Stained Glass
Stained glass windows are universally recognised as one of the glories of our parish churches and cathedrals. The opportunity of commissioning a good new window offers spiritual, pastoral and artistic opportunities of a high order, and the obligation to conserve existing glass well, where this is necessary, is a demanding and yet rewarding responsibility.
Experience throughout the country shows, however, that decisions concerning stained glass can be amongst the most difficult to make, and are more likely than almost any other matter connected with church buildings to cause resentment, division and bitterness in a parish.
It is with a keen awareness of both the potential and the problems inevitably associated with something as visually powerful, and as subject to taste, as stained glass, that the D.A.C. would like to offer the following advice to all parishes in the Diocese of Bradford.
- Please contact the Secretary of the D.A.C. at Kadugli House as soon as any work involving stained glass is discussed in a parish, even informally, so that we can be ready to help and advise.
- Please keep the Secretary informed of all further developments by brief notes or e-mails.
- Consider at the earliest stage in the process of commissioning a new window how you intend to accommodate the wishes of a donor, if, as is most likely, one is to be involved. This must always be accomplished without compromising the integrity of the building and the needs of worshippers. The choice of artist and design should not simply rest with a donor, precisely because a window affects the setting of worship and the long-term appearance of the building.
- Do also make it thoroughly clear to everyone that P.C.C. and D.A.C. deliberations, as well as the final decision of the Chancellor, are a vital part of this process. It is especially important to do this if there is a donor, whether the donor is a member of the P.C.C., a member of the church, or a person who has little connection otherwise with church affairs.
- If the initiative comes from the P.C.C. and not a donor, it is especially important that the project should be made known as widely as possible, and suggestions received sensitively by the P.C.C., so that it can become, hopefully, a parish project and not just the favoured scheme of a small group. If a donor is involved, there should still be wide knowledge of the proposals and a full and open discussion of them in the church, the P.C.C, and the wider community. A project should never become the closed preserve of a small group.
- Take great care to choose an artist who is technically skilled, aspires to make what is creative and beautiful, understands the purpose and character of church buildings and their contents, and knows sufficient about Christian doctrine and the language of Christian art. They must also be able to work with you and be sensitive to what you wish to express in the window. Be clear and firm in your own mind that glass offers a means of communication, which, like words, must succeed in its own right. All explanation of a successful visual design is quite unnecessary and should be counted as betraying a weakness. A good design never needs it.
- It is important that the style and content of a window should express a unified vision, conceptually and aesthetically, where symbols, natural representation and spatial relationships are not combined arbitrarily or indiscriminately.
- Ask yourselves whether the composition will have permanence of meaning, or will only make sense to people who know the particular circumstances in which the window was installed. Meaning, as far as we can predict these things, should always attempt to be more than temporary.
- Consider very carefully indeed whether a design offered to you has a right relationship to the building and to worship. Consider whether the style or the colours, or even the position initially chosen for the glass, fits well, or, rather, allows it to dominate in a jarring way, sit badly with existing windows or other furnishings, or take the eye away from more important things.
- Conservation is, in some respects, even more of a challenge for a parish to carry out really well than is a piece of new work. Restoration of badly damaged glass in particular requires an extraordinarily good eye and hand and a thorough grasp of techniques both old and new. Incompetent work can do irreparable damage; therefore very careful selection of the conservator for work of this kind is essential. Sadly, many artists and studios lay claim to experience and skills they would find difficult to substantiate before true experts. Guidance in this sphere is invaluable and should be sought.
- Do use the lists and guidelines available from the sources given below to help you find the right artist or conservator and to understand in more detail what you should best do.
- In the field of ecclesiastical glass, as in many other specialised areas of skill and design, the D.A.C. has a permanent Adviser. Advisers are members of the D.A.C. and work closely with the whole Committee at every stage. Advice is given by the D.A.C. as a body, not by an individual Adviser, and though the Committee always pays a great deal of attention to the contributions of Advisers, its views as expressed to a parish and to the Chancellor are always the considered views of the whole Committee. Direct approach should not be made to Advisers but to the Committee. Communications belong between the P.C.C. Secretary or Priest of the parish, and the D.A.C., through its Secretary.
Bradford DAC 17th October, 2005
USEFUL CONTACTS:
British Society of Master Glass Painters
Central Council for the Care of Churches
Deborah Cunningham, Administrative Secretary for New Work, C.C.C.
Telephone: 0207 898 1863
Andrew Argyrakis, Conservation Officer, C.C.C.
Telephone: 0207 898 1885
Methodist Church: Advice on Commissioning New Work
In ‘search’ put ‘commissioning artwork’.
The Conservation Register
http://www.conservationregister.com/
Telephone: 020 7785 3804
