And naturally all this has shown itself in the cultivation of Stained Glass also. As we have said, what is needed above all else is knowledge, to guide us to what is really good and worthy.
No sooner is any want of the public made evident than enterprising trade springs up to supply that want. If you want colored church windows, you can have them to-day at a trifle per square yard by purchasing a beautifully printed paper, of genuine ecclesiastical design, and pasting it upon your present windows. From this most abysmal horror of vulgarity you may pass through various successive gradations of so-called stained glass, all supplied by trade. If you pass on to the costliest, you are not thereby sure to obtain what is not horrible and vulgar, when regarded from the point of view of true Stained Glass, of Architectural Art, and of Religion.
There are at this moment three rather diverse schools of Stained Glass most in evidence before those who seek and are willing to pay for honest art work; the English, the German, and the American. Their comparative merits are nowhere, to our knowledge, presented in a fair minded way; the makers of each claim superior excellence for their own, of course; if, indeed, they ever intimate to the public that there is any other kind at all. It should be said, however, that there is great merit in the best examples of each school; and that none of these schools can fairly be judged by the inferior stuff which is put out under its name, for each of them is defamed by such stuff.
The English school naturally had, and still has, great prestige among Churchmen. Taking it at its best, as for instance in the work of Mr. Henry Holiday, it is simple and vigorous in drawing, varied and harmonious in color, churchly in spirit, while free from mediævalism. The English artist believes in stained glass, glass which has its color within itself; and good glass, the best he can obtain. His glass is flat, that is, of even surface and equal thickness. He believes in painting upon this glass, and upon, one may say, every piece and bit of it; but he does not paint a color upon it, he simply shades it, draws folds of drapery, patterns of fabrics, details of ornamentations; always, however, aiming to leave it, however much so painted, with the color of the glass gleaming and glittering: that is, he does not daub over the surface, but puts on mere lines, and picks out lights, so that his painted piece of green glass, let us say, is still green glass, only with design upon it, or texture, or light and shade. He feels that only in this way has he done all which as an artist he is conscientiously bound to do; and he accounts a piece of mere stained glass which has not felt the brush at all, which has not had the touch of the conscious art of the maker, a poor thing, in a sort, crude and barbaric.
In the hands of a master—and there have been great masters in the English school—the results of this method have been very fine. But even so the fact remains that every line and every particle of even neutral pigment upon the surface of glass obscures so much light; which is to say, it detracts so much from its brilliancy and splendor. The fact is undeniable that the total effect of some great window of this school will be charming, but withal just a little dull; the richness which gleams and glitters from it is yet half hidden as by some fluttering veil before it. Such work at its best is exquisite; it is devotional; it is soothing; but hardly gives one a thrill of gladness. In the hands of a master, it is a fit medium for strong individuality of a good kind, as witness Burne-Jones’ windows executed at the works of William Morris. In the hands of the common multitude of English makers, it degenerates into a wearisome, conventional repetition of stiff figures, draped in the same damask stuffs, with the same wooden little flowers growing up around their feet, the whole surrounded by the same easily managed conventional border.
Of the German glass, commonly called Munich glass, it is sufficient for our purpose to say that it is in principle the same as the English. It relies much upon the brush. It is more in the mediæval spirit than the English; its feeling is that of a simply traditional, not a modern, devoutness. Its inspiration is Italian. Its colors are more predominatingly the old primary colors. Its decorative features are strictly conventional, and applied in a mechanical spirit. In warmth, in splendor of color, German windows at their best are superior to the English.
American glass is not simply glass made in America. The term denotes a new method, which yet is, in the main, a restoration of the very oldest method, reinforced on its own lines by modern resources. Mr. John La Farge is its distinguished pioneer.
American glass is true stained glass; but it is not glass of even surface and of equal thickness.[A] By its inequality of thickness the American artist effects what the English artist accomplishes by brushing dark lines upon his even glass; or he leads strips and pieces of glass on the back of his window to intensify and deepen his color, as in folds of drapery and the like. He paints nothing except faces, hands and feet; all the rest he binds himself to obtain by the mosaic method. He cannot obtain by the mosaic method everything that the English artist obtains by the brush; but he feels that he obtains all which in a window is necessary, and by patient, thoroughly artistic work he obtains what upon study proves marvelous; and he has all his glass free to exhibit the full glory of glass. His very necessities compel him to compose in the true way, that is by lead lines; he is back upon first principles in this respect. The lead lines mark the structural lines of his drawing. But he has still to contend with the necessity of painting his flesh parts; and of overcoming the break between their flatness, between the dull hardness of painted faces, hands and feet, and the splendid jewel-like strength of all the rest of his window. The best he can do is to make this transition as little abrupt as possible.
[A] The earliest glass was not glass of even surface and equal thickness. Therein lies one of its charms.
Needless to say, the American school has its dangers. The ease with which an ignorant eye may be imposed upon by great pieces of folded glass instead of conscientiously selected and leaded strips and pieces, is a snare, into which it is not necessary for an honest artist to fall. When, however, a customer demands something cheap, he can obtain it in so-called American glass, and it will be cheap enough. There has been also a deplorable tendency among some prominent American glass makers toward startling theatrical effects. Of unchurchly windows, windows hopelessly and utterly unchurchly, the great majority doubtless are of the American school; nor are they the windows which have cost the least money. Novel and indescribable colors, as far removed as possible from all sober, reverent, devotional feeling, have been employed; effects have been sought which actually destroy all the value of the window as what it was designed by its architect, a window in a sacred edifice. And by the wide heralding of such performances, as if American glass meant simply this sort of thing, American glass has forfeited that just appreciation which in its essential principles it so richly merits. Let the American school remember that a window in a church is and forever must remain just a window, subservient that is, to the architecture of the church; let it design in the spirit of worshipful, reverent, dignified, sober devotion; let it compose with technical conscientiousness and love its leads and spare no labor; let it choose thoroughly good glass, and glass of predominantly the glorious colors so long honorable, eschewing startling and meretricious effects: and there will, to our mind, be no doubt of its being the Stained Glass of the future.