York Minster has been described as “England’s greatest treasure-house of stained glass” and Sarah Brown of the University of York is not one to disagree. Of the 128 stained glass windows in the cathedral, the Great East Window, with more than 300 individual panes, is “the jewel in the crown”, one of the largest made in the whole middle ages. Appropriately enough for a window being described at Hay, it is about books - the first and last books of the Bible. It tells the story of the apocalypse in pictures (plus a few words), and was completed in just three years by glazier John Thornton and his team between 1405-8. Thornton had to translate the complex narratives and images of the Book of Revelations into stained glass, first drawing each one individually on a whitewashed trestle table, known as a “portraying table”. Over the centuries, weather and pollution have taken their toll and repairs have been carried out at intervals. Major work was done in the 1790s, when the repairers scratched their names on the windows. These days, the utmost care is taken, in protected conditions, and cotton buds instead of a scrubbing brush are used to clean the glass. Brown, of the university’s history of art department, is supervising the current conservation process, and has amassed a wealth of historical documents and drawings. “We are keeping traditional skills alive,” she said, working with York Glaziers Trust of which she is Director. “There is wonderful penmanship with flamboyant flourishes to accompany the stunning pictures in the window, which lights the entire building,” enthused Brown. A book about the York Minster project, entitled ‘Apocalypse’ is published in July.
Posted on: Sat, 31 May 2014 18:06:50 +0000
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