Teacher Feature
Lesson Plans
(over the next three days you will find three major lesson plan chapters, videos, pictures are arriving daily. Enjoy I look forward to hearing back from you. Terri Menefee)The Very First Assignment my students receive is the Sketchbook package. This is their research, their thoughts, and their passage to the weekly final product. Everything is created via a prior drawing in the sketchbook. Sketchbooks are checked weekly.Sketchbook Labels (using avery labels, go to tools in your word program, scroll down to custom enter the number of the avery labels, I use the 1×2 inch labels for everything from assignments to weekly teacher replies) Thank you Nicole Brisco (http://www.princetonol.com/groups/iad/artroom/Nicole/creativity.htm)Sketchbook Cover: Create cover on your sketchbook based on your identity. Media: Cut paper, collage, drawing, painting, words, etc.Draw a Pile of Shoes: Zoom in. Fill up the page. Extend the composition to all four sides of the paper. Do it in pencil, ink, charcoal or other media. Can be line, tone, contour, crosshatching, etc.Advertisement of Yourself: What would you like to say about yourself? Use mixed media to create an advertisement of yourself.Reflective Surface Study: Combine various reflective surfaces. Draw it.Design a CD Cover: Make up a musical group or create a CD for a group you love. Use color. Media: watercolor, colored pencils, acrylicView of Yourself or Others in a Car Mirror: Any media.Texture Study: Close-up study of a leaf, tree bark, or organic texture. Any medium—cut paper, collage, ink, pencil, watercolor, colored pencil, mixed media.Drapery Study: Must be carefully observed and drawn with 3-dimensional volumes, tonal changes, highlights and shadows.Magnifying Glass: Draw a view through a magnifying glass. Include the magnifying glass. Any media.Cut Square Drawing: Draw/paint a well-developed picture. Cut the picture into squares. Re-arrange and paste the squares in your sketchbook to create a design. Use another medium to add to the drawing. Mixed MediaCemetery at Night: Draw a cemetery at night. Use dramatic lighting. You may want to begin with black paper pasted into your sketchbook. Media: inks, colored pencils, charcoal, pastel, craypas, etc.Close-up Study of a Flower: Look at the artist Georgia O’Keefe. Media: colored pencils, watercolor, inks, pencil, sharpie pens—any or all.Jungle Drawing or Design: Draw/design a view of the jungle. The view can be from below (as if you’re an insect), or from above (as if you’re a bird). Any media.Mixed Media Collage: Choose a newspaper story important to you. Cut it out, use it as a background to past collage images on top. Draw/paint additional images. Include words. Change the scale of things. Integrate large and small shapes.Foreshortened Figure Drawing: Do a drawing of a figure in a foreshortened positionChange of Style: Divide the page into 4 equal sections. Draw an object/objects in one section. Repeat the same drawing in the other sections, but change the style of each (representational, abstract, cubist, ink stipple, harmonious, complementary colors.A Pile of Shoes: Draw a pile of shoes.Collage—A Family Portrait: A grouping of photos of you and your family with words, drawn images, mixed media. Express what you think your family is about.Your Feet in a Prone Position: Lie on your bed and draw your feet and what is behind it in a prone position. Make sure you “compose” the picture. Use all four sides of the page.Your Sunglasses: Zoomed in at an interesting angle and what they reflect.Detail of a Portrait Photo Blown Up: Cut out a square (1 ½” x 1 ½”) from a portrait photo and blow it up to the largest square you can make in your sketchbook—10” x 10”.Distortion: Choose an object, person or another thing and distort it, repeat it, enlarge it. Your choice of media.Juxtaposition: Combine unlikely images. Exchange, overlap, or superimpose parts to create unusual relationships and a new synthesis. Use color, mixed media.Fragment an Object, Person or Thing: Split, fragment, invert, rotate, shatter, superimpose, and/or divide an image and then reconstruct it to create a new synthesis of parts.Abstraction: Create an abstraction looking at Paul Klee, Miro, and Kandinsky. Create three versions of the composition in different color schemes. Use color.Negative Space: Look at an area in your home and draw the negative shapes around the objects. On another page in your sketchbook, copy the composition and do something different with it in tone, color or line.One-Point Perspective: Draw/design something using one point perspective. Can be a contour drawing, tonal drawing, colored pencils, or watercolor)Dynamic Brushstrokes: Create something using dynamic brushstrokes, contrast and varied lines. Use color.Photocopied Collage of Face & Body Parts: Photocopy faces and body parts and create a design with actual drawings you made of these parts. Blur parts of the design. Overlap images. Layer.Distorted Interior: Look at a room. Distort it. Create something new from it.Sketchbook ideasHow and What to document;(X1) Define, describe, feel, illustrateLocal restraints, coffee house, hangoutsSomewhere outside, natureGet as many sentences as you can, AlWAYS Question?Find something that you would rarely notice, write about what that object would see, think, and feel. Draw the object, illustrate the emotions, and communicate its story.(X1) Field trip dialoged; write, draw, document the field trip on at least three pagesFeeling, observations, and descriptions are expected.Art History (X3 per nine weeks)(X1) History-Take copies of classical painting tear them in to two to three pieces; continue the painting by illustrating parts of the work torn off. Write about the artist and the work around the illustration to present to the class on Friday.(X1) History-Using images, photography, book copies, illustrations find artist remake the art in your own style. Write about style, life and thoughts of that artist.(X1) History-Examining art as a cultural reflectionArt Media;(X1 per nine weeks)Example-How does photography document life?Types of photographs;Ambrotype, Collotype, Cabinet card card mounted carte-de-visite,Case mounted, daguerreotype, film, glass plate negatives, heliotype, mechanical prints, paper prints, post cards, stereotype, tintype, darkroomCamera obscuraChoose a subject to document using historical photography, civil war, railroads, architecture, graffiti (photo diary includes a minimum of three to five photos)Formal documentation; (X3 per nine weeks)(Use paper without lines, brown paper, white washed, newspaper, vellum, etc.)Monday First essay (descriptive)Tuesday FinishWednesday 2nd essay compare/contrast)Thursday Rough draft dueFriday Final draft(In addition to one artist review per week)Sketchbook Hand Outs Most artists keep sketchbooks in which they experiment with ideas and collect drawings of their environment. Sketchbooks are like visual diaries for artists. Artists often use them for planning and developing their work.The most famous artist sketchbooks are those of Leonardo da Vinci. His sketchbooks are filled with drawings, diagrams and written notes of things he saw and ideas he came up with.Picasso produced 178 sketchbooks in his life time. He often used his sketchbooks to explore themes and make compositional studies until he found the right idea and subject for a larger painting on canvas.Henry Moore, a British sculptor, filled one of his sketchbooks with drawings of sheep that often wandered by the window outside his studio.If you want to be an artist, it’s a good idea to start keeping a sketchbook around with you all the time. You can draw in your sketchbook, write in it and stick photographs and other things you find in it. Later on, you can return to your sketchbook when you’re looking for ideas for making works of art.To begin, purchase a simple spiral-bound sketchbook and drawing pencil from an art supply store. Or, check out these directions for making a simple sketchbook on your own. Personalize your sketchbook by drawing something on the cover and then writing your name and the date on it.Carry your sketchbook around with you wherever you go. Look for things to record in your sketchbook. Remember that as an artist you have to look closely at things. You may find it difficult at first to stand still and draw something outside, especially if there are people around. Don’t mind them or any comments they might make. And don’t worry if some of your drawings don’t turn out like you want them to. You can make mistakes in your sketchbook and you’ll get better with practice. Drawing requires courage!Try to fill one page of your sketchbook everyday. Getting started is always difficult, especially when you have a new, empty book. If you don’t know where to start, try one of the following ideas. Once you’ve done your first sketchbook, others will be easier to do.Many artists choose a theme to follow in their sketchbooks. For example, you might decide to focus on portraits of people (like your family and friends) in your first sketchbook. You might draw scenes around your neighborhood. Or, you might draw views you see when looking out windows (something that Henri Matisse, a French artist, liked to do).Most people have collections of things. A collection can make a good theme for a sketchbook. If you have a collection of toys or dolls, draw pictures of them in your sketchbook. (Did you know Andy Warhol liked to draw pictures of toys?) You can also draw pictures of shoes, old hats, tools, kitchen utensils, or other items found around your house.If you like comic books, your sketchbook can be a place to invent new comic-book characters and to develop story-lines for your own comics.If you have a dog or cat as a pet, try drawing pictures of it in your sketchbook. Don’t worry if your pet moves before you finish your drawing. As you get to know your pet better by drawing it, you’ll probably be able to go back and finish any uncompleted drawings of it later on.Drawing things from unusual points of view is good practice for an artist. For example, try drawing trees while sitting directly underneath them.If you go on a family trip or class field trip, take your sketchbook along to draw. It can be become a record of your journey and the things you saw.You don’t have to draw things you see in your sketchbook. It can be a place to make designs and experiment with different types of lines and shapes.Sketchbook ideasDraw a traditional setup of dishes, fruit and tablecloth. Experiment with arrangements, doing thumbnail sketches of each.Arrange a few stainless steel utensils on a black background, and do a tonal study in graphite pencil.Arrange some kid’s toys, especially wooden ones, and old storybooks.Clues to a narrative – let your drawing suggest a story that has happened or is going to happen. A bloody knife, a broken object, historical items and photographs, clothes on a chair – objects can be loaded with meaning.Play with contrasts – old/new, dark/light, spiky/soft using objects and fabrics.* Illustrate your favorite poem* Draw the contents of a trash can* Drawing of a house plant (real or artificial)* Draw an object with a surface texture.* Draw tools used in certain professions* Draw a tennis shoe* draw a grouping of leaves* Draw something you might find in a department store display* Draw a large jar and fill it up with something (candy, toys,rock, etc)* Design a school desk* Draw your favorite snack food* Draw an object melting* Draw a bowl of fruit, shade it.* Draw hands holding something* Draw a mechanical object* word picture: select a word that bring to mind a mental picture,*Draw the word as the shape of the object. such as the wordapple in the shape of an apple, or apples spelling out the word.* Draw popcorn* Keyhole: what would you see through a key hole.Five artists tell how making sketching a part of your life is the key to improving your art.By Joanne MooreSerge Hollerbach: For this New York artist, filling sketchbooks with drawings and paintings isn’t about collecting materials for a particular painting, per se. Rather, he’s training his visual memory. “By sketching a person from life, you remember the pose,” he says. “You don’t have to find this particular drawing before you put it in a painting. I just create something out of my memory, basing it on past observations and remembered sketches. I use the experience.” To make sure he captures the gesture he wants, Hollerbach starts with the part of the subject that caught his attention. “Look and see what you like about the pose if you do a whole figure,” he says. “Start with the torso, legs and arms. If there’s an arm resting on the back of the chair, start with the shoulder and the arm and the body because that’s the important gesture. If the person gets up, you still got what you wanted.Betsy Pearson: If you’re beginning your own journal, Pearson recommends getting good equipment. She uses a hardbound sketchbook with 300- or 400-lb. paper, which is heavy enough to not wrinkle or buckle when she uses watercolors. Hers are 8×8 inches, but she says any size will do, as long as it travels easily and is large enough to capture what you want. Her other tools are a pencil, a waterproof pen and a small pan set of watercolors. Once you start sketching, Pearson says not to worry too much about how good your drawings are. “I think people get awfully uptight about being good as an artist,” she says. “My philosophy is: If it pleases you and you have fun doing it, do it.”Don Getz: “Drawing is to painting as walking is to running,” says Don Getz. “When you learn how to draw well, it makes it so much easier to paint. All your problems—values, design, shapes, pattern and detail—are solved except for color temperature.” The more you draw, the easier it becomes, says Getz. “I never think I’m good enough, so I try to draw every day.” When the Peninsula, Ohio, artist travels, he carries a packet of photos in his briefcase to doodle from. And sometimes at night when he’s watching television, he’ll pull out his sketchbook and draw what’s on the screen, or work from more photos. Without the many years of drawing and sketching, Getz estimates he’d be “about 20 years behind myself. You don’t learn it in a couple of days. It’s all that experience that goes into it.”Jack Hines and Jessica Zemsky: To these husband-and-wife painters, sketchbooks bring out the honesty in artists. If you’re a true artist, say the Montana couple, you’ll have the sketchbooks filled with pages of drawings and painting studies to prove it. Specifically, Zemsky believes that the quickness with which a sketch is done doesn’t leave room for artificiality. “Because you’re not trying to develop something fully and make it perfect,” she says, “it gives you what you really feel and think about a subject. With a sketchbook, there’s no doctoring up.” Theory Lesson PlansDefine culture:Culture is properly described as the love of perfection; it is a study of perfection.Matthew Arnold, Culture and Anarchy, I, 1869 [source: Esar]Cutlure looks beyond machinery, culture hates hatred; culture has one great passion, — the passion for sweetness and light.Matthew Arnold, Literature and Dogma, pref., 1873 [source: Esar]Culture is to “know the best that has been said and thought in the world.”Matthew Arnold, Literature and Dogma, pref., 1873 [source: Esar]That is true culture which helps us to work for the social betterment of all.Henry Ward Beecher [source: Correct Quotes]A man should be just cultured enough to be able to look with suspicion upon culture.Samuel Butler [source: Esar]Culture is everything. Culture is the way we dress, the way we carry our heads, the way we walk, the way we tie our ties — it is not only the fact of writing books or building houses.Aime Cesair, Martiniquen writer, speaking to the World Congress of Black Writers and Artists in Paris [source: Petras and Petras]Culture, with us, ends in headache.Ralph Waldo Emerson, Experience, 1841 [source: Esar]No culture can live, if it attempts to be exclusive.Mahatma Gandhi [source: Correct Quotes]Culture of the mind must be subservient to the heart.Mahatma Gandhi [source: Correct Quotes]Men are so inclined to content themselves with what is commonest; the spirit and the senses so easily grow dead to the impressions of the beautiful and perfect, that every one should study, by all methods, to nourish in his mind the faculty of feeling these things. …For this reason, one ought every day at least, to hear a little song, read a good poem, see a fine picture, and, if it were possible, to speak a few reasonable words.Goethe, Wilhelm Meister’s Apprenticeship. Bk. v, ch. 1 (Carlyle, tr.) [source: Stevenson]Rather than by your culture spoiled,Desist, and give us nature wild.Matthew Green, The Spleen, l. 248 [source: Stevenson]Culture is like the sum of special knowledge that accumulates in any large united family and is the common property of all its members. When we of the great Culture Family meet, we exchange reminiscences about Grandfather Homer, and that awful old Dr. Johnson, and Aunt Sappho, and poor Johnny Keats.Aldous Huxley [source: Flesch]Culture is but the fine flowering of real education, and it is the training of the feeling the tastes and the manners that makes it so.Minnie Kellogg, Iroquois leader [source: Petras and Petras]The poor have no business with culture and should beware of it. They cannot eat it; they cannot sell it; they can only pass it on to others and that is why the world is full of hungry people ready to teach us anything under the sun.Aubrey Menen [source: Flesch]A cultivated mind is one to which the fountains of knowledge have been opened, and which has been taught, in any tolerable degree, to exercise its faculties.John Stuart Mill, Utilitarianism, II, 1863. [source: Esar]Culture is what your butcher would have if he were a surgeon.Mary Pettibone Poole, A Glass Eye at a Keyhole (1938). [source: Maggio]The Needs of Culture:systems of meaning, of which language is primaryways of organizing society, from kinship groups to states and multi-national corporationsthe distinctive techniques of a group and their characteristic productsLayers of culture:If the process of learning is an essential characteristic of culture, then teaching also is a crucial characteristic. The way culture is taught and reproduced is itself an important component of culture.Because the relationship between what is taught and what is learned is not absolute (some of what is taught is lost, while new discoveries are constantly being made), culture exists in a constant state of change.Meaning systems consist of negotiated agreements — members of a human society must agree to relationships between a word, behavior, or other symbol and its corresponding significance or meaning. To the extent that culture consists of systems of meaning, it also consists of negotiated agreements and processes of negotiation.symbolAnything that is taken to mean something beyond what it is can be said to be symbolic. The Red Devil at Mountain Pine represents school spirit and our athletic teams yet in other cultures is has far differing interpretations. The sound or written appearance of a word is always a symbol when someone hears or reads it and comprehends its meaning. On a larger cultural scale, a storm can symbolize troubled times in some cultures whereas in other cultures it can symbolize the blessing of the gods.signA sign is a variable — like a word, for example — which stands for another variable or meaning. The word “door” is a sign; the actual physical object indicated by the word “door” is called the “signified.” The difference between a sign and a symbol is that a sign and its signified enjoy a more specific relationship than that between a symbol and what it symbolizes. For example, the word door stands for a more narrow range of meanings than a symbol like the image of our Red Devil, which, is the symbol of the Mountain Pine School Athletics, can be called upon to have a much broader range of associations.Why is this important?Better understanding how cultural systems are shaped, reproduced and changed gives you more power to participate in that process of negotiation. To get what you want and make this world a better placeSorce:http://www.wsu.edu/gened/learn-modules/top_culture/glossary/glossary-text.htmlArt History Lesson Plans
Stain Glass lesson Plans
By Terri Taylor Menefee
Mountain Pine High School
Mountain Pine Arkansas
Lesson 1:Introduction History of Stain Glass (research/writing in sketchbook)
Pass out Stain Glass Brief History by Shannon Fitzgerald
Students will pull art periods at random from a hat, fishbowl, some sort of container. Students find examples the Internet, library books, or other available resources of the assigned historical periods of glass. This information is documented with illustrations in their sketchbooks. Students are to share their finding with the class, and explain what defines their particular period of glass.
* Basic Historical Stain Glass periods
Roman
Byzantine
Romanesque
Theophiluse
13th-14th centuries Gothic
Renaissance and Reformation
Victorian
Synagogues
Art and Crafts
Art Nouveau
LaFarge and Tiffany
Modern Religious
Synogogues
Frank Loyd Wright
Lesson 2: Community Impressions: Most communities have religious gathering places with stain glass windows, some even have non religious facilities and homes that house stain glass. Teacher made photos are presented to the class, discuss how the shape of the window, the colors, patterns, and if this is considered narrative. Discuss how the content of the window implies the contents of the structure. (Possible options) Have students take photos of area windows bring back to class. In our case, Hot Springs AR. is a Mecca for stain glass. I make treasure hunt form with the name of the window, the student fills in the description and location of that window. As a class field trip, I gather as many digital cameras as possible. Each student staples the treasure hunt list in his or her sketchbook. We tour bathhouse row, the Catholic, Episcopal, and the Methodist church. Often an interpreter is available to discuss some of the detail significance of the particular glass.
Upon returning to the class, we present our photos via projection and discuss historical period, style, and methods of the glass. Students use notes and illustration to document their experience. The student that accurately finds the most stain glass window information receives the first pick of supplies reward. (That’s a big deal in my room)
Lesson 3: Stain “Glass” Design Windows
Students are to design their own examples of stain glass designs in sketchbook by designing 3 to 5 thumbnail sketches, students are to label the thumbnail sketches with the period influence. Once a final design is chosen redraw the design in a 4×4 square on drawing paper color designs with color pencils (this project is a great way of reinforcing or assessing color theory skills by using themes such as complimentary colors, cool verses warm colors)
Pass out pre-cut 4 1/4 X4 1/4-transparency film to each student
Pass out black sharpies (this project should be in a well ventilated room)
Students trace lead lines from their designs to film
Students color in designs with color sharpies
Have student write about their design influences in the margins around their square with ultra fine sharpie
Lesson 3: Recycle “Glass” plastic Preparation
-Surface Preparation: Using clean clear plastic bottles and sharp scissors, students carefully cut the tops off of the clean clear bottles, drill hole in center of bottom
-Preparation of “Glass”
Assemble baking pans and pre-cut to size several pieces of aluminum foil
Pour 3/4 Latex Polyurethane to 1/3Gel Medium blend till smooth in mixing bowl
Line baking pan with foil
Pour apron. 1/16” thickness of mixture onto baking pan
Using acrylic color drops and stir color in, (more color the less transparent, to get the swirl patterns mix less) let set a few minutes, slide mixture out of baking pan repeat till have all color desire and or ran out of supplies, finish drying over night, (DO NOT stack layers of color. Cut shapes the day you plan on assembling.
(Overflow project-project various fine art masterpieces images trace in simple line onto clear shower curtain with fine sharpie and fill in with color sharpie)
Lesson 4: “Glass” Form
Bottles maybe cut prior forming for optional designs Using heat gun and gloves melt clear bottles into various organic shapes. Pass out bottle forms have students cut and attach stain “Glass” shapes to side of bottles. Crimp end of wire to keep from passing through hole, loop wire aprox 2-4 inches away from bottle. (If your class is design a Chihuly inspired piece of art the wire length will need to lenthing with the number of bottles used, depending on how tall your design will require see example close-up)
Points of Reflection: (writing/sketchbook)
How does color change the way we look at the Form of the object?
Did the shape of the surface change your design? What did you have to consider when dealing with a 3-dimensional verses a 2-dimensional surface? What do you want the viewer to see first when looking at your design? What do you want the viewer to feel when viewing your work and why?
//experiment with designing and adding color prior heating and forming verses after, thus to maximize color design control.
Materials;
Latex Polyurethane
Acrylic Gel Medium
Mixing bowl
Acrylic Color
Baking Pans (or Aluminum foil)
Palate knives (or pop cycle sticks)
Clear Plastic bottles (cleaned)
Ruler
Drawing paper
Magic markers
Fine tip color Sharpies
Fine and Ultra Fine Black Sharpies
Scissors
Drill and 1/8” drill bit
Heat gun and gloves
Aluminum Wire (for hanging armature) wire coat hangers work (you will need pliers to crimp)
Target age: 7th-8th grade Art Appreciation
Media examples: Chihuly over Venice
Internet resources for research
Artist focus:
Dale Chihuly, http://www.chihuly.com/search
John Lafarge
Louis Tiffany
Henry Matisse
(Students will be able to define deference and recognize characteristics of each the glass artist listed above)
Assessment:
Product Rubric
State Standards: 5-8 (student learning expectations)
A.1.11Further investigate the language of art including, but not limited to, the elements and principles of design.
A.1.16 Recognize the rationale for responsible safety precautions within the visual arts environment.
A.2.16 Produce art work which displays knowledge of diverse cultures, styles, and periods of art.
A.3.12 Engage in aesthetic discussion and apply knowledge when observing works of art.
State Standards: 9-12 (student learning expectations)
A.1.27 Identify and understand responsible safety precautions within the visual arts.
A.2.29 Create art works that evidence thinking, awareness of design elements and principles, and aesthetic concerns.
A.3.21Critique art works in terms of history, culture, and aesthetics.
NATIONAL STANDARDS:
Content Standard #1 — Understanding and applying media, techniques and processes
•5-8 Students intentionally take advantage of the qualities and characteristics of art
media, techniques and processes to enhance communication of their experience and ideas.
•9-12 Students conceive and create works of visual art that demonstrate an understand-
ing of how the communication of their ideas relates to the media, techniques and processes
they use.
Content Standard #5 — Reflecting upon and assessing the characteristics and merits of
their work and the work of others
•5-8 Students compare multiple purposes for creating works of art.
•9-12 Students identify intentions of those creating artworks, explore the implications of
various purposes and justify their analysis of pur
Introductory History of Stained Glass
Ancient Origins
Based on remains found at Pompeii and Heraculaneum, stained glass was first used by wealthy Romans in their villas and palaces in the first century A.D. At this time stained glass was considered a domestic luxury rather than an artistic medium. It began to be regarded as an art form when Constantine first permitted Christians to worship openly in 313 A.D., as they began to build churches based on Byzantine models. The earliest surviving example of pictorial stained glass is a Head of Christ from the tenth century excavated from Lorsch Abbey in Germany.
Romanesque Period, 12th Century
By the ninth and tenth centuries, as the demand for churches increased so did the production of decorative stained glass windows. Early Romanesque style stained glass was influenced by the linear patterning, abstraction and severe frontality found in Byzantine Art. Most church windows depicted individual monumental figures with few tiers in lozenge shaped groupings. The relatively small windows of the period were designed to admit as much light as possible. Thus, images made with predominantly red and blue glass were then surrounded by white glass. King Hezekiah from Trinity Chapel, Canterbury Cathedral, England dated 1220 and Charlemange Enthroned, c.1220 from Strasbourg Cathedral, Austria reflects the classic monumentality and Byzantine derived infused bands of color and an emerging tendency to look at the Imperial past for inspiration.
Gothic Period, 13th – 14th Century
With the advent of Gothic architecture, stained glass flourished as the expansion of immense window spaces in Gothic cathedrals demanded a new approach to the medium. Red and blue remain the predominant color choice and the tendency to fuse white glass in the composition allowing for more light gives way to completely filling up of space with ornate designs consisting of darker glass. A wide variety of geometrical shapes emerge as narrative becomes more important and complex juxtaposition of events are recorded in compartmental sequences. Decorative borders and foliage become more formalized and intricate while experimentation with more naturalistic and volumetric forms appears in figurative work. The flashed glass technique is introduced, offering glaziers a means to achieve a variety of color gradations in a single piece of colored glass. The emergence of the Rose Window at St. Denis Cathedral and Chartres Cathedral, both in France, greatly influences the field throughout Europe as providing a means to depict more complex ideas as embellishments in Biblical narrative become prevalent.
Toward the end of the thirteenth century a desire for more illumination surfaced with an increase in non-figurative windows and concentric patterning that incorporated more transparent glass. One of the finest examples of this shift in taste is York Minster’s Five Sisters Windows, a remarkable display of grisaille glazing. Grisaille glazing was first favored by the Cistercian Order under St. Bernard, who found that figurative windows distracted monks from religious responsibilities. This labor intensive technique consisting of complex formalized leaf-like forms relying on an intricate pattern of lead and a great deal of painted detail and crosshatching became widespread throughout England and France. As the palette became increasingly lighter, horizontal layers of colored glass and grisaille, or band windows, were incorporated in the figurative windows. As widespread adoption of elaborate stone window tracery occurred, figurative groupings fall out of favor and the individual figure resurfaces, but now framed by architectural canopies. Stained glass witnessed its greatest diversity in design, style, palette and sentiment during the Gothic period. This diversity in approach combined with the skilled artistry that developed with the formation of regulated guilds and a wide array of technological advances elevated the medium to a position of preeminence that would remain unsurpassed.
Late Gothic – Renaissance, 15th – 17th Century
Artists arose from obscurity and began to be patronized by a new wealthy mercantile class. Individual artists were sought out across regional boundaries for specific skills and traits. Glass work was no longer anonymous and begins to be attributed to specific artists and workshops. Additionally, the depiction of artists and glass guilds within windows reflects stained glass’ increasingly elevated status. Taste for jewel-like color, open space no longer constrained by architectural divisions and an increase in secular usage reflects new riches. Architecture is emphasized less as it takes on a new organic quality, foliage becomes more loose and warmer colors are used while greater attention is given to textile rendering. Images depicting secular activities such as masonry and glazing were juxtaposed next to sacred imagery.
During the sixteenth century a rise in the production of glass panels for private contemplation and personal devotion ensued, thus the narrative stained glass window now served as moralizing images. Beginning in the sixteenth century with the Reformation, the creation of religious imagery had severe penalties and glass makers had to seek secular commissions like moralizing roundels or heraldic panels in order to make a living.
Decline and Destruction
Political upheavals and religious unrest jeopardized the survival of stained glass beginning in the sixteenth century, making decline and destruction eminent. Calvinist iconoclasm ended production in the North, while Reformation attacks on Catholic churches destroyed a tremendous amount of glass, particularly in England. In 1547 the Dissolution of the Monasteries ordered the destruction of all decorative glass in churches. In 1633, many of the glass factories in Lorraine, France were devastated by war. From 1642 through 1653 the Commonwealth of England destroyed thousands of stained glass windows.
Concurrent with the widespread destruction, Renaissance styles began to take precedence over Gothic style. Murals and frescoes were in higher demand and Italy was quickly becoming the cultural center of Europe. With the emergence of enamels in the sixteenth century, glaziers began to imitate Renaissance painters and applied thick coats of enamel to the surface, as if painting a canvas. Also, transparent glass gave way to heavily painted opaque glass. The more this was practiced, the more distant old stained glass techniques became. The artistry and skill, that had reached their zenith during the Gothic period, became a lost art. During the nineteenth century Sir Joshua Reynolds and other luminaries completely disregarded the medium and continued using enamel in this vein. For approximately two hundred years stained glass fell out of favor due to massive destruction, religious iconoclasm, preference for Renaissance styles, the rise in enamels usage, and a lack of knowledge of old techniques. Stained glass was not widely produced and did not again receive critical attention until its revival in the nineteenth century.
Shannon Fitzgerald
Glossary
Black enamel paint – Black enamel was made from ground glass plus iron filings. It was used to create the details on the earliest stained glass. It could be applied thick and black, or as a thin grey or grey-brown wash.
Came – A slender,r grooved lead bar used to hold together the panes in stained glass or lattice windows. Later, zinc, copper, brass, etc. were substituted for the lead.
Cathedral Glass – Transparent Glass, generally in a single color. Named for the original ‘tinted glass’ first used in 10th century European cathedrals. Contrast to opalescent glass.
Figure windows – Placed in high places, popular, were figures of the old testament that illustrated the ancestry of Christ such as Adam, Noah, Moses, David, and Solomon.
Flashed glass – Natural pot-metal glass colored blue or red was too dark to transmit much light, so the medieval glazier hit on the technique of applying or “flashing” a thin layer of the colored glass on to a sheet of white glass, thus getting over the problem.
Glass – Glass is a hard material with non-crystalline, random structure like a liquid. It is commonly made by combining materials such as silica, potash, and lead oxide at a high temperature in order to allow the materials to melt and fuse together. When cooled rapidly, the substance becomes rigid . Glass is often classified as a supercooled liquid rather than a regular solid.
Glazier – One that cuts and fits glass
Grisaille - Silvery tinted glass with floral patterns that replaced stained glass. Grisaille is the use of black enamel to create patterns on clear glass. Grisaille was used quite widely from the beginning, and it became increasingly common until it all but replaced stained glass in what little was left of the market in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. See above
Iridescent – Not a surface texture, but a special surface finish. Finish produces a metallic sheen creating a rainbow affect.
Opalescent Glass – Semi-opaque, with a milky appearance. Opalescent glass can be one solid color, but it is generally a mixture of two or more colors with streaks and swirls. True opalescent glass transmits very little light, however, opalescent stained glass is generally translucent. Opposite is cathedral glass.
Medallion or Narrative windows – Were placed along the isles of the church so the congregation could see them, Decorative edges and Old and New testament contrasting stories
Metal – Colored glass, known as “metal” was made by adding various metallic oxides to the crucibles (“pots”) in which the glass was melted. This is the basic stained glass of a single colour.
Painted glass – From the fourteenth century in Italy, translucent oil paint was painted onto stained glass to enrich the range and quality of colours.
Pictorial windows – Depicting historical scenes that were scattered over a window ignoring the window support lines.
Pot metal glass – Colored glass, known as “metal” was made by adding various metallic oxides to the crucibles (“pots”) in which the glass was melted. This is the basic stained glass of a single colour.
Rose window – Represented Christ and the Virgin or Christ as the Judge or the Zodiac Circular in nature with a central focus.
Silver stain – Silver stain was fired onto clear glass to produce a translucent yellow – or any colour between murky brown and deep amber. It was discovered around the beginning of the fourteenth century, apparently in France, and was used sparingly at first, and then very creatively to produce local contrasts on coloured glass.
Translucent Glass – Transmitting light but with diffusion so as to eliminate the perception of distinct images. If you place your hand behind translucent glass, you can see it’s shadow but can’t see any of the distinct features. Used in panels and windows. Almost always the primary glass used in lamps.
LESSON PLANSIn-service Lesson Plans (Pick and choose, cut and paste:)Opt Art Lesson PlanVocabulary:Complimentary ColorsOrganicGeometricPatterns (A-B)Supply:Copy paperCrayons/Color PencilsRulerGlueLarge Drawing paperProcedure:-Fold copy paper into an accordion shape.-Flatten after folding to use the folds to form an A-B pattern.-Choose 2 complimentary colors and color the folded sections using anA-B pattern.-refold the paper into the accordion shape-view the folded paper from 1 side and see pattern A, then view thefolded paper from the other side to view pattern B.Extension Activities:-Organic and Geometric shapes can be drawn or glued to the accordionsections in different shade of the complimentary colors.-Cut 2 separate pictures into 1″ strips. (Have students measure and cutthe sections.) Glue the pictures into an A-B Pattern. Be sure to onlycut and glue only 1 strip at a time. (This will protect the student fromloosing any of the picture pieces.)Fold the final product into theaccordion shape. View each side to see the separate pictures.Goal:TSW increase their understanding of the basic elements of artvocabulary, while creating an optical Illusion using complimentarycolors using an A-B Pattern. TSW will also, be practicing Math andLiteracy skills to promote better scores on the benchmark exams.i
