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 Stained glass
The Gospel of light
By Fons Eppink, Mill Hill Missionary in Uganda
An art for many centuries, the stained glass was used in European gothic cathedrals as a way of evangelization. Nowadays, it serves the same purpose in Uganda missions. Africa’s motifs and bright colors help its people in learning the Gospel and appreciating beauty with the aid of the continent’s unique light and craft of a true master.
Stained glass has always been a fascination for me. It has the ability to create a sacred space inviting prayerful silence through playful interaction of the sun’s radiant light and varied hues of the colored glass. “Saints are like stained glass,” someone told me once. “They allow the divine light to pass through myriad hues.”
Working in a Pax Christi Youth Hostel many years ago in Chartres, I stood in awe at the breathtaking beauty of the Blue Madonna in the famous cathedral there and spent days scrutinizing the many other stunning windows depicting Gospel stories or lives of saints in exquisite color and light. Anyone who has seen the typical “Chartres blue” cannot but be awestruck. The Gothic masters also understood the power of “evangelisation through stained glass beauty.” They enabled the largely illiterate common folk of their day to ‘read’ essential parts of the Gospels in pictorial splendour by simply looking at these windows.
But who would have thought that this ancient art, with its ability to immediately convey a sense of holiness and transmit powerful messages, would find a new home in Africa? A recent visit to the Nsambya Glass Workshop in Kampala, Uganda, has convinced me that this is indeed the case. Founded more than half a century ago – in 1936 to be exact – this stained glass centre no longer needs to prove its artistic African credentials.
“We’re fully engaged in exploring African decorative elements and symbols. We want Christian art to ‘feel Ugandan,’” Mathias Muwonge, the long-time director of the Workshop told me. To illustrate his point, he took out a large sketch book and spread it out on the floor of his office. Before long, I found myself on a whirlwind tour of imaginative designs – African crucifixion scenes, original decorative motives, the Gospel translated into a local pictorial language.
As he explained his artistic ideas and creative purpose, he soon got carried away by his own enthusiasm, sometimes lost for words. I was stunned. “You will have to go to St. James Church in Bbiina – a suburb of Kampala – to see these sketches come to life,” he advised. And so I did. The beautiful colors and delicate paints bringing to life the mysteries of the rosary at the windows of this Church, constructed in the form of a traditional round African hut, immediately grabbed me. “I consider myself an evangelizer,” Mathias told me. “People can identify the message we portray in stained glass images.”
A gift to East Africa
Struck by the similarity between the images in this Church and the portraits of the 22 Ugandan Martyrs in the national Shrine at Namugongo, I asked Mathias if there was a link. With a smile, he explained that he had indeed worked on the latter in collaboration with the well-known Mill Hill missionary brother, Joseph van Heeswijk, his mentor and the pioneering founder of this Stained Glass Workshop in Uganda. “I worked with Brother Joseph as an apprentice for three years before he died in 1990. At Makerere University Art School, I learnt the theory; he knew the practice.”
Brother Joseph had earlier conducted a lot of research on the Ugandan Martyrs. Eventually, he portrayed each one of them in traditional iconographic style. He understood, like no other, the evangelizing power of beauty in the form of stained glass images. I saw a few examples of his masterly expertise in the new chapel of Nsambya Hospital where the stained glass images were transferred after the old chapel was demolished. Many churches and cathedrals in East Africa are adorned with windows of his design and making. One of his last windows can be found in the chapel of the Catholic University in Nairobi. But he himself was fondest of a window in Lira Cathedral in Uganda’s troubled North. When he heard that it had been damaged during the war in late 1980’s, he was deeply saddened and kept its photograph near him until his death.
His successor, Mathias Muwonge, is exploring novel designs and motifs seeking inspiration from his African roots. He has developed his own style moving away from the abundant use of decorative paints, favored by his mentor, to a predominance of delicately colored glass. The wide circular band of colored glass around the roof of the church at Bbiina sets the whole building ablaze in sparkling hues of yellow and orange.
Out of the church
“Traditionally, stained glass is associated with buildings; it is seen as architectural.” But, Mathias observes, that is only one way. “We want to take this art form out of the church into the secular domain.” In a little exhibition room next to his office, he shows me some of the striking products of this line of exploration: small portable stained glass windows, three dimensional glass designs, a lampshade. Together with art students at Makerere University, where he lectures on ‘Stained Glass and Mosaics’ in the Sculpture Department, Mathias is further developing this creative outlet.
I went away inspired and grateful to see that this alluring art form has taken firm root in African soil keeping some of its original purpose as a way of evangelization through beauty. “You can gauge the impact of your work by what happens after you are gone for good,” a young African missionary brother once told me. By that measure, Brother Joseph van Heeswijk’s pioneering initiative certainly passes as exemplary. His ‘Mission through Stained Glass’ is carried on with enthusiasm and creativity by competent African hands.
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