Stained glass possesses an aura of mystery and romance. It is the interplay between light and color that sparks the imagination.
It is one of the most unchanged crafts, still taking, as it did centuries ago, time and patience, and an appreciation for color and line design. Stained glass comes in three basic forms today: leaded, art, and faceted. The paint is an oxide of lead — usually black, dark brown, or dark red.
The art-glass form was made popular by Louis C. Tiffany using colored enamels and opalescent glass. The enamels actually change the color of the light but are applied only to the surface of the glass and are fired on as enamels on copper. Often the glass is highly textured to the point of using a three-dimensional glass for the folds of drapery or wings of an angel. The opalescent glass is that glass which is nearly opaque.
It usually looks milky and is held together by lead or copper cames. Faceted windows are made from slabs of glass ranging anywhere from one-half inch to three or four inches in thickness. The legend recounts shipwrecked sailors who set their cooking pots on blocks of natron soda from their cargo then built a fire under it on the beach.
The resultant mass had cooled and hardened into glass. Today, though, it is thought that Pliny — though energetic in collecting material — was not very scientifically reliable. It is more likely that Egyptian or Mesopotamian potters accidentally discovered glass when firing their vessels.
