More Mark Angus

Small window in St Andrew, Steyning, West Sussex. Mark Angus 2000

Since I appreciated (and described in a blog post last March) a whole church full of Mark Angus windows I have been looking for more. The one in St Andrew’s church, Steyning, didn’t disappoint, high up in the north east corner and casting an inky light on the stuff accumulated below (above right). The coloured glass is beautiful, the detail not painted but using what I think of as his signature - the abundant use of those liberated lead lines, veering off the dividing lines between glass pieces like the strokes of a thick pen.

The church website says that, wanting to commission a millenium window, a decision was made to seek a good example of contemporary art. A number of artists was approached but most of the proposals were judged to be unimaginative, so Mark Angus was commissioned because of his “Daily Bread” window in Durham Cathedral. The Steyning window, seventeen years later, does resemble that one, but the subject matter is (supposedly) inspired by Ezekiel 47:12: “On the banks, on both sides of the river, there will grow all kinds of trees for food.”

In Mark Angus’ 1984 book Modern Stained Glass in British Churches, he wrote “The Artist must always bear in mind that his work is experienced daily by ordinary people. His work’s must be accessible, explain mystery, and yet maintain mystery, give insight and meaning alongside awe.”

West window in Christ Church, Bradford-on-Avon, Wiltshire. Mark Angus 1993

Before he moved to Germany, Mark Angus lived near Bath and there are several of his windows in that region, including two in Bradford-on-Avon. I think I love his west window in Christ Church, although I could hardly see it. There is no colour but there are different types of white glass and more of those wonderful lead lines making a picture that describes a rainbow with cloud, rain and sunshine in the most original way. You get no direct view of this window inside the church (did you ever? I wonder) as there is an inaccessible gallery above the west door, beyond which an accumulation of gloomy stuff again (above right).

East window in St Mary Tory, Bradford-on-Avon, Wiltshire. Mark Angus 1999

Also in Bradford-on-Avon and with a Mark Angus east window, the chapel of St Mary Tory is a rare treat. This is a tiny building, rebuilt in the late nineteenth century on the site of a former chapel and hermitage dating from the fifteenth or early sixteenth century. When I took the photo above right I was standing with my back against the west wall and facing through the windows a fantastic view of the town.

The window was commissioned by retired vicar Canon Bill Matthews on behalf of the donor Enid German who wrote “An inner image prompted me to finance a coloured window to replace the existing plain glass one. After deep concentration in prayer, the design for the central panel came. Those of the two side panels I left to the artist, Mark Angus, then unknown to me. I passed my ideas to Bill who acted as go-between.” It is fascinating to get such an insight into the commissioning process, especially, as in the same bit of text on display in the church Mark remembers it differently. He describes in detail how he arrived intuitively at the design for each lancet, aiming for a mood of “active quietness”. After describing each panel he wrote “So now we have the whole image. Of a garden, of nature, of light, of the mystic, of refreshing tears and raindrops, of sky, of heaven. It is an escape from the hard realities of life, a retreat and a resting place.”

The view from the chapel of St Mary Tory.

Of course the central lancet is quite obviously a flower, in Mark’s words “a mystical rose, which is both contained and is free”. I had to get up close to check on the yellow splodge of stamen in the middle (below left), it’s so unusual to see him using glass enamel and it looks more superficial than those wandering signature lead lines. There are views of houses and trees through the coloured glass, who on earth would prefer nothing but plain glass windows?

St Mary Tory, detail and view from a south facing window.

twentieth century Stained Glass

Hornsey Parish Church (of St Mary with St George) from the outside.

I saw that the doors of Hornsey Parish Church were wide open as we drove past it, giving a full view down the nave to a window of the type that I particularly like. My visit, later in the day, didn’t disappoint. The church was designed by architect Randall Morris in 1959, there is no mention of a designer or maker of the windows in the comprehensive information boards inside the church, but they look to me to be architect designed. Made in the simplest way with large pieces of pastel coloured machine made unpainted glass, these would generally be classified as leaded lights rather than stained glass.

Hornsey Parish Church, the chancel at the north end and the west wall of the nave.

The interior is wonderful, light airy and calm with colour on the ceiling panels emphasising the parabolic curve of the roof that is echoed in the design of the windows on all four sides. The proportions of these windows change from the back (facing north) to the south (above the doors) to the sides, but the design of overlapping scales sensitively coloured and placed on the windows’ supporting bars is consistent throughout.

Hornsey Parish Church, the window above the south facing entrance doors - a really satisfying design.

St Paul’s Parish Church, South Harrow, east and south facing windows on a dull day.

Rising incongruously from the streets of another London suburb, is St Paul’s Church, South Harrow. It’s a Cachmaille-Day church from 1937, and again I could see from the outside that it contained exciting looking stained glass. It was open but there was a service about to start, so I only got a glimpse of the windows from the entrance (above right), these are arranged in two sets of five very tall thin lancets facing south and east..

Cachemaille-Day worked with many different artists using many different styles in the dozens of churches he designed or reconfigured between the 1930s and 60s. The St Paul’s windows are listed as the work of Christopher Webb from 1938, their colours may look familiar but their style is not like the C. Webb windows I’m used to seeing. There is a motif of stars and curved bands that repeats up each window, creating a jazzy 1930s regular pattern that is spectacular when the sun is out, as in the photo below right (not my own). I wonder what level of collaboration between architect, artist and commissioner led to this stained glass solution, so perfect for the building.

St Paul’s, south facing window from the outside, the windows on a sunnier day.

Mark Angus in Slough

Slough, looking towards St Mary’s Church from Trinity United Reformed Church and the same view through the stained glass inside.

Slough is the home to some of the finest twentieth and early twenty first century stained glass; Alfred Wolmark’s celebrated 1915 abstract window in St Mary’s Church; one of my largest handmade commissions now in storage as the building it was in, a community type centre called ‘The Centre’, has been knocked down; and Trinity United Reformed Church with all of its windows by the British artist Mark Angus.

Trinity United Reformed Church. Three walls, all eleven windows by Mark Angus, 1995 and 2002.

I was interested to see Mark’s work in a modern, fairly neutral building where the windows get no help from the atmosphere inside in getting a religious message across, which is one of his stated aims. The church member who showed us in said how much the congregation liked the windows and that they had invited Mark back to complete the set when more money was raised around 2002.

The windows are like pictures in an exhibition, not visually linked to each other in what seems an unusual decision for the space. The symbols and signs that indicate the meaning of the windows (still, an explanatory card seems to be needed for each one) take precedence over an interior design approach and the result is quite exciting.

East facing corner; blue window representing The Ascension in to Heaven with St Mary’s spire visible through it.

The full height Ascension window (above left) works brilliantly, with big bits of streaky blue blown glass and liberal use of the device that links all these windows - little strips of lead floating across the main lead lines in a technique that was intended to ‘liberate the lead line’. The only painting that I could see was a faint wash with sgraffito details for hands and faces, the only etching those stars in the window below right. This means the stained glass is more transparent than it often is, how good to see the buildings outside, and to see the strong colours reflected on to the window reveals and sills even on the north side of the church.

I’ve included a photo of each of the small windows below - do they go together and do they need to?

South east wall; St Andrew in the middle.

North west wall; windows commemorating Reverend Jamie Ross, Minister’s wife Ina Ross and Moira Stephen, ‘Spirit of Dance’. I think these are the three windows made in 2002.

North west wall, "‘Cycle of Life’ window on the right.

Details from the last two windows on the north west wall.

Nevers and Rodez Cathedrals

Morning sun in Nevers Cathedral

The Cathedral of Saint Cyr and Saint Juliette of Nevers, in the middle of France on the river Loire, is an essential stop on a stained glass road trip as its windows are filled with modern stained glass - that is 1052 square metres in 130 windows designed by five different artists. The gothic east end was blazing with colour on the morning of our visit, projecting right up to the opposite end of the cathedral (below left) where there are four subtle, rhythmic windows by Raoul Ubac. These were the first to be commissioned for this ambitious stained glass project initiated almost forty years after the building was bombed by the Royal Air Force.

Nevers: Left, four windows in the romanesque west end by Raoul Ubac, 1983. Right, upper choir windows by Claude Viallat, 1992.

It is the upper windows in the choir that project most of the colour, this set by Claude Viallat contains a repeated motif (which we called the floating toast) in a gorgeous bright and light colour palette. They act as a bridge between the set of geometric designs by Gottfried Honegger in the windows of the upper nave, and the many windows by Jean-Michel Albérola in the chapels around the apse which you can see in bursts through the cathedral’s interior arches as soon as you enter (above right and top).

There are several useful information boards about the windows in the cathedral, the one below particularly so as it gives the names of the glass studios that worked with each artist and a detail from each set of windows - something I can’t do as I forgot to take my good camera on this trip. The commentary, as always, is keen to interpret the designs in terms of subject matter, whereas in fact the only artist who used figurative imagery is Jean Michel Albérola.

Useful information board in Nevers Cathedral

Nevers: Left, Chapel of the Joyful Mysteries. Right, Blessed Sacrament Chapel, Jean-Michel Albérola, 1993-4.

The figurative path is, I think, the hardest one to choose and to admire. Look at the gorgeous saturated green, orange and pink projected on the floor of the radiant gothic Blessed Sacrament Chapel, and then look again and realise that the white shape is a giant hand silhouette, one of the hands of God. Albérola’s imagery is saturated with motifs from the whole history of European painting, as well as borrowing from traditional stained glass design as you can see in the floral ornamentation, crosshatching and cartoonish figures and hands in the example below.

“I took pieces of images either figurative or decorative which I mixed together, as I usually do… From the beginning, I started with the idea of quotation, without inventing anything”. Albérola quoted in a comrehensive article about these windows in The Spirit of the Eye.

Nevers: Left, two windows by Albérola in the apse. Right, two windows by Gottfried Honegger in the crypt, 2001.

Gottfried Honegger’s windows seem to be exercises in elegant shape and colour, even the information board resists the urge to interpret the simple shapes in his windows for the nave and the crypt (above right). But are they enough? My favourite set, the windows in the side chapels of the nave by François Rouan, hover between the worlds of imagery and abstraction. They play sensitively with the complicated patterns in the tracery using restrained colour combinations and have a huge impact when you stand in front of them (below).

Nevers: Windows by François Rouan in the side chapels of the nave, 1991-6.

Our next stop, 250 miles south, was Rodez and the Cathedral of Notre Dame. Here one artist, Stéphane Belzère, was chosen in a competition launched in 2002 to design seven tall gothic windows in the side chapels around the choir. A condition of the competition was that the windows should contain Christian iconography on set themes using figurative imagery appropriate to the twenty first century. Atelier Duchemin, who made Albérola’s Nevers windows, was chosen as the manufacturer and these windows are also beautifully made and slightly cartoonish with a digital, twenty first century feel.

Rodez: Windows by Stéphane Belzère in the chapels on the east side of the nave (windows completed 2006).

The first window interprets the theme The Blood of Christ (above left) with oversized hands (again) and blood cells. The second window, Resurrection, uses glass that goes from the deepest red to the palest yellow - extreme colour saturation to extreme light - with minimal leading and all details etched, painted and silverstained by the artist (above right).

Rodez: Windows by Belzère in the chapels on the west side representing Saints in Heaven (left) and Genesis (right).

The windows on the west side are taller still, and the top tracery of each is filled with wonderfully multicoloured glass, made with coloured frits. My favourite of them all is the one with the slightly terrifying red border (below centre and right). This one, The Dream of Boaz, contains a version of Jesse’s tree, you can make out figures and faces in the beautifully painted, etched and silverstained bubble. It’s interesting to see the collision of a twenty first century approach to picture making with the cathedral’s architecture and the declared intention of giving people images that interpret the bible in the traditional manner of stained glass windows, a view outlined in the comprehensive explanation panels on display. The whole effect is jumbled, patternless and full of religious content, a thing you rarely find in modern church or cathedral windows.

Rodez: Windows by Belzère in the chapels on the west side, representing Fire (left) and The Dream of Boaz (right).

Harry Stammers, Lady Chapel

On entering St. Mary Redcliffe, Bristol                                              Bursting into prayer inside The Lady Chapel

If you need your faith in twentieth century stained glass restored, go and see Harry Stammers' windows for The Lady Chapel in St. Mary Redcliffe, Bristol. Even on entering the church the colour is overpowering, the windows are amazing from a distance and so amazing when you are in the chapel that people were bursting into prayer in front of them. I have included a photo of every window here, but still they do not convey how well the stained glass, rich and beautiful both in overall design and in the detailed painting, works in its setting. There is a complete set of five large windows made from 1960-65, the colours becoming stronger from the front to the back (east) wall, where the central nativity window is filled with colour and detail arranged in a satisfying pattern of blocks and columns.

Nativity window

Angels at the top of the nativity window

After much reflection, I chose the red and yellow angels (above) as my favourite part of the scheme: it's the part that sings out from a distance and is full of the silverstain/red flashed glass pattern-making that is a distinguishing characteristic of the work of  Harry Stammers (see Jane Brocket's blog on the subject here).

Other sections that fascinated me were Mary lying on straw (below) painted in exactly the way that I show grass and straw in my coloured glass, and the three blue columns that turn into figures when you look at them closely (below right).

Details from the centre and the bottom right of the nativity window

Windows 2 & 4 (either side of the nativity window)

The other four windows contain large amounts of clear glass, something that I hold against a lot of mid twentieth century stained glass, especially in churches where these types of windows are contrasted with older, less transparent ones. However, here the white and tinted glass sections are not cut into diamond-shaped quarries only, there are some beautifully designed passages where the diamonds change into irregular shapes as they border the blocks of colour.

South facing window & detail from it

North facing window from inside and outside

The high ratio of transparent glass, coupled with the crisp linear painting style, also allows some of the images to be read from the outside, at least on the north side where the light shines right through the chapel.

The whole series of windows shows the life of Mary alongside other female saints, figures from familiar bible stories and groups of people dressed in the clothes of the 1950s and 60s. But I find, as usual, that I am more interested in the abstract/pattern-making qualities that you can find in every panel - like the towers of diamonds pointing to the fabulous jade green triangle (below left). Right at the bottom is a section full of shapes covered in a network of lines and brush marks, so that each piece of blue glass is like a beautiful miniature painting.