The Sauk Centre Herald

Ancients Excelled in Art of Glass Staining

The medieval artists in stained glass toiled like jewelers setting diamonds and rubies. Their ideal was not a pretty picture made transparent, but a window made beautiful. Years of experimenting with various combinations of glass taught them secrets of design which resulted in windows that have never been surpassed.

Glass staining and glass painting are two quite different things. One method is to build up a mosaic of pieces of glass, colored not only on its surface but its very substance. The other is to paint the design upon white or colored glass.

It was in glass making that the ancients excelled. The blue of one school was so vibrant that the workers ground down sapphires to obtain their magic color. The fancy although popular, is probably fallacious. Nevertheless, the colors of the ancients were so expertly compounded that they blended into a uniform whole in a completed window and never appeared flat or "raw."

The greens, for example, were not a straight mixture of blue and yellow, but a combination of blue and red and yellow in such proportions that they did not fuse into adjoining blues at a distance as do modern blue-and-yellow greens.

The reds likewise were distinctive, as they contained alternating layers of red, and green-white gave a mellow softness to light before it reached the eye of the beholder.