naissance in the last years of the nineteenth century amidst the dust and clamor of our new-world mart is curious enough. But in a country where, in default of cathedrals inherited from ages gone by, our interest in the church is in questioned the part manifested by the fact that there German artist are more than four thousand religious whom he found edifices of different denominations now painting in the in course of construction, this revival is States concern- more than curious; it becomes a quesing the condition tion of eminent artistic importance. In of the Fine Arts the old world the field of the glass-stainer here, it is proba- is virtually limited to the Roman Cathoble that his in- lic Church and the Established Church quiry was of too of England. Here, with the widening of general a charac- sect-distinctions, the churches of nearly ter to include a all denominations are open to him, and particular ques- it needs no gift of prophecy to foresee, tion as to what in the near future, the clear sunshine this young coun- gaining admittance to all our churches try had achieved through colored glass, and carrying with in so old an art as it messages of faith and fortitude, of joyglass-staining. Had he done so we may ous hope and reverent memory. assume (basing our supposition on the recorded answer to Mr. Arnold's general inquiry) that the worthy German, gazing through the myopic spectacles which had served him so well in other directions, would have answered that in this, as in the other graphic arts, we had nothing to our credit. Nor could we complain of either question or answer, had they been made by these strangers within our gates, for here, at home, great numbers of cultivated people, including a large class of men directly interested, hold the same opinion. And yet here in New York, and in the shadow of this indifference, the art of the glass-stainer, which in the hands of its more legitimate heirs in Germany, France, and England, by the grafting of elements antagonistic to its growth, had become a mere shadow of its former self, has acquired new vigor, and even now blossoms as the rose. That this art, which is so nearly allied to the old world of the past, should find its re To uphold frankly the theory that the stained glass now made in the United States is better than that obtainable elsewhere, and by reference to ancient standards to explain the reason for this belief, is the object of this paper; but first it becomes necessary to go back to the origin of stained glass as we know it. Glass, colored either by mixture of coloring matter in its making, or by painting the glass already made with vitrifiable colors, was known to the Greeks; but although writers as ancient as Grégoire de Tours (544-595) speak with more or less detail of leaded glass, the earliest specimen that can be authenticated is that in a church at Neuweiler, in Alsace, which dates from the elev enth century. It would appear from its purely decorative character, and from its inherent limitations, which to this day surround it, that stained glass had arrived at its apogee at a time when the art of painting was just bursting from the Byzantine bud. Well on in the thirteenth century the Italian glass had accomplished more than the sister art of fresco, and the designs for the windows in the Duomo at Florence made by Taddeo or Agnolo Gaddi seem much more modern than their painting. The glass of this and the following century, much of which still exists, is notable for the subdued splendor of its color, and is almost (in the earlier specimens entirely) without painting. In fact it was not until the fifteenth century that elaborate glass painting was attempted, and from that period ensues a decadence in which the French and Germans, and to a great extent the English, still remain. For it is from the period of Raphael, when men began to paint freely and became high-priests at the altar of art instead of humble worshippers, that the mosaic of glass began to disappear and that transparent painting usurped its place. Before this, the windows depending upon the actual color of the glass were made in a manner not unlike the common dissected map of our childhood. To make a window, a design was made, generally the simple figure of a saint, with a purely decorative background; pieces of glass of varying and appropriate colors were cut and placed in their proper places, and it only remained to bind these pieces firmly together by a ribbon of lead with a groove on either side, which was soldered at the junction of the pieces, and to place the whole in an iron frame, crossed at intervals by thin bars placed horizontally, to which the leads were fastened by wires. The result would be a stained-glass window somewhat resembling that of the thirteenth century, or, so little have methods changed, that of the present time. When this frame, filled with glass, was placed in the opening of the wall for which it was destined, it would be seen that the light coming through the transparent glass brought into dark relief the lead-lines, which thus served as the outlines of the various forms represented. This was the earliest development of stained glass. In the two centuries that followed, painting with vitrifiable colors was resorted to in order to represent modelled surfaces, and commencing from rude and timid outlines to define the features of the face or the division of the fingers, painting was at last used with little discrimination on all portions of the window. Another of the limitations of the early glass-stainer, which was a blessing in disguise, was also to disappear with the mechanical improvement in the manufacture of glass. At first his glass was blown, not cast or rolled (indeed the latter method of fabrication is of late date), and therefore the glass came to him in small pieces, and as the mixture of the ingredients or the intensity of the fire would vary, so would the quality of the color. This gave him great variety of tint from which to choose, although it occasionally entailed arbitrary leading, such as, to take a common instance, a lead-line crossing the neck of a figure between the chin and shoulders, and thereby giving the saint a decapitated look. But by improvements in the fabrication of glass, larger pieces were obtainable, and always it would appear as though the makers had an ideal only admirable in a plate-glass window manufacturer, of making a sheet of glass uniform in color and texture. On these large sheets of glass the painter had full swing; more and more vitrifiable colors were invented; a process of cutting away the surface so as to make a design appear in light upon the darker body of the glass was devised; the colors became more and more uniform, until, proceeding rapidly, we reach this century— though in taking this arbitrary step, which the limits of an article such as this command, we must pass by much that is admirable. Anyone who has lingered in the aisles of the old cathedrals, moved by the color of the glass, which is glowing and jewel-like, never garish or harsh, and then has turned, as we can do in some cathedral towns, to the modern fabric, and has seen how crude in color, how small in treatment, how uniform in texture, how manufactured, turned out by the métre carré it all is-such an one is apt to count glass-staining as one of the lost arts. The Continent is full of such places, where literally acres of stained glass are made each year. The designs are sometimes admirably drawn, though |