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New England Reflections 2014 (Cont.): Platypus Travels Part L

O sages standing in God's holy fire
As in the gold mosaic of a wall,
Come from the holy fire, perne in a gyre,
And be the singing‐masters of my soul.
Consume my heart away; sick with desire
And fastened to a dying animal
It knows not what it is; and gather me
Into the artifice of eternity.
-Sailing to Byzantium, W.B. Yates

Having a Tiffany factory in town has its advantages.  There are two windows in the old Episcopal church that dominates one side of the green (the other, true to form, belongs to the Congregational church).  One of these windows (featured to the left) depicts Saint Paul, the saint after which the church is named.  We caught the image at the right time of day with the morning sun was streaming through the East windows.  It was a weekday, and the secretary was nice enough to lend us the key along with as much viewing time as we wanted provided that we lock up and return the key once we were done. Having had a good bit of time to view the window, then, let me share our observations.

 My wife and I are still novices as students of stained glass and we noticed something in this particular window that we had never seen before,  The artisans, rather than painting in the folds of Saint Paul's garments textured the glass to simulate folded cloth. To provide deeper contrasts for the heavier folds, they used a darker shade of glass,  The trade-mark Tiffany mottling effect is still used in the non-textured portions of the window but it is more pronounced in the flat panels, particularly the edging of the Apostle's cloak, his gospel book, the ground, and the sky behind his head, where the technique is at its most subtle (see the first and the final picture).  The overall combination of textured, mottled,the technique is at its most subtle (see the first and the final picture).  The overall combination of textured, mottled, and painted glass is striking without imparting a sense of business -just the touch of genius I've come to expect from turn-of-the-century work.    

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