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.<\/p>\n
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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<\/sup> and early 20th<\/sup> 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\u2019s glass pavilion at the Werkbund-Ausstellung<\/em> (German Association of Craftsmen Exhibition) in Cologne in 1914 was written, \u201cDas bunte Glas zerst\u00f6rt den Hass\u201d (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 \u2013 and so glass became a bearer of utopian ideals once again.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Sacred stained glass in the 20th<\/sup> century<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n 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<\/sup> 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 \u201ca stained glass renaissance\u201d. (4) Also worthy of note are the concrete stained glass windows by Fernand L\u00e9ger for the Church of the Sacred Heart in Audincourt (ca. 1950), and Marc Chagall\u2019s 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\u2019s stained glass windows on the theme of Isaac for the Grossm\u00fcnster in Zurich (2007-2009), Gerhard Richter\u2019s windows for Cologne Cathedral (2007) and also Imi Knoebel\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Pierre Soulages, windows for the Abbey Church of Saint Foy in Conques, 1994<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Pierre Soulages\u2019 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<\/sup> 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\u2019 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. \u201cThis light, that one could call \u2018transmuted\u2019\u201d, according to Pierre Soulages in 1994, \u201chas 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.\u201d (6)<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Imi Knoebel, windows for Reims Cathedral, 2011\/2015<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Significant landmarks in contemporary stained glass, alongside Soulages\u2019 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\u2019s designs for these windows \u2013 which were also exhibited at Kunstsammlungen Chemnitz, where David Schnell encountered them (7) \u2013 are rendered in an equally abstract manner to Gerhard Richter\u2019s for Cologne Cathedral. Knoebel also negates any meaning, for example in the form of a narrative or figuration \u2013 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\u2019s designs are based on the cycle Messerschnitte\/Rot Gelb Blau<\/em> (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.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n With this formal idiom and colour palette Knoebel positions his work in a long-standing tradition of abstract painting in the 20th<\/sup> century, from Kazimir Malevich\u2019s Black Square<\/em> to Piet Mondrian\u2019s 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\u2019s variations on Who\u2019s Afraid of Red, Yellow and Blue<\/em> from the years 1966 to 1970 \u2013 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\u2019s 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 \u201cfreedom pictures\u201d (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)<\/p>\n <\/p>\n David Schnell\u2019s stained glass for sacred spaces, 2009 to 2018<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n 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 Br\u00fclls, 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\u2019s Church Magdeburg; three windows created for Naumburg Cathedral by Neo Rauch (2014). Rauch\u2019s stained glass with the narrative titles Abschied \u2013 Kleiderspende \u2013 Krankenpflege <\/em>(Farewell \u2013 Clothing Donation \u2013 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, G\u00fcnter 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 G\u00fctz by Markus L\u00fcpertz, who had already made stained glass windows for Nevers, Cologne, Coblenz and L\u00fcbeck 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 (Altje\u00dfnitz) and David Schnell (Priorau) have been commissioned, among others.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Friedensfenster<\/em><\/strong> (Peace Window), Church of Saint Thomas (Thomaskirche) Leipzig, 2009-2010<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n 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 <\/em>\u2013 In the beginning was the word) and also David Schnell, who realized the Friedensfenster<\/em> (Peace Window) in the Church of Saint Thomas (Thomaskirche). The churches in Leipzig, where David Schnell had studied at the Hochschule f\u00fcr 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, \u201cswords to ploughshares\u201d (from the 12th<\/sup> 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 \u2013 provided by the Word of God (14) \u2013 for the peace prayers and the passive, non-violent and ultimately successful resistance of many demonstrators in 1989.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n 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\u2019s 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\u2019s 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 \u2013 which would ultimately have been behind the times. At the same time Schnell\u2019s Friedensfenster<\/em> 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<\/sup> and 20th<\/sup> 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 \u2018celebrated\u2019 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.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n 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 \u2013 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 \u2018teetering on the brink\u2019: would everything implode or could the individual elements support each other? The outcome is open-ended and the situation marked by uncertainty \u2013 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\u2019s 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 \u2013 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!<\/p>\n <\/p>\n 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 \u201cswords to ploughshares\u201d. 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. <\/p>\n <\/p>\n 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<\/em> 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<\/em> 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.<\/p>\n <\/strong><\/p>\n Digression: the autonomous stained glass piece Musterfeld<\/em><\/strong> (Pattern Field), 2012<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Working with and in glass bears a certain correspondence with David Schnell\u2019s 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<\/em> 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<\/em> (Pattern Field) in 2012 (Cat. ##). This experimentation with glass reveals Schnell\u2019s 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<\/em> does not merely serve technical perfection, but can undoubtedly be regarded as an autonomous work that transposes Schnell\u2019s artistic concepts in the field of painting and prints to a panel painting consisting of glass and glowing colours.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n The Musterfeld<\/em> 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 \u2018window on the world\u2019 \u2013 a view beyond the exhibition space offered through the imaginary constructed space of the panel picture \u2013 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.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Saint John\u2019s Chapel in<\/strong> Naumburg (Johanneskapelle), 2014-2015<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Having become known as an artist working with stained glass as a result of the Leipzig Friedensfenster<\/em>, David Schnell was invited in 2014 to Naumburg to participate in the exhibition Glanzlichter<\/em> and to make a design for the interior of Saint John\u2019s 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<\/sup> 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.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n At first glance the most notable aspect of the small-format windows in Saint John\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n In view of the small format of the windows, David Schnell did without lead glazing, which he had used in the Leipzig Friedensfenster<\/em>, and only used gluing techniques and etching procedures, as in his piece Musterfeld<\/em> 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.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Christ Church in Cologne (Christuskirche), 2016 – 2018<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n David Schnell\u2019s 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<\/sup> 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.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n For the commission Schnell, who grew up in Cologne, took a careful look at Gerhard Richter\u2019s windows for Cologne Cathedral and Markus L\u00fcpertz\u2019 ones for Saint Andreas. His own task was to design four casement windows \u2013 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 \u201cheighten the sanctity of the space\u201d, 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.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n The designs display parallels to Schnell\u2019s previous window commissions, but can also be distinguished from them. Much more strongly than in Leipzig \u2013 and in a different way to Naumburg \u2013 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. <\/p>\n <\/p>\n 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 \u2013 often of churches \u2013 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)<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Secular stained glass in German museums of the 20th<\/sup> century: D\u00fcsseldorf, Leipzig, Chemnitz<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n 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 \u2013 wrongly \u2013 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. G\u00f6tz.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Johan Thorn Prikker, Museum Kunstpalast, D\u00fcsseldorf, 1925 – 1926<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n 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\u2019s 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\u2019 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<\/em> glass rather than on<\/em> it. (23) At the beginning of the 1920s, when he was a professor at the art academy in D\u00fcsseldorf, 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 D\u00fcsseldorf 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 \u201cproducing an asymmetric-constructive glass composition\u201d. (25) In the stairwell, the shape of the window lights is echoed in the stonework of the architecture. Thorn Prikker\u2019s concept takes into account the entrance hall\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Josef Albers, Grassimuseum, Leipzig, 1926 – 1927<\/strong><\/p>\n In 1926, the same year that Thorn Prikker\u2019s windows were installed in D\u00fcsseldorf, 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\u2019 windows were realised and exhibited at a show about Europ\u00e4ische Kunstgewerbe<\/em> (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\u2019 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\u2019s composition in D\u00fcsseldorf, Albers\u2019 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\u2019 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\u2019 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.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n 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. G\u00f6tz, 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. G\u00f6tz 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 \u2018fire \u2013 earth \u2013 water \u2013 air\u2019 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. G\u00f6tz and the museum director at that time, Susanne Anna, agreed that the artist should make a new design for these now \u2018bare\u2019 windows. K. O. G\u00f6tz 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 K\u00f6the 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. G\u00f6tz 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 \u2013 in spite of their monumentality \u2013 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.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n David Schnell, Splitter<\/em> (Splinters), Kunstsammlungen Chemnitz, 2018<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n The windows by K. O. G\u00f6tz 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. G\u00f6tz\u2019 Art Informel painting in high regard, with its artistic energy combined with aesthetically precise gestural statements, he finds that these explicit qualities have been \u2018subdued\u2019 in the stairwell\u2019s stained glass windows, probably because, like many other artists, K. O. G\u00f6tz had little experience of the potential of modern stained glass. (30) So Schnell preferred to draw his inspiration from G\u00f6tz as a painter, assimilating the latter\u2019s 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\u2019s architecture. Whereas K. O. G\u00f6tz\u2019 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.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n 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\u2019s mind to form a whole. Their immanent dynamic overrides the division into three separate parts. The architectural framework \u2013 window, wall surface, three-dimensional space \u2013 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\u2019s composition is created by gradations of blue from which \u2013 as in the Friedensfenster<\/em> in Leipzig \u2013 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\u2019s 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 \u2013 an important and often used feature in David Schnell\u2019s practice.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n In Splitter<\/em> David Schnell\u2019s recurrent artistic principles are employed along with his experiences with glass as a medium gained since he created his Friedensfenster<\/em> 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<\/em> triptych places him in the same tradition of contemporary abstract artists\u2019 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\u2019s more prominent piece. Here Schnell underscores the sacred character of the museum\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Footnotes<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n\n
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