STRAY NOTES

Dominion, Volume 21, Issue 288, 5 September 1928, Page 17

STRAY NOTES

MODERN STAINED GLASS

Stained glass in England is apt to be connected only with churches aud colleges, and to be used otherwise merely as a means of making a room invisible from the outside, says an oversea correspondent. , , , In France stained glass has always held its own for domestic purposes. Sometimes it descended to the lurid Victorian horrors, lint there is a vast amount of it in halls, dining-rooms, libraries, in small windows on the stairs or in the passages, which lends colour and charm to’the house, and has a jewel-like effect amid the straight setting of the walls and doors. Not only is it actually as much a part of the lighting scheme as the new Cubist installations, but it has the advantage ol modifying and adapting light in the daytime, just as the new lamps or the hidden lighting schemes modify and control it at night. In this connection Cubism once more comes iuto its own. One of the reasons why twelfth and thirteenth century glass succeeds is that it remains within its own convention. It does not attempt to imitate or vie with the picture. It'does not attempt to conceal its lead-work. Later, glass has tended much more to approximate the picture. It has the appearance of being painted—with the leading concealed to give the painted effect — instead of being made of portions of glass already stained aud put together as colouring demanded. It is as though the mosaic-worker painted all his pieces of stone or marble and then put the variously painted portions together in large pieces. Cubism has swept away this attempt at realism aud imitation, which is not the function of stained glass. By compelling objects to conform to a. certain convention —here the straight line and the angle—it has aimed at giving the spiritual instead of the material impression.

Cubism nlso has the advantage from certain points of view of being the ideal medium for light effects. The straight lines of the light rays are Cubist in themselves. The suu shining through any small window produces a concentrated effect of light-rays which might well be the inspiration of the Cubist artist. No one has forgotten the curious patterns made by the searchlights during the war, or the eerie appearance of the shrouded lamps with their crinoline effects down the length of the street. Modern invention, too, tends to be Cubist. Railway lines are straight. So are telegraph wires. Cubist glass echoes much that is in the everyday life of everyone.