The oldest and best glass in the church is in the east window above the altar depicting the Crucifixion. Made of pre-Reformation Flemish glass, probably between and , it was purchased for the church in The glass was removed during both world wars for safety. The west window was given by American donors in as a memorial to Sir Walter Raleigh , who is buried in the church.
Glass in the west window of the north aisle was the gift of an American donor commemorating poet John Milton in He was married in the church. Both windows are by Clayton and Bell. The west window of the south aisle, by Henry Holiday, commemorates Lord Frederick Cavendish, murdered in Ireland in Only the lower parts of the Lloyd window remain, depicting William Caxton at his printing press. Two smaller windows by this artist are in the vestry area. The other remaining north aisle window commemorates W.
In the north porch is a memorial window to Sir George Bartley who died in Over the south east porch is a window to Speaker of the House of Commons Edward Fitzroy unveiled in , replacing a war damaged window to William Caxton by Holiday. All the stained glass in the south aisle of the church was destroyed by blast during the Second World War.
The windows now in this aisle were designed by John Piper and executed by Patrick Reyntiens and dedicated in Stained glass of Westminster Abbey by Christine Reynolds, Westminster Abbey Chapter House …edited by W. Mortimer, see Chapter England — eastern apse windows , thesis by Emma Woolfrey, York, With the latter wave of destruction the traditional methods of working with stained glass died, and were not rediscovered in England until the early 19th century.
See Stained glass — British glass, — for more details. Many of the original cartoons still exist. The Resurrection , Paolo Uccello , —45 one of a series in the dome of Florence Cathedral designed by renowned Renaissance artists. The Passion of Christ: The Catholic revival in England, gaining force in the early 19th century with its renewed interest in the medieval church, brought a revival of church building in the Gothic style, claimed by John Ruskin to be "the true Catholic style".
The architectural movement was led by Augustus Welby Pugin. Many new churches were planted in large towns and many old churches were restored. This brought about a great demand for the revival of the art of stained glass window making. Among the earliest 19th-century English manufacturers and designers were William Warrington and John Hardman of Birmingham, whose nephew, John Hardman Powell, had a commercial eye and exhibited works at the Philadelphia Exhibition of , influencing stained glass in the United States of America.
Detail, Apostles John and Paul , Hardman of Birmingham , —67, typical of Hardman in its elegant arrangement of figures and purity of colour. One of England's largest windows, the east window of Lincoln Cathedral , Ward and Nixon , is a formal arrangement of small narrative scenes in roundels. This window has the bright pastel colour, wealth of inventive ornament, and stereotypical gestures of windows by this firm. A narrative window with elegant forms and colour which is both brilliant and subtle in its combinations.
In France there was a greater continuity of stained glass production than in England. In the early 19th century most stained glass was made of large panes that were extensively painted and fired, the designs often being copied directly from oil paintings by famous artists. In France many churches and cathedrals suffered despoliation during the French Revolution.
During the 19th century a great number of churches were restored by Viollet-le-Duc. Many of France's finest ancient windows were restored at that time. From onwards much stained glass was produced that very closely imitated medieval glass, both in the artwork and in the nature of the glass itself. Steiheil and painted by Coffetier for Viollet-le-Duc, St Louis administering Justice by Lobin in the painterly style. West window from Saint-Urbain, Troyes , about During the mid- to late 19th century, many of Germany's ancient buildings were restored, and some, such as Cologne Cathedral , were completed in the medieval style.
There was a great demand for stained glass. Original designs often imitate this style. Much 19th-century German glass has large sections of painted detail rather than outlines and details dependent on the lead. German stained glass found a market across Europe, in America and Australia.
Stained glass studios were also founded in Italy and Belgium at this time. In the Austrian Empire and later Austria-Hungary , one of the leading stained glass artists was Carl Geyling, who founded his studio in His son would continue the tradition as Carl Geyling's Erben , which still exists today. Carl Geyling's Erben completed numerous stained glass windows for major churches in Vienna and elsewhere, and received an Imperial and Royal Warrant of Appointment from emperor Franz Joseph I of Austria. Ghent Cathedral , Belgium.
Amongst its most important exponents in England was Christopher Whall , author of the classic craft manual 'Stained Glass Work' published London and New York, , who advocated the direct involvement of designers in the making of their windows. His masterpiece is the series of windows in the Lady Chapel at Gloucester Cathedral. In Ireland, a generation of young artists taught by Whall's pupil Alfred Child at Dublin's Metropolitan School of Art created a distinctive national school of stained glass: Art Nouveau or Belle Epoch stained glass design flourished in France, and Eastern Europe, where it can be identified by the use of curving, sinuous lines in the lead, and swirling motifs.
In France it is seen in the work of Francis Chigot of Limoges. In Britain it appears in the refined and formal leadlight designs of Charles Rennie Mackintosh. David's charge to Solomon shows the strongly linear design and use of flashed glass for which Burne-Jones' designs are famous. Trinity Church, Boston, US, Window by Alfons Mucha , Saint Vitus Cathedral Prague, has a montage of images, rather than a tightly organised visual structure, creating an Expressionistic effect. Notable American practitioners include John La Farge — , who invented opalescent glass and for which he received a U.
However, a reaction against the aesthetics and technique of opalescent windows - led initially by architects such as Ralph Adams Cram - led to a rediscovery of traditional stained glass in the early s. Gordon Guthrie of New York. Many of the distinctive types of glass invented by Tiffany are demonstrated within this single small panel including " fracture-streamer glass " and " drapery glass ". Symmetrical design, "Aesthetic Style", a limited palette and extensive use of mottled glass.
This panel window has brilliant red, orange, and yellow etched glass for the sunrise, with textured glass used to create the effect of moving water. A trompe l'oeil glass c. Many 19th-century firms failed early in the 20th century as the Gothic movement was superseded by newer styles. At the same time there were also some interesting developments where stained glass artists took studios in shared facilities. A revival occurred in the middle of the century because of a desire to restore thousands of church windows throughout Europe destroyed as a result of World War II bombing.
German artists led the way. Much work of the period is mundane and often was not made by its designers, but industrially produced. Other artists sought to transform an ancient art form into a contemporary one, sometimes using traditional techniques while exploiting the medium of glass in innovative ways and in combination with different materials. The use of slab glass, a technique known as Dalle de Verre , where the glass is set in concrete or epoxy resin, was a 20th-century innovation credited to Jean Gaudin and brought to the UK by Pierre Fourmaintraux.
Gemmail , a technique developed by the French artist Jean Crotti in and perfected in the s, is a type of stained glass where adjacent pieces of glass are overlapped without using lead cames to join the pieces, allowing for greater diversity and subtlety of colour. Among the early well-known 20th-century artists who experimented with stained glass as an Abstract art form were Theo van Doesburg and Piet Mondrian. In the s and s the Expressionist painter Marc Chagall produced designs for many stained glass windows that are intensely coloured and crammed with symbolic details.
The west windows of England's Manchester Cathedral , by Tony Hollaway , are some of the most notable examples of symbolic work. Trends included the abandonment of figurative designs and of painting on glass in favour of a mix of biomorphic and rigorously geometric abstraction and the calligraphic non-functional use of leads. In the s young British stained-glass artists such as Brian Clarke were influenced by the large scale and abstraction in German twentieth-century glass.
In the UK, the professional organisation for stained glass artists has been the British Society of Master Glass Painters, founded in It continues to be Britain's only organisation devoted exclusively to the art and craft of stained glass. From the outset, its chief objectives have been to promote and encourage high standards in stained glass painting and staining, to act as a locus for the exchange of information and ideas within the stained glass craft and to preserve the invaluable stained glass heritage of Britain.
Stained Glass | Westminster Abbey
Back issues of The Journal of Stained Glass are listed and there is a searchable index for stained glass articles, an invaluable resource for stained glass researchers. After the First World War, stained glass window memorials were a popular choice among wealthier families, examples can be found in churches across the UK. In the United States, there is a year-old trade organization, The Stained Glass Association of America, whose purpose is to function as a publicly recognized organization to assure survival of the craft by offering guidelines, instruction and training to craftspersons.
The SGAA also sees its role as defending and protecting its craft against regulations that might restrict its freedom as an architectural art form. The current president is Kathy Bernard. Today there are academic establishments that teach the traditional skills. De Stijl abstraction by Theo van Doesburg , Netherlands Midth-century window showing a continuation of ancient and 19th-century methods applied to a modern historical subject.
Figurative design using the lead lines and minimal glass paint in the 13th-century manner combined with the texture of Cathedral glass , Ins, Switzerland. St Michael and the Devil at the church of St Michael Paternoster Row, by English artist John Hayward combines traditional methods with a distinctive use of shard-like sections of glass.
Stained glass windows were commonly used in churches for decorative and informative purposes. Many windows are donated to churches by members of the congregation as memorials of loved ones. For more information on the use of stained glass to depict religious subjects, see Poor Man's Bible. In addition to Christian churches, stained glass windows have been incorporated into Jewish temple architecture for centuries. Jewish communities in the United States saw this emergence in midth century, with such notable examples as the sanctuary depiction of the Ten Commandments in New York's Congregation Anshi Chesed.
From the midth century to the present, stained glass windows have been a ubiquitous feature of American synagogue architecture. Styles and themes for synagogue stained glass artwork are as diverse as their church counterparts. As with churches, synagogue stained glass windows are often dedicated by member families in exchange for major financial contributions to the institution. The dazzling display of medieval glass at Sainte-Chapelle , Paris. Sunlight shining through stained glass onto coloured carpet of Nasir ol Molk Mosque. Andrew's Cathedral, Sydney has a cycle of 19th-century windows by Hardman of Birmingham.
John the Baptist in Savannah, Georgia. Coventry Cathedral England, has a series of windows by different designers. Stained glass windows in houses were particularly popular in the Victorian era and many domestic examples survive. In their simplest form they typically depict birds and flowers in small panels, often surrounded with machine-made cathedral glass which, despite what the name suggests, is pale-coloured and textured. Some large homes have splendid examples of secular pictorial glass. Many small houses of the 19th and early 20th centuries have leadlight windows.
Shabaka stained glass at the Palace of Shaki Khans. Stained glass has often been used as a decorative element in public buildings, initially in places of learning, government or justice but increasingly in other public and commercial places such as banks, retailers and railway stations. Public houses in some countries make extensive use of stained glass and leaded lights to create a comfortable atmosphere and retain privacy.
Windows of the Hungarian Room, University of Pittsburgh. Chalour , Eight foot tower composed of seven thousand pieces of stained and plate glass by Henry Richardson. English and French medieval stained glass in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
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From the mosaicist came the conception of composing monumental images out of many separate pieces of coloured glass. From the enamellers must also have come the near-black vitreous enamel made from rust powder and ground glass that was mixed with a mild water-based glue to form a paint. This could be used to render more or less opaquely onto glass the details of figures, ornaments, and inscriptions. The technique of making stained-glass windows is first described in the Schedula diversarum artium , a compendium of craft information probably written between and by the monk Theophilus tentatively identified as the 12th-century goldsmith Rugerus of Helmarshausen.
First, a full-sized cartoon, or line drawing, of the window was painted directly onto the top of a whitewashed table , showing the division of the various colour areas into individual pieces of glass.
Tudor glass
Next, sheets of glass of the appropriate colours were selected and from these pieces were cut, or, more accurately, cracked away with a red hot iron. By applying the hot iron to the edge of the sheet it was possible to start a crack that could then be guided more or less in the direction in which the iron was moved, thus enabling the glazier to break away from the sheet of glass a piece of approximately the right shape and size.
When all of the pieces were thus accurately cut to shape, with due allowance between pieces for the leads that would join them together, the details of the design were painted onto the glass wherever necessary with vitreous enamel. The pieces were then placed in a kiln and fired at a temperature just hot enough to fuse the enamel to the glass.
This done, the windows were ready for assembly with grooved strips of lead that look in cross section like the letter H. The glazier would begin by butting together on his workbench two long strips of lead, to form a corner of the panel. He would then set the corner piece of glass in place between these two leads and cut another strip of lead just long enough to surround the rest of the piece.
Against this lead he would then be able to set the next piece of glass, and so on across the panel, until it was completely assembled on the glazing bench. The joints between the leads were then soldered, the panel was waterproofed by rubbing a putty compound under the leads, and it was ready for installation. Because of the flexibility of the leading it was found necessary to divide all but the very smallest windows into a series of separate leaded panels and to insert iron framing members, or armatures, between the panels.
In the earliest single-figure lancet windows, such as the Prophets in Augsburg Cathedral, the divisions tend to be purely functional. Very soon, however, more ambitious windows became much too large to be handled in this manner. Whereas the Augsburg Prophets measure only about 12 square feet 1. A much more elaborate system of subdivisions in the window opening, consisting of vertical as well as horizontal members, was developed.
These systems of supports often formed a geometric pattern that was incorporated in the overall design of the window. In fact, it was the ingenious conversion of this structural necessity into a positive design element that set the stage for the creation of the medallion windows of the great Gothic cathedrals.
By utilizing these armatures to delineate the principal ornamental subdivisions of the windows, as in the Chartres Good Samaritan , the glass painters were able to fuse a complex didactic imagery and an austere architecture into one of the most compelling artistic unities of Western art. At the same time, particularly in the upper levels of a church, stone mullions began to be employed for the same purpose.
The most spectacular examples are the great rose windows , in which masonry is so literally dissolved into fenestration, and the individual window opening so completely absorbed into the overall pattern, as to defy any meaningful distinction between window and wall. This perfect fusion of image, ornament, and structure, with each deriving strengths from the others that none would ever have alone, was one of the most significant turning points in the history of stained glass.
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From this point on the relation between stained glass and architecture begins to decline. The aims, techniques, and achievements of the stained-glass artist begin to resemble those of the fresco and easel painters, and it is by the standards applicable to the latter that the stained glass of the 14th, 15th, and 16th centuries must be judged.
Glass in a range of previously unavailable secondary colours—smoky ambers, moss greens, and violet—becomes generally available for the first time. The technique of staining glass yellow by painting it with silver salts is discovered. The glass painters also begin to develop a number of techniques for shading or modelling forms with vitreous enamel by applying translucent matts of halftone to the whole surface of the window and delicately brushing it away where highlights are desired.
Darker shading is sometimes reinforced by painting on the outer as well as the inner surface of the glass. The uses of line also become increasingly refined and versatile, especially in the 15th century. To these refinements of the craft was added one wholly new technique, the abrasion of flashed glass. Ruby glass , whose unique composition made this technique possible, was a laminated glass, although it appears to be coloured intrinsically throughout like all of the other glass in the early windows.
Because the metallic agent used to produce its colour was so dense, all but the thinnest films of ruby were opaque. To these colours could now also be added the silver salts stain in tones of yellow ranging from the palest canary tint to a deep fiery amber, depending on how heavily the stain was applied and how thoroughly it was fired. The whole gamut of more or less translucent tonalities that could be created with vitreous enamel were also used.
Medieval stained glass
The technique of grinding flashed glass was first practiced in the late 13th and early 14th centuries; one of the earliest extant examples is in the church at Mussy-sur-Seine in France , where the windows have a blue groundwork covered all over, or diapered, with ruby roses with white centres, each rose being a single piece of glass. This type of work, however, was not common until the 15th and 16th centuries.
At the end of the 15th century a whole new range of vitreous enamels was developed, and by the middle of the 16th century the technique of painting in enamel colours on glass began to be of major importance. In this method, granulated coloured glass of the desired colour is mixed with a flux of clear ground glass and fired onto the surface of the glass. Enamel painting was not altogether successful either technically or aesthetically, since the colours thus created were translucent rather than transparent, generally pallid, and of uncertain durability. Political disturbances in the midth century created a scarcity of coloured glass throughout Europe, and gradually the traditional use of coloured glass was replaced by the new technique.
Between the 16th and 20th centuries the developments in the craft of making stained-glass windows were purely utilitarian.