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The term stained glass refers either to the material of coloured glass or to the art and craft of working with it. more...

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As a material the term generally refers to glass that has been coloured by adding metallic salts during its manufacture. Painted details and yellow stain are often used to enhance the design. The term is also applied to windows in which all the colours have been painted onto the glass and then annealed in a furnace.

Stained glass, as an art and a craft, requires the artistic skill to conceive the design, and the engineering skills necessary to assemble the decorative piece, traditionally a window, so that it is capable of supporting its own weight and surviving the elements.

Although usually described as stained glass windows the purpose of stained glass is not to allow those within a building to see out or even primarily to admit light but rather to control it. As such stained glass windows have been described as 'illuminated wall decorations'.

The design of a window may be non-figurative or figurative. It may incorporate narratives drawn from the Bible, History or Literature, or represent saints or patrons. It may have symbolic motifs, in particular armorial. Windows within a building may be thematic, for example:- within a church- episodes from the life of Christ; within a parliament building- shields of the constituencies; within a college hall- figures representing the arts and sciences.

Manufacture

Glass production

From the 10th or 11th century, when stained glass began to flourish as an art, glass factories were set up where there was a ready supply of silica, the essential product of glass manufacture. Glass was usually coloured by adding metallic oxides to the glass while in a molten state in a clay pot over a furnace. Glass coloured in this way was known as pot metal. Copper oxides were added to produce green, cobalt for blue, and gold was added to produce red glass.

Cylinder glass This glass was then collected from the pot into a molten globule and blown, being continually manipulated until it formed a large cylindrical bottle shape of even diameter and wall-thickness. It was then cut open, laid flat and annealed to make it stable. This is the type of glass most commonly used for ancient stained glass windows.

Crown glass This glass was partly blown into a hollow vessel, then put onto a revolving table which could be rapidly spun like a potter's wheel. The centrifugal force caused the molten material to flattened and spread outwards. It could then be cut into small sheets. This glass could be made coloured and used for stained glass windows, but is typically associated with small paned windows of 16th and 17th century houses. The curving ripples are characteristic. At the centre of each piece of glass thus produced was a thicker piece. These were sometimes used for the special effect created by their lumpy, refractive quality. They are known as bull's eyes and are feature of late 19th century domestic lead lighting and are sometimes used with cathedral glass or quarry glass in church windows of that date.

Read more at Wikipedia.org