is nothing harder; and the better
Conduct 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 un-
questioned 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.

276

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 ^ 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
de^gner 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.

277

Of General

Conduct
and Pro-
cedure

Of General
Conduct
and Pro-
cedure

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 disinclina-
tion 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 nervous-
ness, drooping eyelids, and a general in-
clination 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 short-
ness 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

278

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 hesi-
tating 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 al-
ways 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. Re-
member 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

279

Of General
Conduct
and Pro-
cedure

Of General in another place we said about keeping all
Conduct « solvent " — so do with actual suggestion of

"^j " 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/' ^ 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 Scrip-
ture 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 re-
striction. 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 *JFair in one

^ " Aratra Pentelici," p. 253.
280

panel with Eve's figure taking up almost Of General

the whole height of it, and have a similar Conduct

panel with * Angels Ascendi ng and Descend- ^^^^''

ing' 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 pro-
vince 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

281

Conduct
and Pro-
cedure

Of General of which old art is so full — like, for in-
stance, 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 con-
tinue their fall amongst the columns below.
"Angels Descending," by-the-bye, with a
vengeance ! And if the b»d 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 some-
thing dauntingly impossible will often be
the very thing that will shake your jog-
trot cart out of its rut, make you whip up
your horses, and get you right home.

But

Observe this — that all thfese wishes of
the client should be most strictly ascer-
tained beforehand; all possibility of mid-
way criticism and alteration prevented.
Thresh the thing well out in the pre-

282

liminary stages and start clear; as long
as it is raw material, all in solution, all
hanging in the balance — -you can do any-
thing. 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-doncy 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 to-
gether 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
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

283

Of General
Conduct
and Pro-
cedure

Of General economical ways to your genius as an

Conduct artist; in shqrt, another whole side to

oedore' ^^^^ 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 ofEce ^^ letter
basket/' rather wider than a sheet of fools-
cap paper, and with sides high enough to
allow of the papers standing upright in
unfolded sheets, each group of them be-
hind 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
or the thickest brown paper, such as they
put under carpets, is very good — and store
them away for reference. Larger port-

284

folios for all templates^ tracings, or archi-
tects' 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.

Of General
Conduct
and Pro-
cedure

ON ACCURACY IN MEASUREMENT.

In one of TurgeniefPs 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 measure-
ment unless it has been made by yourself,
or for yourself — to your order."

The measurements on architects' de-
signs, or even working drawings, can
never be trusted for the dimensions of
the built work. Even the builders' tem-
plates, by which the work was built, can-
not 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 sup-
posed verticals or horizontals m built work,

285

Of General especially in tracery. A thing may be theo
Conduct retically and intentionally at a certain

*ccdurc" *"8^^> ^^^ actually at quite a difFerent
one. If level is important, take it your-
self 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 he 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

286

Of General
Conduct
and Pro-
cedure

Fig. 71.

287

Of General line to raise a perpendicular. Let A B be

Conduct the given straight line (this must be the

*ced ^^ /(!?«^ 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.

( 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 up-
wards, and every foot marked on both sides.

288

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 oflF 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
middlp 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 measure-
ments, whether of feet, bars, or squaring-
out lines, or levels for canopies, bases, or
any other divisions of the light, must be

T 289

Of General
Conduct
and Pro-
cedure

Of General made upwards from this true level

Conduct LINE."

and Pro-
cedure 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 carew
with the three plain rules: —

( 1 ) To have everything orderly ;

(2) To have everything accurate;

(3 ) To bring everything and every ques-
tion to a point, at the time^ and clinch it.

CHAPTER XX

A STRING OF BEADS

A String Is there anything more to say ?

of Beads 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

290 •

that you might ask me aught else you A String
want. of ^«^a^*

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 wilj 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 ques-
tions 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

291

A String sum it up in the advice, to take any-
of Beads thing 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 toKlay 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.)
292

But though I said that nothing will A String
grow but seed, it does not, of course, of Beads
Follow that every seed will grow, or, if
it does, that you yourself will reap the
exact harvest you expect, or even recog-
nise 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 push-
ing, 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 side-
lights 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

293

A String
of Beads

Design conasb oP artttngemcrit Igfc m
pi«.c£isc MTWigcmcnt scperote:^, (jnd on its
^ simplest terms. "Sate Ihe 6implest pos^

.J_ =qF=: TTVj}^ all omtLtncnt 5pHr)Q*

^1 ftcm Ihis, tuihout, Por a. core

'^idet^Ie X Hrne crongim its

ch&rdcter. or mekir^ ajiy addiHons x of a

dlflfefcnt Shzrdder k> it. If xxxr etre nck-^u

t\en to <i> this cDhrf resource h2\^ ciDc?

cue mzy change its diredion . Prooeed Ihen

10 30^. dhsetving a few \Aeiy simple rules

\x(B 1. Do file XAXjvh in single "sWches

<5L — . 2.& fo each arm of Ihe cross in

J "^s) hxm. A toep a record of each la

(?/ $lep; IhaJ is, as soon 65 yov^

h^ve gc* aiw definite deVdcpemert from

your originM. form, put lh^l: doojn an-^sb

paper am leave it . drawlngf it cMer do^n

am developinq from Jhe second dra^in5

^ss(0 ^^ fourth rule is fl^ most im*

nr >L portart of all: 4*. Keep 'on Ife^-«b

' qx** as much as possibte.^^ late

a -nuniUer of single steps from Ihe

pomt you have wrivcd at, tk* a^ rwmber

of consexuAtiv^ ^steps leading farther from):

c ,® d. ^ It. For*^e5caxnpte:'->w*

"b* here is d< smde-ss
step from "aJ, you doA
one Ihinq. Idor^dt-^
ooant i/Du togpondev^
^,^,^ '^fc'png from it UvaTbl
n ^ asc;9«ce:ur\tiL you rove
ly/ gone OacK lo Ag/aTaiw.
made all the mtmraialeh/ possitAe steps k>
be tohen ftxDm it. one of tjjK. is shai)n.^'f:

Fig. ja.

294

Seed of design as dppUed Id Craft u
Material, Su ppose j/ou ha^ Ihree sim*

^•i— --^Tf==i4^ ^F^ openlnqs. (ftg/a:)

I I |~ *~^ p^05S^ge uuindouxs, use
I v^l ij I uJiU suppose, edchjsjfr
ii"'v T CJith ^ central lx)riz*

lortbal Irar: ajnd suppose you have d.-«
number of pieces or qlASS to use up al»
f'eaycj^ cut io one gi&qz, and Ihat 5ixof

□ these fill a ujindduJ, aa\ y^u get aivi
fiUle Vdwety by ^rrangemenl: on the>t
FoUojoi-nq tennS' L^iNzattfiq "bdh upper
Nid loufer ranges alike
iTUlouJiry 30ui«eEio >\alMe Ihem ,Meirhca.t

5. not waiStinq any glass.
!•. Hot halv^ing more ifen tjoo in each light
^ ^ *C ^.. RnuD is this. Fig.b!-x>

you despise Af>« so

>S>»fc

alisurdb/ simple?

^- ff\mf^^ ornament injc

itf>g^/V/^ dasa exhaust ' all the possiCie*
vartetie^rUiere dte at least nir«. j^ Do
them. Shatis ail

tflllilliil

TSS?^

.i. f imi. *

rfw;

Fig. 73.

ffl

295

A String
of Beads

A String window ; if green, green ; if yellow,
of Beads 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 per-
fecting 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.

In these days and in our huge cities
there are so many avenues open to cele-
brity, through Society, the Press, Exhibi-
tion, and so forth, that a man once led
to spend time on them is in danger of
finfling 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
whith might have Jbeen earned by the
• work which was sacrificed for them. It

becomes almost a profession in itself to
keep oneself notorious.

o spend large slices out of one's time

le mere putting forward of pne's work,

showing it apart from doing it, necessaiiy sts

this sometimes is, is a thing to be done

296

in th(

grudgingly ; still more so should one A String
grudge to be called from one's work of Beads
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
^nd does not pretend to forestall it, the

297

A String time when some fresh idea in imagination,
of Beads 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 ma-
ture 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

298

drawing from the life. Try it in its A String
acutest form, not from the posed, pro- ofBeadi
fessional 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 wrest-
ling 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 beauti-
ful 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

299

A String occur because you have left some factor
of Beads ^f ^hc problem out of count, and tWs
should never be. Your business is to
take all into account and to sacrifice
everything, however fascinating and tempt-
ing it may be in itself, if it does not fit
in as part of an harmonious whole. Re-
member 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 : per-
haps 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.
300

But sometimes it will happen that some A String
line of your composition is thus hacked of Bcadt
ofF by no fault of yours, by some mis-
measurement 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

301

A String you let it all get cold because it is toward
of Beads 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 sugges-
tions 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

302

the watery gleam of sunset like pale gold, A String

low down behind the boughs, where the of Bcadt

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 ac-
quired power, and leading to some pur-
posed end that will be peace.

• •••••

Stained - glass, stained - glass, stained-
glass! At night in the lofty church

303

A String windows the bits glow and gloom and
of Beads talk to one another in their places ; and
the pictured angels and saints look down,
peopling the empty aisles and companion-
ing 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

304

household names, wondering which he A String
liked best. And for months one would of Bcadt
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

u 305

A String wonderful big key, which his hands were
of Beads 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
306

that were at home where hung the sun A String
himself in his distances and the stars in of Beads
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.

307

APPENDIX 1

SOME SUGGESTIONS AS TO THE STUDY

OF OLD GLASS

Some Sug- EvERY One who wants to study glass

gcstionsas should go to York Minster. Go to

to the ^Yit extreme west end, the first two

otudy of . , /• 1 •

Old Glass Windows are of plain quames 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 — / do ! Why ?— well, because
it happens to be by good luck just righf^
and it is a very good lesson of the degree
308

in which beauty in glass depends on Some Sug-
juxtaposition. I had thought of it as gestionsas
a particularly beautiful bit of glass in g^^^ ^^^
quality and colour — but not at all ! it is old Glass
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 mix-
ture 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 pro-
perties of glass than in the city of York.
The cathedral alone is a mine of wealth.

309

Some Sug- The nave windows are near enough to see
gcitions as all necessary detail. There is something
StV f ^^ every period. And with regard to the
Old Glass ^^^^ ^^^ clerestory windows, they have been
so mauled and repleaded 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 cen-
tury 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
310

Old Glast

below ! or the whok of the left-hand Some Sug-
light; well, or the middle light, or the gwtionsas
right-hand light? If that's not colour stud^of
1 don't know what is. I doubt if it niH aia«i
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 disagree-
able 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 tran-
sept is the celebrated " Five Sisters," the
most beautiful bit of thirteenth-century
" grisaille " perhaps in existence. That is
where we get our patterns for " kamp-
tulicon " 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-

311

SomeSttg- century" work — ^and show it you in a
gettiooi as curious and instructive transition stage —
Stud? of po^^ioJ^s of the two right-hand windows
Old dlasB 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 op-
posite, 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 re-leading ;
but when the choir is ^singing and you
312

can pick out every separate note of the Some Sug-
harmony as it comes down to you from g^^iotu as
each curve of the fretted roof, if you o!^^ r
don't think this window goes with it and old Glaw
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 dis-
cord 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 lark-
spur 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^

313

Some Sug- old or neWj without looking in. You cannot
gettions as tell what you may find.
c!^j r And a second hint. Do not make

Study of ... J- 1

Old Glass written pencil notes regarding colour^
either from glass or nature, for you'll
never trouble to puzzle them out after-
wards. 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 any-
thing 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

314

unrcstorcd.) St. Pierre in the same
town.

Sens.

Troves. Auxcrrc.

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.

Some Sug-
gestions as

to the

Study of

Old Glass

APPENDIX II

ON THE RESTORING OF ANCIENT WINDOWS

Let us realise what is done.

And let us consider what oughf to be done.

A window of ancient glass needs re-
leading. 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 oS a rotten canvas and re-lined.
If you examine a piece of old glass whose
lead has had time to decay, you will find

315

On the

Restoring

of Ancient

Windows

On the
Rettoring
of Ancient
Windows

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 gener-
ally 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
scaflFold itself, straight from its place in
the stone, between packing-boards lined

316

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 to-
gether, 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 pack-
ing, and also extra care will be taken in
transit.

Arrived at the shop, the window should

317

On the
Reitoring
of Ancient
Windows

On the

Rettoriog

of Ancient

Windows

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 cement-
ing must be omitted and careful puttying
substituted for it. While if it is adopted
the whole must be puttied before cement-
ing, 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 prac-
tice anything technically of stained-glass,
hand the job over to some one represent-
ing a stamed-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 skt^ch-books

318

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 df
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 no-
thing 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

319

On the
Restoring
of Ancient
Windows

On the
Rettoring
of Ancient
Windows

into fresh leads, and then they solder
up the joints. And, by way of a trium-
phant 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 difilicult 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 ?

320

APPENDIX III

Hints for the Curriculum of a Technical School for
Stained-Glass — Examples for Painting — Ex-
amples of Drapery — Drawing from Nature —
Ornamental Design.

Examples for Painting. — I have already
recommended for outline work the splen-
did 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 photc^raphs were from the best
ancient glass — even supposing one could

?[et them — they would be unsatisfactory
or 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 im-
mature in drawing. It is not wise to
reproduce those errors. The things them-

X 321

Hints for
the Curri-
culum of a
Technical
School for

Stained-
Glass

Hints for
the Curri-
culum of a
Technical
School for
Stained-
Glass

selves 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 flat-
ness and firmness of treatment in all these
which is eminently suited to stained-glass
work. Hands also may be studied n*om
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 modem, as that of Bume-

322

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 DOrer 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 orna-
ment 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

323

Hints for
the Cam-
culum of a
Technical
School for
Stained-
Glass

Hints for
the Curri-
cttlum of a
Technical
School for
Stained-
Glass

put together in its setting ; and if crafts-
manship were everything, much might be
said for these methods. There is in-
deed plenty of stained -glass of the kind
more beautiful as craftsmanship than any-
thing 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,
liiese things will serve ; but if they rail 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 ne-
glected 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

324

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,^ "that all
great sculptors, and most of the great
painters of Florence, began by being gold-
smiths. Why do you think the gold-
smith's apprenticeship is so fruitful ? Pri-
marily, 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

* "Ariadne Florcntina," p. 108.

Hmu for
the Curri-
culum of a
Technical
School for
Stained-
Glass

Hints for
the Curri*
culum of ft
Teclmicftl
School for

Stained-

GlftM

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 collo-
types 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
tc^ether, 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.

PaintingfVork. — By graduated examples,
from simple outline up to a head of Botti-
celli.

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 modem.

326

NOTES ON THE
COLLOTYPE PLATES

Notes on It is obvious that stained-glass cannot be
CoUotypct 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, there-
fore, 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 laiger books on the subject exist,
where at least the scale is not so ill-treated.

328

But, besides, if one once began illus- Notes on
trating old glass, one would immediately Collotypes
seem to be setting standards for present-
day guidance, and this could only be done
{if done) with many annotations and excep-
tions 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 prac-
tice 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 L — Part of East Window^ St,
AnseMs^ Woodridings^ F inner ^ by Louis
Davis. The design, cartoons, and cut-line
made, all the glass chosen and painted, and
the leading superintended by the artist.

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.

Plate III. — ■ Window in St. Peter^s
Churchy Clapham Road — " Blessed are

329

Notes on they that Mourn^^ by Reginald Hallward.
Collotypes 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.

Plate IV. — Central part of Window in
Cobham Churchy Kent^ by Reginald Hallward.
Executed under the same conditions as
the preceding.

Plate V. — Part of Window in Ardrahan
Church, Galway — ** St. Robert,^' by Selwyn
Image. From the cartoon. See p. 83.

Plate VI. — Two Designs for Domestic
GlasSy by Miss M. J. Newill. From the
cartoons.

Plate VII. — "TA? Dream of St.
Kenelm^^ by H. A. Payne. The author

330

had the pleasure of watching this work Notes on
daily while in progress. It was done Collotypes
entirely by the artist's own hand, by way
of a specimen " masterpiece" of craftsman-
ship, and the aim was to use to the full
extent every resource of the material.

Plate VIIL— *y/x " 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^ Birming-
ham School of Art. These lose very much
by reduction, and should be seen with a
lens magnifying 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 in-
tended for interior work on a screen,
to be seen close at hand with borrowed
light.

Plate IX. — Micro - photographs, i. 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^ diameters. The white
horizontal line is the cutting edge.

2' A larger Diamond that has been " re^

331

Notes on j^/." That is to say, re-ground: the

Collotypes 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 lo^ diameters.

4. No. 2 seen from the side. Magnified
10^ diameters; the cutting edge faces
towards the left.

Plate X. — Micro-photographs of Glass--
cutting. Very difficult to explain. " A '*
is a sheet of glass seen in section multiplied
15^ 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^ 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 Notes on

split downward into the glass is deeper Collotypes

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-^uts. 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
dowriy what then becomes the top edge of
section C shows a wheel-cut seen side-

333

Notes on ways along the section of the glass which
Collotypes {^ 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-^uty also from left to right, and
multiplied 1 5% 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 under-
stood 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,

334

and quarries is so, in all the examples Notes on
selected. CoUotypct

Plate XL — From Gloucester Cathedral —
" St. Boniface^^ by the author and his pupils.

Plate XII. — iPtom the same — " The
Stork of lona " and " The Infant Church;'
by the same. Canopies from Oak and Ivy.

Plate XIIL — Portion of a Window in
progress {destined for Ashbourne Church\ by
the author. This has been specially photo-
graphed 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.

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.

Plate XV. — Fart 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.

Plate XVI. — Figure of one of the Choir
of " Dominations.^' From Gloucester^ by the
author and his pupils.

The names of the pupils whose work
appears in Plate VIII. are J. H. Saunders

335

Notci on and R. J. Stubington. In Plate XIV. A.

CoUotypcs E. Child, K. Parsons, and J. H. Stanley ;
and in the Plates XL 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.

336

-Part of wnndow. St. Anselm's, WoodridlDEi, Pinner.

—Part of Window. St. AnieLm's, Woodildliigs, IHnner.

t. Peter** Chnreb, Clapham.

IV,-P»rt of Wind

v.— Put of Wnndoir. Ardrahwi, Galwar.

—Prom Cut(K>ni Tor DamMtlc Glui.

"Tbe Dream of St Kcnelm.

VIII.-Qmu-riei. (Size of orisSnils, 44 by 4

IZ.— Ulcro-pbotosniplu frcra daUils cdnnsctad with Glui WoA.

D L ■ \*Jf''^ i ^\ < (^ >l ii,^ il>f <

Z.— mero-photograplu. DUmond *nd Wlwel Ci
In SaetiaD and PUa.

XI.— Pkrt eT Window. Gloacetter CMhedimL

ZII.— Put at Window. GlDQcaiter Othedrkl.

XIV.— Dravlni:i tnm Nitora, la Prapar&tioa for Oeiign.

XV.— Put of WiodDw. TonbridBi School Chap«l, pbotocnphed
from tba Caitooo.

XVt,— Put at Window. Gbmcutsr CathedraL

GLOSSARY

Antiques^ coloured glasses made in imitation of the Glossary
qualities of ancient glass.

BanSngy puttipg on the copper " ties " by which the
glazed light is attached to the supporting bars.

Bascy (i) the light- tinted glass, white, greenish or
yellow, on which the thin film of ruby or blue
is imposed in *' flashed" glasses; (2) the sup-
port of the niche on which the figure stands in
" canopy work."

Borrowed lights a light not coming direct from day-
light^ 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 back-
ground of trees or buildings. )

Caim (of lead^, the strip of lead, 3 to 4 feet long, as
used for leading up the glass.

Canopy or "tabernacle work," the architectural fram-
ing 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 J the design of the window, full size, on paper.

Chasubky the outermost sacrificial vestment of a bishop
or priest.

2 A 369

Glossary Cope^ the outermost ceremonial and processional vest-
ment of a bishop or priest.

Core (of lead), the cross-bar of the " H " section as
shown in fig. 34.

Crockettingf the ornamenting of any architectural member
at intervals with sculptured bosses or crockets.

Cuilety the waste cuttings of glass. Generally used
over again in greater or less quantity as an ingre-
dient in the making of new glass.

Cut'Une, the tracing (containing the lead-lines only)
by which the work is cut and glazed.

Fiuxy 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 tempt-
ing but very dangerous and unstable ingredient.
(See p. 112).

Forniy the sheet of <' continuous cartridge '' or cartoon
paper on which the dimensions, &c., are marked
out for drawing the cartoon.

GaugCf ( I ) 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 supermiposed on a background of whitish,
grey, or greenish glass diapered with painted
work in outline or slight shading.

Graieingf 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

370

suggested for the latter word including Karm, Glossary

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.

Latb^ the ruler, 3 to 8 feet long, and marked with
inches, &c., used in setting out the ^< forms." ^

Lathyktriy doubtless old English *<a little lath," de-
scribed p. 137.

Lasting^nailsf described p. I4I.

Leaf (of lead), the two uprights of the <^ H " section

(fig- 34)-
Muiiety 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 {^aurifrtgiay from Lat. aurum^ gold), the
bands of ornament on ecclesiastical vestments.

Pattnay the film produced on various substances by
chemical action (oxidation, sulphurisation, &c.),
either artificially, as in bronze sculpture, or by
age, as in glass.

Platingy the doubling of one glass with another in the
same lead.

Quarriesy the diamond, square, or other shaped panes
used in plain-glazing.

i^^^iiifjr, wavy or streaky glass. (Seep. 179.)

371

Glottary Scratcb^ardj a wire brush to remove tarniih from lead

before soldering (p. 144).
Settings fixing a charcoal or chalk drawing on the

paper by means of a spray of fixative.
Sbaftmg, see <« Canopy."
Shooimg (in carpentry), the planing down of an edge

to get it truly straight.
Squarmg'ouii enlarging (or reducing) any design by

drawing from point to point across proportional

squares.
Staling f described p. 100.
Stofping^hufcf the knife by which the glass and lead

are manipulated in leading-up.
Tabernacle wori^ 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.

372

INDEX

Index AodOENTAL qualities in glass,

value of, X 14
Accuracy in setting out

forms, 286
Accuracy of measurement,

IIS, 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, sacred-

ness of, 245
Ancient glass, 171, 314, 321,

3*8
'* Antique *' elasses, 31

Architectural fitness, 234

Architecture, harmony with,

"74
Architecture, stained - glass

accessory to, z68

Architecture, subservient to.

Armour, by use of aciding
in flashed blue glass,

»3»

374

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

Backino, 126

Badger, 72, 74

Badeer, how to dry, 193

Bandine, 151

Barff's formula for pigment,

226
Bars, 151, 159, 167
Bars and lead-lines, 166,

176
« Beads," a string of, 290
Beethoven, colour, 224, 271
Bicycle, use o( 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, 7S, 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,"

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,

Cellini, 228

Cement and cementing, 147

Centres for study of glass,

314, 3»5
Chartres, centre for study of

glass, 230, 3x4
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 woric, 67

Commission, one's first, 292

Conditions, importance of
ascertaining at commence-
ment, 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,

I74» 197 . ,
Craftsman, right claims to

the title, 269

Craftsmanship, revival of,
243 ; Middle Ages, 252

CuUet, value of, 159

Curriculum, 32i-r326

Cut-in glass, 49

Cut-line, 85, 89

Cutter and cartoonist, 44

Cutting, 37, 42, 47, 87, 162

Cutting, advanced, 83

Cutting-icnife, 138

Cutting-wheel {see Wheel-
cutter)

Dahlia, colour of, 218
Dante or Blake, perhaps

needed to-day, 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

375

Index

Index Difficulty, the chief oppor-
tunity in a work of art, 2S2
Directing assistants, clear-
ness in, promptness in, %^^
Discords harmonised by

added notes, 212
Distance, effect of, 102, 192
Division of labour, 170, 269
Dociceting of papers, system

of, 284
Dodges, a few little, 182
Doubling glass, 132
Drapery, 230, 322
Drawing from Nature, 324
Drawing, Rus]cin*s advice

on fineness in work, 325
Du Maurier, 207
Diirer, i^vision 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 (ste Adding)
Examples for painting, 321
Examples for stained-glass

work, Holbein, 322
Expression, influence of

distance on, 102

PACETiNOof stones and glass,

Fairford, green in Eve

window, 211, 230
Fairford, old glass in, 314
False lead-lines, 166
Fame and wealth good, but
not atexpenseof work, 296

376

Fancy, safe guide in, 259
Film, 94, 10 1
Fine work in art, 298-303
Finish in work, precision

and cleanliness, 67
Firing, 1 05-1 19
First duty of an artist, 248
Five Sisters window, 178,

Fixine, i3S» «S»

« Flashed "glass, 33

Flatness, desirable, obtained
by leading, 176

Flowers, 2x7

Flux, 370

Forms, accuracy of, 286-
289

Fresh methods and ideas
come accidentally, 298

Freshness of work, advant-
age of, 116

FriM work, how to remove,
X04

Frying, 104

Garish colour, 202

Garter plates, 61, 62, 70, 71

Gas-kiln, 108-xo

Gauge for cutting, how to
make, 88

General conduct, 164

Giotto, 252

Giorgione, 203

Glass, ancient, 328

Glass, how made, 32

Glass, how to wax up on
plate, 95

Glass in relation to stone-
work, Z34

Glass, Munich, 84, 176

Glass, Norman, 227

Glass, old, 308, 315

Glass, painted, 84

Glass-painter's methods de-
scribed, 205

Glass - painting compared

with mezzotint, 8i
Glass - painting compared

with oil-painting, loo
Glass, Prior's, 31
Glass, Talue 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 reyiyal, the, 239
Groseing, 43 (and Glossary)
Groseing tool, substitute

for, 55
" Grozeing" (see Groseing)
Gum-arabic, 58
Gum, quality and quantity

of, 77

Handkl, 223

Handling leaded lights, 146

Hand- rest, 61

Harmony in colour, the

great rule of, 2iz
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

Imaoi, Selwyn, 83
Imagination, 248, 259

Industry, 65, 278
Ih siiu, to try work, 175
Inspiration, nature of, dis-
cussed, 273
Italian, thrift of, 157

« Jacob's ladder," difficulty,

280
Joints, good and bad, 140
Jugglery, craft, to be

avoided, 174

KALSmOSCOPE, 242

Kiln-feeder, a clumsy, 183
Kilns, 105

King, portrait of, 102
Knives,cuttingand stopping,

138, 142
" Knocking up," 144

Labour and material, cost of,
162

Lamb, Charles, on Milton's
Lycidaif 272

Large work, difficulty of, 77

Zt*Art NouveaUf 245

Lasting nails, 141

Lathykin, 137 (and Glos-
sary)

Lea Valley, description of,

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, artistfc use of,

176

377

Index

Index Leadworkers, w»ge of, 159
Light, 227 (and Glossary)
Lights, 72, 146, 151
Limitations, 154, 170
Linnell's colour, 202
LycuUuf perfection of, 271
Ljndhurst, windows at,
237, 250

Maclou, St., at Rouen, 282
Man's woriL, 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 un fired out-
line, 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
MiUais' picture of << Asleep,"

209
" Millinery and upholstery "

in glass, to avoid, 324
Morris, 203
MuUer, 79

Munich glass, 84, 176
Music, illustration derived

from, 223

Nails, 141
Nativity, star of, 229

378

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 gUss, 171, 308, 314, 321
Orange-tip butterfly, 214
Order, ** Heaven's first law,*'

»33

Orderliness! 284

Originality not to be striven
after, 297

Ornament, system of teach-
ing, 3*5

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 o^ ob-
jected to by some, 227

Painting, role regarding
amount of, 129

Pansy, colour of, 231

Patrons, 264

Parthenon frieze, repose of,

173
Perfection, 163

Perpendicular, rules for rais-
ing a, 286
Peterborough, Gothic tracery

in Norman openings, 238
Pictures, criticism on, 208
Pigment, 1IS4, 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
Punchy 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 sub-
ject, 177

Rack for glass samples, 186
Realism to be avoided, 173
Recasting of composition,

301
Removing the plain glazing,

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
Rights angles, formula for,

286
Roman decadence, 240
Room, to make the most of,

192
Rose-briar, colour of, in sun-
set, 220
Rossetti, 203
Ruby glass, 33
Ruby glass, value of, z6o
"Rule of thumb," 113
Rules for work, 264, 286
Ruskin, 202, 255, 325

Sacredniss of ancient build,
ings, 245

Schubert, 223

<< Scratch-card,'' 144

Scrubs, 8z

Sea- weeds, 217

Second painting, zz8, 126,
127

Sections, how to join to-
gether in fixing, 150

Sections, large work made
in, 150

"Seed," everything grown
from, 291

Seed of ornament, 294

Selvage edge, to tear oC, Z93

Sens, centre for study of

Setting mixture, 86
Sharpening diamonds, 33
Siennese painters, good work

to copy in glass, 322
Single fire, Z27
Sketching in glass, 175
Soldering^ 144
Sparta, revival of simplicity

in, 243

379

Index

Index Speciad glasies, 227
Spotting, 163
Spring morning, ride on a,

a 14
Squaring ontllnes, 286
Stain, 129
" Stain it 1 " 225
Stain OTerfiring, result of,

129
Stained-glass, accessory to

architecture, 168
Stained-glass, ancient, to be

held sacred, 24J
Stained-glass, definition and

description of, 29
Stained-glass, diapering,

spotting, and streaicing,

179
Stained-glass, joys of, 303
Stained-elass, loving and

careful treatment of, 177
Stained-glass, new develop-
ments of, 1 32
Stained-glass, prices of

material, 159
Stained-glass, subservient to

architecture, 155, 236
Stained-glass venut painted

glass, 84
Staining, 225
Stale colour, danger of,

i6s
Stale work, disadvantage of,

114
Standardising, 113
Stencil brush, 121
Stepping back to inspect

work, 176
Stevenson, R. L., 156
Stick, 68
Stipple, 99, loi
Stippling brush, 100
Stonework, relation of glass

to, 134
Stopping.knife, 142

380

Streaky glass, imitating
drapery, 230

Strength in painting, limits
of, 125

Stretching the lead, 1 37

Style, 237, 246

Subject, right limits to im-
portance of, 248

Sufficient firine, test of, 117

Suear or treacle as substitute
n>r gum, 62

Surgeon, precision of a, 67

Symbolism, proportion in,
262

Tabernacle {see Canopy)

Tam worth, 237

Tapping, 41

Taste, some principles of^ 92

Technical school, curricu-
lum of, 321

Templates to be Teri6ed,
289

Tennyson, his constant re-
vision, 271

Texture of glass, use of, 126

Theseus, 260

Thought, imagination, alle-
gory, 248

Ties for banding, 151

Thrift, 157

Time saved by accuracy and
method, 290

Time-saving appliances, 277

Tinning the soldering iron,

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

Turgenieir, proverb on accu-
racy, 285

Turpentine (Venice), 129
Tuscan painters, good work
to copy in glass, 322

<< Upholstirt 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

Wagk of leadworkers, 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, 1S8
Wells, centre for study of

ffUss, 314
Wheel-barrow, comparison

with wheel-cutter, 51
Wheel-cutters, 34, 35, 47,

Index

53. 54, 56
^htt

White, pure, value of, 227
White spaces to be interest-
ing, 17*
Work in the shop, rules for,

286

YxLLow 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 SND

Printed by Ballantynb, Hansom S* Co.
Edinburgh A* London

FA1 146.4.9

wonts s

3 2044 034 640 375

I i

THE BORROWER WILL BE CHARGED
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