Saturday, 27 July 2013

Harry Clarke. Details of stained glass windows in Díseart, An Daingean, Co Kerry, Ireland

Harry Clarke was a great Irish stained glass artist who was around between 1889 and 1931. He is well known for the new vibrant style that he brought to stained glass design.  Up until then windows were stuffy and bland (in my opinion!) and followed in a tradition of 'old masters' style figures, where dullish, green colour ranges were all the rage Harry. Clarke introduced bright colours, emotion, quirky patterns and exquisite paintwork. He is by far the best stained glass painter I have ever seen the work of. You can see more of the windows in the series, The Life of Christ here.

It is tricky to take good photos of the whole window, (especially with an iPhone) but if you can get close enough the detailed shots can be ok. All these were from the lower part of the windows. 






 
 I just love this Grisaille paintwork. He drew a lot from life and liked to paint all the little creatures in rock pools, suggestions of these often appear in the backgrounds of his windows.