Tuesday, October 15, 2013

Burford, Oxfordshire


Fragment

Prevented as I am by back pain from sustained sitting at the computer, here's a fragmentary post about a fragment of medieval stained glass.

In quite a few of our medieval churches, the odd bit of medieval stained glass has survived time, iconoclasm, and breakages caused by such things as poorly maintained supporting ironwork. At first glance these patches of colour, broken and removed from their context, appear rather sad, but look closer and the light that shines through them illuminates hidden worlds. Here, at St John the Baptist, Burford, one of my favourite parish churches, are the head of lady, a patch of blue sky, some Gothic script, a few tantalizing scraps of pattern. The colour alone of that wedge of blue and the drawing of that face are enough to make one pause and marvel.

I wrote at more length, here, on some more preserved shards of glass, bearing images of the head of a saint and a fragment of architecture, from the same church.

3 comments:

Neil said...

These fragments I have shored against my ruins...

Philip Wilkinson said...

...A heap of broken images...

Anonymous said...

Once many years ago, at least twenty, I wandered uninvited into Burford Priory, were there Adam and Eve carvings in the Chapel? It was magical, especially didn't know anything about the place.
Believe it is now the country home of Elisabeth Murdoch and Matthew Freud ? Have you ever been round there?

Best, Herts