Here belatedly are two cartoons – nary a drop of color anywhere.

The first, St Anthony the Great is for one of his clerestory windows at Rosemont. The second St Radulf of Bourges is for a location unknown to me.  While St Anthony has the usual emblems dashed about on the sketch, St Radulf (or Rodolphe or Raoul), as obscure a saint as I have ever come across, has nothing save his initial. It’s as lovely a stained glass cartoon as I have ever seen and I only wish I knew where the window was ( or even if it was ever executed). St Radulf, born ca 800 was archbishop of Bourges. He died in 866.

[If you click on the thumbnails they will expand.]

Sometimes they are not.

Here are examples (one from my previous post on Henry Wynd Young, one by d’Ogries and a third by Bolton Morris) of three church artists’ take on St Dunstan, patron saint of church artists. As I mentioned previously there is a genealogy, and an inheritance, passed from one teacher to the next and Young, d’Ogries, and my mentor Bolton Morris were in a direct line of descent. For more of Morris’ work see: http://boltonmorris.wordpress.com/

How does one make comparisions? First d’Ogries’ take  is more elegant (and he used the charming tongs as an emblem wherewith he caught the devil’s nose!)  while Young’s drawing is more conventional.  Yet, for all d’Ogries’ interest in modern art (and he surely was interested in it), Young’s color is much more abstract in this example. Morris then (though this is merely a woodcut and not an example of his glass) moves on fully in the vein of abstract art that made d’Ogries jealous as he wanted to work in a fully modern vein, yet was constrained by his clients to “give them 15th century”.

The d’Ogries example is from the sacristy of the Church of St James the Less in Philadelphia – the first example of ecclesiological gothic architecture in the New World. I’ll be following up with examples of all his lovely tiny sacristy windows in the next post.

Art is a genealogical process, especially the art of the Church and each generation hands down an inheritance to the next.

These examples are definitely not by Valentine d’Ogries, but rather by Henry Wynd Young (1874-1923) with whom he worked for a period of time. Young was a Scot who came to the U.S. in 1907 and formed a partnership with Owen Bonawit (1890-1971) in 1915, which was dissolved in 1918. Then, he formed his own firm and employed J. Gordon Guthrie and Ernest Lakeman and the firm continued after Young’s death until the 1930s. When precisely d’Ogries worked  with Young  is not known to me, but together they worked on many fine buildings, notably New York’s Cathedral of St John the Divine, St Vincent Ferrer’s and St Bartholomew’s among others. D’Ogries was definitely working on his own before the Second World War.

The first three examples come from the monastic chapel of the Order of the Holy Cross in West Park, NY, a fine building by Ralph Adams Cram. These fine photos are courtesy of Brother Randy OHC and come from his Flickr page. Do click on the thumbnails (Saints Chad, Aidan, and Dunstan) and see the exceptional refinement of draughtsmanship and Fauvist color work that became the hallmark of d’Ogries own glass.

The last example comes from the Cathedral of St Paul in Buffalo, NY, where he did a number of good windows. It depicts the Confirming of the Disciples by St Paul.

The above photos were taken at the soon to be demolished private chapel of the late Bishop Mathews, sometime  bishop of New Jersey. His grand house, called Merwick, is to be leveled to allow Princeton University to expand.

I am of two minds on these as examples of dOgries’ work. On the one hand they seem stylistically to be his, yet, there are defects in the draughtsmanship that leave me wondering. Perhaps they came from his studio but were worked on by another? Should they be his, they are not of the great quality of the other work shown on this blog. A bad day, perhaps…?

In any event, they are to be preserved and moved elsewhere. Do click on the images to see them full size and to see for yourself.

Here is the drawing for St Ursula. Unfortunately it was varnished with fixative to preserve it and as it has folds and damage, these show in the image.

It is a richly developed drawing but curiously does not allude to her 11,000 supposed companions with whom the princess Ursula was martyred by being shot through with arrows.

That bit of history aside, the cartoon shows not only his exquisite draughtsmanship, but also his color notes added to the drawing.

As a further aside, he is shown wearing the curious mitre that he himself designed.

Above her right shoulder we see her kneeling listening to St Michael and below her horrible martyrdom in Rouen – a monk throwing kindling on the pyre. In her left hand she holds the Oriflame or sacred banner that she carried into battle to save France. Those days of glory following that war must have felt very comfortable for the victorious allies. Notice the amount of white or clear glass – as elegant as anything ever done on these shores and look also at the medley of blues and greens and violets he uses for the background “sky”.

(My apologies, again, for the odd angle and poor photo – due to the enclosure of many of his best windows in Wayne in a corridor.)

It would be wonderful to see (and photograph) the actual glass to further understand the design process.

Now, having excused my poor photography skills – I do have a few things to say about this window. The figure is drawn sharply almost as though it were to be seen from a greater distance than some of the others. Peter’s robes are restrained – simply colored with little variation in tone or shade, let alone the diverting odd bits of color d’Ogries is so fond of using. Where has has gone wild, though is in the bright bits of color exploding all over the window from the wreath at the bottom and the marvelous inscription to the brilliant green inverted cross in the canopy above.

Peter’s name is alluded to in the small image of a church standing on a rocky cliff, while his rooster crows in splendour below. The background “spinach” as it’s sometimes called, is lush and mosaic like in its effect. Notice also how Peter’s right foot steps forward out of the canopied space, just as the artist has brought forward the rooster and the coat of arms, which, if I’m not mistaken, shows the ancient Basilica of St Peter in Rome above the gold and silver keys.