There are interesting yet short chapters on mosaic, tapestry, and painted glass; subjects now demanding no little public attention, coming again as we are to the taste for decoration. The ladies of England will be pleased to find their needle-work so seriously considered. Happy will it be if their idleness leads to a better and employed industry. Due praise is bestowed upon Miss Linwood, whose works are ranked with the Gobelin tapestry. We remember seeing many years ago an invention that promised great things – painting, if it may be so called, in wool work. It was the invention of Miss Thompson, and was exhibited, and we believe not quite fairly – much mischief having been done to the pictures by pulling out parts, either for wanton mutilation, or to see the manner of the working. Whether from disgust arising from this circumstance, or at the little encouragement shown to it, the invention seems to have dropped. Yet was the effect most powerful, more to the life than any picture, in whatever material; and from the size of the works produced by the hands of one person, we should judge that it is capable of rapid execution. We have a vivid recollection of a copy from a picture by Northcote, figures size of life, and of the head of Govartius, in the National Gallery. We are not without hope that this slight notice may recall a very effective mode of copying, at least, if not of producing, original works.
Of painted glass, it is remarked, —
"The earliest notice of its existence is in the age of Pope Leo III., about the year 800. It did not, however, come into general use till the lapse of some centuries. The earliest specimens differ entirely from those of a later date, being composed of small pieces stained with colour during the process of manufacture, and thus forming a species of patchwork, or rude mosaic, joined together with lead, after being cut into the proper shapes." Mr Cleghorn omits to say that this more perfect invention of painting on one piece various tints and colours, and regulating gradations of burning, was effected and brought to perfection by the same extraordinary man to whom the world is indebted for the invention of oil painting, Van Eyck. From the discoveries of this extraordinary man, or rather these extraordinary brothers, Van Eyck, must be dated the advance in the arts, both on glass and in oil-colours, which brought to both the perfection of colouring.
The wonderful splendour added to design upon glass, which was so eminently practised at Venice, without doubt supplied to the Venetian school an aim which it could not have had under the old tempera system, but which the new oil invention of Van Eyck sufficiently placed within its reach.
Yet, in one view, we may hence date the corruption of art. The severity of fresco was superseded by the new fascination, and somewhat of dignity was lost as beauty was more decidedly established. As very much of the splendour of glass painting was thus introduced in oil, the greater facility of more correctly representing nature, and embodying ideas by degrees of opacity, so gave the preference to oil-painting, that not only the old tempera and fresco were soon neglected, but painting on glass itself, as if it had done its work, and transferred its peculiar beauty, lost much of its repute, and, in no very long time, the processes to which it owed its former glory.
Mr Cleghorn remarks – "Within a few years it has been much cultivated in Great Britain; and the intended application to the decoration of the Houses of Parliament will materially conduce to its improvement and extension." It is unquestionably an art of the greatest importance in decoration. It has a charm peculiarly its own. It dignifies, it solemnises by its own light, and is capable of affecting the mind so as particularly to predispose it to the purposes of architecture. It encloses a sanctuary, excluding the very atmosphere of the outer world. There is the impression and the awe of truth under the searching and embracing light, that should make the utterance of a falsehood the more mean, even sacrilegious. The art that can have this power, nor is this its only, though its greater power, is surely to be cultivated and encouraged extensively. There is now more attention paid to the architecture and decoration of our churches, and a taste has sprung up for monumental windows. We cannot resist, therefore, the temptation to offer a few remarks upon the subject, now that so many mistaken views are taken as to the proper application of this beautiful art.
There seems to be a false idea abroad that the painted window is to be predominant, not assistant to the general impression which the architecture intends. In reality it loses, not gains, power by setting up for itself. And, even in colours, it is not to vie with shop display of colours "by the piece," nor to set forth all its powers at once in a full glare and blaze, and too often without other object and meaning than to display flags of strong unmixed colours. A painted window should be a whole, and have no one colour predominant, but be of infinite depths and degrees of tint and tone with one tendency. Nor should it aim at picture-making, however it may be adapted to the emblematical. It should never affect the absolutely real – the picture illusion: it is altogether of a world of thought and imagination belonging rather to the inner mind of the spectator than to his ordinary thought or vision. The very difficulty of the early manufacture was an advantage to it, for great brilliancy has resulted from the crossings and hatchings of the leaden fastenings; and now that we are enabled to hang up, as it were, flags of colour, the effect of those subduing subdivisions is gone.
There is such a thing, so to speak, as the genius of a material. That genius, in the case of glass-painting, is not for picture. Surely Sir Joshua Reynolds made a great mistake when, in his window for New College, he designed, as for canvass, a picture, and that for the most part without colour, which the genius of the material required. Nor by the largeness of his figures, and of the whole as a design, did he assist, or indeed at all agree with, the character of the architecture. In such instances many and small parts should make one whole, both for the advantage of the real magnitude of the particular work, and that the magnitude of the architecture be not lessened – a method, indeed, which the Gothic architecture studiously followed, in which even minute design and detail give largeness to all the leading lines. Daylight is never to be seen – an imaginary light is the all in all. In this respect it should be like a precious stone, which is best seen in all its infinite depths, in shade, out of all common glare. In the best specimens of old glass-painting the positive and strong colours were few, and in small spaces, and adjoining them was a frequent aiming at those which were almost opaque, – even black and greens, browns and purples, bordering on black. And if emblematic subjects were represented, they were in many compartments, as if the window were a large history-book with its many pages – a world of curious emblems, no one obtrusive. It is bad taste to fill up a whole window with even Raffaelle's Transfiguration; either a picture or a large design is out of place, and dissonant to the genius of the art. One of the worst specimens of painted window is that in the Temple, all self-glorifying, painted as a savage would paint himself, in flags of colour as crude as possible. The genius of the art is for innumerable subdivisions, none obtruding, lest there be no whole. It should be of the light of a brighter world subduing itself, veiling its glory, and diffusing itself in mystic communication with the inner mind; and like that mind, one in feeling with all its varied depths of thought. Colour and transparency are the means of this beautiful art; but these, as they are very powerful require great judgment and determination of purpose in the use. The interwoven gold in the old tapestries was more effectually to separate the character of the material from the too close imitation of nature or the picture; so on the transparent material of glass, the crossing, and sometimes quaintly formed lead lines, always marked, answer the same purpose. Mr Cleghorn is too sparing of remarks and information on the art of painting on glass, which we the less regret, as we are shortly to have before the public the carefully gathered knowledge upon this subject from the pen and research of Mrs Merrifield. His chapter on tapestry is more full and interesting. We have not seen the specimens of a new kind invented by Miss King. It will be a boon to the public if, in its adoption, it supersedes, with a better richness, the Berlin work, at which ladies are now so unceasingly and so tastelessly employed. The Art-Union speaks highly of the invention.