The Norwich School of glassmakers was a mediaeval Norwich-based community of stained glass makers, mostly active between the mid-14th century and the English Reformation, when much of the glass was destroyed as part of the general injunction against stained glass, shrines, roods, statues and bells. [1] St Peter Mancroft retains an internationally important window of this era, elsewhere there are mainly fragments. [2]
The black lines of the paintings were drawn with iron oxide from pin factories mixed with wine or urine, and the yellow tones were derived from silver nitrate. There were also characteristic stylistic elements from this group, including the distinctive 'Norwich' ears, eyes and hair, which differentiate Norwich from other glass-making areas such as York. [2]
The school's generally light and uncomplicated style has stylised methods of depicting floors and countryside, including motifs resembling ears of barley, seaweed, chequers or pebbles. In common with other church craftsmen, the glass painters used a characteristic border design which resembled a holly leaf wrapped around a rod. [3]
Stained glass is colored glass as a material or works created from it. Although, it is traditionally made in flat panels and used as windows, the creations of modern stained glass artists also include three-dimensional structures and sculpture. Modern vernacular usage has often extended the term "stained glass" to include domestic lead light and objets d'art created from foil glasswork exemplified in the famous lamps of Louis Comfort Tiffany.
A wool church is an English church financed primarily by donations from rich merchants and farmers who had benefitted from the medieval wool trade, hoping to ensure a place in heaven due to their largesse.
Norwich Cathedral, formally the Cathedral Church of the Holy and Undivided Trinity, is a Church of England cathedral in the city of Norwich, Norfolk, England. The cathedral is the seat of the bishop of Norwich and the mother church of the diocese of Norwich. It is administered by its dean and chapter, and there are daily Church of England services. It is a Grade I listed building.
A revival of the art and craft of stained-glass window manufacture took place in early 19th-century Britain, beginning with an armorial window created by Thomas Willement in 1811–12. The revival led to stained-glass windows becoming such a common and popular form of coloured pictorial representation that many thousands of people, most of whom would never commission or purchase a painting, contributed to the commission and purchase of stained-glass windows for their parish church.
William Warrington, (1796–1869), was an English maker of stained glass windows. His firm, operating from 1832 to 1875, was one of the earliest of the English Medieval revival and served clients such as Norwich and Peterborough Cathedrals. Warrington was a historian of medieval glass and published an illustrated book The History of Stained Glass.
Clayton and Bell was one of the most prolific and proficient British workshops of stained-glass windows during the latter half of the 19th century and early 20th century. The partners were John Richard Clayton (1827–1913) and Alfred Bell (1832–1895). The company was founded in 1855 and continued until 1993. Their windows are found throughout the United Kingdom, in the United States, Canada, Australia and New Zealand.
Christopher Whitworth Whall was a British stained-glass artist who worked from the 1880s and on into the 20th century. He is widely recognised as a leader in the Arts and Crafts movement and a key figure in the modern history of stained glass.
Scottish art is the body of visual art made in what is now Scotland, or about Scottish subjects, since prehistoric times. It forms a distinctive tradition within European art, but the political union with England has led its partial subsumation in British art.
Veronica Mary Whall (1887–1967) was an important stained glass artist, painter, and illustrator associated with the Arts and Crafts movement. Her father, Christopher Whall, was the leader of the movement in stained glass. She was educated in the techniques of painting and stained glass making in her father's studio-workshop. She later became his studio assistant and designer for his studio in 1914. In 1922, Whall and her father co-founded a stained glass studio together, which she managed for nearly thirty years after his death in 1924.
English Gothic is an architectural style that flourished from the late 12th until the mid-17th century. The style was most prominently used in the construction of cathedrals and churches. Gothic architecture's defining features are pointed arches, rib vaults, buttresses, and extensive use of stained glass. Combined, these features allowed the creation of buildings of unprecedented height and grandeur, filled with light from large stained glass windows. Important examples include Westminster Abbey, Canterbury Cathedral and Salisbury Cathedral. The Gothic style endured in England much longer than in Continental Europe.
William Peckitt was an English glass-painter and stained glass maker. He was based in York throughout his working life, was one of the leading Georgian glass craftsmen in England and helped "keep the art of glass painting alive during the eighteenth century". In fact, "it was William Peckitt who did most of the stained glass and painted glass work that survives from the second half of the eighteenth century".
The medieval cathedrals of England, which date from between approximately 1040 and 1540, are a group of twenty-six buildings that constitute a major aspect of the country's artistic heritage and are among the most significant material symbols of Christianity. Though diverse in style, they are united by a common function. As cathedrals, each of these buildings serves as central church for an administrative region and houses the throne of a bishop. Each cathedral also serves as a regional centre and a focus of regional pride and affection.
Nathaniel Hubert John WestlakeFSA (1833–1921) was a 19th-century British artist specialising in stained glass.
St Nicholas is the Anglican parish church of Blakeney, Norfolk, in the deanery of Holt and the Diocese of Norwich. The church was founded in the 13th century, but the greater part of the church dates from the 15th century when Blakeney was a seaport of some importance. Of the original structure only the chancel has survived rebuilding, perhaps owing to its link to a nearby Carmelite friary. An unusual architectural feature is a second tower, used as a beacon, at the east end. Other significant features are the vaulted chancel with a stepped seven-light lancet window, and the hammerbeam roof of the nave. St Nicholas is a nationally important building, with a Grade I listing for its exceptional architectural interest.
The Renaissance in Scotland was a cultural, intellectual and artistic movement in Scotland, from the late fifteenth century to the beginning of the seventeenth century. It is associated with the pan-European Renaissance that is usually regarded as beginning in Italy in the late fourteenth century and reaching northern Europe as a Northern Renaissance in the fifteenth century. It involved an attempt to revive the principles of the classical era, including humanism, a spirit of scholarly enquiry, scepticism, and concepts of balance and proportion. Since the twentieth century, the uniqueness and unity of the Renaissance has been challenged by historians, but significant changes in Scotland can be seen to have taken place in education, intellectual life, literature, art, architecture, music, science and politics.
Art in early modern Scotland includes all forms of artistic production within the modern borders of Scotland, between the adoption of the Renaissance in the early sixteenth century to the beginnings of the Enlightenment in the mid-eighteenth century.
Osbert Parsley was an English Renaissance composer and chorister. Few details of his life are known, but he evidently married in 1558, and lived for a period in the parish of St Saviour's Church, Norwich. A boy chorister at Norwich Cathedral, Parsley worked there throughout his musical career. He was first mentioned as a lay clerk, was appointed a "singing man" in c. 1534, and was probably the cathedral's unofficial organist for half a century. His career spanned the reigns of Henry VIII and all three of his children. After the Reformation of 1534, the lives of English church musicians changed according to the official policy of each monarch.
The Fairford stained glass is a set of 28 pre-Reformation stained glass windows located in St Mary's Church, Fairford, Gloucestershire. The medieval stained glass panes are of national historical and architectural importance as they constitute what is "probably the most complete set of medieval stained glass in Britain" consisting of 28 windows displaying biblical scenes. They were added after the church had been rebuilt by the wealthy wool merchant John Tame (c.1430–1500). The glass was made between 1500 and 1517 under the instructions of his son, Edward Tame.
Lutheran art consists of all religious art produced for Lutherans and the Lutheran churches. This includes sculpture, painting, and architecture. Artwork in the Lutheran churches arose as a distinct marker of the faith during the Reformation era and attempted to illustrate, supplement and portray in tangible form the teachings of Lutheran theology.
English Gothic stained glass windows were an important feature of English Gothic architecture, which appeared between the late 12th and late 16th centuries. They evolved from narrow windows filled with a mosaic of deeply-coloured pieces of glass into gigantic windows that filled entire walls, with a full range of colours and more naturalistic figures. In later windows, the figures were often coloured with silver stain, enamel paints and flashed glass. Later windows used large areas of white glass, or grisaille, to bring more light into the interiors.