Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 35.djvu/36

26 metamorphosis, enlargement. From the beginning of its career until finally, after months or years, the picture is in place and the bright sunlight illumines it, the different steps in the transformation involve never-ceasing care and thought. At any step a failure of attention might mean a total failure of the work. To follow this little sketch in its growth toward a window, will be to watch its fortunes under many different hands and under widely varying circumstances.

As the Tiffany Glass Company of New York has been particularly successful in adapting the mosaic treatment to picture-windows, their studios furnish typical illustrations of the several steps. Ordinarily the artist simply furnishes the small colored sketch, and from this germ the window is evolved. Occasionally he goes a step further, and supplies a cartoon in black and white of the natural, size. It is only in rare instances that he does the full-sized sheet in colors. Not unfrequently the suggestion for a window is taken from some celebrated painting or engraving. The Tiffany Company recently reproduced Gustave Doré's famous picture, "Christ leaving the Prætorium," for a church memorial window, the entire piece being executed in pure mosaic, with the exception of the faces and hands. The dimensions of this truly magnificent work of art are twenty by thirty feet. It is the most ambitious window ever attempted in America, and, indeed, the largest opalescent piece in the world. In many cases, however, the suggestion comes from humbler sources. A very beautiful window designed by Mr. E. P. Sperry—"Faith, Hope, and Charity"—and recently completed as a memorial window for the Unity Church at Springfield, Mass., sprang from a thought suggested by a Christmas card. Where the design for a window is ordered and paid for by the purchaser of the window, it is of course impossible to secure a duplicate; but where a picture that is already common property is reproduced, the work may be several times repeated. Thus "The Good Shepherd," a very satisfactory figure of the Christ taken from the well-known painting by Frederick J. Shields, has been reproduced in glass three times, and now adorns as many churches in different parts of the country. It is too beautiful a conception to be rendered any less pleasing by this repetition. In all cases the patterns and other needed guides are preserved, so that, should the occasion arise, a picture-window once executed may be readily duplicated. A window has just been completed for the Buffalo Cathedral, to take the place of one recently destroyed by fire. It is a very close duplicate of the original work. But while the success in reproducing pictures already extant has been very marked, a keener pleasure is derived from modern pictures designed originally for execution in glass. Many of these are exceedingly beautiful, and represent