§ 32. PAINTING ON GLASS. 45 



purchase windows on which the paintings are not well drawn 

 and composed, harmonious in colour, with low and well discrimi- 

 nated relief, that should not destroy the flatness of the surface." 



32. At the period of the Renaissance, glass-painting had 

 brought in a style which was at variance with the very principles 

 on which it had been based. It had then assumed the right 

 of representing "paintings;" and going out of its province it 

 presumed to take the place of panel, of canvas, and of the 

 fresco wall. It mistook its powers ; and, after all, the painted 

 glass window only became a transparent blind. No greater mis- 

 take can be imagined than the attempt to make a large picture 

 on a translucid material. Our faces, our landscapes, and our 

 buildings, are not translucid ; and glass cannot give aerial per- 

 spective, which is a necessary condition in such a work. The 

 province and object of a glass window in a church are not to 

 present a copy from nature, but to be simply a portion of the 

 general decoration. However well the imitation of a large 

 " painting " may be made on glass, it is at best not a picture, 

 but the imitation of one, as any other conventional substitute 

 may be. We are sometimes surprised at the ingenuity dis- 

 played in making a picture of pieces of coloured cloth or 

 paper, or by some other clever deception : we wonder at, and 

 applaud, the resemblance ; but we are not expected to look on 

 it as a "painting" and if this were asked of us we should 

 maintain that, however ingenious, it had failed to fulfil its 

 conditions, or attain to the high level to which it aspired. 



The colours may be most splendid ; they may impart to cos- 

 tumes, jewellery, and fancy ornaments the most brilliant effect; 

 and the composition of the subject may be faultless ; still the 

 translucid glass window will only merit admiration as painted 

 glass ; and I cannot subscribe to the opinion that any painter 

 of eminence, " on witnessing the effect produced by the richness 

 and brilliancy" of those "of the 15th century" at Florence or 

 elsewhere, " when the sun shone through them, would be 



