Graph and/or drawing paper, protractors, rulers, compass, cellophane, black poster board, clear tape.
The Gothic Cathedrals are a testament to the rise in power of the middle class or bourgeoisie in northern Europe. With this large segment of society, towns-people along with their Bishop’s were able to commission the building of cathedrals and fund them through contributions. Holy relics were toured through towns to gather contributions. Local societies were formed to raise funds, and the nobility and the bishops contributed also.
Communities took great pride in their cathedrals. Everyone wanted to participate in the construction, even if that meant being roped together like mules to drag building materials up the incline to the building site. Imagine artists, butchers, shoemakers, armorers, weavers, shopkeepers, tavern keepers, and others all working side by side. Over four thousand of these figures have been immortalized in the stained glass windows in the cathedral at Chartres.
Stained glass represents the outstanding achievement of northern Gothic painting. With the invention of the rib vault, walls no longer had to be constructed of solid masses of stone. The walls were opened up and the sun could shine through the dazzling new colored windows. This presented a new field for artistic expression. The windows became a format for narrative illustration. The largest quantity of Gothic stained glass in its original setting can be found in Chartres. From Chartres the new techniques spread throughout France, England, and Germany.
Two methods for creating colored glass were commonly used. The pot metal technique added metallic oxides to molten glass so that it became colored throughout. The flashed technique fused thin sheets of colored glass to ordinary glass by heating it.
Compositions for the windows were first laid out in large “cartoons” and then transferred to small pieces of glass. The glass is then set into a lead framework. Details were painted onto the glass with enamels and then fused to the surface by heating it again. Later enamel drawings were fused to plain glass and the metal framework increasingly became broadly spaced iron grids. This reduced the mosaic quality of the early stained glass, but increased durability and gave the work a more unified aspect.
The students will be involved in designing and creating a replica of a stained glass window using poster board and cellophane.