44 ON COLOUR. Paet I. 



towards making a " •painting" on glass when single figures 

 are so introduced; and as they did before, so they would 

 probably again lead to a departure from the true princi- 

 ples of painted glass windows. We observe how in those 

 days, after the latter part of the 1300, the window assumed 

 step by step the aspect and pretensions of a large picture, 

 UDtil at length in the 1500, whole windows consisting of several 

 lights were covered by one continuous subject; and massive 

 yellow canopies, miscoloured baldacchini, and monstrous trans- 

 parent columns, with other architectural accessories, defied all 

 harmony of colour, proportion, and possibility. The predo- 

 minance of yellow, of yellow-brown, and of transparent colour- 

 less glass, together with the substitution of the secondary and 

 tertiary hues for the primaries, destroyed all harmony of colour ; 

 and besides a constant repetition of discords, the scrolls and 

 broken outlines in vogue at that period disfigured the designs, 

 as the ponderous architectural ornaments of the Eenaissance 

 period interfered with the character of the building itself. 



In the "Athengeum" of June 16, 1855, in a review of 

 Mr. Oliphant's useful book on glass-painting, are some just 

 remarks respecting the windows of different periods ; and in 

 the glass of the Perpendicular time the colour is described as 

 " blanched, hectic, sickly, and unwholesome." " The paintings 

 are too highly finished, and painted without reference to their 

 position ; " and " in 1450, when the Perpendicular had seen its 

 best, in spite of Ulm, Munich, Cologne, and Eouen, glass- 

 painting lost its harmony of purpose and integrity of design. 

 The cinque-cento brought with it huge colonnades, triumphal 

 arches, cupids, and all the refurbished lumber of a galvanised 

 paganism. The present ruin of glass-painting is that some 

 artists merely imitate old unapproachable examples, while 

 others foolishly try to execute oil painting with a material 

 limited in its nature and requiring conventional treatment. 

 Mr. Oliphant says, to remedy these evils no customer should 



