Renaissance and Baroque Stained Glass

St George, Southern Germany

- one excellent image of a window c.1400, now in the State Hermitage Museum, St Petersburg. Notice how few and large the glass pieces are, and how the leading contributes strikingly to the image.

Renaissance Florence Glass

- these windows are by the greatest names in Early Renaissance Florence. Their approach is very Italian, so concentrate: your eyes have to get used to the abstract web of leading in large expanses of similar colour before the image emerges. Note the mosaicing of small pieces of glass to create multicoloured silk fabrics. Note the single continuous image with single-point perspective and believable anatomy, the use of a new range of gold-toned colours, and the introduction of oblong pieces of glass.

The East Window, St Peter Mancroft, Norwich, UK

- this is currently the clearest image of the whole magnificent 15th century window available on the web, but we can come up with a couple of details. Click here for some of them, and here to see the use of silver stain on blue to produce a local green (on the rug over the Virgin's knees). Get a load of the tiny midwife warming the Christ child's swaddling bands in front of a brazier! A delight.

The Windows of Fairford Parish Church, Gloucestershire, UK     (detail, right) - pretty magnificent stuff attributed to the King's Master Glazier, Barnard Flower, working on Flemish designs. To view the whole church click on "walk through". Click on "windows in detail" to see Eve at the Fall, and note the traditional use of silverstain to produce a local yellow on clear glass, and again on blue glass to produce a local green. - here you can see the Last Judgement Window - a magnificent thing (slow loading but well worth it), where you can also see a blue devil with green horns (bottom right), and a red devil with orange highlights. - and here you can see more details.

Martyrdom of St Sebastian

- this piece is from the Rhine region in Germany, and dates to the 1480s. Notice the monochromatic colour scheme of black and gold, gained from black enamel and gold-coloured glass, and silverstain (this looks like a relatively cheap window).

Virgin and Child, Kloster Nonnburg, Salzburg

- single image, not very clear, but note the new emphasis on weight and bulk, achieved through dense shading with black and coloured enamel paints. Note also how big the glass pieces have become so that the abstract surface pattern of black leading is lost. Consistent with this, see also how the image fills the pane leaving very little space for "sky" or background patterning. The emphasis is shifting from visionary insubstantiality to rational believability. Note the continued use of those secondary colours favoured by the Germans, plus silverstain for the hair. This piece dates to about 1480, and is by the workshop of Peter Hemmel.

Enrique Aleman (Henry the German)

- a German glass painter, working in Spain in 1478. Here is a delightful explanation in Spanish English, and a couple of interesting illustrations, too. —NEW LINK 2nd December, 2005

Giuglielmo de Marcillat

- an extraordinary master, a Frenchman (Guillaume to his compatriots) practicing in Italy c.1470-1529. These windows come from Arezzo and Cortona cathedrals. The main images will bring up enlarged details. Note the superb blending of Italian and French design aesthetics and techniques. The colours are French, the perspective and interest in fabrics is Italian. Note the use of flashed glass of various colours, touched up with silver stain and coloured enamel paint. ADMIRE the painting of the marble, and the rendering of velvet.

St Wenceslas—LINK REPLACED AGAIN 2nd Decembert 2005

- a glorious German piece, possibly from Cologne, dating to c.1520-25. Click on the zoom view and just look how subtle and skilled the detailed painting has become, using varied washes of black enamel as well as brown and yellow silverstain over clear and coloured glass (look at the green robe on the saint's shoulder). See also the use of oil or coloured enamel to enrich the effect - notably in the blue background. The range of possibilities has expanded markedly.

Jesse Window from Llanrheaedr, North Wales

- here is a shot of the whole window, which dates to 1533. It is at the East end of St Dyfnog's Church.

Stained Glass Sundials

- set in windows and custom designed for each location, the earliest example of this fascinating idea is German, 1540 or 1560 (although there are many Baroque examples on this site, too). How interesting that they added chronological technology so instantly to the fully developed glass-colouring technology. Definitely go see this!

Karl von Egeri

- the State Hermitage Museum has two works attributed to this Swiss glass artist. The above link is to an early work of c.1540, and this is a more mature work of c.1550. Although he still uses coloured pot-metal glass, we can see the beginning of that effect so deplored by contemporary purists, where the light is significantly blocked out by the densely painted detail.

Swiss Stained Glass

- from Schaffhausen and Fribourg, c.1575. Here you can see the increasing use of paint - in addition to black and sepia enamel and silver stain, blue enamel is also used and almost no pot-metal glass. Gorgeous pics but very slow loading, so I have made a navigation bar that will save endless reloads.

Baptism of Christ

- French, from St Bartholomew's Church, 1580. OK, what has happened to French stained glass?! Note the new secondary colours, the highlighting and shadow, the large pieces of glass, and the use of coloured enamel paint. Plus of course, the Renaissance sense of rational realism. Where have these ideas come from?

Supper At Emmaus, Joshua Price

- this is not stained glass, in fact, but painted glass, dating to 1719-21. Note that the pieces are large and squareish for the most part, and all the colour is from paint. As you might expect, it shows the hallmarks of "good painting" as established during the Renaissance: graphical skill, rational perspective, believable anatomy and modelling in light and shade. And the figure to the right seems to be a quote from a Last Supper by a Venetian Renaissance artist, Tintoretto.

Introduction and Techniques

Medieval

Renaissance and Baroque

Recent Revivals

New Directions