Detail from a stained glass window depicting modern agriculture, Museum of English Rural Life, Reading, England, commissioned to commemorate the museum’s opening in 2005. Artist: Susan Moxley. The Museum of English Rural Life includes a large stained glass window in its collection. Artist Susan Moxley produced the work in the context of the MERL’s opening… Continue reading Stained Glass Window at the MERL
Glass in Agriculture / Agriculture in Glass
What the stained glass of Notre-Dame de Chartres cathedral tells us about stockraising
In the medieval Occident, ‘the countryside is everything’: nearly 90% of the population tilled the earth, and in the portals of churches, in frescos, stained glass windows or in prayer books, we see ever and again the works of the months, most of them relating directly to the main sectors of agriculture – grain-growing, wine-production… Continue reading What the stained glass of Notre-Dame de Chartres cathedral tells us about stockraising
From a 350-million-year-old fossil to a contemporary glass sculpture, the story of an artwork that was a long time in the making.
The Creeping and The Wise by Anne Vibeke Mou. (Photo by John McKenzie) In 2018 UK-based artist Anne Vibeke Mou embarked upon a research project exploring the history of the North of Scotland’s kelp industry (kelp ash was once used as an ingredient for glass making), as part of her ongoing work A Botany of… Continue reading From a 350-million-year-old fossil to a contemporary glass sculpture, the story of an artwork that was a long time in the making.
Agriculture & the International Year of Glass 2022
Agriculture? Glass? What’s the connection? Fig. 1. Stained Glass Panel, Labours of the Months (October – breaking up clods and scattering wheat), 1450-1475, England. From Cassiobury Park, Hertfordshire. Source: Commons Wikimedia. Have you ever thought about how farmers and market gardeners care for “baby” plants, for example, by covering them with a glass cloche to… Continue reading Agriculture & the International Year of Glass 2022
The Agricultural Year in Stained glass: Labours of the Month from medieval to present day
Humans are creatures of habit, and since the prehistoric era have kept track of time. A popular artistic representation of the calendar year from the medieval period onwards were Labours of the month, each of which symbolised a month of the year and depicted a relevant seasonal agricultural activity or pastime. Labours of the Month… Continue reading The Agricultural Year in Stained glass: Labours of the Month from medieval to present day
Stained Glass Windows in the National Museum of Agriculture in Szreniawa, Poland
Creator: Maria Powalisz-Bardońska (1935-2021) Established in: 1974 Material: lead, metal, overglaze paint, stained glass (patinated), tin (tin binder) Dimensions (in meters): Height: 2.20 Width: 4 Origin: Stained Glass Workshop Powalisz, Poznań Inventory no .: A-959 / 1-2 These stained-glass windows consist of 15 sections (five sections horizontally, in three rows) of colored glass patinated at… Continue reading Stained Glass Windows in the National Museum of Agriculture in Szreniawa, Poland
Rise and decline of the Mechelen greenhouse, today an honored object of cultural heritage in Flanders
Fig. 1. Oldest conservatory of the Mechelen type in neighbouring Sint-Katelijne-Waver. The emergence of the Mechelen (English: Mechlin, French Malines) greenhouse type coincided with the rise of vegetable cultivation in this area of Flanders in Belgium, developing in the late nineteenth century, so that it became a typical feature of the open-ground horticulture on vegetable… Continue reading Rise and decline of the Mechelen greenhouse, today an honored object of cultural heritage in Flanders
Your good seed for the day
Fig. 1. Source: The Finnish Museum of Agriculture Sarka In celebration of the International Year of Glass, we wish to show the readers some interesting glass artefacts in the Finnish Museum of Agriculture Sarka collection. These small bottles resemble an egg standing on a funnel-shaped leg (Fig. 1). Most of them do not have visible… Continue reading Your good seed for the day
Milk distribution and the Glass Bottle in India – an overview
Of the 186 million litres of milk produced in India in 2020, around 85 percent was obtained from small dairy farmers (less than 10 cattle). In rural India, milk is home delivered, daily, by local milkmen carrying bulk quantities in a metal container, usually on a bicycle. The current milk chain flow in India is… Continue reading Milk distribution and the Glass Bottle in India – an overview
Making flat glass and lighting up life: Glass in the Bulskampveld Collection at the Centre for Agrarian History in Belgium
For many years, glass had a rather modest use due to the limitations of traditional glass blowing. It was not until the 19th century that it was possible to produce industrially large surfaces of flat glass. There are several methods for manufacturing glass. Only the glass blowing method for flat glass is represented in the… Continue reading Making flat glass and lighting up life: Glass in the Bulskampveld Collection at the Centre for Agrarian History in Belgium
A load of old rubbish? But it still has lots of stories to tell…Glass from the middens of Auchindrain Township
Editor’s Note: This post will also introduce you to the pleasure of reading names in Scottish Gaelic – like Auchindrain’s name here, “Bail’ Ach’ an Droighinn”, or the for the people who live there, Na Droighnich. Bail’ Ach’ an Droighinn/Auchindrain Township (spoken “achan-dray-in”) is a 9-hectare museum and historic site in the west of… Continue reading A load of old rubbish? But it still has lots of stories to tell…Glass from the middens of Auchindrain Township
Glass and Hotbeds
The Early Modern period in Europe was itself a “hotbed” of innovation involving glass, often attested in renowned publications such as Diderot’s and D’Alembert’s Encyclopédie, among other remarkable sources. Come and explore hotbeds, bellglasses, “lights”, pane-production techniques and the debate on what might be “natural” … or not.