Frozen glass mosaic: we make stained-glass windows with our own hands. Creation of stained glass windows for the home Prices for stained glass film for windows

Stained glass is undergoing a renaissance. Colored glass paintings are increasingly being used by designers to decorate interiors in a variety of styles. Such a picture is able to decorate the room, become its accent, set the tone for the entire interior. But in the past, making stained-glass windows was a time-consuming and expensive task, while modern techniques allow you to create masterpieces on glass yourself.

Styles and techniques

There are many styles of stained-glass windows, because the stained-glass window itself appeared in the Middle Ages. Over time, it changed, reflecting the cultures of different countries and eras, the emergence of new techniques made it possible to diversify the materials used. Now, several styles are used to decorate the premises.

Classical. Assumes a symmetrical pattern, floral motifs or a geometric pattern. Made in warm, pastel colors. Appropriate in classic interior with clear lines, solid, heavy furniture.
Gothic. This is the style of the Catholic churches of medieval Europe. Twilight, upward aspiration of narrow lancet windows and high towers with spiers, dark red, scarlet, gold, green, blue, purple colors. It uses religious motifs or scenes from the life of medieval knights, castles, exploits, dragons, unicorns. Gothic stained glass will give the space a touch of mystery, fabulousness. It was during the Middle Ages that the most famous stained-glass windows were created, recognized as masterpieces.
Stained glass in the Gothic style - a fairy tale and a mystery in your home
Modern. Perhaps a universal style for any interior. The main motives of this style are marine, the idea is the priority of form over content. This style is characterized by smooth bizarre lines, one way or another repeating the shape of the sea wave, grace, sophistication. Pale, muted colors, halftones, blue-green colors. Modern goes well with modern technology and gets along well with high-tech interiors.
Stained glass in Art Nouveau style is appropriate in any interior
Abstract. Assumes a geometric pattern and bright, joyful colors. It does not conflict with almost any interior, with the exception of the most orthodox. Brings a special emotionality to the space. In an abstract stained-glass window, it is important to strike a balance between form and color, and then it will never get bored, charging you with optimism and encouraging creativity.
Stained glass in an abstract style is suitable for any interior and will never get bored
Egyptian. Soft paintings in sandy-brown tones. The drawing reproduces Egyptian hieroglyphs, gods, pharaohs and scenes from their lives.
Antique. The paintings resemble antique mosaics with ancient Greek scenes. Characterized by the presence of many small details. Suitable for rooms in a minimalist style.
Stained glass in antique style is often a finished work
Byzantine. Distinguished by the use of not only colored, but also transparent glass, which makes the image seem to be hanging in the air. Such stained-glass windows resemble painting on glass, suitable for rooms filled with light.
The use of transparent glass in the Byzantine style creates the illusion of the pattern floating in the air.
Vanguard. The plot of the picture can be anything. But thanks modern technicians performance, it is given a sense of volume. The image is multi-layered, with three-dimensional details, on transparent or frosted glass, glossy, shining. This stained glass window sets the tone for the entire room and makes it trendy.
Stained glass in an avant-garde style can contain voluminous details

Stained glass in the interior creates a powerful accent, so it is important not to make a mistake when choosing a style. It should be in harmony with the overall style of the room or set it. Then the rest of the interior will complement and beat it without creating dissonance.

You can decorate with a stained glass window any glass or mirror surface. This will give the interior originality, originality and a sense of luxury. It is appropriate to place a stained-glass window in any room.

Where to place a stained-glass window in an apartment

Window. The stained-glass window will give the bedroom a feeling of comfort, and the nursery - fabulousness. The stained-glass window in the window can be used as protection from the sun, hide the bathroom from prying eyes, add festivity and comfort in the kitchen.
Floral pattern on the balcony window will create the illusion of a country house
Doors. You can decorate both full glass doors and glass inserts. The drawing is best done in the same style on all doors.
Drawing on all doors is best kept in the same style
Fake windows. Such a glass picture is supplied with lighting and is often installed in bathrooms or on landings.
A stained glass window will help to avoid the feeling of a closed space and additionally decorate the room.
Ceiling lights. Large glass shades or acrylic inserts in the ceiling will add originality to the interior.
Gothic interior will decorate the stained-glass ceiling
Glass partitions. They can be transparent and matte. Such partitions are often installed between the kitchen and the bathroom or the toilet and the bathroom. The stained glass window allows light to pass through, but does not allow you to see what is happening behind it.
Stained glass is a good solution for zoning a room
Furniture facades, glass tabletops. Decorating furniture with stained glass - good way give it a personality. Even old furniture, decorated with stained glass, looks expensive and luxurious.
Stained glass inserts are appropriate for both furniture in the living room and for the kitchen

As already mentioned, the plot of the drawing should correspond to the general style and atmosphere of the room.
Dark colors and horizontal lines are suitable for spacious rooms with high ceilings, they visually reduce the space.
The dark tones of the stained glass create an atmosphere of mystery, but visually reduce the space.
Stained glass on a mirror is a good choice for small spaces. It will create a perspective of space and visually enlarge the room.
Stained glass on the mirror will create a sense of perspective and expand a small room
abundance bright colors and colorful images can eventually tire. Keep this in mind when choosing an ornament.
For the bedroom and nursery, it is better to choose calm, light colors that are conducive to relaxation.
For the bedroom it is better to prefer calm colors.
It is appropriate to decorate the kitchen with a landscape or still life, the bathroom - with a marine plot.
Fish plots are suitable for the bathroom

But not every stained glass can be done independently. There are several types of performance techniques.

Types of equipment

Classic or set. The most complex and ancient technique. Colored glass fragments are inserted into metal frames assembled into a pattern and soldered. The technique requires special tools and skills. It is used for large structures and only by professionals.
Stained glass in classical technique is indispensable for large areas
English or film. The pattern is formed on glass from stained glass self-adhesive film. Each fragment is cut out separately and glued to the place determined by the stencil. The pasted fragments are framed with lead tape. With certain skills, such a stained glass window can be made independently.
Fusing. The stained-glass window is made without a metal frame by sintering multi-colored fragments into a monolithic pattern. It is impossible to make such a stained-glass window at home; a special oven with a high temperature is required.
Fusing stained glass strikes with the brightness of colors and the integrity of the composition
Tiffany. This technique is similar to the classical one. Fragments of the pattern are cut out of colored glass, bordered with copper tape. Finished items are collected in a pattern and soldered together. For beginners, this technique is difficult, but it is quite possible to master and use it at home.
Stained glass in the Tiffany technique successfully replaces the classical technique
Sandblasting. It consists in processing glass on a stencil with sand supplied under high pressure. The treated areas become dull, and the pattern becomes airy. Not applicable at home, requires special equipment.
Cast. Each element is cast or blown from glass separately. After that, the fragments are assembled into a picture using reinforcement or mortar. Does not apply at home.
Etching. Hydrofluoric acid etching of glass creates deep relief patterns. Using this strong acid at home is dangerous to health.
Painted stained glass. The pattern is copied onto the glass and outlined. After drying, the contour of the void is painted with stained glass paints.
In the painted technique, you can create real paintings
Contour filling. As with the painted technique, the outline of the drawing is first prepared. After it dries, the voids are filled with thick layers of paint. If necessary, the paint is leveled with a brush or wooden stick.
Filling technique most successfully imitates classical styles

Video: making an English film stained glass window with your own hands

Most accessible to self-manufacturing painted stained-glass window and contour pouring technique. They do not require special knowledge, materials and tools, and can imitate almost any other technique. For the manufacture of such stained-glass windows, only special paints, accuracy and patience are needed.

Video: do-it-yourself Tiffany stained glass window

What you need to make stained glass

Before you get started, prepare everything you need. For painted and flooded stained glass, you will need paints.

Paints

Special stained glass or acrylic paints on glass. All of them have their own characteristics.

Acrylic paints

The composition includes three main components: pigment, water and acrylic polymer emulsion. Sold in tubes or jars.

Acrylic paints are sold in jars and tubes.

Acrylic paints dry quickly, after which they become resistant and elastic. After drying, they are resistant to changes in temperature and humidity. It is very difficult to scrape off the dried coating, as well as to remove it with sandpaper.

Acrylic paints dry quickly and are easy to work with at home.

The color of the finished coating is matte, bright. It is not subject to fading and does not fade over time. Paints of different colors can be mixed with each other. The brush is washed immediately after use with water, for a dried one you will have to use a solvent.

There are two types: fired and non-fired. Fired after application, they heat up in the oven, harden and become resistant to external influences. The firing temperature is indicated by the manufacturer on the packaging.

Stained glass paints can be fired and unfired

If the paints are not fired, after a week they will dry and harden in the same way as when they were fired, but until then there is a risk of smearing them. The paints are water-based, which is why they are diluted with it. Brushes are also washed with water.

Unfired paints dry from 1 to 3 days depending on the manufacturer. The drawing requires fixing by applying a layer of nitro-lacquer.

These colors are more vibrant. They are thicker due to the synthetic solvent included in their composition. They fit well, they are more convenient to work on vertical surfaces.

Homemade paints

Some masters prefer to use paints of their own production. They are easy to make yourself from what is sold in hardware stores.

Based on nitro lacquer. NTs-2141 or another similar one is used. Nitrolak is diluted with solvent 647, in a ratio of 1 to 0.4. Tinted artistic oil paint or building color. The dye is added little by little until the desired color intensity is achieved.
Based on BF-2 glue. The glue is diluted twice with acetone, tinted with any alcohol-based dye. It can be ballpoint pen paste or other paint. The emulsion is stirred in a glass dish, tested on glass. If necessary, paint is added until the required intensity is reached.
Gelatin based. 5-6 g of gelatin is brewed with 200 ml of hot water to the consistency of a paste and a fabric dye is added. Drawing from such paint requires fixing with nitro-lacquer.

In addition to paints, you will need a contour for work. This is a special thick paste for outlining the borders of the pattern. It imitates metal frames for pieces of smalt in painted and stained-glass windows.

Circuit

Contours-reliefs are made on a water basis, sold in tubes. With their help, the drawing is outlined, which is then filled with paints. It can also be used to create a three-dimensional drawing.

Stained glass contours can be used to create a three-dimensional pattern

At home, contour paste can be prepared on the basis of PVA glue. To do this, you need 50 ml of dishware PVA, 20-30 ml of natural black ink (the best is Dutch), 30-40 g of silver or bronze powder.

Ink is introduced into the glue with constant stirring, and then powder, until a creamy consistency is obtained. Such a paste is prepared as needed, it is not stored. Stir each time before use. Masters apply it with a brush, forming a roller, it is more convenient for beginners to use a confectionery syringe.

Required Tools

For the manufacture of stained-glass windows using different techniques, a special tool is required. In drawing and pouring technique, it will need a minimum:

ruler;
pencil;
glass marker;
brushes;
wooden sticks or toothpicks.

And of course, making a stained glass window is impossible without a pattern stencil. How to do it, consider in more detail.

Stencil for stained glass

A suitable stencil can be purchased from a specialized store or stained glass artist. But it is much more interesting to make a stencil on your own, choosing a suitable sketch.

Do not choose a sketch with many details and voids; such a pattern will look sloppy on a finished stained glass window.

The image can be downloaded from the Internet and simply printed at the desired scale, taking into account the size of the future stained glass window. Or take your favorite picture, postcard and enlarge it to the required size.

Photo gallery: stencil samples for self-creation of stained glass

Floral motifs never go out of style and are suitable for any room. The details of the stencil are numbered for the convenience of coloring the stained glass window. The lattice complements the flower and gives the picture a finished look. Birds - another timeless story for stained glass

Number the details of the picture of the same color. This will help you not to make mistakes when coloring.

How to enlarge a drawing

Draw the pattern into cells with a side of no more than 1 cm.
Number the resulting grid vertically and horizontally.
Measure stained glass.
Transfer the dimensions to paper.
Mark the sheet according to the number of cells in the figure.
Draw a grid on the sheet in accordance with the markup.
Cell by cell, transfer the image from the postcard to paper on an enlarged scale.
The finished drawing can be corrected, colors can be changed.

If you have drawing skills, you can create a pattern yourself. To do this, transfer the dimensions of the future stained-glass window onto a sheet of paper and mark the contours of the pattern. Draw with a simple pencil so that you can correct inaccuracies.

When choosing an image, keep in mind that its proportions may suffer when enlarged. If necessary, draw the picture not with squares, but with rectangles.

Draw the details, you should get a whole picture. Circle the finished drawing along the contour with a ballpoint pen or a thin marker.

Application

Having prepared everything you need, you can start making stained glass. Take care to working surface straight and be aware that the glass may break if handled carelessly.

Making a stained glass window: step by step instructions

To protect yourself from cuts, the edges of the glass can be pre-pasted with masking tape before work.

Video: a master class for making a stained-glass window with a flood technique

Having mastered the painting and pouring techniques, you can try yourself in the English film or fusion technique. This will require large expenses, materials and skills, but it's worth it.

Photo gallery: a few ideas for placing stained glass windows in the interior

Abstract pattern suitable for high-tech style Floral ornament will decorate the windows of the living room A stained-glass window on the bathroom window will give a special atmosphere and protect from prying eyes. The geometric pattern for the living room is easy to make with stained glass film Stained glass windows of the landing are made in the same style Bay windows are well suited for stained glass Ceiling insert can be decorated with film stained glass

Creating stained glass windows is a creative and exciting activity. The simplest stained-glass windows can be made even by children. And let your work not be like the masterpieces of world art, but they will bring originality and a particle of your individuality to your home.

Vandalion Brightsteel, Peerless Armor of the Vulkhel Watch

During the recent conflicts in Firsthold, the great library lost some reference books, so his excellency Kinlord Rilis asked the leading masters of Auridon to write new ones to replace them. For a comprehensive description of the glass craft style, our wise ruler, of course, turned to me.

Glass maces and hammers have heavy, though delicate, steel heads studded with glass-tipped spikes. The handle is made of dense, resilient wood, such as ash, covered with steel splints, and ends with a steel disk, massive enough to slightly counterbalance the weight of the head. This allows this long-handled weapon to be spun almost like a staff.

Glass daggers from Summerset are the finest combat knives possible. Glass in such daggers is usually made of cutting edges and a point, the pommel is also trimmed with it; the handle shaft, guard and the blade itself are made of steel. This weapon is equally suitable for inflicting cuts and stab wounds, as well as for parrying blows.

Glass bows - compound and curved; the handle is made of wood, the shoulders are made of horn. The bent parts of the shoulders are finished with glass for greater strength. The glass-free parts of the bow are often varnished to look like metal, so that the glare of reflected sunlight blinds the eyes of the enemy when the archery squad raises the bows for a volley.

The glass sword is an intricate combination of a steel blade and hilt with a glass point and cutting edge. The tip of the sword can be quite wide and even have "feather" cuts designed to drain blood. Despite their size, these lightweight blades are favored by swordsmen for their ease of use and durability in combat, as a glass sword retains its sharpness when a pure steel or alloy sword would be dulled.

BIBS

Chevron overlays on glass cuirasses make them look like the muscular chest of a large winged creature, and indeed, plate breastplates are often decorated with images of eagles, dragons or rock riders. Armor is made of leather, steel and glass, and there is as much additional glass edging as the buyer can afford.

SHOULDERS

The glass pauldrons match the shape of the breastplates, continuing the winged motif and descending to the shoulder rib. In the marine version of this style, they are shaped more like waves than wings.

GLOVES

Glass mitts are typically thin, stretchy leather gloves with glass strips to protect the back of the hands and forearms. The elbows are covered with trihedral glass elbow pads, repeating the shape of the shoulder pads.

Light, medium or heavy, all leggings of this magnificent style are made from durable yet flexible leather and finished with glass. The difference lies in the volume and thickness of the glass lining and the size of the glass knee pads that protect the knees.

A glass-style staff that any wizard would be proud of. A long wooden cane, protected by steel spears to aid in parrying blows, is fairly simple on its own, but glass staves are famous for their intricately crafted wing-shaped pommel. The steel knob, often adorned with a large turquoise stone, opens on the sides with a pair of amazing glass wings, reminiscent of either birds, or wings of bats, or dragons. And it seems that fire is flickering inside the top.

The belt of a set of glass armor is usually a one-piece belt made of some exotic leather, decorated with an ornament of diamond-shaped or pentagonal pieces of glass. The geometric shape of the femoral plates depends on the shape of the hips. Also, the belt may have a V-shaped plate skirt to protect the groin.

Truly elegant shoes! They range from durable glass-toed leather moccasins in light armor to steel and glass sabatons in heavy armor. The elasticity of these is extremely important, as elven soldiers value maneuverability over thick soles.

The bird motif, typical of glassware, is particularly striking when it comes to axes, whose glass blades are shaped like the wing of a bird of prey. The feather-like finish of the blades is purely decorative: the notch is too shallow to weaken the blade, but the grooves are deep enough to drain blood.

The glass helmets are a continuation of the winged motif of the cuirasses and pauldrons. They are often equipped with armored crests and various wings, including those covering the cheeks. Each ledge is finished with polished glass. A high-quality glass helmet is a worthy sight.

Compared to almost all-metal shields, glass shields are incredibly light precisely because they are made of glass plates mounted on a thin steel frame. Two powerful glass wings in a bird motif open from steel ribs in the center to spreading "feathered" edges.

The Tiffany brand is most commonly associated with jewelry and watches.
However, the lamps were produced by another company - Tiffany's Workshop, which has nothing to do with jewelry.
The creator of the first Tiffany lamp is Louis Comfort Tiffany, an American artist and designer who founded the Tiffany Glass Company, the son of Tiffany & Co founder Charles Louis Tiffany.
Tiffany lamps appeared at the end of the 19th century - presumably in 1895 - as one of the Art Nouveau trends.

The development of stained glass art in the 19th century was for a long time at the stage of mastering the lost secrets of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. One of the most daring innovators in the field of artistic glassmaking, who stopped looking back at the legacy of the past, was the American Louis Comfort Tiffany. Progress in the field of artistic glassmaking in the second half of the 19th century is inextricably linked with his activities in the creation and use of new types of glass and the improvement of the technique of their connection to each other.

Tiffany's personality

Tiffany was born in 1848 in the family of a famous New York jeweler and from an early age was involved in the "fine arts".
In 1865, at the age of 17, he traveled through Europe. The stained-glass windows of Chartres Cathedral in Paris made an indelible impression on him and aroused his interest in glass.
Tiffany began his artistic career as a painter and after he became known in this field, he began to deal with glass. The first results of his activity in the field of stained glass art did not satisfy him. The glasses produced at that time did not meet his requirements. Tiffany greatly appreciated the power of light and the natural beauty of the material. In his opinion, painting with paints only hid the natural beauty of glass, deprived it of showiness and made an unpleasant impression. Tiffany believed that in the perception of stained glass, the effect of transparency (through the passage of light) and the precious radiance of colored glass play the greatest role.

Tiffany's experiments in making stained-glass windows from glass of someone else's production were not successful. So with the support of his family, he bought a glass factory and started experimenting. In a short time, he achieved remarkable results and was able to assemble stained-glass windows from glasses of his own production. Thanks to the use of a new type of glass - opalescent or opal (sometimes called iridescent, which is not true), he successfully coped with such tasks as depicting the surface of water or foliage with one glass plate without using paint. Only for the image of hands and faces, he used a schwarzlot.
By 1900, Tiffany was already one of the most famous glass makers in the world. In his workshops, glasses appeared that had never been seen before. Tiffany's warehouses, probably the largest in the world, held up to 200 tons of glass, approximately 5,000 various shades, which were classified and decomposed according to a special system.

Invented by Tiffany, the copper foil technique was originally intended for making lampshades. Tiffany attached great importance to lamps in interior design and sought to make them accessible to the general public. His lamp "Blossoming Lotus", assembled from 1600 glass parts, 46 cm in diameter and 35 cm high, cost $ 400 in 1906, and in 1989 at the Christie's New York auction it was sold for 1.2 million German marks. The relatively low price was due to the serial production produced by the workshop.
In 1905, the studio employed 200 people. Although many phases of the work were streamlined, each lampshade remained a unique piece thanks to its individual color scheme and the highest craftsmanship.
Not only Tiffany himself and the masters of his atelier created product designs. For embodiment in the material, he accepted and best projects other artists of the time.

So, for example, the famous Dragonfly lampshade, which received the Grand Prix at the World Exhibition in Paris in 1900, was designed by Clara Driskol.

Not all Tiffany-signed lamps come from this workshop. At the same time, there were other well-known companies that created lamp shades. Among them are Quezal Art Glass & Decorating Company, Crest & Co and Edward Miller & Co. All of them, to a greater or lesser extent, profited from the success that Tiffany won with his lamps at the Paris Exhibition of 1900, when they caused a real boom.
In addition to lampshades, Tiffany's workshop also designed lamp fittings: stands, bases, legs, rivets, tops. And here Tiffany showed himself to be an artist with a love for detail. His lamps are an integral work of art, where lampshade and fittings complement each other and form an organic unity.
Designing Tiffany lamps has now become a hobby for many. You can make some original things yourself by buying a set of glass parts and fixtures for a lamp or stained glass window.

Tiffany glass

Glass for Tiffany is first of all a color. Like a painter on a palette, so he mixed different tones in the process of glass production and “painted” his paintings with them. He chose colors with extreme care and if the required tone was not in one plate of glass, he stacked three or four glasses on top of each other in the so-called "sandwich method" until he got the desired tone. There are cases when, from a finished stained-glass window, Tiffany knocked out fragments that did not satisfy him with his walking cane.
Tiffany's activities undoubtedly revived artistic glassmaking. But he is not actually the inventor of opalescent glass (or Tiffany glass). This merit belongs to John La Farge, who used opalescent glass for stained glass as early as 1875. After some time, other artists noticed a new type of glass and began to experiment in this area themselves or simply copy the glass of La Farge. Tiffany was no exception. Twice he worked with La Farge in his workshop in Brooklyn. Subsequently, Tiffany commercialized the manufacture of opalescent glass and its objects. At the same time, he entered into an agreement with La Farge that the lampshades, stained glass windows of opalescent glass and the glass itself would bear the name Tiffany as a second name.
Most of the glass used in Tiffany's pieces is characterized by opacity - their opalescent effect. It is obtained by adding opacifying substances (tin or burnt bone) to the composition of the raw material. When bone ash is added, tiny droplets of phosphate glass are formed in the molten mass, which “muffle” (cloud) the glass. The effect of such glass is that it does not so much transmit light as refract it. Depending on the weight of the opaque substances, different degrees of opal effect can be obtained.

Of course, Tiffany also used other types of glass in his works, which were used in artistic glassmaking even before him. Among them is cathedral glass, which is a mass-colored transparent glass. An intermediate position between opalescent and cathedral glass is occupied by colorescent glass, in the manufacture of which the “silenced” and transparent parts of the glass mass are not completely mixed and, thus, plates with matte and transparent areas are obtained. Antique glass is also made by mixing transparent and opaque masses. If you sprinkle already finished, but not yet chilled glass with metal grains, you get iridescent glass. At the same time, a metallic gloss is formed on the surface of the plate, which shimmers with all the colors of the rainbow. Iridescent glass was also made before Tiffany, but it was only thanks to him that it became truly famous.
Opalescent and cathedral glasses are obtained by rolling: a viscous glass mass is rolled between two rollers (or with one roller on a table), and a plate is obtained. Each plate, both in Tiffany's time and now, is made separately and has a unique look. The structured surface is formed by rolling with rollers with the appropriate pattern. A certain color effect can be obtained if a mass of different melts is rolled together. Ribbed glass, or "Draperies", is obtained by deforming a still soft plate. Tiffany himself used "drapes" and "pleats" in large stained glass windows. In the famous composition "Magnolias" flowers are made of them. For the best effect of these glasses, a large fragment area is required, since in small plates they are crushed too much. The disordered surface of such glass is the source of a strong play of light and shade, constantly changing depending on the angle of view. Tiffany used this "folded" glass for backgrounds in the form of plant motifs or for the image of tree foliage. As a rule, one side of such glass remains smooth and cuts well. Some types of work do not allow the use of these very "living" glasses. In addition to flat glass, Tiffany used glass "stones" in some of his works.

Tiffany technique

Lead rods, used for many centuries to connect glass together, seemed very rough to Tiffany: he wanted to create filigree-thin and complex works. He found his own substitute for lead veins in the form of copper strips cut from sheet metal. They were glued to glass with beeswax and soldered together with tin. Thus, it became possible to connect the smallest pieces of glass and create complex three-dimensional shapes. Initially, he used the copper foil technique to create lamp shades, and only later - for stained glass windows. Sometimes Tiffany used a combination of two techniques in one piece, combining lead wire with copper foil.

Tiffany style

An interesting project may lose its attractiveness in the finished product due to improperly selected glasses. Tiffany has always carefully chosen the color and texture of the glass for his work. It was this love of detail that distinguished his works from the work of other artists and was the secret of success. The main thing when choosing glasses is the right combination of color shades and directions of textural lines. From the existing glass plates, you need to accurately cut out the fragment necessary for the composition.
Many of Tiffany's works have a special attraction, although they may seem too bright and overloaded to the modern viewer. When they try to explain this effect, they involuntarily compare the works of Tiffany with picturesque paintings. Tiffany's work has always been between a realistic manner of depiction and a stylized one, close to medieval stained glass windows. Without painting the surface of the glass, he created stained glass windows that can only be compared with paintings. However, Tiffany himself did not believe that he was trying to copy nature. He interpreted it through the eyes of an artist.
Tiffany's workshop ceased to exist in 1932, and the artist himself died in next year. Today in the world there are many studios that have the word "Tiffany" in their name. They are not direct successors to the traditions of Louis Comfort Tiffany: using the techniques and materials that made his name famous, they create their own original works.
Sometimes the Tiffany technique is incorrectly identified with the Tiffany style. The first means just a method of connecting glass fragments using copper foil. And Tiffany-style means bright lamps of classical forms with prevailing naturalistic motifs and colorful stained-glass windows of rich colors depicting natural motifs and landscapes. The original works of the innovative artist have remained the property of art history: many of them adorn private mansions, churches, public buildings in America, Great Britain and Western Europe, most of them have become objects of museum collections, antique auctions and private collections.

The first information about opal glass in Russian refers to late XIX centuries. In the advertisements of large stained glass workshops, there was a mention of Tiffany glass. The World Exhibition in Paris, after which the whole world started talking about Tiffany, became a starting point for Russians to get acquainted with the work of the famous American. Tiffany lamps are on sale. Opalescent glasses appeared in warehouses and among the goods of Trading Houses, but Russian factories did not begin to produce them. One can see opalescent glass in the stained-glass windows of the early 20th century, preserved on the staircases of tenement houses in St. Petersburg and Moscow. All of them are foreign production. They were used in small fragments for small details of the image and always played a subordinate role as an exquisite addition to a stained-glass window.
Iridescent glass is known to us from the lamps in the collections of many Russian museums. There are very few genuine Tiffany stained-glass windows in Russia: the difficulties with the delivery of fragile products of large dimensions, the traditional orientation of architects towards German stained-glass art, made them extremely rare products on the territory of Russia. So rare that the author of the article knows the only genuine Tiffany stained-glass window in our country - it is on display in the State Hermitage Museum and originates from the Museum of the Academy of Technical Drawing. Baron A. L. Stieglitz.

However, a few years ago, a version appeared that the first Tiffany lamp was invented by the artist Clara Driscoll / Clara Driscoll / (1861–1944), who worked at the Tiffany Glass Company. This version is not officially confirmed, but there is a place to be.

Clara Driscoll was the head of the women's division of Tiffany Studios, whose employees were engaged in cutting glass (the so-called "Tiffany Girls"). It was they who selected those pieces of glass that were to become part of the lampshade pattern. Before the artist joined the company, the lamps did not differ much in design, they were mainly decorated with geometric motifs.
Clara created more than 30 models of lamps, among which the most famous and popular are Wisteria, Dragonfly (Clara received a bronze medal for her at the World Exhibition in Paris in 1900), Peony, and the very first - Daffodil.

Clara's biography is not typical for women of her time. She received higher education and after studying at the Cleveland School of Design and moving to New York, she entered the Metropolitan Museum of Art School of Art. Her talent was recognized by an invitation to Tiffany Studios in 1888, where she worked for over 20 years. In 1909, Clara married, which was the end of her career in the company - married women were forbidden to work at Tiffany Studios.

Original Tiffany lamps, preserved in excellent condition, are very popular with collectors. They have always been expensive, but in the 20s/30s of the last century, their design began to be considered obsolete, and for several decades, few people showed interest in Tiffany lamps. Since the late 60s, they have increasingly become the subject of auction sales - in 1985, the Zinnia lamp was sold for more than one million dollars. After a lull in the early 1990s, prices began to rise again. To date, the record price for a Tiffany lamp is $2.8 million.
Famous collectors of Tiffany lamps include actress and singer Barbra Streisand. For a lamp from her collection in 1994, an unknown person paid $ 717,500.

The creators of one of the largest collections of Tiffany lamps - the so-called The Neustadt Collection - Dr. Egon Neustadt (Egon Neustadt) and his wife Hildegard (Hildegard). The first table lamp was bought by them in 1935. In 1970, the doctor published the book "Tiffany Lamps", in which he classified them into categories - depending on the shape of the lampshade, the motifs used to decorate them, etc.
In 1983, shortly before his death, Dr. Neustadt donated 135 lamps from his collection to the New York Historical Society. Hundreds of Tiffany lamps and stained-glass windows remained in his apartment, which became the basis for the modern Neustadt Collection.

This metamorphosis of the observer was well conveyed by Andrei Bely in the poem "Autumn". Autumn is described by him as a spectacle generated by broken glass:

Huge glass

in an emerald setting

shattered to smithereens under the force of the wonderful wind ... 115

The veil is finally shattered. The observer stands among the crumbling glass.

And something terrible to me suddenly

opened.

And I realized - the circle is closed ... 116

The paradoxical nature of Bely's description lies in the fact that the feeling of a vicious circle arises from the fact that the glass shatters into fragments, that is, precisely from the endless opening, from the rupture of the membrane. The collapse of the enclosing space creates a certain central axis of the glass placer, which organizes a spiral of endless movement around itself.

A similar model of space created by an infinite transparent expansion was developed by Bruno Taut in the utopian project The Builder of the World (1920) 117 . This project, defined by Taut as "an architectural spectacle for symphonic music," consists of 28 graphic sheets, a kind of comic book, or rather a storyboard of an imaginary film. The first leaf depicts a scene with a parting curtain. An empty stage opens, from which a glass building begins to grow.

111 A. Bely. Poems and poems. M.-L., 1966, p. 149.

116 Ibid, p. 150.

117 B. Taut. Der Weltbaumeister. Hagen, 1920.

nogogothic cathedral. The eye of the viewer approaches the growing structure. But instead of stopping when he bumps into a wall, he can endlessly move inside the structure, which consists of a bizarre tie of transparent architectural lace. The structure of the structure changes as the eye enters the glass. Now the viewer is presented with a chaotic pile of split fragments, between which, despite their apparent density, there is still space open for movement. Finally, the heap of elements becomes less and less dense, and the movement opens up a new void, returning us to the empty scene. But now this scene is space. Stars appear. One of them is a huge glass crystal-cathedral. Then the earth arises from which houses sprout. One of these houses - the house-crystal - attracts the attention of the viewer. The house is growing. The eye approaches him and enters him again, penetrating his transparent structure until it gives way to a new chaotic heap of abstract forms.

Taut's imaginary film is thus constructed as a cyclical repetition of the same movement. Its cyclicity is due to the fact that this movement cannot be stopped, it takes place in the sphere of total permeability. The movement of the eye combines the motif of an infinitely expanding space (the glass cathedrals seem to expand, letting in the eye of the observer) and the fragmentation of vision that accompanies it. Fragmentation leads to a threshold, beyond which a void reappears, tearing off movement towards a new architectural form. If you imagine the space of the "Builder of the World", then it is constantly pulsating, either expanding and splitting the form, or narrowing and again gathering the form together. Just like in Bely, it is built around the central axis of the glass placer, which organizes a spiral of endless closed movement.

But there is one strange feature in Taut's project. The dynamic film "The Builder of the World" for some reason is still described by Taut as a theatrical performance; it begins and ends with the curtain and the stage. This means that Taut conceived of his unceasing penetration into space at the same time as the immobility of the spectator in the theater hall. In some sense, such a view is motivated. After all, glass at the same time presupposes transparency, the absence of an obstacle to the view, and impenetrability, hardness, excluding physical penetration into it.

The journey of the eye in The Builder of the World is somewhat reminiscent of Priestley's reasoning (see the chapter "The Veil") about the permeability of transparent matter at the level of atoms, at which the incompatibility of the material and the spiritual ceases to be relevant.

However, perhaps the closest source of the idea of movement combined with immobility was the popular speculation at the beginning of the century on the theme of the fourth dimension. One of the motifs associated with ideas about the fourth dimension concerned movement within "hyperspace" that is not accompanied by movement in space. This motif can be found in Alfred Jarry (who will be discussed in the chapter "Clinamen"), Frantisek Kupka, Gaston de Pawlowski and others. 118 Pawlowski, for example, in his book "Journey to the Country of the Fourth Dimension" (1912) described such a movement as "the transformation (transmutation) of the atoms of time":

"Since the world of the fourth dimension is continual, no movement in the vulgar sense of the word is possible in it, similar to that which occurs in a moving three-dimensional world. The movement occurs through the exchange of qualities between neighboring atoms; if we use a rough way, then when the ship moves, water atoms in front of it are converted into ship atoms, while behind the ship atoms are converted into water atoms 119

At Taut we have a picture close to the one painted by Pawlowski. The observer remains in place, the very matter of the medium - glass - is constantly transforming before our eyes, splitting, rarefying, losing and acquiring form, as if the ship's atoms are transformed into water, and water into a ship. The metaphor of the fourth dimension undoubtedly plays a significant role in the understanding of transparency at the beginning of the 20th century. However, I will not dwell on it. An excursion in this direction would take us too far.

The explosion of interest in Scheerbart and glass architecture in the second half of the 1910s was due to a number of reasons. On the-

118 A detailed commentary on this subject can be found in the book: L. D. Henderson. The Fourth Dimension and Non-Euclidean Geometry in Modem Art. Princeton, 1983.

119 G. de Pawlowski. Voyage au pays de 1a quadrieme dimension. Paris, 1962, p. 79.

The beginning of the World War practically deprived architects of work, construction stopped. Hence the sharp increase in interest in the sphere of pure speculation - all sorts of urban utopias. The cultural myth created around glass architecture responded to the aspirations of artists faced with the horrors of military reality. The ideas of world unity, a fabulous peaceful paradise have become significantly more relevant.

Humanity needed a radical transformation. The prestige of politicians as leaders of nations has plummeted. Symbolists have long been developing a cult of the artist-superman, who claimed the role of the future leader (especially intensively in the circle of Stefan George). This cult did not last long. It is being replaced by the cult of an artist-practitioner, engineer, builder, capable of opposing intellectual aesthetics to the real thing - such as Lezabendio from Scheerbart's novel. And, finally, the deepest crisis in which Europe was plunged called for a spiritual revival, understood by many in terms of the revival of religious feeling or the building of a new humanistic church. The myth of glass corresponded to all these sentiments. In addition, he responded to some of the more specific artistic searches of his time. For example, the search for a new, "strong", organic style in architecture. Eclecticism has already been partly supplanted by Art Nouveau, which proposed a relatively effective principle style formation on the basis of organomorphism (which played an outstanding role in the glass myth). But Art Nouveau in the new environment acted as an ideologically weak style, oriented towards bourgeois individualism (it is no coincidence that Art Nouveau developed most effectively in the construction of mansions, church architecture, for example, by Gaudi, is an exceptional phenomenon for Art Nouveau).

The search for a new sobornost and a sharp rejection of the bourgeois consciousness by a new generation of artists brought Gothic to the fore. But not the practical neo-Gothic of the end of the century, but rather the Gothic ideal. Wilhelm Worringer, who played a prominent role in this spiritual reorientation, argued that the Gothic spirit is the national German spirit, whose formative will stretches through the centuries. Gothic turns into a principle formulated in the following terms:

"... what Gothic architecture manages to express is expressed by it<...>contrary to stone. Its expression is built not on matter, but through the negation of the latter, only through the state of dematerialization.

<...>. The opposite of matter is spirit. To dematerialize a stone means to spiritualize it" 120 .

This kind of rethinking of the Gothic began, of course, long before Worringer. Ruskin, in The Seven Lamps of Architecture (1849), already saw in the Gothic cathedral a sort of model of a banner in which architecture is nothing but the scene of the manifestation of light. In his opinion, in a Gothic temple

"... attention is focused on the forms of penetration, in other words, the light seen from the inside, and not on the intermediate stone. All the grace of the window lies in the outlines of its light (outlines of its light)" 121 .

Ruskin gives an expressive description of how light enters through the window's star pattern, which seems to be transported into the interior of the building, so that the star itself hangs over the head of the faithful. He describes this phenomenon as the final victory of light over the "roughness of the intermediate space", that is, over the actual stone armature of the building.

Worringer in many ways only develops his ideas, but in a different historical context. Now the direct heir of the Gothic is glass architecture, since it is in it that the dematerialization of the material is carried out. True, Worringer points out that in Gothic, spiritualization occurs in spite of the material, by the power of the artistic spirit, and in glass architecture, as it were, passively, "only on the basis of new material" 122 , but the spiritual genealogy of glass does not suffer from this.

Ernst Bloch in The Spirit of Utopia (1918, 1923) sees in Gothic the embodiment of organomorphism, in which the I loses its outline and becomes formless, spreading to the entire surrounding universe. At the same time, the dissolution of matter in light is understood by him as a total organomorphic transformation of the world:

"... the light runs, multiplies, burns in these stones, in these statues, in this abode of the human heart;<...>the wall has been torn down, the multicolored windows open onto an immense landscape, we are surrounded by love, surrounded by heavenly hosts ... " 123

_____________

120 WorringerW. Formprobleme derGotik. Munchen, 1911, S.68-69.

121 J Ruskin. The Seven Lamps of Architecture. London-New York, 1907, p. 58.

122 Worringer, W. Formprobleme der Gotik, S. 72.

123 E. Bloch. L "esprit de 1" utopie. Paris, 1977, p. 39.

The return to Gothic turns into a new messianism. Karl Shefler, for example, called for "turning the word "Gothic" into the motto of a special program and following the leader towards a new goal - the Gothic spirit" 124 The construction of a new cathedral and the creation of a new Gothic style become the object of heated discussions in 1919-1921. 125 . The idea of a new cathedral and glass gothic is fetishized in Bruno Taut's circle. It is opposed by a number of opponents who believe that the "great spirit" gives rise to great architecture, and not vice versa. Among the critics of the New Sacred Architecture program are Theodor Heuss, Emil Fader, Paul Fechter. In many projects, however, the Gothic cathedral acts as a pure metaphor. Lionel Feininger's engraving on the Bauhaus manifesto depicts a Gothic cathedral crowned with three stars. 126 . It is clear that the direct revival of Gothic was not included in the program of the Bauhaus.

Scheerbart's connection between church architecture and glass was based, among other things, on one local tradition: glassblowing churches in Bohemia and Bavaria. These churches, decorated with stained glass from the inside, produced, according to eyewitness accounts, a magical impression: "In the depths hung a chandelier, magnificent, like the crown of a glass magic tree<...>. Colored glass flickered with heat. The play of chimes is everywhere: glass paintings, glass lamps, pilgrims' lanterns on glass poles. Glass! Glass!" 127

In 1914, Bruno Taut moved to the practical implementation of Scheerbart's program. He illustrates the possibilities of glass architecture in his glass industry pavilion at the Cologne Werkbund exhibition. Taut's glass pavilion had an extremely wide resonance. On a concrete plinth, Taut erected a fourteen-sided glass drum topped with a crystalline glass dome. Externally, the building was conceived as a temple-crystal. Around him were glass balls - direct echoes of fech-

124 K. Scheffler. Der Geist der Gotik. Leipzig., 1917, S. 106.

125 See G. Lindahl. Von der Zukunftkathedrale bis zur Wohnmaschint. Deutsche Architektur und Architekturdebatte nach dem ersten Weltkrieg. - Idea and Form. Studies in the History of Art. Stockholm, 1959, S. 258.

126 The stars, most likely, symbolize the birth of the messiah and refer to the star of Bethlehem. For the interpretation of this symbol, see: R. Banham. The Glass Paradise. - The Architectural Review, v.125, no. 745, Feb. 1959, p. 89.

127 J. Bau. Die Glasmacher in Bohmer-und Bayerwald in Volkskunde and Kulturgeschichte. Regensburg, 1954, S. 129.

Nerovsky and Scheerbartian organomorphic fantasies. The building with balls around the perimeter was conceived as a model of the organic universe. An exhibition hall was located under the dome. The faceted cover of the dome was made of double panes. Outside, it was lined with mirrors, inside with colored glass. On the ground floor there was a seven-stage water cascade (paradise waterfall). There was also a kaleidoscope hidden in the niche, which continuously projected a changing stream of colored light. At night, the building was illuminated from the inside and looked like a real colored crystal. The building was directly related to the coloristic searches in the field of painting, which, as I have already mentioned, were often interpreted through the codes of glass mythology. Taut wanted to decorate his "temple" with "light compositions by Delaunay" 128 . V glass walls The building was fitted with paintings on glass by Max Pechstein, Jan Thorn-Pricker, Josef Margold and others. The building was dedicated to Scheerbart, who attended the opening ceremony and wrote 14 slogans for the fourteen faces of the drum, such as the following: "Light permeates the world and receives life in crystal", "Glass opens new era, brick buildings bring only evil" 129 .

Immediately after the end of the First World War, which interrupted new beginnings in architecture, Taut gathers around him a group of young enthusiasts determined to realize the Scheerbartian myth. In November 1918, a "Workers' Council for the Arts" was created in Berlin, organized according to the model of the Soviets of Workers' Deputies. Taut becomes the leader of the Council. This artistic organization thinks of itself as the plenipotentiary representative of the people's will in the arts. main role Architects play in the Council. In the declarations of the Council, largely written by Taut, the architect, expressing the will of the people, is proclaimed the new leader of the nation. In August 1918, one of the group's leading theorists and a fanatical admirer of Scheerbart, Adolf Bene, wrote:

"Peace is first of all building, not painting or sculpture. Building is the art of peace<...>. Architecture is completely free from the human in the earthly sense of the word<...>. It can express the cosmic. At a time when architecture is simple and

128 K. Junghans. Bruno Taut 1880-1938. Berlin., 1983, S. 28

129 Citation: D. Sharp. Paul Scheerbarts Glass World. In: Glass Architecture by Paul Scheerbart... p. 14.

directly continues the cosmic building, painting and sculpture should examine what is already formed in space" 130 .

In his cosmic construction, Bene called for following the spirit of Fechner and Scheerbart.

Inspired by the pathos of the November Revolution, the members of the Council were ready to take on these superhuman tasks. In April 1919, the Council organized an exhibition of unknown architects. At the beginning of 1919, the Bauhaus was opened in Weimar, in its program akin to the Workers' Council. Taut's group publishes books, creates many fantastic projects, most of them unrealized, and is actively engaged in theorizing, to a large extent lying in the mainstream of myth-making. This theoretical work is carried out most intensively in the group's private correspondence. The letters-manifestos going along the chain form a unity, dubbed "Glass Chain" (1919-1920) by the participants of the correspondence. The texts of the "Glass Chain" a little later form the basis of the publications of the journal "Frülicht" ("Dawn") created by Taut in Magdeburg (1920-1922).

Glass is at the center of all the group's activities. Bene, echoing Warringer's argument, linked glass to cosmism:

"No material so decisively overcomes matter as glass. Glass is a completely new, pure material in which matter is melted and remelted. Of all the matters that we have, it tends to the elements most of all. It reflects the sky and the sun, and like glowing water<...>. The glass functions as extra-human, as more than human" 131 .

The most extensive architectural utopias of the group belonged to Bruno Taut himself and were expressed by him in three books of the Council: "City Crown" (1919, begun in 1916), "Alpine Architecture" (1919), "Destruction of cities" (1920). All the books dealt with the destruction of megacities and their replacement by utopian settlements, in the center of which there was invariably a crystal-like glass palace-temple. In The Destruction of Cities, Taut printed a blueprint for a settlement in the form of a giant glass flower growing from the ground. 132 ,

130 A. Behne. Die Wederkehr der Kunst. Leipzig, 1919, pp. 43-44.

131 Ibid., S. 67.

132 Wed in A. Strindberg's "Game of Dreams" (1902) there is a castle growing from the ground towards the light like a flower. - A. Strindberg Game of dreams. Favorites. M., 1994, p. 423.

"Alpine Architecture" - a project of transforming mountains into glass palaces-crystals - ends with fantasies on the themes of space architecture. In "this book there is a project of a" crystal house in the mountains ". "Constructed entirely of colored crystal. In the area of snowfields and glaciers. Prayer, unspeakable silence. Temple of Silence" 133 . Reminiscent of Scheerbart's Australian Temple of Silence, this temple brings together the mythology of glass, ice and mountains. The symbolism of the mountain, which fascinated even the early romantics, received a powerful impetus from Wagner and Nietzsche. At the turn of the century, one moment in the cultural myth of the mountain is extremely enhanced - the mountain is constantly interpreted in terms of striving towards the light. In 1909-1911, E. Munch prepares a painting for the University of Oslo, in the center of which is a "human mountain" of a vague crystalline form, directed towards the sun

In 1908, Gustave Le Rouge in his novel "The Prisoner of the Planet Mars" describes a strange glass mountain, the crest of which, made of the purest crystal, thus reflects the sun's rays, which concentrates them in a mountain valley, creating a special tropical microclimate. In the valley, warmed by these parabolic mountain mirrors, there was a paradise with huge flowers that looked like human eyes. “This valley,” notes Le Rouge, “in principle could be considered as an improved greenhouse of incredible size.” 134 .

These quasi-symbolist fantasies acquire more concrete features in the activities of the Council. We are talking about the secondary development of a social utopia, but not in the spirit of utopian socialism, but in the spirit of a symbolist utopia. Karl Schmidt-Rott-luff dreams of a mountain town of the New Christian community 135 .

Strindberg belonged to the same Berlin circle as Scheerbart (it also included the Gothic fanatic S. Przybyszewski and the author of the glass city fantasy P. Hill). including in his theatrical and cinematic projects - the play-film "The Builder of the World" (1920) and in the script "Happy Galoshes" (1920), which was furry on the "Chains" In both cases, glass houses growing like flowers turn into the theme of space architecture The development of the flower house motif was also influenced by glass vases Art Nouveau, made by such masters as Galle and Tiffany in the form of flowers. For Scheerbart's attitude towards Tiffany, see R. Banham. Op. Cit., p. 89.

_________

133 Glass Architecture by Paul Scheerbart and Alpine Architecture by Bruno Taut, p. 121.

134 G. Le Rouge. Le prisonnier de la planete Mars. Paris, 1976, p. 285. Characteristically, the hero reaches Mars as a result of a spiritual astral journey,

135 Ja! Stimmen des ArbeitsratesfurKunst in Berlin. Charlottenbourg, 1919, S. 91.

Caesar Klein on a fantasy city "crowned with a cathedral of a great unknown god, a towering pyramid of golden glass cut with a thousand crystalline facets" 136 . The revival of mankind is planned on the basis of some obscure cosmic faith, the god of which is unknown. The theme of the new religion is one of the most popular in the writings of the Council and the Chain of Glass. Its dogma lies entirely in line with the symbolist metaphors of the Scheerbartian-Fechnerian persuasion.

People of extremely different artistic aspirations united around Taut. The Glass Chain included: Karl Kreil, Paul Gesch, Hans Scharoun, Jacobus Goettel, Hans Hansen, August Hablik, Max Taut, Wilhelm Bückmann, Hermann Finsterlin, Wassily Luckhardt, Walter Gropius and Bruno Taut. Adolf Bene also joined the group. The common mystery pathos united everyone.

The "Chain of Glass" featured a text by Hablik, in which the group's goal was to build a new book: "The Book" that would make obsolete and forget all the Bibles and Korans, all the a religion of creation, insofar as it would be a religion of creation" 137 . We are talking about a new demiurgeism, equating architecture with the creation of the world, about a new religion and a new scripture. It is no coincidence, of course, that among the German expressionists, Whitman's Leaves of Grass was turned into a kind of sacred text. 138 . It was Whitman who owned the claim to create a new bible written on the leaves of a new Eden. And it is no coincidence, of course, that Max Taut, Bruno's brother, writes about the vision of "houses growing on trees instead of leaves" 139 . Thus, the striving for organomorphism, the hothouse myth are formed into a new mythological knot. Bruno Taut, who signed his letters in the "Glass Chain" with the pseudonym "Glass",

136 ibid ., S. 49.

137 Die Glaseme Kette. Visionare Architekturen aus dem Kreis um Bruno Taut 1919-1920. Berlin, 1963, S. 16.

138 L.-G. Buchheim. Die Kunstlergemeinschan Briicke. Feldafmg, 1956, S. 37-39.

139 Die Glaserne Kette. S. 20. Cf. with the motif of a glass book by V. Khlebnikov:

"City of glass pages,

Opening them with a wide flower in the afternoon

And closing for the night. "- V. Khlebnikov. Collection of works, vol. 5. L., 1933, p. 89.

interprets the Hablik theme of the book (the entire "Glass Chain" can be understood as a glass book), but already interprets it in terms of the Grail (it is known that the Grail was understood not only as a crystalline bowl, but also as a mystery book) and calls all the activities of the group "mystery" 140 . And, finally, Herman Finsterlin, perhaps the most original theorist of the group, launches through the "Chain" the mystery "Eighth Day", grandiose in its poetic pathos, Finsterlin draws a picture of the life of the cosmos, presented in architectural images. Here everything pulsates, moves with intensely radiating plasma, undergoing catastrophic mutations. And in the center of a huge world building, a "kaleidoscope of infinite all-naturalness" rotates 141 (cf. with the kaleidoscope in the glass pavilion of Bruno Taut).

The unimaginable, distorted snail-like and fantastic curlicues of the buildings in Finsterlin's designs are a radical attempt to synthesize a whole set of new architectural mythologies into a structure. The architect is trying to find a balance "between crystal and amorphousness", as a balance between static and movement, constructiveness and organomorphism: "Inside the new houses, people will not feel like inhabitants of a fabulous crystalline druse, but inhabitants of the insides of a living organism" 142 . Finsterlin equips his unique homes with glass floors designed to "knock out" a person from housing into an endless "vegetative" space. And of course, new house for him it is "the Grail, daily refilled with the forces of our pulsating earth" 143 .

Finstrelina's projects are the most fantastic and daring in the group's activities. But essentially, in almost all the works of the members of the Council and the "Chain" the same cultural myth is worked out. Wassily Luckhardt in 1920 creates a project of the church in the form of a crystal. Hablik makes models and sketches of buildings that look like crystal glass druze, Hans Sharoun comes up with buildings in the form of flowers, Johannes Molzahn makes his glass crystal, Max Taut comes up with the "People's House" in Grunewald in the form of a crystal flower and widely uses plant-crystalline forms in others. projects, etc. Even among architects, it would seem,

140 Die Glaseme Kette, S. 39.

141 Ibid., S. 32.

142 H. Finsterlin. Innenarchitektur. - Frulicht, 1 Jg, H.2, Winter 1921-1922, S. 36.

143 Ibid., S. 36.

far from the cult of glass, such as Hans Pelzig or Erich Mendelssohn, the echoes of this cultural myth are obvious. Mendelssohn, for example, built his famous Einstein Tower as a blueprint for a future cathedral. The tower was supposed to absorb light from above and reflect the rays into the dungeon with the help of mirrors. 144 completely in the spirit of the "light-catching tower" from Scheerbart's Lezabendio.

In the same ideological range, more famous and less utopian projects of the same time should be considered - the project of a glass skyscraper on Friedrichstrasse (1919) by Mies van der Rohe, his own project of a glass tower (1921) or the "Glass Tower" by Frank Lloyd Wright, with his ideas "organic architecture" and the cult of glass, expressed entirely in terms of Taut-Bene 145 .

Here, of course, there is no way even to dwell briefly on dozens of glass house projects created by members of the Taut group and architects who found themselves in the circle of their ideas.

The mystical tension of the myth began to drop sharply by the middle of the 1920s. Architects found work Glass houses began to take root in life and, accordingly, lose their utopian dimension. The socio-spiritual revolution that was expected from the widespread introduction of glass did not happen. It is significant that Bruno Taut himself very quickly moved away from the cult of glass, so that the residential areas built by him in the twenties have little in common with the architectural utopia he cultivated. For example, the project of a glass church on a mountain, presented in 1928 for a competition of church architecture, made by Peter Grund, looks like a mythological anachronism, where the believer had to penetrate deep into the rock to the water cascade, and then to the sanctuary, over which the glass vault burned with multi-colored lights 146 .

Stained glass windows for many centuries make people admire their indescribable beauty. Despite the fact that the origins of this type of art lie in the mists of time, even today it has not lost its relevance and relevance. This is quite logically explained by the fact that such a decor, with a beautiful and neat design, can bring to any room not only comfort and homely warmth, but also a special originality of interior design.

Do-it-yourself stained glass on glass can be created even by a novice master, provided, of course, that a technique available for execution is chosen, of which there are a lot in stained glass art. Nowadays, in specialized stores and art salons, you can find everything you need to make stained glass paintings using modern simplified techniques, which are much easier to perform, unlike classical technology. This became possible thanks to modern developments and special materials that are able to very reliably imitate the "classics".

A variety of stained glass styles and techniques accumulated gradually, taking into account the secrets of the old masters and new established practices. Many are still used today, and they must be considered before deciding which option is best suited not only in terms of the pattern, but also in terms of the complexity of the technological process itself.

What are stained glass windows in terms of technique and style

To make a stained glass window, you can choose drawings in various styles, both “covered with noble antiquity” and ultra-modern. Do not lose popularity compositions in the Gothic, ancient Egyptian, Indian styles. Find their supporters abstract, modern, art deco styles, and others corresponding to different eras and cultures, trends in art.

Each of the existing styles is capable of displaying the commitment of the owner of an apartment or house to a particular era with its plot, shapes and color scheme. All styles of stained glass windows have their own requirements and canons that should be observed in their execution.

For a long time, the style with classic drawings was considered ideal, where the choice of subjects and materials was limited. In connection with the development of art and with the advent of new techniques, the possibilities for making stained glass windows have expanded significantly. Therefore, instead of the calm plots of the classics, expressive colors and drawings of modernity and abstraction began to be used more and more actively.

Quite often, masters in their works use several styles and techniques that can enliven and complement each other, which helps to organically fit the stained-glass windows into the overall decor of the house.

Sometimes a stained-glass window for a separate room is chosen as setting the style for the entire interior, while the rest of the items in the room are only its addition and frame. Thus, the stained glass picture becomes the center of the interior.

If the plans of the residents of the house include decorating rooms in different styles, then stained-glass windows are able to combine them into one composition. Glass paintings that adorn the windows can create an amazing special atmosphere of color and light, which will change depending on the intensity of natural light. In addition, false windows with artificial lighting, which are often installed in bathrooms or on interfloor stairwells, can also be decorated with stained glass.

However, before choosing a style of stained glass, you need to decide on the technique in which it will be performed.

stained glass techniques

As mentioned above, there are many techniques for making stained glass windows, but a few of them can be called the main ones:

classical technique

The classical stained glass technique has been known since the Middle Ages. The paintings made according to it consist of fragments of glass having different shades and set in metal frames.

In terms of manufacturing, this option can be called the most difficult, and usually it is trusted to perform only by experienced professional craftsmen. To make such a picture, you will need a large number of different tools designed for cutting and processing glass, welding or spidering metal frames, as well as a well-lit, spacious separate workplace. All this is worth acquiring and equipping only if you plan to practice this art professionally, since a special tool is not cheap. Yes, and work skills, to be honest, are also required at a very high level.

English or film technique

The film or English technique consists in applying a special self-adhesive film of various colors to the glass, according to a pre-prepared pattern.

Stained glass window made in film technique

Each of the fragments in such a stained-glass window, after gluing them, is framed with a lead tape. If the glass with this stained-glass window is installed in the interior door, then the lead tape is glued on both sides. Lead tape does not require soldering, its cut ends are overlapped and rolled.

The advantage of the film technology lies in the fact that all work is carried out on solid glass, which does not require cutting into separate fragments and their complex processing.

In addition, a stained glass window in the English technique can be made much faster than a classic one, and even a novice master can make it on his own with a careful approach.

"Fusing"

"Fusing" cannot be called a new technique for making stained glass paintings, since it has been used since glass began to be produced, of course, having undergone significant improvements over the past time.

Very beautiful and original stained-glass windows made using the "fusing" technology

The name of the technique "fusing" comes from English word"fusion", which translates as a mixture or alloy. It is this process that occurs with glass during the manufacture of a stained glass window using a similar method. At home, it will not work to make a stained glass window using this technique, since its manufacture requires special equipment for melting glass, which can only be provided at very high temperatures.

A stained-glass window made in this way has no seams and does not require the use of metal frames.

The process of creating a stained glass picture is as follows:

On transparent glass right size, laid on a prepared sheet with a pattern, a mosaic of pieces of colored glass is laid out on a special glue.

The fusing technology consists in the gradual heating of the mosaic and its languishing at a temperature of 800 degrees - this is the level necessary for melting and sintering individual pieces of glass together. Melting takes place under strict control, since the moment of readiness of the product must not be missed, otherwise the process of changing the structure of the material will begin - devitrification, in which the glass crystallizes.

When the structure of the stained-glass window becomes homogeneous, the stained-glass window must be cooled.

Then another annealing is carried out, that is, the glass is heated and then cooled.

"Fusing" includes not only melting and sintering, but also glass processing techniques during these processes. In addition, if the desired result is not achieved, then post-forming is performed, which consists in one more heating and giving the stained-glass window a convex or curvilinear shape.

Upon completion of the work, a glass picture is obtained, made of glass of different shades, reliably and hermetically soldered together. This technique is used to make stained-glass windows in various styles, as it gives almost unlimited possibilities in creating paintings of any subject.

"Tiffany"

The tiffany stained glass technique is carried out in a way that is somewhat similar to the classical one. In order to make a picture in this technique, a full-size drawing-template is prepared in two copies, one of which is cut into separate fragments, on which pieces of glass of different colors will be cut.

In many ways repeating the "classics" technique "tiffany"

The edges of the pieces of glass are processed and polished to smoothness. Then, each of the elements of the stained-glass window is bordered with a copper tape, the ends of which are soldered together. In the next step, the framed fragments are interconnected according to the pattern using tin soldering, carried out with a powerful soldering iron.

Unlike the classical one, the tiffany technique uses only copper tape, which is much more flexible and stable than the lead profile and more easily yields to a given deformation, with subsequent retention of the shape, which allows it to border even small stained glass details. Thanks to this, the tiffany technique is used not only for stained glass windows, but also for the manufacture of a wide variety of interior elements, for example, lampshades for table lamps and chandeliers.

Table lamp shade made using the tiffany technique

All parts “dressed” in a copper frame, after soldering the ends of the profile, before joining into a common composition, are rolled with a roller, during which the tape compresses the glass fragment.

Sandblasting technology

Sandblasted stained-glass windows are made using special equipment that delivers a jet of air with sand under high pressure.

The creation of pivotal paintings using this technique is carried out as follows:

A transparent sheet of glass is prepared, on the surface of which a pattern stencil is superimposed and fixed.

The open areas of the stencil are processed with sand supplied in a thin jet under high pressure. The surface from such exposure loses its transparency and becomes matte.

After completion of the work, the stencil is removed from the glass, and an exquisite air pattern remains on the surface.

This type of stained-glass window does not require the installation of frames and complex curly cutting of glass, as well as gluing the film. But, as already mentioned, a prerequisite is the availability of special equipment. If desired, of course, you can replace the sand stream with sandpaper, but in this case you will have to make a stencil from thin metal, since cardboard is a fragile material, it will begin to wear out and will not allow you to reproduce an accurate drawing. Besides, handmade will take a lot of time., and the quality, the depth of drawing will still be not the same.

Cast technique

This rarely used stained glass technique can be called one of the most difficult, since each of the fragments of the mosaic is hand-blown or cast from colored glass by hand. In the process of such piece production, glass fragments are given a special designed texture, which contributes to certain optical effects, the play of refraction of light rays, which creates the effect of pronounced three-dimensionality. Then the fragments are assembled into a single picture using mortars and metal reinforcement.

Stained glass window made in cast technique

It is very problematic to make a stained glass window using this technique at home, since, in addition to equipment, very specific technological skills in glass processing are needed here. As a rule, such stained-glass windows are author's works of art, and they are practically not used in the practice of private housing construction.

Etching technique

The technique of creating a relief pattern on the stele by etching involves the use of hydrofluoric acid, which has the ability to act destructively on the main component of the glass mass - silicon dioxide.

When acid is applied to glass, its layers begin to break down. In order for the substance to melt only those areas of the glass sheet that are needed, a stencil is applied from an acid-resistant material. Stencils allow you to create clear single-layer or multi-layer patterns on a glass surface, with a pronounced relief of various depths. The more layers in the relief, the more voluminous it is. In this case, the acid is applied to different parts of the picture as many times as the number of layers suggests the selected pattern. A single-layer stained-glass window is performed in one step, and in this case, the application of acid simply clouded the glass, making it dull and rough.

To take on your own, without having practice, for such work is not worth it. Working with such a strong acid requires extreme caution, as you can easily skin or mucous membranes. All operations are carried out in special protective equipment, in a well-ventilated non-residential area, equipped accordingly.

Painted stained glass

The stained glass technique is good because it can imitate any other method of making a glass mosaic picture.

The process of working on it includes several stages:

Making a drawing and preparing glass of the desired size.

The glass is laid on the table on top of the spread pattern of the stained-glass window.

According to the drawing, a contour is applied to the glass with the paint of the selected shade. Usually black is chosen, as it perfectly highlights the elements of the picture. After completing this step, the paint should be allowed to dry well.

The circled fragments of the stained glass window are painted with stained glass paints.

How to independently create a stained glass picture using this technique will be shown below in the instruction table. In the meantime, we can say that this is one of the most accessible technologies at home, and it is fashionable even to involve a child in making such a painting - it will be very interesting for him. And the costs, in comparison with all other techniques, are minimal.

Contour filling technique

The pouring technique, as well as the painted one, can imitate any method of making a stained glass window, and with it you can make a picture in a variety of styles. This technology is also great for beginners who decide to decorate their home with stained glass windows. In order to reproduce any image on glass, it is necessary to prepare a drawing and stained glass paints, which are usually available in tubes with a special spout - for ease of application and distribution of the composition over the surface.

Pattern made in the technique of contour filling

The first thing to do is to transfer the outline of the drawing to the glass using the tracing method. Before carrying out the following work, it is necessary to wait until the paint of the contour is completely dry.

After that, the space inside the contour is filled with paint of the desired color. If necessary, it is distributed with a brush. The paint is poured in a fairly thick 1 ÷ 1.5 mm, even layer, and as it dries, it should give a smooth surface without artistic strokes. If, according to the drawing, individual fragments of the stained-glass window need to be given volume with the help of color, then it is necessary to prepare in advance the paint of different shades, which is poured onto the glass, according to the sample of the drawing.

It should be noted that there are other techniques for making stained glass windows. Many of them include two or even more basic technologies of ways, so they can be safely called combined. For example, to simplify the painted or flood method, color film is used instead of paints. That is, at first, according to the drawing, a film is glued onto the glass, between the fragments of which a gap of 3 ÷ 5 mm is left. Then this gap is filled with black stained glass paint, which creates a border for individual fragments of the overall mosaic.

Stained glass styles

Stained-glass windows can be made in various styles, but when choosing a pattern according to this criterion, one should, of course, rely on the design of the entire interior in order to create a harmonious combination of all elements.

Stained glass styles can have many subspecies, and because of this, it is sometimes even quite difficult to determine the most correct classification of the pattern. In this case, it is recommended to rely on the features of the images, color scheme and canonical features.

antique style

The ancient style is based on the ancient Greek and Roman beginning. The uniqueness and harmony of the elements of these trends have not lost popularity in our time, and, in addition, many details of later styles were borrowed precisely from the antique.

Stained glass windows made in this style usually consist of numerous fragments and can be made using any of the techniques described above. If a decision is made to adhere to a certain direction, then an important condition is the observance of the characteristic features inherent in this particular style:

The drawing should resemble an antique mosaic containing Greek ornamental elements - these are drawings of amphoras, nymphs, columns, landscapes with architectural structures that have details typical for buildings of that time - colonnades, porticos, triangular pediments, etc.

Quite often, in the manufacture of stained-glass windows of this style, mixed techniques are used, using not only glass fragments, but also film, ceramics, metal and mother-of-pearl.

Antique motifs are used in stained-glass windows installed in the form of false windows in the bathroom, when decorating the glass of interior doors, and, of course, for window openings with natural illumination.

ancient egyptian style

This interior and stained glass style has never gone out of fashion since Napoleon introduced it to European culture after his campaign in Egypt. The stained-glass window in the ancient Egyptian style has not undergone any special changes since that time, retaining the geometry of the pattern and warm colors.

Characteristic colors of the ancient Egyptian style are warm ocher, sandy, coral, orange and yellow hues, which go well with brown, deep blue ultramarine, cobalt, khaki and grass green, especially when they have a black frame.

This style uses traditional ancient Egyptian ornaments, scenes from the life of the pharaohs, images of sacred animals, as well as famous hieroglyphs.

For a stained-glass window of this direction, filler, "tiffany", "fusing", film, as well as classical techniques are suitable.

Egyptian style stained glass is commonly used in bathrooms, balconies or kitchens, and rarely used in living rooms or bedrooms due to the sheer amount of detail.

Gothic style

Gothic style originated in Western Europe during the Middle Ages, and actively developed in the XII ÷ XV centuries. Over time, it became more complex, enriched with a variety of elements and shades.

"Cold" Gothic style

V initial stage The appearance of the style on stained-glass windows depicted mainly paintings with religious motifs, and later figures of symbolic animals, jousting tournaments, and hunting scenes began to appear.

Gothic stained glass has deep rich hues such as dark green, burgundy, ultramarine, magenta, violet and black.

Fragments of the painting are framed with gold, patina or blackened copper, with everything that can emphasize that this element of the interior belongs to Gothic motifs.

Most optimal techniques executions of stained glass in the Gothic style are flooded, painted, "tiffany", classic, film, and also combined.

It must be said that for an ordinary apartment this style of interior design will be gloomy and will not bring comfort and warmth to the house, since it can rather be attributed to the cold monumental direction in art. The Gothic style is more suited to the large reception halls and high ceilings of Catholic churches.

Indian style

Indian stained glass originated many centuries ago as a window decoration for wealthy houses in India. In the future, like many other styles, it was enriched and somewhat diluted with plots and motifs from other countries, but on the whole it retained its originality.

The Indian style is distinguished by the brightness of colors that cheer up - these are orange-red, bright yellow and green, light blue and other shades that seem to be illuminated from the outside by the sun. Stained glass windows may contain a large amount of gilding.

Indian stained-glass windows include images of deities against the background of the water surface, and lush plant or mountain landscapes. The most popular element of Indian floral ornament is the so-called paisley - "cucumber", which is present in almost any picture of this style.

Classic ornaments in indian style- paisley or, otherwise, "cucumber"

For the execution of this stained-glass window, the tiffany technique, classical, painting and pouring, is used.

Modern style

Art Nouveau became firmly in vogue after the art exhibition held in Paris in 1900, and, probably, has forever been entrenched among the most popular styles, both in art and in architectural design.

The main idea of this style is the primacy of form, that is, the postulate “form is more important than content” is taken as a basis.

Art Nouveau style is distinguished by smooth lines, lightness, sophistication and sophistication. It can be a marine or plant theme, as well as the direction of light romance.

Stained-glass windows made in the Art Nouveau style quite often feature wrought iron bars entwined with dense green vegetation interspersed with flowers, or flowerpots with bouquets of unusual shapes installed in them.

Stained-glass windows of this style are made in pastel soothing colors, and therefore fit perfectly into any interior solution, becoming its center and creating an atmosphere of warmth and comfort in the room.

The stained-glass window can be made in the technique of "tiffany", pouring, film or painting.

art deco style

Over time, complex intricate weaves of plants, forged lattices, various scenes from the life of knights and religious themes were replaced by more simple shapes modern styles. One of them, which many liked, is the art deco style.

This direction appeared in the 20s of the last century, and was especially popular until the 60s. Today, the art deco style is also quite often used in the design of modern apartments and houses.

Drawings of this stained glass style are distinguished by the symmetry of the arrangement of elements, the clarity of lines and pure colors, perfectly matched to each other, as well as a repeating pattern.

The art deco style is performed in any of the above techniques, since the drawing usually consists of large fragments that can be cut out of glass or film, and also etched with a special acid or filled with paint.

Stained glass in abstract style

Abstractionism, as a recognized style, appeared in 1910, after the watercolors of French artists presented at the exhibition. Over time, he entered the European fashion, and they began to use it for the manufacture of various elements for decorating the interior, including stained-glass windows.

The abstract style can be chosen for various interior solutions, as several areas of stained glass art have merged in it.

Abstractionism is distinguished by the numerous regular and irregular fragments, the brightness and richness of colors, which give expression to the entire room where the artistic panel is located.

Stained glass in an abstract style is made using the technique of painting, fusing, film and pouring.

Having chosen a technique suitable for execution, it is quite possible to make a stained-glass window of this style on your own - there are simply no limits for imagination here.

Children's stained glass

The most interesting and touching can be called children's stained glass style. A variety of themes and motifs of children's motifs gives great scope for the imagination of parents, and it is quite possible to involve children in the process of sketch preparation. Most often, such stained-glass windows depict heroes of favorite fairy tales and cartoons, as well as stylized animals.

Children's stained glass should have clear forms so that the child can immediately see what is depicted on it. It is necessary to think over the drawing so that it consists of smooth lines that can make the picture soft and calm, but at the same time bright and eye-catching.

The stained-glass window can be placed on a clock or a mirror built into the closet, but you should not do it on the window, especially if the apartment is located above the first floor. The window is a zone of increased danger, and the child will even unconsciously reach for a beautiful bright image.

In addition, for security reasons, you need to carefully consider the technique for performing the picture. It should not consist of individual glass fragments, even if they are very well bonded to each other. Sharp relief protrusions must be completely excluded.

The picture should not be boring and uninteresting. For children's stained-glass windows, film, flood and painted techniques are well suited, and even better if the picture is applied to safe synthetic glass.

Making a stained glass window with your own hands

The simplest of all the techniques for making stained glass at home, which are available for beginners to master, are painted and film. It is these techniques that will be discussed in more detail.

Creating a stained glass window using glass painting technique

Illustration
	The first step is to measure the glass on which the stained glass will be applied. According to these dimensions, you need to choose the finished drawing you like, or, with sufficient experience, do it yourself. If the finished drawing is taken from the Internet, then it is printed on ordinary A-4 sheets in any graphics editor using the multi-page printing function (for this, for example, the Publisher application included in the MS Office package is great). Then the fragments are joined and glued along the lines with adhesive tape to recreate a single pattern.
	In this case, the drawing is done independently, by hand. At the same time, it is important to ensure that each of its details is well highlighted, the boundaries are drawn.
	The glass is ideally laid on the finished sketch, onto which the entire drawing will be transferred. Glass must be thoroughly degreased with alcohol or ammonia solutions.
	After cleaning the glass surface, the applied compositions are carefully wiped off, since the “working platform” should not only be free of greasy spots, but also be completely dry.
	In the next step, all the contours of the picture are outlined on the glass according to the template laid under it. These borders are usually applied with black paint, as it highlights all the fragments well and makes the final drawing clearer. For stained glass, as mentioned above, special stained glass paints are used. The applied contour must dry completely, otherwise you can spoil all the work done by accidentally smearing the paint during further operations.
	After the borders have dried, they proceed to coloring the finished drawing. This process can be compared to a children's coloring book, where each of the elements must acquire its own color. This stage of stained glass manufacturing must be approached creatively, but also with the utmost care. Such toning is usually applied with thin brushes - previously applied and dried out borders will not allow the paint to spread.
	Colors should be as pure as possible, bright, be sure to harmonize with each other. If it is supposed to give the drawing a special picturesqueness, then darker or lighter shades are best applied later, after the primary, basic colors have dried. Otherwise, dirt may turn out, and all work will go down the drain.
	The finished stained-glass window should look aesthetically pleasing and neat, as well as harmonize well with the interior style. Glass decorated in this way can be carefully inserted into the frame, for example, of an interior door, or used to decorate furniture doors.

Creation of a stained-glass window in film technique

This stained glass technique involves the use of film and lead tape. Usually, stylized drawings with clear shapes are chosen for film technology - art deco style. With a careful approach, such a stained-glass window is probably even easier to perform than using paints.

Illustration	Brief description of the operation to be performed
	Most often, a drawing for stained glass in this technique is printed on a printer using the already mentioned graphic applications. So you can get accurate and clear lines and shapes of all, even the smallest fragments. If the work is being done for the first time, you should not take a too complex drawing with intricate elements. The lines of the drawing should have a width of about 4÷4.5 mm.
	After printing the drawing on sheets, they are carefully glued together. All lines must match perfectly, as the aesthetics of the final result depends on this.
	The next step, the glass prepared to size must be thoroughly cleaned of dust and dirt, degreased from the side with which it will be superimposed on the pattern. Then, the glass is wiped dry.
	Dry glass is laid on a prefabricated sheet with a pattern. It is important to immediately achieve the necessary evenness of the stack stacking relative to the graphic drawing, so that the work does not go skewed relative to the “canvas”. It is desirable to ensure that the glass is securely fixed so that there is no accidental shift during further operations. It is recommended to use small pieces of thin double-sided tape for this (shown by arrows), placing them in those places where they will not interfere with the pattern of the stained-glass window.
	For work, you need to prepare such special tools as a roller, a squeegee with a felt lining, a narrow knife with removable blades, a clamp, scissors, metal rulers of different lengths. From the materials you will need a stained glass self-adhesive film of different colors and a special lead self-adhesive stained glass tape of a suitable shade.
	The glass laid on the drawing must once again be well degreased from the outside with an alcohol solution, and then wiped dry with clean microfiber, which is guaranteed not to leave small fibers on the surface.
	Next, work begins with the film. Experts recommend using high-quality English-made RegaLead film for installation, but it is several times more expensive than products from other companies. Inexpensive films can be unstable to ultraviolet rays, so they can burn out very quickly if the stained glass window is on the sunny side.
	The film is cut for each element separately according to its size. Here, of course, the best option will be the organization of the illumination of the desktop from below. If this is not possible, then you will have to measure each fragment with a ruler and adjust it in place.
	The film is measured and cut out a little larger than a fragment of the picture, and its edges are corrected after gluing.
	Before gluing each fragment, the place where it will be applied is thoroughly wiped (degreased) and dried with a microfiber cloth.
	Further, if the fragment is a strip, then the substrate is removed from the cut piece of film, from one of its edges. The edge of the part is fixed on the glass, smoothing with a squeegee with a felt nozzle. The other edge of the fragment is stretched, which makes it possible to place it exactly along the lines of the picture.
	Then, with a clear and quick movement, the film strip is pressed against the glass with a squeegee. This operation must be carried out quickly so that even the slightest dust does not have time to get on the glass surface, otherwise the effect of accuracy may be irretrievably lost. Excess film along the edges of the glass is cut off with a sharp knife. The adhesive on the back of the film sets almost immediately, but not fully, so it is possible to correct irregularities if they are accidentally created.
	This photo shows two parallel strips pasted on glass well. One of them is already exactly, along the ruler, cut off, and the second has just been pasted, and its edges have not yet been processed.
	The film should be on the black stripe by 1.5÷2 mm. A long ruler is laid exactly along this line, a sharp knife is drawn along it, and the excess part of the film is carefully removed. Later in the course of work, the black lines of the drawing will be covered with lead tape, which is pasted last.
	In the event that a speck of dust nevertheless got under the film, then it must be tried to remove it. To do this, the edge of the fragment is carefully lifted, peeled off from the glass, and with the tip of the knife, carefully, so as not to damage the material, remove a speck of dust. It is strictly forbidden to carry out this operation with your fingers, since the prints from them will certainly remain on the adhesive layer of the film, and will be clearly visible through the light. After removing a speck of dust, the film is again stretched and pressed with a squeegee.
	This illustration shows well two finished fragments of the future stained glass.
	Further, work continues on the same principle. If the drawing element has a curvilinear configuration, then its correction is carried out on the spot.
	To do this, a larger fragment of the film is cut out, and after gluing, excess sections are carefully cut off from it exactly along the black lines of the picture. Here, of course, “fullness of the hand” is very important, so that the manipulations of the knife are carefully verified, and the edges turn out to be even, exactly according to the pattern.
	If there are several small fragments of different colors in the conceived drawing in the neighborhood, then you can do it in two ways. In the first case, the entire multi-colored zone is covered with a film of the same color, and then extra fragments are cut out. So you can significantly win in the speed of stained glass production, but lose in material consumption.
	You can do it differently, in a more professional way, when each fragment of the pattern is covered with a separate piece of film and cut out separately. Material savings are achieved here, but the work, especially in the absence of experience, will take longer, and in addition, there is a high probability of making a mistake. Therefore, if the second method of operation is chosen, fragments of a slightly larger film are glued onto individual elements.
	Cuts are also made along the black lines of the template pattern. In no case should overlaps of films of adjacent fragments remain, since with increasing temperature the material tends to expand, and in the absence of a gap between the individual elements of the mosaic pattern, deformation may appear on the surface. And over time, the film will begin to flake off the glass altogether. Therefore, a gap of 1.5 ÷ 2 mm should remain between the fragments.
	The remaining parts of the pattern are cut out and fixed on the glass using the same technique.
	In the illustration, you can clearly see how elements with complex patterns are glued.
	When all the color fragments are filled with the film, they proceed to sticking the lead tape. This material for framing can be of different colors - a ribbon is produced for gold, silver, copper with a variety of intermediate shades. Lead tape can be matte or glossy, it is plastic, as it consists of 98÷99% pure lead, so it easily takes any given shape, and it is very comfortable to work with it. The lower part of this stained glass material is also covered with a special adhesive, which has excellent adhesion to glass.
	Each fragment of the stained-glass window is framed with a ribbon. When joining several lines of the tape at one point, the edges must be overlapped, that is, if the cuts go to the edge of the entire composition, then they overlap with a segment framing the entire edge. In the middle part of the pattern, the edges of the tape should also overlap each other. After gluing, the tape is carefully rolled on top with a roller.
	The straight lines of the stained-glass window, framed with lead tape, must be leveled with a ruler and a squeegee - this process must be carried out immediately, while the glue is not yet dry.
	A simple way to align straight lines allows you to make them perfectly even. To do this, a ruler is applied to the strip of glued tape, set exactly according to the template, and then an angle or edge of the squeegee is drawn between the ruler and the tape, which finally sets the tape to the specified place.
	As mentioned above, each of the edges of the tape must overlap with the next glued segment. For example, if a round zone with fragments is pasted over, then for this it is taken whole piece and, after laying out the circle, one edge of the tape is superimposed on the other, and then rolled with a roller. The cut edges must be closed so that during cleaning you do not accidentally touch or peel off any of them. Therefore, it is recommended to carefully consider in advance which of the fragments, where and when to glue. It is necessary to try to plan the sequence of gluing in such a way that at the end of the work, only one open edge of the tape remains.
	After that, the entire glued tape is rolled with a roller.
	Next, using a special clamp, which is usually included in the kit for creating stained-glass windows, you need to go through all the joints, pressing the strips of tape to each other. This is done to avoid the formation of cracks with the subsequent ingress of moisture or detergents into them during operation.
	The tape is pressed on both sides of the joint, which, by the way, gives the overall composition the naturalness of a real stained-glass window - a visual effect of a “forged joint” is obtained. Full sealing of joints and overlaps will provide maximum long service created stained glass.
	After that, the stained-glass window should be carefully treated with a detergent, but it should not be applied to the glass with a finished pattern, but to a microfiber cloth. The stained-glass window is wiped very carefully, in the direction only along the lead tapes, in order to avoid their shift, since the glue has not yet completely polymerized.
	Further, from under the glass, you can remove the pattern-pattern.
	The finished stained glass should have straight lines and be very neat. Only in this case it will look spectacular and become a full-fledged decoration of the room, an eye-catching center. design decoration interior.

If one of the simple techniques is chosen for manufacturing, then they can be mastered quickly enough. However, before starting to make a final stained-glass window, you need to practice a little in order to at least “fill your hand” a little. Perhaps this creative process will be able to captivate someone so much that after completing one picture on glass, a novice master will want to do this business professionally.

Jul 7, 2018 Sergei