Stained Glass Work Part 15

Speaking generally, I care not whether a man calls himself Brown, or Brown and Co., or, co-operating with others, works under the style of Brown, Jones and Robinson, so long as he observe four things.

(1) Not to direct what he cannot practise;

(2) To make masters of apprentices, or aim at making them;

(3) To keep his hand of mastery over the whole work personally at all stages; and

(4) To be prepared sometimes to make sacrifices of profit for the sake of the Art, should the interests of the two clash.

Such an one we must call an artist, a master, and a worthy craftsman. It is almost impossible to describe the deadening influence which a routine embodying the reverse of these four things has upon the mind of those who should be artists. Under this influence not only is the subdivision of labour which places each successive operation in separate hands accepted as a matter of course, but into each operation itself this separation imports a spirit of la.s.situde and dulness and compliance with false conditions and limited aims which would seem almost incredible in those practising what should be an inspiring art. To men so trained, so employed, all counsels of perfection are foolishness; all idea of tentative work, experiment, modification while in progress, is looked upon as mere delusion. To them work consists of a series of never-varied formulas, all fitting into each other and combined to aim at producing a definite result, the like of which they have produced a thousand times before and will produce a thousand times again.

"With us," once said, to a friend of the writer, a man so trained, "it's a matter of judgment and experience. It's all nonsense this talk about seeing work at a distance and against the sky, and so forth, while as to the ever taking it down again for retouching after once erecting it, that could only be done by an amateur. We paint a good deal of the work on the bench, and never see it as a whole until it's leaded up; but then we know what we want and get it."

"We know what we want!" To what a pa.s.s have we come that such a thing could be spoken by any one engaged in the arts! Were it wholly and universally true, nothing more would be needed in condemnation of wide fields of modern practice in the architectural and applied arts, for, most a.s.suredly it is a sentence that could never be spoken of any one worthy of the name of artist that ever lived. Whence would you like instances quoted? Literature? Painting? Sculpture? Music? Their name is legion in the history of all these arts, and in the lives of the great men who wrought in them.

For a taste--

Did Michael Angelo "know what he wanted" when, half-way through his figure, he found the block not large enough, and had to make the limb too short?

Did Beethoven know, when he evolved a movement in one of his concerted pieces out of a quarrel with his landlady? and another, "from singing or rather roaring up and down the scale," until at last he said, "I think I have found a motive"--as one of his biographers relates? Tennyson, when he corrected and re-corrected his poems from youth to his death? Durer, the precise, the perfect, able to say, "It cannot be better done," yet re-engraving a portion of his best-known plate, and frankly leaving the rejected portion half erased?[6] t.i.tian, whose custom it was to lay aside his pictures for long periods and then criticise them, imagining that he was looking at them "with the eyes of his worst enemy"?

There is not, I suppose, in the English language a more "perfect" poem than "Lycidas." It purports to have been written in a single day, and its wholeness and unity and crystalline completeness give good colour to the thought that it probably was so.

"Thus sang the uncouth swain to the oaks and rills, While the still morn went out with sandals gray; He touched the tender stops of various quills, With eager thought warbling his Doric lay: And now the sun had stretched out all the hills, And now was dropt into the western bay: At last he rose, and twitched his mantle blue; To-morrow, to fresh woods and pastures new."

Yet, regarding it, the delightful Charles Lamb writes:[7]--

"I had thought of the _Lycidas_ as of a full-grown beauty,--as springing with all its parts absolute,--till, in evil hour, I was shown the original copy of it, together with the other minor poems of its author, in the library of Trinity, kept like something to be proud of. I wish they had thrown them in the Cam, or sent them, after the later cantos of Spenser, into the Irish Channel. How it staggered me to see the fine things in their ore!--interlined, corrected, as if their words were mortal, alterable, displaceable at pleasure; as if they might have been otherwise, and just as good; as if inspiration were made up of parts, and those fluctuating, successive, indifferent! I will never go into the workshop of any great artist again, nor desire a sight of his picture, till it is fairly off the easel; no, not if Raphael were to be alive again, and painting another Galatea."

But the real truth of the case is that whatever "inspiration" may be, and whether or not "made up of parts," it, or man's spirit and will in all works of art, has to _deal with_ things so made up; and not only so, but also as described by the other words here chosen: _fluctuating_, _successive_, and _indifferent_. You have to deal with the whole sum of things all at once; the possible material crowds around the artist's will, shifting, changing, presenting at all stages and in all details of a work of art, infinite and continual choice. "Nothing," we are told, "is single," but all things have relations with each other. How much more, then, is it true that every bit of gla.s.s in a window is the centre of such relations with its brother and sister pieces, and that nothing is final until all is finished? A work of art is like a battle; conflict after conflict, manoeuvre after manoeuvre, combination after combination. The general does not pin himself down from the outset to one plan of tactics, but watches the field and moulds its issues to his will, according to the yielding or the resistance of the opposing forces, keeping all things solvent until the combinations of the strife have woven together into a soluble problem, upon which he can launch the final charge that shall bring him back with victory.

So also is all art, and you must hold all things in suspense. Aye! the last touch more or less of light or shade or colour upon the smallest piece, keeping all open and solvent to the last, until the whole thing rushes together and fuses into a harmony. It is not to be done by "judgment and experience," for all things are new, and there are no two tasks the same; and it is impossible for you from the outset to "know what you want," or to know it at any stage until you can say that the whole work is finished.

"But if we work on these methods we shall only get such a small quant.i.ty of work done, and it will be so costly done on a system like that you speak of! Make my a.s.sistants masters, and so rivals! put a window in, and take it out again, forsooth!" What remedy or answer for this?

Well--setting aside the question of the more or less genius--there are only two solutions that I can see:--an increase in industry or a possible decrease in profit, though much may be accomplished in mitigation of these hard conditions, if they prove _too_ hard, by a good and economical system of work, and by time-saving appliances and methods.

But, after all, you were not looking out for an easy task, were you, in this world of stress and strain to have the privileges of an artist's life without its penalties? Why, look you, you must remember that besides the business of "saving your soul," which you may share in common with every one else, _you_ have the special privilege of _enjoying for its own sake your personal work in the world_.

And you must expect to pay for that privilege at some corresponding personal cost; all the more so in these days when your lot is so exceptional a fortune, and when to enjoy daily work falls to so few.

Nevertheless, when I say "enjoy" I do not mean that art is easy or pleasant in the way that ease is pleasant; there is nothing harder; and the better the artist, probably the harder it is. But you enjoy it because of its privileges; because beauty is delightful; because you know that good art does high and unquestioned service to man, and is even one of the ways for the advancing of the kingdom of G.o.d.

That should be pleasure enough for any one, and compensation for any pains. You must learn the secret of human suffering--and you can only learn it by tasting it--because it is yours to point its meaning to others and to give the message of hope.

In this spirit, then, and within these limitations, must you guide your own work and claim the co-operation of others, and arrange your relationships with them, and the limits of their a.s.sistance and your whole personal conduct and course of procedure:--

To be yourself a master.

To train others up to mastery.

To keep your hand over the whole.

To work in a spirit of sacrifice.

These things once firmly established, questions of procedure become simple. But a few detached hints may be given. I shall string them together just as they come.

_An Economy of Time in the Studio._--Have a portion of your studio or work-room wall lined with thin boarding--"picture-backing" of 1/8 inch thick is enough, and this is to _pin things on to_. The cartoon is what you are busy upon, but you must "think in gla.s.s" all the time you are drawing it. Have therefore, pinned up, a number of slips of paper--a foolscap half-sheet divided _vertically_ into two long strips I find best.

On these write down every direction to the cutter, or the painter, or the designer of minor ornament, _the moment it comes into your mind_, as you work at the charcoal drawing. If you once let the moment pa.s.s you will never remember these things again, but you will have them constantly forced back upon your memory, by the mistranslations of your intention which will face you when you first see your work in the gla.s.s.

This practice is a huge saving of time--and of disappointment. But you also want this convenient wall s.p.a.ce for a dozen other needs; for tracings and shiftings of parts, and all sorts of essays and suggestions for alteration.

_That we should work always._--I hope it is not necessary to urge the importance of _work_. It is not of much use to work only when we _feel inclined_; many people very seldom do feel naturally inclined. Perhaps there are few things so sweet as the triumph of working _through_ disinclination till it is leavened through with the will and becomes enjoyment by becoming conquest. To work through the dead three o'clock period on a July afternoon with an ache in the small of one's back and one's limbs all a-jerk with nervousness, drooping eyelids, and a general inclination to scream. At such a time, I fear, one sometimes falls back on rather low and sordid motives to act as a spur to the lethargic will.

I think of the shortness of the time, the greatness of the task, but also of all those hosts of others who, if I lag, must pa.s.s me in the race. Not of actual rivals--or good nature and sense of comradeship would always break the vision--but of possible and unknown ones whom it is my habit to club all together and typify under the style and t.i.tle of "that fellow Jones." And at such a time it is my habit to say or think, "Aha! I bet Jones is on his back under a plane tree!"--or thoughts to that effect--and grasp the charcoal firmer.

It is habits and dodges and ways of thinking such as these that will gradually cultivate in you the ability to "stand and deliver," as they say in the decorative arts. For, speaking now to the amateur (if any such, picture-painter or student, are hesitating on the brink of an art new to them), you must know that these arts are not like picture-painting, where you can choose your own times and seasons: they are always done to definite order and expected in a definite time; and that brings me to speak of the very important subject of "Clients."

_Of Clients and Patrons._--It must, of course, be left to each one to establish his own relations with those who ask work of him; but a few hints may be given.

You will get many requests that will seem to you unreasonable and impossible of carrying out--some no doubt will really be so; but at least _consider them_. Remember what we said a little way back--not to be set on your own allegory, but to accept your subject from outside and add your poetic thought to it. And also what in another place we said about keeping all "solvent"--so do with actual suggestion of subject and with the wishes of your client: treat the whole thing as "raw material,"

and all surrounding questions as factors in one general problem. Here also Ruskin has a pregnant word of advice--as indeed where has he not?--"A great painter's business is to do what the public ask of him, in the way that shall be helpful and instructive to them."[8] You cannot always do what people ask, but you can do it more often than a headstrong man would at first think.

I was once doing a series of small square panels, set at intervals in the height of some large, tall windows, and containing Scripture subjects, the intermediate s.p.a.ces being filled with "grisaille" work.

The subjects, of course, had to be approximately on one scale, and several of them became very tough problems on account of this restriction. However, all managed to slip through somehow till we came to "Jacob's Ladder," and there I stood firm, or perhaps I ought rather to say _stuck fast_. "How is it possible," I said to my client, "that you can have a picture of the 'Fall' in one panel with Eve's figure taking up almost the whole height of it, and have a similar panel with 'Angels Ascending and Descending' up and down a ladder? There are only two ways of doing it--to put the ladder far off in a landscape, which would reduce it to insignificance, and besides be unsuitable in gla.s.s; or to make the angels the size of dolls. Don't you see that it's impossible?" No, he didn't see that it was impossible. What he wanted was "Jacob's Ladder"; the possibility or otherwise was nothing to him.

He said (what you'll often hear said, reader, if you do stained-gla.s.s), "I don't, of course, know anything about art, and I can't say how this could be done; that is the artist's province."

It was in my younger days, and I'm afraid I must have replied to the effect that it was not a question of art but of common reason, and that the artist's province did not extend to making bricks without straw or making two and two into five; and the work fell through. But had I the same thing to deal with now I should waste no words on it, but run the "ladder" right up out of the panel into the grisaille above; an opportunity for one of those delightful nave _exceptions_ of which old art is so full--like, for instance, the west door of St. Maclou at Rouen, where the crowd of falling angels burst out of the tympanum, bang through the lintel, defying architecture as they defied the first great Architect, and continue their fall amongst the columns below. "Angels Descending," by-the-bye, with a vengeance! And if the bad ones, why not the good? I might just as well have done it, and probably it would have been the very thing out of the whole commission which would have prevented the series from being the tame things that such sometimes are.

Anyway, remember this--for I have invariably found it true--that _the chief difficulty of a work of art is always its chief opportunity_. A thing can be looked at in a thousand and one ways, and something dauntingly impossible will often be the very thing that will shake your jogtrot cart out of its rut, make you whip up your horses, and get you right home.

BUT

Observe this--that all these wishes of the client should be most strictly ascertained _beforehand_; all possibility of midway criticism and alteration prevented. Thresh the thing well out in the preliminary stages and start clear; as long as it _is_ raw material, all in solution, all hanging in the balance--you can do anything. It is like "clay in the hands of the potter," and you can make the vessel as you please: "Out of the same lump making one vessel to honour and another to dishonour." But when the work is _half-done_, when colour is calling out to colour, and shape to shape, and thought to thought, throughout the length and breadth of the work; when the ideas and the clothing of them are all fusing together into one harmony; when, in short, the thing is becoming that indestructible, unalterable unity which we call a Work of Art:--then, indeed, to be required to change or to reconsider is a real agony of impossibility; tearing the glowing web of thought, and form, and fancy into a destruction never to be reconstructed, and which no piecing or patching will mend.

There are many minor points, but they are really so entirely matters of experience, that it hardly seems worth while to dwell upon them. Start with recognising the fact that you must try to add business habits and sensible and economical ways to your genius as an artist; in short, another whole side to your character; and keep that ever in view, and the details will fall into their places.

_Have Everything in Order._--Every letter relating to a current job should be findable at a moment's notice in an office "letter basket,"

rather wider than a sheet of foolscap paper, and with sides high enough to allow of the papers standing upright in unfolded sheets, each group of them behind a card taller than the tallest kind of ordinary doc.u.ment, and bearing along the top edge in large red letters--Roman capitals for choice--the name of the work: and it need hardly be said that these should be arranged in alphabetical order. For minor matters too small for such cla.s.sification it is well to have, in the _front_ place in the basket, cards dividing the alphabet itself into about four parts, so that unarranged small matters can be still kept roughly alphabetical.

When the work is done, transfer all doc.u.ments to separate labelled portfolios--a folded sheet of the thickest brown paper, such as they put under carpets, is very good--and store them away for reference. Larger portfolios for all _templates_, tracings, or architects' details or drawings relating to the work. If you have not a good system with regard to the ordering of these things, believe me the mere _administration_ of a very moderate amount of work will take you _all your day_.

So also with _measurement_.

ON ACCURACY IN MEASUREMENT.

In one of Turgenieff's novels a Russian country proverb is quoted--"Measure thrice, cut once." It is a golden rule, and should be inscribed in the heart of every worker, and I will add one that springs out of it--"Never trust a measurement unless it has been made by yourself, or for yourself--to your order."

The measurements on architects' designs, or even working drawings, can never be trusted for the dimensions of the built work. Even the builders' templates, by which the work was built, cannot be, for the masons knock these quite enough out, in actual building, to make your work done by these guides a misfit. Have your own measurements taken again. Above all, beware of trusting to the supposed verticals or horizontals in built work, especially in tracery. A thing may be theoretically and intentionally at a certain angle, but actually at quite a different one. If level is important, take it yourself with spirit-level and plumb-line.

With regard to accuracy of work _in the shop_, where it depends on yourself and the system you observe, I cannot do better than write out for you here the written notice by which the matter is regulated in my own practice with regard to cartoons.