456 APPENDIX, 12

iron, its strength and tenacity; if in gold, its ductility; and he will invariably find the material grateful, and that his work is all the nobler for being eulogistic of the substance of which it is made. But of all the arts, the working of glass is that in which we ought to keep these principles most vigorously in mind. For we owe it so much, and the possession of it is so great a blessing, that all our work in it should be completely and forcibly expressive of the peculiar characters which give it so vast a value.

These are two, namely, its DUCTILITY when heated, and TRANSPARENCY when cold, both nearly perfect. In its employment for vessels, we ought always to exhibit its ductility, and in its employment for windows its transparency. All work in glass is bad which does not, with loud voice, proclaim one or other of these great qualities.

Consequently, all cut glass is barbarous: for the cutting conceals its ductility, and confuses it with crystal. Also, all very neat, finished, and perfect form in glass is barbarous: for this fails in proclaiming another of its great virtues; namely, the ease with which its light substance can be moulded or blown into any form, so long as perfect accuracy be not required. In metal, which, even when heated enough to be thoroughly malleable, retains yet such weight and consistency as render it susceptible of the firmest¹ handling and retention of the most delicate form, great precision of workmanship is admissible; but in glass, which when once softened must be blown or moulded, not hammered, and which is liable to lose, by contraction or subsidence, the finest of the forms given to it, no delicate outlines are to be attempted, but only such fantastic and fickle grace as the mind of the workman can conceive and execute on the instant. The more wild, extravagant, and grotesque in their gracefulness the forms are, the better. No material is so adapted for giving full play to the imagination, but it must not be wrought with refinement or painfulness, still less with costliness. For as in gratitude we are to proclaim its virtues, so in all honesty we are to confess its imperfections; and while we triumphantly set forth its transparency, we are also frankly to admit its fragility, and therefore not to waste much time upon it, nor put any real art into it when intended for daily use. No workman ought ever to spend more than an hour in the making of any glass vessel.

Next in the case of windows, the points which we have to insist upon are, the transparency of the glass and its susceptibility of the most brilliant colours; and therefore the attempt to turn painted windows into pretty pictures is one of the most gross and ridiculous barbarisms of this preeminently barbarous century. It originated, I suppose, with the Germans, who seem for the present distinguished among European nations by the loss of the sense of colour;² but it appears of late to have considerable chance of establishing itself in England: and it is a two-edged error, striking in two directions; first at the healthy appreciation of painting, and then at the healthy appreciation of glass. Colour, ground with oil, and laid on a solid opaque ground, furnishes to the human hand the most exquisite means of expression which the human sight and invention can find or require.³ By its two

¹ [So in the MS., and this appears the right reading; “finest” in all previous editions.]

² [On the German, as the “muddy school,” see Vol. III. p. 351.]

³ [Compare The Relation between Michael Angelo and Tintoret, where Ruskin describes oil-painting as “the art of arts.”]

[Version 0.04: March 2008]