British stained glass (1811-1918) - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

A revival of the art and craft of stained glass

Stained glass

The term stained glass can refer to coloured glass as a material or to works produced from it. Throughout its thousand-year history, the term has been applied almost exclusively to the windows of churches and other significant buildings...

window

Window

A window is a transparent or translucent opening in a wall or door that allows the passage of light and, if not closed or sealed, air and sound. Windows are usually glazed or covered in some other transparent or translucent material like float glass. Windows are held in place by frames, which...

manufacture took place in early 19th century Britain

Early Modern Britain

Early modern Britain is the history of the island of Great Britain, roughly corresponding to the 16th, 17th, and 18th centuries. Major historical events in Early Modern British history include the English Renaissance, the English Reformation and Scottish Reformation, the English Civil War, the...

, beginning with an armorial window created by Thomas Willement

Thomas Willement

Thomas Willement, 1786–1871, was a British stained glass artist, called “the Father of Victorian Stained Glass”, active from 1811 to 1865.-Biographical:Willement was born on the 18th July 1786 at St Marylebone, London....

in 1811-12. The revival led to stained glass windows becoming such a common and popular form of coloured pictorial representation that many thousands of people, most of whom would never commission

Commission (art)

In art, a commission is the hiring and payment for the creation of a piece, often on behalf of another.In classical music, ensembles often commission pieces from composers, where the ensemble secures the composer's payment from private or public organizations or donors.- Commissions for public art...

or purchase a painting, contributed to the commission and purchase of stained glass windows for their parish church.

Within 50 years of the beginnings of commercial manufacture in the 1830s, British stained glass grew into an enormous and specialised industry, with important centres in Newcastle upon Tyne

Newcastle upon Tyne

Newcastle upon Tyne is a city and metropolitan borough of Tyne and Wear, in North East England. Historically a part of Northumberland, it is situated on the north bank of the River Tyne...

, Birmingham

Birmingham

Birmingham is a city and metropolitan borough in the West Midlands of England. It is the most populous British city outside the capital London, with a population of 1,036,900 , and lies at the heart of the West Midlands conurbation, the second most populous urban area in the United Kingdom with a...

, Whitechapel

Whitechapel

Whitechapel is a built-up inner city district in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets, London, England. It is located east of Charing Cross and roughly bounded by the Bishopsgate thoroughfare on the west, Fashion Street on the north, Brady Street and Cavell Street on the east and The Highway on the...

in London

London

London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...

, Edinburgh

Edinburgh

Edinburgh is the capital city of Scotland, the second largest city in Scotland, and the eighth most populous in the United Kingdom. The City of Edinburgh Council governs one of Scotland's 32 local government council areas. The council area includes urban Edinburgh and a rural area...

, Glasgow

Glasgow

Glasgow is the largest city in Scotland and third most populous in the United Kingdom. The city is situated on the River Clyde in the country's west central lowlands...

, Liverpool

Liverpool

Liverpool is a city and metropolitan borough of Merseyside, England, along the eastern side of the Mersey Estuary. It was founded as a borough in 1207 and was granted city status in 1880...

, Norwich

Norwich

Norwich is a city in England. It is the regional administrative centre and county town of Norfolk. During the 11th century, Norwich was the largest city in England after London, and one of the most important places in the kingdom...

and Dublin. The industry also flourished in the United States, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. By 1900 British windows had been installed in Copenhagen

Copenhagen

Copenhagen is the capital and largest city of Denmark, with an urban population of 1,199,224 and a metropolitan population of 1,930,260 . With the completion of the transnational Øresund Bridge in 2000, Copenhagen has become the centre of the increasingly integrating Øresund Region...

, Venice

Venice

Venice is a city in northern Italy which is renowned for the beauty of its setting, its architecture and its artworks. It is the capital of the Veneto region...

, Athens

Athens

Athens , is the capital and largest city of Greece. Athens dominates the Attica region and is one of the world's oldest cities, as its recorded history spans around 3,400 years. Classical Athens was a powerful city-state...

, Bangalore

Bangalore

Bengaluru , formerly called Bengaluru is the capital of the Indian state of Karnataka. Bangalore is nicknamed the Garden City and was once called a pensioner's paradise. Located on the Deccan Plateau in the south-eastern part of Karnataka, Bangalore is India's third most populous city and...

, Nagasaki

Nagasaki

is the capital and the largest city of Nagasaki Prefecture on the island of Kyushu in Japan. Nagasaki was founded by the Portuguese in the second half of the 16th century on the site of a small fishing village, formerly part of Nishisonogi District...

, Manila

Manila

Manila is the capital of the Philippines. It is one of the sixteen cities forming Metro Manila.Manila is located on the eastern shores of Manila Bay and is bordered by Navotas and Caloocan to the north, Quezon City to the northeast, San Juan and Mandaluyong to the east, Makati on the southeast,...

and Wellington

Wellington

Wellington is the capital city and third most populous urban area of New Zealand, although it is likely to have surpassed Christchurch due to the exodus following the Canterbury Earthquake. It is at the southwestern tip of the North Island, between Cook Strait and the Rimutaka Range...

. After the Great War

World War I

World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...

from 1914–1918, stained glass design was to change radically.

Section references-

Background

Following the Norman conquest of England

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

in 1066, many churches, abbeys and cathedrals were built, initially in the Norman

Norman architecture

About|Romanesque architecture, primarily English|other buildings in Normandy|Architecture of Normandy.File:Durham Cathedral. Nave by James Valentine c.1890.jpg|thumb|200px|The nave of Durham Cathedral demonstrates the characteristic round arched style, though use of shallow pointed arches above the...

or Romanesque

Romanesque art

Romanesque art refers to the art of Western Europe from approximately 1000 AD to the rise of the Gothic style in the 13th century, or later, depending on region. The preceding period is increasingly known as the Pre-Romanesque...

style, then in the increasingly elaborate and decorative Gothic style

Gothic architecture

Gothic architecture is a style of architecture that flourished during the high and late medieval period. It evolved from Romanesque architecture and was succeeded by Renaissance architecture....

. In these churches the windows were generally either large or in multiples so that the light within the building was maximised. The windows were glazed, frequently with coloured glass held in place by strips of lead

Lead came and copper foil glasswork

Lead came and copper foil glasswork are the arts and crafts of cutting colored glass and joining the pieces into picturesque designs.The traditional method uses lead came...

. Because flat glass could only be manufactured in small pieces, the method of glazing lent itself to patterning. The pictorial representation of biblical characters and narratives was a feature of Christian churches, often taking the form of murals. By the 12th century stained glass was well adapted to serve this purpose. For 500 years the art flourished and adapted to changing architectural styles.

The vast majority of English glass was smashed by Puritans under Oliver Cromwell

Oliver Cromwell

Oliver Cromwell was an English military and political leader who overthrew the English monarchy and temporarily turned England into a republican Commonwealth, and served as Lord Protector of England, Scotland, and Ireland....

. Churches which retain a substantial amount of early glass are rare. Very few of England's large windows are intact. Those that contain a large amount of Medieval glass are usually reconstructed from salvaged fragments. The East, West and South Transept windows of York Minster

York Minster

York Minster is a Gothic cathedral in York, England and is one of the largest of its kind in Northern Europe alongside Cologne Cathedral. The minster is the seat of the Archbishop of York, the second-highest office of the Church of England, and is the cathedral for the Diocese of York; it is run by...

and the West and North Transept

Transept

For the periodical go to The Transept.A transept is a transverse section, of any building, which lies across the main body of the building. In Christian churches, a transept is an area set crosswise to the nave in a cruciform building in Romanesque and Gothic Christian church architecture...

windows of Canterbury

Canterbury Cathedral

Canterbury Cathedral in Canterbury, Kent, is one of the oldest and most famous Christian structures in England and forms part of a World Heritage Site....

give an idea of the splendours that have been mostly lost.

Historic

Medieval windows and drawings of them provided the source and inspiration for the nearly all the earlier 19th century designers.

Canterbury Cathedral

Canterbury Cathedral

Canterbury Cathedral in Canterbury, Kent, is one of the oldest and most famous Christian structures in England and forms part of a World Heritage Site....

retains more ancient glass than any other English cathedral except York. Much of it is appears to be imported from France and some is very early, dating from the 11th century. Much of the glass is in the style of Chartres Cathedral with deep blue featuring as the background colour in most windows. There are wide borders of stylised floral motifs and small pictorial panels of round, square or diaper shape. Other windows contain rows of apostles, saints and prophets. These windows, including the large West window have a predominance of red, pink, brown and green in the colours, with smaller areas of blue. Most of the glass in this remarkable window is older than the 15th century stone tracery that contains it, the figure of Adam being part of a series of Ancestors of Christ that are among the oldest surviving panels in England.

York Minster

York Minster

also contains much of its original glass including important narrative windows of the Norman period, the famous "Five Sister" windows, the 14th century West window and 15th century East window. The "Five Sisters", although repaired countless times so that they now contain a spider's web of lead, still reveal their delicate pattern of simple geometric shapes enhanced by grisaille

Grisaille

Grisaille is a term for painting executed entirely in monochrome or near-monochrome, usually in shades of grey. It is particularly used in large decorative schemes in imitation of sculpture. Many grisailles in fact include a slightly wider colour range, like the Andrea del Sarto fresco...

painting. They were the style of window which was most easily imitated by early 19th century plumber-glaziers. The East and West windows of York are outstanding examples because in each case they are huge, intact, at their original location and by a known craftsman. The West window, designed in about 1340 by Master Robert, contains tiers of saints and stories of Christ and the Virgin Mary, each surmounted by a delicate Gothic canopy in white and yellow-stain, against a red background. The highly ornate tracery lights are filled with floral motifs. White glass stone borders surround each panel, making it appear to float in its frame. The East window of 1405 was glazed by John Thornton

John Thornton (glass painter)

John Thornton of Coventry was a master glazier and stained glass artist active in England during the 15th century. The output of his workshop includes some of the finest English medieval glass.-Biography:...

and is the largest intact medieval window in the world. It presents a narrative in sequential panels of the Creation, the Fall of Man, the Redemption, the Apocalypse

Apocalypse

An Apocalypse is a disclosure of something hidden from the majority of mankind in an era dominated by falsehood and misconception, i.e. the veil to be lifted. The Apocalypse of John is the Book of Revelation, the last book of the New Testament...

, the Last Judgment

Last Judgment

The Last Judgment, Final Judgment, Day of Judgment, Judgment Day, or The Day of the Lord in Christian theology, is the final and eternal judgment by God of every nation. The concept is found in all the Canonical gospels, particularly the Gospel of Matthew. It will purportedly take place after the...

and the Glory of God.
York also has windows with small diaper-shaped quarries painted with little birds and other motifs which were much reproduced in the 19th century.

Between them, the windows of York and Canterbury cathedrals provided the examples for different styles of windows- geometric patterns, floral motifs and borders, narratives set in small panels, rows of figures, major thematic schemes.

Scattered all over England, sometimes in remote churches, is similar evidence of the designs, motifs and techniques used in the past. Two churches, St Neot's in Cornwall and Fairford

Fairford

Fairford is a small town in Gloucestershire, England. The town lies in the Cotswolds on the River Coln, about east of Cirencester, west of Lechlade and north of Swindon. Nearby are RAF Fairford and the Cotswold Water Park.-Schools:...

in Gloucestershire, are of particular interest. Fairford escaped the depredations of the Puritan era and, uniquely in England, retained its complete medieval cycle of glass. The theme is that of the East Window of York, the Salvation of Mankind

Salvation

Within religion salvation is the phenomenon of being saved from the undesirable condition of bondage or suffering experienced by the psyche or soul that has arisen as a result of unskillful or immoral actions generically referred to as sins. Salvation may also be called "deliverance" or...

, but in this case the theme is spread across all the windows of the church, large and small. The West Window, of seven lights, shows a single narrative incident, the Last Judgment

Last Judgment

. This scheme and these particular windows provided a rare source for the designers of narrative windows for parish churches.

Section references-

Philosophic

Romanticism

In the 18th century there was a growing trend for philosophers, writers and painters to commune with nature

Romanticism

Romanticism was an artistic, literary and intellectual movement that originated in the second half of the 18th century in Europe, and gained strength in reaction to the Industrial Revolution...

. Nature was seen as all the more attractive if it contained signs of the grand aspirations, ideals and follies of humankind. Few things were considered more romantic than a medieval ruin which conjured up images of the traditional "romances" or idealistic sagas of the Middle Ages

Middle Ages

The Middle Ages is a periodization of European history from the 5th century to the 15th century. The Middle Ages follows the fall of the Western Roman Empire in 476 and precedes the Early Modern Era. It is the middle period of a three-period division of Western history: Classic, Medieval and Modern...

.
England contained a great number of large Medieval ruins. These were chiefly castles destroyed by the Civil War

English Civil War

The English Civil War was a series of armed conflicts and political machinations between Parliamentarians and Royalists...

in the 17th century and, even more significantly, vast abbey churches ruined at the Dissolution of the Monasteries

Dissolution of the Monasteries

The Dissolution of the Monasteries, sometimes referred to as the Suppression of the Monasteries, was the set of administrative and legal processes between 1536 and 1541 by which Henry VIII disbanded monasteries, priories, convents and friaries in England, Wales and Ireland; appropriated their...

in the 16th century. These ruined abbey churches suffered three long-term fates. Some were used as quarries for their building materials. The more remote abbeys were simply left to slowly decay. Those that were conveniently placed were awarded, with their associated lands, to favourites of King Henry VIII

Henry VIII of England

Henry VIII was King of England from 21 April 1509 until his death. He was Lord, and later King, of Ireland, as well as continuing the nominal claim by the English monarchs to the Kingdom of France...

and his heirs. Thus it was that many of England's nobility grew up in homes that included within their structure part the Gothic remains of an ancient church or its associated monastic buildings. Some of these houses, such as the poet Byron's home, Newstead Abbey

Newstead Abbey

Newstead Abbey, in Nottinghamshire, England, originally an Augustinian priory, is now best known as the ancestral home of Lord Byron.-Monastic foundation:The priory of St...

, contain reference to their origin within their name.

In the 18th century the owning of such a pile became fashionable. Those of noble lineage who did not have a ruin or a battlemented tower or an interior with pointed arcades promptly built one. Among the earliest of these creations was the novelist Horace Walpole's refurbishing of his London villa, which gave its name to the pretty and somewhat superficial style of architectural decoration known as Strawberry Hill Gothick

Strawberry Hill House

Strawberry Hill is the Gothic Revival villa of Horace Walpole which he built in the second half of the 18th century in what is now an affluent area of the London Borough of Richmond upon Thames in Twickenham, London...

. The movement gained impetus- Sir Walter Scott

Walter Scott

Sir Walter Scott, 1st Baronet was a Scottish historical novelist, playwright, and poet, popular throughout much of the world during his time....

built himself a Scottish Baronial mansion, Abbotsford

Abbotsford House

Abbotsford is a historic house in the region of the Scottish Borders in the south of Scotland, near Melrose, on the south bank of the River Tweed. It was formerly the residence of historical novelist and poet, Walter Scott...

; the castles of Warwick

Warwick Castle

Warwick Castle is a medieval castle in Warwick, the county town of Warwickshire, England. It sits on a bend on the River Avon. The castle was built by William the Conqueror in 1068 within or adjacent to the Anglo-Saxon burh of Warwick. It was used as a fortification until the early 17th century,...

, Arundel

Arundel Castle

Arundel Castle in Arundel, West Sussex, England is a restored medieval castle. It was founded by Roger de Montgomery on Christmas Day 1067. Roger became the first to hold the earldom of Arundel by the graces of William the Conqueror...

and Windsor

Windsor Castle

Windsor Castle is a medieval castle and royal residence in Windsor in the English county of Berkshire, notable for its long association with the British royal family and its architecture. The original castle was built after the Norman invasion by William the Conqueror. Since the time of Henry I it...

were refurbished by their owners. The movement was just as strong in Germany where "Mad" King Ludwig II of Bavaria

Ludwig II of Bavaria

Ludwig II was King of Bavaria from 1864 until shortly before his death. He is sometimes called the Swan King and der Märchenkönig, the Fairy tale King...

indulged his medievalism by building the Disneyland icon of Neuschwanstein. All over Europe, those who could afford to do so began the restoration and refurbishment of Medieval buildings. The last great Romantic flourish was the building of Castle Drogo

Castle Drogo

Castle Drogo is a country house near Drewsteignton, Devon, England. It was built in the 1910s and 1920s for Julius Drewe to designs by architect Edwin Lutyens, and is a Grade I listed building...

by Sir Edwin Lutyens between 1910 and 1930.

The Oxford Movement

Begun in Oxford

Oxford

The city of Oxford is the county town of Oxfordshire, England. The city, made prominent by its medieval university, has a population of just under 165,000, with 153,900 living within the district boundary. It lies about 50 miles north-west of London. The rivers Cherwell and Thames run through...

in 1833 by the theologian John Keble

John Keble

John Keble was an English churchman and poet, one of the leaders of the Oxford Movement, and gave his name to Keble College, Oxford.-Early life:...

and supported by John Henry Newman, the Oxford Movement

Oxford Movement

The Oxford Movement was a movement of High Church Anglicans, eventually developing into Anglo-Catholicism. The movement, whose members were often associated with the University of Oxford, argued for the reinstatement of lost Christian traditions of faith and their inclusion into Anglican liturgy...

stressed the universality or "catholic" nature of the Christian Church and urged priests of the Church of England

Church of England

The Church of England is the officially established Christian church in England and the Mother Church of the worldwide Anglican Communion. The church considers itself within the tradition of Western Christianity and dates its formal establishment principally to the mission to England by St...

to reconsider their pre-Reformation

English Reformation

The English Reformation was the series of events in 16th-century England by which the Church of England broke away from the authority of the Pope and the Roman Catholic Church....

traditions in both Doctrine

Doctrine

Doctrine is a codification of beliefs or a body of teachings or instructions, taught principles or positions, as the body of teachings in a branch of knowledge or belief system...

and Liturgy

Liturgy

Liturgy is either the customary public worship done by a specific religious group, according to its particular traditions or a more precise term that distinguishes between those religious groups who believe their ritual requires the "people" to do the "work" of responding to the priest, and those...

. While reinforcing the concept of direct descent from the Apostles through the Church of Rome, the movement did not advocate a return to Roman Catholicism. In practice, however, several hundred Anglican priests, including Newman, became Roman Catholic. The long-term effects of the Oxford Movement were the rapid expansion of the Roman Catholic Church

Roman Catholic Church

The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the world's largest Christian church, with over a billion members. Led by the Pope, it defines its mission as spreading the gospel of Jesus Christ, administering the sacraments and exercising charity...

in Britain and the establishment of Anglo-Catholic liturgical styles in many Anglican churches. The emphasis on liturgical rites brought about an artistic revolution in church building and decoration.

The Cambridge Camden Society

Formed in 1839 as a society of Cambridge

Cambridge

The city of Cambridge is a university town and the administrative centre of the county of Cambridgeshire, England. It lies in East Anglia about north of London. Cambridge is at the heart of the high-technology centre known as Silicon Fen – a play on Silicon Valley and the fens surrounding the...

undergraduates with an interest in Medieval architecture, this group

Cambridge Camden Society

The Cambridge Camden Society, later known as the Ecclesiological Society from 1845 when it moved to London, was a learned architectural society founded in 1839 by undergraduates at Cambridge University to promote "the study of Gothic Architecture, and of Ecclesiastical Antiques." Its activities...

developed into a powerful movement for the recording, study preservation of England's ancient churches, the analysis and definition of architectural style and the dissemination of such information through its publications, chiefly a monthly journal The Ecclesiologist (1841–1869).
The Cambridge Camden Society

Cambridge Camden Society

did much to bring about a revival of medieval styles in the design and appointments of 19th century churches, as well as in the restoration

Victorian restoration

Victorian restoration is the term commonly used to refer to the widespread and extensive refurbishment and rebuilding of Church of England churches and cathedrals that took place in England and Wales during the 19th-century reign of Queen Victoria...

of older ones. Their notions were often highly prescriptive, inflexible and intolerant of diversity within the church. They were insistent upon revival rather than originality.

John Ruskin

John Ruskin

John Ruskin

John Ruskin was the leading English art critic of the Victorian era, also an art patron, draughtsman, watercolourist, a prominent social thinker and philanthropist. He wrote on subjects ranging from geology to architecture, myth to ornithology, literature to education, and botany to political...

, (1810–1900), an art critic, wrote two books that were highly influential in Art Philosophy. In The Seven Lamps of Architecture (1849) and The Stones of Venice (1851–1853), he discussed the moral, social and religious implications of buildings, emphasising the desirability of an ethical approach to the practice of the arts. His thinking influenced the Pre-Raphaelites, whose artistic style Ruskin defended against criticism.

The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, 1849-1853

This group of artists, of whom Dante Gabriel Rossetti

Dante Gabriel Rossetti

Dante Gabriel Rossetti was an English poet, illustrator, painter and translator. He founded the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood in 1848 with William Holman Hunt and John Everett Millais, and was later to be the main inspiration for a second generation of artists and writers influenced by the movement,...

, Edward Burne-Jones

Edward Burne-Jones

Sir Edward Coley Burne-Jones, 1st Baronet was a British artist and designer closely associated with the later phase of the Pre-Raphaelite movement, who worked closely with William Morris on a wide range of decorative arts as a founding partner in Morris, Marshall, Faulkner, and Company...

, John Everett Millais

John Everett Millais

Sir John Everett Millais, 1st Baronet, PRA was an English painter and illustrator and one of the founders of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood.-Early life:...

and William Holman Hunt

William Holman Hunt

William Holman Hunt OM was an English painter, and one of the founders of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood.-Biography:...

were the central figures, rejected the indulgent classicism

Classicism

Classicism, in the arts, refers generally to a high regard for classical antiquity, as setting standards for taste which the classicists seek to emulate. The art of classicism typically seeks to be formal and restrained: of the Discobolus Sir Kenneth Clark observed, "if we object to his restraint...

, the materialism

Materialism

In philosophy, the theory of materialism holds that the only thing that exists is matter; that all things are composed of material and all phenomena are the result of material interactions. In other words, matter is the only substance...

and the lack of social responsibility

Social responsibility

Social responsibility is an ethical ideology or theory that an entity, be it an organization or individual, has an obligation to act to benefit society at large. Social responsibility is a duty every individual or organization has to perform so as to maintain a balance between the economy and the...

that they perceived in the artistic trends of mid-19th century painting. They sought to recreate in their works the simple forms, bright colours, religious devotion and artistic anonymity of the period of art that preceded the rise of the great and famous individuals of the Renaissance

Renaissance

The Renaissance was a cultural movement that spanned roughly the 14th to the 17th century, beginning in Italy in the Late Middle Ages and later spreading to the rest of Europe. The term is also used more loosely to refer to the historical era, but since the changes of the Renaissance were not...

period. They initially exhibited their works signed only with the initials PRB, Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood

Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood

The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood was a group of English painters, poets, and critics, founded in 1848 by William Holman Hunt, John Everett Millais and Dante Gabriel Rossetti...

.

The Arts and Crafts Movement
William Morris

William Morris

William Morris 24 March 18343 October 1896 was an English textile designer, artist, writer, and socialist associated with the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood and the English Arts and Crafts Movement...

(1834–1896) was for a time a member of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood and was influenced by their ideals and those of John Ruskin. As a precociously diverse designer, he saw the creation of arts in terms of social responsibility. He rejected, as Ruskin did, the mass-production of ornate and decorative wares of all sorts, such as those products of industry that were displayed in the 1851 Crystal Palace Exhibition. Morris advocated a return to cottage crafts and the revival and promulgation of old skills. To this end he formed a business partnership with Marshall and Faulkner, employing Ford Madox Brown

Ford Madox Brown

Ford Madox Brown was an English painter of moral and historical subjects, notable for his distinctively graphic and often Hogarthian version of the Pre-Raphaelite style. Arguably, his most notable painting was Work...

, another highly creative and dynamic artist and thus began what is termed "the Arts and Crafts Movement

Arts and Crafts movement

Arts and Crafts was an international design philosophy that originated in England and flourished between 1860 and 1910 , continuing its influence until the 1930s...

".
Stained glass was just one of many products of their studio. Morris and Brown saw themselves as original artists working in the spirit of their antecedents. They did not reproduce earlier forms exactly, and because of disagreements with the philosophy of the Cambridge Camden Society

Cambridge Camden Society

, rarely created stained glass windows for ancient churches.
William Morris's success as an entrepreneur was such that he was able to keep Rosetti, Burne-Jones and others in regular employment as designers. Through their teaching at the Workingmen's College in London the group had enormous influence on many designers of all sorts.

The Aesthetic Movement
The Aesthetic Movement was a reaction against both the works of industry and the influential Socialist and Christian idealism of Morris and Ruskin who both saw art as directly linked to morality. Followers of the Aesthetic Movement, who included Burne-Jones and other stained glass designers such as Henry Holiday, propounded a philosophy of "Art for Art's sake". The style that evolved was sensuous and luxurious, linked with the rise of Art Nouveau

Art Nouveau

Art Nouveau is an international philosophy and style of art, architecture and applied art—especially the decorative arts—that were most popular during 1890–1910. The name "Art Nouveau" is French for "new art"...

Architectural

Augustus Welby Northmore Pugin

A. W. N. Pugin, (1812–1852) was the son of the Neo-Gothic architect, Augustus Charles Pugin

Augustus Charles Pugin

Augustus Charles Pugin, born Auguste Charles Pugin, was an Anglo-French artist, architectural draughtsman, and writer on medieval architecture...

, and was a convert to Roman Catholicism

Roman Catholic Church

in 1835. He built his first church in 1837. He was an enormously productive and meticulous church architect and designer of interiors. With the growth of Roman Catholicism in England, and the development of large industrial centres there was much scope for his talents. He worked with and employed other designers and was instrumental in encouraging the firm of John Hardman and Co.

Hardman & Co.

Hardman & Co., otherwise John Hardman Trading Co., Ltd., founded 1838, began manufacturing stained glass in 1844 and became one of the world's leading manufacturers of stained glass and ecclesiastical fittings...

of Birmingham to turn their attention to the production of glass.
Pugin's most renowned designs are the interiors, particularly the House of Lords

House of Lords

The House of Lords is the upper house of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Like the House of Commons, it meets in the Palace of Westminster....

, that he designed for the architect Sir Charles Barry, (1795–1860) at the Houses of Parliament in London. After the destruction by fire of the Houses of Parliament in 1834, Barry had won the commission for their rebuilding, the stipulation being that they should be in the Gothic style

Gothic architecture

Gothic architecture is a style of architecture that flourished during the high and late medieval period. It evolved from Romanesque architecture and was succeeded by Renaissance architecture....

, as the most significant part of the Medieval complex, the Great Hall of Westminster, remained standing. The rebuilding, which took up the rest of Barry's life, included a vast array of arts and crafts of all kinds, not the least of which was stained glass windows, both pictorial and armorial. The knowledge, elegance and sophistication of Pugin's designs imbue and unite the interiors. As an ecclesiastical designer, his influence upon every medium is hard to overstate.

Sir George Gilbert Scott

As an architect Scott

George Gilbert Scott

Sir George Gilbert Scott was an English architect of the Victorian Age, chiefly associated with the design, building and renovation of churches, cathedrals and workhouses...

, (1811–1878), was persuaded by Pugin to turn his creativity towards Gothic Revival. Scott was an Anglican, his first significant commission being the design of the Martyrs' Memorial

Martyrs' Memorial

The Martyrs' Memorial is a stone monument positioned at the intersection of St Giles', Magdalen Street and Beaumont Street in Oxford, England just outside Balliol College...

in Oxford

Oxford

, a powerful and highly visible architectural statement against the Oxford Movement

Oxford Movement

. To Sir Gilbert fell the task of restoration

Victorian restoration

of many of England's finest Medieval structures including Salisbury

Salisbury Cathedral

Salisbury Cathedral, formally known as the Cathedral Church of the Blessed Virgin Mary, is an Anglican cathedral in Salisbury, England, considered one of the leading examples of Early English architecture....

, Worcester

Worcester Cathedral

Worcester Cathedral is an Anglican cathedral in Worcester, England; situated on a bank overlooking the River Severn. It is the seat of the Anglican Bishop of Worcester. Its official name is The Cathedral Church of Christ and the Blessed Mary the Virgin of Worcester...

, Chester

Chester Cathedral

Chester Cathedral is the mother church of the Church of England Diocese of Chester, and is located in the city of Chester, Cheshire, England. The cathedral, formerly St Werburgh's abbey church of a Benedictine monastery, is dedicated to Christ and the Blessed Virgin Mary...

, Ely

Ely Cathedral

Ely Cathedral is the principal church of the Diocese of Ely, in Cambridgeshire, England, and is the seat of the Bishop of Ely and a suffragan bishop, the Bishop of Huntingdon...

and Durham

Durham Cathedral

The Cathedral Church of Christ, Blessed Mary the Virgin and St Cuthbert of Durham is a cathedral in the city of Durham, England, the seat of the Anglican Bishop of Durham. The Bishopric dates from 995, with the present cathedral being founded in AD 1093...

Cathedrals. In the restorations, he was to employ and influence a great number of designers, including major stained glass firms.

John Loughborough Pearson

Pearson

John Loughborough Pearson

John Loughborough Pearson was a Gothic Revival architect renowned for his work on churches and cathedrals. Pearson revived and practised largely the art of vaulting, and acquired in it a proficiency unrivalled in his generation.-Early life and education:Pearson was born in Brussels, Belgium on 5...

(1817–1897) was, like Scott, chiefly a restorer of churches. His major work was the creation of the new cathedral at Truro

Truro Cathedral

The Cathedral of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Truro is an Anglican cathedral located in the city of Truro, Cornwall, in the United Kingdom. It was built in the Gothic Revival architectural style fashionable during much of the nineteenth century, and is one of only three cathedrals in the United Kingdom...

in Cornwall

Cornwall

Cornwall is a unitary authority and ceremonial county of England, within the United Kingdom. It is bordered to the north and west by the Celtic Sea, to the south by the English Channel, and to the east by the county of Devon, over the River Tamar. Cornwall has a population of , and covers an area of...

.

Greek Thomson

Alexander Thomson

Alexander Thomson

Alexander "Greek" Thomson was an eminent Scottish architect and architectural theorist who was a pioneer in sustainable building. Although his work was published in the architectural press of his day, it was little appreciated outwith Glasgow during his lifetime...

, nicknamed "Greek", (1817–1875), was one of the best known Scottish architects of his day and had a profound effect on later architects, particularly Charles Rennie MacIntosh. His building designs are curious and eclectic combinations of elements from the Classical, the Italian Renaissance

Italian Renaissance

The Italian Renaissance began the opening phase of the Renaissance, a period of great cultural change and achievement in Europe that spanned the period from the end of the 13th century to about 1600, marking the transition between Medieval and Early Modern Europe...

, the Egyptian

Art of Ancient Egypt

Ancient Egyptian art is the painting, sculpture, architecture and other arts produced by the civilization in the lower Nile Valley from 5000 BC to 300 AD. Ancient Egyptian art reached a high level in painting and sculpture, and was both highly stylized and symbolic...

and the Exotic

Exotic

Exotic can mean:*In mathematics:**Exotic R4 - differentiable manifold homeomorphic but not diffeomorphic to the Euclidean space R4**Exotic sphere - differentiable manifold homeomorphic but not diffeomorphic to the ordinary sphere*In physics:...

. He designed a number of churches with richly decorated interiors and employed several stained glass firms to furnish them with glass in the appropriate style.

Manufacturing

Industrial Revolution

With the growth of industry

Industrial Revolution

The Industrial Revolution was a period from the 18th to the 19th century where major changes in agriculture, manufacturing, mining, transportation, and technology had a profound effect on the social, economic and cultural conditions of the times...

in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, and in particular the growth of those industries associated with commercial glass production, metal trades, metallurgy

Metallurgy

Metallurgy is a domain of materials science that studies the physical and chemical behavior of metallic elements, their intermetallic compounds, and their mixtures, which are called alloys. It is also the technology of metals: the way in which science is applied to their practical use...

and the associated technical advancements, the scene was set for the revival of stained glass manufacture and the development of that industry on an unprecedented scale. Many provincial stained glass artists commenced as Thomas Willement did, as a plumber and glazier. Between 1820 and 1840 some 40 different glass painters appear in the London trades directories.
At the time of the showcase of Victorian enterprise, the Crystal Palace Exhibition of 1851, stained glass manufacture had reached a point where 25 firms were able to display their works, including John Hardman of Birmingham

Birmingham

, William Wailes of Newcastle, Ballantine and Allen of Edinburgh

Edinburgh

, Betton and Evans of Shrewsbury

Shrewsbury

Shrewsbury is the county town of Shropshire, in the West Midlands region of England. Lying on the River Severn, it is a civil parish home to some 70,000 inhabitants, and is the primary settlement and headquarters of Shropshire Council...

and William Holland

William Holland (stained glass maker)

William Holland was a 19th century British maker of stained glass and other decorative pieces. His work is represented in churches and stately homes across southern England, Wales, and Ireland. Holland of Warwick windows can be identified by his mark "Guil Holland Vaivic...

of Warwick

Warwick

Warwick is the county town of Warwickshire, England. The town lies upon the River Avon, south of Coventry and just west of Leamington Spa and Whitnash with which it is conjoined. As of the 2001 United Kingdom census, it had a population of 23,350...

.

Charles Winston

Charles Winston was a 19th century lawyer whose hobby was the study of Medieval glass. In 1847 he published an influential book on its styles and production, including a translation from Theophilus' On Diverse Arts, the foremost Medieval treatise on painting, stained glass and metalwork, written in the early 12th century.

Winston's interest in the technicalities of coloured glass production led him to take shards of medieval glass to James Powell and Sons

James Powell and Sons

The firm of James Powell and Sons, also known as Whitefriars Glass, were English glassmakers, leadlighters and stained glass window manufacturers...

of Whitefriars for analyses and reproduction. Winston observed that windows of medieval glass appeared more luminous than those of early 19th century production, and set his mind to discovering why this was the case. Winston observed that light streaming through a 19th century window generally made a coloured pattern on the floor. This was rarely the case with medieval glass. He concluded that the reason that 19th century glass lacked brilliance was because it was too flat and regular, allowing the light to pass through directly. He recommended a return to the manufacture of hand-made crown

Architectural glass

Architectural glass is glass that is used as a building material. It is most typically used as transparent glazing material in the building envelope, including windows in the external walls. Glass is also used for internal partitions and as an architectural feature...

and cylinder glass

Cylinder blown sheet

Cylinder blown sheet is a type of hand-blown window glass. It is created with a similar process to broad sheet, but larger cylinders are produced by swinging the cylinder in a trench. The glass is then allowed to cool before the cylinder is cut. The glass is then re-heated and flattened...

with all their inherent refractive irregularities for the specific purpose of creating stained glass windows.

Stylistic developments in 19th century stained-glass windows

The stylistic trends below did not necessarily follow each other consecutively. Rather, they overlapped and co-existed. Some stained glass studios were essentially a one-man show in which a single craftsmen designed and made windows of a particular style. Other firms were managed with considerable entrepreneurial skills, employing a number of designers. Some designers freelanced- their work can be seen in windows by a number of firms. Some firms changed with changing tastes and survived well into the 20th century. John Hardman & Co. is still in business.

(For Glossary of Terms, see below.)

Armorial windows

These contain precisely painted shields and heraldic

Heraldry

Heraldry is the profession, study, or art of creating, granting, and blazoning arms and ruling on questions of rank or protocol, as exercised by an officer of arms. Heraldry comes from Anglo-Norman herald, from the Germanic compound harja-waldaz, "army commander"...

decoration utilising painterly skills that had remained in use during the 17th and 18th centuries. Thomas Willement

Thomas Willement

was an armorial painter of windows.

Geometric patterns

These windows are simple and decorative, frequently utilising the skills of the provincial plumber

Plumbing

Plumbing is the system of pipes and drains installed in a building for the distribution of potable drinking water and the removal of waterborne wastes, and the skilled trade of working with pipes, tubing and plumbing fixtures in such systems. A plumber is someone who installs or repairs piping...

/glazier

Architectural glass

. Many of these windows are among the earliest use of coloured glass but comparatively few have survived because later Victorians

Victorian era

The Victorian era of British history was the period of Queen Victoria's reign from 20 June 1837 until her death on 22 January 1901. It was a long period of peace, prosperity, refined sensibilities and national self-confidence...

have replaced them with more elaborate pictorial windows. Some of these windows date from the 1820s.

Diaper quarries

These windows are usually patterned with fleur de lys

Fleur de Lys

Fleur de Lys is a superheroine from Quebec and an ally of Northguard, created in 1984 by Mark Shainblum and Gabriel Morrissette. The name of the character is inspired by the heraldic symbol of the fleur de lys. It is the official emblem of Quebec and a prominent part of the Flag of Quebec...

and other floral motifs that were suited to the shape of the diapers. They added a pleasant glowing ambience to an interior and in many churches in the early 19th century made up the entire glazing. They were systematically replaced one by one when more elaborate windows were donated. These windows generally date from 1830-1860. Powell

James Powell and Sons

The firm of James Powell and Sons, also known as Whitefriars Glass, were English glassmakers, leadlighters and stained glass window manufacturers...

was a major supplier of quarries.

Medieval foliate windows

From studying Medieval windows

Stained glass

, particularly those at Canterbury Cathedral

Canterbury Cathedral

Canterbury Cathedral in Canterbury, Kent, is one of the oldest and most famous Christian structures in England and forms part of a World Heritage Site....

, many stained glass artists became adept at designing foliage and decorative borders that reproduce archaeological

Archaeology

Archaeology, or archeology , is the study of human society, primarily through the recovery and analysis of the material culture and environmental data that they have left behind, which includes artifacts, architecture, biofacts and cultural landscapes...

originals. There are windows of this type in which the foliate design is overlaid with banners bearing scriptural texts.

In those windows that are set with figurative rondels, the style within them is often Classical

Classicism

(see below) but sometimes Medievalising

Gothic art

Gothic art was a Medieval art movement that developed in France out of Romanesque art in the mid-12th century, led by the concurrent development of Gothic architecture. It spread to all of Western Europe, but took over art more completely north of the Alps, never quite effacing more classical...

and sometimes seeks to reproduce the original style so accurately that to they casual eye they have the appearance of ancient windows. Ancient windows in Canterbury Cathedral

Canterbury Cathedral

Canterbury Cathedral in Canterbury, Kent, is one of the oldest and most famous Christian structures in England and forms part of a World Heritage Site....

were removed in the 19th century and replaced with copies. There is a very fine Jesse Tree (the Ancestors of Christ) window of this nature at the eastern end. Two panels of the original have since been returned.

Classical figures

Although often striving for an exotic

Exoticism

Exoticism is a trend in art and design, influenced by some ethnic groups or civilizations since the late 19th-century. In music exoticism is a genre in which the rhythms, melodies, or instrumentation are designed to evoke the atmosphere of far-off lands or ancient times Exoticism (from 'exotic')...

appearance, the figures in many Early 19th century windows are classicising

Classicism

in style. Set against a background of geometry, quarries or foliage, the small painted incidents within rondels and quatrefoils are nearly always conservatively academic

Academic art

Academic art is a style of painting and sculpture produced under the influence of European academies of art. Specifically, academic art is the art and artists influenced by the standards of the French Académie des Beaux-Arts, which practiced under the movements of Neoclassicism and Romanticism,...

in their appearance, with figures based on those in engravings

Steel engraving

Steel engraving, is a commercial engraving technique for printing illustrations, based on steel instead of copper. It has been rarely used in artistic printmaking, although was much used for reproductions in the 19th century. Steel engraving was introduced in 1792 by Jacob Perkins , an American...

of works by admired painters, Raphael

Raphael

Raffaello Sanzio da Urbino , better known simply as Raphael, was an Italian painter and architect of the High Renaissance. His work is admired for its clarity of form and ease of composition and for its visual achievement of the Neoplatonic ideal of human grandeur...

, Titian

Titian

Tiziano Vecelli or Tiziano Vecellio Tiziano Vecelli or Tiziano Vecellio Tiziano Vecelli or Tiziano Vecellio (c. 1488/1490 – 27 August 1576 better known as Titian was an Italian painter, the most important member of the 16th-century Venetian school. He was born in Pieve di Cadore, near...

, Andrea del Sarto

Andrea del Sarto

Andrea del Sarto was an Italian painter from Florence, whose career flourished during the High Renaissance and early Mannerism. Though highly regarded during his lifetime as an artist senza errori , his renown was eclipsed after his death by that of his contemporaries, Leonardo da Vinci,...

and Perugino. Often in the case of windows with ornate foliage, the archaeologically correct surrounds are at variance with the style of the rondels which make no attempt to reproduce the medieval. William Wailes

William Wailes

William Wailes, , was the proprietor of one of England’s largest and most prolific stained glass workshops.- Biographical :Wailes was born and grew up in Newcastle on Tyne, England’s centre of domestic glass and bottle manufacturing. His first business was as a grocer and tea merchant...

and Charles Edmund Clutterbuck

Charles Edmund Clutterbuck

Charles Clutterbuck was a stained glass artist of Stratford, East London. He was originally a painter of miniatures and exhibited eight paintings at the Royal Academy. He began stained glass work in the 1840s. Examples of his work can be seen in many Churches in the South East of England...

were among the important firms.

Gothic Revival

Inspired by Ruskin

John Ruskin

, Pugin and the Gothic Revival, some artists sought to reproduce the style of figures that they saw in ancient glass, illuminated manuscripts and the few remaining English wall paintings of the Gothic

Gothic art

period. A major source was provided by the Biblia Pauperum

Biblia pauperum

The Biblia pauperum was a tradition of picture Bibles beginning in the later Middle Ages. They sought to portray the historical books of the Bible visually. Unlike a simple "illustrated Bible", where the pictures are subordinated to the text, these Bibles placed the illustration in the centre,...

or so-called "Poor Man's Bible". The resulting figures are elongated, curvilinear and stylised rather than naturalistic. The drapery folds and scrolls are exaggerated and the gestures are expansive. The painted details are highly linear, crisply defined and elegant. The style lent itself to narrative, to pure colour and to highly decorative effects. While the figures may seem quaint or even naïve, the quality of design of many of these windows is often highly sophisticated and the detailing exquisite. The masters of Gothic revival were John Hardman and Co.

Hardman & Co.

of Birmingham and Clayton and Bell

Clayton and Bell

Clayton and Bell was one of the most prolific and proficient workshops of English stained glass during the latter half of the 19th century. The partners were John Richard Clayton and Alfred Bell . The company was founded in 1855 and continued until 1993...

.
Arts and Crafts Movement

The group that surrounded and were influenced by William Morris

William Morris

William Morris 24 March 18343 October 1896 was an English textile designer, artist, writer, and socialist associated with the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood and the English Arts and Crafts Movement...

passed through a series of trends, initially Pre-Raphaelite, which, although espousing the Medieval, was not Gothic Revival in the archaeological sense, being an esoteric mix of Medieval

Medieval art

The medieval art of the Western world covers a vast scope of time and place, over 1000 years of art history in Europe, and at times the Middle East and North Africa...

, Early Renaissance and deeply personal influences. The Arts and Crafts

Arts and Crafts movement

Arts and Crafts was an international design philosophy that originated in England and flourished between 1860 and 1910 , continuing its influence until the 1930s...

style lent itself to the depiction of solidly working-class apostles and virtues set against backgrounds of quarries that resemble glazed earthenware tiles. The botanically accurate and semi-realistic grapevines, sunflowers and other growing things were more prominent than Gothic canopies. Narratives that emphasised hard labour, human decency and charitable love were the themes that lent themselves to enthusiastic treatment by Morris and Ford Madox Brown

Ford Madox Brown

. Burne-Jones and Dante Gabriel Rossetti

Dante Gabriel Rossetti

were to become philosophic traitors to the Arts and Crafts Movement by their association with the Aesthetic Movement.

Naturalism

The 1870s was a time of rich ornamentation and eclecticism

Eclecticism

Eclecticism is a conceptual approach that does not hold rigidly to a single paradigm or set of assumptions, but instead draws upon multiple theories, styles, or ideas to gain complementary insights into a subject, or applies different theories in particular cases.It can sometimes seem inelegant or...

in the arts. The treatment of Gothic canopies which were a feature of so many windows began to change from the brightly-coloured, two-dimensional, playful appearance of the 1850s and 60s to an appearance of having been carved from fine white limestone

Limestone

Limestone is a sedimentary rock composed largely of the minerals calcite and aragonite, which are different crystal forms of calcium carbonate . Many limestones are composed from skeletal fragments of marine organisms such as coral or foraminifera....

. Tudor

Tudor period

The Tudor period usually refers to the period between 1485 and 1603, specifically in relation to the history of England. This coincides with the rule of the Tudor dynasty in England whose first monarch was Henry VII...

and Renaissance architectural details made an appearance and were often used without reference to the nature of the real architecture

Architecture

Architecture is both the process and product of planning, designing and construction. Architectural works, in the material form of buildings, are often perceived as cultural and political symbols and as works of art...

that enclosed the window. The art of painting canopies in this manner was diligently maintained until after World War I

World War I

.

The Gothic

Gothic art

style of figure painting began to give way to a more naturalistic style in which the figures seem more three dimensional and portrait-like. An important source at this time was German wood engravings and etchings. These were available in a number of forms. Bibles and Bible picture books were available with several different series of such engravings

Steel engraving

. The works of Albrecht Dürer

Albrecht Dürer

Albrecht Dürer was a German painter, printmaker, engraver, mathematician, and theorist from Nuremberg. His prints established his reputation across Europe when he was still in his twenties, and he has been conventionally regarded as the greatest artist of the Northern Renaissance ever since...

were much admired. One of the advantages of using engravings as a source was that the essentially linear techniques that were employed by the engraver to define forms could be easily interpreted in lead and the fine linear treatment of shadows was likewise easy for the stained glass artist to achieve using the monochrome paint technique. There were also windows imported into England at this time from the studios of Mayer of Munich which influenced English designers towards this style.

In the late 19th century there is often a great richness in the colouration of the windows, marked by a use of tertiary colours including rich purple, salmon pink, olive green, claret red, saffron and brown. Flashed glass was skillfully employed to enhance deep folds in robes. With this interest in colour, many windows depict atmospheric effects. Sunsets, glowering storm clouds and blazing glories appear behind the figures.

In line with the naturalistic drafting of the figures, there is a pictorial emphasis on depicting human interaction and response, often with detailed facial expressions and rather flamboyant gestures. Large scenes with large figures were popular. Among the major exponents were Lavers, Barraud and Westlake

Lavers, Barraud and Westlake

Lavers, Barraud and Westlake were an English firm that produced stained glass windows from 1855 until 1921. They were part of the Gothic Revival movement that affected English church architecture in the 19th century.-History:...

; and Heaton, Butler and Bayne

Heaton, Butler and Bayne

Heaton, Butler and Bayne is the name of an English firm who produced stained glass windows from 1855 onwards.-History:Clement Heaton originally founded his own stained glass firm in 1852, joined by James Butler in 1855. Between 1859-61 they worked alongside Clayton and Bell and were joined by...

. These trends continued, taking two basic directions until World War I

World War I

.

The notable exceptions to the general trend were a large number of the windows made by Clayton and Bell who produced a diverse range of styles and continued to supply cheerfully-coloured Gothic-style windows with a proliferation of bright red and yellow to catch the morning sun in church chancels.

Refinement

A somewhat more reserved style emerged in which the vibrant colouration is toned down in favour of backgrounds that are basically white, discretely enhanced with yellow-stain. The clothing of the figures is often of the darker shades, royal blue, wine red and dark green and is lined or bordered with intricately decorated yellow-stained glass. The painting of canopies and draperies was taken to a new height. The monochrome

Grisaille

painting of faces is intensely detailed. The style lent itself to the depiction of saint

Saint

A saint is a holy person. In various religions, saints are people who are believed to have exceptional holiness.In Christian usage, "saint" refers to any believer who is "in Christ", and in whom Christ dwells, whether in heaven or in earth...

s and prophet

Prophet

In religion, a prophet, from the Greek word προφήτης profitis meaning "foreteller", is an individual who is claimed to have been contacted by the supernatural or the divine, and serves as an intermediary with humanity, delivering this newfound knowledge from the supernatural entity to other people...

s, bishop

Bishop

A bishop is an ordained or consecrated member of the Christian clergy who is generally entrusted with a position of authority and oversight. Within the Catholic Church, Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox Churches, in the Assyrian Church of the East, in the Independent Catholic Churches, and in the...

s and admiral

Admiral

Admiral is the rank, or part of the name of the ranks, of the highest naval officers. It is usually considered a full admiral and above vice admiral and below admiral of the fleet . It is usually abbreviated to "Adm" or "ADM"...

s, and Christ

Christ

Christ is the English term for the Greek meaning "the anointed one". It is a translation of the Hebrew , usually transliterated into English as Messiah or Mashiach...

(or Queen Victoria) enthroned. The most influential firm in this style was Burlison and Grylls

Burlison and Grylls

Burlison and Grylls is the name of an English company who produced stained glass windows from 1868 onwards.The company of Burlison and Grylls was founded in 1868 at the instigation of the architects George Frederick Bodley and Thomas Garner. Both John Burlison and Thomas Grylls had trained in the...

. There are many windows by Charles Eamer Kempe

Charles Eamer Kempe

Charles Eamer Kempe was a well-known Victorian stained glass designer. After attending Twyford School, he studied for the priesthood at Pembroke College, Oxford, but it became clear that his severe stammer would be an impediment to preaching...

of this type.

Aestheticism

The Aesthetic Movement included Dante Gabriel Rossetti

Dante Gabriel Rossetti

, Burne-Jones, the illustrator Aubrey Beardsley

Aubrey Beardsley

Aubrey Vincent Beardsley was an English illustrator and author. His drawings, done in black ink and influenced by the style of Japanese woodcuts, emphasized the grotesque, the decadent, and the erotic. He was a leading figure in the Aesthetic movement which also included Oscar Wilde and James A....

and writer Oscar Wilde

Oscar Wilde

Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde was an Irish writer and poet. After writing in different forms throughout the 1880s, he became one of London's most popular playwrights in the early 1890s...

. They propounded "Art for Art's sake", claiming that Beauty was an end in itself and that the creation of art should not be bound to any social or moral ideals. The Aesthetic artists were primarily concerned with the creation of that which was beautiful. Because of this, windows created by these artists are often stylistically diverse from each other and from other styles, yet are highly recognisable as the work of a particular designer, rather than of a particular workshop.

These windows rarely pay homage to Medieval

Medieval art

The medieval art of the Western world covers a vast scope of time and place, over 1000 years of art history in Europe, and at times the Middle East and North Africa...

origins. They are closely associated with Art Nouveau

Art Nouveau

. The designs are often sinuous, luscious and richly textured, making highly creative use of flashed glass and repetitive forms. Drifting clouds, sweeping draperies and angel's wings lent themselves to the art of the Aesthetes. The idiosyncrasies of Burne-Jones’ style make his windows particularly easy to recognise. While Charles Eamer Kempe

Charles Eamer Kempe

made many windows that were traditional and "safe", he designed others that are clearly aesthetic. Christopher Whall

Christopher Whall

Christopher Whitworth Whall was an English stained glass artist who worked from 1897 into the 20th century.He was an important member of the Arts and Crafts Movement, who became a leading designer of stained glass. His most important work is the glass for the Lady Chapel in Gloucester Cathedral...

and, in America, Tiffany

Louis Comfort Tiffany

Louis Comfort Tiffany was an American artist and designer who worked in the decorative arts and is best known for his work in stained glass. He is the American artist most associated with the Art Nouveau and Aesthetic movements...

were Aesthetic designers.

Opulence

In the last days of the Empire

British Empire

The British Empire comprised the dominions, colonies, protectorates, mandates and other territories ruled or administered by the United Kingdom. It originated with the overseas colonies and trading posts established by England in the late 16th and early 17th centuries. At its height, it was the...

, the technical proficiency and artistic excesses of the traditional stained glass artists reached their height. The great windows of this period demonstrate a mastery over figure drawing and stained glass painting. The artists had developed ways of achieving every possible textural effect through the expert application of ground-glass paint and yellow-stain:- babies’ ringlets, old men's beards, silk brocade, dove's feather, ripe grapes, gold braid, glowing pearls and greasy sheep's wool could all be painted to realistic perfection by any number of studios. Many windows of the Edwardian period

Edwardian period

The Edwardian era or Edwardian period in the United Kingdom is the period covering the reign of King Edward VII, 1901 to 1910.The death of Queen Victoria in January 1901 and the succession of her son Edward marked the end of the Victorian era...

are the most opulent creations of the stained glass industry. The youthful Virgin of the Annunciation

Annunciation

The Annunciation, also referred to as the Annunciation to the Blessed Virgin Mary or Annunciation of the Lord, is the Christian celebration of the announcement by the angel Gabriel to Virgin Mary, that she would conceive and become the mother of Jesus the Son of God. Gabriel told Mary to name her...

, Peter

Saint Peter

Saint Peter or Simon Peter was an early Christian leader, who is featured prominently in the New Testament Gospels and the Acts of the Apostles. The son of John or of Jonah and from the village of Bethsaida in the province of Galilee, his brother Andrew was also an apostle...

the fisherman, John

John the Baptist

John the Baptist was an itinerant preacher and a major religious figure mentioned in the Canonical gospels. He is described in the Gospel of Luke as a relative of Jesus, who led a movement of baptism at the Jordan River...

the itinerant preacher and Joseph

Saint Joseph

Saint Joseph is a figure in the Gospels, the husband of the Virgin Mary and the earthly father of Jesus Christ ....

the carpenter are all depicted in robes of the most sumptuous nature, lined with cloth of gold and lavishly decorated at the edges with rubies and pearls.

In the years immediately following World War I

World War I

, many of these windows were created by the more conservative studios as memorials to fallen soldiers. Hence there are countless two-light windows of St George and St Michael

St Michael

St Michael was a brand that was owned and used by Marks & Spencer from 1928 until 2000.-History:The brand was introduced by Simon Marks in 1928, after his father and co-founder of Marks & Spencer, Michael Marks. By 1950, virtually all goods were sold under the St Michael brand...

and even more lancets of the Good Shepherd gathering his lost sheep to the fold. These are the last product of the second Golden Age

Golden Age

The term Golden Age comes from Greek mythology and legend and refers to the first in a sequence of four or five Ages of Man, in which the Golden Age is first, followed in sequence, by the Silver, Bronze, and Iron Ages, and then the present, a period of decline...

of stained glass window production.

Common types of 19th century windows based on content.

(For Glossary of terms, see below. The terms in italics are explained.)

Small rectangular or diaper quarries of clear glass set with an armorial shield, the colours being painted and fired onto the glass.
Simple geometric decorative patterns in repeating shapes based on large, often overlapping, circles, squares and diapers set against a background of clear or decorated quarries, often within a plain brightly coloured border, surrounded by an additional clear border.
Densely-patterned diaper-shaped quarries with the design either hand painted in grisaille and yellow-stain or moulded and printed into the glass. See No.1 below
Quarry windows set with one or more roundels, quatrefoils or mandorlas containing a symbol, figure or biblical scene.
Elaborate, intensely-coloured foliage-based patterns, usually set with figurative roundels or quatrefoils and imitating Norman and Early Gothic windows. See No.2 below
Rows of apostles, saints, prophets or virtues, each occupying one light and usually set in an architectural frame surmounted by an ornate canopy. In the case of a large window with an irregular number of lights, the figure of Jesus or the Virgin with the Christ Child is usually at the centre. See No.3 below
A series of related narrative scenes, each depicted in a single light within architectural surrounds. See No.4 below
A series of small related narratives depicted in rows across several lights, like a comic strip. See No.5 below
A single significant incident or theme occupying a window of several lights so that the pictorial content spans the divisions in the window. See Nos.6&7 below
A complex arrangement in a large window where a central incident spread across several lights is surrounded by related themes in the outer lights, lower panels and tracery. See No.8 for two related themes within a small window.

A typical parish church gallery

These two-light windows from a Gothic Revival church in Sydney demonstrate the range of subjects, pictorial arrangement and style that is found in many parish churches throughout Great Britain and was exported to Christian churches throughout the British Empire and the US. Dating from the 1850s to the early 20th century, they are the work of English firms and firms established by immigrant British craftsmen in Australia.

Important English firms

1811. Thomas Willement
Thomas Willement
Thomas Willement, 1786–1871, was a British stained glass artist, called “the Father of Victorian Stained Glass”, active from 1811 to 1865.-Biographical:Willement was born on the 18th July 1786 at St Marylebone, London....

, "the father of Victorian stained glass", active 1811-1869, a plumber by trade, created his first armorial window in 1811, was a restorer of old windows and received a Royal Patent from Queen Victoria. Was employed by Pugin who found him too expensive.
1832-75. William Warrington
William Warrington
William Warrington, , was an English maker of stained glass windows. His firm, operating from 1832 to 1875, was one of the earliest of the English Medieval revival and served clients such as Norwich and Peterborough Cathedrals...

, (1796–1869)
1836- . Ward and Nixon, became Ward and Hughes
Ward and Hughes
Ward and Hughes was the name of an English company producing stained glass windows. They began in 1836 as Ward and Nixon.Perhaps the most prestigious stained glass commission of the 19th century, the re-glazing of East Window of Lincoln Cathedral, went to Ward and Nixon in 1855...
1838–present. John Hardman & Co.
Hardman & Co.
Hardman & Co., otherwise John Hardman Trading Co., Ltd., founded 1838, began manufacturing stained glass in 1844 and became one of the world's leading manufacturers of stained glass and ecclesiastical fittings...

Was extensively employed by Pugin.
1841-1910. William Wailes
William Wailes
William Wailes, , was the proprietor of one of England’s largest and most prolific stained glass workshops.- Biographical :Wailes was born and grew up in Newcastle on Tyne, England’s centre of domestic glass and bottle manufacturing. His first business was as a grocer and tea merchant...

, Newcastle.
1844- . James Powell & Sons
James Powell and Sons
The firm of James Powell and Sons, also known as Whitefriars Glass, were English glassmakers, leadlighters and stained glass window manufacturers...

, makers of glass since the 17th century. Stained glass production commenced in 1844. Their glassworks were situated in the Whitefriars part of London, so their windows were signed with a small monk.
1848- . Alexander Gibbs
Alexander Gibbs
Alexander Gibbs was the name of a British firm of several generations of the Gibbs family, who commenced business in 1813 and in 1848 began producing stained glass windows.- See also :* Stained glass* Stained glass - British glass, 1811-1918* Victorian Era...

. In business from 1813.
1855- . Clayton and Bell
Clayton and Bell
Clayton and Bell was one of the most prolific and proficient workshops of English stained glass during the latter half of the 19th century. The partners were John Richard Clayton and Alfred Bell . The company was founded in 1855 and continued until 1993...

.
1855- . Heaton, Butler and Bayne
Heaton, Butler and Bayne
Heaton, Butler and Bayne is the name of an English firm who produced stained glass windows from 1855 onwards.-History:Clement Heaton originally founded his own stained glass firm in 1852, joined by James Butler in 1855. Between 1859-61 they worked alongside Clayton and Bell and were joined by...

.
1855-1921 . Lavers and Barraud
Lavers, Barraud and Westlake
Lavers, Barraud and Westlake were an English firm that produced stained glass windows from 1855 until 1921. They were part of the Gothic Revival movement that affected English church architecture in the 19th century.-History:...

. Westlake
Lavers, Barraud and Westlake
Lavers, Barraud and Westlake were an English firm that produced stained glass windows from 1855 until 1921. They were part of the Gothic Revival movement that affected English church architecture in the 19th century.-History:...

became a partner in 1868.
1868- . Burlison and Grylls
Burlison and Grylls
Burlison and Grylls is the name of an English company who produced stained glass windows from 1868 onwards.The company of Burlison and Grylls was founded in 1868 at the instigation of the architects George Frederick Bodley and Thomas Garner. Both John Burlison and Thomas Grylls had trained in the...

.
1875- Shrigley and Hunt
Shrigley and Hunt
Shrigley and Hunt was the name of an English firm which produced stained glass windows and art tiles.The business began in the 1750s when Shrigley's was a painting, carving and gilding firm in Lancaster, Lancashire....

.
1861-1875 Morris, Marshall, Faulkner & Co., with Ford Madox Brown
Ford Madox Brown
Ford Madox Brown was an English painter of moral and historical subjects, notable for his distinctively graphic and often Hogarthian version of the Pre-Raphaelite style. Arguably, his most notable painting was Work...

, Burne-Jones, Philip Webb
Philip Webb
Another Philip Webb — Philip Edward Webb was the architect son of leading architect Sir Aston Webb. Along with his brother, Maurice, he assisted his father towards the end of his career....

and John Henry Dearle
John Henry Dearle
John Henry Dearle or J. H. Dearle was a British textile and stained glass designer trained by Pre-Raphaelite artist and craftsman William Morris. Dearle designed many of the later wallpapers and textiles released by Morris & Co., and contributed background and foliage patterns to tapestry designs...

who continued the company after the deaths of Morris in 1896 and Brown in 1898 as Morris and Co. until 1940.
1866-1934. Charles Eamer Kempe
Charles Eamer Kempe
Charles Eamer Kempe was a well-known Victorian stained glass designer. After attending Twyford School, he studied for the priesthood at Pembroke College, Oxford, but it became clear that his severe stammer would be an impediment to preaching...

whose later partner was his nephew Tower.
1891-1927 Henry Holiday
Henry Holiday
Henry Holiday was an English historical genre and landscape painter, stained glass designer, illustrator and sculptor. He is considered to be a member of the Pre-Raphaelite school of art.-Early years and training:...
fl c1897- 1924. Christopher Whall
Christopher Whall
Christopher Whitworth Whall was an English stained glass artist who worked from 1897 into the 20th century.He was an important member of the Arts and Crafts Movement, who became a leading designer of stained glass. His most important work is the glass for the Lady Chapel in Gloucester Cathedral...

Born 1849, he was an important member of the Arts and Crafts Movement.
1874-1926 J. Dudley Forsyth, oils, sculptor and stained glass designer. Works include Westminster Abbey and St Mary's Church, Culford
Culford Park
Culford Park in Culford, Suffolk, England, is a country house that is the former seat of the Bacon, Cornwallis and Cadogan families, and now it is the home of Culford School.-History of the Park:...

, Suffolk.
Arts and Crafts period, (Newton) Jones and Willett of London and Birmingham; exhibited at the Great Exhibition of 1851. Works at the Anglican Chapel, Burra, South Australia and possibly an identical window depicting Christ's Crucifixion St Mary's Church, Culford, Suffolk.

Important Scottish firms

1828-, William Cairney & Sons, then John Cairney & Co, Glasgow. Daniel Cottier, who is said to have influenced Tiffany greatly, was trained in John Cairney's studio.
1837-, Ballantine and Allen, Edinburgh, at one point Ballantine and Gardner, also James Ballantine and Sons, Alex Ballantine and Son and sometimes Ballantyne. There were three generations of Ballantines. The firm was founded by James (1807–1887), man of letters and writer, taken over by his son Alex, then by HIS son James, who died in an accident in 1940.
1847-, David Kier & Sons, originally from Irvine. They were the glaziers responsible for installing the controversial Munich glass in Glasgow cathedral.
1850-, Hugh Bogle & Co. Hugh Bogle was originally a house painter in Glasgow. In the mid- to late 19th century, like many other Scottish firms, his company began to offer stained glass.
1860-, J.& W. Guthrie John and William were the sons of John Guthrie, who established a firm of painters and decorators in Glasgow around 1850. They formed a stained glass partnership around 1874, later to become Guthrie and Wells. John Gordon Guthrie, son of William, emigrated to America, where he was hugely important in the development of the art there.
1865-, Daniel Cottier
Daniel Cottier
Daniel Cottier was born in Anderston, Glasgow, Scotland in January 1837. He apprenticed to a John Cairney & Co glass-stainers in Glasgow and studied under Madox Brown in London in early 1860s. In 1862, he went to work for Field & Allen in Leith as foreman designer, three years later he opened his...

(1838–1891). Glasgow then London, New York and Sydney.
pre 1855 Field and Allen, Edinburgh and Leith, started making windows in 1859. The company folded in 1900, by which time it had ceased making windows.

Important Irish firms

c. 1830-1842, Michael O’Connor in Dublin
1842-, Michael O’Connor in England
1901-, A.E.Child working and teaching in Dublin
1903-1943+ An Túr Gloine
An Túr Gloine
An Túr Gloine was a cooperative studio for stained glass conceived in late 1901 and established January 1903 at 24 Pembroke Street, Dublin, Ireland, on the site of two former tennis courts. It was active throughout the first half of the 20th century...

, stained glass co-operative under Sarah Purser
Sarah Purser
-Early life:She was born in Kingstown in County Dublin, and raised in Dungarvan, County Waterford. She was educated in Switzerland and afterwards studied at the Metropolitan School of Art in Dublin and in Paris at the Académie Julian.-Artist:...

and Edward Martyn
Harry Clarke
Harry Clarke
Harry Clarke was an Irish stained glass artist and book illustrator. Born in Dublin, he was a leading figure in the Irish Arts and Crafts Movement.- History :...

Glossary of terms used above

Lancet- a single simply-shaped window that is tall and narrow, and with a pointed arch at the top so that its shape is similar to a knife blade.
Mullion- a vertical stone architectural member which divides and supports sections of a large window.
Tracery- the pattern of stonework found at the tops of many windows.
Light- one discrete section of a window of any shape, but most usually applied to the tall vertical sections when the window is divided up by stone mullions.
Tracery lights- the irregularly-shaped sections of glass that fill the tracery at the tops of windows.
Panel- a part of a window that is constructed as a single piece. Most church windows with the exception of small lancets contain several panels.
Diaper- a diamond or lozenge-shaped piece of glass. Many old windows, both ecclesiastical and domestic, are made from glass in a diaper pattern. Many figurative windows have a background of diapers.
Quarry- a four-sided geometrically-shaped piece of glass, coloured, painted, printed or impressed with a design and used to create a regular decorative pattern in a window.
Grisaille- monochrome painting on glass using a mixture of ground glass, ground lead and other substances.
Yellow-stain- a pigment of silver nitrate painted and fired on the surface of a window to give a bright yellow colour.
Stone-border- a thin border of glass, generally white or transparent but sometimes red, encircling a window light and giving a radiant effect.
Roundels, quatrefoils and mandorlas- these are shapes to be found within window designs, containing a picture or significant motif. A roundel is circular, a quatrefoil has four lobes like a simple flower, a mandorla is the shape enclosed by two arcs, meeting at points top and bottom and usually only used to contain a depiction of Christ
Christ
Christ is the English term for the Greek meaning "the anointed one". It is a translation of the Hebrew , usually transliterated into English as Messiah or Mashiach...

or a symbol of him. It is sometimes also used for a depiction of the Virgin Mary.
Canopy- a motif found in many windows representing an elaborate architectural canopy, usually Gothic
Gothic art
Gothic art was a Medieval art movement that developed in France out of Romanesque art in the mid-12th century, led by the concurrent development of Gothic architecture. It spread to all of Western Europe, but took over art more completely north of the Alps, never quite effacing more classical...

in style but occasionally Classical
Classicism
Classicism, in the arts, refers generally to a high regard for classical antiquity, as setting standards for taste which the classicists seek to emulate. The art of classicism typically seeks to be formal and restrained: of the Discobolus Sir Kenneth Clark observed, "if we object to his restraint...

. The canopy and accompanying columns give the visual impression that the figure or scene is set in a carved niche or viewed through an elaborate window.
Flashed glass- is glass which is made by dipping the blowing rod, or "pontil", into one colour then a second, and sometimes a third, before blowing to a sheet. The resulting sheet has a thin layer of a darker colour "flashed" over a paler colour. The dark colour can be removed, or partially removed, by abrading or etching. It is frequently used for heraldry.
Norman style- windows with semicircular tops, in which the glass is usually divided into geometric sections by iron bracing. In the style of the 11th and 12th centuries.
Gothic style- with pointed arches
Early English (Gothic)- lancet-shaped windows that are often grouped together. In the style of the mid 12th to early 13th centuries.
Geometric (Decorated Gothic) - pointed-arched windows which have tracery in circle-based geometric designs. In the style of the mid 13th to early 14th centuries.
Curvilinear or Flowing (Decorated Gothic) - Gothic windows which have tracery with S-shaped curves and flame-like forms, sometimes very elaborate. In the style of the 14th century.
Perpendicular (Gothic)- Gothic windows which appear wide with flattened pointed arches and are divided by regular vertical mullion and, in very large windows, horizontal transoms. In the style of the late 14th to early 16th centuries.
Classical- windows with semi-circular arches and designs that are imitative of Classical Roman
Ancient Rome
Ancient Rome was a thriving civilization that grew on the Italian Peninsula as early as the 8th century BC. Located along the Mediterranean Sea and centered on the city of Rome, it expanded to one of the largest empires in the ancient world....

or Renaissance
Renaissance
The Renaissance was a cultural movement that spanned roughly the 14th to the 17th century, beginning in Italy in the Late Middle Ages and later spreading to the rest of Europe. The term is also used more loosely to refer to the historical era, but since the changes of the Renaissance were not...

form and detail.

Background

Historic

Philosophic

Architectural

Manufacturing

Stylistic developments in 19th century stained-glass windows

Common types of 19th century windows based on content.

Important English firms

Important Scottish firms

Important Irish firms

Glossary of terms used above

See also

External links