DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.26439#0017
3
STAINED GLASS.
There is perhaps no purely decorative Art so capable of imparting splendour to a building as that of Stained
or Painted Glass; a fact which appears to have been known and practically applied from the earlier period
of the Christian era to within the last century or two. In the first recorded examples nothing more appears to
have been attempted than the filling-in of windows with a species of mosaic-work of different-coloured pieces of
stained glass; nor is it until the eleventh or twelfth century of our era that we have satisfactory records of
the application of figure-subjects in this method of decoration,—a system which reached its apogee, with all
the other decorative arts, in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. It may be here stated, that there are
three methods of executing these glass pictures, which may be termed the Mosaic method, the Enamel method,
and the Mosaic-Enamel method. In the first system, the composition is formed by small pieces of stained
glass, or glass coloured throughout by metallic oxides, termed pot-metal, welded together in small pieces,
producing all the required tints in local colour; the shadows, which are slight, being produced by the
application of enamel colour upon them with a brush, and then fixed by burning in a kiln: the best examples
of this class are, perhaps, those of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. In the second, or Enamel system,
which was most in vogue during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the artist painted his subject entirely
with enamel colours on a ground of white glass, sometimes on one side only, sometimes on both; the entire
design being welded together in pieces of much larger size than those usual in the Mosaic method, and
then, when complete, fixed by exposure to heat in a kiln. In the third, or Mosaic-Enamel method, we find
a combination of both the above procedures; it was most in vogue, as might naturally be supposed, at a
transitional period between the first and second methods, and is indeed characteristic of the works of the
fifteenth and the early part of the sixteenth century. In this method the use of pot-metal for the large
masses of colour imparts all that brilliancy and power which is peculiar to the material; whilst the use of
enamel colour for the more delicate portions of the picture, such as the flesh, hair, ornaments, and general
accessories, permits of a delicacy and minuteness of finish which would otherwise be unattainable: the examples
which are given in this Work are principally illustrative of this system of glass painting. In the style thus
illustrated, it will immediately be seen that the figures are all-important, and the ornamental portions merely
accessories. And here we may notice some of the objections made against this practice of paintings or pictures
on glass. We cannot do better than quote the words of a gentleman* who has paid great attention to the art,
in a lecture read by him before the Institute of British Architects:—“The first objection being the supposed
unfitness of the material for any sort of representation more pictorial than the mosaics of the twelfth and thirteenth
centuries; the second, the supposed impropriety of representing a receding picture on the wall of any building.
* On the Application of Painted Glass to Buildings in Various Styles of Architecture; by C. Winston, Hon. Mem. R.I.B.A.,
November 28, 1853.
STAINED GLASS.
There is perhaps no purely decorative Art so capable of imparting splendour to a building as that of Stained
or Painted Glass; a fact which appears to have been known and practically applied from the earlier period
of the Christian era to within the last century or two. In the first recorded examples nothing more appears to
have been attempted than the filling-in of windows with a species of mosaic-work of different-coloured pieces of
stained glass; nor is it until the eleventh or twelfth century of our era that we have satisfactory records of
the application of figure-subjects in this method of decoration,—a system which reached its apogee, with all
the other decorative arts, in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. It may be here stated, that there are
three methods of executing these glass pictures, which may be termed the Mosaic method, the Enamel method,
and the Mosaic-Enamel method. In the first system, the composition is formed by small pieces of stained
glass, or glass coloured throughout by metallic oxides, termed pot-metal, welded together in small pieces,
producing all the required tints in local colour; the shadows, which are slight, being produced by the
application of enamel colour upon them with a brush, and then fixed by burning in a kiln: the best examples
of this class are, perhaps, those of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. In the second, or Enamel system,
which was most in vogue during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the artist painted his subject entirely
with enamel colours on a ground of white glass, sometimes on one side only, sometimes on both; the entire
design being welded together in pieces of much larger size than those usual in the Mosaic method, and
then, when complete, fixed by exposure to heat in a kiln. In the third, or Mosaic-Enamel method, we find
a combination of both the above procedures; it was most in vogue, as might naturally be supposed, at a
transitional period between the first and second methods, and is indeed characteristic of the works of the
fifteenth and the early part of the sixteenth century. In this method the use of pot-metal for the large
masses of colour imparts all that brilliancy and power which is peculiar to the material; whilst the use of
enamel colour for the more delicate portions of the picture, such as the flesh, hair, ornaments, and general
accessories, permits of a delicacy and minuteness of finish which would otherwise be unattainable: the examples
which are given in this Work are principally illustrative of this system of glass painting. In the style thus
illustrated, it will immediately be seen that the figures are all-important, and the ornamental portions merely
accessories. And here we may notice some of the objections made against this practice of paintings or pictures
on glass. We cannot do better than quote the words of a gentleman* who has paid great attention to the art,
in a lecture read by him before the Institute of British Architects:—“The first objection being the supposed
unfitness of the material for any sort of representation more pictorial than the mosaics of the twelfth and thirteenth
centuries; the second, the supposed impropriety of representing a receding picture on the wall of any building.
* On the Application of Painted Glass to Buildings in Various Styles of Architecture; by C. Winston, Hon. Mem. R.I.B.A.,
November 28, 1853.