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The early churchmen saw stalned glass as an instrument of God's work on earth, transmuting white light into mystical colours in the same way that the work of God, and particularly the death and resurrection of Christ, had taken base human nature and turned it into the divine. Medieval craftsmen working in the great cathedrals discovered and perfected techniques of blowing, flising, abrading and painting glassthat even today still leave us agog with the beauty and splendour of the finished work. Later glass painters pushed the techniques even further, reaching their finest flowering perhaps in the glass of the Pre-Raphaelites. This idiosyncratic collection of images illustrates most of the styles and techniques of stained glass, from the simple but powertul medieval windows of All Saints, York and the great hymns in glass of Chartres to the work of the Victorian master craftsmen and modern humbler artists. This book makes no attempt to be a definitive or scholarly work. It is simply a celebration of the glory of stained glass.
1998