Brian Clarke R.I.P.

Renowned stained-glass artist, Brian Clarke, died on July 1, 2025 at the age of 71. In my Church Times review of “Brian Clarke: A Great Light” at Newport Street Gallery in 2023, I wrote that: 

'I FIRST encountered the work of Brian Clarke at the Swiss Museum of Stained Glass at Romont. I visited the Museum as part of my Sabbatical Art Pilgrimage and discovered that work by Clarke and another stained-glass artist, Yoki — neither of whom was previously known to me — could be seen in the town, as well as at the Museum.

The Cistercian Abbaye de la Fille-Dieu on the edge of Romont commissioned Clarke in 1996 to create windows for its renovated and reordered chapel. Clarke says that stained glass “can transform the way you feel when you enter a building in a way that nothing else can”. I would concur, especially after arriving at l’Abbaye de la Fille Dieu in time for a memorable service of vespers, followed by silent contemplation in the still onset of darkness falling. Clarke’s modern, abstract windows were designed to unify fragments retained from previous phases of the building’s life and offer both nuns and visitors a “warm and vibrant atmosphere”, which is “conducive to meditation and prayer”.'

Church commissions helped establish Clarke as a stained-glass artist in the early stages of his career, and later works, such as those at Abbaye de la Fille-Dieu and Linköping Cathedral, Sweden, confirmed his ability to bring together technical skill, creative vision and sensitivity to place. His engagement with aspects of spirituality and contemplation also appeared in his work for secular spaces.

He said: "I think there is an extremely powerful argument to be made today for art to actually bring beauty and something of the sublime into the banality of mundane experience. So often now, art is limiting of that kind of encounter. I believe people respond to beauty both in nature and in art. When it involves the passage of light, it is uplifting in a way that is incomparable".

Read my review here and my visit report to Abbaye de la Fille-Dieu here.

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The Trees Community - Psalm 45.

10 best places for reflection

In today's Observer Aaron Rosen chooses his 10 best places for reflection. From Reykjavik to Tate Modern, he looks at spaces to inspire contemplation during Lent.

Aaron has some great choices but his choices are clearly intended to prompt reflection among his readers on the choices they would make, so here is my top 10:

l’Abbaye de la Fille Dieu, Romont

Brian Clarke says that stained glass ‘can transform the way you feel when you enter abuilding in a way that nothing else can!’ I would concur, especially after arriving at l’Abbaye de la Fille Dieu in time for a memorable service of Vespers followed by silent contemplation in the still onset of darkness falling.Tomas Mikulas, the architect on the restoration of this Cistercian Abbey, has stated that the overall goal of the restoration was to offer both nuns and visitors an ‘atmosphere conducive to meditation and prayer.’ Mikulas suggests that it is the ‘warm and vibrant atmosphere’ created by Clarke’s windows ‘with the changing light of day’ that ‘makes a decisive contribution’ to the space and to the restoration as a whole.

Chapelle Sainte-Thérèse-de-l'Enfant-Jésus et de laSainte-Face, Hem

Alfred Manessier was a lyrical abstractionist who thought of stained glass less as a design than as “the simultaneous creation of a light-filled architectural unit, thought-out and created by the painter at one go.” In this way he wanted "to express man’s inner prayer.” Chapelle Sainte-Thérèse-de-l'Enfant-Jésus et de laSainte-Face in Hem is an attempt to create spiritual space - a sense of prayer and a glimpse of heaven – through the play of light and colour within the building.

Retreat House Pleshey

Pleshey was the first Diocesan Retreat House to be established in the country. Amongst the list of Retreat conductors is Evelyn Underhill. Arguably the most distinguished Conductor of that time, it is largely due to Underhill that the Retreat house became so popular. When you come to the Retreat House in Pleshey you sense an atmosphere created by six hundred years of prayer. For me, it is a special place because of ordination and cell group retreats.

Worth Abbey

Down dimly-lit stairwells / into a cavernous immensity / of curved brick, concrete and darkness / to stand still, transfixed, / in silent expanse / focused on the glow / and gleam / of the white stone table / over which / the crucified Christ hangs / from concrete cross-beams. / Morning light softly infiltrates, / casting shadows, / bringing the dawn ... The space and acoustic / act and appear as /
the inside of a hi-fi speaker; / the lantern, like an industrial chimney, / funnels the aromatic incense /
of prayer and praise / to tease and to please / the senses of God.

St Benet's Chapel

Adam Kossowski's murals at St Benet's Chapel fill the entire wallspace of this circular chapel surrounding and enveloping worshippers with their imagery. When services are held, however, the altar table is located in front of the panel depicting worship in heaven of the lamb that was slain. In this way, worship on earth is conducted in the context of worship in heaven. This work is about rescue, redemption and salvation. Fr. Edward Maguire has written, 'From clay and fire he forged a vision of the past, present and future to lift up and inspire countless others ... May we be inspired by him to use our gifts as he used his."

Notre-Dame du Bon Conseil, Lourtier

Lourtier is to be found among the imposing alpine architecture of snow-capped peaks in the Val de Bagnes, one of Switzerland's largest nature reserves. I arrived at the end of the afternoon to find the mountain sunshine flooding the empty church. Alberto Sartoris’ design for Notre-Dame du Bon Conseil is clean, spare and minimalist. Internally, the church is a simple white rectangle with a sleek arched wooden roof. Both the ceiling’s planks and the grey-painted wooden pews draw the eye to the sanctuary wall containing two large stained glass windows by Albert Gaeng. The triumph of Lourtier is an influential design coupled with a dramatically beautiful building that is well suited to the liturgy and well used by its people.

The Crypt of Colònia Güell

The Crypt of Colònia Güell is a warm, womb-like enclosure; intimate yet archetypal. It is real and usable communal space while also being of great architectural worth, innovation and beauty. Here the ‘heaven in ordinarie’ of the Eucharist is celebrated in the surround of natural forms recreated by man-made means. 'Gaudí based his buildings on a simple premise: If nature is the work of God, and if architectural forms are derived from nature, then the best way to honor God is to design buildings based on his work. As the Barcelona scholar Joan Bassegoda Nonell notes, "Gaudí's famous phrase, 'originality is returning to the origin,' means that the origin of all things is nature, created by God."'

Chapelle du Rosaire, Vence

‘Simple colours,’ Henri Matisse wrote, ‘can affect the innermost feelings, their impact being all the more forceful through their simplicity.’ The spiritual expression of the blues, greens and yellows he used in the stained glass of the chapel struck him as unquestionable. His goal ‘was to find a balance between a light surface and colour with a solid wall of black-on-white line drawing.’ The line drawings on ceramic tiles of both St Dominic and the Virgin and Child he thought to have a ‘tranquil reverent nature all their own,’ while the great drama of Christ in the Stations of the Cross had made ‘his impassioned spirit overflow within the Chapel.’

Musée Chagall, Nice

On entering the rooms of the Message Biblique - first the room of Genesis and Exodus, then the Song of Songs - one is struck by the colours of the works before their content. Chagall viewed painting as the reflection of his inner self and therefore colour contained his character and message. In his museum inauguration speech he said, ‘If all life moves inevitably towards its end, then we must, during our own, colour it with our colours of love and hope.’ These are paintings which seek to dream by their colours and lines an ideal of fraternity and love. To be surrounded by these massive statements demonstrating - through content and construction - the potential of religion for reconciliation, was a wonderful and moving experience.

St Stephen Walbrook

A stunning blend of old and new art and architecture is to be found at St Stephen Walbrook, Sir Christopher Wren’s masterpiece. Bombed in the Second World War and restored to its present magnificent state in 1981, twentieth century artists and craftsmen have adorned its interior. Henry Moore’s travertine marble altar now stands at the centre under Wren’s dome surrounded by dazzling kneelers from Patrick Heron. Moore’s altar design was intended for people to gather as a community around the altar where God could be found at the centre. Currently contemplation is aided by 'Lamentation for the Forsaken, 2016’, a digital art installation by Michael Takeo Magruder which evokes the memory of Syrians who have passed away in the present conflict by weaving their names and images into a contemporary Shroud of Turin.

What would your 10 choices be?

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Lavine Hudson - Flesh Of My Flesh.

Sabbatical art pilgrimage: Abbaye de la Fille-Dieu, Romont

Brian Clarke says that stained glass ‘can transform the way you feel when you enter abuilding in a way that nothing else can!’

I would concur, especially after arriving at l’Abbaye de la Fille Dieu in time for a memorable service of Vespers followed by silent contemplation in the still onset of darkness falling. Tomas Mikulas, the architect on the restoration of this Cistercian Abbey, has stated that the overall goal of the restoration was to offer both nuns and visitors an ‘atmosphere conducive to meditation and prayer.’  Mikulas suggests that it is the ‘warm and vibrant atmosphere’ created by Clarke’s windows ‘with the changing light of day’ that ‘makes a decisive contribution’ to the space and to the restoration as a whole.

Being unable to take photographs during the service or in the silence which followed I returned the next day and therefore experienced the space both in the fading light of eventide and in the blaze of the early morning’s sunshine. As a result, I was able to experience at first hand the transformation of which Clarke speaks in the changing light of the building that Mikulas describes.

There are several reasons why this is a surprising outcome in this context. First, as Charlotte Cripps has written, early on in his career Clarke realised that he had to ‘shake off the ecclesiastical image’ of stained glass ‘if he was going to make any impact in the medium’: ‘When I started working in the medium of stained glass, it was a dying art. I knew from a very early age that the future of the medium would only be assured if it had an application in public buildings and was not limited to ecclesiastical architecture. I looked for opportunities in all kinds of public buildings and declined opportunities in the church. I fought for that and continue to fight for that. It's a lifelong pilgrimage’.

Instead, since the early 1970s, Clarke has: ‘worked on over two hundred stained glass projects in collaboration with some of the world’s most prominent architects and artists. Some of Clarke’s most notable “art-in-architecture” projects include: ... the stained glass and painting for Apax Partners Headquarters in London, UK; stained glass for the Pyramid of Peace in Astana, Kazakhstan (with Foster and Partners); the design for the Great South Window at Ascot’s New Grandstand in Ascot, UK; the façade for Pfizer Inc. in New York, USA; a suite of 26 stained glass and mosaic ceilings for Norte Shopping in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil; and the design for stained glass in Chep Lap Kok Airport (with Foster and Partners) in Hong Kong, China’.

Not only then do we have an artist who has actively declined ecclesiastical commissions but within the Abbey a group of nuns actively opposed Clarke’s designs on the basis that they were too colourful for a Cistercian chapel. This group was concerned that the strong presence of the windows would overpower the building and that the colour of the windows would reduce the visibility of the murals (dating from the fourteenth, fifteenth and sixteenth centuries) which have been preserved through the restoration.

Mikulas insisted on Clarke and was supported by the Abbess, Mother Hortense Berthet, who ‘loved and encouraged’ the stained glass project. Mikulas writes that she was always far-sighted and, where others could be entrenched behind their ‘achievements and habits,’ she would always ‘promote and encourage projects and renewal’. In this instance, the choice of the artist was not made ​​on the basis of a competition but began with visits that the nuns had with various artists. Alongside these contacts, the nuns were accompanied by a small working group, consisting of two architects (A. Page, T. Mikulas), Stefan Trümpler from the Vitrocentre Romont and Canon Gerard Pfulg from Freiburg.

The restoration work here, including Clarke’s windows, provides an object lesson in such projects due to the depth of understanding of the history and context developed by Mikulas, initially in a thesis written in 1986, and the sensitivity of both his designs and their realisation. Mikulas has written about the restoration in terms of the significance of the site, the complexity of the issues involved and the human encounters it has spawned. For him it has been a creative and human adventure; one involving listening, collaboration and perseverance in the service of a historic monument and a contemporary community of nuns. Ultimately, this has meant searching for the presence of Christ and the acceptance of others in the great Cistercian Trappist tradition.

Mikulus sought to work within the framework provided by the Venice Charter of 1964. His overall goal was the creation of a new and coherent building which was respectful of the buildings’ history while also servicing its use as a place of worship. The concept Mikulas developed was therefore based on several key assumptions which seek to balance contemporary use with past history. These included:

• history seen as a process in time which cannot be fixed in a particular period in the life of a building; 
• restoration involves choices because it is not possible to fully conservation all contributions which have been made to a building throughout the course of its history; 
• the cultural function of the building (in this case, worship) affects its architectural treatment and the choices made during restoration; 
• a building is not only an historical story in stone but also evidence of creative artistic design in the choices made by earlier generations; and 
• restoration will therefore engage more with some layers of the history of the building than others, and will always result in a new and original condition for the building. 

In the end the view which prevailed was that modern windows could bring a new dimension to the building which could unify the fragments retained from previous phases of the building’s life, in particular to showcase the murals from the fourteen, fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, while also ensuring optimal lighting conditions for the building’s liturgical uses. Clarke’s ‘practice is built upon using light to explore the essential link between art and architecture’, so the composition of the windows aims to ‘recognize the spatial and formal structure of the building, its rhythms, its highlights.’ Clarke has used richly textured opaque glass painted with either ceramic or matte paint and often acid etched to create diffuse effects even in low or artificial light.

The windows use a regular grid of consistent colours over which more amorphous, fluid coloured shapes are placed. The dynamic contrasts that derive from this superimposition are inspired by the natural world where, Clarke suggests, we find many examples; ivy leaves on a trellis, birds flying against a background of buildings, spilt water on a pavement. When these juxtapositions occur, the grid is dramatized, the free forms take their place and an amazing balance is created. The oculus reverses this format with a grid on plain glass superimposed by a dove form. The non-figurative design of each window has been considered not only as its own design but also as ‘part of an overall composition, with its own highlights, axis and rhythm. Trümpler has written that the colour of the windows refers to the path of movement of the sun, ‘from the mystical and blue morning in the sanctuary, to warm tones in the nave’ later in the day. In this way, the stained glass creates ‘an atmosphere of a highly relevant "spiritual" nature’.

Clarke is part of a significant movement within contemporary ecclesiastical commissions involving the commissioning of abstract windows which create shafts of ever-changing colour that fall within the space to provide a atmosphere which is mystical and spiritual. This move from storytelling in stained glass by means of narrative figuration (the Biblia pauperum, exemplified in the twentieth century by the figurative windows of Marc Chagall) to the creation of spiritual space using abstract colour (as pioneered by Jean Bazaine and Alfred Manessier) has occurred, primarily, in France. The concept of stained glass architecture - of a light-filled architectural unit – that we find, for example, in the baptistery at Sacré-Cœur in Audincourt or the Chapelle Sainte-Thérèse-de-l'Enfant-Jésus et de la Sainte-Face in Hem is an attempt to create spiritual space - a sense of prayer and a glimpse of heaven – through the play of light and colour within the building. In the past churches were centres for the drama of the visual - the drama and spectacle of the liturgy combined with the visual narrative of scripture in stained glass. Now people find their visual stimulation elsewhere - through the media primarily – and, as a result, churches have become centres for the opposite of visual stimulation e.g. centres of visual contemplation, where narrative is less essential than ambience and atmosphere.

At Vespers in l’Abbaye de la Fille Dieu there was a powerful sense of being caught up in a heavenly space and the great corporate song of heaven as the wondrous harmonies of unified plainsong responses combined with the mystical light of Clarke’s windows.

Since l’Abbaye de la Fille Dieu Clarke has taken on other ecclesiastical commissions at Linköping Cathedral, Sweden, and the Papal Chapel at the Apostolic Nunciature, London. He say, ‘Now I'm able to call the shots more. Churches only call on me if they want me to do something challenging and exciting. As a consequence, with a long history behind me of substantial secular and public works, I feel now that I can re-engage occasionally, working in the church and giving it my best on a level that it deserves and I demand’. Additionally, by commissioning an artist like Clarke who understands stained glass and ecclesiastical contexts but does not profess a faith himself, the Church is continuing the tradition begun by Marie-Alain Couturier and Walter Hussey of commissioning contemporary ‘masters’.

Stained glass can transform the way we feel when we enter a building like l‘Abbaye de la Fille Dieu is, as Clarke has said, because of the sense of beauty and sublimity that such art brings: "I think there is an extremely powerful argument to be made today for art to actually bring beauty and something of the sublime into the banality of mundane experience. So often now, art is limiting of that kind of encounter. I believe people respond to beauty both in nature and in art. When it involves the passage of light, it is uplifting in a way that is incomparable".

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Elbow - This Blue World.

Sabbatical art pilgrimage: Europe - Highlights

Before beginning to post about the sites I visited as part of European stage of my sabbatical art pilgrimage, here are some images from the sites which were highlights for me.

Chapelle Sainte-Thérèse-de-l'Enfant-Jésus et de la Sainte-Face

Basilique Notre-Dame d'Espérance

Notre Dame du Raincy

Musée départemental Maurice Denis

Metz Cathedral

Chapelle Notre-Dame-du-Haut

Monastery Saint-Claire

Sacré Cœur d'Audincourt

Saint-Pierre de Fribourg

Abbaye de la Fille-Dieu

Saint Nicolas Semsales

Saint-Paul Grange-Canal

Notre Dame du Bon-Secours

Basilica Saint François de Sales

Notre-Dame de Toute Grâce du Plateau d'Assy

Notre-Dame des Alpes

Convent of La Tourette

Sint Martinuskerk

Eglise de Saint-Jean-Baptiste

Chapel of Light, Eglise de Saint-Jean-Baptiste

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Delaney and Bonnie - When The Battle Is Over.

Sabbatical art pilgrimage: Europe - Days 5 - 7

The Swiss stage of the European leg of my Sabbatical art pilgrimage began in Tavennes where l'Eglise Christ-Roi was decorated by members of the Saint Luc Group founded by Alexandre Cingria which worked with Maurice Denus and Gino Severini, among others. See http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tavannes. Saint Pierre in Fribourg has wonderful decorations by Gino Severini, including a magnificent mosaic as an altarpiece. See http://www.cath.ch/detail/la-paroisse-saint-pierre-de-fribourg-f%C3%AAte-ses-125-ans. Romont has a local stained glass art trail which includes Collegiale Notre-Dame de  l'Assomption with contemporary and past works. See http://www.romontregion.ch/mobile/en/page.cfm/stiftskirche-notre-dame-assomption. The town also has a wonderful museum of Swiss stained glass which includes designs and work by the Saint Luc Group as Romont was home to Alexandre Cingria. See http://www.vitromusee.ch/en/vitromusee/whats-on.html. While at the museum I discovered that the local Cistercian monastry had commissioned contemporary stained glass for their chapel,  I ended the day with a haunting service of Vespers at l'Abbeye de la Fille Dieu.

I began Saturday by returning to l'Abbeye de la Fille Dieu to photograph the windo2s by Brian Clarke. See http://www.fille-dieu.ch/. Next was another stop on the stained glass trail around Romont, this time the Chapelle de Notre Dame de l'Epine to see windows by Jean Bazaine. See  http://www.romontregion.ch/mobile/fr/page.cfm/chapelle-notre-dame-epine. En route to Geneva I stopped at St Nicholas Semsales which has decorations by Gino Severini and Alexandre Cingria, among others. See http://www.upstdenis.ch/semsales/lieux-de-culte-de-la-paroisse/un-tresor-artistique. In Geneva I visited Saint Paul Grange Canal where Maurice Denis was artistic director and where he worked for the first time with some of the artists that would go on to form the Saint Luc Group. See http://www.cath-ge.ch/en/paroisse-saint-paul/. I ended the day at Notre Dame du Bon Secour, a futurist church built by Alberto Sartoris in Lourtier in 1932. Some have seen this church as a precursor to Le Corbusier's chapel at Ronchamp. See http://ija.cgpublisher.com/product/pub.85/prod.803.

Today began with Mass at the church in Lourtier before then driving to Thonon-les-Bains where I met Marleen Hengelar-Rookmaaker from the ArtWay website, who showed me Basilique Saint-Francois-de-Sales, the last church to be decorated by Maurice Denis. See http://fr.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basilique_Saint-Fran%C3%A7ois-de-Sales_de_Thonon-les-Bains. Marleen also took me to see Notre-Dame du Leman, a church built by Maurice Novarina who played a significant role in the revival of sacred art in France. This was his first church. See http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maurice_Novarina.