Colours of Faith: the beginnings of European glass painting

Windows shining with stained glass are inseparable from our image of church interiors in the (not only) medieval West. The exhibition Colours of Faith in thirteen stops will show how this technologically demanding and, because of its fragility, rarely preserved art was born from ancient roots on the threshold of the early Middle Ages, and how it developed over time in Western Europe into breathtaking ensembles such as can still be admired today in the Basilica of Saint-Denis near Paris or in the cathedrals of Chartres and Canterbury. In addition to the craft innovations that accompanied the development of glass painting, the exhibition will also focus on the contemporary interpretations of the specific contents projected into the glowing images and coloured light streams by contemporary theology and faith in general.

The exhibition has been prepared by students of the Department of Art History of the Faculty of Arts of the Masaryk University as part of the Curating in Practice II course under the supervision of Albert Virdis and Jan Klípa.