Page:Archaeological Journal, Volume 9.djvu/77

Rh great part of the canopy hoods, are of the same date as the ancient glass in the Antechapel. The glass of which these remains are composed, which in the Antechapel would seem to be white, here appears to be a positive light green, from contrast with the warm colours that surround it, and particularly from its being opposed to the warm grey or light sky-blue used as a spire back to the canopies. The founder's legend, in modern glass, is carried along the bottom of this, as well as of the other south windows.

The execution of the painting is very heavy. There are scarcely any clear lights. It is difficult, no doubt, to prescribe the extent to which, in painting glass, the material may be obscured, or the high lights subdued with enamel colour, without violating the fundamental conditions of this branch of art: and I would recommend any one, who really feels an interest in the subject, to suspend his judgment until he has had an opportunity of actually examining and comparing a variety of painted windows. Without, however, attempting to lay down any rule, I think I may venture to say, that if a picture in painted glass appears to be, on the whole, as brilliant and transparent as an equal extent of plain glazing of the same date as itself, we may be sure that the obscuration of the material has not been carried too far; and if, ill addition, when considered with reference to its design, it betrays no incompleteness of effect, we may be satisfied that the obscuration of the material has been carried, quite far enough, a standard which by no means excludes all but picture-glass paintings executed in an absolutely flat manner; since it is completely attained by any good specimen of the period between 1530 and 1540, though adequately representing canopy-work, or even the interior of a building, as by the flattest Gothic picture: whilst many a modern glass painting, of the flattest possible design, such as an ornamental pattern, will be found to fall below it. It equally condemns, on the one hand, the opinion of most modern artists, that a glass painting ought to be a dull transparency; as exemplified, for instance, in the windows of St. Germain l'Auxerrois, Paris; and, as may be recollected, in the majority of the works sent to the late Exhibition; on the other hand, the abortive attempts of modern imitators of old glass, to represent canopy-hoods, and other projecting work, landscapes, &c., without the aid of shadows, linear or aerial perspective, as shown, on the whole perhaps most consistently, in the glass paintings of Messrs. Pugin and Hardman; leaving, as a matter entirely irrespective of the question at issue, the choice whether of a flat, but artistic, or more rotund manner of representation, to be determined by the good taste of the artist and the nature of the subject. The shadows are not stippled, but hatched as in an oil painting, and besides being always muddy are frequently too deep. The shade of the interior of the canopy niche is absolutely black. The colouring is