History of Glass

It is almost miraculous that very early in the history of civilization, humans, as a result of their ingenuity, almost fully developed glass. It is definitely known that by 3000BC the Egyptians, the Sumerians and the people of the Indus Valley civilization were able to make faience – an opaque paste of sand coated with glaze. Between 1554 and 1075 BC craftspeople in Egypt discovered a process for making clear glass which could be fused and cast like metal. It was cast into rods that while hot could be moulded on a sand core into vessels. These vessels were considered by the wealthy to be superior to pottery.

The terminology of glass has been found on cuneiform tablets found at Ninevah dating from the 7 th century BC. From colonies established by Alexander the Great emerged a cultural cross-fertilization of the Classical with the Oriental world reflected in the artefacts of this period.

By the 1st century AD glazed windows were used in houses of the rich, especially in northern Europe, the letters of the younger Pliny refer to windows in his house at Lausentium.

Throughout the disintegration of the Roman Empire during the 4th and 5th centuries AD, local glass-makers developed their skills, archaeological evidence traces the spread of glass manufacture from Egypt through the valleys of the Rhine and the Rhone to northern France and England . A tombstone at Lyons bears the inscription “an artist in glass of African Nationality and a citizen of Carthage."

Stained Glass - Painting with light

Stained glass relies on transmitted light for its effect, the glass artist has to work with light which will vary depending on the time of day. Viollet-le-Duc, 19 th century French art historian, attempted to detail the laws and principles which, he believed, underlay all medieval stained glass. He was mainly concerned with the phenomenon of irradiation, the optical effects of transmitted light through translucent colours, and the fact that this irradiation is unequal according to the colour, some colours recede and other advance, or spread.

Rose windows

Carl Gustav Jung described rose windows as some of the most splendid examples of mandalas, which within a European Christian tradition express a sense of the eternal in the universe and within the human psyche. Simple wheel windows in the Romanesque period, were the precursor rose windows. One of the earliest examples of a wheel window is in the west façade of the 12 th century Church of San Zeno Maggiore in Verona . It was, however, the combined genius of the Gothic masons and glaziers that transformed the gables of many cathedrals into immense circular webs of light and colour.

Art and artist

The Medieval tradition of anonymity gave way to a cult of individuality with the Renaissance and with this change the very concept of stained glass art also changed, the principle of using glass a medium in its own right as a surface for decorative, two-dimensional picture-making was superseded by realistic pictorial representation, in which lead-work was considered a necessary evil rather than an integral part of the composition.

Influenced by the prevailing style of Neo-Classicism, the art of stained glass reached its low point in the 18 th century as exemplified by the work of Sir Joshua Reynolds and the Gothic Revivalists. Stained glass was eventually saved in the second half of the century by the Pre-Raphaelites who, like their predecessors were passionate medievalists. Importance of symbolic content, observation of nature and a concern for good craftsmanship, including a proper regard for the lead-line as an element of design, were Pre-Raphaelite principles which William Morris and Edward-Burne-Jones applied to stained glass.

Charles Rennie MacIntosh was one of the most important exponents of the Art Nouveau movement and created remarkable stained-glass for buildings he designed in Glasgow.