Stained glass window
Vidriera emplomada
- Date
- c. 1100 · confidence medium
- Place
- Augsburg Cathedral, Germany
- Credited to
- Monastic workshops (Theophilus's treatise)
- Field
- Matter & energy
What it is
Windows of glass coloured throughout with metallic oxides, painted with grisaille and joined with lead cames. The first great visual mass-narrative medium of the West.
The Augsburg prophet windows (c. 1065–1100) are the oldest surviving in situ.
What it led to
- visual catechesis for an illiterate population
- the glass industries of Lorraine, the Rhineland and Venice
- experimentation with colour and light that paved the way for optics and glass painting
Built on
- Cast glass window panec. 50 CE
- Pointed arch and ribbed vault1140
- Flying buttressc. 1180
- Roman blown glass
- Pointed arch and ribbed vault
Made possible
- Eyeglassesc. 1286
- Eyeglasses
- Venetian crystal glass