Stained Glass | Research & Encyclopedia Articles

Stained Glass

The oldest extant stained glass works date from the eleventh century, and a depiction of stained glass art appears in a tenth century manuscript. The design of these early examples, however, resemble that of Byzantine art, suggesting that the craft may have originated in the Near East. In the Middle Ages, stained glass was used primarily as a religious medium, employed in churches and cathedrals to illustrate Biblical passages, a famous example being the Cathedral of Chartres, France, completed in the mid-1100s.

The basic steps involved in stained-glass making have remained essentially unchanged throughout its history. The artist draws a full-sized cartoon, or pattern, for the finished piece on paper, based on an enlargement from a scale drawing. Pieces of colored glass are created to match the cartoon, either by suspending colored particles in the glass at its manufacture, or by coating glass with dyes--usually iron oxides--and oven-firing it at extremely high temperatures (approximately 1,150°F or 620°C), so that the dye finish becomes permanent. The stained pieces, cut to size, are joined into sections by lead strips; finally, the entire work is assembled on-site, section by section. Changes in technology and style, rather than basic technique, have changed the art over the centuries.

Early medieval stained-glass artists had access to only a limited number of dyes; hence, their figures tended to be expressionistic, rather than strictly realistic, and deep in color, dominated by reds and blues. The crudely fired glass used in these early works contained a number of imperfections and bubbles, which, however, had the pleasing effect of refracting light so that it appeared to shimmer and jump. Medieval craftsmen were more interested in illustrating an idea than creating natural or realistic images. They employed rich, jewel colors played of against milky, dull neutrals. A dark brown enamel, grisaille, was matted to the glass surface to delineate features. By the fourteenth century, artisans had begun to develop a more naturalistic, detailed style of design.

In the fifteenth century, the apex of the Gothic style of architecture, paint work became more sophisticated, and the rediscovery of silver stain as a lightening agent allowed the artist to realistically depict yellow hair and golden garments. Craftsmen of that century adopted the use of paler colors that admitted more light, and worked with larger figures. Thus stained glass came to be seen as more in terms of the picture and less as atmosphere. The trend continued through the 1500s, when stained-glass makers began to strive toward the realism of oil painting; the result, however, was generally inferior work, and the art declined in quality and popularity.

By the seventeenth century, the discovery of enamel painting was allowing artists to paint a single pane of glass in different colors rather than joining together cut pieces of colored glass. This technique sacrificed the original symbolism and innate beauty of stained glass. The eighteenth century saw the removal of many medieval stained glass windows, which were destroyed as old-fashioned and replaced by painted glass.

Critical and commercial interest in stained glass did not revive until the late nineteenth century, when artists, notably Americans Louis Comfort Tiffany (1848-1933) and John LaFarge (1835-1910), began experimenting with stained glass design. LaFarge developed opalescent glass in 1879, and Tiffany employed it not only in windows, but in decorative objects such as lamps. This was made possible by using thin strips of copper as a substitute for lead, allowing for intricate sections in windows. Artists of this period began using hand-blown or muff glass of high technical quality. In the twentieth century, French artists such as Henri Matisse (1869-1954) and Fernand Léger (1881-1955), and Russian-born Marc Chagall (1887-1985) created commissioned stained glass works that reflected the progressive style of their paintings.

The years since 1970 have seen a resurgence of interest in the possibilities of this art form. Homes have been embellished with beveled stained glass entryways, stained glass bathroom windows, and Tiffany-style lampshades; and decorative panels have come to be purchased just to hang in a sunny window, with hot-formed glass pieces not infrequently adorning tables, walls, shelves, and fill windows.