STAINED GLASS

Greymouth Evening Star, 14 November 1936, Page 13

STAINED GLASS

THE MODERN REVIVAL Coloured glass windows are like music—a subject everyone can understand, whatever the country of origin, according to Mr. H. Mordaunt Rogers, an American authority on stained glass, whose aim is to awaken interest in this and other art treasures. He would, in fact, make connoisseurs of all, and with this end in view prepares and reads each year to a London audience a paper on artistic matters, says a writer in the “Christian Science Monitor.” Of all the treasures in a church, Mr. Rogers declares, “those least looked at and understood are the stained-glass windows which tell their stories so delightfully and sparkle like translucent jewels, varying in brilliance with the light of day.” The earliest known glass dates from about the eleventh century, Mr. Rogers explains. The glass of these ancient coloured windows -was not actually stained, but coloured in the pot. The expression “stained glass” is therefore really a misnomer, Mr. Rogers says, as the only stain used —and that sparingly—was the yellow stain obtained from a solution of silver, discovered about 1305. Painting on the glass was done with brown mat. The decline of stained glass Mr. Rogers dates from about the sixteenth century, when craftsmen began to use enamel. This saved a great deal of time and trouble, but was not as durable nor as effective as the pot-metal glass. Colour had great significance in medieval art and was used symbolically in the early glass. Blue, for instance, signified heaven, the sky, truth and faithfulness, while yellow represented the goodness of God. Mr. Rogers has visited nearly all the most interesting coloured glass in England and a great deal in France. He has also seen ancient glass in Belgium, Switzerland, and northern Italy. As a child he lived near Canterbury and early became acquainted with this cathedral, which is said to possess the finest twelfth and thirteenth century glass of any English cathedral. It also contains a fifteenth century window which was badly damaged in 1642 by the Rev. Richard Culmer, or “Blue Dick,” as he was called, Puritanical rector of Chartham, who boosted that he had climbed higher than anybody else to wreck the glass.

A KEEN DEMAND There is naturally a keen demand for old stained glass, Mr. Rogers says, for it only rarely comes on to the market, and sales during the past few years have realised high prices. He tells the story of a rector who is said to have acquired for a mere song a “box "with a quantity of stained glass at a country house auction. When the rector got it home he pieced it together, and finding he had got a complete window 25feet high and 6 feet 9 inches wide, sent it to Sotheby’s famous auction room in London. It was sixteenth century Flemish glass, and the bidding is reported to have risen to £l,2oo—but even this is understood to have been under the reserve price. Glass of a lovely quality can be made to-day, in the opinion of Mr. Rogers. Many beautiful examples of modern coloured glass, he says, “as of yore, are depicting episodes from the lives of the saints and from Bible stories, so that we can see these old friends in a modern interpretation.” Good stained-glass windows in a public hall, oi’ a few panels in a private house, can often add great distinction and attractiveness, according to Mr. Rogers. Present day glass is made in much the same mannei’ as that made by the medieval craftsmen, and there is, he says, a revival in the demand for modern stained-glass windows. But although he admires some present day examples, notably the War Memorial Shrine at Edinburgh Castle, with its “modern coloured and painted glass of outstanding brilliance of design and craftsmanship,” it is the old stained glass in which Mr. Rogers is chiefly interested. He likes to use odd moments in bus or train to read the legends pictured in the storied windows, and often slips a copy of the Golden Legend or Lives of the Saints into his pocket for that purpose. To all who desire to appreciate and understand these “transparent tapestries” —and Mr. Rogers hopes this may one day include everyone—he advises a study of these books, in the stories of which, he declares, “there is more than a glow of fairyland.”