The Illuminated Window

In Virginia Chieffo Raguin’s The Illuminated Window . . . rather than present an encyclopaedic look at stained glass through the ages, she focuses on examples from churches to universities and domestic settings, and from Gothic designs, through the Renaissance, to the work of contemporary artists . . . The chapters themselves are as varied as their subjects. -- Gemma Tipton * The Irish Times *
Stained glass likes an epic theme . . . The Illuminated Window, a new, exhaustively detailed and comprehensively illustrated book by Virginia Chieffo Raguin, guides the reader through these grand projects. * The Spectator *
Virginia Chieffo Raguin’s ambition in The Illuminated Window is impressive . . . the pictures are plentiful, but Cheiffo Raguin also explains the materials, processes and techniques of using glass for decoration. Her command of her subject is extraordinary and conveyed in a pleasingly accessible way . . . [a] handsome volume. * The Tablet *
Renowned scholar Professor Virginia Chieffo Raguin brings the insights of her long career in stained glass studies to bear on a fascinating selection of iconic case studies. She applies the rigour and erudition honed over many decades in the service of the Corpus Vitrearum to a range of glazing schemes spanning from the twelfth to the twenty-first centuries. The book demonstrates admirably that stained-glass programmes of all periods and contexts can yield up their secrets to expert art historical enquiry. * Professor Sarah Brown, University of York and Chairman of the Corpus Vitrearum Medii Aevi (Great Britain) *
The Illuminated Window is a delight for the eye and the mind. Through gorgeous color photographs and vivid analysis, Virginia Raguin demonstrates the importance of stained glass as art, as narrative, and as a feature of ambitious sacred and secular buildings from the Middle Ages to the present. * Dell Upton, emeritus professor of art history at University of California, Los Angeles *
Virginia Chieffo Raguin’s insightful analysis sheds much-needed light on the creation of site-specific decorative work in glass from the Middle Ages to the twenty-first century. She highlights the often-overlooked relationships between stained glass and other media, including illuminated manuscripts, oil paintings, illustrated books, and prints, a range of resources yielding a complex development process that transcended national borders. * Jennifer Tonkovich, Curator of Drawings and Prints at the Morgan Library & Museum, New York *
Informed, inspired and highly imaginative . . . Beautifully presented . . . this book surely sets the bar in relation to is subject matter. * David Marx *