Thursday, May 5, 2011

New Hamburg's stained glass treasures


The stained glass windows of St. Nicholas in New Hamburg were created by the artist David Maitland Armstrong, one of the best known artists of his time, especially for his pioneering work in stained glass.

Born in Newburg in 1836, he attended Trinity College in Hartford and studied law in New York. But- he found that what he really wanted to do was create art. Because he came from a family of means, he was able to tour Rome and Paris to study under the best teachers from Italy and New York. For four years, he was the United States consul-general for Italy, resident of Rome. While in Rome, he became friendly with the American artists living there, including sculptor Augustus Saint Gaudens. He began painting at this time, and when he returned to New York around 1875, took studio space in the same building as Saint Gaudens to begin his artistic career in earnest. He befriended the artist John La Farge and the architect Stanford White.

This moment in art in the mid-1880s was transformational. Artists reacted to the industrial revolutions’ mass production, and they wanted to return to hand work and traditional crafts and decorative arts.

Armstrong worked for Louis Comfort Tiffany, who had started experimenting with new forms of glassmaking in the 1870s. By the 1880s the Tiffany Glass Company was the largest producer of stained glass windows in the nation. Specifically, what Tiffany became known for was his variety of shapes, colors, and textures and adding rainbow iridescence. Americans revolutionized the technical process of stained glass window production. These were the first new techniques in stained glass being developed since the Middle Ages; these artists were adding new expressive potential to an ancient art form.

Armstrong’s friend, artist
John La Farge (1835–1910) invented opalescent glass and actually patented the process. Tiffany (1848–1933) also patented variations of the same opalescent process and invented the copper foil method as an alternative to lead, and used it extensively in windows, lamps and other decorations.

The windows at St. Nicks are wonderful examples of this 19th century stained glass revival. Commissioned by William Henry Reese from Maitland Armstrong and Co., the windows cost $410 dollars in 1904 (equivalent to about $23,500 today).

The south altar wall window (above), featuring two doves hovering above a flowering wreath with a Byzantine cross, was given in honor of Laura Suydam Satterlee by Mrs. D.A. Clarkson and installed in 1904. It is one of many examples of Armstrong’s opalescent pieces that have interesting visual effects; their milky, muted colors almost look like watercolors. In this window, the richly colored glass resembles the sky at sunrise.



The church’s main round window, given in remembrance of Rev. John Livingston Reese by Willis Reese and Mrs. Guy Richards, is based on a Byzantine design with a Greek cross in the center. It is remarkable for the graduated range of colors in one piece; how the colors move from shade to light makes the window look as if it is glowing from within. This window is the work of Armstrong probably with the assistance of his daughter, Helen. These windows aren’t signed, so we don’t know for sure. Helen eventually became his principal assistant, carrying on his work in stained glass into the 1940s until her own retirement when she was in her seventies.


If you find yourself in New Hamburg, don't miss these artistic treasures!