Windowpane

“ What goes by the name of a window is half of it stuffed with rags or covered by boards to keep out wind and rain; the rest is so begrimed and obscured that scarcely can light enter or anything be seen outside. Should you have ascended to the attic, where at least some approach to fresh air might be expected to enter from open or broken window, you look out upon the roofs and ledges of lower tenements, and discover that the sickly air which finds its way into the room has to pass over the putrefying carcases of dead cats or birds, or viler abominations still. ”

“ He must know them and humour them. Bars have to be accepted as needful supports, leads to be acknowledged as convenient joints; glass must be allowed its translucency, and painting kept to what it can best do. A window should own itself a window.
And what is the aim and use of a stained glass window? To “exclude the light,” said the poet, sarcastically. Yes, to subdue its garishness, soften its glare, tinge it with colour, animate it with form perhaps.
The man who means to do good work in windows will devote as serious study to old glass as a painter to the old masters. ”

“ Lifting one, as if it fitted into a socket, he drew it away and laid it by his side. He did the same with another, and yet with more, until every bar was lying on the great stone window-sill, and there was a clear and open space as soon as he threw the glass window back on its hinges, broad enough even for the forester to pass.
While they watched him in silence, he leant out and gazed about in all directions; now to right, to left, and downwards, and, satisfied with what he saw, he came back to them in happy complacence.
"Go and look for yourselves!" ”

“ There's generally a window that doesn't latch or a door that doesn't bar. But I tried window after window on the terrace without result. The heavy green sun-shutters were down over each, and when I broke the hinges of one there was a long bar within to hold it firm. I was beginning to think of shinning up a rain-pipe and trying the second floor, when a shutter I had laid hold on swung back in my hand. It had been left unfastened, and, kicking the snow from my boots, I entered a room. ”

“ It is not enough for complete success in this form of window that the quarry lines shall be the basis of the design; the painting also must be strong enough to hold its own against leads and bars. That is hardly the case with the exceptionally delicate ornament in the Dutch glass opposite. But here, notwithstanding that the scroll is slighter than the Italian work and more delicately painted, the central patch of enamel colour in the shield and mantling does, to some extent, focus the attention there, and so withdraw the eye from the lead lines. The window is not merely cleverly designed ”

“ First a white powder, fine but thick, and whirled in circles by the wind, beats with a dry metallic sound against the window-panes; then the wind drops, and the flakes, growing larger, descend silently, monotonously, incessantly. The snow covers the streets like a downy carpet, spreads itself like a sheet over the roofs, fills up the cracks in the walls, heaps itself upon the window-sills, envelops the iron window-bars, and hangs in festoons from the gutters and eaves. ”

“ Of course, the windows all through the house should be treated alike, and in all should be the double or single sets of frilled muslin curtains, according to the amount of sunshine which the special window in question admits. Every care must be taken too in all the rooms to keep out{155} draughts, and to let in a certain amount of fresh air, and the rooms must be ventilated in some manner at the top of the wall. In some cases a brick can be removed and the opening covered within wire-netting, the space between being filled with cotton-wool, which is supposed to filter the incoming air ”

“ It was the business of a window to shut in those that worshipped from the outer world, and wrap them in mysterious and beautiful gloom. With other days, however, came other ideals. As time went on, and men emerged from the dark ages, the problem of the glazier was how more and more to lighten his glass; until at last white glass predominated, and the question was how to introduce colour into it. Meanwhile the thirteenth century glaziers resorted, where they wanted light, to the use of windows in grisaille, in absolute contrast to the rich picture-glass in the same church. ”

“ In the painted window we are invited to forget that glass is being used. Shadows are obtained by loading the surface with enamel colours; the fullest rotundity of modelling is aimed at; the lead and iron so essentially necessary to the construction and safety of the window are concealed with extraordinary skill and ingenuity. The spectator perceives a hole in the wall with a very indifferent picture in it—overdone in the high lights, smoky and unpleasant in the shadows, in no sense decorative. We need concern ourselves no more with painted windows ”

“ A little boy, in what was then Wheaton, sitting at the breakfast table and looking out of the window. Looking out at summer sunshine, spring rain, autumn haze, the white wonder of newfallen snow.
He'd never broken himself of the habit. He still looked to the left every morning, just as he had today. But there was no window any more. There was only a blank wall. And beyond it, the smog and the clamor and the crowds.
Window-glass. Wilmer-Klibby had problems. Nobody was buying window-glass any more. Nobody except the people who put up buildings like this. ”

“ Occasionally a window, so deep that under ordinary conditions of light it is obscure, may need the [Pg 383] strongest possible illumination; but even in the case of very deep-toned windows—such, for example, as those in the transepts of the Duomo at Florence—the glass, as a whole, is best seen by a sober light. You get the maximum of colour effect with the minimum of hurt to any individual window, if there be any hurt at all. A really garish window may be beautiful as the light wanes. The great North Rose at Notre Dame (Paris) is impressive at dusk. ”

“ At first, too, the painted pattern is, so to speak, contained within the leading, and merely enriches and emphasizes the pattern formed by it; but in later work, towards the end of the century, it becomes independent of the leading and grows through it, spreading over the surface of the window in graceful curves like a creeper over a trellis. The influence of the medallion window is often seen in contemporary grisaille, of which the design frequently consists of interlacing medallions of strap-work of the same shape as those in the coloured windows.
Rheims.
Angers, Soissons, and Chartres. ”

“ They like to curl up in large masses inside the window-blinds [Pg 279] on the east or south side of the house, where they remain too torpid to stir at your approach, until the sun pours in its warm flood of light, to wake them to life and activity. Wherever they are thus found massed together, if at all within reach, be sure and spare no effort to destroy them early in the morning, while in this torpid condition. It is very easy then to kill them: take a pitcher of boiling-hot water, raise the window carefully and pour it over them ”

“ He is reckless, that is, of the obscurity of the glass he covers with it. At moments, when the sun shines fiercely upon it, you dimly see what he was aiming at; nine-tenths of the time all is blackness. Slabs of white glass are coated literally by the yard with dense brown pigment through which the light rarely shines.
It had become the practice now to glaze a window mainly in rectangular panes of considerable size. Where pot-metal colour was used at all, it had of necessity to be surrounded with a leaden line ”

“ Classified, there are about ten distinct types of the window-pane frost. Representatives of each and all types never appear at any given time upon one window; and strangely enough the designs are never precisely alike on any two panes of glass. Reduplications of any previous design are extremely rare, and would only occur when a multitude of identical conditions occur. ”

“ The modern window, with its huge panes of glass and simple framework, makes an insistent demand for curtains. Without curtains windows of this kind give a blank, staring appearance to the room and also a sense of insecurity in having so many holes in the walls. The beautiful windows of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries in Italy, England and France, give no such feeling of incompleteness, for their well-carved frames, and over-windows, and their small panes of glass, were important parts of the decorative scheme. ”

“ A Snow Storm.—Cover the bottom of your window with cotton batting (sides and top may also be covered if you wish) . Dust well with powdered mica or white frosting. Place several incandescent lights, wire guarded, so that they are hidden from view by the cotton. Some of the lights may have red bulbs. Secrete several electric fans in various parts of the window, and, lastly, throw three or four pounds of goose-down into the window and start up the fans. You will not only have a regular snow storm, but a blizzard, and any central figure will be seen as having a fight with the elements. ”

“ The time saved in trimming a window is a very important factor. A few frames made of light strips, covered with cheap muslin, forms an excellent groundwork. They can be decorated with cheesecloth in sunbursts, pleating—or, in fact, there is no limit to the variety of ways to treat them. The frames can be made in convenient sizes to fit your windows, so that they can be easily handled and put together quickly in the window. Both sides of the frames should be decorated, so that after you have used one you can turn your frame, showing a different style and color entirely. ”

“ The general idea of such treatment of a fan or conoid may be said to be parallel to that of a circular or rose window. The ribs are viewed as radiating mullions, and are made to multiply in number as the circle expands, and usually to terminate round the outer boundary with a series of tracery forms like the heads of two-light windows. A good rose-window of late date, if imagined to be elastic, and drawn out from its centre into a conoidal form, would make a good compartment of fan groining; or a groining fan compressed into a plane would make a good rose-window. ”

“ It is practically impossible to build window casings and door frames so that cracks do not exist, through which air may find its way. When, however, in the wintertime, storm windows have been put on, or when, as occasionally happens, to keep out drafts, strips of paper are pasted carefully around all window casings, or when rubber weather strips are nailed tight against the windows and doors, conditions are obtained which resemble the mason fruit jar, and under those conditions, a person living continuously in such a room is experimenting on himself as Professor King did with the candle. ”

“ If he refuses, move elsewhere. You cannot afford to be in the mercantile business without good windows to back up your enterprise.
CHAPTER II.
THE SHOW WINDOW. In attempting to explain the fundamental principles of successful store decoration, the window is the first thing to be considered, and there are all kinds of windows, little and big, upright and oblong, cramped and spacious. Some are hard to get at; some have big, awkward posts in them; but no matter what they are or how undesirable they seem, remember that anything with a pane of glass before it may be made a show window. ”

“ If the sun shines on your window, and the opposite side of the street is dark, there will be no reflections of foreign objects in your picture.
By keeping these important items of information in mind any country photographer can get a good picture of a show window. If the photographer doesn’t know them, it would be well to call his attention to these facts. He may not have had experience in “shooting” show windows.
A method often adopted with good success is as follows: Make a cloth screen of black cambric, sufficiently large to shut off all reflections when raised before the window. ”

“ The little fly on the inside of the window-pane may be attacked by the little bird on the outside, and it may seem to him that he is lost, but the crystal pane between keeps him safely from all danger as certainly as if it were a mighty wall of iron. ”

“ It is not worth while dividing a window into lights and then effacing the divisions in the glass. Given a window of four or five lights, the decorator has no choice but to design a four or five-light window. He must render his subject so that the constructional divisions of the window keep their proper architectural place; if his subject will not allow that, he must abandon his subject, or give very good reason why not. The reason of mere pictorial ambition will not hold good. The test of a good picture-window is, how the mullions affect the design. ”

“ In German work one great brassy canopy will frequently be found stretching right across the several lights of the window, over-arching a single subject. This triptich-like composition will occupy, perhaps, two-thirds of the height of the window. The background behind the pinnacles of this canopy may be either of one colour or of geometric diaper in mosaic (elsewhere characteristic of the Early period) , finished off by a more or less arbitrary line—a cusped arch, for instance—above which is white glass. ”