Mb. 0, Heath Wilson on Glass Painting. 311 



the painter does not then occupy the same prominent position, and 

 the public lose many of the benefits derivable from his cultivated 

 taste and directing energy. We may trace in the works of the old 

 masters the gradual change which took place in prevalent ideas of 

 the province of painting. By slow degrees the naturalistic prin- 

 ciple gained the ascendancy, till, finally, even selection from beautiful 

 natm-e ceased, and the greatest and most holy persons were repre- 

 sented under the forms and lineaments of the coarse and too often 

 vicious models of both sexes who were employed by painters. No 

 skill in manipulation, no brilliancy of colour, no power of chiaroscuro 

 can reconcile the cultivated mind to this state of painting. The special 

 branch of art of which I am speaking this evening, decayed after a 

 brief struggle to rival the coarsely designed but brilliant pictures of the 

 seventeenth century ; for glass painting followed so closely all the 

 changes which took place in pictures, that when they ceased entirely to 

 be regulated by the conditions which I have dwelt upon, an effort was 

 made to emancipate glass painting from them also, forgetful that it was 

 nothing apart from architecture, but an imperfect, unsatisfactory art, 

 wholly unable to rival pictures. 



Before entering upon the archaeological portion of my subject, as a 

 means towards understanduig the illustrations which I have the pleasure 

 of bringing before you, I propose to offer a brief description of the pro- 

 cess of glass painting; but as this might not be interesting to those who 

 are already familiar with the subject, instead of describing the modern 

 method, I shall bring before you an extract from the work of Theophilus, 

 written, it is generally believed, in the tenth or eleventh centuiy. He was^ 

 according to his own account, "humilis presbyter, servus servorum Dei, 

 indignus nomine et ^n-o/essionermmachi." His account, although written 

 so long ago, will give an excellent idea of the art to those who are not 

 famihar with it ; whilst to those who are, it cannot fail to be interesting 

 to compare the earliest with the present practice. 



[Mr. Wilson then read the description given by Theophilus of the 

 whole process of glass painting as practised at his time, and explained 

 the present practice of the art where it differed from the old method. He 

 illustrated this portion of his subject by means of cartoons, specimens 

 of ancient and modern glass, and by some of the processes adopted by 

 the glass painter.] 



Painted glass, regarded from the archaeological point of view, is very 

 interesting. In the first place, we have in this fragile material, numer- 

 ous examples of the state of the painter's art during epochs of which 

 hardly a picture remains produced by cotemporary artists. It illus- 

 trates customs, domestic life, trades, marmfactures, arts, and science ; 

 and is to our early liistoiy what the pictures in the tombs of i^gypt 

 arc to that of the ancient inhabitants of that land of wonders. 



