Ceiling Shapes

Galatina, Puglia, Southern Italy: above, my drawing station on the roof top, below the view I was drawing one hot evening in mid July. The roofs surrounding me across the narrow streets in this historic part of town were full of fascination - lumps, bumps and enclosures to surmount or section off the shapes made by the vaulted ceilings inside the buildings.

sketchbook page, view from drawing station

sketchbook page, standing up to draw the enclosed lump on the roof of the building opposite

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Left, sitting room ceiling: Centre and right, ground floor ceilings.

Inside the house all the rooms had vaulted ceilings, the seams from the corner points not quite joining but forming a circle for a hanging lamp. The one in the sitting room had traces of painting, the unrestored ground floor ceilings were criss-crossed with unexplained wires and bare bulbs, emphasising their stellar shape.

On our journey we stayed at Castello di Semivicoli an incredible castle with the guest bedrooms squeezed in to the spaces on the second floor left by the vaulted ceiling bumps. In the huge first floor rooms the vaulted ceilings are decorated in a different way each time, with subtle paint colours and shaped mouldings. I particularly love the wonky geometry as the central medallion shapes are drawn on to the irregular contours of the ceilings that rise to a flatish plane, suitable for chandelier hanging.

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Circle, octagon and cloud on the ceilings of Castello di Semivicoli.

Enclosures

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Holy City  St. George's, Hanover Square, London:  Old Town my panel from 1985:  Kelmscott Design No. 1  from 2014

Enclosures have turned out to be a major subject matter for me. I am drawn to walled cities, or really representations of walled cities, like the stained glass one I photographed recently (see last blog entry). I found a small glass panel called "Old Town" that I made in 1985 and a glass painting based on Kelmscott Manor in its walls garden from two years ago - these three images, lined up above, have obvious links. 

On my last visit to The National Gallery I was captivated by a large Velasquez painting, an enclosure but just of a piece of ground, no buildings. I realised that it was the actual enclosure that interests me, not only the way that it organises a picture but also what meanings it could have.

"Philip IV Hunting Wild Boar" 1632-7 Diego Velasquez 

In my current work, I have been designing a long thin window which happens to have a series of linked enclosures. I like them to have open points so you can get in and out. I also like them to have straight sides - an oval or a circle makes you feel trapped like the wild boars above. The enclosures in this design are bordered by flower beds rather than walls. They started by containing a string of plums, this went as the design progressed but came back again in the final glass panel. 

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Garden Plums, sketches showing development of the design

Finished window in my studio, 300 x 1300 mm. 

Garden Plums detail: gold and pale green enamel, the textures and colours look great.

The window is on its way to Poland, the third one for the house of my friend & glass artist Frances Federer. Read her entertaining, informative blog about her journeys between England & Poland here

Some of the Best Stained Glass Sites in London

I followed part of the map of the West End in Caroline Swash's recent guide book one morning last week and saw a variety of stained glass sites that were new to me. Three churches, glass panels on the street and one hotel that wouldn't let us in because of a function. It was a great way to spend the morning and good to recognise some of my favourite themes in the work we saw .                                    

Here's how to buy the book

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Inside All Saints, 7 Margaret Street W1W 8JG: East and West ends of the church

All Saints Church, Margaret Street is a richly ornamented brick church by William Butterfield, built and decorated from 1850 until his death in 1900. Particularly good is the combination of different types of lavish decoration - mosaic inlay, painted ceiling and wall panels, tile panels and stained glass windows - working together to create a wonderful interior that has been recently restored. 

One reason why these elements work so well together is that the figures on the walls and windows are all the same size, scale and style. Both the tile panels and the figurative windows are the work of Alexander Gibbs following Butterfield's designs (for the tiles) and specific instructions (for the glass).

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Tile panel opposite window of the Archangels (click on images to enlarge)

Favourite themes emerged during this visit to the first church: model building carried by St. Peter in the tile panel above, and in the stained glass, geometric architectural detail - like building blocks - above the figures.  See details from the window of Saints Katherine and Alban below.

Stained glass in All Saints by Alexander Gibbs 1870s

The second church, St. Peter's Vere Street, is used as offices for the London Institute for Contemporary Christianity. It took a while to get into the building and then we were only allowed to view the window above the alter. All the other Burne-Jones/Morris windows are partly visible through secondary glazing with badly placed bars, office partitions, furniture and people at work (meaning no access). However, the Burne-Jones angels are beautifull in their pink robes, surrounded by a William Morris vine repeat pattern with tendrils and shaded leaves, a variation that I haven't seen before on another of my favourite themes.

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Details from window above the alter in St. Peter's Vere Street, designed by Burne Jones, Morris & Co. 1880

Then on to the street to see exterior glass panels, canopies and screens in new buildings, with whole blocks being rebuilt or refurbished. Alexander Beleschenko's panels in Princes Street (below left) were made in 2004, the workmen were there for another block going up next door. On the CBRE office building on the corner of Henrietta Place and Wimple Street (below right) there is a frieze of model buildings between the first floor windows, a great subject for a decorative scheme in this crowded part of town.

Rushing now to get in and out before a service began, the last church was St. George's Hanover Square, notable for its 16th century Flemish stained glass that was remodelled to fit the windows here by Thomas Willement in the 1840s. However the glass that interested me, the walled city in brown & yellow (two favourite themes in one) is in the side chapel. In her book, Caroline Swash tells you its history and the reason why it looks so new - this is the kind of information I like and so rarely get! 

"In 1926 Sir Arthur's son Reginald Bloomfield made further alterations, adding a side chapel with glass by F.C. Eden. During the Second World War, this was blown out in the bombing of London and later replaced by a copy taken from Eden's original design."

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In The Palms of Your Hands

Wall painting, Cathedral of Saint Benedict, Gualdo Tadino

It's a great thing to see a building carried in somebody's hands, particularly when you are standing in the building depicted - for example the one above the entrance doors of the cathedral in Gualdo Tadino (province of Perugia, shown above).

When I came home I searched through my picture library to find some good versions of buildings in the palms of hands. It's a theme I always look out for, I get a lot of inspiration from architecture in stained glass, the varied ways that windows are shown in stained glass windows. 

Above are depictions of four real buildings: St. Cedd holding the beautiful 7th century Chapel of St. Peter-on-the-Wall, Bradwell-on-Sea, Essex: St. Hilda of Whitby holding the Abbey in Bridget Jones' Kempe restoration at Ripon Cathedral: The Verger's window at Sheffield Cathedral by Christopher Webb: St. Vitus Cathedral, Prague, in one of the Josef Cibulka windows made for the building in the 1930s.

Of course there are also the characters who are recognisable by the fact that they are building carriers. Below, St Barbara with her tower and two versions of Solomon with the first temple in Jerusalem. The painted building in William Peckitt's 1780 York Minster window (below centre), showing the temple literally in the palm of Solomon's hand, I find particularly satisfying.

Most inspirational for me are the depictions of whole towns as entities, the boundary walls holding buildings together on a slice of landscape. We drove around to find a good viewpoint for drawing the Umbrian hill town of Spello, one that would show the shape of the town and the little enclosure at its peak. Fantastic to find a painting in the church showing the whole town so clearly, and one in the gallery showing Spello from our viewpoint changing hands.

Spello from the north in the church: from the south in a painting by Grecchi (c.1610): below, one of my drawings from the south

The British Society Of Master Glass Painters

Here is the programme for the BSMGP discussion day, & details of how to book a late place.     See you there!