History about stained glass windows

Wilson moved to Los Angeles in the early s and designed painted Gothic windows. Northrop stayed with the firm for almost its entire existence, specializing in richly detailed landscape windows. Clara Driscoll designed many of the most popular lampshades, including the Dragonfly. The architecture called for decorative leaded windows to compliment the churches.

Anne and the Holy Trinity, that were discussed earlier. Gothic was the preferred church style in America from the late s until the War Between the States; the stained glass trade gained a foothold during those years.

Like the Classical, the Gothic style never disappears, but reemerges in popularity from time to time. The early twentieth century was a very rich period for American Gothic stained glass. William Willet laid the foundation for a new twentieth century revival when he founded his studio in Philadelphia in He designed windows of painted, richly colored antique glass with his figures reflecting a full-figured Renaissance influence that was the taste of the times.

His wife, Anne Lee Willet, who ran the studio for a time after his death, assisted him in his work. His son, Henry Willet, was also a Gothic revivalist, but his preference was for small, jewel-like, early French windows. The most prominent spokesman for the Gothic Revival was Charles J. He lectured widely and wrote Adventures in Light and Color, the most respected and eloquent publication on the art form in the twentieth century.

Connick founded his Boston-based studio in Joseph G. Reynolds worked with Connick before founding Reynolds, Francis and Rohnstock in Wilbur H. Burnham began work in and had his own studio by All these Boston studios designed windows to serve the architecture.

Henry Wynd Young and J. Gordon Guthrie were New York artists whose windows feature elongated, graceful figures who exhibited more painterly character. Studios all over the country were attracted to Gothic designs. Several of the more notable were Emil Frei in St. Louis, R. Otto Heinigke was typical of these. A first generation American, unable to make a living at fine art painting, he went to work for John Riordan whose studio was successfully competing with Munich painted windows.

Then, in , he founded a studio with Owen J. Bowen had formerly worked for both Tiffany and La Farge. A visit to the cathedrals of Europe inspired Heinigke with a love for medieval stained glass. Connick had apprenticed in the studio of the Rudy Brothers in Pittsburgh where he worked on opalescent glass. He later apologized for once admiring it. He moved to Boston to found his own studio and met Cram. Connick wrote a very popular book, Adventures in Light and Color, which he dedicated to Cram.

He remained president of the Stained Glass Association of America for nine consecutive years during which time he ran it like a dictator. His second in command, Orin Skinner, was editor of Stained Glass for 15 years.

Since Connick was closely associated with the architect who was the accepted authority, everyone adopted his principles without question. The stained glass craftspeople working in the neo-Gothic style understood very little about medieval iconography, which no one other than a few scholars had cared about for centuries.

They imitated the color palette of Chartres, principally red and blue, with touches of secondary colors. They imitated the forms, medallion windows for the aisles and large figures for the clerestories.

He embraced the integrity of materials; stone should look like stone, wood like wood, glass like glass. He introduced a new direction towards open interiors, a perfect setting for clear glass doors and windows. His designs featured straight parallel lines and small squares in repeated patterns. The Martin house in Buffalo has over leaded windows and a gallery between the house and a greenhouse. Like Wright, Sullivan designed the glass as an integral component of the architecture.

The creative artist is the man who controls all this and understands it. His piano pieces include Airplane Sonata and Mechanisms. Arthur Honegger composed Pacific , glorifying a locomotive. The dancers wore costumes suggesting skyscrapers. The score included typewriter noises. Stained glass also glorified the machine.

A French exhibition catalogue including work by Jeannin shows a series of stained glass windows in a newspaper office depicting transportation of news by auto and boat. Paule and Max Ingrand, in the Paris Exposition of , showed stained glass panels of an airplane, an ocean liner and a jazz band.

In the same exhibit J. Largillier had a panel of a train. The great movie palaces of the 20s and 30s with exotic decors featuring artificially lighted panels and giant skylights and opalescent glass light fixtures are a true expression of art deco. In Switzerland, the first symptoms of a renewal are found in , thanks to the competition opened for new windows in the Cathedral of Saint Nicholas, Fribourg.

A Polish artist, Joseph Mehoffer, won the contest. The setting of those windows is a decisive date in the history of modern stained glass because they announced a renaissance on all sides. They were installed between and It is newer and more beautiful than we make in France.

Under their spell, Alexandre Cingria changed from a painter in oils to decorative art. Producing windows whose brilliance dispersed the shadows cast by trite religious rubbish, he and his brother, Charles Albert, began to write criticism of the current ecclesiastical art.

Cingria became the leader of a group of young artists who called themselves the Society of Saint Luke. In Protestant Swiss Romond, they engineered a rebirth of Catholic arts. Thanks to Cingria, this was the most fruitful of all similar European movements. Worthy of much acclaim are Swiss artists Augusto Giacometti who is a brilliant colorist and Louis Rivier whose work is reminiscent of art nouveau style.

Hans Stocker and Otto Staiger shared the same goals — to revitalize sacred art. In German Switzerland, they started a group they called Rot-Blau red-blue which flourished from to They received so much publicity on the church at Assy that they quite overshadowed the earlier groups who had first voiced the same goals.

Regardless of whether Maurice Denis took the new ideas from Switzerland to France, he collaborated with Marguerite Hure on windows in a landmark church, Notre Dame du Raincy, , a concrete church with walls constructed of colored glass.

Since , the city of Nancy had been a center of arts and crafts. Jacques Gruber worked there with Daum Freres Glassworks. A process of casing colored glass over white glass was first developed for decoration on vases. Windows by Marguerite Hure had already been installed in the crypt and one window designed by Rouault had been contracted to be fabricated by Jean Hebert-Stevens.

The earliest windows designed by Chagall and executed in by Paul Bony are in the baptistry at Assy, as is his ceramic mural of the Israelites crossing the Red Sea. Because the community housed a large tuberculosis sanitarium, the aisle windows contain saints associated with healing by Maurice Brianchon, Father Couturier, Paul Bony, Adaline Hebert-Stevens and Paul Bereot. The church at Assy is an exciting one artistically, although its failure may be from a lack of homogeneity.

It was the center of heated controversy. Because it stood firm, other churches had the courage to employ important artists who worked in contemporary idioms.

Alfred Manessier designed the first abstract windows for the small country church at Les Bre[accent]seux and created a rare jewel there.

Think of the products of Mayer and Zettler. Revolutionary art movements proliferated in Germany and Austria about the end of the nineteenth century. They joined, broke up and rejoined like amoeba. Nearly all groups published manifestoes, most of which were muddy in concept. Werkbund and Werkstatte continued arts and crafts traditions.

There was a little interest in stained glass in these groups, but not as much as in their English counterparts. Theo van Doesburg was associated with de Stijl in Holland.

In , he met Walter Gropius in Berlin who invited him to come to Weimar to give two courses at the Bauhaus. This fine school united all disciplines of art and craft, its influence spreading more widely when it was closed by the Nazis and its staff fled from the country, many to the United States. Josef Albers was doing stained glass at the Bauhaus. In to , he made windows for a few villas in Berlin, now destroyed. Van Doesburg worked with Jean Arp and Sophie Tauber Arp in to produce a series of stained glass windows, their geometric compositions depending for interest upon thick lead lines.

The real progenitor of contemporary German stained glass was Johann Thorn-Prikker He was a restrained expressionist and he produced fabric design, murals, mosaics, posters, and illustrations, in addition to a completely new style of stained glass. His first commission was for the fenestration of The Three Kings Church in Neuss, which he produced in These windows were an important critical success but the conservative church authorities refused to allow them to be set until He worked in subject, symbol and non-objective styles.

He produced a monumental Crucifixion window for a cloister in Marienthal near Wesil in His windows for Bonn Cathedral, , are notable for lyrical color and cubist influence. Wendling is best known for monumental windows in the choir of Aachen Cathedral. They blend some figures with geometric ornament. Erhard Klonk is another stained glass designer who worked in several media. He designed mosaic, laminated, fused glass and an interesting shallow carved wall technique called sgraffito.

His stained glass designs are figurative, playful and naive. Some consider Georg Meistermann the most versatile German stained glass designer. In , he produced his first stained glass, but this was destroyed in World War II. He was especially busy after the war providing stained glass for old churches that had lost their windows, such as Saint Marien in Koln-Kalk, Cologne fabricated by Oidtmann. He is well known for a giant abstract window in a Cologne radio station.

Ludwig Schaffrath has been called the most monumental stained glass designer. After Technical School he became the assistant and collaborator of Wendling, who somewhat influenced him. He renounced all pictorial art in favor of decorative lines.

His first stained glass installation was the colorless glass windows in the cloister of Aachen cathedral. He also designs large mosaics of stone, glass and other materials. In his maturity, he had the courage to travel in new directions and has achieved new heights in his window wall in a railroad station in Omiya, Japan, which was fabricated by Oidtmann. This project is still abstract, but in the true sense of the word, inspired by light and water. It is right for the location in scale and color, which is bright, not monochromatic like his earlier work.

He has great influence on young artists through his traveling and teaching workshops. His work always attracts publicity. He developed a new style using light filtered through glass with prominent geometric lead lines.

Jochem Poensgen, born , leaned heavily on colorless industrial glass. He used sandblasting, tempering and incorporating plaques of cement.

Carefully controlled light penetrates between repeated shapes. Wilhelm Bushulte, born , turns to figurative abstract art. He developed his ideas in relation to architecture, as did his contemporaries, but his shapes and colors were more exciting than the usual German monochrome.

He uses saturated color balanced against white opal glass. The period after World War II was devoted to restoration, rebuilding and replacing destroyed buildings and stained glass. A new generation of stained glass artists reached adulthood after World War II, some copying their masters, and some developing along new lines.

From William Morris forward, the English produced a lively amount of work, but in more or less the same style, by more or less the same studios. Most significant of all was the new Coventry Cathedral built in A whole new building was constructed at right angles to the ruins of the old.

This is the masterpiece among masterpieces in this giant edifice. The small stained glass department at the Royal College of Art began from the Morris tradition. A highly successful college exhibition in under the directorship of Lawrence Lee and an article published in the college journal brought the department to the attention of the architect Basil Spence. He approached the college about stained glass for Coventry and the students were invited to submit sketches.

Scholars were to be paid like professionals to quiet any accusation of unfair competition. These are on an angle, are seen from the chancel, and throw light on the altar. Spence chose the colors and themes; youth: green, the first flush of adulthood: red; midlife: multi-colored; old age: deep purple with flecks of gold; after-life: golden. The designs are semi-abstract.

Each of the three artists designed two windows in their color preference. Margaret Traherne was chosen to design windows in dalle de verre for the Chapel of Unity. Piper worked in many media before he turned to stained glass as his career matured. The collaboration of these two artists on windows for the Oundle School Chapel led to the commission to do the baptistry at Coventry.

They produced the most lively, interesting work in England. The Technique of Stained Glass is very complete, geared to a professional approach and is considered by many to be the best of its kind. Erwin Bossanyi was one of the greatest stained glass craftsmen in our era. He worked for 15 years in Germany and, in , fled to England, accounting for his inclusion with the English craftspeople. His themes are both naive and sophisticated. He alone did the design and fabrication of his work so his output was limited.

The first McCausland was trained in Ireland. This studio does traditional windows, and has done two-thirds of all the stained glass in Canada. Yvonne Williams, a native Canadian, after apprenticing with Connick and working briefly in the United States, opened her studio in Toronto in She trained many craftspeople such as Ellen Simon. There is also a group of Canadians doing abstract architectural stained glass heavily influenced by the modern Germans.

As Australians and New Zealanders became wealthy enough in the late 19th century, they imported stained glass from England. An unusual feature of it was the use of native flora and fauna as decorative elements.

The depression of the s put the few native studios out of business. In the s and s, Australia experienced a cultural awakening. The arts produced, though based on European models, had an Australian emphasis. In the s, a group of young artists began making autonomous panels.

New Zealand has a lively tradition of decorative domestic windows. New Zealand students returned home after studying in the United States with news of the German influence. They also trace some influence to Japanese visitors. In , Ludwig Schaffrath lectured and gave workshops in Australia. An exhibition of contemporary German glass accompanied him to Sydney, Canberra, Melbourne and Adelaide. He also lectured at Langer, New Zealand. Paul Blomkamp wrote a letter that was printed in Stained Glass in the Fall issue of in which he described his work in stained glass in South Africa.

Because lead came was impossible to find, he began to use resin bonding but using thin glass, not dalles. Later, he bought a lead milling machine from Germany. Leon Theron is producing faceted glass in South Africa. An American, Reed Harvey is teaching stained glass in Liberia. He and his pupils have created church windows that have a primitive naivete in Monrovia.

In , he established a studio for leaded glass, etching, beveling and silvering mirrors. Juan Navarrete was their designer. He taught Francisco Lugo, whom in turn taught Enrique Villasenor.

In , Villasen[accent]or set up a stained glass department in the Architectural School of the National University of Mexico. In , Diego Rivera produced designs for stained glass windows in the Palace of Health. The windows were executed by Villasen[accent]or. Mexican stained glass consistently won medals at International Expositions.

In , Rufino Tamayo designed a laminated glass mural that was executed by Glasindustrie Van Tetterode in Amsterdam. Sometimes a stained glass artist is associated with more than one country, or at least, his principal work was not done in his native land. Arnold Maas was Dutch, worked for a time at the Rambusch Studio in New York, but is associated principally with Puerto Rico where his most distinctive work is found. When Joep was young he studied law, and painted for a hobby.

When he began to win prizes for art, he slipped into the family business. In , he left Holland for New York. His daughter is carrying on the family tradition of working in stained glass. Belgium and Holland have a grand tradition of Renaissance stained glass.

Hendricx, Michel Martens and F. Colpaert have worked there in the contemporary style. In , an exposition that spurred artists and decorators to explore art nouveau designs was held in Turin. Giovanni Beltrami from Milan produced decorative windows for Casino Pellegrino in Vichy, France between and These are not very original.

Scipione Ballardini, born , was responsible for the revival of stained glass in Verona in the twentieth century. After his death, his studio continued under Ghidoli. The windows in Fribourg by Jozef Mehoffer were mentioned in relation to Switzerland. The artist studied in Paris where he was associated with the Nabis and exhibited paintings with the Vienna Secessionists.

Some of his windows exist in Wawel Cathedral as well as in Switzerland. Panels by six member studios and some apprentices were displayed along with many photographs. Henry Lee Willet was the official representative. He and a Polish stained glass craftswoman Maria Powalsz demonstrated the process for six weeks. At that time, he reported six stained glass studios in all of Poland. One had just been put out of business for stockpiling materials.

When Willet returned, he brought with him a short film of the Dobrzanski stained glass studio in Krakow. The craftsmen are shown working on a set of saints for an orthodox monastery which are very beautiful and resemble Byzantine icons.

Emmanuel Vigelund, a Norwegian master craftsman, was born in and attended the School of Arts and Crafts in Christianna from to He then traveled and worked in Kroyer, Copenhagen and Paris. Vigelund won the Henricksen prize to study stained glass in France. Einar Forseth designed five windows for the new Coventry Cathedral in England, a gift from the churches of Sweden. Nina Tryggvadottir, an Icelandic artist, has work fabricated by Oidtmann in Germany.

She designs with paper collage. There is no tradition of stained glass in the Orthodox churches in Russia. Stained glass has been made in Lithuania for at least four centuries. They are typical of turn of the century German work.

Latvian stained glass craftsmen include such men as Karlis Brencens, who set up a course in an art school in and Janis Rozentals who created patriotic themes. Stasys Usinskas is the father of Lithuanian stained glass. He studied in Paris and his work is very representational. Algimentas Stoskus, born , produced innovative dalle de verre using very thick slabs.

His work is non-representational. His pupils include Kazimieras Morkunas, whose dalles look to be molded to shape; Antanas Garbuskas, who uses both dalles and leaded glass to make allegorical figures and conventional ornament; Anorte Mackelaite; Filomena Usinskaite; Kostantinus Satunas and Bronius Bruzas.

Simon Studios in Reims, France fabricated these in ; the panels were displayed in New York city before they were installed. Their theme is the Twelve Tribes of Israel. Katsutoshi Kuno, a member of the Stained Glass Association of America, reported that there were 1, stained glass artists in Japan in Unozawa is the father of Japanese stained glass. He studied in Germany and, in , started a small studio in Japan. Matsumoto joined him in Between and he worked in several U.

He returned to Japan in and founded his own active studio, which continued until his death in The craft became immensely popular after World War II. A beautiful Japanese stained glass magazine is published, unfortunately, however, not in English. The most successful and most widely accepted new technique in the world of stained glass today is dalle de verre, better known as faceted glass, which is set into epoxy or other material.

Its process of production results in a mosaic-like approach of pure color effects that can be utilized in window openings or entire walls. While the medieval craftsman, joining small pieces of glass with lead to make intricate designs, achieved the same effect for Gothic cathedrals, the earlier Byzantines transferred their mosaic patterns into colorful window designs.

Present day development of the technique stems directly from this beginning. Arabic type examples can be found in Spain, apparently finding their way from North Africa with the Moslem Invasion. Although the actual glass is no longer in place, the feathery stonework grills that remain definitely indicate they must have been filled with colored glass. With these examples the Gothic tribes moving west used similar applications in stone mullions in France during the fifth and sixth centuries.

The Islamic law of prohibiting the use of human likenesses being depicted within the mosque, and simultaneously, the Christian practice of encouraging the use of figure likenesses of Christ — the Apostles, angels and saints — in all the decorative media of the church may have implemented the change to the thinner leaded glass medium. The Middle Eastern antecedents of dalle de verre seem to have vanished for several hundreds of years, until the s, when French glass artists, experimenting with various new architectural directions, revitalized the ancient techniques.

Early pioneers in the modern development of dalle de verre include Auguste Labouret and his collaborator Pierre Chaudiere. Labouret was born in St. Quentin, France and developed the dalle de verre technique in the early 30s while working on glass in historic monuments.

The artist sought a combination of modern strength and durability with a depth of color found in old glass. The thickness, broken surface and cut edge gives dalle de verre its characteristically rich translucence.

The negative matrix area that frames each pane of glass is visually much heavier than the lead in ordinary windows. This characteristic, as with the earlier Islamic pierced windows, enriches the color by creating a great contrasting brilliance.

This juxtaposition of brilliant color and dark surrounds can be painstakingly achieved in flat leaded glass by elaborately painting or by a combination of etching and painting of flashed glass. Dalle de verre lends itself best to direct and vigorous design. It is a broad medium that, generally, does not encourage copious detail.

In the St. Christopher window that Labouret exhibited in the Pavilion du Vitrail in the Paris Exhibition of , he demonstrated that it was not incompatible with figure work, delicate detail and even lettering. A variety of forms could be seen at this Paris Exposition with the Egyptian Pavilion showing a typical Arabic style of glass pierced plaster encased windows in traditional patterns.

This was supposed to be the real origin of faceted glass. Variously called beton glass beton glas , concrete glass or mosaic glass, the renewal started and by had crossed the Atlantic when a beton glass window was installed in the Chapel at the Shrine of St.

Anne de Beaupre, Quebec, Canada. This was designed and fabricated by Auguste Labouret and is believed to be the first such panel in North America. Note particularly the individual blades of glass set together in undulating rows. This cutting effect could only be achieved by using a hammer.

Notice the ornamenting on the garment itself, the flowers, sky and stars, and the glass rods used. Contrasting in size are the larger pieces in the garment and jewel box note the treatment on the edging of the jewel box.

The flesh seems to have been traced and a matted texture effects the shading somewhat differently from the effect in St. It is the work of Labouret, who has evolved a daring new technique in the manipulation of translucent materials. His windows, indeed, carry us far from the traditional method of setting flat pieces of glass in leads in the manner that has been followed for centuries.

By the use of thick slabs of glass which he sculptures, M. Labouret obtains a multiplicity of facets about which the lights play with a colour and an intensity which suggest the fire of precious stones.

It is impossible to deny the remarkable effects he achieves by means of this new method, and it is easy to imagine the wealth of decoration, which it may, in the future, confer on our churches and cathedrals. The several slabs of glass, it may, perhaps, be added, are held together with cement. Hubert window. Figure This is by Jean Gaudin and contains 16 panels with vignettes of the story running bottom to top.

While there are indications of pate de verre influences, it is a stunning window by any standard. Pate de verre is a cast sculptured window; all the surface details are sculpted in a mold then the hot glass is poured into it.

All the cast pieces are then assembled using cement as a matrix. It is possible that dalle de verre and pate de verre developed simultaneously as they have similar surface treatments. It was not until the end of World War II that faceted glass use became more accepted, and even then, it was an evolutionary process. The pent-up demands for new buildings in the United States and Europe after the war proved a fertile ground for the material, which was relatively easy to fabricate, comparatively inexpensive yet produced windows of brilliant color.

This large installation has been billed as the finest in France with the windows completely dominating the atmosphere. It is a concert in color, rhythm and visual harmony. By , additional windows had been fabricated and installed by Labouret for the St. Anne de Beaupre in Quebec, Canada. The complete job called for over windows of which he had completed and installed The work, St.

Luke, from the circle window from the Basilica of St. Anne de Beaupre, Quebec, Canada, shows advancement of the dalle de verre concept. The cutting is sharper, giving a crisper look to the window; there is ample use of negative space. In Jarrow, England at St. To make stained glass, artisans mixed potash and sand to degrees Fahrenheit and added various metallic oxide powders to create different colors.

The glass was then flattened into sheets while it was still pliable. The artists would have a blue print, or what they called a cartoon, of the design of the window on a large board-the sheets of glass would be laid on top of the blue print and cut into the approximate sizes needed.

The pieces were finished by grozing. Sometimes, details were painted onto the stained glass windows with a special paint made from ground glass and iron filings that were suspended in urine or wine; this mixture helped block light and define designs. The finished pieces of glass were fitted into H-shaped strips of lead called cames. The cames were soldered together to create panels, which were then put into a frame made of iron called an armature; at this point the window was complete and ready to be put in the wall.

The stained glass windows that are familiar today did not come about until the 10 th century, with the construction of Gothic cathedrals.

The oldest complete stained glass windows were those of Augsburg Cathedral in Germany, constructed in the late 11 th century. The Medieval church funded most of the stained glass windows of the time. Abbot Suger of Saint Denis was a famous patron of stained glass art and lived just outside of Paris.

He used the wealth of the abbey to make windows larger and more beautiful, because he considered light the manifestation of God himself. Subjects of stained glass windows being made during this time were mostly religious in nature and served to tell Biblical stories to lay people that could not read, as well as beautifying the churches. It has been speculated that the stained glass windows probably had a more profound impact on the people than the sermons themselves.

Some of the windows used obscure symbolic icons that scholars of today study to learn about daily life of the time. Gothic windows were generally tall and spear-, wheel-, or rose-shaped. A good example of Gothic stained glass windows are those of the Notre Dame chapel, which holds one of the largest rose shaped windows in the world.

The primary subjects of Renaissance windows were still Biblical, but they are dressed in Renaissance style clothing. The scenes still featured symbolic imagery, perhaps even more so than in the Gothic period. At this time, even non-religious scenes were included in church windows. Stained glass was used in buildings like town halls and wealthy homes, although the panels of homes were small and usually just painted on.

The use of linear perspective is seen in some works and activity taking place far in the back, while other activity occurs close up front. Tin oxide and arsenic are added to produce an emerald-green color. Blue color was achieved in medieval times using cobalt; since then, however, nickel has been found to produce blue, violet, and black glass at various concentrations, and copper oxide produces turquoise. The rich blue colors of the South Rose Window in Notre Dame, as well as in Creation of the World in Galway Cathedral, show the extensive use of these different elements to create varying shades of blue.

Originally, red glass was made by adding gold in very small concentrations. Pure metallic copper has been found to produce a dark, opaque red that is useful for flashed glass, and selenium is useful for lighter red and pink glass.

Yellow glass is made primarily using silver compounds typically silver nitrate to produce a rich stain that is flashed on. Different shades and types of yellow are produced using sulphur with carbon and iron salts amber , titanium yellowish-brown , cadmium with sulphur deep, rich yellow , and even uranium fluorescent yellow or green.

Purple glass was originally made using manganese to give glass an amethyst color, which is the oldest known coloring technique; now the correct concentration of nickel is used in to produce violet glass in addition to manganese. Tin oxide with antimony and arsenic oxides will produce white glass, which is highly translucent and even opaque.

This was likely the technique used by Bernini for the white dove in Dove of the Holy Spirit. There are three stages in the production of a stained-glass window. The first stage involves making, or acquiring from the architect, an accurate template of the window opening and then selecting and drawing the subject matter on a full-sized cartoon. This cartoon is usually done on a whitewashed table with then serves as a pattern for cutting and arranging the glass pieces. The positioning of the lead strips that hold the glass pieces together is also noted.

The second stage is the selection and painting of the glass. Each piece of glass is chosen with the desired color and cut to match the template cartoon, and the finer details in the design are painted on the inner surface of the glass using a special glass stain. The final stage is assemble and mounting. The glass is held in place and kept from rattling by forcing soft, oily cement between the glass and the lead strips.

Once the window is constructed it is mounted, sometimes with iron rods placed across it to support its weight. The East Window in Westminster Abbey is a good example of this technique in practice. Each angel, the figure of Mary, the various Nativity pieces, and the symbols of purity on either side of the central window were all first laid out as cartoon drawings.

The exact origins of stained glass and the art of constructing stained-glass windows are uncertain.