Pure Alchemy

We look beyond the festive imagery to delve into the mystical qualities of stained glass.

WORDS & PHOTOS: ROGER MOSS

The next time you step inside a medieval Gothic cathedral and discover a vast interior flooded with sunlight, it’s worth remembering that while it means we can admire the proportions and decorative touches of the architecture it’s actually the last thing its creators intended. In fact, all those tall windows with clear glass were originally filled with vibrant stained glass or ‘vitraux’, whose production processes were shrouded in secrecy. Let’s look at how this came about.

Whenever we admire a painting or a fresco we happily accept the fact that what we’re seeing, however brilliantly executed, is two-dimensional. When faced with translucent stained glass, though, we’re no longer simply looking at the images, but also through them – but to what, exactly? If it happens to be the sun, then the white light passing through the glass is transformed, projecting vibrant colours onto any nearby surface – and as the sun moves, so do the projected rays. In a calm, contemplative setting the effect can have an ethereal quality with the potential to lift the spirits, and notions of what might be glimpsed beyond stained glass would change forever the design of religious spaces, from modest chapels to vast cathedrals.

Until comparatively recently the population of France (and elsewhere) was largely illiterate, so those attending mass would pass through ornate west-facing portals whose stonework featured stirring, intricately sculpted scenes from the Old Testament designed to keep the faithful on the straight and narrow.

Once inside, their services would be conducted in relative darkness lit only by candlelight, for early medieval windows were small and limited in number, something which will be obvious from the moment you enter one of the many ancient Romanesque churches or abbeys which survive in our region. Some retain further powerful imagery in the form of frescoes applied to the walls and vaults, many examples having only come to light during restoration work, after being hidden for centuries beneath layers of plain limewash.

In Nouvelle-Aquitaine we’re fortunate enough to possess the finest examples in all France at the UNESCO-listed former Benedictine Abbey of Saint-Savin (86). However, regardless of their scale and impact, there’s no escaping the fact that wall paintings (even by flickering candlelight) confine our attention to an interior space, rather than what might lie above and beyond it. To the Church this was an obstacle to heavenly contemplation and the medieval belief that light could offer sparkling visions of heaven itself.

Among the first to mention the divine qualities of light was Abbot Suger of Saint-Denis, whose 12th century writings refer to that passing through stained glass as its ‘most sacred’ form, a revolutionary reference to something more spiritual than simply bringing daylight to an otherwise dark interior. Abbot Suger’s convictions would soon be set in stone in his radical reconstruction of the Basilica of Saint-Denis, whose unprecedented areas of stained glass sparked a total rethink of how religious buildings would be conceived...

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