And yet from time to time attempts have been made on the one hand to give fresh life to old methods of work and schemes of decoration, on the other to develop the application of the material along new or previously little explored paths. Of what has been effected in Venice in the first of these directions something has already been said. In England, and we may add in Germany also (at Berlin, for instance, and at Ehrenfeld, near Cologne), these attempts have for the most part taken the direction of revivals, as when by the skilful use of the blowing-iron table-glass has been produced of graceful but rather fantastic outlines and with more or less reminiscence of Venetian prototypes. I need not dwell upon such efforts, as nothing in the way of a school has been founded. It is indeed noticeable that both in Germany and in England, in the case of the more expensive table-glass that we now see in the shop windows, the decoration, such as it is, has continued to be sought rather in processes of cutting and engraving on the old lines. Various fantastic methods of surface decoration have indeed found favour at times. An artificial iridescence has been given to the surface by certain chemical agencies—perhaps the most elaborate instance of such decoration may be found in the ‘favrile’ glass of Messrs. Tiffany, the well-known goldsmiths of New York. But as a rule, the facility with which the desired result may be obtained at little expense by means of modern chemical and mechanical processes has led, in the case of glass, to that want of reticence and restraint and to that habit of resting content with the _à peu près_—the passable imitation—that are characteristic of so much of the modern art productions that fill the show-cases of exhibitions. Somewhat greater interest may be found in certain applications of glass that have come to the front in France of recent years. Here at all events there is a public that takes some interest in the contemporary products of the decorative arts. In the yearly _Salons_, beside the pictures and the sculpture, these minor arts—jewellery, metal-work, fayence and glass—find a prominent place and a critical or enthusiastic public. It is, however, only within the last few years that objects of glass have taken an important place among these exhibits, and that this is so is above all due to two men who, with considerable artistic talents, combine great energy and both scientific and technical knowledge—these are Émile Gallé and Henri Cros.