STAINED GLASS AND GLASS USED FOR DECORATION. 95 



counterfeit the ancient glass, by coats of enamel colour, which only 

 produces a misty and cloudy effect, merely blinding or shutting out a 

 portion of light ; but it cannot give the depth and richness of ancient 

 colours. If varnish colour be used for such a purpose it will only serve 

 a temporary object, and even if the enamel colours be burnt in, they 

 are not always to be depended on, being liable to crack off by long ex- 

 posure to the action of the atmosphere. 



Bertini and others obscure a portion of the back by roughing, or by 

 a layer of white or neutral colour, so that little or no light may pass 

 through the main figure of the subject, which rather resembles fresco 

 than transparency. The latter is generally considered to be one of the 

 essential conditions of glass painting. 



Brown enamel colours, more or less dense, are used for stippling and 

 shading white or coloured pot-metal, but if too thickly laid on at one 

 time will be liable to crack off in a few years ; several coats and frequent 

 firing are necessary to produce permanency in the various dark shades. 

 Examples of coloured enamel painting, by Backler, may be seen at 

 Arundel Castle, the seat of the Duke of Norfolk. They are wholly 

 enamel, and have no pot-metal colours ; similar also are several glass 

 paintings designed by West, and painted by Jervis, in the Royal Chapel 

 at Windsor. These may be considered as simply semi-transparent 

 pictures, wholly out of the category of what is generally known as 

 stained or painted glass, by mosaic or grisaille treatment for ecclesiasti- 

 cal purposes. 



Referring to former explanations on the striated gelatinous colours, 

 called antique, used since 1851, as they were then shadowed out by Mr. 

 Winston, and since produced by him and adopted by many of our Eng- 

 lish artists, but as yet feebly followed by continental painters, it is 

 somewhat remarkable, that while clearness of metal constitutes the 

 greatest improvement in flint glass, the reverse should be the case for 

 window glass : in fact, that while homogeneity should be the essential 

 property of flint glass, impurity is equally necessary for the successful 

 imitation of the ancient glass, in attaining the same depth of colouring, 

 and the absorption of the rays to be found in the coloured glass of the 

 13th century : it, therefore, seems anomalous that the inferior fuel, for 

 melting the materials, also that the metals, sands, and alkali possessed 

 by the ancients, which was less pure than those used by the moderns, 

 should have furnished greenish white, and pot-metal coloured glass, so 

 exactly suited to produce the best effects for pictorial windows. 



Resuming our remarks upon enamel painting, there was the brown 

 painted smear, and stipple shading, also a darker enamel for lines and 

 shadows by hatching, or repetition of lines, serving as shadow upon 

 white or pot-metal eolours. There are several methods of shading, 

 some being smooth, employed in early examples, and the latter being 

 darker, employed in the later grisaille of larger works. 



It may be asked, does the grotesque style of the past age harmonise 



