Finding Details

People are always telling me that their favourite church windows are the simple leaded lights in pale coloured glass that allow you to see the world outside. In St Mary, Warwick, most of the aisle windows are of this type (above) showing off some great shapes in the tracery. However there is one window in the regimental chapel that is filled with light fresh colours in the upper part and delicate local details in the lower (below) where rows of soldiers march across the panes. As a lover of skilled glass painting, I always look out for a good bit of detail, then get drawn into an appreciation of the whole window in terms of colour and composition, and after that I think about the subject matter and what it means.

Regimental chapel windows, St Mary, Warwick by Philip Chatwin 1952.

The main visit of the day was to the beautiful church at Middleton Cheney, Northamptonshire, which has a superb collection of windows by Morris & Co from different periods and with panels by most of the artists associated with the firm. By all accounts the best is the west window (below), although it’s difficult to get close enough and to see past a huge sign partly covering the bottom of the three princes in the fiery furnace. The fiery flames around the Burne-Jones figures are what drew me in here, then I appreciated the overall glow of the predominantly brown painting (so difficult to persuade clients they want a brown window but so good to see!) and only then did I think about the subject matter.

West window, All Saints, Middleton Cheney, Edward Burne-Jones 1870.

In fact the best subject matter was only revealed by the camera’s zoom lens, where I saw that the shadowy angels are sharp and delicate figures holding globes showing the first days of the creation, a classic Burne-Jones device. The backgrounds to the figures, which are painted on large pieces of glass in brown iron oxide and silver stain, are not clear but covered in a scaley pattern that modulates the incoming light.

Row of creation windows from the centre of the west window, Middleton Cheney.

The east window (below) includes details designed by William Morris, Philip Webb, Ford Madox Brown, Simeon Soloman and Edward Burne-Jones. The overall design of this window is striking and subtle in a different way, with the usual gorgeous backgrounds, familiar figures (such as WM posing as St Peter) and angels in the tracery. The detail I picked out is at the top where Burne-Jones’ brown and yellow crowned heads make a wonderful patterned ring around a piece of rich dark red glass with the adored lamb on top.

East window, All Saints, Middleton Cheney by Morris, Marshall, Faulkner & Co. 1865.

There are a pair of windows in the chancel (below) where you can get close and really appreciate the quality of Burne-Jones’ stained glass figures . These are from a later period and show scenes from the life of Christ. The one that caught my eye again uses the most sombre colour scheme, with the white robes of Lazarus standing out from a rocky background, all beautifully painted with contour lines and shading.

North chancel window, All Saints, Middleton Cheney, with details by Burne-Jones 1892.

East window, St Peters, Barford by Holland of Warwick 1845.

Last stop of the day and another example of rows of figures in the church in the Warwickshire village of Barford. The east window (above) is in a colour scheme typical of its period and overwhelming as a whole. But when you break down the colour combination, and repeat it in different variations along the row of angels at the bottom of the window it begins to work, with the patterns and symbols linking the glass pieces together and with a slightly different expression on the face of each angel.

Angels from the bottom of the Barford window

Christ Church, Southgate N.14

North Aisle, left to right: Liberalitas & Humanitas (1899), Prudentia & Justitia (1885), Temperentia & Caritas (1876), Spes & Fides (1876)

I’ve rediscovered my enthusiasm for the stained glass of Morris & Company after visiting Christ Church in Southgate, North London. The windows in this church cover every period of the firm’s production from 1861 until the twentieth century, with designs by William Morris, Dante Gabriel Rosetti, Ford Madox Brown, Philip Webb and Edward Burne-Jones. The photos I’d seen were mainly those rare early windows designed, made and painted by the partners in the original firm, in the Victorian Medieval style i.e small figures engulfed by patterned borders and backgrounds. But the ones I really liked are shown in the photo below. There are pairs of figures in all the windows of the north and south aisle, they look great from a distance because of this consistency of design and are full of amazing detail and colour. Burne-Jones designed all except the figure of St. Francis which is the latest and is by Henry Dearle (1911).

Left: Detail from Liberalitas. Right: The figure of Justitia

The eight figures in the north aisle are all fantastic examples of the firm’s stained glass style as it developed, with gorgeous patterned backgrounds and drapery in Liberalitas and Humilitas (above left) and the use of amazing coloured glass, particularly in Justitia (above right.)

The next two pairs of windows were made earlier, the figures of Temperentia and Caritas are flowing and curvy, with a pair of astonishing babies, shown below left. The earliest two, Spes and Fides are plainer, calmer and they let in a lot more light.

Left: Babies at the feet of Caritas. Right: The figure of Fides

View fullsize

South Aisle, left to right: Patientia & Pax (1909), Martha & Phebe (1903), King David & St Francis (1911), St Peter & St Paul (1865).

The figures on the south side are all much darker, particularly the matching backgrounds. Below are details of two of the figures, with beautifully painted faces, hands and clothes. In the set of windows in this church the faces are all different and quite mesmerising. At the end of the row (above right) are earlier windows of Saints Peter and Paul with wildly patterned surrounds, they are figures familiar to me from other Morris & Co windows.

Left: The figure of Patientia. Right: The figure of Martha.

The other pair of windows that show the designs of EBJ at his flowing best are high up on the north wall of the chancel, apparently the first ones where he used photographic enlargement of drawings to prepare the stained glass cartoons. All in lovely light colours and with a great detail of a rip over the knee of the ragged girl (below right) visible even from a distance.

North chancel: Left, Dorcas. Right, The Good Samaritan (1876).

Some of the Best Stained Glass Sites in London

I followed part of the map of the West End in Caroline Swash's recent guide book one morning last week and saw a variety of stained glass sites that were new to me. Three churches, glass panels on the street and one hotel that wouldn't let us in because of a function. It was a great way to spend the morning and good to recognise some of my favourite themes in the work we saw .                                    

Here's how to buy the book

View fullsize

Inside All Saints, 7 Margaret Street W1W 8JG: East and West ends of the church

All Saints Church, Margaret Street is a richly ornamented brick church by William Butterfield, built and decorated from 1850 until his death in 1900. Particularly good is the combination of different types of lavish decoration - mosaic inlay, painted ceiling and wall panels, tile panels and stained glass windows - working together to create a wonderful interior that has been recently restored. 

One reason why these elements work so well together is that the figures on the walls and windows are all the same size, scale and style. Both the tile panels and the figurative windows are the work of Alexander Gibbs following Butterfield's designs (for the tiles) and specific instructions (for the glass).

View fullsize

Tile panel opposite window of the Archangels (click on images to enlarge)

Favourite themes emerged during this visit to the first church: model building carried by St. Peter in the tile panel above, and in the stained glass, geometric architectural detail - like building blocks - above the figures.  See details from the window of Saints Katherine and Alban below.

Stained glass in All Saints by Alexander Gibbs 1870s

The second church, St. Peter's Vere Street, is used as offices for the London Institute for Contemporary Christianity. It took a while to get into the building and then we were only allowed to view the window above the alter. All the other Burne-Jones/Morris windows are partly visible through secondary glazing with badly placed bars, office partitions, furniture and people at work (meaning no access). However, the Burne-Jones angels are beautifull in their pink robes, surrounded by a William Morris vine repeat pattern with tendrils and shaded leaves, a variation that I haven't seen before on another of my favourite themes.

View fullsize

Details from window above the alter in St. Peter's Vere Street, designed by Burne Jones, Morris & Co. 1880

Then on to the street to see exterior glass panels, canopies and screens in new buildings, with whole blocks being rebuilt or refurbished. Alexander Beleschenko's panels in Princes Street (below left) were made in 2004, the workmen were there for another block going up next door. On the CBRE office building on the corner of Henrietta Place and Wimple Street (below right) there is a frieze of model buildings between the first floor windows, a great subject for a decorative scheme in this crowded part of town.

Rushing now to get in and out before a service began, the last church was St. George's Hanover Square, notable for its 16th century Flemish stained glass that was remodelled to fit the windows here by Thomas Willement in the 1840s. However the glass that interested me, the walled city in brown & yellow (two favourite themes in one) is in the side chapel. In her book, Caroline Swash tells you its history and the reason why it looks so new - this is the kind of information I like and so rarely get! 

"In 1926 Sir Arthur's son Reginald Bloomfield made further alterations, adding a side chapel with glass by F.C. Eden. During the Second World War, this was blown out in the bombing of London and later replaced by a copy taken from Eden's original design."

View fullsize

Circular yellow

Circular Yellow                                                                  Detail of window in the Morris Room (tearoom), V&A Museum

"Circular Yellow", as I call it, is the type of ex-front door textured glass that I have hanging around in the studio waiting to be used. I have more often seen it installed in mid twentieth century churches, imparting a machine made and frankly repellent yellow glare. I think of it as the poor relation to crown glass windows, or the circular backgrounds that William Morris and Philip Webb made for the firm's stained glass windows. 

Yellow - or "gold" to make it sound more attractive - can really overpower the other transparent colours. In the most lovely crown glass windows, my favourites are in the Doge's Palace, Venice, rows of pale pastel glass circles convince you they are in the most perfect windows anywhere. 

Inside the Doge's Palce, Venice                                                                         Chapel window, Gualdo Tadino, Umbria

However, in Umbria recently, I found three good examples of "Circular Yellow". The first, a chapel window (above right): in combination with other machine textured glass the circles looked good. The second, a view through a connecting bridge (below left): higgledy-piggledy with the direction of the circles but a good yellow/pink combination going on. The third in the huge basilica of Santa Maria Degli Angeli (beneath Assisi): I was shocked to see lowly "Circular Yellow" in such a lavish interior! However one side chapel (below right) was decorated with all kinds of golds and yellows, the strong glow from the semi circular yellow roof light above was really effective even on a dull day.

View fullsize

Gualdo Tanino                                                                                                   Basilica of Santa Maria Degli Angeli                                                                                                

The Four Marys

The Mary Window, St Martin-on-the-Hill, Scarborough 1868

I have seen three Morris & Co. windows recently that use the same Burne-Jones cartoon for the figure of the Virgin Mary, in the centre above, and I've written about two other versions, below, in previous posts. This post is called "The Four Marys" in honour of the strip cartoon from "Bunty" magazine and for the other Marys alongside the Virgin Mary:  Mary of Bethany at Scarborough, Mary of Cleopas at Sopworth and Mary Magdalene in both churches. However, I find that I am not particularly interested in the iconography, or the stories that the guidebooks to the churches tell about the artists, possible models and local patrons involved. What I look at is the way that the figures have been inserted into the window shapes and how they contrast with the backgrounds used in each case: richly coloured and geometric at Scarborough, small figures in quite a basic scheme at Beaudesert, popping out of the lancets but with a more sophisticated organisation of the background at Sopworth.

The Mary Window, Sopworth, Wiltshire 1873                                                                  Saints Mary and Michael, Beaudesert 1865

Below, in ascending order of preference, are three shuffled Virgin Marys. What a difference the colour contrasts and patterns used for furnishings and fabrics make to the very same figure whose clothes and lily can be made to join perfectly. The dark iron oxide paint on the later version has lasted much better than the paint recipe that the firm used in its early years.