The Story of St. Michael’s Stained Glass Windows
This article was researched and written by Polly Grover for “The Parish Window” March 1997. The architectural features of St. Michael Church are widely admired and photographed. In the following article, Polly Grover writes of one of those features – the beautiful stained glass windows – identifying the subjects of the windows as well as describing the artistry and tradition of stained glass.
Although colored glass was used in windows even before the time of Christ, its employment in Christian churches secured the future of stained glass and fostered its development as a decorative art. The use of stained glass was as much spiritual as aesthetic. In Greece, we are told that God’s first words were, “Let there be light”. Christ twice describes himself as the light of the world. Thus a material that, besides being functional, also played a decorative role and admitted light to the interior of a place of worship was assured success. As early as the 4th century A.D., the Spanish poet Pruidentis admiringly described the “glass in coulours without number” that he saw in the basilicas in Constantinople. The 13th century Chartres Cathedral boasts of 165 windows.
It is interesting to note that in the second half of the 16th century, stained glass entered its own dark age, due to religious change. Church statues and decorations were thought to detract from the spirituality of God. The Reformation reduced demand for imagery in churches and Bishop of Winchester ordered the removal of “crosses and such lyke fylthie stuffe.” Stained glass windows were removed in the name of “Revolutionary Reason.” Gothic and Renaissance revivals in the 18th and 19th centuries restored the art form.
The present St. Michael Church had ten stained glass clerestory windows when it was dedicated in 1918. Today it has 24 windows, all donated by members of the parish, depicting the Holy Family, saints, and symbols of Christianity.
Depicted in Renaissance style, the figures are naturalistic portrayals done in pieces of stained glass leaded together and finished with ceramic glazing. The artist etches through the glazing the depict folds in clothing, shadows, and features of faces and hands. The figures stand on three-dimensional tiles, and are flanked by pillars decorated with acanthus leaves. Overseeing the figures in the larger clerestory windows are angel faces.
The windows of St. Michael also contain symbols that came to represent saints by the time of the Renaissance, such as the key of St. Peter, the sword of St. Michael, or the lion of St. Mark. A scroll or book would be carried by a scribe, teacher, or founder of a religious order. The chaste carry a lily, the martyrs bear the palm. All saints have a nimbus, a luminous shape all around the head. Christ’s nimbus is inscribed with a cross.
The majority of windows at St. Michael were done by the Church Art Glass Studio of San Francisco, which has designed windows for the churches on the West Coast and Hawaii since the turn of the century. The original owner, Edward Lopolka, advertised as “artists in stained glass, German and English antique.” The business was sold in the 1940’s to the father of Nick Lukas, who continues to operate the business in the shadow of the 280 freeway. Both Nick and his father graduated from art school and have collaborated with dozens of church parishes to design windows pleasing to the architecture of the church and to the wishes of the congregation.
Two windows at St. Michael depicting Jesus show contrasting styles of the Studio’s work. The window to the left of the main entrance (21 on the sketch) shows Jesus in a naturalistic setting. It was installed soon after the church was built. The other window, in the stairway to the right (22 on the sketch), is done in a contemporary style with radiating sheets of glass suggesting the Resurrection. Installed in the 1980’s, it is signed by Mr. Lucas.
No photograph can do justice to the windows when seen with the early morning or late afternoon light streaming into a darkened interior. St. Michael is fortunate in having such treasures as the windows and the generosity of the donors.