| Posted: Thu Nov 24th, 2011 01:59 am |
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1st Post |
paintedwindow
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I'm beginning to teach an 11-week stained glass class at Bryn Athyn College. During the winter break I want to assign a research project to my students to each look up and report on one of the "essential figures" in stained glass history. The criteria is: they need to be able to find an image representative of the artist's work on the internet and be able to find enough information to write a brief paragraph about when they lived, where they lived or worked and what they did. I've started a list, please add to it.
I'm thinking of assigning living artists as a separate topic so I'm only looking for historical figures at this time.
You should know these names in Stained Glass:
Theophilus
Abbot Suger
Louis Comfort Tiffany
John La Farge
William Morris
Frank Lloyd Wright
Marc Chagall
Charles J. Connick
Christopher Whall
Harry Clarke
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| Posted: Fri Nov 25th, 2011 07:37 pm |
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2nd Post |
Rona
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Interesting. A very different list from what I'd have as "essential figures in stained glass". Mebbe you should get your students to look at a couple of general histories and then tell you who they they think are the "essentials". And why.
Puzzled over what I'd use to represent Suger, particualrly since I've never thought of him as an artist.
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| Posted: Tue Nov 29th, 2011 10:25 pm |
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3rd Post |
Tod
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I think this is a wonderful question, a super list and I feel badly that I'm not better educated so I could suggest an additional name or two.
Ken, how about rummaging around on Dick Millard's Stained Glass Fourm to find one or two of his famous "rants" which usually included numerous names of practitioners he admired?
- Tod
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| Posted: Tue Nov 29th, 2011 11:35 pm |
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4th Post |
Rona
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"how about rummaging around on Dick Millard's Stained Glass Fourm to find one or two of his famous "rants" which usually included numerous names of practitioners he admired?"
Ah, but does being somebody you admire make them essential?
Guess you have to define essential...
Eg I have loved Clarke's work for 30 years and more but how influential has he been? But Whall, now - he has influenced generations.Last edited on Tue Nov 29th, 2011 11:38 pm by Rona
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| Posted: Sun Dec 4th, 2011 11:37 pm |
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5th Post |
| Posted: Mon Dec 5th, 2011 12:27 pm |
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6th Post |
paintedwindow
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You're missing the point. I'm trying to compile the list of "Who in the history of stained glass you really ought to know about". Some names please...
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| Posted: Mon Dec 5th, 2011 04:02 pm |
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7th Post |
Rona
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You originally asked for "the "essential figures" in stained glass history" which is not the same as "Who in the history of stained glass you really ought to know about". Either way, it's not missing the point to ask in what way essential or why ought you to know, it's asking for clarification.
If you want to know why stained glass was such an important and prestigious art form in mediaeval Europe, you really ought to know about Abbot Suger.
If you want to know about the history of the development of stained glass in America, particularly with reference to the uniquely American form of opalescent glass, you don't need to know anything whatsoever about Abbot Suger.
Theophilus is essential for us to understand how mediaeval glass was made because his is one of very few surviving texts explaining older ways of making glass. He was not essential to stained glass at the time of him writing, not least because the craftsmen making the actual windows could neither read nor afford his book. Nor did they need it. You ought to know about him if you want to understand how mediaeval glass was made but you don't need to know about him to see how mediaeval glass developed.
I think Richardson could be said to be essential to the development of stained glass but I don't think anybody ought to know about him, just the result of his work.
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| Posted: Wed Dec 7th, 2011 03:14 am |
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Don Burt
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Will spelling count? If not I'd add:
Ludwig Schaffrath, Violette Le Duc.
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| Posted: Wed Dec 7th, 2011 11:53 am |
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9th Post |
Rona
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Yeah, Schaffrath and some of the other Germans have been hugely influential. As, of course, have some of the recent French - they make up two very strong strands in post-war glass.
Viollet-le-Duc is an interesting one - Ruskin called his restoration work "a destruction accompanied with false description of the thing destroyed". At university the head of mediaeval studies practically spat when he mentioned V-l-D's name. I presume it's for his work on colour that you would include him?
So do you include Pugin?
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Don Burt
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I hadn't heard of Pugin. Had to look him up in big Stained Glass book. He is clearly essential. Now that I know of him, I am measurably more substantial in stained glass essence. So yes, he must be included.
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Rona
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It interests me how differently history - not just stained glass history - is taught on both sides of the pond. In school, for example, we were told the Americans had a civil war in the 19th century and the north won. Here, it still reverberates 150 years on - when we visited South Carolina I was amazed by the passion it evokes.
Similarly with glass - no one interested in the history of stained glass in Britain could fail to be aware of Pugin while he is often unknown here, while Tiffany and LaFarge are minor players in stained glass histories in Europe while they are gods here. Ken suggests that Frank Lloyd Wright is one of a handful of people essential to stained glass over the last 1000 years, when he doesn't even merit an entry in half of the British stained glass histories I own.
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Don Burt
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It does go back to your original questions about defining the what we mean by 'essential' and 'influence'. Meyer of Munich (again disregard spelling) certainly has an influence on what stained glass looks like to me, growing up in Columbus and Cincinnati Ohio.
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Rona
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The influence of Mayer and the other German studios had a great effect in Scotland in the 1850s/60s - a huge surge of people who bought it because Charles Winston said it was the finest in the world, as well as a huge surge of people going for non-German glass because they weren't going to have foreign taste imposed on them. Ultimately, the German glass, heavy on enamels, was unsuitable for the quality of Scottish light - Winston said being artistic was more important than letting in light...
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scott ouderkirk studios
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I believe Stanley Worden of the Keck Studios would be a good one to include. Over 50 years as a stained glass artist. It was the only job he ever had as he left school to join the studio and become an apprentice. He ended up training as an artist at Syracuse University while he was working at the studio. There are only a few images on the web, but I'm thinking of adding an area of Keck history and images to my website as I have access to his sketchbooks and original watercolors through the Worden family.
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