I am currently reading a book entitled ‘The Glass Painter’s Daughter’ by Rachel Hore. This book tells the story of Fran Morrison who has returned home to care for her father Edward after he suffers a stroke. Edward runs a glass repair shop and whilst he is recovering Fran takes over the running of his shop for him. During this period Fran takes on a commission to restore a shattered glass window of a beautiful angel belonging to a local church. It is well worth a read.
Reading about the restoration and beauty of stained-glass has inspired me to create a painting based around the colour and exquisiteness of stained-glass windows.
The term ‘stained-glass’ refers to glass that has been coloured by metallic oxides during the manufacturing process. Different oxides produce different colours. For instance, adding copper oxides to molten glass will result in blue and green tones.
The earliest uses of stained-glass were as art forms created in Ancient Rome. The Romans used stained-glass to create beautiful wares such as the Lycurgus Cup. The Lycurgus Cup is an ornamental drinking glass made using dichroic glass, a type of glass that changes colour depending on the direction of light. Experts believe that the adding of gold and silver droplets to the glass is what gives it its colour-changing qualities.
Evidence suggests that the use of stained-glass for windows originates from the Middle East, where stained-glass was used as a way of bringing light into buildings whilst allowing the buildings to be completely closed to the elements.
It was during the middle-ages that stained-glass as we know it today began to take shape, when churches began to commission windows with religious figures in them and royals would commission windows bearing their coat of arms.
Saint Paul’s Monastery in Jarrow, England possesses the earliest known form of these types of windows.
The basic methods used for producing stained-glass have hardly changed since medieval times. Glass was made by melting sand, potash and lime together in clay pots. Colours were created by adding metallic oxides to the glass-gold for red, copper for green, cobalt for blue etc.
Paper was scarce and parchment was very expensive during this period, so the full-scale outline of the design for the window was drawn out on a whitened table top. In his drawing the designer would indicate the principle outlines of the window, the shape and colour of the individual pieces of glass to be used and the positions of the lead strips (calmes) that would hold the pieces of glass together.
The panes of glass were then cut to shape with a grozing iron and laid on top of the drawing. Through the glass details of the drawing e.g. face, hands and clothing could be seen, making it easier to trace them onto the glass with iron oxide pigment.
After painting the pieces were fired in a furnace to fuse the paint to the surface of the glass, then a glazier would use strips of lead to slot the pieces of glass together. The lead strips were then soldered together, and oily cement was rubbed into all the joints of the window to make them waterproof.
The panels of window were then held in place in the window openings by a grid of iron bars set into the building.
Today every stained-glass window starts life as a full-size cartoon drawn on paper. The glass for the window is cut to size with a glass cutter. The design is applied to the glass as black or brown paint. Solid lines are painted thickly, careful tracing the design from the cartoon. Thinner lines are left to dry and then dusted with a badgerhair brush to produce shading effects.
The painted glass is then fired in the kiln to fuse the paint to the glass. The window is assembled on a large table, each piece of lead being cut and bent to fit the pane. As the work progresses each completed part of the window is held against battens by horseshoe nails which are tapped into the table. When each panel is complete each joint is soldered individually.
Finally, the whole window is sealed with mastic which is brushed hard into all the joints.
References
1. Kelly Richman-Abdou (2019) ‘Stained Glass: The Splendid History of an Ancient Art Form that Still Dazzles Today’: https://mymodernmet.com/stained-glass-history/ 2. Natalie Bioniarz (2017) ‘The History, Purpose, and Techniques of Stained Glass Windows’: https://londonhuawiki.wpi.edu/.../The_History,_Purpose... 3. The Stained Glass Museum (2020) ‘A Brief History of Stained Glass’: https://stainedglassmuseum.com/briefhistory.html
Комментарии