3-008-442 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

Figures prepared by Baron von Hess for a painted window in Glasgow Cathedral: John the Baptist, 1862. 'This great work of embellishing a national monument, the first of its kind that has been undertaken under the auspices of the Church of Scotland, affords a remarkable proof of the change which may be wrought in an ecclesiastical body by the tendency and inclination of the age. No longer the stern discourager of pictorial art, the Church of Scotland, has here shown herself to be its enlightened patron; for though, in conformity with her fundamental principles, rejecting obsolete quaintnesses and allusions, and having no respect for those mediaeval influences by which, south of the Tweed, "church art" seems hopelessly oppressed, she has placed before us representations intelligible to all alike, and from which the most refined and cultivated, taste may derive pleasure and instruction...The character of the draperies is borrowed from the Italian school, the folds being kept small, according to the proper treatment of drapery in glass. The ornament is in the mediaeval German style, and sufficiently accords with the architecture as not to farm any unpleasant contrast with it'. From "Illustrated London News", 1862.