The tony Lafayette Square neighborhood just north of the White House was home to the wealthiest and most prominent individuals in Washington. From the onset, it had a fashionable and affluent congregation. While inspired by historical examples, the stained glass in Saint John’s Church and the opalescent screen in the White House were reflections of their own time.įrench Glass for “The Church of the Presidents”īenjamin Henry Latrobe, the architect of the U.S. Thus elements from different styles were often combined to form a “Revival pastiche” so characteristic of the Victorian era. Nineteenth-century historicism sought to reinterpret, rather than reproduce, the past. The Renaissance Revival reasserted the classical symmetry and proportions of Roman temples as the guiding principles of order and logic, while the Rococo Revival rekindled an appreciation for the playfulness and freedom of curvilinear forms and seashell motifs. The Gothic Revival began as a romantic look at the medieval past as a time of virtue, partially in reaction to the perceived societal ills caused by industrialization. The seed of antiquarian interests in the eighteenth century flowered into the many historic revivals of the nineteenth. The mosaic-like assembly of medieval glazing fell out of favor as window glass became another canvas to showcase the artist’s skills with paint and brush. By the seventeenth century, technological advances in glassmaking also made it possible to produce bigger and more visually uniform panes for windows. The Baroque style, which was adopted by the ensuing Counter-Reformation movement in the Catholic Church, was best expressed in the chiaroscuro of painting and rippling masses of sculpture. The Protestant Reformation that began in 1517, with its abhorrence of imagery and extravagant adornment of churches, initiated a gradual decline of stained glass over the next two centuries. Northern European cathedrals, such as those in Chartres in France, York Minster in England, and Cologne in Germany, are renowned examples of achievements in Gothic architecture and stained glass. Light became a transformative element in the interior space, and the task of glazing its entry points called for architectural ingenuity, alchemical mastery, and decorative flair. A new style of building made possible by the development of complex vaulting and buttressing systems featured pointed arches, soaring ceilings, and enlarged window openings in the walls. Medieval stained glass, the technique of assembling small colored pieces of glass within a metal framework, reached an artistic apex in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. In their contrasting artistry and technical execution, the two glass installations tell the story of late Victorian glass in America, the evolution of taste, and the development of an American style. The pièce de résistance of that commission was an opalescent glass screen separating the Entrance Hall from the Cross Hall.
Across the street, on the south side of Lafayette Park, the president entrusted the decoration of the White House public spaces to a rising American designer, Louis Comfort Tiffany.
#TOPAZ STUDIO 2 STAINED GLASS FILTER WINDOWS#
Saint John’s Church in Lafayette Square engaged Lorin, a studio based in Chartres, France, to create stained glass windows for its new pictorial glazing program. The art was a prominent feature of two significant renovation projects in Washington, D.C., during the presidency of Chester Alan Arthur (1881–85). Stained glass, a medieval art, was revisited in the historically retrospective nineteenth century.
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