LIMITS AND CONVENTIONS. 305 worked up to the full intelligence of their day, and their work was imbued with individuality of thought and expression as well as with deep religious feeling. The man who, working in the 19th century, deliberately ignores all that belongs to his century, and all that distinguishes it from the 13th or 14th, by the very effort lays aside his individuality and disqualifies himself from producing anything original, or of more than a second-rate order of excellence. And this is our weak point. The one thing wanting in our glass painting is originality-perfect independence of thought. As yet that would, we fear, hardly be allowed by patrons-perhaps hardly be tolerated by the public; it would certainly be denounced by ecclesiologists, and sturdily opposed by the trade. The hope of its acceptance lies in the advent of a glass painter of real genius, who, having studied the best productions and methods of his predecessors, would work in their spirit without servilely treading in their footsteps. If he would do that-think his own thoughts and not those of another, and resolutely work out his idea by the means that seem to him best adapted to convey it, without heeding whether or not his process agrees in every or in any particular with that employed in the 13th, 14th, or any other century-we see no reason why even a higher standard of excellence should not be attained than has ever yet been reached. In power of expression, in drawing and composition, the modern is beyond dispute superior to the medieval artist. In colour he has the teaching of Titian, Giorgione, and Correggio; of Rubens, Reynolds, and Gainsborough; and as to the materials, if they are not yet all he could wish, the fault lies very much with himself. The old painters were familiar with every branch of their art; they were workmen as well as painters. Among the moderns the division-of-labour system leaves the individual too often ignorant of all but his own small section of the work. A word on the technical principles which should regulate a painting on glass, and we have done. In Every art has its limits and its conventions; and glass painting is eminently limited and conventional. This is a fact which painters and observers must never lose sight of: it is one which seems never to have occurred to the Cinque Cento glass painters or their successors. every other kind of painting direct imitation, the characterization of surface, the expression of solidity, opacity, etc., are more or less closely attempted. On glass they can only be suggested. The observer cannot for a moment forget that the light is coming through the most solid object before him; and this fact alone would serve to determine the conventionality of the treatment throughout. The window must then be, from first to last, treated as a window, not as a picture; a medium to subdue or to modify, but not to obstruct the light. Nor should it be considered by itself, but as a part of the general decoration; and hence VOL. I.-NO. III. X every window should be designed with special reference to the place it is to occupy. Speaking from our experience of previous windows, we may say that the most effective arrangement is to have the ground of the window of a rich but unobtrusive mosaic, with the picture or pictures placed on it as medallions: the 13th century windows being in this the best guides. The pictures, whether small or of larger proportions, should be treated broadly, simply, and so as to be readily seen and understood from a distance; in a word, pretty much, as to design, like coloured relievi. Pictorial accessories of every kindarchitecture, landscapes, distant groups, whatever requires the application of linear or aerial perspective-are, from the nature of the material, inadmissible. Even canopies over figures, notwithstanding the medieval precedents, are, as it seems to us, as erroneous in principle as they are unpleasing in appearance. Finally the window as a whole should present an harmonious combination of rich, glowing, gem-like, but sober colours. "They that "STAND TO YOUR POST!" go down to the sea in ships: and occupy their business in great waters; "These men see the works of the Lord: and his wonders in the deep. "For at his word the stormy wind ariseth: which lifteth up the waves thereof. "They are carried up to the heaven, and down again to the deep: their soul melteth away because of the trouble. "They reel to and fro, and stagger like a drunken man: and are at their wit's end. "So when they cry unto the Lord in their trouble: he delivereth them out of their distress. "For he maketh the storm to cease: so that the waves are still. "Then are they glad, because they are at rest: and so he bringeth them unto the haven where they would be. "O that men would therefore praise the Lord for his goodness: and declare the wonders that he doeth for the children of men!"-PSALM cvii. 23-31. THE good ship reeled and staggered, The crested waves ran high, With angry might their elf-locks shook Athwart the threatening sky. "Stand to your post!" the captain said, |