IN the previous three chapters we have been considering Design under various conditions of use and material. The present may be considered as a continuation of the same line of thought in somewhat different directions.

We may consider conditions in the general sense as those general Æsthetic laws governing the place and purpose of designs, and their position in relation to the eye and hand, such as height, plane of extension, and scale; or in the more particular sense which includes all these, as well as more strict technical conditions which, being accepted by the artistic faculty, influence the form and character of all design, the object being, of course, the attainment of the greatest beauty consistent with such conditions.

All design is necessarily conditioned, from the purely graphic and pictorial to the most abstract forms of decoration. We cannot set pencil to paper even without committing ourselves to a kind of compact with conditions. Here is a white expanse—a plain surface; here is something to make black marks with.

The artistic realization of or presentment of our thought, or our rendering of a piece of nature or of art will depend upon our frank acceptance of the natural limits of the capacity of pencil and paper—of plane, surface, line, and tint as conditions of representation, and on our faithfulness to them, by means of which we shall attain the most truth and beauty in drawing.

It is the recognition of this which gives distinction to all drawing, according to the individuality, invention, and character of the artist. We recognize his style and personality by his manner of dealing with the conditions of the work, and nowhere does this come out more emphatically than when those conditions are reduced to the simplest. So that in a line drawing in pen or pencil, in the economy of the means, and in the skill and mastery by which facts of nature, character, life, action, or beauty of line and ornamental effect are rendered by the simple use of outline, or tint, or solid black, we can recognise the artist of power just as clearly as we recognize a friend's handwriting.

The suavity and grace of Raphael, the energy of Michael Angelo, the learning and finish of Leonardo, the sculptor-like definition of Mantegna, the firmness and care of DÜrer, the breadth and richness of Holbein; all these qualities come out clearly enough in the studies and drawings of these masters in pen, pencil, and chalk. For beauty of style, treatment, and decorative feeling in pencil and chalk, perhaps few come near the studies of our modern master, Burne-Jones.

In making studies, too, another condition comes in, important enough in its effects—that of time. In general practice no means to ends are more useful than rapid sketches and notes of passing actions and transient effects. In order to seize the essential facts quickly great economy of means is necessary, and practice and experience alone can teach us facility in selecting the leading points and most expressive lines. Given a limited time in which to note facts, the problem is how to set down the most truth in the simplest and most forcible way.

The conditions which govern the making of a sketch or study upon paper are sufficient as tests of artistic capacity, of draughtsmanship, of taste, and the other fine qualities which go to the making of a work of art, having what may be termed an independent or individual interest and value; but in adapting any kind of design to a definite ornamental purpose other conditions immediately come into play over and above those belonging to the conditions of draughtsmanship alone, conditions which at once influence the style of draughtsmanship and determine the treatment.

Again, everyone who attempts designs for different kinds of decorative purpose, for different materials, for different planes of extension, for different positions and uses, must perceive that such considerations are important factors in determining the plan, construction, and spirit of the design.

The ornamental conditions, for instance, which govern the design of wall-papers and hangings, demand patterns which climb upwards and spread laterally without any apparent effect or flaw in the repeat. Frieze designs, again, demand horizontal extension and definite rhythm, which latter is an important element in all border design.

Designs for extension upon floors and pavements, where the effect of perspective distorts forms as they recede from the eye, require their own special planning and treatment, square, circular, diamond, and fish-scale plans being generally the safest, as bases, since they preserve their form in perspective better than irregular non-geometric or more complex plans.

Much the same kind of considerations control ceiling decoration, where, in addition, suggestions may be taken from constructive conditions, as, in flat ceilings, the design following parallel beams and joists and their interstices; the panelled arrangement of a coffered ceiling; or radiating spring of lines from constructive centres, as in vaulted ceilings.

Where a pattern will be broken by deep folds, as in textiles, in hangings, and curtains, the conditions favour the recurrence of bold masses, richer points, and more strongly defined forms, at intervals, than would be agreeable in a pattern for extension on a plane surface, unless we except carpets, where boldness of form and richness of colour are desirable.

Such conditions as these influence every department of decorative design, and in proportion to the completeness with which they are satisfied will depend the success of designs; and a design which may have less actual beauty, perhaps, than another, but which completely fulfils the conditions of its existence, is likely to have a longer life.

The persistence of certain well-known types of pattern is probably due to this—such as the continual reappearance of the Greek fret in various forms as a border design in all sorts of work.

Questions of scale in design are less absolute, perhaps, since, though one may say as a rule that large types of design and detail belong to large rooms and large scale buildings, there may be interesting exceptions, when large patterns might suit even in a small room, if a particular artistic effect were sought.

The main condition in the matter of scale appears to be that we cannot afford to ignore the average human standard. As we may say that the human frame itself contains the elements and principles of all ornamental design, so its proportions and scale control the proportions and scale of all design. Objects intended for human use and service are bound to be of certain fixed or average sizes—seats and couches about eighteen inches from the ground, for instance; ordinary domestic doors not much over six feet high, and three feet six inches or four feet wide. The size of casements, again, is strictly related to the power of the hand to open them; while the sizes of all movable objects of use are in like manner strictly governed by the average size, height, and strength of mankind.

Pursuing the influence of such conditions, we find that there are in every direction natural limitations in every department of design: in the first place of scale and position in relation to eye and hand, in the second place of method and material.

Take the page of a printed book, for instance. The body of type impressed upon the paper, gives the proportions and dimensions of the page. The double page, when the book is opened to show the right and left hand pages (or recto and verso, as they are termed), is the true unit, not the single page.

The type should be placed so as to leave the narrowest margin at the top and the inside, the broader on the outside, and the broadest of all at the foot. And this for obvious reasons, since in holding a book in our hand we naturally want the type brought well under the eye, the pages being set as close together as the necessities of joining down the middle will allow conveniently, so that the eye need not have to jump across a large brook of margin in travelling from one to the other, while the deep margin below enables the book to be held in the hand well set up before the eye, without touching the type.

In taking up a book with the intention of decorating or illustrating it, we must accept frankly these conditions, which indeed are, properly considered, a substantial help to the artist, just as the necessities of the ground plan give suggestions for the elevation in architectural design. These conditions, we may take it, are the architectural conditions of book-page construction.

The size, then, of our page-panel being fixed, as well as the page of type necessary to the book (sizes of books are, of course, determined by folding of the paper—folio, quarto, octavo, duodecimo, and so on), we are free to deal with it decoratively in a variety of ways, subject only to the acknowledgment of the essential condition that it is a book-page, and not a random sheet of paper to make blots of ink upon—or a stereoscope, or a card-basket, for instance, as some modern treatments of illustration in books suggest.

We may use the whole page for the design, surrounding it with a line or border. Or for the sake of richer and more ornate effect, while confining our picture or illustration to the limits of the type-page, we may use our margin for a decorative framework or border. As also in using ornamental initial letters the side borders can be utilized for ornaments branching up and down from the letter to emphasize the chapter or paragraph, in the manner of mediÆval illuminated MSS., and in the way adopted by William Morris in his Kelmscott Press books.

Or, again, limiting our decoration to the actual type-page, we may divide the page at the opening of a chapter by a frieze-shaped panel or heading across the top, placing the initial letter below; or insert a picture in the text, occupying a half-page or quarter-page; or at the ending of a chapter design a tailpiece to fill the page where the type ends, treating any space within the limits of the type-page, which the type does not occupy, as a field for design, or placing one's pictures and ornaments in the midst or in place of the type.

The title-page, again, is capable of an immense variety of treatment, and great ornamental use can always be made of the lettering, whether accompanied by design or not.

I think, too, that it is obvious that the conditions of surface printing point to line-drawing as the most harmonious in effect for book illustration and decoration, as well as most practical mechanically, since type and blocks which decorate a page must be subjected to the same pressure. The form of letters, too, in movable type, being linear, whether Gothic or Roman letters, line-drawing is in direct decorative relation with the type.

Apart from good design, well-planned leading and colour scheme, nearly everything depends upon the careful choice of tint in the glass itself, and immense pains and trouble are well spent in this way, since beauty of total effect, as well as particular harmonies, depend upon choice of the degree, depth, and quality of the coloured glass.

Now glass for colour work, called antique, is made in small sheets about 22 in. × 17 in. The sheets of one maker do not exceed 8 in. × 5 in. They may be classified as tints and whites. These form the palette of the stained glass artist, and furnish him with an immense range of tint and tone from which to select. But these, again, are divisible into two sorts: (1) what is called pot-metal self-colours, or sheets that are of the same metal throughout; and (2) that known as flashed, that is, when a thin skin of ruby, gold, pink, or blue is flashed upon a sheet of blue, white, pink, or amber. This flash may be lightened or removed at pleasure by fluoric acid.

The object of the maker of these small sheets of glass is to get as much variety as possible, not only in light and dark, which in the pot-metals is due to the varying thickness of the sheet, and in the flashed colours to the varying thickness of the flash, but in some cases a mixture of two or more colours in the same sheet, by which it will be seen that no two sheets even out of the same pot of metal are alike. It is the use of this variety and unexpectedness that are amongst the charms of stained glass.

We speak of stained glass, but in reality there is only one stain, properly speaking; other colours used on glass are enamels, the real colour being incorporated in the glass when made (pot-metal or flashed), and not painted on. This stain is a preparation of silver, and is mixed with a vegetable colour, yellow lake, to weaken it. It is principally used upon the whites to stain diapers, hair, etc., and when fixed in the kiln the yellow lake is burnt away, leaving a slight residue which is easily removed, and the silver is vitrified into the glass, the depth of yellow being varied according to the strength of the stain and the susceptibility of the glass.

In setting to work to design a stained glass window, it is usual first to make a coloured design to scale—1½ inch to the foot is the best.

A window may be composed of one light or of many, each separate panel inclosed by the masonry or mullions being termed a light. The question of treatment of subject as a single design extending across several lights, or as separate panels, must depend first upon the particular subject, or subjects, to be treated, then the scale of the window, and the general character of the architectural setting.

Supposing it is a subject like the Nativity, with the Adoration of the Magi, it would lend itself to treatment as a single subject extending across several lights, and to great richness and splendour of colour. The colour design in such a case would be the most important, but, as I have before said, it must be perfectly combined with, and built upon, a well-designed network of lead lines, those lines forming themselves essential elements in the design, defining the forms in bold outline, and uniting and giving value to the masses of colour. For while we may separate the problem into two parts, the design of lead lines and colour design, the window must be conceived as a whole, not merely as composition in line to be tinted.

Having made our scale sketch, the next step is to work out the full-sized cartoons, which, of course, demand more attention to drawing and detail. Many artists make as many elaborate studies for figures, drapery, and details as they would for a highly-wrought picture in oil, or mural painting. As a matter of fact, however, though any amount of good drawing and invention may be put into glass design, it should not be forgotten that beauty of pattern and effect and symbolic suggestion are the objects and not pictorial naturalism.

For main definition in the design the essential lead line is all important. It would not do to sketch in a figure in a casual way, and then surmount it with lead lines; it should be carefully considered as a piece of bold and massive outline design.

In leading we may use a bolder line for bounding and defining the main masses, and a thinner sort for subsidiary fittings; in this much will depend upon the scale of the work. The lead, which has a double groove, may be said to serve several functions. Its primary office is to hold the pieces of glass together: it forms the linework of the design, surrounding the figures and forms, separating them from each other and the background, as well as defining the secondary forms, as of drapery and other detail. Then, too, the lead joints ease the cutting of awkward shapes in the glass, which however should be avoided in planning the cartoon. Again, it may be used to obtain greater variety into large masses, as a piece of drapery, for instance.

The cartoon being made, the next thing is to make the working drawing. This is done by laying a semi-transparent piece of paper over the cartoon, and tracing merely the lead lines and thus obtaining the skeleton of the window.

The glass is cut from this drawing, the cutter cutting the glass just within the lines, thus allowing for the heart of lead. The same drawing serves also for the leadworker to glaze the finished work upon.

The shapes of the whites and light colours are seen when the sheets are laid on the drawing; but the shapes of the dark colours, through which it is impossible to see the lead lines, must be obtained in another way.

The best way is to cut the shape in thin sheet glass, which is then placed on the dark sheet of antique glass held up to the light, and moved about until the most suitable part of the sheet is found. They are then laid on the bench together, and the piece of sheet glass is pounced with a small bag of fine whitening, which, when removed, leaves its shape on the dark sheet to be followed by the cutter's diamond.

We now come to the all-important task of selecting the glass.

The ordinary trade way of doing this is to number the outline, which indicates to the cutter certain racks correspondingly numbered containing the different colours. But if it is to be really careful artistic work the designer ought himself to select each piece for his work.

The principle and idea of colour in glass design, dealing as the artist does with pure translucent colour, is necessarily distinct from those obtaining in other kinds of painting, such as mural, when opaque colours and a variety of half-tones are used. The glass designer does not attempt to shade his figures and draperies by the light and dark parts of a sheet of coloured glass. He desires to express the jewel-like quality—the quintessence of colour in every piece of glass—by the force of contrast, not in the juxtaposition of dark and light pieces of one colour merely, but by the bold arrangement of various colours, having the effect of one, but with a richness and sonorousness that the single tint does not possess.

For example, in a yellow drapery we should take a rich decided yellow as keynote. Obviously if the adjoining pieces were of the same colour, the effect would be flat and tame; but if we take a low toned yellow or neutral colour, the keynote will be screwed up to concert pitch, as it were, and if the neutral colour is followed by a reddish tone of yellow and that by another variation of yellow, that again by a decided green, and so on, we shall achieve that desideratum in stained glass—variety in unity.

The general effect will be warmer or colder as reddish or greenish tones predominate in the scheme. Care, of course, must be taken to bring these contrasted—even discordant—component parts into a harmonious whole: indeed every piece should be selected, not only to agree with and help its neighbour, but with reference to the harmony of the whole. Any undue abruptness of contrast may be brought into sufficient relation by the after painting.

The white must be treated in the same way, a mixture of warm and cold tints as a rule, the general effect of each mass being made warmer or colder as found necessary. Great care must be taken with the masses of white to prevent them looking like holes in the window: for instance, a white coming next to a dark colour would have to be a tint (or very low in tone, as we should say in painting) to hold its proper place. Only by actual experience, however, can the artist learn how one colour affects another, and how certain combinations will look in their place.

We have now reached the painting stage. All the glass has been cut and laid out on the outline. It is now looked over to see if there are any pieces that will not stand the fire—that is, that would change colour or lose brilliance. The gold pinks, brown rubies, and some sorts of pure ruby are liable to do this. Pieces of plain sheet glass may therefore be cut to the same shape to paint on, to be afterwards glazed behind the coloured pieces, so that the full brilliance is preserved.

The wings of the angel in the panel by Mr. J. S. Sparrow (to whom I am indebted for this detailed account) have been treated in this way.

The outline was made in colours ground in turpentine, fattened and made workable with japanner's gold-size, in order to stand the matte of water-colour to be added afterwards.

When the figure is drawn in this way all the pieces are stuck upon an easel glass (a large stout piece of sheet) with a composition of bees-wax and resin. As this is the first time all the pieces have been seen together the panel is carefully looked over, as a whole, to see that each piece is of a right colour and value. Some pieces may have to be cut over again; others strengthened or modified by the addition of another piece of glass. This last method is called plating, by which rich and beautiful deep toned effects can be produced.

A strong flat matte of water-colour is now laid all over the figure. This forms the half-tones, and the lights are taken out (when dry) with hog-hair brushes, the colour being first loosened by modelling the broad lights with the finger, which indeed is the best implement, and as much of the modelling should be done by it as possible.

A quill may be used to take out sharp lights. The work should now be ready for the kiln, but before firing it should be again stuck up, and looked over, and any strengthening or definition added in shadows on details by oil-colour with the addition of fat turpentine to keep it open; the dry surface of the glass being first treated with a wash of oil of tar to make the colour flow easily.

Then the diapers and hair are stained on the back of the glass, and it is ready for the kiln.

After being leaded up, the leads soldered together at the junctions, the panel is again placed on the easel, and further alterations or improvements may be made, as the leaded panel looks very different from the glass by itself. The panel is next cemented, the leads filled up with putty or cement to make it firm and water-tight. The cement is like a very thick paint, a mixture of white lead, whitening, red lead, lamp-black, dryers and raw and boiled oil.

The window may require to be supported by horizontal iron bars, if it extends over two feet. They are usually placed about fifteen inches apart, as the leaded glass might bend under the pressure of wind without extra support.

From this account we may realize what care and taste are necessary to carry out really artistic work in stained glass. The whole subject affords us a good illustration of one of the highest and most beautiful of the arts of design, severely controlled by well-defined conditions—conditions which, if followed faithfully, give it all its peculiar character, strength, and beauty. The necessities of leading and cutting the glass demand a certain severity and simplicity of design—from which a new beauty is evolved, capable in its turn of influencing other forms of art for good, as in easel painting—which harmonizes with its symbolic and religious intention as well as with the architectural and monumental character of its surroundings in its noblest forms in public and college halls and churches; while its glow and colour, suggestive symbolism, or heraldic adornment, may cheer and vivify domestic interiors with a touch of poetry and romance.