Stained Glass Work: A text-book for students and workers in glass

Fig. 59.

You can, if you like, clean away all the cement along the edges of the leads; but it is quite easy to be too precise and neat in the matter and make the work look hard. If you do it, a blunted awl will serve your turn.

Fig. 60.

One had better mention everything, and therefore I will here say that, of course, a large light must be made in sections; and these should not exceed four feet in height, and less is better. In fixing these in their place when the window is put up (an extra wide flat lead being used at the top and bottom of each section), they are made to overlap; and if you wish the whole drainage of the window to pass into the building, of course you will put your section thus—(fig. 61 A); while if you wish the work to be weather-tight you will place it thus—(fig. 61 B). It is just as well to make every question clear if one can, and therefore I mention this. Most people like their windows weather-tight, and, of course, will make the overlapping lead the top one; but it's a free country, and I don't pretend to dictate, content if I make the situation clear to you, leaving you to deal with it according to your own fancy. All is now done except the banding.

Fig. 61 a. Fig. 61 b.

How to Band a Leaded Light.—Banding means the putting on of the little ties of copper wire by which the window has to be held to the iron crossbars that keep it in its place. These ties are simply short lengths of copper wire, generally about four inches long, but varying, of course, with the size of the bar that you mean to use; and these are to be soldered vertically (fig. 62) on to the face of the light at any convenient places along the line where the bar will cross. In fixing the window, these wires are to be pulled tight round the bar and twisted up with pliers, and the twisted end knocked down flat and neat against the bar.

And this is the very last operation in the making of a stained-glass window. It now only remains to instruct you as to what relates to the fixing of it in its place.

How to Fix a Window in its Place.—There is, almost always, a groove in the stonework to receive the glass; and, except in the case of an unfinished building, this is, of course, occupied by some form of plain glazing. You must remove this by chipping out with a small mason's chisel the cement with which it is fixed in the groove, and common sense will tell you to begin at the bottom and work upwards. This done, untwist the copper bands from the bars and put your own glass in its place, re-fixing the bars (or new ones) in the places you have determined on to suit your design and to support the glass, and fixing your glass to them in the way described, and pointing the whole with good cement. The method of inserting the new glass is described at p. 135 (#x4_x_4_i1).

Fig. 62.

But that it is good for a man to feel the satisfaction of knowing his craft thoroughly there would be no need to go into this, which, after all, is partly masons' work. But I, for my part, cannot understand the spirit of an artist who applies his art to a craft purpose and has not, at least, a strong wish to know all that pertains to it.

PART II

CHAPTER XII

Introductory—The Great Questions—Colour—Light—Architectural Fitness—Limitations—Thought—Imagination—Allegory.

The foregoing has been written as a handbook to use at the bench, and therefore I have tried to keep myself strictly to describing the actual processes and the ordinary practice and routine of stained-glass work.

But can we leave the subject here?

If we were speaking of even the smallest of the minor arts and crafts, we should wish to say something of why they are practised and how they should be practised, of the principles that guide them, of the spirit in which they should be undertaken, of the place they occupy in human affairs and in our life on earth. How much more then in an Art like this, which soars to the highest themes, which dares to treat, which is required to treat, of things Heavenly and Earthly, of the laws of God, and of the nature, duty, and destinies of man; and not only so, but must treat of these things in connection with, and in subservience to, the great and dominant Art of Architecture?

We must not shrink, then, from saying all that is in our mind: we must ask ourselves the great questions of all art. We must investigate the How of them, and even face the Why.

Therefore here (however hard it be to do it) something must be said of such great general principles as those of colour, of light, of architectural fitness, of limitations, of thought and imagination and allegory; for all these things belong to stained-glass work, and it is the right or wrong use of these high things that makes windows to be good or to be bad.

Let us, dear student, take the simplest things first, not because they are the easiest (though they perhaps are so), but because they will gradually, I hope, warm up our wits to the point of considering these matters, and so prepare the way for what is hardest of all.

And I think a good subject to begin with is that of Economy generally, taking into consideration both time and materials.

CHAPTER XIII

Of Economy—The Englishman's Wastefulness—Its Good Side—Its Excess—Difficulties—A Calculation—Remedies.

Those who know work in various countries must surely have arrived at the conclusion that the Englishman is the most wasteful being on the face of the globe! He only thinks of getting through the work, or whatever it may be, that he has purposed to himself, attaining the end immediately in view in the speediest manner possible without regard to anything else, lavish of himself and of the stuff he works with. The picture drawn by Robert Louis Stevenson in "Treasure Island" of John Silver and his pirates, when about to start on their expedition, throwing the remainder of their breakfast on the bivouac fire, careless whence fresh supplies might come, is "English all over." This is the character of the race. It has its good side, this grand disdain—it wins Battles, Victoria Crosses, Humane Society's medals, and other things well worth the winning; brings into port many a ship that would else be lost or abandoned, and, year in, year out, sends to sea the lifeboats on our restless line of coast. It would be something precious indeed that would be worth the loss of it; but there is a medium in all things, and when a master sees—as one now at rest once told me he often had seen—a cutter draw his diamond down a bit of the margin out of which he had just cut his piece, in order to make it small enough to throw away, without being ashamed, under the bench, he must sometimes, I should think, wish the man were employed on some warlike or adventurous trade, and that he had a Hollander or Italian in his place, who would make a whole window out of what the other casts away.

At the same time, it must be confessed that this is a very difficult matter to arrange; and it is only fair to the workman to admit that under existing conditions of work and demand, and even in many cases of the buildings in which the work is done, the way does not seem clear to have the whole of what might be wished in this matter. I will point out the difficulties against it.

First, unless some system could be invented by which the amount of glass issued to any workman could be compared easily and simply with the area of glazed work cut from it, the workman has no inducement to economise; for, no record being kept of the glass saved, he knows that he will get no credit by saving, while the extra time that he spends on economy will make him seem a slower workman, and so he would be blamed.

Then, again, it is impossible to see the colour of glass as it lies on the bench; he has little choice but to cut each piece out of the large sheet; for if he got a clutter of small bits round him till he happened to want a small bit, he would never be able to get on.

There is no use, observe, in niggling and cheese-paring. There should be a just balance made between the respective values of the man's time and the material on which it is spent; and to this end I now give some calculations to show these—calculations rather startling, considered in the light of what one knows of the ordinary practices and methods.

The antique glasses used in stained-glass work vary in price from 1s. a foot to 5s., the weight per foot being about 32 oz.

The wage of the workmen who have to deal with this costly material varies from 8d. to 1s. per hour.

The price of the same glass thrown under the bench, and known as "cullet," is £1 per TON.

Let us now do a little simple arithmetic, which, besides its lesson to the workers, may, I think, come as a revelation even to some employers who, content with getting work done quickly, may have hardly realised the price paid for that privilege.

Therefore these glasses are worth respectively—56 times, 140 times, and 280 times as much upon the bench as they are when thrown below it! And yet I ask you—employer or employed—is it not the case that, often—shall we not say "generally"?—in any given job as much goes below as remains above if the work is in fairly small pieces? Is not the accompanying diagram a fair illustration (fig. 63) of about the average relation of the shape cut to its margin of waste?

Fig. 63.

Employers estimate this waste variously. I have heard it placed as high as two-thirds; that is to say, that the glass, when leaded up, only measured one-third of the material used, or, in other words, that the workman had wasted twice as much as he used. This, I admit, was told me in my character as customer, and by way of explaining what I considered a high charge for work; but I suppose that no one with experience of stained-glass work would be disposed to place the amount of waste lower than one-half.

Now a good cutter will take between two and three hours to cut a square foot of average stained-glass work, fairly simple and large in scale; that is to say, supposing his pay one shilling an hour—which is about the top price—the material he deals with is about the same value as his time if he is using the cheapest glasses only. If this then is the case when the highest-priced labour is dealing only with the lowest-priced material, we may assume it as the general rule for stained-glass cutting, on the average, that "labour is less costly than the material on which it is spent," and I would even say much less costly.

But it is not to be supposed that the little more care in avoiding waste which I am advocating would reduce his speed of work more than would be represented by twopence or threepence an hour.

But I fear that all suggestions as to mitigating this state of things are of little use. The remedy is to play into each other's hands by becoming, all of us, complete, all-round craftsmen; breaking down all the unnatural and harmful barriers that exist between "artists" and "workmen," and so fitting ourselves to take an intelligent interest in both the artistic and economic side of our work.

The possibility of this all depends on the personal relations and personal influence in any particular shop—and employers and employed must worry the question out between them. I am content with pointing out the facts.

CHAPTER XIV

Of Perfection—In Little Things—Cleanliness—Alertness—But not Hurry—Realising your Conditions-False lead lines—Shutting out Light—Bars—Their Number—Their Importance—Precedence—Observing your Limitations—A Result of Complete Training—The Special Limitations of Stained-Glass—Disguising the lead line—No full Realism—No violent Action—Self-Effacement—No Craft-Jugglery—Architectural Fitness founded on Architectural Knowledge—Seeing Work in Situ—Sketching in Glass—The Artistic Use of the Lead—Stepping Back—Accepting Bars and Leads—Loving Care—White Spaces to be Interesting—Bringing out the "Quality" of the Glass—Spotting and Dappling—"Builders-Glazing" versus Modern Restoring.

The second question of principle that I would dwell upon is that of perfection.

Every operation in the arts should be perfect. It has to be so in most arts, from violin-playing to circus-riding, before the artist dare make his bow to the public.

Placing on one side the question of the higher grades of art which depend upon special talent or genius—the great qualities of imagination, composition, form and colour, which belong to mastership—I would now, in this book, intended for students, dwell upon those minor things, the doing of which well or ill depends only upon good-will, patience, and industry.

Anyone can wash a brush clean; any one can keep the colour on his palette neat; can grind it all up each time it is used; can cover it over with a basin or saucer when his work is over; and yet these things are often neglected, though so easy to do. The painter will neglect to wash out his brush; and it will be clogged with pigment and gum, get dry, and stick to the palette, and the points of the hair will tear and break when it is removed again by the same careless hand that left it there.

Another will leave portions of his colour, caked and dry, at the edges of his palette for weeks, till all is stale; and then, when the spirit moves him, will some day work this in, full of dirt and dust, with the fresher colour. Everything, everything should be done well! From the highest forms of painting to tying up a parcel or washing out a brush;—all tools should be clean at all times, the handles as well as the hair—there is no excuse for the reverse; and if your tools are dirty, it is by the same defect of your character that will make you slovenly in your work. Painting does not demand the same actual swiftness as some other arts; nevertheless each touch that you place upon the glass, though it may be deliberate, should be deft, athletic, perfect in itself; the nerves braced, the attention keen, and the powers of soul and body as much on the alert as they would need to be in violin-playing, fencing, or dissecting.

This is not to advocate hurry. That is another matter altogether, for which also there is no excuse. Never hurry, or ask an assistant to hurry. Windows are delayed, even promises broken (though that can scarce be defended), there may be "ire in celestial minds"; but that is all forgotten when we are dead; and we soon shall be, but not the window.

Another thing to note, which applies generally throughout all practice, is the wisdom, of getting as near as you can to your conditions. For instance, the bits of glass in a window are separated by lead lines; pitch-black, therefore, against the light of day outside. Now, when waxed up on the plate in the shop for painting, these will be separated by thin cracks of light, and in this condition they are usually painted. Can't you do better than that? Don't you think it's worth while spending half-an-hour to paint false lead lines on the back of the plate? A ha'p'orth of lamp-black from the oil-shop, with a little water and treacle and a long-haired brush, like a coach-painter's, will do it for you (see Plate XIII. (#x100013)).

Another thing: when the window is in its place, each light will be surrounded with stone or brick, which, although not so black as the lead lines, will tell as a strong dark against the glass. See therefore that while you are painting, your glass is surrounded by dark, or at any rate not by clear, glittering light. Strips of brown paper, pinned down the sides of the light you are painting, will get the thing quite near to its future conditions.

As you have been told, the work is fixed in its place by bars of iron, and these ought by no means to be despised or ignored or disguised, as if they were a troublesome necessity: you must accept fully and willingly the conditions of your craft; you must pride yourself upon so accepting them, knowing that they are the wholesome checks upon your liberty and the proper boundaries of the field in which you have your appointed work. There should, in any light more than a foot wide, be bars at every foot throughout the length of the light; and these bars should be 1/2 inch, 3/4 inch, or 1 inch in section, according to the weight of the work. The question then arises: Should the bars be set out in their places on the paper, before you begin to draw the cartoon, or should you be perfectly free and unfettered in the drawing and then make the bars fit in afterwards, by moving them up and down as may be needed to avoid cutting across the faces, hands, &c.

I find more difficulty in answering this than any other technical question in this book. I do not think it can be answered with a hard and fast "Yes" or "No." It depends on the circumstances of the case. But I incline towards the side of making it the rule to put the bars in first, and adapt the composition to them. You may think this a surprising view for an artist to take. "Surely," you will say, "that is putting the cart before the horse, and making the more important thing give way to the less!" But my feeling is that reasonable limitations of any kind ought never to be considered as hindrances in a work of art. They are part of the problem, and it is only a spirit of dangerous license which will consider them as bonds, or will find them irksome, or wish to break them through. Stained-glass is not an independent art. It is an accessory to architecture, and any limitations imposed by structure and architectural propriety or necessity are most gravely to be considered and not lightly laid on one side. And in this connection it must be remembered that the bars cannot be made to go anywhere to fit a freely designed composition: they must be approximately at certain distances on account of use; and they must be arranged with regard to each other in the whole of the window on account of appearance.