Prior Issue (Archive)
Painting With Light
Now and Then

Stained glass has been described as painting with light and for this reason to a greater extent than most art forms, stained glass depends upon skilled craftsmanship. Stained glass is unique because of the relationship that exists between the glass and the light which comes through it. The colours and the painting spring to life and change with the sun according to the time of day, the seasons and the weather. Saint John is a city with a profusion of stained glass, not only in its churches but in many of its public and private buildings.

The Saint John Arts Centre located at 20 Hazen Avenue was opened in 1904 as the Saint John Free Public Library. It is one of six buildings still left in Canada which were built by funds donated by Andrew Carnegie. The ceiling of the entrance hall has a magnificent stained glass skylight done in the colours and shapes of the Art Nouveau period.

Other stained glass windows which were in the building were removed when the Library moved to its present location on the second floor of Market Square. Three of those windows now form the back wall of the reading room and another larger window is located in an alcove on the second floor of the Library.

Paul Blaney, a well-known stained glass artist and restorer says, "Stained glass is a form of decoration and a window is an opening that admits light. If you put that together - stained glass is a decorative form of admitting light. Although it should be decorative, it shouldn't just be a pretty picture and it should have some sort of spiritual meaning in a church."

At the end of the Dark Ages, when the boom in church building began, churches and cathedrals came ablaze with the colour of stained glass. No art form took its spiritual role so literally as did this one, whose images were not merely illustrated but were activated through light.

Trinity Anglican Church was rebuilt following the Great Saint John Fire of 1877. Their east window located over the altar is a work of the highest stained glass art. The window was originally made by J. Kempt of London, England. Both the glass and the stonework in which it is set came from England. This windows consists of seven large lights, fifteen feet high which is surmounted by a head of decorated tracery. The subject of the windows is described as "an epitome of Our Lord's life". To fully appreciate the exquisite detail in this window, it is recommended that visitors bring binoculars and be prepared to stay a while as the varying sun angles and intensities make it an ever-changing spectacle.
Also located on Germain Street is St. Andrew St. David United Church. Following the Great Fire the congregation of this church, which was then St. Andrew's, gathered the bricks from the rubble of the hotel that had been next to it to begin its rebuilding. Thus the sides and back of the church are brick while the front is made from local limestone. In 1962 St. Andrew's amalgamated with the congregation of St. David. The windows in the church are a combination of the windows of each church. The large front window faces west.

The Roman Catholic Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception dominates the landscape of Waterloo Street. Its construction was proposed by Bishop Thomas Louis Connolly in 1852 and the exterior was completed and ready for public worship by Christmas 1855. Although the interior was usable, it was definitely not completed there were no seats, no lighting and no heat. But three thousand people attended the celebration of the first Christmas mass held there. The plain glass windows which had been installed for the opening of the Cathedral were replaced by fourteen stained glass windows, all but two of which were manufactured by the famous Munich works. The original windows were reputed to be equal in style, size and quality to any seen anywhere, even in Europe.

The places described are but a small sampling of the locations of stained glass in Saint John. Stained glass is found in the windows of private homes throughout the City and are easily seen while walking. To visit churches, visitors should call in advance. Telephone numbers can be found under Places of Worship in this publication.

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