Sunrise Stained Glass Studio

Stained glass window artists achieving high standards of design and craftsmanship.

Sunrise Stained Glass Ltd, 58-60 Middle Street, Southsea, Hampshire PO5 4BP UK +44 (0)23 9275 0512

© 2009 Sunrise Stained Glass Ltd. All rights reserved | Stained glass artist, glass restoration, stained glass church windows, antique stained glass, stained glass,  UK |

 

158th Anniversary of the Foundation and Dedication of the East Window

Readings: Isaiah 40: 27-31 and Revelation 4: 6b-11

The priest and poet George Herbert wrote a poem in the early 17th century entitled The Elixir, better known, I expect as the hymn “Teach me, my God and King in all things thee to see”.  It has this verse in it:

 

A man that looks on glass,

On it may stay his eye;

Or if he pleaseth, through it pass,

And then the heaven espy.

 

Herbert was writing about medieval Alchemy.  Magic formula in chemistry in the Middle Ages to transmute base metals into gold.  Indeed Herbert has outdone and preceded Harry Potter (The Philosopher’s Stone) by some 450 years, for in the last verse of that poem it reads:

 

This is the famous stone

That turneth all to gold:

For that which God doth touch and own

Cannot for less be told.

 

The new window at the East End of this Chapel of St John is startling, dramatic and colourful.  It is also strong in symbolic depiction.  When I first crept into this chapel on my own one evening just before a Governors’ Board Meeting recently I stood in the aisle transfixed by the swirling motion achieved within the close symmetry of the window.  My initial reaction was to think it represented in its colours and images the four elements of classical understanding: earth, air, fire and water.  The earth with its fruitfulness – the grains of wheat; the air with its lighter blue swirls and feathers of the rising eagle; the fiery red down below giving also a hint that the bird has a phoenix-like quality born out of fire and ashes and a symbol of resurrection; the darker blue representing the waters.  But then read the introductory page of the Order of Service and you find a different (is it the official?) explanation of what is portrayed in the window in symbol.  

 

Light, colour, shape, design all transformed by the alchemy of kiln firing as stained glass into a wonderful and arresting kaleidoscope of images.  The eagle, symbol of St John the Evangelist, as alluded to in our second Reading from the Book of Revelation, where the four creatures surrounding God’s throne were soon to be identified with the four canonical Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, the eagle soars upwards to meet the fiery Holy Spirit of God’s inspiration depicted by the descending dove at the top.  The soaring upwards might also reflect the school motto from St Paul’s writings, “Seek those things that are above”.  This window is something for the eye and the imagination.  “A man that looks on glass, on it may stay his eye; or, if he pleaseth, through it pass, and then the heaven espy.” There is more than meets the eye.  Like all good art, there is more always to be discovered, more to be understood, more to be grasped and explored by the beholder.  Perhaps no one explanation is right.  Just as a piece of music can be interpreted in many ways by a performer, not all necessarily as the composer intended, so this window too as a work of art does not necessarily have just one explanation or understanding.

 

Those of you who will come to this Chapel many times in you life here at St. John’s, may after a while just take this window for granted – it becomes part of the furniture.  In a way that’s no bad thing.  But at least it will now give you scope to soar in your own imagination and interpretation if the preaching gets a little dull!  I hope and pray that you will find it a memorable and inspiring image of your time here at St John’s and remember that “Those who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength, they shall mount up with wings like eagles”.

13th May 2009