316 The Philosopfdcal Society of Glasgoio. 



the picture. I am satisfied that there is an analogy between this re- 

 markable practice and some of the arrangements which we find in glass 

 painting. 



To return to Cinquecento windows, the superb canopies frequently 

 occupy the whole width, and are composed of white and yellow glass, 

 richly shaded with brown, the chiaroscuro being efiectively made out ; 

 there is also much use of half tint ; in this respect differing as essen- 

 tially in effect as in form from the canopies of older style. The pictures 

 in the finest specimens are remarkable for gorgeous colour and powerful 

 contrasts of light and shade ; we usually find a principal mass of some 

 colour, round which others are harmoniously arranged. There is no 

 confusion of parts ; that distinctness which was so remarkable a quality 

 of the works of the great masters is invariably maintained. In the exe- 

 cution the stipple-system was continued ; but to it the artists added a 

 method of hatching with the brush, which gave greater strength to the 

 shadows, without diminishing their transparency. Smear shading was 

 resorted to in the ornament as most appropriate ; and the effect was 

 aided by vigorous lines marking the forms and giving decision where- 

 ever required. Many new tints of coloured glass were invented : and 

 the single and double stain of yellow were applied to coloured as well as 

 white glass, whilst a flesh-coloured enamel remedied the unpleasant effect 

 produced by employing white glass for the faces, hands, and other un- 

 covered portions of the bodj^. A process of abraiding coated glass so as 

 to obtain two colours in one piece was introduced, represented in 

 modern art by that of removing the coloured coat by means of fluoric 

 acid. 



The Cinquecento had its decline, like others : such is the fate of every 

 style. It degenerated into mannerism and extravagance. A singular 

 phase of the decay of glass painting, to which I have ah'eady adverted, 

 is observable in the churches at Antwerp and Brussels, at Liege, and in 

 other places in Belgium. The grand Brabant School of Painting, 

 with Eubeus at its head, dazzled the world with its meteor splendour. 

 Glass painting, as has ever been the case with this art, tried to follow 

 in the wake of painting on canvas. We have burgomasters and theu* 

 wives in black, as in the pictTu-es of Vandyke ; and we have pamtings on 

 glass, with the pedestals, columns, and rich hangings, which were now 

 so frequently introduced in pictures, and which are still the great 

 resource of the modern portrait painter in need of backgrounds. Every 

 conceivable plan was had recourse to, to produce opacity in parts of these 

 windows ; but glass painting was not susceptible of such effects, and 

 the true principles on which it depends being lost sight of, it rapidly 

 fell in estimation as an art. * *****# 



