STALLS
243
STALLS
would canvas. In the seventeenth and eighteenth
centuries the use of paints and enamels became so
excessive as to almost do away with pot-metal.
Many of the windows were made wholly by painting
and stainmg clear glass, and were purely articles of
trade, with a very poor market, which became smaller
from year to year until all demand ceased, and the
noble art of placing images of beauty between earth
and heaven for the edification of the people, for the
glory of the art, for the love of the beautiful, and the
honour of God chsappeared for a time from off the
face of the earth.
II. Continental Europe and Great Britain, in its recoil from the black night of unbelief, indifference, and disorder that WTecked good morals at the end of the eighteenth centurj- and the beginning of the nineteenth, fell back upon the faith of the past as its only anchor of hope. As the Faith revived among the people it called for a material expression of its dogmas and history under forms of beauty, opening once again the field of religious art to architects, painters, and sculptors. All over Europe every branch of art found able leaders — men of enthusiasm, rare talents, and great energy. Each one, architect, painter, and sculptor, entered upon the work with the spirit of faith, love, and sacrifice, in their hearts, and tried to make their art "a frame for the sacred picture of truth". Amid this revival of the major arts, those which developed most rapidly were painting and architecture, and among the handmaidens of the lat- ter the glazier's art almost at once took a leading position. To Germany belongs the honour of reviv- ing coloured windows, although both France and England have a prior claim, as having produced the first picture windows subsequent to the French Revo- lution; but these were nothing more than isolated efforts of individuals, while in Germany associated artists of ability gave their attention to the matter anfl founded a school of ghiss-painters, and Munich became the centre of the movement. One of the greatest efforts of the Munich School is to be seen in Glasgow Cathedral, where it reached its limit of excellency. This was indeed a noble effort, but on the whole a lamentable failure, due to the nature of the gla.ss, as well as a lack of knowledge of the re- quirements of the art and of its place as an adjimct to architecture. The windows are marked by thin- ness of colour, exaggerated diapered backgrounds, inharmonious borders, and defective blending of the colours, while there is a lack of harmony between the ornaments of the building and its architecture.
The modern French school of window-makers is very similar to the German, with even a stronger tendency to look upon coloured windows as easel pictures, with Uttle or no leaning towards medieval processes, and without any apparent effort to attain the incomparable beauty of the windows which adorn the French cathedrals of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. The English school of glas,s-painters are by far the most successful, and all because their highest aim lias been to make their windows good copies of the best glass of the Middle Ages. Much of their work is very beautiful, deeply imbued with a devotional si)irit, and of high artistic merit. The American artist in glass, impatient of tradition, caring ver>' little for either the subjects or the symbolism of the p.ast, has attempted to do something new by using opal glass, with its limitless colour field, along the lines of the mosaic system, and build a window perfect in colour effect. In practice he separates his lights and darks from one another by carefully stud- ied lead lines, which he endeavours to lose by making them look like a part of the glass and an essential constituent of the design. .\t the .same time he tries to hciglitcn the cnlovir values of his glass by super- imposing one colour upon another, seemingly always keeping in n^ind Ruskin's dictum: "Colour, to be
perfect, must have a soft outline or a simple one; it
cannot have a refined one; and you' will never produce
a good window with good figure drawing in it. You
will lose perfection of colour as you give perfection of
line. Try to put in order and form the colour of a
piece of opal." So far the American artist in glass
has not been successful in making good church
windows, and all because he disregards their true pur-
pose, their architectural surroundings, and because
he has overestimated the value of coloured glass
as a decorative material, hence sacrificing everything
to liis window. It is true, however, that he has made
a few good windows, translucent mosaics which in-
deed are great works of art, with wonderful niceties
of light and shade, with prismatic play of colours,
and admirably harmonious.
In the future, as in the past, the proper field for this art is an ecclesiastical one. It therefore behoves the artist in glass, if he hopes to reach a high degree of perfection, to study the principles which govern Christian art, and ever to bear in mind that the glazier's art is but an auxiUary to the architect's.
Hendbe (tr.), An Essay upon Various Arts, by Theophilus called also Rugerus, a Monk o/ the Eleventh Century (London, 1S47); Lastegrie, Histoire dc la pcinture sur verre, d'aprks les monuments francais de France (Paris. 1843). Fromberg; tr. Clark, The Art of Painting on Glass (London. 1848) : Gessert. tr. Pole, The Art of Glass Painting (London, 1848); Lenoir, Traits kistorique de la peinture sur verre (Paris, 1856) ; L^VY. Histoire de la peinture sur verre en Europe (Brussels, 1860); HccHER. Vitrani de la cathidrale du M,nis (Lo Mans. 1.S64);
WlN~|..s .1., I .,'nr:l into the Differ,!,,, ,,f.\l,,l, 1 11. , ,-. ,,l,l,- in
Anr,-,, r .>,.) (Oxford, 18671 ; \ i,-,,.,,., \,,.i„x,
in Ih ■ ,'ine d'architectur, I i r i - 1 ^, . \^ i ~ i : \ke
A Ih I,, , .,•■ Ii, ,.:„ ,„ Paint.d Oh: I • :.; :: 1--1 \U..n-e,
Verriers de Montmnr.,,,-, r E /'( .- . - ■ I,, , lss.5);
Coleman, ^ , Sea o/ (.'/'. !■, /■ i ' ;V II is',i;i);
X (1901), The Sec,u,,i \ \ 1 1'.., / II ,, , „/
Gouxla, The Jesse Tr:, . \\i \ \:-, \„,, ,■.,,, I '>,.,„, ,,, Col- ored Glass in The Forum. XV I N'r-w Y.irk, ISM); Holiday, Stained Glass as an Art (London, 1896) ; Day, Windows (London, 1897); HiTTSMANS, The Cathedral: Stained Glass Tours in France (New York, 1909).
Caryl Coleman.
Stalls, seats in a choir, wholly or partly enclosed on the back and sides, are mentioned from the eleventh century. In the earhest times the subscUia, usually of stone, of the clergy were placed to the right and left of the cathedra of the bishop in the apse of the basihca. After the numbers of the clergj^ had greatly increased they appear to have stood during choir service, as is evident from the Rule of St. Chrodegang and from the statutes of Aachen of the year 816. Even as late as the eleventh centurj' St. Peter Damien wrote "Contra sedentes in choro". Those who were weak supported themselves on a T-shaped crutch called reclinatorium, which was sometimes censured, sometimes permitted, as in the second "Ordo Romanus". Soon, however, the fornuB or formulce, seats with backs, appeared (plan of St. Gall of the ninth centurj'), as well as the actual slalli, connected seats in which only arms separated the individual seats, and an architectural effect was sought. The seats, which earUer were fre- quently movable, now became fixed; the sides and backs were made higher; the ornamentation, origi- nally pictorial, soon became architectural and was carved. A few examples of these have been pre- served in Germany from the Romanesque period. At Ratzeburg there are side-pieces, each supported by two small columns with base and capital, that are rounded abo\e like a beam and beautifully broken in the middle by curved fluting. There are also small columns on the oldest choir-stall at X.anten; the face of the back is even more boldly curved, and fantastic heads completely in the round project from it. During the Gothic period the architectonic element was at times exaggerated; the mathe- matical forms of the labyrinths of lines and the scribing are too jejune, and the structure is oft<!n too high and uncomfortable. On the other hand the
