Windows

The most striking thing about the stained glass windows at Trinity is the varying styles, techniques, and interpretation. Individual windows, or groups of windows, have dramatically distinct artistic "personalities." But taken together, these windows mark a significant crossroads in the evolution of 19th century stained glass work and represent almost all of the major stained glass studies of the 19th and early 20th centuries.

Traditional European Window Designs
When the church was consecrated in 1877, only one stained glass window - the Baptism window in the chancel made by the London firm of Clayton & Bell - was installed. As was the custom then, the other windows were filled with plain glass until donors stepped forward to fund stained glass replacements. Twenty of the thirty-three openings were commissioned within a year of the church's completion.

The premier English workshops - Burlison & Grylls, Daniel Cottier & Co., Henry Holiday, and Clayton & Bell - received the bulk of the first commissions in 1877 and 1878. The work these companies had done in Anglican churches was known and admired by Rector Phillips Brooks and the Trinity Stained Glass Committee.

But Brooks had an eye for progressive English design as well. Four windows completed in 1882 (including the three with rich green backgrounds on the Boylston Street, or north transept, side) were designed by the English Pre-Raphaelite painter Edward Burne-Jones and executed by William Morris & Co. These contain the unmistakable mannered line and decorative patterning of the flowering English Arts and Crafts Movement.

The cool, bright colors and baroque style of the windows on the John Hancock - or south transept - side of the building may seem almost out of place to some. Ornate French windows like these designed by A. Oudinot of Paris were more typically found in Roman Catholic churches. Speculation is that the donors, the Ritchies, who were living in Paris at the time, gave the commission to a favored French stained glass maker.

A New American Voice: John La Farge
While much of the glass is European, Trinity Church also holds several important examples of John La Farge's groundbreaking stained glass work. La Farge revolutionized stained glass design with his technique of layering opalescent glass. Opalescent glass has a translucent, milky appearance resulting from the suspension of opaque particles within the glass. Its surface may be textured or smooth, and its structure allows different colors to be blended in a single sheer. Opalescent glass had existed for centuries and was commonly used to make containers for toothpowder and other sundries. La Farge was the first to explore its application in stained glass work.

With his experiments in opalescent glass, La Farge was able to create new colored effects, shading, and three-dimensional space, not by the traditional method of painting on glass, but by skillfully arranging pieces of glass in layers, a process called plating. Louis Comfort Tiffany, a rival of La Farge, later incorporated these techniques in his own work.

It has puzzled historians why American John La Farge - who had worked so closely with Brooks and Richardson in the painted decoration of the sanctuary - wasn't given an early window commission. After all, La Farge's first commission, Christ in Majesty of 1883 (the stunning three panel clerestory window with the brilliant turquoise background on the west end of the church), and the La Farge windows that followed - The New Jerusalem, The Resurrection, and The Presentation of the Virgin - are extraordinary, radical in technique, vision, and treatment, and infinitely appropriate for Brooks' ministry and the mission of his parish.

But La Farge didn't patent - or perfect - his use of layered opalescent glass until 1879, and the experiments he had completed at the time Trinity was constructed, including those at Memorial Hall at Harvard, hadn't been particularly successful. But Christ in Majesty demonstrated the brilliant effects that could be achieved by La Farge's technique of layering up to eight sheets of different types, colors, and magnitudes of glass. It is believed that The New Jerusalem window contains virtually every kind of glass La Farge ever used - including pressed jewels, confetti glass, and opalescent glass - a stained-glass tour de force.

A Hometown Voice: Sarah Wyman Whitman
The array of genius isn't limited to these international superstars. Two extraordinary windows - now in the Angel Room of the Parish House - were donated and designed by Sarah Wyman Whitman, a prolific Boston artist, good friend of Phillips Brooks, and teacher of the Women's Bible Study class for more than 30 years.