Light is an important symbol in many religions. It represents purity, the heavens, spirituality, and genesis. Stained glass provides a certain level of privacy that ordinary windows do not without blocking light transmission.
Stained glass windows were once used to educate people who could not read. By looking at the painted scenes in the glass, people could learn about the stories of the Bible and religious teachings. Today, stained glass continues to work in a similar manner as its imagery reminds worshipers of important values and lessons.
Church Stained Glass Restoration is the leading expert specializing in the creation of church stained glass windows. View our past projects to see examples of our work or contact us to learn more about our services. Martin Faith is an expert in the areas of stained glass conservation, preservation, and history. If a panel is painted it will need to be fired in a kiln to set the paint.
For the design of my window, I took inspiration from nature and a window design I had seen while browsing on pinterest. I decided on a mountain sunset scene for the beautiful array of colors that I could use and because I loved that design so much. I then chose an image off google and used that as a template for my design so I could see how it would look broken into pieces. This original design was contingent on how complex I could make my panel at the workshop.
The main use I would have for this panel is as a decorative piece in my home, and maybe someday it could actually function as a window. The process of creating my own stained glass window began at a. The first portion of the workshop involved learning how to properly handle and cut glass. I practiced scoring along a marker line and breaking glass for about an hour. The scoring tool works like a pen and carves a line into the glass, which can then be used to break the glass.
There are three main methods I used for breaking the glass in my panel: scoring and using specialized pliers, scoring and tapping along the line, and scoring and using a different pair of specialized pliers.
The two pairs of pliers were grozier pliers, for breaking small pieces, and the other was a pair of glass breaking pliers for larger breaks and simple curves.
Moving onto the actual panel creation, I was given a piece of paper to design my window with a design restraint of a maximum of eight pieces. For my design, I took my ideal design above and dramatically simplified the lines and colors. The final design ended up looking like a basic mountain sunset.
The main historical influence on my design was the modern do-it-yourself movement, because I preferred the freedom to create any possible design rather than staying within a limited historical style. After creating my cartoon it became time to chose and cut the colored glass. The type of glass we used was standard antique glass, and was mainly the leftover pieces from commissioned art works.
I picked pieces with a smooth texture for the sunset sky because I didn't want my sky to be too complicated, and the glass I chose had beautiful striations that helped me to achieve my desired sunset effect. For the hills and trees I chose to use four different shades of green to add depth to the piece and in an attempt to keep the image more realistic. I also chose to experiment with texture on two of the four pieces, further creating definition between each of the green pieces.
Lastly, for the sun I picked a textured yellow piece because I like the more mellow refraction effect it had in the light. After I had accurately cut each of my pieces, I began to cut and shape the lead. This was the most difficult part of the process because it required an incredible amount of precision.
The first step was creating a corner of the frame, from which all other pieces would line up with. This was the most challenging part because nailing the wood guide to the table would often cause the cartoon to shift and to have to begin the process all over again.
After that had passed I began the tedious task of cutting and shaping thin pieces of lead to the curves of my glass pieces. This was the only moment where I regretted my design choice because the lead would not hold the curved shapes very well.
Once all of the lead was in place it was time for me to solder all of the joints, and using my prior experience I finished soldering rather quickly. Once I was finished soldering, the only step left was to polish my window. After looking into the history, purpose, and techniques of stained glass windows I applied my knowledge to create my own window. Creating a stained glass window is a tedious process of endlessly cutting glass and lead, hoping that in the end the pieces will fit together.
Some of the windows used obscure symbolic icons that scholars of today study to learn about daily life of the time. Gothic windows were generally tall and spear-, wheel-, or rose-shaped. A good example of Gothic stained glass windows are those of the Notre Dame chapel, which holds one of the largest rose shaped windows in the world.
The primary subjects of Renaissance windows were still Biblical, but they are dressed in Renaissance style clothing. The scenes still featured symbolic imagery, perhaps even more so than in the Gothic period. At this time, even non-religious scenes were included in church windows. Stained glass was used in buildings like town halls and wealthy homes, although the panels of homes were small and usually just painted on. The use of linear perspective is seen in some works and activity taking place far in the back, while other activity occurs close up front.
Figures in the pieces show feeling and emotion as the humanist movement of the time made this popular. Between the Renaissance and the mid th century stained glass windows fell from favor. This was largely due to changes within religious norms of the time — the church had been the supporter of the arts, and the new Protestants did not believe in fancy art work and decoration.
By , stained glass was rare and only small panels featuring heraldry were used for homes and city halls. The English Parliament demanded all images of the Virgin Mary and the Trinity be removed from churches, so many stained glass windows were smashed by fanatic vandals. The destruction only stopped because it was too costly to replace the windows. Stained glass window making became a lost art. Artists sought to recreate the lost technique of medieval stained glass windows.
John La Farge and Louis Comfort Tiffany were makers of stained glass during the Art Nouveau period, and created opalescent, confetti, drapery, and ridged glass. Glass-makers would supply sheets of coloured glasses to the glaziers to create their windows. The process of making a stained glass window begins with the artist's sketch, known in medieval times as the vidimus Latin for "we have seen".
The vidimus was then drawn to full scale known as a cartoon on a whitened table top. The panes of coloured glass would then be cut to shape, placed on the cartoon, and joined with strips of lead. The use of lead is thought to have emerged in the middle ages. It was the ideal material to join the pieces of glass because it is flexible yet strong and durable enough to support a great mosaic of glass against extremes of weather and temperature.
The panels would be made weatherproof by rubbing a putty-like mixture of lime, lead and linseed oil into the joints. The panels could then be mounted in the window space. Complex patterns of different coloured glasses could be produced to stunning effect.
However, if stories were to be told human images were required, including details such as hands, faces and the folds of drapery. These were added to the surface of the coloured glass sheets using a black enamel pigment based on copper or iron oxide. This mixture was painted onto the glass with different thickness and textures to give different shading effects, allowing control of light and providing artistic detail.
After painting, the pieces were fired to fuse the paint to the surface of the glass. From the 13th century a second pigment in the form of a "stain" of silver chloride or sulphide was painted onto the glass. Traditionally, this would have been the only true "stain" in stained glass. After painting the stain onto the glass it was heat-treated in a furnace. During the treatment the silver ions migrated into the glass and were suspended within the glass network, rather than sitting on the surface like glass paints and enamels.
Silver stain can give colours ranging from pale yellow to a deep red, depending on glass composition, stain composition, the number of applications, the temperature of the furnace, and colour of the background glass. It was the perfect way to depict yellow hair, halos and crowns along with faces on the same piece of glass, so reducing the amount of light-blocking lead. The stain could also be applied to blue glass to give green, making possible depictions of blue sky and green fields.
The variety of colours and effects that ancient glaziers could achieve with these simple facilities was incredible, but in the midth century different coloured enamels began to be used. Like glazes for pottery, these used either ground-up coloured glass or clear glass with a metallic oxide in a binder, which was painted onto the glass then fired.
Methods such as these continued to be used in the 17th to early 19th centuries as they allowed windows to be painted like easel pictures on clear rectangular glass.
This reduced lead usage with the metal often being used merely to hold the large panes together, the designer's aim being to conceal the lead rather than integrate it. However, it has been said that the emergence of enamelling was the death of the great stained glass window artists. I'm not sure if this is true, but I do know that to stand in front of a great leaded stained glass window is a magical experience.
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