Stained glass

Stained glass is coloured glass used as a material and for creating beautiful artworks and parts of buildings. Traditionally, it is made into flat panels for windows, but today artists also make three-dimensional structures and sculptures from it. You can also find stained glass in decorative lamps and other glass objects, like the famous ones made by Louis Comfort Tiffany.

Stained glass gets its colour from metallic salts added when the glass is made. Artists cut the coloured glass into small pieces and arrange them to form pictures or patterns. These pieces are held together by thin strips of lead called cames and placed inside a strong frame. Sometimes, artists add painted details or a special yellow glass called silver stain to make the design even more beautiful.

Stained glass needs both artistic and engineering skills. The design must fit perfectly in its space, and the window must be strong enough to keep out wind and rain while supporting its own weight. Many stunning stained glass windows have lasted for hundreds of years since the Late Middle Ages. In Western Europe, they are important examples of medieval art that have survived today. These windows are not just for letting light in; they are like painted walls that control the light and tell stories, often showing scenes from the Bible, history, or literature.

Glass production

During the late medieval period, factories were built where there was plenty of silica, the main material needed to make glass. Silica needs very high heat to melt, which not all factories could reach. Substances like potash, soda, and lead help lower the melting point. Other materials such as lime are added to make the glass stronger. Glass gets its color by adding metallic powders or tiny bits of metal while it is still liquid. Copper makes green or bluish-green, cobalt makes deep blue, and gold creates red and violet glass. Today, much red glass uses copper because it is cheaper and gives a brighter red. Glass colored while still in the furnace is called pot metal glass, unlike flashed glass, which has a thin layer of colored glass fused to a thicker layer of clear glass.

Glass can be shaped in different ways. One method is called cylinder or mouth-blown glass, where a glass worker gathers molten glass with a pipe, shapes it, and blows air into it to form a bubble. Tools, molds, and gravity help shape the glass into a long cylinder. After cooling and reheating, the cylinder is flattened and put in an annealer to cool slowly, making it stronger. This method was used for traditional stained-glass windows.

Another method is crown glass, where a bubble of air is blown into molten glass and then spun, either by hand or on a spinning table. This creates flat sheets with curved waves. The center of each piece, called the “bull’s-eye,” stays thicker and has a lump from the rod used to hold the glass. Crown glass is still made today, though not on a large scale.

Rolled glass is made by pouring molten glass onto a metal or graphite surface and rolling it flat with a large cylinder. This can be done by hand or machine and creates glass of a set thickness. Rolled glass became popular in the mid-1800s and is often called cathedral glass, though this name does not come from medieval cathedrals.

To make red stained glass, a thin layer of red glass is fused to a thicker layer of clear glass, called flashed glass. This helps the red color show better while allowing light to pass through. Artists use this method to create detailed designs without adding many lead lines. This technique has been used for centuries, including in windows with intricate patterns and symbols.

Techniques

Stained glass gets its color in a few main ways. One way is by mixing metal oxides into the glass while it’s being made, creating sheets that are colored all the way through. Another method is called “flashed glass,” where a thin layer of colored glass is fused to clear glass.

Artists also add color by painting on the surface of the glass. This includes using special paints made from glass powder, clay, and other ingredients. These paints are applied and then heated, which makes them stick to the glass. One popular type is called “silver stain,” which creates yellow and orange colors. It works by applying silver compounds to the glass and heating it, which changes the color. These methods let artists add fine details and shading to their stained glass designs.

"Pot glass" colours

These are the natural colours that glass can have, depending on what ingredients are added when it is made.

Ordinary glass looks clear when it is thin, but it can have a slight green colour if there is iron in it. To make the glass look clearer, people add special ingredients like manganese dioxide or selenium.

Glass can be made in many colours by adding different ingredients. For example, adding iron makes green glass, while adding cobalt makes blue glass, like the blue used in old windows at Chartres Cathedral. Adding gold makes red glass, and adding tin and arsenic makes white glass. Some colours, like those made with cadmium, can be unsafe.

Creating stained-glass windows

Design

The first step in making a stained-glass window is to create a template that matches the shape of the window space. The design of the window is chosen based on the location, a special theme, or the wishes of the person who is paying for it. A small sketch called a Vidimus is made to show the design to the person who asked for the window. Sometimes a small model called a maquette is also made.

The designer thinks about the whole design, the shape of the window, the type and size of glass they have, and their own style. In traditional windows, the panels often tell a story. They might show rows of important people or include words from holy books. The designer also adds borders, flowers, and other decorations around the main picture.

Selecting and painting the glass

Each piece of glass is chosen for its color and then cut to fit the design. Special paint is used to add details like faces and hands onto the glass. This paint has fine particles of lead or copper, ground glass, gum arabic, and a liquid like wine or vinegar.

Artists began using a yellow paint called "silver stain" made from silver nitrate around the year 1300. This yellow paint was great for adding borders, crowns, and making blue glass look green. Later, other colors made from ground glass were used to paint scenes directly onto the glass.

Assembly and mounting

After the glass is cut and painted, the pieces are put together by placing them into lead strips called cames. The joints are then sealed with soft cement or a special material called mastic to keep the window strong and weatherproof. Sometimes copper foil is used instead of lead today.

Big windows are supported by iron rods or metal frames tied to the window with lead strips or copper wires. This helps keep the heavy glass in place.

History

Origins

Coloured glass has been made since ancient times. Both the Egyptians and the Romans were skilled at creating small coloured glass objects. Phoenicia was an important place for making glass, with main centres at Sidon, Tyre and Antioch. The British Museum has two famous Roman glass pieces: the Lycurgus Cup, which looks murky mustard-coloured without light but glows purple-red when lit from behind and green when lit from the front, and the cameo glass Portland vase, which is midnight blue with a carved white overlay.

In early Christian churches from the 4th and 5th centuries, many windows were filled with ornate patterns of thinly sliced alabaster set into wooden frames, creating a stained-glass-like effect.

Evidence of stained-glass windows in churches and monasteries in Britain dates back to the 7th century. The earliest known reference is from 675 AD when Benedict Biscop brought workers from France to glaze the windows of the monastery of St Peter that he was building at Monkwearmouth. Hundreds of pieces of coloured glass and lead from the late 7th century have been found here and at Jarrow.

In the Middle East, the glass industry of Syria continued during the Islamic period with major centres at Raqqa, Aleppo and Damascus. The most important products were highly transparent colourless glass and gilded glass, rather than coloured glass.

In West Asia

Making stained glass in West Asia began in ancient times. One of the earliest surviving ways to make coloured glass comes from the Assyrian city of Nineveh, dating to the 7th-century BC. The Kitab al-Durra al-Maknuna, attributed to the 8th century alchemist Jābir ibn Hayyān, talks about making coloured glass in ancient Babylon and Egypt. This book also describes how to make coloured glass and artificial gemstones from high-quality stained glass. The tradition of making stained glass continued, with mosques, palaces, and public spaces decorated with stained glass throughout the Islamic world. Islamic stained glass is usually non-pictorial and has purely geometric designs, but can include floral patterns and text.

Stained glass making flourished in Iran during the Safavid dynasty (1501–1736 A.D.) and Zand dynasty (1751–1794 A.D.). In Iran, stained glass sash windows are called Orosi windows (also called Arasi or Orsi), and were once used for decoration and to control sunlight in the hot and semi-arid climate.

Medieval glass in Europe

Stained glass reached its height as an art form in the Middle Ages when it became a major way to tell Bible stories to people who could not read.

In the Romanesque and Early Gothic period, from about 950 to 1240, windows needed large pieces of glass supported by strong iron frames, like those at Chartres Cathedral and the eastern end of Canterbury Cathedral. As Gothic architecture became more detailed, windows grew larger, letting in more light, but were divided into sections by stone shafts and tracery. This style reached its peak in the Flamboyant style in Europe, and windows grew even larger with the Perpendicular style in England and Rayonnant style in France.

Integrated into the tall verticals of Gothic cathedrals and churches, glass designs became more daring. The circular form, or rose window, developed in France from simple windows with openings cut through thin stone slabs to wheel windows, like the west front of Chartres Cathedral, and finally to very complex designs with tracery drawn from hundreds of points, like those at Sainte-Chapelle, Paris and the "Bishop's Eye" at Lincoln Cathedral.

While stained glass was widely made, Chartres was the biggest centre, producing glass of unmatched quality.

Renaissance, Reformation and Classical windows

The earliest known set of stained-glass windows from the Renaissance was for Florence Cathedral, designed by Lorenzo Ghiberti from 1405 to 1445. The design includes three dome windows and three facade windows by artists like Ghiberti, Donatello, Uccello and Andrea del Castagno. Each big dome window has a single picture from the Life of Christ or the Life of the Virgin Mary, surrounded by a wide floral border, with two smaller facade windows by Ghiberti showing deacons St Stephen and St Lawrence. One dome window has been lost, and the one by Donatello has lost most of its painted details.

In Europe, stained glass continued to be made; the style changed from Gothic to Classical, seen in Germany, Belgium and the Netherlands, even with the rise of Protestantism. In France, much glass from this time was made at the Limoges factory, and in Italy at Murano, where stained glass and faceted lead crystal are often combined in the same window. The French Revolution caused many windows in France to be neglected or destroyed. However, France still has the largest set of Renaissance stained glass in its churches, especially in Normandy and Champagne, where many workshops were active until the early 17th century, with the stained glass painter Linard Gonthier working in Troyes until 1642. There are 1042 preserved 16th-century windows in the Aube department alone.

At the Reformation in England, many medieval and Renaissance windows were smashed and replaced with plain glass. The Dissolution of the Monasteries under Henry VIII and orders from Thomas Cromwell against "abused images" led to the loss of thousands of windows. Few remain undamaged; the windows in the private chapel at Hengrave Hall in Suffolk are among the finest. With this wave of destruction, the traditional ways of working with stained glass were lost in England and were not rediscovered until the early 19th century. See Stained glass – British glass, 1811–1918 for more details.

In the Netherlands, a rare set of glass has remained intact at Grote Sint-Jan Church, Gouda. The windows, some 18 metres (59 feet) high, date from 1555 to the early 1600s; the earliest is the work of Dirck Crabeth and his brother Wouter. Many of the original designs still exist.

In Latin America

Stained glass was first brought to Latin America during the 17th–18th centuries by Portuguese and Spanish settlers. By the 20th century, many European artists had set up their own studios in Latin America and started local production. With these new local studios came new techniques and less traditional images. Examples of these modern works are the Basílica Nuestra Señora de Lourde and the Templo Vótivo de Maipú, both in Chile.

Revival in Great Britain and Ireland

The Catholic revival in England, growing strong in the early 19th century with renewed interest in the medieval church, led to a revival of church building in the Gothic style. This brought a great demand for the revival of stained-glass window making.

Among the earliest 19th-century English makers and designers were William Warrington and John Hardman of Birmingham, whose nephew, John Hardman Powell, showed works at the Philadelphia Exhibition of 1876, influencing stained glass in the United States. Other makers included William Wailes, Ward and Hughes, Clayton and Bell, Heaton, Butler and Bayne and Charles Eamer Kempe. A Scottish designer, Daniel Cottier, opened studios in Australia and the US.

Revival in France

In France, there was more continuity in stained glass making than in England. In the early 19th century most stained glass was made from large panes that were heavily painted and fired, often copied directly from oil paintings by famous artists. In 1824 the Sèvres porcelain factory began making stained glass to meet growing demand. Many churches and cathedrals in France were damaged during the French Revolution. During the 19th century many churches were restored by Viollet-le-Duc. Many of France's finest old windows were restored at that time. From 1839 onwards much stained glass was made to closely copy medieval glass, both in the artwork and the glass itself. The pioneers were Henri Gèrente and André Lusson. Other glass was designed in a more Classical style, characterised by the bright blue colour of the backgrounds and the use of pink and mauve glass.

Revival in Germany, Austria and beyond

During the mid- to late 19th century, many of Germany's old buildings were restored, and some, like Cologne Cathedral, were finished in the medieval style. There was a big demand for stained glass. The designs for many windows were based on the work of famous engravers like Albrecht Dürer. Original designs often copied this style. Much 19th-century German glass has large areas of painted detail rather than outlines and details depending on the lead. The Royal Bavarian Glass Painting Studio was founded by Ludwig I in 1827. A major firm was Mayer of Munich, which started glass production in 1860 and still operates as Franz Mayer of Munich, Inc.. German stained glass found markets across Europe, in America and Australia. Stained glass studios were also founded in Italy and Belgium at this time.

In the Austrian Empire and later Austria-Hungary, one of the leading stained glass artists was Carl Geyling, who founded his studio in 1841. His son continued the tradition as Carl Geyling's Erben, which still exists today. Carl Geyling's Erben made many stained-glass windows for major churches in Vienna and elsewhere, and had an imperial and royal warrant of appointment from Emperor Franz Joseph I of Austria.

Innovations in Britain and Europe

Among the most innovative English designers were the Pre-Raphaelites, William Morris (1834–1898) and Edward Burne-Jones (1833–1898), whose work started the influential Arts and Crafts Movement, which renewed stained glass across the English-speaking world. A key figure was Christopher Whall (1849–1924), author of the classic craft book 'Stained Glass Work' (published London and New York, 1905), who argued for designers to be directly involved in making their windows. His masterpiece is the series of windows (1898–1910) in the Lady Chapel at Gloucester Cathedral. Whall taught at London's Royal College of Art and Central School of Arts and Crafts: his many students and followers included Karl Parsons, Mary Lowndes, Henry Payne, Caroline Townshend, Veronica Whall (his daughter) and Paul Woodroffe. The Scottish artist Douglas Strachan (1875–1950), influenced by Whall, developed the Arts & Crafts style in an expressive way, combining strong imagery with careful technique. In Ireland, a generation of young artists taught by Whall's student Alfred Child at Dublin's Metropolitan School of Art created a special national school of stained glass: its leading figures were Wilhelmina Geddes, Michael Healy and Harry Clarke.

Art Nouveau or Belle Époque stained glass design flourished in France and Eastern Europe, identified by the use of curving, flowing lines in the lead and swirling patterns. In France it is seen in the work of Francis Chigot of Limoges. In Britain it appears in the refined and formal leadlight designs of Charles Rennie Mackintosh.

Innovations in the United States

J&R Lamb Studios, founded in 1857 in New York City, was the first major decorative arts studio in the United States and for many years a big maker of church stained glass.

Notable American artists include John La Farge (1835–1910), who invented opalescent glass and received a U.S. patent for it on 24 February 1880, and Louis Comfort Tiffany (1848–1933), who received several patents for variations of the same opalescent process in November of the same year and used the copper foil method as an alternative to lead in some windows, lamps and other decorations. Sanford Bray of Boston patented the use of copper foil in stained glass in 1886. However, a reaction against the looks and technique of opalescent windows - led first by architects such as Ralph Adams Cram - led to a return to traditional stained glass in the early 1900s. Charles J. Connick (1875–1945), who founded his Boston studio in 1913, was deeply influenced by his study of medieval stained glass in Europe and by the Arts & Crafts philosophy of Englishman Christopher Whall. Connick made hundreds of windows across the US, including major projects at Princeton University Chapel (1927–29) and at Pittsburgh's Heinz Memorial Chapel (1937–38). Other American artists who followed a medieval-inspired style included Nicola D'Ascenzo of Philadelphia, Wilbur Burnham and Reynolds, Francis & Rohnstock of Boston and Henry Wynd Young and J. Gordon Guthrie of New York.

20th and 21st centuries

Many 19th-century firms closed early in the 20th century as the Gothic style was replaced by newer ones. At the same time, some interesting developments happened where stained glass artists worked in shared spaces. Examples include the Glass House in London, set up by Mary Lowndes and Alfred J. Drury and An Túr Gloine in Dublin, run by Sarah Purser and including artists like Harry Clarke.

A revival happened in the middle of the century because of a need to restore thousands of church windows across Europe destroyed by World War II bombing. German artists led this effort. Much work from this time is ordinary and often not made by its designers, but produced industrially.

Other artists tried to turn an ancient art form into a contemporary one, sometimes using traditional techniques while exploring the medium of glass in new ways and combining it with different materials. The use of slab glass, a technique known as dalle de verre, where the glass is set in concrete or epoxy resin, was a 20th-century invention credited to Jean Gaudin and brought to the UK by Pierre Fourmaintraux. One of the most prolific glass artists using this technique was the Benedictine monk Dom Charles Norris OSB of Buckfast Abbey.

Gemmail, a technique developed by the French artist Jean Crotti in 1936 and perfected in the 1950s, is a type of stained glass where adjacent pieces of glass are layered without using lead cames to join them, allowing for more variety and subtlety in colour. Many famous works by late 19th- and early 20th-century painters, notably Picasso, have been reproduced in gemmail. A major user of this technique is the German artist Walter Womacka.

Among the early well-known 20th-century artists who experimented with stained glass as an abstract art form were Theo van Doesburg and Piet Mondrian. In the 1960s and 1970s, the Expressionist painter Marc Chagall made designs for many stained-glass windows that are richly coloured and full of symbolic details. Important 20th-century stained glass artists include John Hayward, Douglas Strachan, Ervin Bossanyi, Louis Davis, Wilhelmina Geddes, Karl Parsons, John Piper, Patrick Reyntiens, Johannes Schreiter, Brian Clarke, Paul Woodroffe, Jean René Bazaine at Saint Séverin, Sergio de Castro at Couvrechef- La Folie (Caen), Hamburg-Dulsberg and Romont (Switzerland), and the Loire Studio of Gabriel Loire at Chartres. The west windows of England's Manchester Cathedral, by Tony Hollaway, are some of the most notable examples of symbolic work.

In Germany, stained glass development continued with the inter-war work of Johan Thorn Prikker and Josef Albers, and the post-war achievements of Georg Meistermann, Joachim Klos, Johannes Schreiter and Ludwig Schaffrath. This group of artists, who advanced the medium by abandoning figurative designs and painting on glass in favour of a mix of biomorphic and strictly geometric abstraction, and the calligraphic non-functional use of leads, are described as having produced "the first authentic school of stained glass since the Middle Ages". The works of Ludwig Schaffrath show late 20th-century trends in using stained glass for architectural purposes, filling entire walls with coloured and textured glass. In the 1970s young British stained-glass artists such as Brian Clarke were influenced by the large scale and abstraction in German twentieth-century glass.

In the UK, the professional group for stained glass artists has been the British Society of Master Glass Painters, founded in 1921. Since 1924 the BSMGP has published an annual journal, The Journal of Stained Glass. It remains Britain's only group devoted only to the art and craft of stained glass. From the start, its main goals have been to promote and support high standards in stained glass painting and staining, to act as a place for sharing information and ideas within the stained glass craft and to protect Britain's valuable stained glass heritage.

After the First World War, stained-glass window memorials became a popular choice among wealthier families. Examples can be found in churches across the UK.

In the United States, there is a 100-year-old trade group, The Stained Glass Association of America, whose purpose is to support the survival of the craft by offering guidelines, instruction and training to craftsmen. The SGAA also sees its role as defending and protecting its craft against rules that might limit its freedom as an architectural art form. The current president is Kathy Bernard. Today there are academic places that teach the traditional skills. One of these is Florida State University's Master Craftsman Program, which recently finished a 30 ft (9.1 m) high stained-glass windows, designed by Robert Bischoff, the program's director, and Jo Ann, his wife and installed to look over Bobby Bowden Field at Doak Campbell Stadium. The Roots of Knowledge installation at Utah Valley University in Orem, Utah is 200 feet (61 m) long and has been compared to those in several European cathedrals, including Cologne Cathedral in Germany, Sainte-Chapelle in France, and York Minster in England. There are also contemporary stained glass artists in the US who make stained-glass windows based on grids, rather than recognizable images.

Combining ancient and modern traditions

Buildings incorporating stained-glass windows

Churches

Stained-glass windows have been used in churches for both decoration and to tell stories. Many of these windows are gifts from church members to remember loved ones. Some famous examples include Cathedral of Chartres in France, Canterbury Cathedral in England, and York Minster in England, among others.

Synagogues

Stained-glass windows are also found in Jewish temples. These windows began appearing in the United States in the mid-1800s and have become common in synagogues there. Like in churches, these windows often show important stories or ideas and are sometimes given by families as gifts.

Places of worship

Stained-glass windows appear in many types of places of worship around the world, including mosques and other religious buildings.

Mausolea

Stained-glass windows can also be found in mausoleums. They help create a calm and peaceful atmosphere and can show religious images or serve as memorials.

Houses

In homes, stained-glass windows were very popular during the Victorian era. These windows often show birds and flowers and were made using small glass panels. Famous architects like Frank Lloyd Wright also used stained glass in their designs to show natural scenes.

Public and commercial buildings

Stained glass is used in many public places such as universities, government buildings, and even shops. It helps make these spaces beautiful and interesting.

Sculpture

Artists also create three-dimensional stained-glass art pieces, such as sculptures and special glass structures in places like airports and universities.