Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 18.djvu/573

* STAINED GLASS. 491 STAINER. Florence. Many of the best Italian examples be- long rather to the early Renaissance than to the late Gothic. England would have possessed some very tine series, as is shown by the examples at York and Canterbury, had it not been tor the vandalism of the Keformation. In Spain there are fine windows at Toledo and Leon, very close to French models. Germany, however, ranks next to France in the importance of its remain- ing windows, beginning in the fourteenth cen- tury, with those of the choir of Cologne Cathe- dral, those of the cathedrals of Freiburg, Strass- burg, and Kegensburg, and the churches at Op- penheim, Esslingen, and Nuremberg. German works, however, do not approach the French in quality either of technique or art. As the fifteenth century approached the use of grisaille or light colorless monochrome windows increased. This process had always been in use for smaller windows or borders with geometric designs, as at Obasine and Auzerre in France, Heiligenkreuz in Austria, and Sainte Gudule at Brussels, but it became more popular and wa- used in larger windows as the Renaissance period approached; the brown enamel on the white or greenish ground became lighter, all the glass less opaque, and the leads more delicate. In colored glass windows a brilliant window became very popular, while green and violet went out of fashion. The donor's window at the Cathedral of Evreux shows how the fourteenth-centurj' artist substituted realism for the older conventions, and introduced profusely architectural forms as framework and background of the figures. The increased use of the white line and background and the invention of the yellow stain, used pro- fusel}' in place of the applied enamel, increased the light efl'ect. With the approach of the fif- teenth century the increased perfection in draw- ing and naturalism does not compensate for the loss of the special methods of glass painting, for which artists commenced to substitute effects taken from wall and other forms of opaque painting. In Germany a peculiar novelty popular during the Renaissance was the use of coats of arms as the exclusive or almost exclusive design. The extreme of possible realism was then reached in the architectural and landscape effects of the windows at Gouda in Holland. .Jean Cousin in France: Holbein, Ghiberti, and Paolo Uccello in Italy, Diirer and Baldung Griin in Germany — were among the prominent artists of the Renais- sance who designed windows. At the same time this very fall of the glass-painter to the rank of an artisan and the infiuence of painting on his art hastened its fall in the seventeenth century. The attempts to revive it during the two fol- lowing centuries, as exemplified by Sir .Joshua Reynolds's remarks, were based upon the same mistaken principles. The glass windows pro- duced to the middle of the nineteenth century were paintings on glass in imitation of oil or water-color pictures — of opaque effects in paint- ing. The majority are. therefore, inadequate and connnonplace, works of industry rather than art. The Munich School bettered the process some- what; the revival of the study of Gothic art be- tween 18.50 and 1875, especially that initiated in France by Viollet-le-Duc. led to a better appre- ciation of and an attempt to revert to medirpval processes. The French first rediscovered them, Vol. XVIII.— 33. and American artists, of whom the most promi- nent is John La Farge, have done perhaps more than any others during tlie last decade to replace glass painting again in the sphere of real art. Besides studying again the irradiation of colors, the special requirements of transparent painting, and the consequent grouping of complementary colors, artists like La Farge and Tiffany have pro- duced wonderful effects in iridescence with an in- crease of richness in tones similar to glass mosaic- work. A questionable but extremely popular American innovation has been the introduction of wliat may be called modeled glass, to repro- duce the effects of shading by its purposed or ac- cidental variations of thickness. American artists also make large use of the accidental streakings of vari-colorcd glass ('pot metal') to produce pictorial effects without painting and without too minute subdivision and leading of the picture. Bibliography. L6vy, Histoire de la peinture sur verre en Europe (Brussels, 1854-60) ; Gers- pach, L'art de la verrerie (Paris, 1885) ; West- lake, History of Design in Painted Glass (Ox- ford, 1879-94) ; Kolb, Glasmalereien des Mittel- alters und dcr Renaissance, with 60 plates (Stutt- gart, 1884-89) ; Didron, in Anvales arcMolo- giques, vols, xxiii., xxiv., x.xvii. (Paris, 1878-81). The first historic study, really scientific and ar- tistic, was Viollet-le-Duc's article "Vitraux" in his great Dictionnaire raisonne de I'architecture frangaise (Paris, 1858-68). Consult also:Las- teyrie, Histoire de la peinture sur verre d'apres ses monuments en France, with 110 plates (ib., 1853-57 ), and Geyling and Lijw, Meisterwcrke der kirchlichen Glasmalerei (Vienna, 1895 et seq. ). A model publication of one of the great series of Gothic windows is Hucher, Vitraux peints de la caihMrale du Mans (Le Mans, 1864), with 100 immense plates. For American work con- sult Sturgis, "Decorative Windows in England and America," in Architectural Record, vol. vi. (Xew York, 1896-97) : La Farge, The American Art of Glass (New York, 189.3), and the same author'.s article "Window" in Sturgis, Dictionary of Architecture (New York, 1901). STAINER, stin'er, Jakob (1621-83). A Ger- man violin-maker, born at Absam, Tyrol. He was the son of poor peasants, but at an early age began to make violins and subsequently studied at Cremona under the best makers of his time. His extravagances kept him in continual poverty and he died in an insane asyhnn in Absam. Stainer violins are rare and command high prices, though they do not rank with the instru- ments of Guarnerius, Stradivarius, or the Aniati (qq.v.). STAIN'ER, Sir John (1840-1901). An Eng- lisli composer and organist, born in London. In 1854 he became organist and ehoirmaster of Saint Benedict and Saint Peter's Church, and two years later was selected by Sir Frederick Ouseley as organist for the newly founded College and Church of Saint Michael, Tenbnry. He held this appointment for three years, during which time he had matriculated at Christ Church, Oxford, and had taken his degree of bachelor of music. He next became organist of Magdalen College, Oxford, at the same time en- tering the imiversity as an undergraduate. In 1863 he took his degree and was appointed