Medieval Stained Glass of Europe   Tags: architecture, art, art_history, glass, images, medieval, middle_ages, religion, stained_glass  

Oxford Art Online Online encyclopedia for finding information about individual artists, mediums, and movements. Includes the important and comprehensive Grove Art Online. Full text.  

Dictionary of Glass: Materials and Techniques. 2nd ed. - Charles Bray

Call Number: TP788 .B73 2001 Engineering Library

Covers both technical and artistic aspects of working with glass. Arranged as a lexicon of words and phrases, covering technical terms, materials, equipment, processes, and practices. Succinct definitions and detailed articles.

 

The art of stained glass reached its height in Europe between 1150 and 1500 when magnificent windows were created for the great cathedrals. 

Some examples from the 12th century can be seen in the windows of Saint-Denis (Paris), Chartres, and Le Mans in France, as well as at Canterbury and at York Minster in England. The windows of this period were characterized by rich dark colors, single figures, and scrollwork.

By the beginning of the 13th century figures were abundantly used in scenes, being enclosed in geometrical medallions, such as circles, lozenges, or quatrefoils. A window was composed of many of these medallions. Color became more detailed and varied, and the prevailing scheme of red, blue, green, and purple, with small amounts of white, created tense and vibrant harmonies. In France the cathedral at Chartres is an unrivaled treasury of 13th-century glass; Sainte-Chapelle, Paris, is a triumph of architecture in which the walls present an illusion of being made entirely of fragile, exquisite stained glass. In England there are outstanding windows at York, Lincoln, and Salisbury.

In the 14th century, as medieval glass-making waned, medallion compositions were replaced by a single figure framed in canopied shrines.

In the 15th century glass artists achieved a silvery tone by the use of large proportions of white glass and their figures of saints and apostles were surmounted by elaborate canopies. With improved glassmaking many of the assets of medieval stained glass (small, jewellike pieces of varying thicknesses) vanished.

By the 16th century the material was smoother and in larger pieces; toward the middle of this century the use of enamel paints permitted the designs to be entirely painted on the glass and then fired. Stained glass designers emulated the purely pictorial effects of Renaissance oil painting, with complicated perspectives, large scale, and realistic detail.

For more information on the history of stained glass, use this link (History of Stained Glass from the Stained Glass Association of America) or look for the books listed below.

Stained Glass: An Illustrated History - Sarah Brown

Call Number: folio NK5306 .B76 1992 Art & Architecture Library

London: Studio Editions, c1992. With over 200 illustrations--most in color--this title covers 900 years of the history of stained glass.

Stained Glass: From Its Origins to the Present - Virginia Chieffo Raguin

Call Number: NK 5306.R34 2003 Art & Architecture Library

New York: H.N. Abrams, 2003. A comprehensive history of the styles, designs, artists, tools, and techniques of this medium. From ancient Egypt and Rome, through the Byzantine, the Romanesque and Gothic styles, to its revival in the hands of Louis Comfort Tiffany and Frank Lloyd Wright. Also features work of 20th-century architects and artists.
With more than 500 color photographs.

 

Art History with Michelli: Stained Glass A collection of stained glass websites originally assembled by Dr. P.E. Michelli for a course taught in Fall 1999. Includes many links to information on techniques and on medieval glass as well as other topics.  

Glass-painters - Sarah Brown and David O'Connor

Toronto; Buffalo: University of Toronto Press, 1991. Describes the creation of stained glass windows in medieval cathedrals and examines the social context within which the medieval glass-painters worked.

On Divers Arts: the Foremost Medieval Treatise on Painting, Glassmaking, and Metalwork - Presbyter Theophilus

Call Number: N 7420.T413 1979

The oldest extant manual on artistic crafts to be written by a practicing artist. Describes actual 12th-century techniques in painting, glass and metalwork.

 

Medieval Stained Glass: Catalogue and Gazetteer Posted by Sacred Destinations, a trip planning website for visits to religious sites, this directory provides links to numerous English, a fewer French, German, and Swiss, churches with outstanding stained glass.