Even when you are confident in your own artistic style, trying out other styles can be a great way of freshening up your artistic practise. If you are in the process of figuring out what your style is (and I feel like that’s always me), exploring different mediums and techniques - and using them as inspiration - gives you the chance to get to know yourself (and what you like) a bit better. Your curiosity will always add fuel to your creative flames.
Today’s curiosity-dive is into Stained Glass Windows. I recently used these as an inspiration for a drawing class on Skillshare, and this blog will aim to share some of the reasons why I think they are a super muse - especially for when you feel the urge to go colour-tastic in your sketchbook!
Illumination through Colour, Line and Light
“Stained-glass windows, made up of coloured and painted glass pieces held together by lead strips, were especially popular in Europe in the period between 1150 and 1550, when they were a prominent feature of cathedrals and other churches, as well as city halls and homes for the elite. Its translucent qualities made stained glass especially popular in religious contexts, where large windows...could animate a sacred space with colourful glimmering lights, and subtly change the atmosphere depending on the time of day, and the changing of the seasons.” - V&A Museum
Stained glass windows have been around for hundreds of years, and while their modern incarnations now celebrate a wider decorative style, they were originally powerful tools for communication and inspiration. In a time before widespread education, they offered a literal window into scripture and storytelling. Stepping into a church adorned with stained glass windows was like entering a giant illuminated manuscript. The vibrant colours and symbolism served as a universal language, one that transcended spoken words.
It is the storytelling element of stained glass that I personally find interesting - their ability to simplify and simultaneously elevate a subject, using colour, shape and line to draw in the viewer and communicate a feeling, is powerful.
Here's my take on some stained glass examples images in the gallery below:
1 - The twelve stained glass windows of the Església Santa Margalida, Santa Margalida, Majorca, Spain.
(Image by H. Zell, CC BY-SA 3.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0>, via Wikimedia Commons.)
This image shows how multiple windows together can each have it's own focus, but also utilise common themes to tie them together. Each of these windows features a different person, who each tells their own story through different colours and positions. However, each window's framing composition is ultimately the same, using plinths at the bottom and religious architecture at the top to create cohesion. When viewed together, the vibrancy of the rainbow colours create a bright and eye-catching vista, drawing attention and giving an uplifting feeling.
_-_geograph.org.uk_-_6167696.jpg)
2 - "Noli Me Tangere" by Ervin Bossanyi, Glass Panel, 1946
(Photograph by Gemma the Pen, of the artwork on display at the V&A Museum London)
I really enjoyed seeing this panel in person when visiting the V&A Museum in London. Noli Me Tangere is the Latin translation of the phrase "touch me not", and Bossanyi made this panel when he learnt that his 93-year-old mother had died in a concentration camp. The feeling of love between a mother and child draws the focus, and the vibrant reds and blues which dominate the panel, to me, feel like they are pulling the subjects closer. The blues create a sea around the figures, cocooning them together, and the reds bond them as their love and blood does. The lead lines also feel interesting here, as they criss-cross arms and feet - are they cutting or binding the bodies? Or are they connecting them stronger? Or both?
3 - 37 Surrey Street - Sentinel House (stained glass) by Evelyn Simak
(Evelyn Simak, CC BY-SA 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons)
The joy of stained glass in more modern times is that the focus becomes wider. Its use in architectural spaces, beyond churches, allows for experimentation and abstraction to soar. The simplicity of this one is a great contrast to show against the other two examples here. There are large spaces that could almost be deemed "empty glass", but it is these quieter areas which allow the sweeping shapes elsewhere to make more impact. It also allows for the outside view to become a part of the piece too. The continuation of the flow of the lines from one window to the next creates an expansive feeling and the more limited colour palette encourages a calmer vibe.
These are, of course, just my interpretations - you will take your own thoughts away from them, and that is the biggest joy of art.
Stained glass-inspired drawing: The essence and the Idea
What I enjoy, in looking at examples of stained glass windows through the ages, is how the practical lead lines - which hold the glass together - are not simply support structures but artistic choices. They are a pull and a push all at the same time - pulling the coloured shapes together into one image, and pushing them apart into fractals which exist alone.
In a stained glass composition, one single entity - for example, a flower - is broken down into multiple shapes which only make sense because they hang close together. And I like it because I think this is a great way to think about drawing in general.
Drawing is all about spotting the shapes within what we see. A flower has a unique shape all of it’s own…and yet, when it is broken into it’s parts - into it’s stem, it’s petals, it’s leaves - the shapes become simpler to define. A stem is perhaps a long thin, curved rectangle. A petal is maybe an egg shape or an oval.
As we practise art we ultimately get better at identifying the simplicity in more complex forms. We become less intimidated by seemingly complicated subjects, because we know that with a little more “seeing” we will be able to separate it into more manageable pieces…and gradually re-build it on our sketchbook page.
This is why stained glass is a fun style to take inspiration from when drawing. In recreating this style in a different medium, we get to play with how shapes are structured together and how we can use lines and colour to fracture or harmonise a composition. All we need is to spot the essence of what we want to draw and use our own ideas to explore it.
If you'd like to join me in a beginner-friendly class, where we break the drawing process down into the simple stages of shapes, colours and lines, come try Stained Glass Sketching: Creating Vibrant Artwork With Marker Pens on Skillshare...
Looking for more Stained Glass inspiration?
Below are a few websites I came across as I was exploring this subject - and you can also browse my Pinterest Board, where I've been collecting some examples of glass art.
Further reading:
Thanks for reading!
Keep making happy,
Gemma 💛
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