Art of Light – German Renaissance Stained Glass (National Gallery London)

This book introduces a group of sixteenth-century stained glass panels from the Victoria & Albert Museum, London together with German paintings of the same period from the National Gallery.
By the first half of the sixteenth century in Germany, stained glass, whether maid for religious or secular purposes, had reached astonishing heights of sophistication, both in concept and in execution. Glass panels of this period display imagery and visual approaches similar to the painted panels with which they frequently formed ensemble pieces in churches - and increasingly, during the early part of the century, were made by the same designers. The comparison of works in paint and in glass illuminates the stylistic and compositional similarities between the two, and reminds us that at this time, the relationship between artist and craftsman, between 'fine' and decorative arts, was more intimate, and less clearly differentiated, than we may think.

Susan Foister is Director of Collections and Curator of Early Netherlandish, German, and British Paintings at the National Gallery, London. She is author of Holbein and England and Durer and the Virgin in the Garden and co-author of Making and Meaning: Holbein's Ambassadors and Durer to Veronese, all distributed by Yale.