Welcome to this introductory course on medieval stained glass. Stained glass is a beautiful and fascinating art form and in Britain we are very fortunate to have a reasonable quantity of medieval stained glass remaining. Even so, due to the destructive forces of the English Reformation and the apathy of later centuries what remains is a tantalising fragment of what there once was. Medieval stained glass in our churches is not simply background decoration – it is an art form that has a great value as historical evidence and is well worth studying at some depth and in this course, I provide you with an introduction to that study. In six sessions I will explore with you how stained glass is made. We will look at the evolution of its design and how it functioned and how the design of stained glass was related to the development of architecture and other arts forms.
This course will give you an insight into how medieval craftspeople worked and their design ingenuity, how various crafts worked together and how artistic fashion evolved. As with other key artforms, stained glass windows have a lot to tell us about the people who made and commissioned them – their social status, and their power, their spiritual priorities, their organisation and how people related to one another living in community. By the end of the course, you should be able to go into a medieval church and recognise glass from a particular period and have some understanding of the context of medieval stained glass and how windows functioned in the church building.
Each session of the will be between 45 minutes to an hour long.
Tutor: Dr Allan Barton FSA
DOWNLOAD - The links to the course, hosted by YouTube will be sent through to your email address after payment has been applied.