Amherst Windows Subject of New Book

Suzannah Fabing Muspratt, Grace Episcopal, Amherst

ASlant of Light: The StainedGlass Windows of Grace Church, published in December 2022, tells the story of the stained-glass windows at Grace Church in Amherst, Massachusetts. The book calls attention to a remarkable suite of 20 windows whose creator can now be named, thanks to dogged digging in the church’s archives and in the Special Collections at Amherst’s Jones Library. The ledger book of the Building Fund for the church’s construction in 1866 records four payments made to “William Gibson”– one in May, two in July (the building was consecrated on 3 July 1866), and one in November. They total $1,600, a very substantial amount at the time.

An article in the Hampshire Express of 2 August 1866 clinches the case: “Six memorial windows have already been placed in the Church. The glass for these, of what is called ‘the cathedral tone’ was made by Gibson of New York. The windows are of the medallion style, with foliated borders and with emblems in the circle heads. They are noticeable for their brilliancy and for the purity and truth of the designs.” [See Photo 1.]

William Gibson had been trained in 13th-century techniques of glass staining in Scotland, which had been revived to complement Gothic Revival architecture. In this technique clear, colored, or frosted glass was painted with vitreous enamel paint, which was made by mixing ground colored glass, an adhesive such as gum arabic, and water. After the paint dried, the glass pieces were fired at a very high temperature so that the ground glass melted, the adhesive burned away, and the colored glass bonded permanently with the underlying glass substrate. [See Photo 2.] This process made it possible to depict details like hands, feet, faces, and vegetation, which were difficult or impossible to execute in an alternate process that juxtaposed shaped pieces of glass that were uniform in color throughout.

Gibson emigrated from Scotland in 1833 and immediately opened a business in New York City featuring stained glass and other forms of interior decoration. He had only a few competitors. (In later advertisements, Gibson styled himself the “Father of American Stained Glass”.) He initially found little demand for stained glass, however. New England Congregational churches, New York Dutch Reform churches, and Pennsylvania German Reform churches were plain, without ornamentation and with clear glass windows. With few commissions available, his competitors closed their shops and went back to Great Britain.

Gibson continued as an interior decorator, producing stained glass when he could convince a client. He created stained glass for Southern churches, and as the Gothic Revival architectural style began to catch on in the North, received more calls for stained-glass windows there. By the 1860s, Gibson’s firm was at its peak, employing up to 100 workers, although the Civil War caused fewer artists and workers to immigrate from Europe and made materials scarce.

Gibson’s windows at Grace Church almost all employ painted stained glass, though the windows run counter to viewers’ initial expectations. There are few depictions of the human form. There are no scenes of Jesus’ life, the miracles, the parables, or the Crucifixion. [See Photo 3.] Instead, the memorial windows feature symbols, texts, and ribbon mottos related to that individual, and other windows address doctrinal issues. Second, they frequently use “grisaille” work—painting in black, gray, or brown on small diamond-shaped “quarries”— as a background for larger medallions. Similar 13th-century examples are found at Canterbury Cathedral. [See Photo 4.]

Gibson glass is rare today. One documented window survives in New Orleans, LA, and Trinity Church (Episcopal) in Abbeville, SC has a few attributed works. In his 54-year career, Gibson must have had at least a hundred commissions for stained glass, in churches, hotels, theaters, and public buildings. Much of it has apparently been lost to fires, demolition, replacement in favor of later artists like Tiffany and La Farge, or is simply lost-to-memory. Most churches do not know who made their stained glass, and most windows are not signed.

In 1853, Christ Church in Springfield, MA commissioned a window by William Gibson for the building’s new chancel— part of the renovations to accommodate a growing congregation. But just 20 years later, the building was once again too small for the congregation, so it was demolished and replaced by a neoRomanesque building, which eventually became the cathedral for the Episcopal Diocese of Western Massachusetts.

What happened to the cathedral’s Gibson window? Is there any church in the diocese that might have “inherited” a window? Perhaps some of Gibson’s signature techniques in the Grace windows—a rippled border of white glass; a ribbon “snarl” containing text; removing a small dot of vitreous enamel before firing to give circular elements a sense of three-dimensional roundedness—will help identify other Gibson windows hiding in plain sight.

Whether as a result of a conscious decision to preserve, satisfaction with the status quo, or a bit of neglect, Grace Church is blessed with 20 painted stained-glass windows by the “Father of Stained Glass,” William Gibson—a display that is unequalled in America. ♦

Ken Samonds, "A Slant of Light: The Stained Glass Windows of Grace Church" (Amherst, MA: Combray House Books, 2022) is available from Bookshop.org.