The Illuminated Window

A beautifully illustrated guide to the diverse traditions of stained glass art throughout history.

The Illuminated Window is a unique journey through stained-glass installations across history. From the twelfth to the twenty-first centuries, we find in windows stories of conflict, commemoration, devotion, and celebration. Virginia Chieffo Raguin is our guide through the cathedrals of Chartres, Canterbury, and Cologne as well as Paris’s Sainte-Chapelle, Swiss guildhalls, Iran’s Pink Mosque, Harvard Memorial Hall, Tiffany’s chapel for the World Exposition, Frank Lloyd Wright’s houses, and more. In her telling, stained glass relies on more than a single maker but on the relationship between the physical site, the patron’s aims, the work’s legibility for the spectator, and the prevailing style of the era. This is a fascinating and beautifully illustrated volume for anyone interested in stained-glass works.

'Renowned scholar Raguin brings the insights of her long career in stained glass studies to bear on a fascinating selection of iconic case studies. She applies the rigor and erudition honed over many decades in the service of the Corpus Vitrearum to a range of glazing schemes spanning from the twelfth to the twenty-first centuries. The book demonstrates admirably that stained-glass programs of all periods and contexts can yield up their secrets to expert art historical inquiry.' — Sarah Brown, University of York

'A delight for the eye and the mind. Through gorgeous color photographs and vivid analysis, Raguin demonstrates the importance of stained glass as art, as narrative, and as a feature of ambitious sacred and secular buildings from the Middle Ages to the present.' — Dell Upton, University of California, Los Angeles

'Raguin’s insightful analysis sheds much-needed light on the creation of site-specific decorative work in glass from the Middle Ages to the twenty-first century. She highlights the often-overlooked relationships between stained glass and other media, including illuminated manuscripts, oil paintings, illustrated books, and prints, a range of resources yielding a complex development process that transcended national borders.' — Jennifer Tonkovich, Curator of Drawings and Prints at the Morgan Library & Museum, New York