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FIRST REVOLUTION

Although the oldest extent large-scale stained glass windows are in the German Catheral in Augsburg, it is the Abbey Church of St Denis, near Paris, which marked the real revolution which was to sweep Europe in architecture and glass. From 1122 to 1151 the Abbot Sugar served the Abbey of St Denis and the French Monarchy. It was he who visualized a radical change in what churches should feel like.

Up to this point the ever-growing congregations were housed in ever larger structures built tall and wide by using immensely thick walls to support heavy roofs. This left very little room for windows and produced gloomy darkened "Romanesque" cathedrals where hell,fire, and damnation were the constant subjects of sermonizing.

Abbott Sugar
Abbey Church, St. Denis* (click to enlarge - 76k)

SECOND REVOLUTION

For the first few hundred years of this extraordinary early period brilliant sparkly glasses were produced which dazzled the eye. As the centuries progressed, however, the fashion got more and more elaborate in terms of painting on the surface of the glass until the works created in the 17th,18th, and 19th century became rather dull and lifeless. Over-pianting was producing glass with little fire or life of its own.

Enter Louis Comfort Tiffany and John LaFarge near the turn of this past century - 1900 – two artist experimenters who wanted to do something significantly different in glass. They both wanted to create works as painterly as possible – they wanted to have the color "in the glass," not on it.

Louis Comfort Tiffany
Delamar's country estate
"Pembroke" circa 1912**
(click to enlarge - 78k)

TODAY

Glassworks today include all of the techniques pioneered in these two revolutions. Nearly every glass first created at the turn of the century is now, once again, in production. And what is more important, new ones are being introduced. We may well be on the verge of the third revolution in stained glass!