Stained Glass

Stained glass has been one of the chief glories of Britain's churches - and, later, grand houses and public buildings - since Norman times. Surviving medieval windows constitute the greatest collection of pre-Tudor art to have survived the iconoclasm of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, and together with the work of later glass artists, our inheritance of stained glass is one of the key features of our national heritage. In this new introduction to stained glass in Britain scholar and artist, Aidan McRae Thomson traces the story of this extraordinary art form from its beginnings, illustrating magnificent twelfth century windows from Canterbury Cathedral and elsewhere, before explaining the development of the stained glass windows through the medieval period, as new techniques were developed, and the art of storytelling in glass reached ever greater heights. During the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries techniques changed, with the emphasis moving from stained to painted glass, and a new emphasis on non-religious subjects, but in the nineteenth century medieval techniques and subjects were revived, and these windows from the gothic revival period constitute the great majority of our national collection of glass. The twentieth century has seen a new flowering of stained glass, and at both old churches and new, modern glass is a striking and highly effective feature. Using high quality colour photographs, this book explains the development and manufacture of our remarkable medieval glass before giving full coverage to the later glass that fills the windows of most of our churches, great houses and civic buildings.