There are 5 main styles of stained glass represented at St. George’s by the creators of the Windows:
1. German 1885
2. Tiffany 1912-1917
3. Colgate Art Glass Company- 1907
4. Charles Hogeman 1908-1909 – Traditional
5. Wilbur Burnham 1940’s – Neo-gothic
We will look at one window from each designer:
1. German
The German influence is represented in the Ascension windows
Germany has some of the oldest stained glass windows. The oldest complete European windows are thought to be five relatively sophisticated figures in Augsburg Cathedral. Notable Romanesque windows with more complicated religious motifs are in Cologne and Strasbourg Cathedrals and the Franciscan Monastery of Konigsfelden.
It was revived in Germany and Austria in the 19th century. In 1809, a group of young artists in Vienna defied their academic teachers and founded an art cooperative they called “The Brotherhood of Saint Luke.” Within a year, they were living in a commune in an abandoned monastery in Rome. They thought of themselves as following Albrecht Durer, who had traveled to Rome to study, and as being influenced by Raphael and Perugino. They were called The Nazarenes, first in mockery, but later with grudging admiration. The art of the Nazarenes was readily adaptable to stained glass because they used flat colors and bold outlines. They influenced stained glass even though they did not work in the medium.
Further German influences include Michael Sigismund Frank, who did his first glass painting in 1804, became the first manager of the Royal Bavarian Glass Painting Studio in 1827, and Max Ainmiller of Munich supplied some windows for Peterhouse in Cambridge University in 1855. Many consider Ainmiller’s most important work to be windows for the Cologne Cathedral in 1848.
Franz Mayer founded a studio in Munich, which at first, produced sculpture and marble altars. In 1860, the studio began making stained glass. The studio restored medieval windows and executed new windows all over the world, including many to the US. They are famous for heroic sized picture windows, extremely representational, with all the saints unmistakably German, that is, fair-skinned, robust and hearty figures.
The Oidtmann studios for glass and mosaics were founded in 1857 by a medical doctor and student of chemistry, Dr. H. Oidtmann. Working with glass slides inspired him to study stained glass. He founded a small studio as a sideline, but it soon grew into a major enterprise with 100 employees. At his death, his son Heinrich II, also a medical doctor and stained glass scholar, took over the stained glass studio. He wrote the book: Rhenish Stained Glass from the 12th to the 16th Centuries. He, too, died in his 50s, leaving the completion of his second volume to his son, Heinrich Oidtmann III. When Heinrich III died at the age of 40, his wife continued the studio.
2.Tiffany
We will look at this window as a representative of Tiffany windows:
These windows are noted by the elaborate design, many glass techniques, enamel paint on the subjects. Tiffany ‘s key techniques include:
Opalescent Glass – fusing of colors – Opalescent glass is a generalized term for clear and semi-opaque pressed glass, cloudy, marbled, and sometimes accented with subtle coloring all combining to form a milky opalescence in the glass
Drapery Glass – folds – Glass while molten thrown onto an iron table and rolled into a disk. The glassmaker armed with tongs manipulated the mass and by taking hold of it from both ends like dough and pulling and twisting till it fell into folds.
Other Type of glass – spotted, confetti
Spotted – It resulted from a crystallization created by the addition of fluorine in the firing process of glass, and the rolling process carried out on the molten glass, which produced variations in the density and size of the spots
Confetti –Fractured glass is embedded glass with tiny paper-thin flakes in different colors. It was made by breaking vessels blown thin, spreading the shards on a marver and embedding them into the molten glass. These multicolored, irregularly shaped fragments produced visually complex effects, which were perfect for representing foliage
Use of enamel paint
It was common to use enamel paint on the faces and arms for a realistic view. Enamels are soft powdered colored glass that is mixed with a medium and painted onto the glass with a brush. When the medium is dry, the glass is placed in a kiln for firing
Other Tiffany Windows at St. George’s
Angel of the Resurrection
Angel of Victory
Angels with Trumpet and Incense
3. Colgate windows
The Colgate company is represented by
The Colgate style was created by people who had worked with Tiffany. Like Tiffany windows, they are double glazed windows However, the colors are darker and often contrast with each other. There was both use of Tiffany’s colors but also used some medieval techniques with smaller pieces of glass
Henry E. Sharp had established a stained glass studio as early as 1851 in New York City and had one of his windows hanging in the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Sharp employed approximately twenty men in his 147-49 East 22nd Street studio, according to a report in Scientific America on January 9, 1869. At that time he had at least seventeen windows in preparation. He passed away in 1871
In 1875, his son William Sharp formed a partnership with a former employee Edward Colgate. From 1875-1879, the firm was known as Henry E. Sharp & Son & Colgate (also Colgate). However, by 1879, Colgate is no longer listed with Sharp in Trow’s Business Directory of New York City.
Colgate went bankrupt in 1910.
Other Colgate Window –
Christ with the Little Children
4 Hogeman – Traditionalist
We will look at this window as an example
Hogeman created a series of windows similar in design for the lower part of the Nave for windows given by the Wallace family. There are more Hogeman windows than any other designer.
The Wallace windows use similar glass around a center symbols arranged in five rows of stone with the central theme in the middle. Surrounding the symbol are two concentric circles of stones. Within each row are different shapes of glass. The effect is traditional without any special treatment of the glass or painting.
Techniques – Similar glass around a center symbol arranged in five rows of stone with the central theme in the middle. Surrounding the symbol are two concentric circles of stones. Within each row are different shapes of glass. The effect is traditional without any special treatment of the glass or painting
Charles Booth (b. 1844/d. 1893) was an Englishman who started his glass business in 1880 and whose stained glass window designs beautify a number of churches throughout the United States. He lived in Orange, NJ where he had his workshop in a shed at the rear of his home. His showroom and “office” was in New York City. . Booth opened his glass business at 98 Gower Street but also was represented in New York City by Charles Hogeman.
In addition to his stained glass work, he was an artist working in watercolor and oils. Charles Booth who specialized in stained glass memorial windows, and Charles F. Hogeman, whose specialty was church metalwork and communion services.
Booth died of influenza and pneumonia on December 13, 1893. Hogeman had moved into the house in Orange and continued to operate the business in both Orange and New York City as late as 1912 and Orange NJ until 1930.
Other Hogeman windows:
Alpha and Omega
Chi Rho
Cross and Crown
Dove with Olive Branch
Dove/Holy Spirit
Font- Be Born Of Water And Of The Spirit
Hands in Prayer
Lamp
Moon and Stars
Sun
Thurible
5. Burnham – Neo-Gothic
Wilbur Burnham is represented in the Nativity window (lower)
Wilbur Herbert Burnham, born in Boston in 1887, was an artist and master craftsman in stained glass. Burnham was commissioned to design windows for churches and cathedrals in the United States and in Europe.
Among his most notable works are windows in the Cathedral of Sts. Peter and Paul, Washington DC, the Cathedral of St. John the Divine and Riverside Church in New York City, Princeton University Chapel, and the American Church in Paris.
Burnham founded his studio in 1922 at 1126 Boylston Street, Boston; and later, Wakefield, MA under the direction of Wilbur Herbert Burnham, Jr, his son.
Burnham died in 1974. The studio was later sold in 1982 though the records were given to the Smithsonian.
Burnham was a member of the Neo-Gothic style. The most prominent spokesman for the Gothic Revival was Charles J. Connick. He lectured widely and wrote Adventures in Light and Color, the most respected and eloquent publication on the art form in the twentieth century. Connick expressed the opinion that stained glass’s first job was to serve the architectural effect; this opinion was in sharp contrast to the painterly effect that had dominated during the Tiffany era
In a 1935 article in the journal Stained Glass, Burnham expressed his views about the importance of the medieval tradition in the harmony of the primary colors, red, blue, and yellow, with the complementary orange, green, and violet typical of his windows. His studies of medieval windows demonstrated that reds and blues should predominate and be in good balance – he believed “blues” had been overstressed. Burnham also noted that windows should maintain high luminosity under all light conditions with a depth of color and amount of pigment useful in controlling glare invariably intense light. Burnham agreed with the concept of unity in multiple windows, which are most easily created when there has been an early, consistent policy by church leaders in collaboration with the designer.
They imitated the color palette of Chartres, principally red and blue, with touches of secondary colors. They imitated the forms, medallion windows for the aisles and large figures for the clerestories. They imitated medieval figure drawing, once called “stained-glass attitudes.” Since the ideal in the church was a “dim religious light” they imitated the patina of the ages with thin washes of glass paint and picked out highlights.
All the color was in the glass and moved away from Tiffany’s use of painting. Colored glass, known as “metal” was made by adding various metallic oxides to the crucibles in which the glass was melted. Cobalt gave blue, copper green, iron red, gold cranberry, silver yellows and gold, copper makes greens and brick red.
Other Burnham window:
and Christ the King (upper).