438 APPENDIX TO PART II

Fig. 2 [again reference to a sketch] may perhaps give you some idea of the intense richness and fulness of these windows. Three such crosses, each containing, as you see, six figure subjects, form the centre of the window, one above another, and three square figure subjects of the same richness fill up each vacant lateral space; giving thirty-six figure subjects in the window. The elegance of the cross design, marked by the blue spaces in the arms, is unrivalled by anything I remember. But in both these drawings you must allow for my having no good red by me. The reds here are intense and glorious beyond description, and I have nothing in my box but a little dead pink madder; where you see the pale rose colour in the drawings, you must suppose intense ruby.

Of all the beautiful windows in this church, which I consider unimpeachable standards of perfection, the following propositions are universally true. The ground of all is blue, and in much the same proportion as in my design, in some a little less. The figure subjects are very small, and subdivided, as you see in fig. 2, and in most cases, quite incomprehensible, as you see this one is. I have faithfully copied it, but have not the slightest idea what it means.

There cannot be found six square inches of unbroken blue in any window, though most of them are, I suppose, about 7 feet wide by 25 high. Ward’s great spaces of blank blue will be much diminished by his subjects being put into circles, and, I pray you, show him how the blue is cut up by the iron, and graduated in depth, in the “Temptation” I send. Make him do the same. This graduation is a very great point in exhibiting colour. All the blues here vary perpetually from sky blue to nearly black, thus giving additional entertainment to the eye, even in a single colour. Modern windows are much too uniform in tint. The prevalent colours of the figure subjects are here a rich madder brown, a pale vivid green, and straw yellow, red occurring chiefly in the grounds and borders. The devil’s head in the “Temptation” is of the most radiant scarlet ruby.

ORLEANS, May 23rd.-On going again to the cathedral [Chartres] this morning, I was yet more struck with the palpitation of the ground colour. It is, to the modern glass, what the varying complexion of life is to rouge. Would you be so good as to go to Mr. Tennant’s in the Strand,¹ close by Somerset House, and ask him for a small piece of Labrador felspar of the richest blue, taking care to avoid streaks of green or orange, and show it to Ward, and tell him to match it. Tell Tennat to put it down to my account.

The finest windows in colour in the cathedral are three of the twelfth century, in perfect preservation, and their colour is entirely unique. I never saw anything approaching it, not for depth, but for refinement and purity; and it is their blue which the Labrador felspar resembles. In his circular subjects below, Ward must take a dark smalt blue, but if he can reach this Labrador tint in the pale parts of the upper lights, it will be very valuable.

This blue is so luminous that the ruby reds of the window come upon

¹ [Mr. Tennant, mineralogist, then of 149 Strand. Compare Fors Clavigera, Letters 64, and 70 (Notes and Correspondence).]

[Version 0.04: March 2008]