12. MODERN PAINTING ON GLASS.

Of all the various principles of art which, in modern days, we have defied or forgotten, none are more indisputable, and few of more practical importance than this, which I shall have occasion again and again to allege in support of many future deductions: "All art, working with given materials, must propose to itself the objects which, with those materials, are most perfectly attainable; and becomes illegitimate and debased if it propose to itself any other objects, better attainable with other materials." Thus, great slenderness, lightness, or intricacy of structure,--as in ramifications of trees, detached folds of drapery, or wreaths of hair,--is easily and perfectly expressible in metal-work or in painting, but only with great difficulty and imperfectly expressible in sculpture. All sculpture, therefore, which professes as its chief end the expression of such characters, is debased; and if the suggestion of them be accidentally required of it, that suggestion is only to be given to an extent compatible with perfect ease of execution in the given material,--not to the utmost possible extent. For instance: some of the most delightful drawings of our own water-color painter, Hunt, have been of birds' nests; of which, in painting, it is perfectly possible to represent the intricate fibrous or mossy structure; therefore, the effort is a legitimate one, and the art is well employed. But to carve a bird's nest out of marble would be physically impossible, and to reach any approximate expression of its structure would require prolonged and intolerable labor. Therefore, all sculpture which set itself to carving birds' nests as an end, or which, if a bird's nest were required of it, carved it to the utmost possible point of realization, would be debased. Nothing but the general form, and as much of the fibrous structure as could be with perfect ease represented, ought to be attempted at all. But more than this. The workman has not done his duty, and is not working on safe principles, unless he even so far _honors_ the materials with which he is working as to set himself to bring out their beauty, and to recommend and exalt, as far as lie can, their peculiar qualities. If he is working in marble, he should insist upon and exhibit its transparency and solidity; if in iron, its strength and tenacity; if in gold, its ductility; and he will invariably find the material grateful, and that his work is all the nobler for being eulogistic of the substance of which it is made. But of all the arts, the working of glass is that in which we ought to keep these principles most vigorously in mind. For we owe it so much, and the possession of it is so great a blessing, that all our work in it should be completely and forcibly expressive of the peculiar characters which give it so vast a value. These are two, namely, its DUCTILITY when heated, and TRANSPARENCY when cold, both nearly perfect. In its employment for vessels, we ought always to exhibit its ductility, and in its employment for windows, its transparency. All work in glass is bad which does not, with loud voice, proclaim one or other of these great qualities. Consequently, _all cut glass_ is barbarous: for the cutting conceals its ductility, and confuses it with crystal. Also, all very neat, finished, and perfect form in glass is barbarous: for this fails in proclaiming another of its great virtues; namely, the ease with which its light substance can be moulded or blown into any form, so long as perfect accuracy be not required. In metal, which, even when heated enough to be thoroughly malleable, retains yet such weight and consistency as render it susceptible of the finest handling and retention of the most delicate form, great precision of workmanship is admissible; but in glass, which when once softened must be blown or moulded, not hammered, and which is liable to lose, by contraction or subsidence, the fineness of the forms given to it, no delicate outlines are to be attempted, but only such fantastic and fickle grace as the mind of the workman can conceive and execute on the instant. The more wild, extravagant, and grotesque in their gracefulness the forms are, the better. No material is so adapted for giving full play to the imagination, but it must not be wrought with refinement or painfulness, still less with costliness. For as in gratitude we are to proclaim its virtues, so in all honesty we are to confess its imperfections; and while we triumphantly set forth its transparency, we are also frankly to admit its fragility, and therefore not to waste much time upon it, nor put any real art into it when intended for daily use. No workman ought ever to spend more than an hour in the making of any glass vessel. Next in the case of windows, the points which we have to insist upon are, the transparency of the glass and its susceptibility of the most brilliant colors; and therefore the attempt to turn painted windows into pretty pictures is one of the most gross and ridiculous barbarisms of this pre-eminently barbarous century. It originated, I suppose, with the Germans, who seem for the present distinguished among European nations by the loss of the sense of color; but it appears of late to have considerable chance of establishing itself in England: and it is a two-edged error, striking in two directions; first at the healthy appreciation of painting, and then at the healthy appreciation of glass. Color, ground with oil, and laid on a solid opaque ground, furnishes to the human hand the most exquisite means of expression which the human sight and invention can find or require. By its two opposite qualities, each naturally and easily attainable, of transparency in shadow and opacity in light, it complies with the conditions of nature; and by its perfect governableness it permits the utmost possible fulness and subtlety in the harmonies of color, as well as the utmost perfection in the drawing. Glass, considered as a material for a picture, is exactly as bad as oil paint is good. It sets out by reversing the conditions of nature, by making the lights transparent and the shadows opaque; and the ungovernableness of its color (changing in the furnace), and its violence (being always on a high key, because produced by actual light), render it so disadvantageous in every way, that the result of working in it for pictorial effect would infallibly be the destruction of all the appreciation of the noble qualities of pictorial color. In the second place, this modern barbarism destroys the true appreciation of the qualities of glass. It denies, and endeavors as far as possible to conceal, the transparency, which is not only its great virtue in a merely utilitarian point of view, but its great spiritual character; the character by which in church architecture it becomes most touchingly impressive, as typical of the entrances of the Holy Spirit into the heart of man; a typical expression rendered specific and intense by the purity and brilliancy of its sevenfold hues;[165] and therefore in endeavoring to turn the window into a picture, we at once lose the sanctity and power of the noble material, and employ it to an end which is utterly impossible it should ever worthily attain. The true perfection of a painted window is to be serene, intense, brilliant, like flaming jewellery; full of easily legible and quaint subjects, and exquisitely subtle, yet simple, in its harmonies. In a word, this perfection has been consummated in the designs, never to be surpassed, if ever again to be approached by human art, of the French windows of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. FOOTNOTES [163] I do not like to hear Protestants speaking with gross and uncharitable contempt even of the worship of relics. Elisha once trusted his own staff too far; nor can I see any reasonable ground for the scorn, or the unkind rebuke, of those who have been taught from their youth upwards that to hope even in the hem of the garment may sometimes be better than to spend the living on physicians. [164] Casa Tiepolo (?) in Lazari's Guide. [165] I do not think that there is anything more necessary to the progress of European art in the present day than the complete understanding of this sanctity of Color. I had much pleasure in finding it, the other day, fully understood and thus sweetly expressed in a little volume of poems by a Miss Maynard: "For still in every land, though to Thy name Arose no temple,--still in every age, Though heedless man had quite forgot Thy praise, _We_ praised Thee; and at rise and set of sun Did we assemble duly, and intone A choral hymn that all the lands might hear. In heaven, on earth, and in the deep we praised Thee, Singly, or mingled in sweet sisterhood. But now, acknowledged ministrants, we come, Co-worshippers with man in this Thy house, We, the Seven Daughters of the Light, to praise Thee, Light of Light! Thee, God of very God!" _A Dream of Fair Colors._ These poems seem to be otherwise remarkable for a very unobtrusive and pure religious feeling in subjects connected with art. * * * * * CORRECTIONS MADE TO THE ORIGINAL TEXT. Page 58: 'endeavoring to imagine its aspect' corrected from 'aspeet.' Page 84: 'inadmissible altogether, or objectionable' from 'objecjectionable.' Page 179: 'the surface sculpture will' corrected from 'wiil.' Page 188: 'central class will always' originally 'aways.' Page 191: 'with the rest of the spirit' originally 'spirt.' Page 204: 'the heart of that languor' originally 'langour.' Page 263: 'merely noting this one assured fact' changed from 'nothing.' Footnote 130: Appendi corrected to Appendix. *** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE STONES OF VENICE, VOLUME 2 (OF 3), *** Updated editions will replace the previous one—the old editions will be renamed. Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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