ge[525] in my
presence, and so a long-disputed point is set at rest (plate 67).

Ciampini says that in the twelfth century, the arts went hand in hand,
each lending something to the design of the others. This, however,
has always been the case.[526] (Whether they greatly profited by such
exchanges is another question.) I cannot but agree with Semper's
often-reiterated theory, that textile art was a leading influence and
constant suggestion to _all_ art from the beginning. And the way that
ecclesiastical decoration was so led in the twelfth century is very
apparent. In the new art of stained mosaic glass in church windows we
see the reflex of the flat illuminations and embroideries of that
period; and while these were being influenced by metal-work, painting
was being transferred again to textile art, pictures being woven as
well as embroidered,[527] while textiles were seeking to emulate
reliefs in a forced and unnatural manner, more ingenious than
artistic.

While England in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries was exciting the
admiration of all European artists by the imitation of bas-reliefs in
needlework, by the arrangement of the light and shadows in the "lay"
of the stitches, and by a little help from the pressure of hot irons,
to accentuate its apparent indentations, a similar inroad into the
sister art of sculpture, or, perhaps, we should say a similar
adaptation from the sister art, was going on in Switzerland and
Germany, especially in Bavaria.

There was a clever and artistic mode of stuffing and raising of the
important parts of the embroidered design, such as the figures, the
coats-of-arms, or the emblems of the Passion, &c., in sacred subjects
in imitation of high-relief. There are some beautiful specimens that
have been evidently designed in the School of Cranach. I will only
mention the orphrey, of which the subject is the "Tree of Jesse,"
exhibited at Zurich, 1883, the chasuble at Coire in the Grisons, and
the little triptych in the museum of the Wasser-Kirche in Zurich. This
last is exquisitely pretty. The finest, however, is the altar-piece
belonging to Prince Borghese at Rome, which is certainly German in its
design.[528]

Beautiful as these few examples are, they yet show the mistake of
mixing different forms of art. The designs are reduced to a compromise
between painting, sculpture, and needlework, which excites interest
and perhaps amusement rather than admiration.

Glass painting, of whic