Stained Glass
Looking at artworks on a digital screen can be an amazing experience. Purchase a phone, tablet or laptop and you get a display that delivers millions of colours, incredible resolution and razor sharp detail. If the artwork is a high resolution image then you can zoom in to examine the minutiae of a painting, photograph or print. These displays use light to allow us to view the images.
In many ways, digital images are not far removed from a stained glass window in a church. When sunlight shines through a stained glass window the artwork is displayed in all its glory. I like to think of stained glass windows as the very earliest version of Instagram.
It’s impossible to overestimate the sense of awe someone living in the medieval and Renaissance periods would have experienced when faced with an artwork in stained glass for the first time. Literacy was not widespread and the Church used stained glass to teach the central beliefs of Christianity. Worshippers could ‘read’ the stories of Christ and the saints and learn what was required for their lives.
This brings us neatly to The Joan Greenwood Memorial Windows, designed by Roland Mitten, recently installed here at St Stephen’s. Unusually, the windows are at head height. I love the way you can stand right up close and look at all the detail in the design, there is always something new to discover if you look closely enough.
If you haven’t yet done so, do spend some time looking at the windows. And when you do, think about how someone from history would have felt when viewing a window in their local Parish church and the profound effect it may have had on their spiritual life.
Detail from stained glass in St Stephen’s.
James Fraser
20 October 2024
