William Burges - Stained Glass

Stained Glass

"The impact created by all these glowing, coloured religious images is overwhelming and intoxicating. To enter St Fin Barre's Cathedral is an experience unparalleled in Ireland and rarely matched anywhere."

—Lawrence writing on the stained glass windows of St Fin Barre's Cathedral.

Burges played an important role in the renaissance of High Victorian stained glass. The provision of glass of appropriate colour and richness was central to many of his decorative themes, and he invested effort in working with the best cartoonists and manufacturers to achieve this. He also studied the history of glass production, writing in his second Art Applied to Industry lecture, " use of antiquarian studies is to restore disused arts, and to get all the good we can out of them for our own improvement." In the catalogue to the exhibition of stained glass cartoons from Cardiff Castle, Sargent pays tribute to "his deep knowledge of the history and techniques" of glass manufacture" and Lawrence considers him a pioneer who, by his "painstaking studies, re-established the principles of medieval decoration and used this to make own bold and original statements." The results were outstanding; Lawrence writing that Burges designed with "a vibrancy, an intensity and a brilliance which no other glass maker could match." He acknowledges Burges's debt to the manufacturers and craftsmen with whom he worked, in particular, Gualbert Saunders, whose "technique Burges's glass its most distinctive characteristic, namely the flesh colour. This is unique, had no precedents and has had no imitators." As well as at St Fin Barre's, Burges designed stained glass for all of his own significant churches, for reconstructions of medieval churches undertaken by others, and for his secular buildings. He undertook significant work at Waltham Abbey with Edward Burne-Jones, but much of his work there was destroyed in the Blitz. Crook writes, "At Waltham, Burges does not copy. He meets the Middle Ages as an equal.".

Windows by Burges continue to be discovered. In 2009, a stained glass window found in the vaults of Bath Abbey was confirmed as a design by Burges. The window, which was commissioned by Mallet and Company, featured on the Antiques Roadshow in early 2010 and is currently on display at the Bath Aqua Theatre of Glass. In March 2011, two glass panels designed by Burges were purchased for £125,000 by CADW. The panels were part of a set of twenty Burges designed for the chapel at Castell Coch but were removed when the unfinished chapel was demolished. Ten of the panels were put on display at Cardiff Castle, and eight were used in the model of the chapel in the attic room of the Well Tower at Castell Coch; the two purchased by CADW were considered lost until they failed to sell at auction in Salisbury in 2010. The Inspector of Ancient Monuments for CADW, speaking after their purchase, said, "The panels show a variety of Welsh and British saints and key biblical figures and are of the highest quality Victorian stained glass. William Burges' work attracts enormous worldwide attention and the price reflects the artistic genius of the man and the rare quality of these glass panels."

Research has also led to being Burges properly credited with work previously attributed to others. In his 1958 volume on North Somerset and Bristol, Pevsner praises the "aesthetic quality" of the stained glass at the Church of St James, in Winscombe but erroneously describes it as "one of the best examples of Morris glass in existence and quite unrecorded." In fact, the glass is by Burges.