Contemporary Stained Glass: A Portfolio of Canadian Work

G.J. Daniel was a Toronto-based engineer.

The objectives of this book are to present a cross-section of contemporary Canadian stained glass works, to introduce the artists, and thus to allow comparison with works from elsewhere in the world. While the book achieves the first two objectives, it is short on comparisons. This deficiency is slight, however, since the range of works presented covers the whole modern concept of glass as art, and the authors show that stained glass work in Canada has taken on a refreshing vitality, full of wit and style.

The authors are a complementary pair; one is a glass artist and the other a photographer and journalist. Their strengths are well presented. Interviews with the artists are direct, relevant, and often revealing; photographs catch the character of the works and the contribution to their surroundings. A few close-ups illustrating technical aspects would have been useful because, as the survey reveals, there are designers and also technicians at work here.

A wide variety of artists is presented, men and women working from coast to coast and with widely divergent approaches to the medium.

The artists range from devotees of the fine arts to masters of applied art. This theme runs throughout the book — the idea of glass as a canvas and glass as architecture, or innovation and tradition, art and craft, artist and artisan, designer and technician, form and function. The only common trait among the artists is a dislike of figurative work. The disparate themes are left for the reader to resolve. After all, the artist “paints” for himself and the mechanistic aspects of stained glass work can provide as much satisfaction as the artistic.

While it is true that stained glass has been around for hundreds of years, it is becoming more apparent that technical prowess and design ingenuity have led to the emergence of a modern medium that is expressive and exciting. The authors present a wonderful work that sets a mark of the progress made in Canadian art.