CHAPTER XXXI.

HOW TO SEE WINDOWS.

The just appreciation of stained glass is more than difficult, and judgment with regard to it more than ordinarily fallible. It is too much to expect of a window that it should stand the test of a light for which it was not designed. The most conscientious artist can do no more than design it for the light by which he imagines it is most likely to be seen. There must inevitably be times of day, when the sun is in a position not favourable to it, and many days when the intensity of the light, even though it come from the right quarter, is not what he relied upon. It happens, of course, that glass is often seen under such conditions that the brilliancy of the windows on one side of the church is literally put out by a flood of light poured in upon them through the windows (brilliantly illuminated by it) on the opposite side. The best of critics could not appreciate the best of glass under circumstances like that.

Suppose the windows north and south of a church to be of equal merit, one's appreciation of them, at first sight, would depend upon the time of day; and the light which did most justice to the northern windows would do least to the southern, and _vice versâ_. Experience teaches a man to make allowances, but he can only judge what he has seen; and it is only with the light shining through a window that he can see its colour or judge of its effect.

The wonderful difference which the strength of the light makes in the appearance of a window, is nowhere quite so obvious as in the case of windows, not of glass, but of translucent alabaster--as, for example, at Orvieto, in the lower lights on either side of the nave, or, framed in black marble mullions, at the West end of the cathedral. The more or less square-shaped slabs of which they are formed are, in very many cases, made up of a number of pieces cemented together in lines which take very much the place of lead lines, and suggest, with the bars holding them in place, the practice of the glazier; but the effect is much less that of glass than of deepest amber in the unbroken panels, of gorgeous tortoise-shell in those that are patched and pieced together. These last are, if not the more beautiful, certainly the more interesting. The brown and gold and horny-white grow murkier when the light does not shine full upon the windows; but there is a mystery about the colour still, which makes up for the loss of brilliancy. If your mood is that way, you may find in the curious marbling of the stone strange pictures of cloudland and fantastic landscape. It is partly the shape, no doubt, of a circular slab high above the western door, which calls to mind the image of the moon with its mysterious mountains.

A more delicate, if not always so rich an effect, is to be seen in the great monolithic slabs which fill the five square-headed windows in the apse of the upper church at S. Miniato. Effect, did I say? Nay, rather effects, for they change with every gradation in the light. You may see at first little more than flat surfaces of pleasantly mottled white and purple-grey, translucent, but comparatively dull and dead. Then, as the sun creeps round the corner, a strange life comes into them. The white and palest greys begin to glow, and turn by slow degrees to pearly-pink, which kindles into gold, and deepens in the duskier parts to copper-red. The stronger markings of the stone now show out in unsuspected strength, and the lighter veins take on by contrast a greenish tint, so that the warm colour is subtly shot with its cool counterpart. If, when you first see the windows, the sun illumines them, the effect is less magical; you get your strongest impression first; but in the course of an hour or so a great change may take place--when, for example, towards noon the light passes away; but for a long while the stone remains luminous. Your eyes are open now, and in the delicate ashen-grey you see--or is it that you feel it to be there?--a tint of rose.

In proportion as it is less opaque than alabaster, glass is less perceptibly affected by changes of light; but, whether we perceive it or not, it owes all its effect to the light shining through it. The most fair-minded of us misjudge windows because we cannot see them often enough to be quite sure we have seen them at their best--that is to say, on the right day, and at the right time of day.

In comparing one window with another we are more than ever likely to do injustice. Even if they happen to be both in the same church, the light most favourable to the one may, as just said, be quite the least favourable to the other. Each must in fairness be judged at its best; and it is no easy matter to compare to-day's impression with yesterday's, or it may be last week's--more especially when a newer impression of the same thing, staring you in the face, will stamp itself upon the vision. When years, instead of days, intervene, the justice of even the most retentive memory is open to gravest doubt.

Go to the church of S. Alpin, at Châlons, and in the morning you will find the East windows brilliantly rich: in the early afternoon, even of a bright day, they will be lacking in transparency, dull, ineffective. So at S. Sebald's, Nuremberg, the splendid fourteenth century glass on the north side of the choir proves absolutely obscure in the late afternoon. Grisaille, which was delicate under a moderately subdued light, will appear thin and flimsy with a strong sun behind it. It has happened to me to describe the same glass on one occasion as too heavily, on another as too thinly painted; and, again, to describe a window as warm in tone which memory (and my notes) had painted cool. On another occasion, well-remembered windows were not to be identified again. It seemed that in the course of a few intervening years they must have been restored out of all knowledge; a few hours later in the day there was no mistaking them, though they had, indeed, lost something by restoration.

When the most careful and deliberate notes tell such different, and indeed quite opposite, stories, notes made at times not far enough apart to allow for anything like a complete change of opinion on the part of the critic, it is clear that conditions of light go so far towards the effect of glass, that it is quite impossible to appraise it fairly the first time one sees it. The more momentary the impression on which one has to found an opinion, the more essential it is that we should choose the moment. The strongest light is by no means the most favourable to glass. In a glare of sunlight it is quite probable that some unhappy windows will have more light shining upon than comes through the glass. Happiest are the windows seen by "the subdued light of a rainy day." Occasionally a window, so deep that under ordinary conditions of light it is obscure, may need the strongest possible illumination; but even in the case of very deep-toned windows--such, for example, as those in the transepts of the Duomo at Florence--the glass, as a whole, is best seen by a sober light. You get the maximum of colour effect with the minimum of hurt to any individual window, if there be any hurt at all. A really garish window may be beautiful as the light wanes. The great North Rose at Notre Dame (Paris) is impressive at dusk.

Other conditions upon which the effect of glass largely depends are quite beyond our control. As a matter of fact, we rarely see it at its best. For one thing, we do not see it in sufficient quantity. We find it in here and there a window only, white light shining unmitigated from windows all round. Perhaps in the window itself there is a breakage, and a stream of light pours through it, spoiling, if not its beauty, all enjoyment of it. It is not generally understood how completely the effect of glass depends upon the absence of light other than that which comes through it. Every ray of light which penetrates into a building excepting through the stained glass does injury to the coloured window; more often than not, therefore, we see it under most adverse circumstances. It is worse than hearing a symphony only in snatches; it is rather as if a more powerful orchestra were all the while drowning the sound. It takes an expert to appreciate glass when light is reflected upon it from all sides. The effect of some of the finest glass in Germany, as at Munich and Nuremberg, is seriously marred by a wicked German practice of filling only the lower half of the window with coloured glass and glazing the upper part in white rounds. That enables folk to read their Bibles, no doubt; but the volume of crude white light above goes far to kill the colour of the glass. In such case it is not until you have shut off the offending light that it is possible to enjoy, or even to appreciate, the windows.

A comparatively dark church is essential to the perfect enjoyment of rich glass. The deep red light-absorbing sandstone of which Strassburg and Shrewsbury Cathedrals are built, adds immensely to the brilliancy of their beautiful glass.

White light is the most cruel, but not the only, offender. Old glass sometimes quarrels with old glass. An Early window is made to look heavy by a quantity of Late work about it, and a Late window pales in the presence of deep rich Early glass. As for modern work, it is that which suffers most by comparison with old; but it arouses often a feeling of irritation in us which puts us out of the mood to enjoy.

Worst offence of all is that done in the name of restoration, where, inextricably mixed up with old work, is modern forgery; not clever enough to pass for old, but sufficiently like it to cast a doubt upon the genuine work, at the same time that it quite destroys its beauty.

Something of our appreciation depends upon the frame of mind in which we come to the windows. They may be one of the sights of the place; but the sight-seeing mood is not the one in which to appreciate. How often can the tourist sit down in a church with the feeling that he has all the day before him, and can give himself up to the enjoyment of the glass, wait till it has something to say to him? A man has not seen glass when he has walked round the church, with one eye upon it and the other on his watch, not even though he may have made a note or two concerning it. You must give yourself up to it, or it will never give up to you the secret of its charm.