Did You Know?

• Stained glass is a misnomer because staining is only one of the methods of coloring employed in glass.

• Colored glass was used in windows of Christian churches as early as the 5th century, and pictorial glass was used as early as the 10th century. As window decoration, stained glass is of great antiquity in East Asia. Muslim designers fitted small pieces of colored glass into intricate window traceries of stone, wood, or plaster, and this type of window mosaic is still in use today.

• Stained Glass was integrated with the lofty vertical elements of Gothic architecture in Medieval times, thus providing greater illumination. Symbolically, it was regarded as a manifestation of divine light. In transparent mosaics, biblical history and church dogmas were portrayed with great effectiveness. Resplendent in its material and spiritual richness, stained glass became one of the most beautiful forms of medieval artistic expression.

• In France the cathedral at Chartres is an unrivaled treasure of 13th-century glass. Sainte-Chapelle, Paris, is a triumph of architecture in which the walls present an illusion of being made entirely of fragile, exquisite stained glass. In England there are outstanding windows at York, Lincoln, and Salisbury.