stained glass

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Pieces of coloured glass held in place by thin strips of metal (usually lead) to form pictures in a window. One of the great medieval arts, it developed with the increase of window space in the Gothic church, and to some extent serves the same purpose as a wall-painting, with the added richness given by translucence and the variations of light piercing through from outside.

Early
Early windows consisted of a mosaic-like arrangement of pieces of brightly coloured glass stained all the way through. Pictorial subjects were introduced later, at first with only one monumental figure being represented on each window. The roughly cut pieces of glass were set in leads that outlined figures, drapery, and so on. These were fastened to an iron tracery, slight shading and details being painted on the glass in grisaille. In origin it is probably related to the Byzantine use of coloured glass as mosaic. One of the earliest mentions of stained glass is that of Count Arnold's gift of a window to the abbey of Tegernsee in Bavaria in AD 999.

Medieval
By the middle of the 12th century incidents in the life of Jesus or of one of the saints were commonly depicted. Much of the most beautiful glass belongs to the 12th and 13th centuries. Splendid examples are to be found in La Sainte Chapelle, Paris, Chartres, Bourges, and Le Mans cathedrals, York Minster, Beverley Minister, and Lincoln and Canterbury cathedrals. From the 14th century glass became increasingly pictorial and showed divergences of national style.

16th–19th centuries
The workshops of Engrand Leprince at Beauvais produced beautiful glass in the 16th century, examples being in St Étienne, Beauvais, and St Vincent, Rouen. In England the magnificent stained glass of King's College Chapel, Cambridge, represents a method similar to that of the Netherlands. In the mid-16th century the painting of glass in enamels was introduced, a technique which produced imitations of oil painting but lost the true nature and brilliance of traditional stained glass; a late example is the 18th-century work of Joshua Reynolds in New College, Oxford. The revival conducted in the 19th century by William Morris and Edward Burne-Jones produced windows of interesting design, though lacking the splendour of the Middle Ages.

20th century
The 20th century saw a number of efforts to combine ancient methods with a modern sense of colour. Matisse, Rouault, and Alfred Manessier are French artists who in various ways have stimulated a fresh approach. In Britain notable work includes that of Evie Hone (Eton College Chapel), and of John Piper and other artists who created glass for the new Coventry Cathedral.

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