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For thousands of years, artisans have institute inspiration in glistening glass. In any class, glass can produce exquisite works of art. However, when colored, the medium climbs to kaleidoscopic new heights.

Though ofttimes associated with windows and places of worship, stained glass has been adopted and adapted for all kinds of fine art, from ancient cups to contemporary installations. Before we trace the age-old history of stained drinking glass, nonetheless, it'southward important to understand the medium's key characteristics.

What is Stained Glass?

"Stained glass" refers to drinking glass that has been colored past metallic oxides during the manufacturing process. Dissimilar additives produce different hues, assuasive artisans to strategically produce drinking glass of specific colors. For example, adding copper oxides to molten glass volition culminate in green and blue tones.

Once the glass has cooled, it tin be pieced together to produce works of decorative art. These fragments can be held in place by various materials, including pb, stone, and copper foil.

History

Ancient Wares

Evidence of stained glass dates back to the Ancient Roman Empire, when craftsman began using colored glass to produce decorative wares. While few fully in-tact stained drinking glass pieces from this period be, the Lycurgus Loving cupindicates that this practice emerged as early equally the 4th century.

The Lycurgus Cup is an ornamental drinking drinking glass made out of dichroic glass—a medium that changes color depending on the direction of the light. When lit from the inside, the loving cup produces a red glow; when illuminated from the outside, it has an opaque light-green appearance.

How did early Roman artisans craft such a cup? Today, the process used to create this piece is shrouded in mystery. Though historians are sure gold and silver droplets in the drinking glass are responsible for its color-irresolute qualities, they believe that it may have been produced by accident, equally no other piece of work of dichroic glass from this time features such a drastic color dissimilarity.

"The Lycurgus Cup demonstrates a short-lived applied science developed in the fourth century CE past Roman glass-workers," a squad of art historians explicate in The Lycurgus Cup – A Roman Nanotechnology. "We at present understand that these effects are due to the development of nanoparticles in the drinking glass. However, the inability to control the colourant procedure meant that relatively few spectacles of this blazon were produced, and even fewer survive."

Still, the Lycurgus Cup is celebrated as one of the most important aboriginal glassworks, with art historian Donald Harden going then far as to call it "the virtually spectacular glass of the period, fittingly busy, which we know to take existed."

Medieval Monasteries

Past the seventh century, glassmakers began shifting their attention from wares to windows. Equally expected, these stained glass windows were used to adorn abbeys, convents, and other religious buildings, with St. Paul's Monastery in Jarrow, England every bit the earliest known example.

Created when the monastic building was founded in 686 CE, fragments of these centuries-one-time windows were excavated by archeologist Rosemary Cramp in 1973. While the original limerick of the blue, green, aureate, and yellow pieces is unknown, the monastery compiled them into collages in order to offer viewers an idea of how beautiful these windows would have been.

"When we picked it up, it was like picking up jewels," Professor Rosemary Cramp explains in an audio guide for the site, "and it still gives an idea of how precious it must take been."

Gothic Cathedrals

By the Heart Ages, stained drinking glass windows could be plant in countless Catholic churches across Europe. Until the 12th century, however, these windows were relatively simple, small in scale, and outlined past thick fe frames. This is considering Romanesque architecture—a manner characterized by thick walls and rounded forms—dominated architectural tastes.

Beaune Notre-matriarch, France (Photograph: Stock Photos from lynnlin/Shutterstock)

In the 12th century, however, the Romanesque style was replaced by Gothic architecture. Different Romanesque buildings, churches and cathedrals built in this style illustrate an involvement in height and light. This focus is axiomatic in all aspects of Gothic design, including sky-high spires, delicate, sparse walls, and, of course, large stained glass windows.

Notre-Matriarch Cathedral in Paris (Photograph: Stock Photos from Viacheslav Lopatin/Shutterstock)

Gothic windows typically come in 2 forms: tall and arched lancet windows or round rose windows. In both cases, they're oft monumental in scale and rendered in meticulous detail—an achievement made possible through the use of tracery, a decorative yet durable form of rock support. Because of both their size and intricacy, Gothic stained glass windows were able to let in more dazzling lite than ever before.

Islamic Architecture

By the 8th century, stained glass had made its style to the Middle East. The magic behind the medium is discussed at length inKitab al-Durra al-Maknuna ("The Book of the Subconscious Pearl"), a colored glass cookbook written by Persian chemist Jābir ibn Ḥayyān.

In this manuscript, Jābir ibn Ḥayyān offers dozens of "recipes" for colored glass and artificial gemstones. To the writer, experimentation was key to creating high-quality glass. "The first essential in chemistry is that you should perform practical work and comport experiments, for he who performs not practical piece of work nor makes experiments will never achieve to the least degree of mastery," he wrote. "Scientists delight not in affluence of cloth; they rejoice but in the excellence of their experimental methods."

At this time, glass industries were thriving in Republic of iraq, Syria, Egypt, and Iran. Hither, artisans adopted and adapted the ancient Roman medium, using information technology to adorn mosques, palaces, and other staples of Islamic architecture with windows rich in color and complex in pattern. These pieces became increasingly ornate over fourth dimension.

The Blueish Mosque (Photo: Stock Photos from Artur Bogacki/Shutterstock)

Historians believe that Jābir ibn Ḥayyān'due south creative approach illustrates the Islamic approach to the stained glass practice. "Muslim and non-Muslim glassmakers working in the Islamic areas . . . were extraordinarily creative," historian Josef Due west. Meri writes in Medieval Islamic Civilisation: An Encyclopedia, "and in melody with the general development of Islamic art, brought this craft to a new technical, technological, and creative heights."

American Arts and crafts

In the 19th century, American artisans transformed the ancient fine art of stained glass into a modern art form. This approach is specially axiomatic in the work of Frank Lloyd Wright, the pioneer of the Prairie Schoolhouse move, a style of architecture and interior design that emphasizes craftsmanship and a connexion to nature.

Clear windows with pops of stained glass became an intrinsic function of Wright's Prairie School interiors. These accents materialized equally "ribbons of uninterrupted glass" featuring "geometric abstractions unique to each building for which they were created," making each window a one-of-a-kind work of art.

At the same time that Wright was producing his windows, some other American glassmaker successfully reinterpreted the ancient art course. In 1885,Louis Comfort Tiffany established the Tiffany Glass and Decorating Company, a New York City-based studio that produced spectacular stained glass lamps.

While these one time-popular lamps fell out of manner in the middle of the 20th century, they recently saw a revival and, today, remain coveted collector's items.

Stained Glass Today

Today, contemporary stained drinking glass artists proceed the age-old art form alive. Like their 20th-century predecessors, these artists go along to come upwardly with creative new ways to reinterpret the ancient arts and crafts.

Tom Fruin, 'Kolonihavehus' (Photo: Stock Photos from Edi Chen Lopatin/Shutterstock)

Whether they're using sparkling glass to spruce upward the New York City skyline, enhance an enchanting cabin, or make a botanical garden flower in new means, these artists prove that stained glass is anything but outdated.

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