Date: Fri 05-Jun-1998

Publication: Bee

Author: CURT

Quick Words:

Trinity-stained-glass-Nyberg

Full Text:

The Inspiring Stained Glass Of Trinity Church

(with cuts)

BY SUZANNA NYBERG

The rose window at St Giles Cathedral in Edinburgh casts a warm and loving

light, inspiring reverence. At Chartres Cathedral, 60 miles south of Paris,

another rose window glitters on high. This happens throughout France, and it

happens, though in a smaller fashion, at Trinity Episcopal Church in Newtown.

One does not need to go to Europe and bow to an older culture to appreciate

stained glass.

Sitting in a front row pew in Trinity, one may just as wisely, but perhaps not

as meekly, contemplate God. Suger, the abbot of St. Denis in Paris in the 12th

century, wrote that cathedral windows were "meant to direct thought by

material means toward that which is immaterial." What held then, holds now.

At Trinity, one can apprehend what one is supposed to apprehend, that he who

was born and suffered was God, although at Trinity's windows one no longer

feels so small and humble. No more does one have to overcome overwhelming

height. Except for one window, the glass is in the nave, the church's public

room, at eye-level. The bubbles, the beautiful imperfections in the medallions

are visible. There seems to be a certain intuition at work here. This lack of

distance creates familiarity, and one senses that one can be on close terms

with God.

When it comes to glass, beauty is color. The colors in Trinity's windows are

many, many more than the few blues, reds, purples, greens and yellows of

medieval Europe. Imitators are usually bad, but walking down the right nave

aisle, one sees that Trinity's glass makers have managed the traditional

two-fold plan of red and blue. Blue is important; experts have suggested that

it was the secret of glass. "The blue is the light in the windows,"

Viollet-le-Duc, the nineteenth-century art historian, said. It is the blue

glass at Trinity that creates the most striking effect, and it is the blue

that sets off the reds and yellows and purples. Red may be a more vigorous

color, but it is subordinate; it is the blue that highlights everything else.

The first window is a depiction of the life of a saint, Margaret of Scotland.

Again and again the full tones of reds and greens and yellows in the garments

worn by the Scottish peasants are set off by the blue of Margaret's robe. The

blue determines these complicated combinations. Try counting the number of

pieces composing this window! The colors are constantly interrupted, and one's

eyes become blurry from trying to count bits of glass, some not more than an

inch wide, some as large as a hand.

Let's not minimize the red. The Christian church sprang from a murder, but

here, the Passion, instead of in the apse, that semicircular space behind the

altar where the public does not get to go, is in the nave, a scene alongside

others. Even more extraordinary, the Passion shares its window with the

Transfiguration. Here, flanked by his mother, Magdalen, and St John, the

centurian muted in the background, Christ does not appear suffering. His face

is not discolored, there is no gash in his side, and great pellets of blood do

not drip from a crown of thorns. The blues and greens of the scene are

relieved only by a fiery red behind the cross -- otherwise all is calm.

Americans rarely recognize rules, and one suspects that one sees in these

opalescent designs the hand of American artists, Louis Tiffany and John

LaFarge.

Indeed, at the next window, did we not know that we were looking at an angel

gesturing before two women at an empty tomb, we might have felt that we were

looking at a Tiffany lamp. The scene is a medley of opals, extremely delicate

hues; the absence of red and blue allows our eyes to rest a little after being

blinded by so much drama.

One is hard-pressed to find sequence at Trinity; the scenes and their styles

vary from window to window. They have been dedicated to Trinity's dear

departed whose names and dates have been inscribed on the glass. But we are

not here to learn who gave what when.

We are here to look at glass. Few scenes have ever been more painted or more

discussed than the nativity. The Christmas window in the left nave aisle, like

others, is a glorification of motherly love, yet this depiction reminds us of

something often forgotten. Instead of Mary as one usually sees her in glass,

the Mother of God and the Queen of Heaven, one sees her as she was, Miriam, a

Jewish girl, in purple, not blue, robes. Color is important here, but so is

line. An expression of maternal tenderness lights up Mary's face; her lips

have a delicate arch; her eyebrows are firmly drawn, her hand large,

beautifully poised.

The beauty of an idea is expressed in the next window. In Matthew 19:14 Christ

commands that the children be brought to him, and so they are. The charm the

window has lies in these children as they sit in Christ's lap and rest against

his arm. Finally, as the children seem to protrude from the pane, glass has

perspective. The leadwork, too, is to be admired; one sees clearly how it not

only keeps the glass in place, but with its dark thick bands, accentuates the

figures. Everything is necessary, even black, for it contrasts with the glass,

making it more brilliant.

Trinity has everything, tradition, innovation, a rose window, the Christ. In

the apse, in a background of truly celestial blue, is Christ alone, soaring,

wearing red robes, Christ as Christians worship him, enthroned in majesty, all

powerful and divine. And lest we forget, a Star of David in the upper right

panel reminds us that the Church of Christ is founded on the Jewish Synagogue.

To make an end is to remember the beginning. The emerald foliage of the

saints' window sparkles intensely only due to its blue background. This

foliage envelops the most charming figure in all of Trinity, St. Francis, a

most unorthodox saint and the greatest of all mystics. He shares his window

with St John the Divine, a curious combination for in cathedral glass St

Francis usually has his own window where he preaches to the birds. This is not

the Francis of tradition. Yes, birds flutter about his robe, but his feet are

not bare; they're clad in sandals, and a hound, not a wolf, sits at his feet.

Eyes uplifted, absorbed in the heavens, his inscription suggests that he may

be composing the Cantico del Sole. Just as the colors throughout the church

exist in harmony, so Francis lived in harmony with his world.