This is the French edition of the album about the exhibition Painting with Light.
Henri Focillon wrote that stained-glass windows are “the best invention of the Middle Ages”.
Colourful surface letting through a light seen as divine, even nowadays, it is still quite a mysterious art. The national Middle Ages museum’s collection includes over 200 panels, medallions, and figures and represents a major source for the study of stained-glass from 12th to 14th century.
The stained-glass proceeds from a genuine technical prowess and a high degree of organisation of the artistic production. It is indeed the fruit of an interprofessional collaboration, of which the glass-painters are the last element of the chain.
To produce their monumental glass paintings, the artists get their inspiration from the period painter’s, engravers’ or illuminators’ models.
Stained-glass windows are the expression of luxury in the 12th and 13th century architecture, it only appears in rich private homes at the end of the Middle-Ages. Designed to enhance the homes it decorates,non-religious stained-glass reveals a customized and original iconography.
