Poets and Writers

1973 – Washington National Cathedral – Nave, South Main Acrcade, Bay 3

Most notable in this window is its bold, striking color scheme. The reds, purples and greens create a mysterious atmosphere that stirs emotion, and these darker colors are punctuated by flashes of light. Jewels of Lightsays that “the color palette is arranged so that it will blaze at noon in winter, but smolder mysteriously during the rest of the year.” This window highlights another facet of stained glass that Rowan has studied in depth: how the season and time of day change the character of the colors in a window. In the video clip below you can hear Rowan discuss what makes a great window.

What Makes a Geat Window

Iconography

Addressing the larger theme of writers and poets, this window celebrates three consequential writers representing the three major Christian streams of thought, Eastern Orthodoxy, Roman Catholicism and Protestantism. In the left lancet we see the Patriarch of Constantinople, John Chrystostom, an Early Church Father and a prolific, influential preacher, writer and liturgist. Dante Alighieri, the 14th-century author who produced the long narrative masterpiece known as The Divine Comedy,is commemorated in the center lancet. He is shown looking up toward his guide through the afterlife, Beatrice. Above Beatrice is Christ, who illumines the work of all three authors. The figure In the quatrefoil above Christ appears to be David, the poet and songwriter par excellence of the Old Testament, playing his harp. In the right lancet is John Milton, the 17th-century author best known for his epic poem Paradise Lost. Behind Milton is a representation of St. Bride’s Church in London, where he was a parishioner, and below him the devil, his protagonist in Paradise Lost. In the quatrefoil above the right lancet are apples; Milton in his poem is credited with being the first to identify the forbidden fruit as the apple.