Workers started Cologne Cathedral in 1248 after fire destroyed an earlier church on the site. The project stalled for centuries and crews only finished the towers in 1880, over 600 years later. Allied bombing badly damaged the cathedral in 1944, but workers had already removed the medieval glass for safekeeping, so much of the oldest
Cologne Cathedral: When a Modern Artist Reinvented the Stained Glass Window Read More »
Every glass art form we’ve covered in this series involves assembling glass — cutting, joining, choosing sheets. This one is different. A single flat pane, never cut, and the artistry is entirely in how the paint goes on. Backwards. The basic idea Ordinary painting builds background to foreground. Reverse glass painting flips that completely —
Painting in Reverse: The Global Folk Tradition Most People Have Never Heard Of Read More »
Builders began Notre-Dame de Paris in 1163 and worked on it for nearly two centuries. The cathedral has hosted royal coronations, survived the French Revolution, and watched over the city from its island in the Seine for over 800 years. On the night of April 15, 2019, fire tore through the roof and toppled the
Notre-Dame de Paris: The Rose Windows That Survived the Fire Read More »
Walk into a stained glass supplier for the first time and the wall of sheet glass is genuinely overwhelming. Hundreds of sheets, prices ranging from a few dollars to well over a hundred for the same square footage, and labels using words that don’t mean what you’d assume. “Antique” glass isn’t old. “Cathedral” glass has
Cathedral, Opalescent, Antique: Understanding Glass Types (and Why Red Costs So Much) Read More »
St. Vitus Cathedral sits at the heart of Prague Castle, and its history stretches back to the tenth century, when Prince Wenceslas built a small rotunda on the site. Builders started the Gothic cathedral seen today in 1344, but work dragged on for centuries. Crews only finished the west front in 1929, nearly 600 years
St. Vitus Cathedral: Where a Painter Turned Stained Glass Into a Nation’s Story Read More »
Antoni Gaudí began the Sagrada Família in Barcelona in 1882 and spent the last 43 years of his life on it. He knew he would never see it finished. So he left detailed notes for the parts he could not build himself, and the stained glass windows topped that list. More than a century later,
Sagrada Família: The Cathedral Where Light Tells Time Read More »
Ask ten glass artists this question and you’ll get a split room. Both answers are defensible — which is exactly why beginners get stuck here. Here’s the thing most people don’t get told: these two methods aren’t really competing. They solve different problems. The two approaches, briefly Lead came is the older method — the
Copper Foil vs. Lead Came: Which Stained Glass Method Should Beginners Learn First? Read More »
There’s a moment every glass painter knows: you hold a finished piece up to a window, and suddenly the colors aren’t just colors anymore — they’re alive, shifting with the sun, throwing pools of tinted light onto the floor. No other medium behaves quite like this. A canvas reflects light. Glass transmits it. That single
The Light Inside the Glass: An Introduction to Glass Painting Art Read More »
Chartres Cathedral, officially the Cathedral of Our Lady of Chartres, rises above the French town of Chartres as one of the finest surviving examples of Gothic architecture in the world. Completed in its current form by 1220, it holds something even rarer than its soaring stone: the largest collection of original medieval stained glass anywhere
Chartres Cathedral: Where Medieval Light Still Tells the Story of Christ Read More »
This glass painting, Cross Equals Love stands out not for its complexity, but for its simplicity. With just three symbols a cross sign, an equals sign, and a heart, the artist delivers a universal message: togetherness creates love. Framed within a long, narrow layout, the piece combines bold black shapes with a vibrant mosaic-like background. Hence, creating a
Cross Equals Love: A Modern Glass Painting Read More »
