There is a gayer touch in the less seriously decorative panel of French work in the Louvre given on [page 307]. In that pot-metal is used for the dark ruby of the outer dress, and for the little bits of blue rather cunningly let into the spandrils of the arch. The fancifully designed canopy, the arabesque, and a portion of the drapery are in stain, all delicately painted upon clear glass, and glazed mainly on quarry lines—from which, however, the designer saw fit to depart. What he meant by the unfortunate circular lead line about the head is difficult to imagine. It can hardly be, like other erratic leading, the result of mending. No fracture could possibly have steered so carefully between the figure and the ornament. It looks almost as if at the last he had lost confidence in his technique, and, in trying vainly to avoid lead lines, had ended in giving them extraordinary emphasis.
206. Grisaille, Warwick Castle.
“Photo-Tint” by James Akerman, London, W. C.
In ultra-delicate domestic work the leads are more than ever the difficulty. One is uncomfortably conscious of them in the wonderful series of windows—formerly at Ecouen, and now in the Château de Chantilly—in which is set forth in forty pictures the story of Cupid and Psyche. A specimen of these is given on [page 218], thanks to the friendly permission of Monsieur Magne, who illustrates the whole of them in his admirable monograph of the Montmorency glass. The legend to the effect that Raffaelle designed and Palissy painted them, is past all possible belief; but they are very remarkable specimens of sixteenth century work, restored about the period of the First Empire, and mark somewhere about the high-water mark of French domestic picture glass.
A glance at these windows is enough to show that they were never schemed with any definite view to glazing. Rather it would appear that the pictures were first designed and then the leads introduced where best they could be disguised. But the disguise is everywhere transparent. Such gauzy painting is inadequate; it hides nothing. You see always the thick black lines of lead, cruel enough, but clinging in a cowardly way to the edges of weak forms, sneaking into shadows, and foolishly pretending to pass themselves off as the continuation of painted outlines not one-twentieth part so strong as they. The sparing use of glazing lines makes them all the more conspicuous. They must originally have asserted themselves even more than they do now; for the accidental lead lines introduced in reparation, however much they damage the pictures, do in a measure support the original glazing lines, and pull the windows together. The Chantilly glass goes to prove the impossibility of satisfactorily disposing of the leads in very small figure subjects in grisaille. In work on a larger scale it wants only a man who knows his trade to manage it. Witness what was done in church work.
The propriety of executing figures in grisaille at all has been called in question by Viollet le Duc. “Every bit of white glass,” he said, “should be diapered with pattern traced with a brush; and, since this treatment is not possible in flesh painting, flesh ought not to be painted.” Moreover, he says that grisaille has always the appearance of vibrating, and the vibration fatigues the eye; therefore, he argues, it is labour lost to paint white figures. Far be it from an ornamentist to deny that a great deal too much importance is attached to figure work in decoration. But the amount of tracing necessary on white glass is relative. In grisaille it is quite safe to leave some glass clear; and, if it is not worth while to paint figures, is it worth while to paint anything worth looking at, or worth painting?
207. Louis XIII. and Anne of Austria.