light made solid

More and more churches are photographing their stained glass windows and adding them to their site. Unfortunately, there is rarely much historical information posted along with the photos. Once in a while, I come across a well assembled collection of photographed windows with in depth historical information. Stained glass at Harvard University is my latest web find. Visit their impressive collection of windows from the late 1800's through the early 1900's in the Memorial Hall.

The collection of stained glass in Memorial Hall comprises a veritable museum of American stained glass. Artistic styles range from the traditional European techniques employed by the British designers of the earlier windows to the innovative use of new glass forms which are hallmarks of the American or Opalescent Style first developed by John La Farge and Louis Comfort Tiffany. Installed between 1879 and 1902, the majority of windows were commissioned and funded by various alumni classes. The Harvard Corporation's original guidelines for the windows required that:

Each window shall contain one or more upright figures, about the size of life, with an ornamental panel or inscription occupying the ventilator panel below, all with a boarder or canopy; and that these figures shall be typical or historical. The choice of design is also restricted to characters prior to the time of Shakespeare, it being the intention that the windows, when all complete, shall unite harmoniously into one great theme.

These guidelines were loosened over time. For example "typical and historical" was expanded to include allegorical figures such as Honor and Peace. The most apparent deviation from the Corporation's original guidelines is in John La Farge's Battle Window which depicts a continuous scene rather than one figure per lancet. The Battle Window is a gift of the class of 1860 which lost twelve classmates, including Robert Gould Shaw, to the Civil War. Approximately half of the windows illustrate Civil War-related themes while the others depict cultural, literary and historic subjects.