Jonah Window

[poliphilo]

Earnley is an incident in the largely characterless sprawl of seaside homes along the Sussex coast. Only it has an old church...

13th century....



And the old church contains a rather lovely modern window (dedicated 1987) which was given in memory of the artist Yvonne Hudson Rusbridge. It shows Jonah in the belly of the great fish accompanied by mer-people blowing horns, while above them the Spirit of God moves upon the face of the waters. .



Here's a close up of one of the mermen



And here's Jonah



The window was made by P Soderberg, using Hudson Rusbridge's own designs.

Comments

[michaleen.livejournal.com]

Quite nice for modern work. The figures seem to echo Wm Blake.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I'm a fan of 20th century stained glass. I don't think the Victorians got it right, but the modern movement allowed artists to play around with primitivism and abstraction and the best modern glass (Chagall for instance) is as good as anything the Middle Ages produced.

[michaleen.livejournal.com]

Agreed. The stained glass in one the local Episcopal churches is Tiffany and quite nice. Victorian glass is often immediately recognizable as such. It's its own thing, I suppose, but I don't care for it either.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Tiffany's work is very distinctive. I haven't seen enough of it to be sure whether I really like it or not.

[michaleen.livejournal.com]

For the stinky little mill town in which this installation resides, it's a treasure. The rector's son told me the insurers were at a loss to even begin to put a price on it.

[cmcmck.livejournal.com]

Not a church I know at all.

Gorgeous!

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

We were on our way to somewhere else (see next post) and this came up on the right hand side and I decided to take a look. I'm glad I did.

You never know what's going to show up in even the humblest church.

[cmcmck.livejournal.com]

Have you seen St Andrews Wickhambreaux with its Arild Rozenkrantz window?

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I haven't. I'll put it on the list.

[internet-sampo.livejournal.com]

Fantastic!

[pondhopper.livejournal.com]

I am not a huge fan of modern stained glass but I quite like this window. It has fluidity and movement in teh design and the colours are lovely. The figure of Johnah as a medieval air to it despite its modernity.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I don't like Victorian glass but I think 20th century glass- at its best- is as good as anything produced in the Middle Ages. Have you seen any of Chagall's windows? They're tremendous.

[pondhopper.livejournal.com]

Yes, I have seen Chagall and love his use of blue glass. There is one at the Chicago Institute of Art that I am quite familiar with and it's glorious.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

There's a tiny little church just down the road from here- at a nowhere place called Tudeley- which has Chagall glass in every window. It was commissioned by a local plutocrat whose daughter died in a sailing accident. The predominant colour is a deep blue- for the sea she drowned in- and it's truly amazing.

[pondhopper.livejournal.com]

I would love to see that!

[puddleshark.livejournal.com]

That's a lovely window - not too dark and overpowering in a small church.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

That's the problem with a lot of 19th century glass. It's very dark. The Victorians favoured a dim religious gloom- and spoiled a lot of churches trying to achieve it.