Syndicat d'Initiative
de Cerfontaine
de Cerfontaine
End of the 19th century.
The stained glass windows are made of glass and cost 10,672.47 francs in 1884.
These windows were installed around the church façades to bring in as much light as possible into the building.
Some are figurative (depicting a saint or a decoration) and others are not, they are just compositions of colours.
Unfortunately, between 12 and 15 May 1940, Cerfontaine suffered a heavy bombardment by German artillery and air force. By some miracle, no bomb fell on the church, but elsewhere in Eau d'Heure. The force of the explosions and the shrapnel destroyed almost all the windows on the right side of the church.
To repair the damage, white and opaque windows (therefore cheaper) were installed and are still present many years later.
These windows almost all have a rosette representing the symbols of different saints, whose names are written in the glass.
In addition to letting light into the building, stained glass windows were used to illustrate sacred texts in churches. A means of communication in a time when the majority of people could not read. Other more abstract windows let the parishioners' imagination run wild while offering a beautiful colour palette.
The first stained glass windows appeared in European churches at the beginning of the 12th century, but were still very rare, as Romanesque buildings had very few glass openings, and they were small in size.
With the advent of Gothic architecture in the 13th century, larger openings were created to bring much more natural light into religious buildings. An opportunity for the glassmasters to improve their art.
But at that time, the windows did not offer a wide range of colours, only in the 14th century would new techniques for making windows offer more colour options. The windows became larger, more colourful, and more detailed.
In the 15th century, the first true "paintings" of stained glass windows appeared, allowing architects and glassmasters to not only consider the framing of the stones to delimit their creations.
The windows continued to evolve until the end of the 18th century with more colours and windows finding their way into castles, but the French Revolution in 1789, and the spread of anti-church ideas, led to destruction in churches. The windows were not spared and the plundering emptied the religious buildings, leading to the replacement of the windows with white and opaque glass.
However, stained glass fashion experienced a second wave in the 19th and 20th centuries, although the styles were more industrial, while art nouveau and art deco came into play, bringing new styles and modern ideas back into the churches.