The Ecclesiologist (Volume 22) (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1864. Excerpt: ... THE ECCLES10L0GIST. "Surge igitur -t fae: tt wit fflominus ucwn." No. CLXIII.--AUGUST, 1864. (new Series, No. Cxxvii.) EXHIBITION OF PAINTINGS ON GLASS, SOUTH KENSINGTON MUSEUM. The offer of the galleries of the South Kensington Museum for an exhibition of paintings on glass of our national school was a graceful act of the authorities of the Government Department of Science and Art, which must be acknowledged with the respect which is due to it. Nothing could have been worse than the accommodation afforded to glass paintings in the Exhibition of 1862. The windows, of which the subjects were among the most sacred of the whole hagiology of our religion, were placed round a corridor consecrated to the presiding genius of ginger beer and buns. The greasy white table-cloths, with which the usual low stamp of British refreshment " purveyors" covered their tables, reflected upon the inside of those windows a ghastly gloominess: --the light from without was a sort of nighty day, 6f the interior of that great 19th century Noah's Ark, to which every beast of the earth and his wife came. The popping of bottles', the atmosphere of pies, the smell of waiters, and the pressure of the restless crowd, was enough to consummate in any well-intending spectator's mind the disgust he felt at the combined effect of indifferent painted glass, the bad light, and the painful contrast of the highest of spiritual associations and the nastiest of fleshly manners. There was some good glass there, but it was made bad by all on both sides of it: --darkness behind where light was wanted, noise in front where repose was wanted. But now at South Kensington glass has found a more reposeful place for its exhibition, though even here there are some injurious effects produced by the window...