Father Pitt

Tag: Stained Glass

  • Alumnae Memorial Window, Chatham University

    A window by Louis Comfort Tiffany, donated to the Pennsylvania Female College (now Chatham) in 1888. The figure is taken from Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel ceiling: the Erythraean Sibyl, “here transformed into a symbol for women’s education,” as a plaque nearby says. This was an early work of Tiffany’s, believed to be his earliest in the Pittsburgh area. It was put away in about 1930 and sat in storage for seventy years, because who needed a window by Tiffany? In 2000 it was finally brought out of storage—old Pa Pitt imagines a janitor starting the ball rolling by saying, “Hey, can we get this thing out of the way?”—and restored for a place in the science building.

    Note that Shakespeare’s name appears twice in the pantheon of great figures every young lady should know. No one else gets that honor, and—though Shakespeare certainly is worth twice as much as any of the others to an English-speaking college student—one wonders who specified the duplication, or even whether it was intentional.

  • Arts-and-Crafts Storefront, Mount Oliver

    212 Brownsville Road

    This tiny building has a simple but rich front; we suspect that the projecting roof was originally covered with green tile, which would have set off the Arts-and-Crafts stained glass even more.

  • Domestic Stained Glass on the South Side

    Stained glass in a parlor window

    Parlor windows and transoms over the front door are often decorated with stained glass. Old Pa Pitt has been out wandering the South Side in the evening to bring back a few pictures of stained glass the way it was meant to be seen.

    Transom
    Parlor window
    Parlor window
    Parlor window
    Address
    Address
    Transom
    Address

  • Domestic Stained Glass in Beechview

    A stained-glass window in an early-twentieth-century house in Beechview. Stained glass like this was especially popular between about 1890 and 1920, just when the streetcar suburbs that later became city neighborhoods were mushrooming. These windows are often stolen if the house is vacant for a while, but even so thousands still decorate houses all around the city.

  • Domestic Stained Glass in Shadyside

    Stained glass in the Brayton Apartments

    Some stained glass illuminated from the inside. Above: over the entrance to the Brayton apartments.

    Parlor window

    In a parlor window.

    Apartment building on Negley Avenue

    The entrance to a Tudor apartment building on Negley Avenue at Walnut Street.

  • Trinity Window in Trinity Episcopal Cathedral

    Trinity window

    The large window at the rear of the cathedral. At the apex is the Shield of Faith, the emblem of the Trinity. In the center is Christ ascending, with the legend “He is the King of Glory.” Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John watch and record, each with his traditional symbol (man, lion, ox, eagle).

  • A Dim Religious Light

    Interior of Heinz Chapel

    But let my due feet never fail
    To walk the studious cloister’s pale,
    And love the high embowed roof,
    With antique pillars massy proof,
    And storied windows richly dight,
    Casting a dim religious light.
    There let the pealing organ blow,
    To the full-voic’d quire below,
    In service high, and anthems clear,
    As may with sweetness, through mine ear,
    Dissolve me into ecstasies,
    And bring all Heav’n before mine eyes.

    ——Milton, Il Penseroso.

    It is difficult to convey in a photograph the impression we get from entering a glorious Gothic church like Heinz Chapel. In general photographs are too light, either because the photographers laudably attempted to capture the many artistic details of the Gothic interior, or because they used automatic exposure and let their cameras do the thinking. Old Pa Pitt has tried very hard in these pictures to give some impression of the relative lighting as we enter the chapel from the bright light outside. Most of the light is dim, but a pool of light shines in the distance, drawing us toward the altar.

    Toward the altar
    Toward the rear

    No matter how bright it may be outside, turning to leave the church is walking away from the light.

  • Two Parlor Windows from the South Side

    In a Victorian rowhouse, the parlor window—the ground-floor window facing the street—was an opportunity for the homeowners to display their taste and, even more important, their ability to pay skilled craftsmen to decorate their houses with woodwork and stained or leaded glass. Above, even the masonry is incised with decorative patterns.

  • Art Nouveau Stained Glass on Carson Street

    The Art Nouveau style never made much headway in Pittsburgh, but there are a few examples of ornamentation in a style that deserves that name—especially stained glass, which lends itself to the kind of abstraction we associate with Art Nouveau. This window is in a storefront near the Birmingham Bridge.

  • Fortune and Her Wheel

    This window by the celebrated stained-glass master John La Farge looks out over the lobby of the Frick Building. The metaphor of Fortune’s wheel is an odd one for a self-made gazillionaire to choose: Henry Frick was not known for his modesty, and yet the message seems to be that he was just lucky rather than clever.