Doug answers:

They look cool

Doug answers:

They were used to tell the stories of Jesus and the saints to a hugely illiterate population. In medieval times, the people couldn’t read the Bible, nor could they understand the priest because only the educated spoke Latin.

Doug answers:

Colored glass has been produced since ancient times. Both the Egyptians and the Romans excelled at the manufacture of small colored glass objects. The British Museum holds two of the finest Roman pieces, the Lycurgus Cup, which is a murky mustard color but glows purple-red to transmitted light, and the Portland vase which is midnight blue, with a carved white overlay. Since most parishioners at the time didn’t read, setting Biblical stories to art work, especially stained glass allowed illiterate people to see these stories “come to life.”

In Early Christian churches of the 4th and 5th centuries there are many remaining windows which are filled with ornate patterns of thinly-sliced alabaster set into wooden frames, giving a stained-glass like effect. Similar effects were achieved with greater elaboration using colored glass rather than stone by Muslim designers in Western Asia.

Stained glass, as an art form, reached its height in the Middle Ages. In the Romanesque and Early Gothic period, from about 950 CE to 1240 CE, the untraceried windows demanded large expanses of glass which of necessity were supported by robust iron frames, such as may be seen at Chartres Cathedral and at the eastern end of Canterbury Cathedral. As Gothic architecture developed into a more ornate form, windows grew larger, affording greater illumination to the interiors, but were divided into sections by vertical shafts and tracery of stone. The elaboration of form reached its height of complexity in the Flamboyant style in Europe and windows grew still larger with the development of the Perpendicular style in England.

At the Reformation, in England large numbers of these windows were smashed and replaced with plain glass. The Dissolution of the Monasteries under Henry VIII and the injunctions of Oliver Cromwell against ‘abused images’ (the object of veneration) resulted in the loss of thousands of windows. Few remain undamaged; of them the windows in the private chapel at Hengrave Hall in Suffolk are among the finest. With the latter wave of destruction the traditional methods of working with stained glass died and were not to be rediscovered in England until the early 19th century. For more details

In Europe, however, stained glass continued to be produced in the Classical style widely represented in Germany, despite the rise of Protestantism in Belgium, in France, particularly at the Limoges factory, and at Murano, in Italy, where stained glass and faceted lead crystal are often coupled together in the same window. Ultimately, in France the French Revolution brought about the neglect or destruction of many windows.

The Catholic revival in England, gaining force in the early 19th century, with its renewed interest in the mediaeval church brought a revival of church building in the Gothic style, claimed by John Ruskin to be “the true Catholic style”. The architectural movement was led by Augustus Welby Pugin. Many new churches were planted in large towns and many old churches were restored. This brought about a great demand for the revival of the art of stained glass window making.

Many the 19th century firms failed in the twentieth century. The Gothic movement had been superseded by newer styles. A revival occurred because of the desire to restore the thousands of church windows throughout Europe, destroyed as a result of bombing during the World War II. German artists led the way. Notable artists include Ervin Bossanyi, Ludwig Schaffrath, Johannes Shreiter, Douglas Strachan and many others who transformed an ancient art form into a contemporary art form.

Thus while there is a deal of often mundane representational work, much of which is not made by its designers but industrially produced, there have been notable examples of symbolic work of which the west windows of Manchester cathedral in England by Tony Hollaway are some of the finest.

Doug answers:

Most older churches that I have been in have stained glass on all four sides of the building… So the windows are facing every direction.

I don’t think there is a tradition as to what side of the building the stained glass windows face.

Doug answers:

They kept out the rays of truth that shoot from the eyes of the one true god.