The Language of Stained Glass : Modern American glass studios are discussed, and the symbolism of colors used in stained glass windows. Vitrum : Explore a detailed history of stained glass making and read some interesting stories about its origin.
Close Menu. Home Video Search Menu. The History of Stained Glass Windows. Origins The origins of stained glass are not certain, but ancient Egyptians were probably the first people to discover glass while making their vessels; the oldest examples of man-made glass are Egyptian colored glass beads from around BC.
How Stained Glass Windows Were Made To make stained glass, artisans mixed potash and sand to degrees Fahrenheit and added various metallic oxide powders to create different colors.
Medieval History The stained glass windows that are familiar today did not come about until the 10 th century, with the construction of Gothic cathedrals. Renaissance The primary subjects of Renaissance windows were still Biblical, but they are dressed in Renaissance style clothing. The Decline of Stained Glass Windows Between the Renaissance and the mid th century stained glass windows fell from favor.
For more information on stained glass windows, please consult these links: Introductory History of Stained Glass : The history of stained glass during the Roman, Gothic, and Renaissance periods is given here. Wood Windows and Doors Additional Window Options Home Services wood windows replacement wood french doors wood sliding windows single hung wood windows vinyl or aluminum windows modern aluminum windows replacement vinyl windows milgard aluminum windows installing replacement vinyl windows tint home windows obscure glass milgard windows pricing HERO Program Windows By American Vision Windows Posted on October 2, Which service s are you interested in?
What is the best way to reach you? How did you hear about us? Is it OK for us to email you information? Recent Posts. Various studios fabricated his windows, most often John Hardman of Birmingham.
At the time, the revival Oxford Movement within the Church of England aimed at restoring high church ideals. This was evidenced by increased elaboration of both worship services and the church buildings in which the liturgy was conducted. Demand for stained glass quickly increased. The Cambridge Camden Society published a magazine, The Ecclesiologist, which circulated Gothic architectural principles.
Stained glass again contained flat decorative designs and lead lines that outlined and separated colors. Important studios and craftsmen were Thomas Willement, J. Twenty-five English firms showed stained glass at the great Crystal Palace Exhibition in It is sometimes difficult to trace the studios that made the windows of this period. Parish records tell the donors more readily than the makers. Other notable studios begun in this period include Burlington and Grylls, ; Clayton and Bell, ; Gibbs, founded , stained glass production started ; Heaton, Butler and Bayne, ; Lavers, Barraud and Westlake, ; Shrigley and Hunt, ; James Powell and Sons, makers of glass since the 17th century, began production of stained glass ; Ward and Nixon, later Ward and Hughes, William Warrington started a stained glass business in , but went out of business in The others continued well into the 20th century.
Many of these English studios still in business during World War II lost their archives either as a result of bombing or because they gave them up for pulp to make new paper. English magazines record that some firms had employed over men. They may have done other decorating work in addition to stained glass. Their work is still treasured today.
Some of its characteristics are flat treatment even in scenic windows, greenish white flesh, delicate painting, quarried backgrounds with a decorative silver stained motif in each pane, graceful architectural framing canopy or borders and liberal use of silver stain. A change in the philosophical climate was taking place in England and the world.
In , F. John Ruskin taught an evening course in drawing and design, and encouraged others to teach there also. When he was young, Ruskin often visited a friend, Charles Milnes Gaskell, who lived in a medieval priory. This probably awakened his admiration for medieval art and architecture. Ruskin so loved the priory that he supposed the workmen who created it had been happy. William Morris and Edward Burne-Jones went to Oxford in intending to become clergymen, but as the impetus of the Oxford Movement was then diminishing, they took up art.
Ruskin and Morris would influence arts and crafts movements world wide. Characteristically, he felt he could not portray knights in armor unless he had experienced the feeling of wearing armor; he had a helmet and a suit of mail made to his own design by a surprised Oxford blacksmith.
To the delight of his friends he insisted on wearing the suit to a dinner party and succeeded in getting his head stuck in the helmet. Morris soon realized his talent was not as a fine arts painter. The firm of Morris, Marshall and Faulkner was founded in because Morris could not find appropriate furnishings for the new home just built for him by Philip Webb.
While the firm was a decorating company, stained glass was prominent from the first. Burne-Jones and Ford Madox Brown had some previous experience designing for stained glass, but at first, the group knew little about fabricating. Their first designs were produced as a joint effort. Burne-Jones was a master of line and composition. The glaziers put the lead lines in the cartoons. Ultimately, they employed over a dozen craftsmen who also did decorating work. Their wives and sisters were pressed into helping, especially painting tiles and executing embroidery.
Burne-Jones and Webb stayed on. He accomplished a number of paintings as well as his work for the company. Evidence in their account books derived from payments made to photographers indicates that they began to use photographic enlargements of small sketches and repeated the same designs over and over.
Morris died in and Burne-Jones in The company continued under John Henry Dearle, who had worked with Burne-Jones for many years as chief designer. Morris and Burne-Jones were so opposed to copying medieval styles that they would not accept any commissions supplying windows for old churches.
Although most of their stained glass was done for churches, they also did secular installations since they provided complete decorating schemes. Favorite secular subjects were illustrations of medieval romances and ladies personifying virtues, the seasons and the arts, especially music. Ford Madox Brown designed a series of accurate historical portrait figures for Peterhouse, Cambridge University.
Many stained glass artists were influenced by William Morris and Edward Burne-Jones, including Henry Holiday, at first exclusively a designer, he set up his own studio in ; Charles Eamer Kempe, who set up a studio in ; and Christopher W. Whall, who founded a studio in Scotland also occupies a conspicuous role in the Gothic revival. Its style was different from the English. It was centered in Glasgow, which retains a greater proportion of its nineteenth century church and domestic glass than any other city in the British Isles.
Ballantine and Allen founded their firm in Ballantine learned the trade in England. Francis Wilson Oliphant designed for Wailes and fabricated for Pugin. Kier copied the Munich style. Daniel Cottier was born in Glasgow and apprenticed to Kier in the s. He went to London and enrolled in F.
He returned to Scotland as a designer for Field and Allan of Leith. He set up his own studio for decorating in In , Cottier moved from Edinburgh to Glasgow. In , he moved to London to open a branch, leaving his assistant, Andrew Wells in Scotland. He founded Australian and American branches in and imported and dealt in French and Dutch art and furniture.
Guthrie founded a decorating studio in which grew to prominence after Wells moved to Australia for Cottier, leaving them its work. They employed C. The Glasgow School of Art became an important factor in the cultural life of the city. When Fra Newberry became its director in , he introduced decorative arts to supplement the conventional easel painting.
Mackintosh attended the school from He was influenced by the Pre-Raphaelites and the Japanese, but is not thought to have been very dependent on any outside influences. Mackintosh was an architect, but made himself responsible for the decoration of his buildings. His windows were in abstract patterns. His designs were published, and influenced the Vienna Secession school of art nouveau. Charles E. In this was supplanted by the invention of acid etching, developed from the chemical isolation of fluoride in He was a heraldic painter from Dublin who moved to London in to study with Willement.
He returned to set up his own studio in Dublin and moved in to Bristol, then in , to London. Martyn, who had founded the Palestrina Choir and the Abbey Theatre of Dublin, was interested in starting an Irish school of stained glass.
Whall was not able to stay continuously supervising the work in Ireland, so in , he sent his chief assistant A. Child and two glaziers. Child and Sarah Purser, a portrait painter who had become interested in the project, then set up a stained glass department in the Dublin Metropolitan School of Art.
The students helped in the execution of the Loughrea windows. When Clarke was young, Irish stained glass was poor and usually ordered from pattern books. When A. He won a traveling scholarship and visited French cathedrals. He is also well known for his book illustrations. There is nothing else like them. Considering that Clarke died of tuberculosis at the age of 42, he accomplished a large body of work, mostly based on themes from Irish literature.
The art of stained glass died out more completely in France and Germany than in England. Dihl, who came from England. Guillaume Brice researched early methods. The chemist, Alexandre Brogniart, director of manufacture at Sevres, conducted much research to discover medieval techniques.
From to Brogniart, with the patronage of King Louis Philippe, produced windows for the royal chapel at Dreux. They are painted with enamels on sheets of glass so large that firing them must certainly have been difficult. Artists Ingres and Delacroix, supplied the designs for the figures, and the surroundings were by Viollet-le-Duc. Viollet-le-Duc worked all his life to restore historic buildings such as the Chateau de Pierrefonds, the walled city of Carcassonne, and the Cathedral of Notre Dame in Paris.
He was interested in all periods, but the medieval was scorned at the time, and he felt he had to save it. He thought of it as the French national style. Though his restoration methods are considered inapporpriate today, had he not acted many treasures would have been lost.
Unlike other architects of his day, Viollet-le-Duc had practical skills as well as theoretical knowledge. In spite of the interest of the king, the methods used at Dreux did not survive the increasing knowledge of medieval techniques; that is, glass colored in the pot, painted with metallic oxide, fired and joined with lead. This signaled great restoration activity in Europe by methods that are condemned today. However, they were undertaken after much study. Full sized tracings were made of the windows before they were removed.
During the work, architects, master glass painters and archaeologists made inspections in the studio. They treated corroded and blackened glass with hydrofluoric acid and scraped with metal blades.
This was the best they knew, and they did not hesitate to replace panels they considered beyond repair. In , Adolphe Didron Sr. Ancient windows influenced the style of the new. There was a wide use of medieval motifs during this time. This style consisted of a single composition extending over several lancets designed in a more realistic, less decorative style.
They thought of themselves as following Albrecht Durer, who had traveled to Rome to study, and as being influenced by Raphael and Perugino. They were called The Nazarenes, first in mockery, but later with grudging admiration. They influenced the English Pre-Raphaelites, led austere lives and produced art with religious subjects, not all of it too facile. Best known of the group are J. Overbeck and Schnorr von Carolsfeld. Reproductions of their works were circulated throughout Europe.
The art of the Nazarenes was readily adaptable to stained glass because they used flat colors and bold outlines. They influenced stained glass even though they did not work in the medium. Further German influences include Michael Sigismund Frank, who did his first glass painting in , became the first manager of the Royal Bavarian Glass Painting Studio in ; and Max Ainmiller of Munich supplied some windows for Peterhouse in Cambridge University in Franz Mayer founded a studio in Munich, which at first, produced sculpture and marble altars.
In , the studio began making stained glass. The studio restored medieval windows and executed new windows all over the world. It is impossible to estimate the quantity and quality of the windows they sent into the United States. They are famous for heroic sized picture windows, extremely representational, with all the saints unmistakably German, that is, fair skinned, robust and hearty figures. Still in business, they now fabricate for free-lance designers. Francis Xavier Zettler ran the Royal Bavarian studio from Zettler was a recognized master who is held in high regard today, yet little has been written in English of him.
The Oidtmann studios for glass and mosaic were founded in by a medical doctor and student of chemistry, Dr. Working with glass slides inspired him to study stained glass. He founded a small studio as a sideline, but it soon grew into a major enterprise with employees. At his death, his son Heinrich II, also a medical doctor and stained glass scholar, took over the stained glass studio.
He wrote the book: Rhenish Stained Glass from the 12th to the 16th Centuries. He, too, died in his 50s, leaving the completion of his second volume to his son, Heinrich Oidtmann III. When Heinrich III died at the age of 40, his wife continued the studio.
It was organized under the patronage of Prince Albert to show off the products of the Industrial Revolution. The increasing wealth of the middle class and their increasing mobility, due to railroads, induced the crowds to come. The poor artistic quality of the machine-made goods displayed inspired the Arts and Crafts Movement and its desire to restore handcrafted quality and good design.
In in London, Japan participated for the first time in a World Exhibition. The western world first saw the Japanese art and handcrafts, which were to become extremely popular by In , Tiffany glass was first seen in Paris when S. Siegfried Bing first exhibited oriental arts and ceramics. Bing was a key figure in the history of decorative arts. Most of this group belonged to the Nabis prophets whose credo was to use flat areas of bold color heavily outlined in reaction to impressionism.
The principal characteristic of the Art Nouveau style is its sinuous line. The principal subject is nature, whether stylized or realistic. The style varies somewhat from country to country. For example, the English did not use much opalescent glass and backgrounds are often light quarries with a silver stained motif in each; their domestic windows are similar to romantic book illustrations.
German windows, on the other hand, show more heraldry, landscapes with castles, hunting and tavern scenes. The sinuosity is prevalent in the Belgian and French decorative windows. Executed by Felix Gaudin in , it resembled the ladies on magazine covers and posters. This is also the era of the large dome and skylight made possible by engineering developments. Artists of most countries used some opalescent glass, although drapery glass and plating several layers were generally carried farthest in America.
Enamel painting was generally used, not always successfully. German windows of the period show an artistic use of many mechanical glasses. The windows contain many molded and cut jewels and can be considered a precursor of faceted glass. Synthetic materials such as neon, Plexiglas, polyester, resin and plastics began to appear. John La Farge is known as the inventor of the opalescent stained glass window and is the father of the American mural movement in the late nineteenth century.
He was regarded as the premier American muralist of his time and an eloquent art critic. La Farge became fascinated with the suggestion of highlights and shadows in irregularly made opalescent glass and how the glass muted bright light and created complimentary tones to adjacent colors.
He was intrigued by the potential to render realistic subjects relying on the effects within the glass rather than by painting on glass. Tiffany quickly began the production of pressed glass tiles. Tiffany filed a similar patent in Their glass experiments resulted in opalescent glass with multiple colors mixed in the same sheet.
Several glass houses also made great varieties of pressed glass jewels. In , Kokomo Opalescent Glass Company began production; in , they won a gold medal at the Paris World Exposition for their multi-colored window glass. La Farge also experimented with molding opalescent glass to depict distinct subjects. A non-representational window for his apartment and the Eggplant window for the George Kemp residence in New York City used the irregularities in the material to suggest organic subjects, anticipating naturalistic approaches to Art Nouveau design.
In the early s, there was a small group of artists who worked with La Farge and Tiffany who were also attracted to the medium of opalescent glass windows. Armstrong, Tillinghast, Wright and Calvin continued careers as full-time glass artists. Her window was a fantastic vision of angels ascending a ladder within billowing clouds of multi-colored opalescent glass. Dawn at the Edge of Night and Autumn are works of stunning richness of color and detailed craftsmanship.
Armstrong created an Aesthetic style tour-de-force in his windows at St. These windows are a joyful kaleidoscope of styles and opalescent materials available in the mids. Two spectacular engineering accomplishments were the stained glass dome in the Library of Congress by Herman Schladermundt and the Appellate Court Building in Manhattan, by Maitland Armstrong.
Persons of skill and taste designed opalescent windows in many areas of the country, including Donald McDonald and Frederick Crowinshield in Boston and J. Horace Rudy of Philadelphia.
The oldest existing studio in the country, the J. Lamb Studio, created a beautiful series of American historic scenes for the Plymouth Church, Brooklyn. The largest studio from those times is still the best known today: the Tiffany Glass Company, which employed hundreds of people and produced thousands of windows.
The company relied on a department of artists to design the windows. Artists Edward Sperry, J. Holzerm Agnes Northrop and Frederick Wilson were longtime employees of the studio. Wilson was the most prominent, designing strong, majestic figures such as in the Ivanhoe window.
Wilson moved to Los Angeles in the early s and designed painted Gothic windows. Northrop stayed with the firm for almost its entire existence, specializing in richly detailed landscape windows. Clara Driscoll designed many of the most popular lampshades, including the Dragonfly. The architecture called for decorative leaded windows to compliment the churches. Anne and the Holy Trinity, that were discussed earlier. Gothic was the preferred church style in America from the late s until the War Between the States; the stained glass trade gained a foothold during those years.
Like the Classical, the Gothic style never disappears, but reemerges in popularity from time to time. The early twentieth century was a very rich period for American Gothic stained glass. William Willet laid the foundation for a new twentieth century revival when he founded his studio in Philadelphia in He designed windows of painted, richly colored antique glass with his figures reflecting a full-figured Renaissance influence that was the taste of the times.
His wife, Anne Lee Willet, who ran the studio for a time after his death, assisted him in his work. His son, Henry Willet, was also a Gothic revivalist, but his preference was for small, jewel-like, early French windows. The most prominent spokesman for the Gothic Revival was Charles J. He lectured widely and wrote Adventures in Light and Color, the most respected and eloquent publication on the art form in the twentieth century.
Connick founded his Boston-based studio in Joseph G. Reynolds worked with Connick before founding Reynolds, Francis and Rohnstock in Wilbur H. Burnham began work in and had his own studio by All these Boston studios designed windows to serve the architecture. Henry Wynd Young and J. Gordon Guthrie were New York artists whose windows feature elongated, graceful figures who exhibited more painterly character. Studios all over the country were attracted to Gothic designs.
Several of the more notable were Emil Frei in St. Louis, R. Otto Heinigke was typical of these. A first generation American, unable to make a living at fine art painting, he went to work for John Riordan whose studio was successfully competing with Munich painted windows.
Then, in , he founded a studio with Owen J. Bowen had formerly worked for both Tiffany and La Farge. A visit to the cathedrals of Europe inspired Heinigke with a love for medieval stained glass.
Connick had apprenticed in the studio of the Rudy Brothers in Pittsburgh where he worked on opalescent glass. We are extremely pleased with the results. Some of our windows were not straightforward but Scott and his team took extra care to make sure internally and externally they looked right.
All the contractors used were professional and there work was of a high standard. We would definitely recommend Grassmoor Glass the whole team are helpful and really easy to work with.
I've used the company myself twice. Now just had them sort my dads house out. Very professional and understanding to individual needs. I will continue to recommend them. Excellent service had new patio doors and back door fitted took old doors and windows away with them. The young men who did the fitting were a credit to the company and cleared away every bit of mess they had made. Recently had a new composite door fitted,very happy with the door and the service was great too.
Thankyou grassmoor glass. Great experience from the start, accommodating throughout every stage. Fitters were professional and the level of quality was great. I will and have recommended to family and friends. Nice to see a family run business. They handled each job I've given them with care and shown a positively good way to do things. Did exactly what I asked first time. The guy that came out to install the windows and doors was so professional and careful with his work.
My garage conversation was done exactly to plan and very professionally done as the team dovetailed with other contractors. When I phoned I was dealt with efficiently. The small job was done well and effectively.
I would use them again. Early days Stained glass has been used for thousands of years, beginning with the Ancient Romans and Egyptians, who produced small objects made from coloured glass. Medieval glass Stained glass exploded in popularity during the middle ages, and by the 12th century, the practice had become much more sophisticated.
Renaissance Stained glass continued to be very popular throughout Europe, and the style moved away from the Gothic of the middle ages into something more classical. Modern glass The 20th century saw the development of new stained glass techniques, including Gemmail, a method developed by French artist Jean Crotti which overlaps pieces of stained glass without using lead.
Analysing and considering the main advantages of installing uPVC windows or doors to replace your traditional installations. The Best Time for a Conservatory is Now! Why before winter is the best time to look into getting a conservatory, and the various styles Grassmoor Glass offer to suit your every need. The bold lines and strong figures of Gothic styles stained glass eventually phased out and stained glass windows evolved into something more like a painting on glass than an architectural element.
Until the sixteenth century, stained glass was a primarily a Catholic art form and much of the precious art form was destroyed during the 's by order of King Henry VIII after his break with the Church. Beside religious unrest, the decline of stained glass was caused during the Baroque period when the use of more clear glass was required in the arcitecture because the fashion leaned toward more intricately detailed interiors and elaborate wall painting.
During the late seventeenth century the artisans returned to Gothic style architecture which emerged a new found interest in stained glass. The openings for the new windows were truly Gothic, but the art of the windows was a combination of the old and the new.
0コメント