38 
HO USE & GARDEN 
W HILE over-much Monte Carlo had 
not noticeably affected Mr. Van 
Cuyp’s millions one way or the other, the 
very croupiers in the Salle des Jeux must 
have forgiven his flight to the American 
Hospital in Paris for “forty winks,” as he 
put it, and repairs on his nerves. 
It was there that we met, and struck up 
a jolly comradeship in the garden, and if 
we seemed an ill-matched brace of chums, 
we were the more drawn to each other on 
that account. On my side, there was a 
curious interest in the American counter¬ 
part of a grand duke; on his, an equally 
curious interest in a corduroyed art-putterer 
who could divulge the mysteries of the 
Grande Chaumiere, Colorossi’s, and the 
Quartier Latin, and serve as guide, later 
on, to the inner side of artistic Paris. 
Art a la Millionaire 
We had our reward, both of us—-at the 
Cluny, for example. You remember the 
majestic stone chimney-piece in Room II 
with its high reliefs carved by Lallement in 
the 16th Century and representing “Christ 
and the Samaritan Woman.” At sight of 
it, Van Cuyp exclaimed, “Gad, that’s a 
corker! I'd like to ship it home and stick 
it up in my house; it'd look bully." 
I kept my face straight, somehow, but 
jeered inwardly. At Notre Dame, how¬ 
ever, I was less able to hold in. Van Cuyp 
read in his Baedeker that “the ancient 
stained glass of the roses over the principal 
and lateral portals” was “worthy of inspec¬ 
tion,” and, glancing upward, blurted, 
“Corkers! Rippers!” Out popped my in¬ 
stinctive retort, “Why don’t you nab those, 
too, and stick them in your house?” 
As this sounded snappish, I hastened to 
add, apologetically, “In all seriousness, old 
man, you can have that style of glass if 
you want it. We’ve got craftsmen at home 
who use the same materials. The same 
processes, the same type of design. Say 
the word, and-” 
“Oh, gammon!” Van Cuyp interrupted. 
“You’re chaffing. It’s a lost art and you 
know it, and besides, it’s too churchy, and 
out of date, anyhow. Opalescent’s the craze 
now. Wait till I show you the window I 
put in before I came over—drapery glass, 
you know, jewels, hand-painted, and- 
but here he broke off abruptly, for he saw 
the Crowninshields, old friends of his, step 
in through the “principal portal.” That 
ended our discussion. To celebrate the re¬ 
union of kindred spirits, we leisurely re¬ 
paired to the Cafe de la Paix. 
As luck would have it, Van Cuyp loaded 
MEDIEVAL STAINED 
GLASS FOR MODERN 
HOUSES 
An Artistic Venture 
That Is Wholly Possible 
ROLLIN LYNDE HARTT 
A cartouche for a 
large window ex¬ 
ecuted by Nicola 
d’Ascenzo in the post- 
mediceval manner 
In this cartouche, as 
in that opposite, the 
leads are pronounced 
and the colors show 
flat and clear 
Designed by Charles J. Connick for a stair 
window in the residence of Hon. J. M. 
Curley, Mayor of Boston. The background 
is in white glasses with colored borders 
and heavily leaded and the cartouche is in 
full color leaded in the mediceval manner 
the Crowninshields into his car next morn¬ 
ing and made off for Rouen and then Brit¬ 
tany, and it was not till the following year 
that I met him again. “Well, well!” he ex¬ 
claimed, “back home, are you? Come up 
to the house and take a look at that win¬ 
dow; it’s a great piece of work.” 
A Regular Picture 
I quailed, but not outwardly. Indeed, it 
may be said that “the condemned man went 
to the window with a firm tread,” though it 
cost me no little self-restraint, once I be¬ 
held the atrocity, to refrain from groaning, 
“Ah, Mon View., how thou art stung!” 
Instead of that, I held my peace, and, 
rather than “praise the thing with faint 
damns,” allowed Van Cuyp to damn it with 
every fervent adulation he uttered—such, 
for instance, as “Just look how those figures 
stand out!’’ and “Bully perspective—acres 
of background — miles !” and “What tech¬ 
nique ! Why, man alive, the leads hardly 
show—only see where they’re covered over 
with extra layers of glass!” and “Doesn’t 
that pillar look round ? Come close and see 
the different thicknesses of glass to get the 
effect, with paint smeared in between the 
layers. Not much paint used, though. 
That’s the art of it. They fish around 
among their glass—it’s mottled and crinkly, 
you understand—till they find just the piece 
that looks like a leaf or a girl’s cheek or 
the fur on a cat, and in it goes. When the 
window’s done, it’s a regular picture— 
might as well be painted on canvas.” 
I could have reminded Van Cuyp that, 
with the means at his disposal, it would 
have been no extravagance for him to en¬ 
gage a small boy to do the right thing by 
that window. However, it is a serious of¬ 
fense to come between a man and his art- 
treasures, and I contented myself by say¬ 
ing, “It’s awfully pretty,” meaning, “Pretty, 
but is it art?” and not in the way Kipling 
used the phrase, either. To my mind, the 
opalescent flummy-diddle was exceedingly 
pretty and at the same time a blasphemy 
against all sane artistic standards old or 
new. It was in vile taste. It bespoke hum¬ 
bug, folly, and a denial of that faultless 
definition which says that “Art is the ex¬ 
pression of man’s joy in his work.” 
The Truth of the Matter 
These are harsh words. Granted. They 
dishonor the achievements of the great La 
Farge. Again granted. They rain ridi¬ 
cule on “American” glass. Granted once 
more. Not for worlds would I have spoken 
them within earshot of Van Cuyp, there on 
his grand stairway, though they were true, 
every syllable. In fact, he himself had con¬ 
demned his window in his very praise of its 
characteristic features. Consider. 
The figures “stood out.” The background 
had “miles” of melting distance. It was a 
“regular picture.” But a stained glass win¬ 
dow has no more business to be a “regular 
picture” than a mural painting has. In the 
Pantheon, that day we “did” the Cluny and 
Notre Dame, Van Cuyp had agreed with 
me that the supreme technical merit of 
Puvis de Chavannes’s mural decorations 
was their flatness. They fitted the walls. 
Nothing “stood out,” nor did anything fall 
back. Then why, pray, should stained 
glass refuse to recognize its limitations and, 
instead of accepting a wall’s rigidity, poke 
holes in it or court an illusion of “coming 
at you”? The whole mission of glass, when 
employed as a decorative detail, is to em¬ 
bellish the wall without violating its flat¬ 
ness. Otherwise, glass man and architect 
