Styles in glass painting and lettering

Left: West window by A.J. Davies at St Mary Magdalene Church, Crowmarsh Gifford. Right: Interior of St Lawrence, Warborough, Oxfordshire.

Since seeing his little east window at St Margaret’s in Herefordshire (described on my blog here) I’m getting more interested in the work of A.J. Davies of the Bromsgrove Guild. The first window I saw on this Oxfordshire trip was in the church at Crowmarsh Gifford (above left) high up above the west entrance door and slightly lost in its surroundings (my zoomless camera couldn’t capture the details). However St. Lawrence church at Warborough, only four miles away, has three A.J. Davies windows from different periods, therefore interesting to compare them with each other and to see their quiet impact on the whole church (above right).

Warborough: East window by A.J. Davies (1919) and details from the bottom lights.

The east window is dedicated to those who died in the First World War with large and small figures, badges and scenes united by patterned borders and quarries. The scenes at the bottom show how these quarries, covered in unconnected painted ornamentation, break out into different shapes with strong lettering incorporated into the design and his signature so usefully placed at bottom right.

Warborough: North nave window by A.J. Davies & detail (1924).

At the north east corner of the church is this slightly later work (above) of an organ playing monk next to St Hilary. In the background are the same sort of symbolic details that I’d admired in his St. Margaret window, angels and radiating light as well as a flock of cute bluebirds. The snakes and slipper detail below shows the technique of covering all the pieces of glass with paint, then removing it with textured strokes, scraping and stippling to let the light come through in a subtle way.

A.J. Davies made the third window (below), also visible in the photo of the church interior, twenty two years later towards the end of his life. Gone are the interestingly shaped background pieces, the patterns and the branches for borders. Instead we have a stippled background, realistic looking flowers instead of floral ornamentation and some cute children, all of which record changing fashions in the making or commissioning of stained glass.

Warborough: North nave window by A.J. Davies & detail (1946).

St Mary Magdalene Church, Crowmarsh Gifford, Oxfordshire. North chancel window by Charles de Vic Carey, 1961.

On the same trip I was thrilled by a small lancet window in the church at Crowmarsh Gifford, the only one I have ever seen by Charles de Vic Carey, the teacher at Wimbledon Art School of Pauline Boty and my first stained glass teacher, Tony Attenborough. In it, I recognised the way I was encouraged to paint, with visible brush strokes (so good to see some actual painting rather than the endless quest to find different ways of applying the paint) going across lead lines and uniting the pieces of glass to make a composition, as a painter would. At the bottom is a little, loosely painted portrait of Emily Wilder and children above the fabulous lettering that is collage like and totally of its time.

Details from the bottom half of the Charles de Vic Carey window.

Along the River Windrush

St Nicholas, Asthall. Tomb of Lady Joan Cornwall with medieval glass above, window in the painted chancel.

We took a route along the river Windrush in Oxfordshire starting at the village of Asthall, then to Swinbrook, past the deserted medieval village of Widford into Burford and back. There are four superb churches within these three miles. St Nicholas, Asthall (above and below) was unexpectedly spectacular, with painted walls, a huge tomb and some subtle stained glass windows that compliment the interior where nothing is out of place.

St Nicholas, Asthall. Chancel and detail of the east window.

We were really here because Asthall Manor was the favourite childhood home of the Mitfords and most of them are buried at the next church along the river, St Mary, Swinbrook. In her letters Jessica writes about walking across the fields to Burford to try and get the school there to take her on, so I knew it couldn’t be far. Nancy and Jessica were the only ones of the six sisters to complain about their lack of schooling, unfortunately we were not able to pay our respects to Jessica as she chose to be scattered at sea but Nancy is here along with Pamela, Unity, Diana and other Mosleys (below left).

Left: Mitford graves at St Mary, Swinbrook. Right: Frozen flooded fields beside the river Windrush.

St Mary, Swinbrook. The Fettiplace monuments in the chancel.

Inside the church are two sets of monuments (above) which put those poor little gravestones in the shade. The first set was ordered by Sir Edmund Fettiplace who died in 1613 for himself, his father and his grandfather: Sir Edmund Fettiplace II (who died in 1680) ordered the second set for himself, his uncle and his father. Again there is nothing ugly or unconsidered in this church, even the bibles are stylishly arranged on the chairs (below left). Next to them is a window made from fragments of ‘old glass’ that tell an interesting story - not least of the vicar who inexpertly arranged this glass with the text split by the stone mullion making it hard to follow.

St Mary, Swinbrook: window with an interesting story.

Interior details from St Oswald, Widford.

Next to St Oswald, a tiny church in the fields a bit further along the river that was built on the base of a Roman house or temple. Here there are plain windows, more of those simple chairs, pink plastered walls and the remnants of fourteenth century wall paintings, including a St Christopher opposite the south entrance door (above left).

St John the Baptist, Burford, south window of south transept by Christopher Whall, 1907.

After these three beautiful interiors, entering the much larger church in Burford with its inevitable clutter of merchandise, furniture and audio visual equipment is a bit of a shock. However the Christopher Whall window in the south transept is one of his masterpieces, I kept going back for another look as I caught glimpses of it from different angles that showed how subtle both the colours of the glass and the arrangement of the design are, even with a bright winter sun shining through. I am always keen on paintings of the heavenly city, shown in the top section here and providing an interesting comparison to the city depicted in the earlier east window at Asthall. The bits of restrained patterning that link the top and bottom sections of the window are particularly satisfying (below left), as is the pair of little quatrefoil windows that just contain non symmetrical arrangements of beams of light behind the buildings which Whall drew from places he knew and loved.

Details from the Chrustopher Whall window in Burford.

Another Return to the Thames

Fanlights for two upstairs bathrooms

This set of windows are for bathroom fanlights for the same house (as my last post) in Oxfordshire. The shape of the windows, the function of the rooms and the local landscape all led me to return to the River Thames for my subject matter. Although I had walked, photographed and drawn along the path of the river a couple of years ago, I hadn't found a good enough way to show the reeds along the river banks and the general stripiness of the flat landscape before. 

Fanlight one

The photos of the windows installed, above and below, show the different colour of the light coming through windows and skylights in the bathrooms . The colours of the hand painted enamels are the same for each window, with the image of the blue river flowing to join the pictures together.

Fanlight two

I spent a long time on the design for these windows, struggling with my riverbank drawings. The designs look very similar to the finished windows, as is shown in the photo of glass on top of the drawing below. Back in my studio the drawings are still on the wall, giving me ideas for the next piece of work.

Detail from window two: sample for window one on top of the sketch design.

Hops

This house really needed new stained glass panels in its front door - the leaded lights continued to deteriorate (above) while I made the windows which were fitted earlier this month (below). The new windows do a good job of obscuring direct visibility on to the busy street, while letting patches of coloured light into the house which used to be a pub and brew house - hence the hops in my design.

Hop windows, left from the inside, right from the outside.

Branches of dried hops: section of window design: sketch design for the three windows

I really wanted the plant to look like hop, rather then grape, vines. I gave them particularly thin, twisty stems, small leaves and an extra firing of acid yellow on the hops themselves, which are actual size. Pictures taken on the lighbox during the making (below) show the play of painted patterned pieces from my scrapbox, and how the blocks move diagonally across the design. When the hop vines surround them, the coloured blocks are intertwined with a curvy pattern in green and sandblasted white.

Details of the left hand panel (above) and the top right corner (below) show how the colours and textures change with the background to the window - obvious really. On the left the details are seen on a lightbox, on the right they have been installed in the front door and, as they should, look much better there with sparkling colours and highlights.