I

LETTERS ON PAINTED GLASS¹

(I844)

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ROUEN, 18th May.

MY DEAR OLDFIELD,-As we always travel slowly, in order not to fatigue my mother, and went round by Dieppe, we arrived here only this forenoon. I found no glass at Abbeville-at Eu, the pet church of Louis Philippe has some modern glass, of the worst kind; as bad as Ward’s² in design, and worse in colour, but in the private chapel there were some good heads after Perugino. No glass at Dieppe. But when I got into the Cathedral here this evening, I was grievously vexed with all that I had done, and rendered almost hopeless by the dazzling beauty of form of the windows of the choir, and, to make the matter worse, I came upon some bits of restoration, which, though apparently adhering in all points to the original design, had utterly lost its effect, so that I find we are entirely in Ward’s power, and however good the design we give him may be, he can altogether spoil it in execution. I set myself to consider the difference between the ancient and modern work, which I find chiefly to consist in these points (the design, size, etc., being in all points the same).

First, the modern glass admits much more light, producing a glaring and painful impression on the eye, so that I could not look at it long-the old glass soothed, attracted, and comforted the eye, not dazzling it, but admitting of long contemplation without the least pain. On closer examination, I found that the whites of the modern glass were very bright, looking like the ground glass of a lamp, and were all inclined to pink in their hue; while the whites of the old glass were dead, and wanting in transparency, looking like the ground of a picture (i. e. like real colour, instead of mere ground glass), and that they were all inclined to green in their hue. Note this, please, especially.

Again, I found that all the blues of the old glass had a grey or black quality of colour, black stains occurring upon them, so as to make them in places almost opaque, very pure indeed in places, but always tending to

¹ [For particulars about these letters, see above, Introduction, pp. lxiv.-lxv., where also other references on the subject are collected.]

² [Messrs. Ward and Nixon of Frith Street, Soho, having submitted a design which was not approved, for filling the large east window of Camberwell Church with painted glass, were instructed by the Church Committee to execute a new design, to be prepared by Mr. Ruskin and Mr. Oldfield.]

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[Version 0.04: March 2008]