jarrow stained glass

Although I've been very busy working on more projects and sending out holiday orders, I wanted to share this bit of stained glass history with you!

Wearmouth-Jarrow is an English monastery located on the River Wear in Sunderland and the River Tyne at Jarrow respectively, in Northumbria.  The ruins of the Jarrow Monastery survives as the present-day church of St. Paul.  The Saxon-Norman nave collapsed and was replaced with a Victorian one, but the Saxon chancel survives, with the oldest stained glass window in the world, made up of excavated fragments dating from before AD 860.

Only 7" in diameter, this window is unique as it contains fragments of Saxon glass found during an archaeological dig in the church grounds to the south of the main building in 1973/74. The fragments were then placed in the window to form a mosaic.  Even though the restoration of the window cannot be an exact reproduction of an original window, it still gives us insight into early stained glass production.

Chihuly's Glass Baskets

I saw the Dale Chihuly exhibit at the MFA in Boston last spring.  I have always liked Chihuly's work, in my eyes he has taken great strides in showing how glass can be Art with a capital A.  Most of his glassblowing is full of color and dynamic movement, but out of all of his work I actually find his "baskets" the most inspiring.

Grossmünster stained glass

The Grossmünster is a Romanesque-style church in Zurich, one of the three major churches in the city.  Completed in 1220 AD, the Grossmünster was a monastery church, and according to legend it was founded by Charlemagne, whose horse fell to its knees on the graves of Felix and Regula, the patron saints of Zurich.

The church itself is awe-inspiring, but I am focused on the more contemporary stained glass windows, which date from the 20th and 21st centuries.  There are two artists who are responsible for the newer windows, Giacometti in 1932 and Sigmar Polke between 2006 and 2009.  It is this later set that interests me the most.  And I think you'll see why...

photos sewed together for this post, this is not how the windows appear in the church