DOI Heft:
No. 59 (February, 1898)
DOI Artikel:White, Gleeson: Some Glasgow designers and their work, [4]
DOI Seite / Zitierlink: https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.18391#0030
Some Glasgow Designers
It is good that glass is practically imperishable
save by violence, otherwise the glories of the old
work had faded long since; but remembering the
horrors of this mid-century one's joy is chastened;
STAINED GLASS
DESIGNED BY OSCAR PATERSON
for the memorial windows set up to do honour
to departed worthies survive to distress their de-
scendants. In colour, design and sentiment, some
of the glass of " the sixties " is an abiding horror—
a blemish upon old buildings and new—a detail that
by its very position in a pathway of light cannot be
overlooked, and is so hedged and guarded by
sentimental and practical conditions that in all
probability much of it will remain for centuries a
confession of bad taste and ignorance.
Very few of us are in a position to estimate how
much domestic glass of adequate design has been
already produced. Chance visits to a few notable
houses and a certain number of exhibitions lead
one to hope that no little has already been
achieved. But stained-glass windows do not lend
themselves to purposes of exhibition, and cartoons
should never be shown except to fellow-workers.
As well might an embroiderer display his tracings
in black-and-white, or a mezzotinter exhibit his
preliminary etching. Only one in a thousand car-
toons has intrinsic charm of its own, and in that
one the interest is quite apart from the real value
of the material, its mosaic of coloured light set in
a black margin. Occasionally as " studies " by a
master they interest us, but as drawings with scarce
any reference to the fact of their being intended
for a totally distinct substance, they should be
looked on as mere working cartoons.
Few things are more difficult to express in words
than a fine arrangement of colour. This is ren-
dered even more hard than it need be by the fact
that we have no exact terminology for it. It
would hardly be an exaggeration to say that we
have no nomenclature at all. Scarlet, the colour
of a linesman's tunic; blue, as Mr. Reckitt
STAIRCASE WINDOW IN WHITE AND
LEMON GLASS
DESIGNED BY HARRY THOMSON
EXECUTED BY OSCAR PATERSON
17
It is good that glass is practically imperishable
save by violence, otherwise the glories of the old
work had faded long since; but remembering the
horrors of this mid-century one's joy is chastened;
STAINED GLASS
DESIGNED BY OSCAR PATERSON
for the memorial windows set up to do honour
to departed worthies survive to distress their de-
scendants. In colour, design and sentiment, some
of the glass of " the sixties " is an abiding horror—
a blemish upon old buildings and new—a detail that
by its very position in a pathway of light cannot be
overlooked, and is so hedged and guarded by
sentimental and practical conditions that in all
probability much of it will remain for centuries a
confession of bad taste and ignorance.
Very few of us are in a position to estimate how
much domestic glass of adequate design has been
already produced. Chance visits to a few notable
houses and a certain number of exhibitions lead
one to hope that no little has already been
achieved. But stained-glass windows do not lend
themselves to purposes of exhibition, and cartoons
should never be shown except to fellow-workers.
As well might an embroiderer display his tracings
in black-and-white, or a mezzotinter exhibit his
preliminary etching. Only one in a thousand car-
toons has intrinsic charm of its own, and in that
one the interest is quite apart from the real value
of the material, its mosaic of coloured light set in
a black margin. Occasionally as " studies " by a
master they interest us, but as drawings with scarce
any reference to the fact of their being intended
for a totally distinct substance, they should be
looked on as mere working cartoons.
Few things are more difficult to express in words
than a fine arrangement of colour. This is ren-
dered even more hard than it need be by the fact
that we have no exact terminology for it. It
would hardly be an exaggeration to say that we
have no nomenclature at all. Scarlet, the colour
of a linesman's tunic; blue, as Mr. Reckitt
STAIRCASE WINDOW IN WHITE AND
LEMON GLASS
DESIGNED BY HARRY THOMSON
EXECUTED BY OSCAR PATERSON
17