Occasionally an attempt is made to merge the picture into the plain glazing above, as at S. Paul’s, Antwerp, where the yellow sky, against which is shown the distant city, and so on, is glazed in squares, which further off become gradually white, and then at their interstices have smaller diamond-shaped pieces of glass let in.
Where a subject glazed in quarries is represented against a background of plain glazing of more elaborate design, there is difficulty in joining the two, except by means of a strong lead outline to the figures, or whatever may come next to the plain glass, which outline the seventeenth century designer was anxious before all things to avoid. Accordingly, as the plain pattern work approached the margin of the painted work, he replaced the leads by paint, which sham leads, of course, could be made to disappear as seemed good to him. But these little games of his, to judge by results, were hardly worth the candle.
It will be seen how, in the French glass on [page 200], the canopy came to be backed and surrounded by unpainted glass, quarries in that case. There the canopy sufficiently occupies the window space not to strike one unpleasantly; but that is sixteenth century work; later, and especially in Flanders, canopies are represented, as in the cathedral at Antwerp (1615), adrift, as it were, in a sea of plain glazing. Even when the glass has some quality of glass the effect of that is not happy. When the glass is thin and transparent it is disastrous.
At S. Jacques, Antwerp, again, coats of arms hover unsupported in mid-air, the mere lines of the glazing being quite inadequate to their apparent support. It is different, of course, where the heraldic device, as [opposite], is itself little more than plain glazing. That is a very mild form of art; but, in its way, it is satisfactory enough.
Perhaps least fortunate of all in effect are the landscapes at S. Jacques, which float, without even a canopy to frame them, in an atmosphere of leaded glass. Antwerp is rich in glass, much of it very cleverly executed, which would serve very well to illustrate how not to design a window.
165. Gouda, 1688.
The place of the canopy was supplied sometimes, especially in later Netherlandish work, by the cartouche so dear to the Dutch. It fulfilled very much the office of the canopy, framing the design; and, had it been kept white, it would have framed it well, affording circular and other shapes which form a welcome variation upon the usual arched opening. But it was not white at all; very much the reverse. Indeed the idea of the Dutch cartouche, with its interpenetration of parts, and curling and projecting straps and bolts, tempts the painter to a heavy method of painting, destructive of the very quality of white. The device depends for its effect far too much upon force of shadow to be of any great use in white glass. The comparatively early cartouche in the lower half of the window at Gouda, given on [page 223], is of the simplest kind, and has none of that too-seductive bolt work; but it is dull and heavy in effect, being painted in heavy brown, with the idea of giving atmospheric effect to the picture supposed to be seen through it.