The Fine Arts In Connection With The Church.

portant . Prom remains being' continually brought to light , we may confidently assert , that nearly every church in the 13 th century was decorated in this manner ; they were whitewashed in the reigns of Edward VI . aud Elizabeth , and have , in the vast majority of instances , only been brought

to light to insure their more sioeedy destruction from the church restorer . The interior of a modern church , on the contrary , is neatly plastered with plaster lin . or Jin . thick , which stops flush with the stone quoins , which are left uncovered because the architect has been brought up to consider stone

as a beautiful material for its own sake ; in fact , just the same as an Italian would regard marble . The consequence is that we see every piece of stone a distinct colour from the plaster , and all the lines of the architecture become iag-a-ed and uneven . "XT * ^ . N otmng is if it not

. probably more amusing , were at the same time sad to read , than the congratulatory tone of the public prints when they notice the opening of a new church . We are told that there is a spacious and commodious chancel , or that the edifice is built in the appropriate form of

the cross ; that all the capitals have been beautifully carved into roses ancl lilies , or passion-flowers , by Mr . X . j the architectural sculptor ; that the roof ' s are of high pitch , and have been varnished and stained ; that two of the columns of the font are of Purbeck , and two of them of Rouge Eoyal marble ; that the stone reredos is inlaid with finely polished marble , and that the chancel has been laid down with Mint-on ' s encaustic tiles .

Sometimes , indeed , our breath is taken away by our being informed that the chancel is lined with , alabaster . Now , these things are not art , they are only prettinesses . They cost a great deal of money , and do not add to the solemnity of the building . How much better would it have been to have s-ot

some young artist to have told some Bible story , some event in the life of our Great Example ? The picture or pictures might be done in ten ^ ora , the most lasting of vehicles where there is no damp . It might be executed in grisaille , or in the four colours like the old examples ; and surely the lesson

taught by our Saviour working at his father ' s trade , and being obedient to his parents , may in many instances be worth acres of Minton ' s encaustic tiles , or yards of inlaid work . But remember , in this instance , I presume the aid of a competent artist is employed ; and there are many

such among the younger ones who would be but too deli ghted to work for the church instead of painting pictures for the Academy on speculation , which are probably badly hung , and certainly not sold . Such pictures Avould have good drawing and expression , and such painters would be able

to make cartoons which would also have these qualities , and so save us from so much rubbish which is annually placed in our windows . And here I may perhaps be permitted to pay a tribute to my late friend Charles Winston , so well known for his work on stained glasa . He differed most

decidedly from the school of art to which most of my friends and myself belong . In fact , he considered the Roman architecture as our true point de depart ; but with all this he is the unceasing and unsparing advocate of boldness in architecture to the exclusion of prettiness—such as . cusps and

finials—and of good drawing ancl good colouring in stained glass . Prom him I learned a very great deal , and many of the opinions I have ventured to put forward on this occasion I Srsb heard from his mouth . Had he been spared longer he would have seen the principles he advocated in general use throughout the architectural arts ; as it was , he only lived to see the beginning .

Lastly , the question presents itself as to what we are to do to beautify our churches . The answer appears to me to be in three things . The first is to use them a good deal more . At the present day , private devotion has , to a great degree , superseded public . How far such a result is desirable it does

not become me , as a layman , to speculate . A man will naturally care less for a building which he enters only every seventh day , than one in which he says his prayers every day , morning and night . Perhaps if some of our city churches were kept open all day , the chancel being protected by a grille

, public devotion might to some degree supersede private , and people might become to take an interest in a place so much frequented , and with which their lio | 3 es and fears are so much associated .

The second thing to do is to have a greater love of monumental art . This love of monumental art is of slow growth , and will not arise in one or two years . By monumental art I mean the painting the wails of our rooms instead of hanging pictures upon them ; in spending money on objects of daily

use , aud in making our sculpture part and parcel of our domestic buildings . The great obstacle to such a state of things is our unfortunate law of leasehold ; for who will paint walls when he knows that he has them painted eventually for his landlord and not for his descendants ?

The third thing required is a better education of the architect . In nine cases out of ten , if the architect can show his client a sketch of the group of sculpture or the painting he wants introduced in connexion with the architecture , his client will let him have it done . But unfortunately when the

architect , as is too often the case , cannot do this , he takes refuge in notches , foliages , c-nspings , chamfers , tiles , marbles inlaying in stone , and other prettinesses which , in the end , cost more money than works of art , and are nothing to look at when they are done . An instance of this obtains

iu our metal-work . I should very much like to know the sums annually expended on the wretched brasswork held together with screws , that we now see in every church . We do see an immensity of it , but how is it that we so seldom see cast brass work with figures like the Albero of Milan ? Simply because it is easier to draw a thing with a pair of