stained glass

—stained-glass, adj.

glass that has been colored, enameled, painted, or stained, esp. by having pigments baked onto its surface or by having various metallic oxides fused into it, as used in church windows, decorative lampshades, etc.

[1785-95]

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Coloured glass used to make decorative windows and other objects through which light passes.

Stained glass is often made in large, richly detailed panels that are set together in a framework of lead. Like all coloured glass, it acquires its colour by the addition of metallic oxides to molten glass. A purely Western phenomenon, stained glass originated as a fine art of the Christian church, beginning in the 12th–13th century, when it was combined with Gothic architecture to create brilliant, moving effects. A decline set in after the 13th century, when stained-glass artists began to seek the realistic effects sought by Renaissance painters, effects to which the technique was less suited and which diverted artists from exploiting the all-important light-refracting quality of glass. More recently, stained-glass artists have again achieved high quality: during the 19th-century Gothic revival, in the Art Nouveau designs of Louis Comfort Tiffany, and in the work of such 20th-century artists as Marc Chagall.

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Introduction

      in the arts, the coloured glass used for making decorative windows and other objects through which light passes. Strictly speaking, all coloured glass is “stained,” or coloured by the addition of various metallic oxides while it is in a molten state; nevertheless, the term stained glass has come to refer primarily to the glass employed in making ornamental or pictorial windows (window). The singular colour harmonies of the stained-glass window are due less to any special glass-colouring technique itself, however, than to the exploitation of certain properties of transmitted light and the light-adaptive behaviour of human vision. Rarely equalled and never surpassed, the great stained-glass windows of the 12th and early 13th centuries actually predate significant technical advances in the glassmaker's craft by more than half a century. And much as these advances undoubtedly contributed to the delicacy and refinement of the stained glass of the later Middle Ages, not only were they unable to arrest the decline of the art, they may rather have hastened it to the extent that they tempted the stained-glass artist to vie with the fresco and easel painter in the naturalistic rendition of his subjects.

      Neither painting on stained glass nor its assembly with grooved strips of leading is an indispensable feature of the art. Indeed, the leaded window may well have been preceded by windows employing wooden or other forms of assembly such as the cement tracery that has long been traditional in Islāmic architecture; and the single most important technical innovation in 20th-century stained glass, slab glass and concrete, is a variation on the earlier masonry technique.

Elements and principles of design

      Of all the painter's arts, stained glass is probably the most intractable. It is bound not only by the many light-modulating factors that affect its appearance but also by comparatively cumbersome, purely structural demands. And yet no other art seems so little earthbound, so alive, so intrinsically beguiling in its effect. This is because stained glass, far more directly and intensively than other media, exploits the interaction between two highly dynamic phenomena, the one physical and the other organic. The physical factor is light and all of the myriad changes in the general light level and the location and intensity of particular light sources that occur as a matter of course not only from moment to moment but from place to place—a prairie to a forest, a greenhouse to a dungeon. The other phenomenon is the spontaneous light-adaptive process of vision, which seeks to maintain orientation in all luminous environments.

       architecture, by determining the apparent brightness value of the light seen through its window openings, always establishes a definite scale of brightness values with which the stained-glass artist must work. Because the light that penetrated the interior of the 12th- and early 13th-century church took on a brilliance, even harshness, in contrast to the surrounding darkness, the artisans of the period logically composed their windows with a palette of deep, rich colours. When for doctrinal or economic reasons only clear glass could be used, it was decorated with a fine opaque mesh of grisaille, or monochromatically painted ornament, that effectively broke up and softened the light. Later, as the walls of the churches were opened up to admit more and more light, the difference between the interior and exterior light levels was no longer great enough to illuminate the dense, saturated rubies and blues of the earlier period. In the 14th and 15th centuries, generally higher keyed, drier, and more muted colour harmonies were developed. This reflected a growing preference for lighter, less awesome effects and an actual limitation that the architecture of the time imposed upon the medium of stained glass.

      The static elements of the glass and its architectural setting are modified by the element of change inherent in natural light. A seemingly endless spectrum of changes in the appearance of stained glass is a result of the changes in the intensity, disposition, atmospheric diffusion, and colour of natural daylight. The luminous life of stained glass, therefore, can best be observed by watching the organic effect of light on the window through the course of a day. If one were to enter the Cathedral of Chartres (Chartres Cathedral) just after sunrise on the morning of a clear day, it would be to the east windows, especially those in the clerestory, that his eyes would first be drawn. They alone will have come fully to life and all of the others will still seem to half-exist in a kind of hushed twilight. Gradually, as the sun rises in the sky, these windows will become more luminous. Then the east windows will begin to lose their earlier brilliance to those all along the south flank of the cathedral, which by midday will be fairly aglow from the direct rays of the sun. The light streaming through the south windows, however, will have raised the light level inside the north windows opposite them sufficiently to create a distinct, though by no means unpleasant, muting of the radiance of the latter. If the sun at this point disappears behind a cloud and the sky becomes generally overcast, the appearance of all of the windows is immediately and dramatically altered. Because the light, now diffused, comes more or less equally from all directions, the south windows will lose some of their earlier brilliance and vivacity and the north windows will recover theirs. The overall atmosphere of the cathedral is distinctly cooler and graver in its effect, and more than ever before one begins to become aware of absolute differences in the tonality of the various windows themselves. The grisaille windows in the east end of the cathedral, the highly keyed 15th-century window in the Vendôme Chapel in the south aisle of the nave, and the three 12th-century windows over the great west portal all stand out as being substantially more luminous than the rest. If, late in the afternoon, the sun reappears, the viewer is treated to an extraordinary spectacle as the blues in the west windows, by far the most intense in the cathedral, are further emblazoned by the direct rays of the sun. Should the main doors of the cathedral be opened, the direct rays of the late afternoon sun, streaming halfway down the nave of the cathedral, will cast a blinding pall over all the windows within their vicinity until the doors are closed once more. Then as the sky begins to redden with the setting sun, the intense 12th-century blues in the west windows lose their former intensity, and the warmer colours, especially the rubies, become so fiery and assertive that they seem almost to have displaced the blues as the predominant colour in the windows. Finally, when the sun is gone the whole cathedral is plunged once more into a deep twilight, which gradually diminishes until there is no light at all.

      Insofar as stained glass may be considered an art of painting, it must be considered an art of painting with light. Whatever techniques or materials it may employ, its own most unique and indispensable effects are always the product of colouring, refracting, obscuring, and fragmenting light.

Materials and techniques

      Contrary to popular belief, the glassmaker and the stained-glass artist could seldom have been the same person even in the earliest times; in fact, the two arts were rarely practiced at the same location. The glassmaking works was most readily set up at the edge of a forest, where the tremendous quantities of firewood, ash, and sand that were necessary for the making of glass could be found, whereas the stained-glass-window-making studios were normally set up near the major building sites. The stained-glass artist, thus, has always been dependent upon the glassmaker for his primary material. Coloured with metallic oxides while in a molten state—copper for ruby, cobalt for blue, manganese for purple, antimony for yellow, iron for green—sheets of medieval glass were produced by blowing a bubble of glass, manipulating it into a tubular shape, cutting away the ends to form a cylinder, slitting the cylinder lengthwise down one side, and flattening it into a sheet while the glass was still red hot and in a pliable state. It was then allowed to cool very slowly in a kiln so that it would be properly annealed and not too difficult to cut up into whatever shapes might be required for the design. Since these sheets of glass, with the exception of a type known as flashed glass, were intrinsically coloured with one basic colour throughout, changes from one colour to another in the design of a window could be effected only by introducing separate pieces of glass in each of the requisite colours.

      Whether by accident or by deliberate intent, the glass made in the 12th and 13th centuries had almost the ideal combination of crudity and refinement for stained glass. The sheets, 10 by 12 inches (25 by 30 centimetres) in size, were both flat enough and thin enough to be cut very accurately into the necessary shapes, yet still variable enough in thickness (from less than ¹/₈ inch [three millimetres] to as much as ⁵/₁₆ inch [eight millimetres]) to have rich transitions in the depth of their colours. With the progress of glass technology in the Middle Ages and Renaissance came the ability to produce larger, thinner, and flatter sheets of glass in a considerably larger range of colours than had been possible in the 13th century. At each distinguishable stage in this development, however, the glass became less visually interesting as an aesthetic element in its own right. The Gothic (Gothic Revival) Revivalists later recognized this effect, and in the mid-19th century they initiated a return to the earlier methods of producing glass. They developed the so-called “antique” glass, which is remarkably similar in colour, texture, and shading to the glass that was used in the 12th- and 13th-century windows. “Antique” glass remains the basic material used in stained-glass windows to this day.

Traditional techniques

      The art of stained glass is the translucent offspring of such earlier art forms as mosaic and enamelling. From the mosaicist came the conception of composing monumental images out of many separate pieces of coloured glass. Cloisonné enamelling (enamelwork) probably inspired not only the technique of binding these pieces together with metal strips but that for treating the strips themselves as a positive design element. 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 1110 and 1140 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. 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. This he would then further shape by “grozing,” or crumbling away bits of glass from its edges with a notched tool known as a grozing iron. 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 (1.1 square metres) in area, the Poitiers Cathedral “Crucifixion” window contains approximately 175 square feet (16.3 square metres) of stained glass, and the “Life of Christ” in Chartres contains more than 250 square feet (23.2 square metres). 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 (rose window), 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. 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 (fresco painting) and easel (easel painting) 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.

Developments in the 14th century

      The first significant developments in the glass painter's craft appear to have been made more or less simultaneously in the early years of the 14th century. 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 obtain sufficient translucency, either the glassmaker had to suspend striations of ruby in a clear glass, thereby creating the “streaky rubies” of the early 13th century, or the glass was “flashed”; that is, clear glass while still pliant was dipped into molten coloured glass, thus coating its surface with a thin film of colour. Detailed effects, unhindered by intricate leading, could then be achieved by grinding away portions of this coloured film, first on ruby glass and then on other colours deliberately “flashed” for this purpose. 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. Taken altogether, these techniques when used in combination represented a considerable liberation of stained glass from what was increasingly considered to be the “tyranny” of the lead line.

      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.

Later developments

      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 mid-17th 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. In the 16th century the diamond glass cutter was invented, and in the 18th century hydrofluoric acid was introduced as a means of etching flashed glass. In the 19th and 20th centuries, gas and electric kilns and soldering irons were used, as were plate-glass easels upon which stained-glass panels could be temporarily mounted for painting before they were leaded. The largest palette of glass—the widest range of colours, textures, and thicknesses that the art has ever known—was also developed in the 20th century. Contemporary technical innovations include the slab glass and concrete windows developed in France in about 1930, where glass set in concrete provides an alternative to leading. In the mid-20th century such experimental techniques as bonding glass to glass with transparent resin glues were developed. Measured purely by technical standards, contemporary stained glass has never been rivalled in its versatility as an instrument of artistic expression.

Subject matter

      In the Middle Ages ecclesiastical art was primarily didactic. The subjects painted in the windows played an important part in the expounding of the Scriptures and the glorification of the church and its saints.

      The iconographic (iconography) program of medieval stained-glass windows for ecclesiastical buildings is a product of several factors. To begin with, the cruciform plan of the churches themselves created four focal areas. Each area, by its architectural form and orientation to the sun, tended to elicit the development of certain subjects or types of subject. In Chartres, for example, the five central windows of the choir clerestory and the north rose window are consecrated to the Virgin, the south rose window to the glorification of Christ, and the west rose window to the Last Judgment. In Bourges Cathedral the huge figures of the Apostles in the south clerestory are paired off against the prophets in the north clerestory, the representatives of the New Testament thereby receiving the full light of the sun and their Old Testament counterparts the more crepuscular light of the north sky. The great rose windows, whose circular form is itself cosmological in its implications, are invariably devoted to cosmological themes: the Last Judgment, the Apocalypse, the cycle of the year as expressed in the signs of the zodiac, the glorification of Christ and of the Virgin as the rulers of heaven. On the other hand, one of the reasons that the theme of the Jesse tree remained popular throughout the Middle Ages was that it lent itself to such a rich variety of ornamental treatments. And finally there was the will of the donors of the windows, whose personal preferences determined the subjects of many excellent works that clearly cannot be related to any comprehensive iconographic program. Some idea of the scope of these medieval enterprises can be indicated by the fact that Chartres, by no means the largest of the cathedrals, contains more than 27,000 square feet (2,500 square metres) of stained glass, in 176 windows. Of the 64 windows on the lower level, all but a few are medallion windows, which contain anywhere from 20 to 30 or more separate pictorial compositions; and the three rose windows, each more than 40 feet (12 metres) in diameter, are vast composite creations. The work of at least nine separate master designers has been distinguished in the windows of the cathedral, which was completely glazed in less than 40 years, between about 1203 and 1240.

      It must be assumed that clerics supplied the master glazier with a program to which he had to conform. A 12th-century manuscript in the British Museum contains a series of circular drawings illustrating the life of St. Guthlac. These drawings might have been intended as a model for a glazier, but the scenes could equally well have been expressed in wall paintings, sculpture, or metalwork. There is more complete knowledge for the later Middle Ages. The glazier was given written instructions from which to prepare provisional sketches that were submitted for the patron's approval before being redrawn in actual size to form the final cartoon. The provisional sketch was known as a vidimus (literally, “we have seen”). One example of such written instructions is the program for a window given by Henry VII to the Grey Friars Church at Greenwich, England.

      There is ample evidence to show that by the 14th century it was the practice of glaziers to have a stock of finished cartoons, executed on parchment or paper, which could be adapted for different glazing schemes. That these cartoons were used and reused over a long period can be deduced from the will of a York glazier, who died in 1450, in which he bequeathed to his son all his cartoons.

      It is evident that in the later Middle Ages the master glazier's workshop was a highly organized enterprise, capable of producing various classes of designs, according to the expense his patrons were prepared to incur. Although the donor, cleric or layman, exercised considerable influence over the choice of subject and its manner of representation, the finished design was essentially the creation of the master glazier. The latter was often an artist in his own right, expressing in the formal language of his own technique the artistic aspirations of his time.

Robert W. Sowers

Periods and centres of activity

      The evolution of the stained-glass window was a slow process. Both texts and excavation testify to the existence of stained-glass windows before the 12th century, but the textual references are too brief and nontechnical to give any clear picture of how the art evolved. The writings of the Fathers of the Latin Church—Lactantius (c. AD 240–c. 320), Prudentius (AD 348–after 405), and St. Jerome (before 420)—mention coloured glass windows in the early Christian basilicas. The 5th-century poet Sidonius Apollinaris described glazed windows in Lyon, France. Pope Leo III (795–816) is recorded to have provided windows of different coloured glass for St. Paul's basilica at Rome. Glazed church windows were widespread in pre-Carolingian Europe in the the wealthiest establishments: the Cathedral of York in England was glazed as early as 669. On the site of the Abbey of Monkwearmouth in Sunderland, England, a number of pieces of window glass dating from the late 7th century were found. Coloured green, blue, amber, and red, the edges of several pieces were grozed, or cut for fitting into a window.

      In form these early medieval windows varied considerably: the actual window openings were at first filled with thin sheets of marble, alabaster, gypsum, or even wooden boards, which were pierced with holes, coloured glass being inserted into these holes. In addition to glass, other materials were used for the same purpose, thin strips of alabaster set in bronze frame being not uncommon. This form, called a “mosaic” window, persisted even in western Europe into the Romanesque period, and 11th-century examples are found in Italy in the Cathedral of Torcello near Venice and in the Church of S. Miniato at Florence.

      Leading was possibly used to hold together the pieces of glass in a window opening contemporaneously with the above early methods. Leading that may have been used in window glazing dating from the 4th century has been uncovered in excavations. The earliest example of a leaded window design was a small panel (destroyed in 1918) in the church at Séry-les-Mézières, northwest of Reims in France, probably of the 9th century. It appears certain that, as at Séry-les-Mézières, many of these early windows contained coloured glass arranged in comparatively simple decorative designs, with little use of the painted design.

      There is no documentary evidence even to suggest the existence of pictorial windows until the 9th century, when several rather vague references testify to the appearance of figures in German and French glass. In the 10th-century history of the Church of Saint-Remi at Reims, it is stated that the windows contained various stories.

      The fragments of what may be the earliest pictorial window extant were excavated at Lorsch in Germany. It was possible to reconstruct a head of Christ, which shows some stylistic affinity with Carolingian manuscript paintings and probably dates from the 9th, 10th, or 11th century. The earliest complete pictorial windows extant are those containing five figures of prophets in the Cathedral of Augsburg in Germany, belonging to the beginning of the 12th century.

      In Carolingian (Carolingian art) and early Romanesque (Romanesque art) architecture the window openings, partly for structural reasons, were small and few in number. Polychrome decoration was naturally concentrated on the large mural areas and the vaults rather than on the windows. The development of late Romanesque and Gothic architecture brought a new emphasis on fenestration and openness. It was then that pictorial windows of stained glass became a major art form and in northern Europe the most important single element in church decoration.

      Although the pictorial stained-glass window is normally regarded as the invention of and indigenous to western Europe, where its development can be followed with reasonable coherency from the beginning of the 12th century onward, there is still much that is obscure about its earlier evolution. The discovery in Istanbul of stained-glass windows, apparently deriving from a tradition independent of that in the West and datable to before 1136, adds to the complexity of the fragmentary evidence already cited.

12th century

      It is probable that many of the early stained-glass windows of the 12th century displayed a single monumental figure, like those depicted on the windows in the cathedrals of Augsburg and Canterbury or like the well-known Virgin and Child known as “La Belle Verrière” at Chartres. The most important feature of the 12th century, however, was the development of the narrative window, consisting of a series of medallions painted with pictorial subjects. This type of window was, so far as is known, first used extensively between 1140 and 1144 at the Abbey of Saint-Denis near Paris. A secondary but significant development of the second half of the century was the use of allover decorative patterns, or diapers, on the groundwork adjacent to the figures. This design device was probably more common at first in Germany than elsewhere, and an early example is in the Jesse tree window (c. 1170–80) at Frankfurt am Main, now in the city's Städelsches Kunstinstitut.

France

      By the 12th century the production of stained-glass windows in northern Europe was considerable, and regional schools begin to be discernible, especially in France, Germany, and England. In France a number of important regional schools of glass painting emerged, one of the earliest of which was in the west. The most important works of this group include the Ascension window (c. 1145) in Le Mans Cathedral and the Crucifixion window (c. 1165) in Poitiers Cathedral. In the northeastern region of Champagne appeared another quite distinct group, whose best work is found in the Redemption and St. Stephen windows (c. 1150–60) in the cathedral at Châlons-sur-Marne (Châlons-en-Champagne), together with the important later windows (c. 1190) at Saint-Remi in nearby Reims, whose stately figures indicate that Romanesque monumentality has already begun to be tempered by the less austere, less rigorously formal mode of the Gothic.

      The most important workshop in the Île-de-France region around Paris was connected with the rebuilding of the choir of the Abbey of Saint-Denis. Only fragments of these windows are left, but the three windows (c. 1150–55) of the west facade at Chartres are later products of the Saint-Denis workshop and are a summation of all that is most uniquely Romanesque in stained glass.

      The stylistic antecedents of these schools are difficult to pinpoint. The Saint-Denis-Chartres group has certain similarities to north French manuscript paintings that are not precisely dated, and the problem is further complicated by Abbot Suger's recording that the glaziers employed at Saint-Denis came from many different regions. The strongly Romanesque character of the Le Mans Ascension window, its general composition, and the particular stylization of drapery forms is similar to earlier manuscript paintings from western France. The Crucifixion window at Châlons-sur-Marne, on the other hand, has precedents in general arrangement in Ottonian manuscript painting and is also closely related in style and composition to the contemporary Mosan school of metalwork centred in the valley of the Meuse River. The similarities between the two are so marked that it is not impossible that the artist worked in both mediums.

Germany

      There is less 12th-century glass extant in Germany than in France. The outstanding example of German stained glass of the first half of the century is the series of five prophets (c. 1125) in the Cathedral of Augsburg. These hieratic figures have the monumentality of design, rigidly frontal and schematic, characteristic of Romanesque art. The bold use of ruby, green, yellow, and violet glass is completely alien to contemporary French developments. In the second half of the century, art in northern Europe generally, and perhaps more so in Germany, was influenced by Byzantine models. An example is the “Moses and the Burning Bush” window now in the Städelsches Kunstinstitut at Frankfurt am Main or the Magdalen (c. 1170) from the church at Weitensfeld, near Klagenfurt, in Austria.

England

      England has only fragmentary remains of 12th-century glass. The nave clerestory windows in York Minster contain some reused panels from a series of narrative windows, one of which depicted the life of St. Benedict (c. 1140–60). Another panel, a single figure of a king from a Jesse tree, shows some affinity in style with the glass at Saint-Denis and Chartres but is probably later in date (c. 1190). The outstanding survival from the end of the century is the splendid series of figures representing the descent of Christ from Adam, made for the choir clerestory windows (c. 1178–1200) of Canterbury Cathedral, which resemble the “Prophet” windows in Saint-Remi at Reims. Their features show a new humanism, and there is a sense of movement, even tension, in their bodies and draperies, comparable to contemporary English manuscript painting.

13th century

      A significant feature of the 13th century was the development of the grisaille window, composed largely of white glass, generally painted with foliage designs, and leaded into a more or less complicated geometric pattern. This type of design was employed partly as a means of introducing a larger amount of light and partly because it was considerably cheaper than coloured glass. The combination of grisaille glass and coloured subject medallions, or figures, however, disrupted the monumental overall unity, which is a feature of a window composed entirely of coloured glass, by allowing the penetration of pure light. This change had an important effect on style; the painted design became more linear and refined, the scale more broken and delicate. Although the combination of grisaille and medallions, or figures, is not unknown in the early part of the century, it is more common in the second half, particularly in France and England.

      The movement toward humanism, partly inspired by St. Francis of Assisi (Francis of Assisi, Saint) and his teaching, was accompanied by a related tendency toward naturalism discernible in the visual arts in the later 13th century. The conventional formalized foliage designs of the 12th and earlier 13th centuries gave place to more natural plant motifs of oak, vine, and maple, and these break out of the formal patterns and coil with a more organic natural movement.

France

      In France, where surviving material is most extensive, the various regional schools are mostly a natural development of their immediate predecessors. There is no radical change in style or technique during the first quarter of the century. In western France the severe Romanesque style was softened and refined, as seen in the Saint-Vital window (c. 1200) at Le Mans Cathedral, the Saint-Martin window (c. 1210) at the Cathedral of Angers, and the slightly later windows of Abraham, Lot, and Joseph at Poitiers Cathedral. Another distinct workshop, centred at Lyon and responsible (c. 1215–20) for the apse windows of Lyon Cathedral, is characterized by a strong Byzantine (Byzantine art) influence, particularly in iconography. An important workshop in Champagne had already produced in the late 12th century the clerestory windows of Saint-Remi at Reims (Reims Cathedral) that foreshadowed the mature Gothic style, while later works of this atelier can be found in the clerestory windows (c. 1235) of Reims Cathedral and the choir clerestory windows in the Cathedral of Troyes. In the Île-de-France and eastern France the situation is complicated by the almost complete loss of the later 12th-century works. The north rose window (c. 1200–05) of Laon Cathedral is stylistically related to the contemporary sculptures of the facade and to manuscript painting such as the Ingeborg Psalter (Musée Condé, Chantilly). The work of this atelier is extremely distinguished, with an elegance and purity of style and a knowledge of classical art that transcend most of its contemporaries. The rose window (1231–35) of Lausanne Cathedral in Switzerland was made by a wandering artist from Picardy, Peter of Arras, and is related in style and iconography to the Laon workshop.

      The most extensive glazing program of the first half of the century was at Chartres Cathedral, a tremendous enterprise that brought together various workshops from different regions. The stylistic interactions between the different workshops resulted, particularly in the second quarter of the century, in a more general similarity of style between the various regional workshops. Contemporary with Chartres are the windows (c. 1214–35) of the east end of Bourges Cathedral, while four windows (before 1225) at Sens Cathedral are related in composition and ornament to Chartres and Bourges and also have certain stylistic affinities with the contemporary windows at Canterbury Cathedral.

      Considerable activity was also centred in the Paris area during the second quarter of the century. The major monument of the period is the Sainte-Chapelle, which was built in Paris between 1243 and 1248. Forming what amounts to a continuous wall of 50-foot- (15-metre-) high stained glass around three sides of the chapel, it contains the most extensive narrative cycle ever produced in this medium, numbering 1,134 scenes in 15 windows. Stylistically these windows are closely related to Parisian court art of the same date, and their influence can be seen in the later windows at Le Mans Cathedral (about 1254–60) and in the Cathedral of Tours (1245/55–76).

England

      The only extensive remains of 13th-century glass in England are found at Canterbury Cathedral, where the 12 Theological windows were produced in about 1200 and the windows relating to St. Thomas Becket in about 1200–30. Lincoln Cathedral retains impressive fragments of a series of windows made between 1200 and 1220, but it is impossible fully to appreciate either of these series without making comparison with French work. There are important similarities between Canterbury and Sens, on the one hand, and probably between Lincoln and Paris, on the other. The glaziers, however, were probably English with a close acquaintance with French models.

Germanic countries

      Thirteenth-century stained glass in Germanic countries, however, was comparatively uninfluenced by French models. It is more turbulent in design, with agitated draperies, expressive faces, and a complicated ornamented character, particularly in the backgrounds. There were many distinct regional schools, among which Cologne was an important centre. The full-length figures of saints and the Legend of St. Kunibert window (c. 1220–30) in the Church of St. Kunibert at Cologne have elaborate geometrical frames around the figures and scenes that are without parallel in French art. These frames are a typical feature of German work; they occur again in later work of this school in the St. Nicholas window (c. 1240–50) at Büchen, west of Hamburg, and elsewhere. Another workshop, which produced the Jesse tree window (c. 1225) in the Cathedral of Freiburg im Breisgau, shows a marked affinity with the slightly earlier enamel and metalwork produced by Nicholas of Verdun and his circle (active 12th–13th century), while the remains of a group of windows (c. 1230) made for the Franciscan church at Erfurt constitute a particular group strongly indebted to Byzantine models. It appears that after the completion of the Erfurt windows, this workshop, or at least some of its members, went to Assisi in Italy and also to Gotland in Sweden. The most outstanding glass of the mid-century is a related series of windows in the cathedrals of Naumburg, Strasbourg, and Frankfurt. The Naumburg window of Holy Knights and Virgins can be contrasted with the delicate mannered style of Parisian court art.

      The earliest Italian examples of stained glass were the three windows executed by German craftsmen of the Erfurt school in the apse of the upper church at Assisi between 1230 and 1240. At the end of the 13th century, native designers and craftsmen produced windows. The oculus window (c. 1288) in the apse of Siena Cathedral has been attributed to Duccio di Buoninsegna (died 1318 or 1319), and the style of the painter Guido da Siena (active c. 1250–75) seems evident in the Madonna and Child panel of the Sanctuary of the Madonna della Grotta near Siena.

Early 14th century

      Stained glass of the first half of the 14th century is everywhere distinguished by an insouciant fairy tale quality and a languorous charm sometimes tinged with pathos. Regional differences, however, persisted—the gentle reserve and earthy lyricism of the English; the virtuoso painting and exquisite drolleries of the Norman-French; and the full green-, gold-, and russet-dominated palettes of the German windows. The full flowering of the Gothic style side by side with the beginnings of stylistic developments that were to culminate in the Renaissance characterized the aesthetic nature of the early 14th century. The new movement toward the representation of volume and spatial depth, by means of modelling and perspective, had its origins in Flemish and Italian painting. That the glass painter was quickly influenced by this new style is seen, for example, in the St. Anthony window in the lower church of S. Francesco at Assisi, Italy. North of the Alps the earliest extant manifestation of this new interest in perspective and modelling, based on Italian models, occurs in the chancel windows (1325–30) of the Habsburg expiatory church at Königsfelden, near Brugg, Switzerland. The knowledge of Italian models spread quickly and extensively and can be seen in France in the windows (1325–39) at Saint-Ouen in Rouen and those made about 1330 at Évreux Cathedral. In the Germanic lands proto-Renaissance spatial illusionism influenced the transept windows at Augsburg Cathedral and the east window (c. 1340) of Vienna Cathedral, while the earliest remaining example in English glass painting is probably the nave windows (c. 1330–35) of Stanford-on-Avon in Northamptonshire, England.

      In the early 14th century the third dimension in canopies was still highly untheoretical and largely governed by considerations of pure design. The practice of representing a figure beneath an architectural canopy was an established convention of the 13th century, particularly used in clerestory windows. In earlier examples the canopy plays a comparatively unimportant part in the total design, but by the end of the 13th century, although still two-dimensional, it had become more elaborate and is an important ornamental feature of the windows of Merton College, Oxford. In German and Austrian windows the canopy work is often elaborate and complex in its spatial organization; examples are found at Vienna Cathedral (c. 1340) and Erfurt Cathedral (c. 1360–70).

      The art of glass painting, however, did not respond equally to these new influences emanating from Italy. It subdivides itself into two groups, of which France and England together make up one, characterized by its resistance to Italian influences. The use of perspective was purposefully restrained, so that the essential overall surface unity of the design was not violently upset, for the use of flat, patterned diaper grounds effectively counterbalanced the suggestion of spatial effect. In the first half of the century the most important work in France is found in the region of Normandy, especially in the choir windows (c. 1330) of Évreux Cathedral and those dating around 1325 to 1339 at Saint-Ouen in Rouen. The English glaziers of this period were extremely prolific, with Oxford, Coventry, and York as important regional centres. The nave windows of York Minster were made between 1300 and 1338 and are the largest single enterprise of this period in England. It appears probable that some of the later glass at York (c. 1350–70), now distributed over the windows of the choir clerestory, was the work of an imported French glazier, probably from Rouen. A flourishing school in western England, whose best work is found at Wells Cathedral and Eaton Bishop in Herefordshire, shows some affinity with German work. The best French and English work, however, has a lightness of colour and graphic refinement that is enhanced by an extensive use of yellow stain. After about 1300 the geometric grisaille glass gave way to simpler diamond-shaped pieces, painted with delicate trails of foliage and leaded together to give the effect of trellis work.

      The second group, which might be termed “Germanic”—as it embraces Germany, Bohemia, and Austria—displays a much more three-dimensional style; the colours are deeper and more saturated, the compositions are more complex, both on the surface and in depth, and the canopy designs particularly are often complicated essays in perspective; the figures are shorter in proportion and their volume more accentuated. It is brusque, almost harsh, contrasting strongly with the elegance of French and English work. All of these traits can be seen, for example, in the panels (c. 1350) from Strassengel, near Graz, Austria, now in the Victoria and Albert Museum, London; the earlier windows (c. 1350–60) at St. Maria-am-Gestade in Vienna; and at Erfurt Cathedral (c. 1360–70). A particular trait of this Germanic group, of which Erfurt is a good example, is a tendency to extend a single composition across the main lights of a window, ignoring the natural divisions of the stonework. The reason for this is partly architectural: the window lights are comparatively much narrower and taller than those in French or English windows.

Late 14th, 15th, and 16th centuries

      The arts from about 1380 to about 1430, which are frequently grouped together under the title of the International Gothic Style, belong essentially to an era of court art inspired by the patronage of kings, the nobility, and the higher orders of ecclesiastics. Surviving windows are extensive, and interactions between the various centres of patronage, complicated by family alliances and the exchange of works of art and artists, are particularly complex. The various national and regional styles can still be distinguished in glass painting, but there is a general tendency toward a mannered, extremely sophisticated elegance of style, sometimes verging on the precious, combined with an interest in portrait realism.

      If the genius of the 13th-century stained glass lay in its epic sense of monumentality and that of the early 14th century in its warmth of human feeling, that of the late 14th and early 15th centuries is far more difficult to characterize in a phrase. The style of glass painting became at once more corporeal and more introspective. Figures are rendered with far more attention to individual human traits yet are akin in their majesty to the great prophets in the 13th-century windows. The figures painted between 1384 and 1392 by Hermann von Münster, for the west window of Metz Cathedral in France, and those painted in about 1400 by Thomas of Oxford for the chapel of William of Wykeham's College at Winchester, England, seem both newer and older than their immediate predecessors—newer in that they are beginning to bear the signature of a personal style, older in that they recall the grandeur of an earlier, essentially collective expression that now seemed everywhere to be giving way to arid cameo-like refinements on the one side and an earnest rusticity on the other.

      The glass painting of this period is of high quality. The most significant examples in France are the “Royal” windows (c. 1395) at Évreux Cathedral. One of the most ambitious works of the period is the great east window of York Minster, made between 1405 and 1408 by John Thornton of Coventry.

      In Germany and Austria there was a softening and refining of the “plastic style” of the earlier part of the century. In Austria an important atelier associated with the court produced the window (c. 1386–95) in the church of St. Erhard in der Breitenau and later the series of windows (c. 1400) at Viktring, and for the Freisingerkapella at Klosterneuburg (c. 1410). Germany contains a large amount of work of this period. At Erfurt Cathedral the window given by Johann von Tiefengruben (c. 1400) is lighter in tone and has a more refined pictorial style than the earlier windows there. The series of windows at Rothenburg, which were probably made in about 1400, should be noted, together with the cycle of windows (c. 1420–30) for the Bessererkapelle at Ulm Cathedral, which show an admirably refined technique.

      The period 1430–1550 saw not only the decline of the Gothic style and the establishment of the new Renaissance style but also the beginning of the transformation of the art of glass painting from a significant means of artistic expression into a hybrid art form: the translucent emulation of fresco and easel painting.

      The International Gothic Style continued to influence glass painting during the first half of the 15th century but to a lesser degree. Its mannered elegance and extravagant costumes can still be seen in France in the two rose windows (c. 1440) at Le Mans Cathedral and also the rose windows (1441–42) at Angers Cathedral. In England this aesthetic is continued in the east window (c. 1423–39) of the priory in Great Malvern (Worcestershire), the chapel windows (1441–47) of All Souls College at Oxford, and in the windows made by John Prudde, the king's glazier, for the Beauchamp Chapel of St. Mary's in Warwick, which were commissioned in 1447. The work of Germanic glass painters provides outstanding examples, particularly the window (after 1424) from St. Lambrecht, now in the museum at Graz, Austria, and the charming Alsatian window of St. Katherine (c. 1425–50) at Sélestat, France.

      There were, however, important new influences affecting the styles of glass painting. In northern Europe during the first half of the 15th century a flourishing school of painting emerged in Flanders. Although the origin of the Flemish style is partly to be found in the International Gothic, a more realistic manner of representation and a detailed awareness of actuality developed that is almost the antithesis of the mannered sophistication and the essentially unrealistic world of that style.

      It was impossible for the glass painter to participate fully in the new realism. Glass is a translucent material; the passage of light through it is alone sufficient to create a feeling of unreality. Furthermore, although the panel or mural painter could use the new discoveries of linear perspective to heighten the sense of reality, the glass painter had to contend with the presence of the leading line, which emphasizes the surface plane. This creates a tension and a sense of ambiguity between the actual surface and the illusion of depth. Attempts were made to resolve the problems, but with little success; one result was that the lead line became increasingly divorced from the design instead of being an integral part of it. The increasing use, from the mid-16th century onward, of vitreous enamel pigments had the effect of accelerating this process.

      The full flowering of the Renaissance style in Italy and the intense interest in classical art that it stimulated resulted, in about 1500, in a profusion of ornamental details, borrowed from the formal language of classical art, in contemporary window designs. In addition the glaziers at this time often drew inspiration from contemporary engravings, particularly those of Albrecht Dürer.

      The period 1450–1550 saw no decline in demand for stained glass. One of the most productive and influential areas at this time was Flanders. The six windows (c. 1475–1500) of the church of St. Gommaire at Lier and the Virgin window (c. 1482) at Anderlecht, although restored, have original portions of excellent quality and close affinity with contemporary Flemish painting.

      English stained glass in the 15th century becomes more intimate, more anecdotal. It is less a cathedral art than an art of parish churches and is addressed less to an assembled ecclesia than to the individual believer. At its best it achieves a quiet intensity in the woodcut-like figures in East Harling church (Norfolk), a pathos in the Long Melford church (Suffolk) “Pieta,” and a sheer power of expression in the Clavering church (Essex) “Martyrdom of St. Catherine.”

      The trading and political links between Flanders and England in the second half of the 15th century encouraged the influx of Flemish works of art and artists into England. A number of Flemish glaziers established themselves in Southwark, London, and some even assumed English names. The early 16th century was marked by a series of disputes between the London Guild of Glaziers and the foreigners. The latter were particularly patronized by the court and the more wealthy merchants. The two outstanding monuments of this imported style are the windows (c. 1480) of Fairford church (Gloucestershire) and the windows (1515–31) at King's College Chapel, Cambridge, many of which were probably designed by the Antwerp painter and engraver Dirk Vellert.

      The spread of the new realism can be traced in French glass painting. The interactions with Flemish glaziers can be seen, for example, in the realism of the windows (c. 1430–40) from the Duke of Burgundy's chapel at Dijon, now in the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, which are the work of Flemish glaziers, and also the Jacques Coeur window at Bourges Cathedral, which is markedly Flemish in style. Native French glaziers were extremely prolific at this time, and Normandy and particularly the city of Rouen contain an incomparable display of windows produced by a large number of distinctive workshops. The leading figures of the first part of the 16th century were Arnoult of Nijmegen (c. 1470–1540) and the Le Prince family at Beauvais. Arnoult of Nijmegen worked in both Flanders and France. His most important works are the windows he executed between 1490 and 1500 in Flanders for Tournai Cathedral and the Jesse window (1506) in Saint-Godard at Rouen, which is one of the most impressive examples of glass painting of the period. The works by the Le Prince family are equally impressive, particularly the Jesse tree window in Saint-Étienne at Beauvais.

      In Germany the later 15th century is dominated by the prolific activity of Peter Hemmel von Andlau (active 1430–1500) and his workshop. Examples of his work were done for St. Wilhelm's Church in Strasbourg.

      In Italy a remarkable ensemble of stained-glass windows was created in the first half of the 15th century for the cupola of Sta. Maria del Fiore in Florence by some of the greatest masters of early Renaissance art: Ghiberti, Donatello, Castagno, and Uccello (Uccello, Paolo). Domenico Ghirlandaio created in the second half of the century windows for the Florentine church of Sta. Maria Novella. The late 15th and early 16th centuries are mainly associated in Italy with the name of Guglielmo de Marcillat (1467–1529), a Frenchman whose works display a thorough mastery of technique. His finest windows are at Arezzo Cathedral. The building of Milan Cathedral caused an important school of glass painting to develop there, and the work of Conrad Munch, a German from Cologne, and Nicolo da Varallo is noteworthy. The Milan school continued in full activity during the 16th and 17th centuries.

      In Spain—especially at Sevilla (Seville), Leon, and Avila—there are some good 16th-century windows. They are in all cases the work of imported Flemish glass painters.

17th and 18th centuries

      The spatial illusions of Baroque paintings were beyond the limitations imposed by the stained-glass medium. The glass painter of the 17th and 18th centuries found himself reduced to completing the cycles of stained-glass windows in medieval churches or to creating contemporary art for an architecture with no artistic affinity with traditional stained glass. The most interesting development in the late 16th and early 17th centuries was the intimate and portable heraldic panel, which became fashionable to hang in domestic windows, particularly in Switzerland, the Low Countries, and Germany. These panels, seldom more than two feet high, are the glass painter's showpieces; they complete the divorce between stained glass and architecture.

      Painting glass with vitreous enamels in the 17th and 18th centuries led to the final decline of the art of stained glass. In the St. Janskerk windows at Gouda, Holland, painted by the brothers Wouter and Dirk Crabeth at the end of the 16th century, and in the works (1620–40) of Abraham and Bernard van Linge, the realization of the window as a translucent canvas painting is complete. Abraham van Linge's windows painted in 1630 to 1640 for Christ Church Cathedral at Oxford are an excellent example of the destruction of the lead line as an integral part of the design. The leading simply holds together the square sheets of glass: the effect is the same as looking at a picture set behind a rectangular grid. This type of design was continued by English glass painters such as Henry Gyles and the Price and Peckitt families, all of York, Francis Eginton, and Sir Joshua Reynolds, who designed in 1778 the west window for New College Chapel, Oxford.

19th century

      The Gothic revival that came as an offspring of the Romantic movement of the late 18th and early 19th centuries represents the beginning of a revitalization of the art of stained glass. The revival of interest in Gothic art stimulated an interest in both the technique and history of medieval glass painting. The pioneer figures in this field were E. Viollet-Le-Duc (Viollet-le-Duc, Eugène-Emmanuel) in France and Charles Winston in England (United Kingdom). Winston was a lawyer and antiquarian who associated with various London glaziers and, with the technical help of James Powell and Sons, brought about a considerable improvement in the technical quality of coloured glass. In 1847 he wrote the first comprehensive study of the medium. The experiments were continued by W.E. Chance, who first successfully produced “antique” glass in 1863.

      In the first half of the 19th century the styles and methods of the early Gothic period were reconstructed, but without much aesthetic appreciation of medieval art. Much of the work was stereotyped and mass-produced, particularly in Germany, and varied considerably in technical quality. The latter part of the century is dominated in England by Edward Burne-Jones (Burne-Jones, Sir Edward Coley, 1st Baronet) and William Morris (Morris, William). Burne-Jones provided the designs and Morris adapted them to the medium of stained glass. In windows by them the lead line is once again treated as an integral part of the design, as seen, for example, in the windows for Christ Church at Oxford (1874–75 and 1878), Salisbury Cathedral (1879), and Birmingham Cathedral (1897). In the U.S. the works of John La Farge (La Farge, John) and Louis Comfort Tiffany (Tiffany, Louis Comfort) were influential in creating an American interest in stained glass. Although the style and sentiment of 19th-century work has not been much in favour in the 20th century, the period had great historical significance in the revival of the basic technique of making stained glass.

       Art Nouveau designers used stained glass decoratively for making such objects as lampshades and light fixtures, and turn-of-the-century architects increasingly employed stained glass as an integral element in wholly modern architectural settings: Victor Horta in his Hotel Solvay (1895–1910), Brussels; Antonio Gaudí in his Chapel of Santa Coloma de Cervelló (1898–1914) in the Güell Colony near Barcelona; Charles Rennie Mackintosh (Mackintosh, Charles Rennie) in the Willow Tea Rooms (1904), Glasgow; and Frank Lloyd Wright in the Coonley House (1908), Riverside, Illinois, and the Unity Church (1906), Oak Park, Illinois. These windows and panels clearly mark the beginnings of an authentically modern stained glass, despite their strictly ornamental intent.

20th century

      Three interrelated creative currents can be discerned in the development of 20th-century stained glass. First, a significant number of architects (International Style), following the lead of their turn-of-the-century predecessors and taking advantage of the new systems of fenestration made possible by modern structural engineering, have continued to discover many new ways of using stained glass. Second, especially in post-World War II France, several major easel painters turned their attention to stained glass, infusing it with many new and powerful images. Third, during the 1950s and 1960s Germany produced the first authentic school of stained glass since the Middle Ages, dedicated to exploiting the unique technical and expressive resources of the medium.

      Although the bulk of significant 20th-century stained glass belongs to the period after World War II, earlier experiments, especially in France and Germany, suggested the possibilities that could be creatively explored. In Auguste Perret's (Perret, Auguste) church of Notre-Dame (1922–23) in Le Raincy, near Paris, the entire wall surface becomes a geometric grillwork of coloured glass by the Symbolist painter Maurice Denis (Denis, Maurice). In 1930 the Dutch-born artist Johan Thorn Prikker (Thorn-Prikker, Jan) completed a cycle of windows for the Romanesque Church of St. George in Cologne in which lead lines are used with a graphic eloquence and deep smoldering colours with a monumental gravity that have no parallel even in the greatest medieval windows.

      After 1946 there was an unusual burst of activity. In Le Corbusier's (Corbusier, Le) Notre-Dame-du-Haut (1950–55) at Ronchamp, northwest of Dijon in France, the massive south wall, 12 feet (2.72 metres) thick at the base and five feet at the top, is dramatically punctuated with a series of crude, yet remarkably effective, stained-glass windows through which shafts of light fairly explode into the church. Simultaneously, in Dominikus Böhm's and Heinz Bienefeld's Church of Maria Königin (1953–54) in Cologne-Marienburg an entire sidewall of the church is conceived as a diaphanous veil of silvery gray stained glass that half reveals and half conceals the parklike grounds outside with equally dazzling effect. In Wallace K. Harrison's (Harrison, Wallace K) First Presbyterian Church (1958) in Stamford, Connecticut, the whole central section of the church is nearly engirdled with slab glass and concrete. In all of these structures, different as they are in nearly every other respect, stained glass is seen boldly exploited once again not merely for its local ornamental quality but as a major, integral atmosphere-creating element.

      The most seminal contributions of the School of Paris painters to the art of stained glass were Henri Matisse's (Matisse, Henri) Chapel of the Rosary (1948–52) in Vence and Fernand Léger's (Léger, Fernand) windows for the Sacré-Coeur (1950–52) in Audincourt. Both are by artists whose manner was rather directly translatable into stained glass. It was but a comparatively short step from Matisse's large coloured-paper collages to the disarmingly simple decorative windows in Vence, but the way Matisse used them to create an enchanting play of colour in the chaste white space of the chapel is masterful. And it took the boldly emblematic style of Léger to reveal the true expressive potentialities of slab glass and concrete. A third important work of this period is the long friezelike window created by the sculptor Léon Zack for the Church of Notre-Dame-des-Pauvres (1955) in Issy-les-Moulineaux, remarkable for its daring sequence of colour harmonies and delicate lead line motifs reminiscent of the art of Paul Klee. The stained-glass windows of Georges Braque, Jacques Villon, Georges Rouault, Marc Chagall (Chagall, Marc), and Alfred Manessier are also noteworthy if less authoritative in their handling of the medium.

      In Germany such distinguished prewar church architects as Dominikus Böhm and Rudolf Schwarz and the stained-glass artist Anton Wendling were able to resume careers interrupted by the Nazi era and to set the course for a whole new generation of stained-glass artists, especially in the Rhineland. Inspired by the example of Thorn Prikker, these artists have continued to explore the unique qualities of stained glass—the special refractory properties of opal-flashed antique glass, the graphic potentialities of the lead line, the bold effects of texture and relief that had become possible with slab glass and concrete—and to create a whole gamut of strange brooding colour (painting) harmonies the like of which had not been seen in stained glass since the Augsburg prophets. Among the more important works of this Rhenish school are Georg Meistermann's windows for the Dom Sepulchur (1957) in Würzburg and his complete ensemble of windows for the 15th-century church of St. Matthew (1964) in Sobernheim; Ludwig Schaffrath's cycle of modern grisaille windows for the cloister (1962–65) in Aachen, his high triple-gabled window walls for the transepts of St. Peter's Church (1964) in Birkesdorf, near Düren, and his powerfully iconic and technically innovative slab- and rod-glass sanctuary window in St. Matthew's Church (1966–67) in Leverkusen; Wilhelm Buschulte's unusually rich colour harmonies in his cycle of nave windows for the Cathedral of Essen (1964) and the choir of the Church of SS. Peter and Paul (1967) in Wegsburg, near Mönchengladbach; and Johannes Schreiter's almost monochromatic Abstract Expressionist windows for the Church of St. Margaret (1961) in Bürgstadt. Trained once again to work of the scale of the cathedral windows and to develop their art in accordance with its own intrinsic potentialities, such artists have been collaborating with some of the best architects in Germany to create the most impressive body of stained-glass windows since the Middle Ages.

Robert W. Sowers Ed.

Additional Reading

Illustrated monographs include: Comite International d'Histoire de l'Art, Corpus Vitrearum Medii Aevi (1956– ), a series intended when complete to document all medieval stained glass extant; J. Baker and A. Lammer, English Stained Glass (1960), probably the best collection of high-quality detail photographs of medieval stained glass ever published; H.E. Read, English Stained Glass (1926); A.C. Sewter, The Stained Glass of William Morris and His Circle (1972); M. Aubert et al., Le Vitrail française (1958), the standard work on French stained glass, although marred by many poor reproductions. This fault is remedied in part by the following works: M. Aubert, Stained Glass of the XIIth and XIIIth Centuries from French Cathedrals (1947); and E. von Witzleben, French Stained Glass (1966). H. Wentzel, Meisterwerke der Glasmalerei, 2nd ed. (1954), is the standard work on German medieval stained glass; E. von Witzleben, Farbwunder deutscher Glasmalerei aus dem Mittelalter (1965) is a copiously illustrated monograph on German medieval stained glass. S. Beeh-Lustenberger, Glasmalerei um 800–1900 im Hessischen Landesmuseum in Darmstadt (1967), an excellent guide to one of the largest museum collections of medieval stained glass; P. Wember, Johan Thorn Prikker: Glasfenster, Wandbilder, Ornamente 1891–1932 (1966); G. Marchini, Italian Stained Glass Windows (1957); M. Stettler, Swiss Stained Glass of the Fourteenth Century from the Church of Koenigsfelden (1949); and F. Zschokke, Medieval Stained Glass in Switzerland (Eng. trans. 1947). See also James Sturm, Stained Glass from Medieval Times to the Present: Treasures to Be Seen in New York (1982); and Erne R. Frueh and Florence Frueh, Chicago Stained Glass (1983).Books on aesthetic analysis include J.R. Johnson, The Radiance of Chartres: Studies in the Early Stained Glass of the Cathedral (1965), valuable not only for its somewhat too sweeping criticism of Viollet-le-Duc but for its original analysis of the effect of the twilight atmosphere of the cathedral upon our perception of its stained-glass windows; and R. Sowers, Stained Glass: An Architectural Art (1965), a thoroughly illustrated analysis of the relation between stained glass and architecture, with numerous photographs of contemporary stained glass. David Evans, A Bibliography of Stained Glass (1982), is also recommended.Stained-glass techniques are discussed in Theophilus (Rugerus), Diversarum Artium Schedula (1847; Eng. trans. 1963), the earliest account of stained-glass window-making techniques, now believed to have been written in the early 12th century; C. Winston, Hints on Glass Painting (1847), and his Memoirs (1865), two books containing some of the most thorough and perceptive analyses of medieval glass-painting techniques ever written; E. Viollet-le-Duc, “Vitrail,” in Dictionnaire Raisonne de l'architecture française, vol. 9 (1868; Eng. trans., “Mediaeval Stained Glass,” 1946), still valuable for its many acute observations; and C.W. Whall, Stained Glass Work (1905), a thorough craft manual by one of the leading turn-of-the-century stained-glass artists in England. Recent manuals include E.L. Armitage, Stained Glass (1959); P. Reyntiens, The Technique of Stained Glass (1967); and R. and G. Mecalf, Techniques of Stained Glass (1971). Pictorial works can also be of interest: M.J. Gradl (ed.), Authentic Art Nouveau Stained Glass Designs in Full Color (1983); Connie Eaton, Oval Stained Glass Pattern Book (1983); Anita Isenberg and Seymour Isenberg, How to Work in Stained Glass, 2nd ed. (1983).

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