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T HE CATHEDRAL’S INTERNAL FITTINGS include an important and growing collection of modern stained glass, all dating from the 1960s onwards. This chapter briefly sets the scene for the collection, describes each of the windows containing stained glass, and considers future opportunities. To understand the significance of the collection, it is important to see stained glass in the context of medieval places of worship, where stained glass took its place alongside stone sculptures, exquisite
Manchester: Something rich and strange Stained glass – Clare Hartwell Like almost all medieval churches of any size, Manchester Cathedral was once filled with stained glass, but little is known of it, apart from tantalising descriptions and a few fragments taken elsewhere.4 What survived into the twentieth century, including Victorian as well as ancient glass, was finished off by the Manchester Blitz. The cathedral went on to acquire the major examples of twentieth-century glass which are considered here. Stained and painted glass was and remains a major strand
152 5 Stained glass as propaganda Stained glass rarely appears in secondary literature on nationalism,1 imperialism,2 or race,3 yet along with other art forms it played an important role in shaping and visualising national consciousness, propelling political and imperial regimes in the nineteenth century. This chapter demonstrates how these themes influenced the subject matter, interpretation, and critical discussion of stained glass in the nineteenth century, as demonstrated by the many windows shown at the international exhibitions. The first part discusses
19 1 Exhibiting stained glass: classification, organisation and status The art of glass-painting can rarely receive justice in a general exhibition. Its dimmed light is injurious to most other objects. It is as exclusive in an exhibition as a beech-tree in a forest, under which nothing else will grow. – Thomas Gambier Parry, 18671 Stained glass is an art form fundamentally concerned with the interplay of light and colour, and enhanced by the formal elements of line (both decorative and structural) and ornament. Transmitted light gives the translucent glass
WITH all the preceding information in mind, why did the market for stained glass increase so dramatically between 1840 and 1860? Several explanations have already been offered. The underlying cause was that the Church of England recognised the need for internal revival and building more churches was seen as a way of achieving this. The form that many of these churches took was determined by the
IN THE HANDS of a clergyman like John Edwin Lance, stained glass was more than just decoration. In his newly rebuilt church at Buckland St Mary in Somerset, he used stained glass to vary the quality of the light entering the building, and so change our experience of the interior. Richly painted windows surrounding the chancel and baptistry announce that here are the key liturgical areas, while the
This book presents a study that is an attempt to understand the phenomenal increase in the production and demand for stained glass between about 1835 and 1860. The book provides both history and context for thousands of Victorian stained-glass windows that exist in churches across the country. It aims to: ask why people became interested in stained glass; examine how glass-painters set up their studios; and understand how they interacted with each other and their patrons. To understand why so many windows were commissioned and made in the Victorian period, readers need to understand how buying a stained-glass window became a relatively ordinary thing to do. In order to examine this, the book focuses on those who wrote or spoke about stained glass in the formative years of the revival. It is important to look at the production of stained glass as a cultural exchange: a negotiation in both financial and cultural terms that was profitable for both glass-painter and patron. The history of Victorian stained glass allows an examination of many other areas of nineteenth-century cultural history. Readers can learn a lot about the aesthetics of the Gothic Revival, ecclesiology, the relationship between 'fine' and 'decorative' art, and the circulation of art history in the 1840s. While many interesting glass-painters have necessarily been omitted, the author hopes that the case studies in the book will provide a point of reference for the research of future scholars.
83 3 Stylistic eclecticism in nineteenth-century stained glass [T]he first business of every designer is to make himself master of the elements of all established styles, not only for the sake of knowing these styles but to enable him [sic] to effect any intelligible ornamental expression whatever. – Ralph Nicholson Wornum, 18511 The stained glass panels exhibited at the international exhibitions revealed a ‘multiplicity of different stylistic approaches’ and diverse techniques.2 Artists took the opportunity to demonstrate their stylistic fluidity and the
1 The figure in the Canterbury stained glass: Chaucerian Beckets Canterbury is the destination that Chaucer’s pilgrims never reach. While ‘folk’ from every ‘shires ende’ go to seek the cathedral shrine of the holy, blessed martyr Thomas Becket, the saint who helped them when they were sick, neither the assembly that gathers in Southwark nor those other persons who emerge en route come to their journey’s end.1 The narrative’s topographical momentum falters about two miles away from Christ’s Church at the end of an unknown village somewhere not far from Blean
Windows for the world: nineteenth-century stained glass and the international exhibitions, 1851-1900 focuses on the display and reception of nineteenth-century stained glass in an international and secular context, by exploring the significance of the stained glass displayed at ten international exhibitions held in Britain, France, the USA and Australia between 1851 and 1900. International in scope, it is the first study to explore the global development of stained glass in this period, as showcased at, and influenced by, these international events.
Drawing on hundreds of contemporaneous written and visual sources, it identifies the artists and makers who exhibited stained glass, as well as those who reviewed and judged the exhibits. It also provides close readings of specific stained glass exhibits in relation to stylistic developments, material and technological innovations, iconographic themes and visual ideologies.
This monograph broadens approaches to post-medieval stained glass by placing stained glass in its wider cultural, political, economic and global contexts. It provides new perspectives and fresh interpretations of stained glass in these environments, through themed chapters, each of which highlight a different aspect of stained glass in the nineteenth century, including material taxonomies, modes of display, stylistic eclecticism, exhibitors’ international networks, production and consumption, nationalism and imperialism.
As such, the book challenges many of the major methodological and historiographical assumptions and paradigms relating to the study of stained glass. Its scope and range will have wide appeal to those interested in the history of stained glass as well as nineteenth-century culture more broadly.