26 ON COLOUR. Paet I. 



panel or canvas, are out of place there ; and if they are inter- 

 fered with by the colour of the glass, as they are by cross- 

 lights, or by being placed under a window, or within a dark 

 recess over an altar, or by any other accident of position, to 

 which they are constantly subject in a church, the fault is not 

 in the building, but in the unsuitableness of the place. They 

 should not be there. When the walls of a Grothic church are 

 decorated with painted designs which form part of the whole 

 coloured building, those designs must be subservient to the 

 effect of the general ornamentation ; but this is a condition to 

 which the "painting" on panel or canvas is never expected to 

 conform. And if the iridescent hues, sometimes thrown on a 

 wall by the sun's rays passing through a coloured window, inter- 

 fere with the proper effect of the ornamentation upon that wall, 

 that is after all only a momentary disadvantage, similar to that 

 of the sun itself shining directly upon it through an uncoloured 

 glass window, which would equally interfere, for the moment, 

 with the effect of its colours. On the other hand I cannot 

 agree with those who think the iridescent colour thrown on 

 the opposite wall, or on the pavement, is any reason for em- 

 ploying painted glass windows. Besides, this is quite tran- 

 sitory, and a " separable accident," and has nothing whatever 

 to do with the colour of the building ; the beauty and effect 

 of which must depend on its own merits. There are, however, 

 some churches, the style and decoration of which neither 

 require nor accord with coloured glass, as those of the Re- 

 naissance, painted with large frescoes, where coloured glass 

 windows would conceal and interfere with their effect ; and in 

 such buildings the windows are made of plain transparent 

 glass, in order to admit all the light required for that species 

 of ornamentation. Nor would painted glass be suited to a 

 building of Gothic style, decorated with fresco 'paintings, 

 such as Giotto's Chapel at Padua. 



20. And here I may be permitted to offer a few remarks on 



