Catholic New Times - June 25, 2000
Windows Shedding Light on History and Tradition
To the religious person, everything is religious. God can be sensed, discerned and found in all created things. God's first words in creation were: "Let there be light." Since then, all the things we see are visible because of God's light. But light, the revealing creature, can be contemplated in itself. Paging through the beautiful illustrations in Sarah Hall's new book, The Color of Light, one has the sense that the colours of light really can lead us to the "True Light."
In these contemporary stained-glass windows, we can focus not on what light reveals but on the beauties of light itself. And after only a little time with these images, we begin to sense their comprehensive spirituality and ask: "How can we do without them?"
The book's full title shows that Hall's goals are both contemplative and practical and, to this reader, she has achieved both. Some chapters reveal their practical purposes in their titles: "Materials," "Fabrication," "Installation," and "Special Effects: Techniques and Treatments for Glass." In the latter chapter, she describes eight processes, including painting, enamels, plating and etching.
One whole chapter, "Commissioning Stained Glass," describes how to plan for windows: different ways of choosing an artist; how design and fabrication are accomplished in the dialogue between artist and parish committee; and how the finished window would be installed. Hall even suggests ways to celebrate the event – liturgical or otherwise.
In addition, the book contains useful appendices; one is titled “Maintainance and Restoration," and another is a fascinating glossary, describing such words as anealizing, slumping, grozing and more. Hall's book embodies other perspectives on stained glass. Chapter Five deals with its history, beginning with the author's own photograph of the earliest surviving image of Christ in stained glass from the mid-11th century. Her well-informed account continues through to Renaissance stained glass, the eclipse of mystery and stained glass in the period of rationalism, the often sentimental windows of the Gothic revival of the 19th and early 20th centuries, and into the modern styles of the midand late 20th century. This last section ends with the well-known and challenging windows for the Holy Ghost Church in Heidelberg, Germany, by Johannes Schreiter, an artist Hall greatly admires. She modestly writes nothing about her own work in this chapter, but the colour illustrations of windows she and other contemporary stained-glass artists have designed for our sacred spaces indicate they are also making a significant contribution to a now-vibrant tradition.
Hall does not advocate confronting a church community with an artist's ideas, as the modernist Heidelberg windows do. Based on her own experience and religious convictions, she argues for windows created by talented artists who listen to, and are in profound, mutually respectful dialogue with, the congregations they wish to serve. This issue - as important as it is delicate - is dealt with in Chapter Six, "Design," which could be called the heart and soul of the book. Hall begins by pointing out that commissions for churches have special needs. First of all, stained-glass windows play a spiritual role in the liturgical space.
Second, the client is not an individual but the whole parish. It is important that the parish search committee does its work well. It could choose a commercial studio that recycles older designs suitable for other places, as well as for the parish's own church building. This is probably cheaper.
The author, unsurprisingly, recommends dealing with an independent artist. The artist/designer can enter into the necessary dialogue with the parish community and with the building itself (new or al- ready in place). The responsible artist will then take care to become fully aware of the theological and liturgical needs of the community. Then the artist will be able to propose designs that are appropriate, and will enrich the environment for prayer. All his, of course, takes time. But the sacred beauty of he window that can result will enrich lives now and or later generations.
