A window is, when considered as a work of fine art in color, a translucent composition, there being no part of it which can appeal to the eye by other than transmitted light. The artist has, then, the need of something strong to lean upon, some background, some fond upon which to relieve his more brilliant pieces of translucency; for it can be easily understood that color composition which is wholly translucent will tend toward feebleness, toward paleness, toward a certain evanescent and doubtful character of its colors, from which it must be saved. This needed background was found in the use of the leads; that is to say, of those strips of lead made generally in the form of a capital I, in which the edges of the separate pieces of glass are held. By taking these leads as the artistic sub-structure of the composition, by placing them where needed, and by cutting the glass accordingly, by combining the colors of the glass in such a way as to allow the leads to be put where they were needed for this purpose of background, results were obtained which no artist in glass had ever yet attempted. La Farge's use of leads, in this way, remains peculiarly his own in the subtlety and refinement of the linear design. Occasionally, indeed, a certain amount of opaque painting, of that solid non-translucent painting which the men of the Middle Ages used continually, has been used to increase the area of his lead sash-bars or to diminish the brilliancy of a background. All artists recognize the need of the repentir, of the amendment made after the work is partly done, or even, to all eyes but their own, completed; and painting in opaque color has been used by La Farge when it has appeared that the lead-sash was not quite sufficient for the background needed. In like manner, painting in translucent colored enamels has been used by him where it has appeared to him that no glass available would produce the tone desired. As such instances are occasional and rare, these devices are not a part of the essence of La Farge's work in glass, and they are mentioned here merely because their existence must be understood as accidental. The treatment of heads and hands and other necessarily nude parts of the body, in order that these surfaces may harmonize with the generally unpainted drapery and background, would require pages of discussion if entered upon at all.
The purpose of this article is not, however, to dwell in detail upon the historical development of his art, but to criticise it in its main features, and to institute an inquiry into those traits of La Farge's personality which have made his work especially interesting to all persons who care for the retention of noble design in that which is obviously novel, original, modern in art.
Study for a Decoration for a Page of Browning's "Men and Women," 1861.
In the first place, then, Mr. La Farge is very individual as a designer. He hardly belongs to any school of designers. The reader will suggest at once that, as there is no school of designers at the present day, a man of force is compelled to be individual; and this dictum will be readily accepted. Inasmuch as there has been no time since La Farge reached the age of intelligence and of interest in art—no time when he has not been a student of Japanese art; inasmuch as he began, as long ago as 1860, to buy and study what few pieces of Japanese art and handicraft he could find—it has been thought that he is strongly influenced by Japanese design; but this it will be hard to establish. His design is individual and personal, and it is that whether we take design to mean his way of conceiving the human figure; or his way of composing human figures in large groups with care for the effect of line and mass; or whether we think, rather, of the filling of the panel or the canvas, the parallelogram or the half-circle, with masses of color and tendencies of line.
Study for the Wolf-Charmer.