/ March 11, 2019/ Essay, Publication

Light in European culture has always been seen as sublime in religious and metaphysical terms. The biblical story of Genesis even starts with the creation of light. At the same time light has always been understood as the precondition of knowledge, not least in the era of the Enlightenment, being the central metaphor for spiritual illumination through reason. And thus illuminated stained glass windows have been regarded since the early Middle Ages as a suitable medium for expressing these perceptions in material and artistic form, capable of combining architectural requirements with spiritual content in cathedrals, churches, synagogues, mosques and other sacred buildings. Early well-known examples are Sainte-Chapelle in Paris or the cathedral in Chartres, where one of the most important centres of stained glass is still located today.

 

To put the glass windows designed by David Schnell for Kunstsammlungen Chemnitz in context, a brief and by no means comprehensive overview of stained glass in Germany and Europe follows. After the Middle Ages there was a revival of stained glass within the historical art movements of the 19th and early 20th centuries in Europe, especially in the Gothic Revival and the Art and Crafts Movement and then also in Art Nouveau. Stained glass windows that coloured the light shining through them came to play a significant role in Modernism. However, instead of the redemptory subject matter of medieval stained glass, there was often a move towards architectural design using glass, which became popular in the Secession and Werkbund as well as the Bauhaus. To cite a quasi-iconic example: over the entrance to Bruno Taut’s glass pavilion at the Werkbund-Ausstellung (German Association of Craftsmen Exhibition) in Cologne in 1914 was written, “Das bunte Glas zerstört den Hass” (The brightly coloured glass extinguishes hatred). (2) In the year that the First World War broke out there was an explicit longing for peace and light associated with stained glass in architecture – and so glass became a bearer of utopian ideals once again.

 

Sacred stained glass in the 20th century

 

The immaterial qualities inherent in the impact of stained glass, which are thought to reflect the truly ethereal, have generally been exploited in sacred interiors, especially since the Second World War, (3) but also on into the 21st century. In appreciation of this immersive and transcendent character and a highly charged atmospheric presence, many fine artists up to the present day have been captivated by stained glass in the wake of the Modernist period, even those who do not mainly focus on making pieces for sacred sites. One of the most famous examples is the stained glass window by Henri Matisse in the Vence Chapel, 1949, an innovative combination of stained glass windows and murals which ushered in “a stained glass renaissance”. (4) Also worthy of note are the concrete stained glass windows by Fernand Léger for the Church of the Sacred Heart in Audincourt (ca. 1950), and Marc Chagall’s stained glass windows in a number of synagogues, churches and chapels, such as the Cathedrals of Metz (1968) and Reims (1974), the Chapel of the Cordeliers in Sarrebourg (1976) and the Church of Saint Stephan in Mainz (1978-1985). Exceptional examples of recent abstract stained glass windows are the designs by Pierre Soulages for the Abbey Church of Saint Foy  in Conques (1994; figs. 1, 2), Sigmar Polke’s stained glass windows on the theme of Isaac for the Grossmünster in Zurich (2007-2009), Gerhard Richter’s windows for Cologne Cathedral (2007) and also Imi Knoebel’s windows for Reims Cathedral (2014; figs. 3, 4). The fame of such artists as Soulages, Polke, Richter or Knoebel, who have worked with glass, albeit mainly as occasional pieces, has increased awareness of stained glass in recent years as a result of the aforementioned artist-designed windows. Once again the generally accepted distinction between fine and applied art is thrown into question.

 

Pierre Soulages, windows for the Abbey Church of Saint Foy in Conques, 1994

 

Pierre Soulages’ windows for the Abbey Church of Saint Foy in Conques, which he created between 1986 and 1994, are regarded as a milestone in contemporary stained glass. Their reduced colour scheme responds sensitively to the architectural conditions, lending a highly contemplative atmosphere to the church interior. Pierre Soulages had a very personal connection to the Abbey-Church, which was restored in the 19th century, as he was born near Rodez and grew up there. It was in Conques that he first experienced an artistic epiphany. (5) In contrast to Soulages’ works in oil on canvas, his stained glass for Conques focuses on light opalescent alabaster-like planes with horizontal and curving bands, while the lead cames and steel strips serve to add rhythmic dynamics. He started working on the designs in 1986 and was aided by the glass master Jean-Dominique Fleury in considering which materials to use so as to achieve an irregular, colourless, translucid but not translucent effect. The result was 104 windows in a minimalist mode integrated into the Romanesque architecture in a reserved manner, encouraging the diffuse natural light entering from without to spread harmoniously throughout the interior of the church. “This light, that one could call ‘transmuted’”, according to Pierre Soulages in 1994, “has an emotional value, an inwardness, a metaphysical quality in keeping with the poetry of this architecture and its function: a place of contemplation, a place of meditation.” (6)

 

Imi Knoebel, windows for Reims Cathedral, 2011/2015

 

Significant landmarks in contemporary stained glass, alongside Soulages’ windows for Conques, are those made for Cologne by Gerhard Richter and the windows for Reims Cathedral designed by Imi Knoebel. Gerhard Richter was invited to make the windows for Cologne Cathedral at about the same time as he was also asked to design some for the two aisles to either side of the main nave of Reims Cathedral, near the windows by Marc Chagall showing motifs from the Passion. Since the commissions coincided and were too similar in content, Richter could not take on the one for Reims. The Commission in France then asked Imi Knoebel to design the windows. This choice of a German artist is not without significance and to be understood against a political-historical backdrop, for from the fourth century Reims Cathedral was the place of coronation first of the Frankish and then the French kings. It was very seriously damaged in the First World War by German troops and caught fire. The commission entailed a political gesture of reconciliation. Imi Knoebel’s designs for these windows – which were also exhibited at Kunstsammlungen Chemnitz, where David Schnell encountered them (7) – are rendered in an equally abstract manner to Gerhard Richter’s for Cologne Cathedral. Knoebel also negates any meaning, for example in the form of a narrative or figuration – an approach which Richter carried to an extreme by using a computer-based algorithm to determine the positioning of the patches of colour in his windows. In contrast, Knoebel’s designs are based on the cycle Messerschnitte/Rot Gelb Blau (Knife cuts/red yellow blue) dated 1978/1979, that suggest shards. The transposition of these collages into stained glass is convincing as a rejection of a narrative or indeed any redemptory message and can instead be interpreted as a reference to the pre-industrial manufacture of stained glass windows that were assembled from small separate pieces, sometimes glass splinters. The individual shapes are reminiscent of such fragments or shards. They dominate the pictorial planes as curvaceous shapes in primary colours and are connected by the structure-giving lead cames producing dynamic vectors in all directions.

 

With this formal idiom and colour palette Knoebel positions his work in a long-standing tradition of abstract painting in the 20th century, from Kazimir Malevich’s Black Square to Piet Mondrian’s Neoplastic late work through to Abstract Expressionism. The colours red yellow and blue used in the windows of 2011 suggest at the same time a connection to one of the incunabula of US-American colour-field painting, Barnett Newman’s variations on Who’s Afraid of Red, Yellow and Blue from the years 1966 to 1970 – from which Knoebel always tried to distance himself, but without completely denying the connection. (8) The transcendental aspects of this painting are not foreign to Knoebel’s windows, underscored by the sacred function of the site. The decisive factor here is that Knoebel avoided any kind of iconographic meaning being attached to his windows, thus creating “freedom pictures” (9) that blend in with the architecture, (10) while at the same time asserting their own pictoriality and demanding to be seen and appreciated. In 2015 Knoebel made a gift of an additional three more windows for the chapel of Saint Joan of Arc in Reims. These contain a greater breadth of colour hues than the windows that had already been made. (11)

 

David Schnell’s stained glass for sacred spaces, 2009 to 2018

 

Since the fall of the Berlin wall there have been more commissions given to contemporary artists to design windows for sacred spaces in Saxony-Anhalt and Saxony, (12) where David Schnell, who grew up in Rhineland, has lived since the nineties. The revival of stained glass especially in Saxony-Anhalt is mainly due to the efforts of Holger Brülls, the Head of Conservation for that German state. Some examples are: the stained glass windows designed by Max Uhlig for Merseburg Cathedral and for Saint John’s Church Magdeburg; three windows created for Naumburg Cathedral by Neo Rauch (2014). Rauch’s stained glass with the narrative titles Abschied – Kleiderspende – Krankenpflege (Farewell – Clothing Donation – Nursing) turn out to be a painterly intervention following the trail of Saint Elisabeth and aesthetically close to prints on a translucid red ground. Like Neo Rauch, Günter Grohs and David Schnell have also designed windows for Naumburg. And a number of smaller churches and chapels have been supplied with new windows in this connection, including the village church of Gütz by Markus Lüpertz, who had already made stained glass windows for Nevers, Cologne, Coblenz and Lübeck and also designed a Reformation window for the Marktkirche in Hannover in 2018. More projects are planned for Saxony-Anhalt with a realisation date in 2019, and Sebastian Muhr (Altjeßnitz) and David Schnell (Priorau) have been commissioned, among others.

 

Friedensfenster (Peace Window), Church of Saint Thomas (Thomaskirche) Leipzig, 2009-2010

 

In parallel to the Saxony-Anhalt projects, artists have also been able to develop and realize concepts in Leipzig, such as Falk Haberkorn, who created a purely textual design for a 22 meter-long window in the new provost church Saint Trinitatis in 2012 (Am Anfang war das Wort – In the beginning was the word) and also David Schnell, who realized the Friedensfenster (Peace Window) in the Church of Saint Thomas (Thomaskirche). The churches in Leipzig, where David Schnell had studied at the Hochschule für Grafik und Buchkunst with Arno Rink as his tutor, rediscovered stained glass, partly in order to look back at historical events. To commemorate the peaceful revolution of 1989 a competition was initiated, not by the Nikolaikirche where the events began, but by the church council of the Church of Saint Thomas. (13) A condition of the submissions was, in addition to a connection to the events of Autumn 1989, an orientation to the slogan of the peace movement, “swords to ploughshares” (from the 12th Book of the Prophets, the Hebrew Bible-Tanakh, Micah 4,3), and to the Sermon on the Mount in the Gospel of Saint Matthew. The latter had been an important spiritual foundation – provided by the Word of God (14) – for the peace prayers and the passive, non-violent and ultimately successful resistance of many demonstrators in 1989.

 

Although up to that time David Schnell had never worked with glass, (15) he won the competition and was invited to realize his design with the help of the firm Derix Glasstudios in Taunusstein (Cat. ##, fig. 5). The first challenge, given the restricted view, was to position his work above the gallery in a row of older windows. Furthermore there were the technical specifications of the material and the subject matter of the commission to be considered. Schnell’s father was a religious instruction teacher, which meant that the artist was quite familiar with religious themes. His main focus however was on the visualization of today’s remembrance of the role of the Church in opposing the SED regime of the past, rather than on a pictorial rendering of the biblical passages – which would ultimately have been behind the times. At the same time Schnell’s Friedensfenster can be read as a contemporary comment on the whole visual programme of precisely that Protestant Hall church in which Johann Sebastian Bach was active as the Church of Saint Thomas choirmaster. The stained glass windows on the South side date from the 19th and 20th centuries and include windows with figures honouring Martin Luther (together with Frederick III Elector of Saxony and the Humanist Philipp Melanchthon), the composers Johann Sebastian Bach and Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy, one window each for the Swedish king Gustav Adolf and German emperor Wilhelm I, as well as a memorial window that was put in after the First World War. This last ‘celebrated’ the heroic death of fallen soldiers, as was usual at that time. The tricky task was thus to find a contemporary kind of historical picture in glass that would be commemorative and suitable for remembrance, but neither trite nor narrative. At the same time it should relate to the architecture and the existing ornamentation and harmonize with the art works present without being overwhelmed by them.

 

For his window, which is mounted in front of the outer crown-glass windows for reasons of historical preservation, David Schnell developed a design that is not based on a visual object, but on a formal visual creation. With photos of demonstrators and placards held on high in mind, the burning question of whether the state power would exercise violence against the protestors became central. He worked to give this tension a shape, by using a combination of the elements he had already employed in his practice – the tectonic picture composition, the strong emphasis on perspective, landscapes, trees and leaves tending towards the abstract. The artist merged calm and dynamism to create an impression of ‘teetering on the brink’: would everything implode or could the individual elements support each other? The outcome is open-ended and the situation marked by uncertainty – to be understood symbolically as a reference to the state of unpredictable and incalculable risk at the time, as the crisis reached its zenith in 1989. The vanishing points in Schnell’s composition are positioned in such a way as to make it appear as if the individual elements were shooting out explosively from within into the surrounding space. Knowledge of cubistic picture concepts is evident here, and the idea evokes a deconstructivist discovery of form. On further inspection, the sense that the window relates to the key concepts of autumn 1989 is reinforced – out of the interior space (here the church) and into the city and onto the street, to advocate self-determination and freedom! Instead of prolonging the series of windows with figures serving to enclose the space and strengthen the idea of a church at its core offering protection against the outer world, Schnell bases his picture on an abstract composition rendering ideas of tension, a new start and openness. A freedom window!

 

The technique, shape and colour selected by Schnell also pick up on the specific context of the Church of Saint Thomas. On the one hand, he used the traditional lead glass, which can also be found in the older windows, for the construction of his window; on the other, his composition, with its prolonged planes veering away in rising vectors, echoes the narrow vertical architectural elements of the columns and arches of the late Gothic church interior. This pictorial construction brings to mind formal associations with the pacifist leitmotif of “swords to ploughshares”. The strong presence of pink and purple hues refers to the colour of porphyry from Rochlitz, which predominates in many historical buildings in Leipzig, notably the Alte Rathaus (Old Town Hall), and was also used in the Church of Saint Thomas. In order to be clearly distinguishable from the other windows, mainly rendered with dark nuances, Schnell employed bright and light colours on the whole, some in pastel hues. With this he achieved a lively and rather pleasant counterpoint to the commemorative image for the fallen of the First World War. The utopian potential and peaceful outcome of the demonstrations thus find expression in the colour scheme. 

 

It is worth taking a closer look at the laborious production of the window itself which, as in all stained glass, has a decisive effect on the artwork. David Schnell soon realized that he could not just hand in his design and leave the appointed experts to make the finished work, but would like to intervene in the creative process itself. This led him to revise his original intentions in order to take into account the special features of stained glass, the material and how it changed while being worked. He experimented with several different techniques, such as etching in various coloured glass planes in the overlay glass, which he then juxtaposed to create new hues. He etched, scratched, glued, made decisions about the lead lining, but also painted with enamels, which function according to how thickly they are applied with the result only becoming apparent after firing. The Friedensfenster became an artistic laboratory and brought David Schnell face-to-face with the most important actor in stained glass: namely light. For any window that is in direct contact to the natural world outside is subject to changing light conditions and continually alters its appearance accordingly. It was precisely these coincidences outside his control that fascinated the artist David Schnell, whose practice cultivates the tense interplay between order and deliberately provoked chaos. In the case of the Friedensfenster for Leipzig the fluctuating light also serves as a metaphor for the latent drama of the confrontation between non-violent demonstrators and the threatening state power that marked the year 1989. As a phenomenon, it points to the ineffable quality of light, its intangible transcendence. Although Schnell has often stated that he has no intention of creating anything transcendental or mystical, as an artist he cannot help being fascinated by this aspect.

 

Digression: the autonomous stained glass piece Musterfeld (Pattern Field), 2012

 

Working with and in glass bears a certain correspondence with David Schnell’s interest in printed graphics, given the constructive schematic procedures entailed. The techniques used here are in some ways similar to those employed in printmaking, as for example when he uses etching to create new colour hues and surfaces, profiting from his familiarity with the artistic use of this technique in aquatint. Following his work on the Friedensfenster Schnell intensified his research into glass as an artistic medium. For his second exhibition at his house gallery EIGEN + ART in Leipzig he made the work in glass Musterfeld (Pattern Field) in 2012 (Cat. ##). This experimentation with glass reveals Schnell’s fundamental readiness to use new and laborious techniques in a non-sacred context. This vertical format stained glass work resembles a section of a landscape, the predominant genre adopted by the Leipzig painter. Geometrical vertical planes exhibiting red-brown gradations make up the foreground and are shortened to the rear, where they are superimposed on a background of organic shapes in green and blue hues. The construction lines of the central perspective can be clearly identified in the study. Here the artist concentrated on gluing and superimposing glass planes of various colours, a technique that corresponds well with his own painterly practice of applying coloured glazes. The Musterfeld does not merely serve technical perfection, but can undoubtedly be regarded as an autonomous work that transposes Schnell’s artistic concepts in the field of painting and prints to a panel painting consisting of glass and glowing colours.

 

The Musterfeld was originally intended as a starting point for a mural with stained glass that was to be artificially lit from behind, similar to a window. (16) Whereas in former times painting on canvas was considered to be a ‘window on the world’ – a view beyond the exhibition space offered through the imaginary constructed space of the panel picture – in this case the painting was to be created in glass with artificial light shining from the wall into real space. (17) However while working on this piece Schnell came to the conclusion that he could not pursue this approach. It would be better for his stained glass to use a natural light source and not to make an artificial reversal of the idea of painting as a window on the world.

 

Saint John’s Chapel in Naumburg (Johanneskapelle), 2014-2015

 

Having become known as an artist working with stained glass as a result of the Leipzig Friedensfenster, David Schnell was invited in 2014 to Naumburg to participate in the exhibition Glanzlichter and to make a design for the interior of Saint John’s Chapel (Johanneskapelle). Since the artist was about to spend a year on a grant at the Villa Massimo in Rome, a year later in 2015 he made two new windows for the chapel, which dates from the 13th century and was transferred to the cemetery of the Naumburg Cathedral in 1864 (Cat. ##, fig. 6). (18) His stay in Italy clearly made its mark on his painting, especially his choice of motifs, but was not evident at that time in his stained glass work.

 

At first glance the most notable aspect of the small-format windows in Saint John’s Chapel in Naumburg is the choice of colour scheme. In one window red hues predominate, in the other the colour blue. Bipolarity was the guiding idea here, in the chiaroscuro and contrasting colours. The colours evoke elementary forces such as fire and water that may be life-giving or destructive. Here David Schnell evidently refers to the patron saint of the chapel, which is dedicated to John the Baptist. The red window exhibits architectural elements reminiscent of a wall or aisle softly echoing the features of the surrounding space. At the same time the motifs visible in the window refer in an abstract manner to a spectrum of landscapes, made up of camouflage-like coloured areas with an arrangement of organic forms tapering into the distance. Their shapes hint at clouds or viscous liquid masses and thus conjure up a sense of lava, of fire and water. They also correspond to the motifs from nature in the chapel, such as the floral ornamentation in the keystones.

In view of the small format of the windows, David Schnell did without lead glazing, which he had used in the Leipzig Friedensfenster, and only used gluing techniques and etching procedures, as in his piece Musterfeld of 2012. The windows make a striking structural statement within the high Gothic chapel, with their intense colour accents and borrowings from landscape painting, which since the Romantic period came to be charged with religious overtones. Schnell managed to create an atmosphere in stained glass that oscillates between the dramatic and the contemplative, imbuing the chapel with a new and intensive atmosphere, supported by a suitable door he developed in collaboration with the architect Michael Grzesiak.

 

Christ Church in Cologne (Christuskirche), 2016 – 2018

 

David Schnell’s third commission for stained glass windows in a sacred context was for the new building of Christ Church (Christuskirche) in the municipal park of Cologne in 2016. He won the competition for designs launched by the Protestant congregation in Cologne, prevailing over five other artists who had also been invited. (19) In Cologne the prerequisites were completely different to those in Leipzig. The Christ Church, a 19th century sacred building, was destroyed in the Second World War leaving only its steeple standing. This was augmented with a provisional nave in the 1950s, which eventually had to be demolished, having fallen into disrepair. It was replaced by a new transept and two auxiliary buildings. This meant that the artist was not confronted with a pre-existing architectural art context, but in the course of construction of the new building could actively intervene in the aesthetics of the new interior with his windows.

 

For the commission Schnell, who grew up in Cologne, took a careful look at Gerhard Richter’s windows for Cologne Cathedral and Markus Lüpertz’ ones for Saint Andreas. His own task was to design four casement windows – a vertical one to the left and right of the nave, respectively, on the East side (altar window) and one on the West side (steeple window), serving here as a link to the auxiliary buildings. There was also a rose window to be designed for the West side. The aim was to “heighten the sanctity of the space”, as the tender specifications put it. (20) To date, only the rose window has been realized and inserted in winter 2018. The others are pending for financial reasons.

 

The designs display parallels to Schnell’s previous window commissions, but can also be distinguished from them. Much more strongly than in Leipzig – and in a different way to Naumburg – the compositions are articulated by elongated planes that echo the lofty heights of the architecture as a whole (Cat. ##, ##, ##). Running from floor to ceiling, the verticals suggest light rising upwards, to be understood as a reference to transcendence and thus imbued with highly symbolic significance. The colour scheme of the side window is based on light pastel purple and blue hues. As in Leipzig, Schnell responds here to the porphyry of the neo-Gothic steeple. The light blue hues echo the extensive visible area of blue sky. Even though the artist denies any intentional colour symbolism, (21), these windows could be interpreted by the devout as connecting heaven and earth. In contrast to the neo-Gothic windows prior to 1944, Schnell strives in his designs to make the nave as light as possible and thus achieve a sense of transparency, in keeping with the diaphanous quality of stained glass, opening up communication between inside and out, as was also true of the architecture of Gothic cathedrals in the Middle Ages.  

 

This was when impulses garnered from his stay in Rome in 2014, which had already found their way into his painting, came to fruition in his stained glass pieces. In Rome Schnell had begun to take an increased interest in interiors – often of churches – and in the role played by the themes of light and illusion there. In his painting, this led to depictions of enclosed spaces with staccato-like staggered arrangements of geometric coloured components. The perspectival effect of the planes composed in this manner is of less significance in the large vertical windows for Cologne than in the case of the rose window, which sets the tone for the spatial experience of the whole artistic concept in view of its position at a height and its orientation to the West. Furthermore the artist has thoroughly toned down any direct allusions, such as to landscapes or interiors. The vertical thrust of coloured shapes common to all the windows underlines the orientation towards the heavenly. With the help of abstraction, the viewer leaves reality behind; the transcendental character of the church interior becomes manifest as a place of contemplation and reflection. (22)

 

Secular stained glass in German museums of the 20th century: Düsseldorf, Leipzig, Chemnitz

 

Whereas stained glass in sacred buildings, which has experienced a revival in recent years, is a natural partner of architecture and can render the religious connotations of the edifice, it is only found sporadically in secular buildings. In contrast to sculptural or painterly Percent for Art projects, stained glass is often – wrongly – seen as not appropriate for public buildings that are not consecrated. The links to the sacred contexts of the respective buildings are probably seen as too definitive. Although museums are often compared to such buildings, this link might seem to contradict the rational and democratic nature of public institutions. And yet there are examples in existence which serve to put the window that David Schnell has now designed and made for the Kunstsammlungen Chemnitz, a secular building, in context. These are the well-known Modernist glass installations in German museums by Thorn Prikker, Josef Albers and K. O. Götz.

 

Johan Thorn Prikker, Museum Kunstpalast, Düsseldorf, 1925 – 1926

 

Johan Thorn Prikker comes from The Hague and began his career as a teacher at the Kunstgewerbeschule in Krefeld in 1904. He was invited to Hagen by Karl Ernst Osthaus in 1910 to participate in the artistic reform movement of the Werkbund. One of Thorn Prikker’s specialities was the design of stained glass works, which he realized in a number of different building projects at that time, including the stairwell of Osthaus’ Hohenhof Villa in Hagen in 1911, a mansion designed by Henry van de Velde, who also built the Esche Villa in Chemnitz. Thorn Prikker is regarded as the most important artist of his times working in glass in Germany, who strongly influenced a younger generation after the First World War with his approach to painting with glass rather than on it. (23) At the beginning of the 1920s, when he was a professor at the art academy in Düsseldorf, he was awarded the commission to create a multi-part stained glass window next to mosaics in the stairwell of the Kunstpalast redesigned by Wilhelm Kreis, (24) a project which was then realized between 1925 and 1926 (figs. 7, 8). In contrast to previous commissions, Thorn Prikker worked here in close collaboration with the master craftsman Otto Wiegmann at the Düsseldorf art academy. The monumental stained glass window consists of three tiered rows, with five elongated lower lights, ten middle-sized ones in the central zone and twenty smaller upper ones, making 35 window lights altogether. The formal idiom is geometric tending towards the abstract, exhibiting triangles and squares in orange black and greyish-white hues; petrol and magenta also appear in the uppermost lights. The component elements are angled diagonally, others are orthogonal, from which still others diverge in turn with an upward thrust. The basic patterns are repeated and turned back-to-front, thus “producing an asymmetric-constructive glass composition”. (25) In the stairwell, the shape of the window lights is echoed in the stonework of the architecture. Thorn Prikker’s concept takes into account the entrance hall’s sense of sanctity. His choice of palette, shape and composition also refers to the monumental, soberly expressive brick architecture of the commemorative courtyard of the museum, translating its character into a constructivist stained glass composition.

 

These windows are often cited in the relevant literature for their relationship to architecture. They were destroyed in the Second World War and only reconstructed in 1983 and 1984.

 

Josef Albers, Grassimuseum, Leipzig, 1926 – 1927

In 1926, the same year that Thorn Prikker’s windows were installed in Düsseldorf, the Bauhaus artist Josef Albers designed monumental windows for the stairwell of the Grassimuseum in Leipzig (figs. 9, 10), built between 1925 and 1929. A year later in 1927, Albers’ windows were realised and exhibited at a show about Europäische Kunstgewerbe (European Applied Arts). Albers, who had become head of the glass atelier of the Bauhaus in Weimar in 1923 and had subsequently received commissions for stained glass windows on a regular basis, also designed similar windows to those Grassi made for the entrance hall of the expressionistic building of the Ullstein Publishing Company in Berlin. These were unveiled in 1928. In the meantime, the eighteen high narrow windows in Leipzig that were destroyed in the Second World War have been reinterpreted by the artist Christine Triebsch from Halle in a manner that makes it easy to appreciate Albers’ original design: it proves to be a mathematical-geometric construction, with vertical cames dividing up each window in the middle and new planar modules developing in parts, some of which consist of genuinely antique yellowish-green hand-blown glass with a white opalescent cover. In the reconstruction, graphic accents were added with dark coatings (Schwarzlot) as well as cuneiform and surface grinding. (26) In contrast to Thorn Prikker’s composition in Düsseldorf, Albers’ abstract design for Leipzig is based on reduction and limitation of shape and colour, modular construction and a systematic approach that eschews any personal decision-making and personal artistic signature in favour of an economic and architecturally appropriate approach. Albers’ Grassi windows were oriented towards the connection between inside and outside in view of their high transparency, which represented a break from the prevailing principally sacred stained glass up to that time. Albers’ windows, together with the windows in the Museum Kunstpalast by Thorn Prikker, are considered today to be the most important of their kind in Germany.

 

  1. O. Götz, Kunstsammlungen Chemnitz, 1995

 

In the post-war period in West Germany the rational and systematic Modernist approach of the Bauhaus was diametrically opposed to Art Informel. Later offshoots of these contrary positions can be found in the stained glass windows that K. O. Götz, one of the most important representatives of Art Informel painting in Germany, made for the Kunstsammlungen Chemnitz in the 1990s. After the fall of the Berlin Wall, he and his wife Rissa, also an artist and born in Chemnitz, became attached to the city and its museum. Götz showed works on paper here in 1993 and had further exhibitions in 2004 and 2014. (27) In the GDR period, there were windows by Fritz Diedering and Michael Morgner in the stairwell of the Kunstsammlungen addressing the thematic field of ‘fire – earth – water – air’ in 1969 and 1970 (fig. 11). During the renovation of the museum building and the reconstruction work on parts of the interior in the early 1990s, these had been replaced by simple panes of glass. (29) On the occasion of the 1993 exhibition, K. O. Götz and the museum director at that time, Susanne Anna, agreed that the artist should make a new design for these now ‘bare’ windows. K. O. Götz made a proposal with gestural dynamic areas in keeping with his own painting style (fig. 12). This design was manufactured by the glass master Jochen Köthe in antique glass rendered in white, yellowish and mauve pastel hues, and bonded together with lead cames. It was unveiled just two years later in 1995. This first and last stained glass painting of K. O. Götz was a one-to-one realization of the design, without the artist being involved in the production process. From a formal point of view, these windows fulfil some of the important demands of stained glass in that – in spite of their monumentality – they are well integrated into the late Art Nouveau architecture of the museum and enhance the impact of the stairwell thanks to their reserved colour and organic rhythm.

 

David Schnell, Splitter (Splinters), Kunstsammlungen Chemnitz, 2018

 

The windows by K. O. Götz were a direct inspiration for David Schnell when he was invited by the museum to make more windows in the context of a solo exhibition. Although he holds K. O. Götz’ Art Informel painting in high regard, with its artistic energy combined with aesthetically precise gestural statements, he finds that these explicit qualities have been ‘subdued’ in the stairwell’s stained glass windows, probably because, like many other artists, K. O. Götz had little experience of the potential of modern stained glass. (30) So Schnell preferred to draw his inspiration from Götz as a painter, assimilating the latter’s delight in dynamism and movement into his own windows, which in iconographic terms aim to serve as a counterpoint to the evenly stylized and sober atmosphere of the museum’s architecture. Whereas K. O. Götz’ pictorial invention tended to blend in with the architecture, Schnell breaks out of the mould: to the Northwest, oriented towards the neighbouring opera house , his windows are only to be viewed from inside the museum, for reasons of historical preservation. Their bluish light floods a passage that is not very big, but comparable in its dimensions to a chapel, altering and enhancing this space.

 

In his three-part design, in glazes of oil on hardboard in keeping with the diaphanous character of the task, Schnell treated the windows like a picture, with its composition interrupted by areas of wall between the lights (Cat. ##, fig. 13). The individual parts of the picture are nonetheless arranged so that they can come together in the viewer’s mind to form a whole. Their immanent dynamic overrides the division into three separate parts. The architectural framework – window, wall surface, three-dimensional space – is thus treated as part of the artwork, which is not only an important principle in stained glass, but an imperative precondition. The great sense of depth in the central perspective in Schnell’s composition is created by gradations of blue from which – as in the Friedensfenster in Leipzig – coloured shapes shoot out explosively like shattered fragments. These splinters of colour, condensing the artistic energy of the painter, together with the rejection of a grand narrative in favour of parcelled fragmentary moments, give the triptych and the exhibition its title. The colour blue helps to calm down the rather turbulent composition with its bursting planes, pointing to the window’s function as an intermediary between the interior and the outside world. Red and white accents disrupt the dominance of the blue hues at some points, while verticals dynamize the picture in accord with the diverging planes. At the same time, the taut structure relates to the statics of the glazed bar grid of the three windows showing through from behind. Calm and turbulence, order and chaos come into conflict – an important and often used feature in David Schnell’s practice.

 

In Splitter David Schnell’s recurrent artistic principles are employed along with his experiences with glass as a medium gained since he created his Friedensfenster in Leipzig ten years ago. In keeping with his usual practice, his stained glass in Chemnitz is not based on narration or figuration, but exhibits aesthetic and phenomenological, purely artistic and not thematic aspects in an essentially abstract manner. His Splitter triptych places him in the same tradition of contemporary abstract artists’ windows to which Imi Knoebel also belongs. But even if David Schnell does not entirely dissociate himself from any kind of figuration, and instead offers viewers a visual anchor by way of subtle illusory spaces and hints of landscape in his pictures, his Chemnitz window triptych testifies to that shattering and negation of meaning that is predominant in Knoebel’s more prominent piece. Here Schnell underscores the sacred character of the museum’s interior as a place of reflection and contemplation. While this may attract criticism, as if the museum aspired to be a temple, nonetheless it imbues the interior with a special aura and dignity. At a time of increasing media hype based on icons and images, this aspect is thoroughly relevant and admirable, worthy of being upheld. The uncontrollably exploding colours of light, the splinters he has created by intervening artistically, become autonomous elements in his exhibition. Schnell has created for Chemnitz an up-to-date synthesis of the expressive and constructive, such as has shaped stained glass since Modernism.

 

Footnotes

 

  1. There are also examples to be found in modern stained glass, including pieces by expressionist artists like Karl Schmidt-Rottluff (in particular Christuskopf, ca. 1921, Berlin, Brücke-Museum) and Max Pechstein (such as the eight windows he created for the Neue Stadtbad [new swimming pool] in Berlin which were realized in 1928 on the basis of his designs by Gottfried Heinersdorff and are now preserved in the Kunstgewerbemuseum Berlin, just one of many other commissions) or constructivist artists such as Theo van Doesburg (namely his window for the Huis De Lange, Alkmaar, 1917, now in the Kröller-Müller Museum, Otterlo).
  2. See for example Kristallisationen, Splitterungen: Bruno Tauts Glashaus, exhib. cat. Berlin, Werkbund-Archiv in the Martin-Gropius-Bau 1.10.1993- 6.1.1994, Darmstadt, Institut Mathildenhöhe 4.2.–13.3.1994, and Hagen, Karl-Ernst-Osthaus-Museum 16.4.–22.5.1994, publ. by the Werkbund-Archiv, Basel et al: Birkhäuser 1993.

 

  1. In West Germany modern sacred stained glass reached its zenith immediately after the war as destroyed or damaged churches and cathedrals were reconstructed and provided with windows by such artists as Georg Meistermann, Vincenz Pieper, Ludwig Schaffrath, Johannes Schreiter and Hans Gottfried von Stockhausen. In East Germany stained glass served as political propaganda in the 1950s and 1960s, by no means always, but quite often considering the limited opportunities for production. A noteworthy example is Walter Womacka’s monumental window for the GDR State Council Building about the history of the labour movement in Germany, made between 1962 and 1964 in Berlin.
  2. Horst Bredekamp, “Die Wiederkehr des Lichts. Ein Wunderwerk: Die Glasfenster von Imi Knoebel im Chor der Kathedrale von Reims,” in IMI KNOEBEL – Fenster für die Kathedrale von Reims, exhib. cat. Kunstsammlungen Chemnitz 24.11.2013–9.2.2014, eds. Ingrid Mössinger and Anja Richter, Cologne: Wienand Verlag 2013, pp. 35–38, here p. 36. For the larger context of stained glass in the 20th century, especially in France, see, Glasmalerei der Moderne. Faszination Farbe im Gegenlicht, exhib. cat. Karlsruhe, Badisches Landesmuseum 9.7.–9.10.2011, ed. by Jutta Dresch, Karlsruhe: Info Verlag 2011.

 

  1. “Conques est le lieu d’une de mes premières émotions artistiques.” (“Conques is the site of my first artistic emotions.” Pierre Soulages, “Notes de travail” in Christian Heck, Pierre Soulages, Conques. Les vitraux de Soulages, Paris: Éditions du Seuil 1994, pp. 37–99, here p. 39, cited in Mark R. Hesslinger, “Outrenoir und outreblanc – zur Metaphysik des Lichts im Werk des Künstlers Pierre Soulages,” in Pierre Soulages. Noir / Lumière. Farbe und Geste in den 1950er Jahren, exhib. cat. Coblenz, Museum Ludwig 4.11.2018–6.1.2019, ed. Beate Reifenscheidt, Milan: Silvana Editoriale 2018, pp. 39–42, here p. 40.)
  2. “Cette lumière que l’on pourrait dire ‚transmutée‘ a une valeur émotionnelle, une intériorité, une qualité métaphysique en accord avec la poésie de cette architecture comme avec sa fonction : lieu de contemplation, lieu de méditation.” (Pierre Soulages, quoted in Hesslinger 2018 [op. cit. footnote 5], p. 41.)

 

  1. See exhib. cat. Chemnitz 2013 (op. cit. footnote 4). Unless otherwise specified all descriptions come from a conversation between the author and the artist on 4 October 2018 in Leipzig. My thanks go to Cornelia Posselt for her suggestions and support.
  2. “Die Wahl der drei Grundfarben ist nicht zu verstehen als eine Hommage an Piet Mondrian oder Barnett Newman, der sich einst die Frage stellte: ‚Who’s Afraid of Red, Yellow and Blue?‘ […] – und dem Knoebel entgegnete – ‚Ich nicht!‘ (so auch der Titel seiner gleichnamigen Ausstellung im Juni 2009 im Deutschen Guggenheim Berlin).” (“The choice of three primary colours is not to be understood as a homage to Piet Mondrian or Barnett Newman, who once posed the question: ’Who’s Afraid of Red, Yellow and Blue?’ (…) – to which Knoebel replied – ‘Not I!’ (ICH NICHT also being the title of his eponymous exhibition in June 2009 at the German Guggenheim Berlin).” Marc Nouschi, “Die Herausforderungen eines Projekts”, in Imi Knoebel. Buntglasfenster für die Kathedrale zu Reims, ed. Jean-Paul Ollivier, Bielefeld: Kerber Verlag 2011, pp. 9–11, here p. 11.)
  3. “Die Negation jedes Rückgriffs auf die alten Bilder, überhaupt auf Bilder, geschweige denn heilsgeschichtlich-sakrale Inhalte und Muster, die Negation jedes Rückgriffs auf Bedeutung. Nichts mehr von alledem – Scherben, Tabula rasa, Sinnstoff pur. […] Aus der Zersplitterung aller Formen der Vorstellung entsteht ein Freiheitsbild – schärfer: entsteht die Entstehung des Freiheitsbildes.” (“The negation of any recourse to old pictures, indeed any pictures at all, and certainly not any with redemptive sacred content and patterns, the negation of any recourse to meaning. No more of all this – shards, tabula rasa, pure stuff of the senses. (…) – a freedom picture – or to put it more strongly: the genesis of a freedom picture – emerges from the shattering of any kind of image.” Johannes Stüttgen, “Heiliges Sehen”, in Ollivier 2011 [op. cit. footnote 8], pp. 51–52, here p. 51.)
  4. Horst Bredekamp writes in the context of the comparison he draws between Barnett Newmann and Imi Knoebel: “Vor allem aber liegt die Differenz in der konvulsivischen Zersplitterung der Kompositionselemente. […] Hierin liegt die Größe von Knoebels Farbformen. Sie sind in ihrer Zersplitterung nicht flüchtig, sondern binden sich in die Architekturform zurück. Das Wunder liegt in ihrer Fähigkeit, Explosionsbilder sein zu können, die sich im selben Zug in die Architektur reintegrieren, um Expansion und Kontraktion in eine Balance zu bringen.” (“The distinction lies above all in the convulsive shattering of the compositional elements. (…) This is the secret to the magnificence of Knoebel’s colour shapes. In their brokenness they do not disperse but renew their bonds with the architectural form. What is amazing is their ability to be explosive images while at the same time reintegrating themselves back into the architecture, counterbalancing expansion with contraction.” Bredekamp 2013 [op. cit. 4], pp. 37–38.)
  5. These windows are regarded as a response to the French commission to Knoebel. They were financed with the support of the Foreign Office of the Federal Republic of Germany and the Kunststiftung NRW. In detail on the windows of 2015 see: Imi Knoebel – Reims, ed. by the Kunststiftung NRW, Berlin: Hatje Cantz 2017.
  6. On contemporary stained glass in Germany see Holger Brülls, L’art contemporain du vitrail en Allemagne, ed. Jean-François Lagier, Chartres: Centre International du Vitrail 2012, and Glanzlichter. Gegenwartskunst. Glasmalerei, publication accompanying the exhibition curated by Holger Brülls Glanzlichter. Meisterwerke zeitgenössischer Glasmalerei im Naumburger Dom, Naumburg Cathedral 2014, Petersberg: Michael Imhof Verlag 2014.

 

  1. The decision was already reached by the Church Council in 1998; funding was made available in 2006 by the Rotary Club of Leipzig’s US-American sister city Houston, TX.
  2. “But I tell you, do not resist an evil person. If anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to them the other cheek also.” (New International Version, Matthew 5,39.)
  3. Holger Brülls, in an article about the window, considers “Ausscherens der freien Malerei in das Gebiet der angewandten Kunst […] ästhetische Risiken und Chance einer solchen Expedition in ein fremdes Kunstterrain” (“Fine art trespassing in the territory of applied arts (…) and the aesthetic risks but also opportunities of such an expedition into foreign artistic terrain”. Holger Brülls, “Schnellschuss in Glas. Kritische Notiz zur Glasmalerei der ‘Neuen Leipziger Schule’”, in das münster 2 [2011], pp. 105–111, here p. 106.) The author appears to defend the territory of applied arts against intervention by fine art; he criticizes Schnell’s windows for setting themselves apart too markedly from the series of other windows due to their light colours, in a manner out of keeping with the architectural framework.

 

  1. It is noteworthy that Schnell’s first big museum exhibition in Germany was entitled Fenster (Windows). See David Schnell. Fenster, exhib. cat. Duisburg, MKM – Museum Küppersmühle für Moderne Kunst 10.3.–18.6.2017, eds. Walter Smerling, Eva Müller-Remmert, Cologne: Wienand Verlag 2017, especially the essay by Christoph Türcke, “Schnells Fenster”, in ibid., pp. 9–11. – His practice of painting colour glazes on canvas with translucent layers superimposed, together with his tectonic pictorial compositions, already point to a strong affinity with stained glass, so that the analogy of a painting as “a window to another world” is fitting.
  2. Interestingly Daniel Buren in his exhibition Quand le textile s’éclaire at the Kunstsammlungen Chemnitz 2018 adopts a rather similar approach: his scintillating glass fibre textiles lit from above are rather like awnings shot through with sunlight. This represented both a challenge to the exhibition space and a way of opening it up, ‘transcending’ the barrier to the world outside. See Daniel Buren, exhib. cat. Kunstsammlungen Chemnitz 18.3.–10.6.2018, ed. Ingrid Mössinger, Dresden: Sandstein Verlag 2018, pp. 28–59.
  3. See exhib. cat. Naumburg 2014 (op. cit. footnote 12), pp. 200–205: “In für die Glasmalerei ganz ungewohnter Weise sind hier Landschaft und kosmischer Raum als bildnerische Ausgangspunkte neu erschlossen – so eindringlich, wie es zuletzt vor mehr als einem halben Jahrhundert dem jungen Johannes Schreiter mit seinen epochalen, auf Clyfford Still verweisenden Arbeiten gelungen ist.” (“Unusually for stained glass, landscape and cosmic space are regained as starting points for a picture – in a striking manner not seen since the young Johannes Schreiter’s epoch-making works referring to Clyfford Still some fifty years ago.” Ibid., p. 201.)

 

  1. Other artists invited to take part in the competition were Jürgen Drewer, Günter Grohs, Karl-Martin Hartmann, Celia Mendoza and Anna Pauli. The new building was designed by the team Klaus Hollenbeck Architekten, Cologne, and Maier Architekten, Cologne.

 

  1. Die neuen Kirchenfenster der evangelischen Christuskirche Köln von David Schnell, Broschüre zum Spendenaufruf (brochure calling for funding), Cologne 2016, online: https://www.christuskirche-mitten-im-leben.de/de/david-schnell-projektbeschreibung-kirchen-fenster-2.pdfx [as of 14.10.2018].
  2. See video interview with David Schnell, in Kirchenfenster von David Schnell für die Christuskirche Köln, 23.3.2018, here 3:40 min., online: https://www.christuskirche-mitten-im-leben.de/de/david-schnell-kirchenfenster.aspx [as of 14.10.2018].
  3. “Es geht darum, eine Art Reflexionsraum zu schaffen, in dem der Besucher sich vertiefen kann und aufgrund der visuellen Eindrücke dann Muße hat zu verweilen […].” (“It is a matter of creating a kind of room for reflection in which the visitors can become immersed and be encouraged by the visual impact to stay awhile.” Ibid., 5:16 min.)
  4. In the 1910s and 1920s Thorn Prikker was actually the busiest artist working with glass in Germany and the Netherlands, responsible for innumerable interior and glass designs for churches, public and private buildings. He moved thereby from Art Nouveau through Expressionism to Constructivism. His protégées include Heinrich Campendonk, Anton Wendling, Hubert Spierling and Georg Meistermann. On Thorn Prikker see, for example, Johan Thorn Prikker, mit allen Regeln der Kunst. Vom Jugendstil zur Abstraktion, exhib. cat. Rotterdam, Museum Boijmans van Beuningen 13.11.2010–13.2.2011, Düsseldorf, Museum Kunstpalast 26.3.–7.8.2011, ed. Christiane Heiser, Düsseldorf: Museum Kunstpalast 2011, especially the essay by Barbara Til, “‘Das Nützliche mit dem Schönen durchdringen …’ Glasfenster und Mosaiken der Düsseldorfer Zeit”, in ibid., pp. 212–231.
  5. On the occasion of the “Große Ausstellung Düsseldorf 1926 für Gesundheitspflege, soziale Fürsorge und Leibesübungen” (GeSoLei) from 8 May to 15 October 1926 in Düsseldorf, a trade fair that advertised innovations not only in economic, social care and health terms, but also aesthetic novelties.
  6. Til 2011 (op. cit. footnote 23), p. 224.

 

  1. On the reconstruction of the windows and the relevant technical procedures see Renate Lucker-Bien, “Bauhauserbe im Grassimuseum. Die Albers-Fenster,” in Art Aurea 4 (2011), pp. 64–69.
  2. See K. O. Götz. Arbeiten auf Papier 1934–1993, exhib. cat. Städtische Kunstsammlungen Chemnitz, 10.10.1993–2.1.1994, ed. by Städtische Kunstsammlungen Chemnitz, Düsseldorf: Concept Verlag 1993. – There was no catalogue published for the exhibition Hommage à Karl Otto Götz zum 90. Geburtstag 2004. – Finally: K. O. Götz – Zum 100. Geburtstag, exhib. cat. Kunstsammlungen Chemnitz, 23.2.–4.5.2014, ed. Ingrid Mössinger, Dresden: Sandstein Verlag 2014.

 

  1. See Kunstausstellung 74 Bezirk Karl-Marx-Stadt. 25 Jahre DDR – 25 Jahre Kunstentwicklung im Bezirk Karl-Marx-Stadt: Architekturbezogene Kunst, Malerei, Grafik, Plastik, Industrieformgestaltung, Kunsthandwerk, Gebrauchsgrafik, Werkverzeichnis, exhib. cat. Karl-Marx-Stadt, Städtische Museen am Theaterplatz 27.5.–13.10.1974, ed. by the Regional Council and the former VBK GDR, Karl-Marx-Stadt 1974, No. 16. In 2006 Michael Morgner designed the stained glass windows in the Church of Saint Joseph in Dresden-Pieschen.

 

  1. As early as 9.5.1989 it was stated in the guidelines for the reconstruction measures (“Denkmalpflegerischen Rahmenzielstellung zu Instandhaltungs- und Rekonstruktionsmaßnahmen”) that “both in its specifics and regarding its contemporary design” the glass painting “did not suit the original Art Nouveau design of the stairwell and foyer” (Bauaktenarchiv Stadt Chemnitz, K9087, AZ 93/1284/4/B200).

 

  1. David Schnell in conversation with the author (cf. footnote 7). – Johan Thorn Prikker already drew attention to the tension between original design and finished product and formulated his desire to work directly with the material in a letter to Heinrich Dieckmann in 1921 as follows: “Könnten wir nur selbst schaffen und arbeiten mit Glas oder Mosaiksteinen als Material, wir kriegten dann wohl schöne Sachen heraus. […] Der Entwerfer hat seine Formen wirklich gezeichnet, die Hand lebte während dieser Arbeit. Derjenige[,] der ausführt[,] paust Linien und Formen einfach ab; anders ist es nicht möglich. Jede abgepauste Linie ist selbstredend tot.” (“If we could only work by ourselves and deal with glass and tesserae directly we would be sure to produce something nice. (…) The creator really drew his own design, it was his hand at work. The person (…) who executes the design (…) just copies lines and shapes; there is no other option. Every copied line is naturally dead.” Cited in Til 2011 [op. cit footnote 23], p. 214.)
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