Studio: international art (13.1898)

Some Glasgow Designers

which holds a latent reproof to scribblers for all

time.

But when illustrations explain the fact as clearly
as do those which accompany this paper, it is
difficult to avoid repeating the obvious, and the
difficulty is enhanced when the actual works they
represent are not at hand for reference. As you
pass down West Regent Street, Glasgow, a striking
frontage of one of the basements reveals the
presence of some artistic manufactory. The lemon
colour paint, the sundial, and the well-planned
lettering on the facia board, give a first impression
which is but heightened when you are in the showr-
room and see specimens of "The Glass-Stainers
Company's " work. Some of quite simple design,
too simple to be illustrated effectively, are not less
novel or less good than the more elaborate.
Especially is this true of squares of clear white
glass, with a raised disc as large a circle as the
space permits. This is not made by thickening
the glass, but as if, to use a rough and ready
simile, you pressed a globe upon a yielding square
and sunk a depression in the centre, just touching
the boundary lines. Glass treated in this way
gives a pleasant effect without distorting the vision,
or condensing the rays as in a lens. Then a
glass stiletto, after the model of certain Venetian
examples, made to break off in the victim's body,
is shown you, and for a second Mr. Oscar Paterson
recalls some old Italian craftsman whose pride in
the work he had created half fascinated him to
enjoy the deadly pleasure of testing its efficiency.
Then panels with old Dutch street scenes upon
them, in colour that has a faded air, as if the
corrosion of centuries had affected its surface;
then schemes which suggest a Japanese stencil-
plate, filled with white glass, while others, in which
the same method is employed, suggest a bit of
old German heraldry; then window sundials,
ingenious and decorative, a capital decoration for
the upper panel of a library window overlooking
a country lawn with roses and peacocks, the
ideal bookroom for a bookman. Church windows
and more ornate decorations than any yet men-
tioned are also there and make a goodly show.
But at first it is the 'minor pieces that attract you
most, for it is easier to grasp the meaning of a
pretty conceit or an ingenious device, apart from
its proper setting, than to do justice to works
planned to occupy distant spaces set in a frame-
work which by its opaqueness heightens their
brilliancy.

In most the harmony of colour is pitched in a
high key—lemon and white with neutral greys
22

and actual black employed freely are Mr. Oscar
Patcrson's favourite and distinctly novel colour-
schemes. But if you prefer a fuller palette, there
are plenty, where apricots, and pomegranates,
the breasts of humming-birds, and the lustre of rare
jewels are wrought in gorgeous harmonies, and yet
never vulgarised by too much splendour. For Mr.
Oscar Paterson and Mr. Harry Thomson both
realise the value of white, and of the beauty of
line—bold, well-arranged lines, that fulfil the true

JEWEL CASKET IN OXIDIZED AND BRIGHT SILVER
WITH ENAMEL INLAY

DESIGNED AND EXECUTED BY OSCAR

PATERSON AND HARRY THOMSON