Page:Architectural Review and American Builders' Journal, Volume 1, 1869.djvu/665

 1869.] Stained Glass. 539 to the effect, and many of the succes- sive points of the process, were, if not absolutely wrong, at least only calcu- lated to delay the intended result. Yet a detail of their operations, from a rare authority, may interest, or amuse, as an episode of history ; and, although rather unlikely, the processes given, may afford a hint to some experimenting chemist, or painter of stained glass. With this view, we extract the matter presented below : STAINED GLASS. Felibien, in his " Principes de l'Ar- chitecture," third edition, 4to, Paris, 1G99, inserts, page 180, a chapter on Glass, in which he says, that at first transparent stones, such as agate, ala- baster, and others, were used in build- ings, to admit the light, and keep out the cold and the wind. Glass having been afterwards invented, that material was substituted in the place of the for- mer, and these glass windows were made in the following manner : In the foundries glass was made of different colors. The ancient artists, therefore, took such pieces to put in the windows, arranging them in compart- ments like mosaic ; and this was, after- wards, the origin of painting upon glass ; for, observing what a beautiful effect was thus produced, they were not, in after times, contented with this assem- blage of pieces of various colors, but were desirous of representing all sorts of figures and entire histories. At first this painting was done upon white glass ; and the colors were tem- pered with size as is the case in paint- ing in distemper. But, because it was soon found, that these could not long: resist the injury of the air, the artists sought for other colors, which, after having been laid upon the white glass, and even on that which had been already colored in the glass-houses, might sink into, and incorporate themselves with, the glass itself, upon its being put into the fire. In this they completely suc- ceeded, as is evident from the beauty of the ancient glass. When the workmen were desirous of making windows of extraordinary beau- ty, they employed the glass, which had been already colored in the glass-houses to make the draperies of the figures, and they only marked the shadows in it, with some touches and hatchings in black. For the carnations or flesh-tints they chose glass the color of which was a transparent red, on which they drew, with black, the principal features of the face and the markings of the other parts of the body. But, to make the carnations and dra- peries on white glass, they laid their colors, transparent or opaque, without clemi-tints, either strong or weak, as the painting demanded. Thus, these earlier works, made before the sixteenth cen- tury — such as we yet see, in the more ancient European churches — are of a Gothic manner, and extremely barbar- ous, as far as regards the drawing, and the preparation of the colors. When, in France and Flauders, paint- ing began to improve, this gross manner was changed; and the honor of the finest works, done upon glass, is due to the French and the Flemings. A painter of Marseilles communicated the first knowledge of this species of painting to the Italians, when he went to Rome, in the pontificate of Julius II. After him, Albert Durer and Lucas of Leyden improved the art still further ; and a number of works so excellent have been produced, that nothing more ex- quisite can be desired, either for beaut} r of design, or management of color. As instances of excellence in glass prepared from the designs of great mas- ters, the Church of St. Gervaise, at Paris, after John Cousin ; the Chapel of Bois de Vincennes, of which Lucas Peni, an Italian, made the cartoons ; the Castle of Anet ; the Castle of Gaillon ; and the Church of St. Owen, at Rouen, and in other places. Felibien, p. 182, proceeds to direct