Shedding light
Three very different books should encourage us to take our extraordinary inheritance of stained glass more seriously, says John Goodall
Britain’s Heritage: Stained Glass
Aidan Mcrae Thomson (Amberley Publishing, £8.99)
How to look at Stained Glass: A Guide to the Church Windows of England Jane Brocket (I. B. Tauris, £12.99)
Kempe: The Life, Art and Legacy of Charles Eamer Kempe Adrian Barlow (The Lutterworth Press, £25)
STained glass is not an artform that enjoys much popular interest. not one panel, for example, is on permanent display in either the national Gallery or Tate Britain. There is a great irony here, not least because stained glass is properly a type of painting and has, notably in the 19th century, involved celebrated artists whose canvasses and panels today command great popularity and huge sums of money (indeed, in this sense, david Hockney’s new window, unveiled in Westminster abbey last autumn, follows in a long tradition).
Stained glass exists, moreover, in enormous quantities. The bulk, including the vast majority of glass made before about 1800, is preserved in our holy buildings.
in different ways, these three publications are welcome additions to the literature on this under-appreciated artform.
aidan Mcrae Thomson’s short book is an attractively illustrated introduction to the subject, just over 60 pages long. it describes the way in which stained glass is made and then presents a short history from the Middle ages to the present day.
Jane Brocket’s book is, likewise, an introduction written from the perspective of informed personal interest, but it takes the form of an a–z of stained glass. The entries run to about two per letter and principally focus on the themes and subject matter of windows. The entries for the letter B, for example, give a flavour of all, with treatments of baskets, beards, Benedicite, birds, bombs and buildings.
There is a short collection of colour illustrations in the centre of the book, some black-andwhite ones in the text and a list of 50 churches to see for their stained glass.
Finally, adrian Barlow’s book is a scholarly biography of the outstanding and prolific stainedglass artist Charles Kempe, who died in 1907. His studio provided windows for buildings across the world. The book is divided into three parts: the first looks at Kempe’s life, his connections with the great church architect G. F. Bodley and his studio; the second at his art and vision, as well as patrons and friends; and the third at some of his projects and his legacy. it is illustrated, but not with many pictures of Kempe’s glass. That’s because it’s a harbinger of a second volume that will look in more detail at the technical aspects of his work.