Under strict embargo until 00:01 on Saturday 20 October 2012
NEWS RELEASE
16 October 2012
21ST CENTURY DISPLAY FOR 15TH CENTURY
STAINED GLASS MASTERPIECES
The medieval stained glass York Minster’s Great East Window has been described as the English
equivalent of the Sistine Chapel, and from Saturday 27 October 2012, visitors will be able to see
some of the newly conserved panels up close when a new gallery is installed in a contemporary
metallic ‘Orb’ within York Minster’s historic East End.
The Orb is a 10 metre wide, 3 metre tall dome that has been installed to the East of York Minster’s
Quire, directly below the Great East Window. Visitors will walk inside The Orb to see displays of five
newly-conserved panels taken from the Great East Window – four permanently on display and one
which will change each month during the Orb’s three year tenancy of the space. The panels are the
brainchild of unsung British artist, John Thornton. They are of such international importance that
this collection is comparable with an exhibition of Rembrandt or Vermeer.
The Acting Dean of York, Canon Glyn Webster comments: "It is too easy for us to take for granted
the amazing architecture and painting of the Great East Window. It is almost impossible to imagine
the effect of this astonishing wall of glass must have had when it was first unveiled to the medieval
public. It is my hope that the superb restoration of the glass, undertaken by the York Glaziers Trust,
will reveal anew the marvels of the window, designed and painted between 1405 and 1408 by John
Thornton of Coventry.”
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The metallic exterior of the Orb is subtly illuminated with moving projections of stained glass to add
extra colour and movement to the domed roof. “The positioning of five panels within The Orb
represents a fascinating juxtaposition of old and new. Visitors will be able to step into a
contemporary metallic structure and see the detail of the painting of the medieval glass," adds
Canon Webster.
Of the 108 major panels in the East Window, 81 illustrate scenes from the last book of the New
Testament -The Book of Revelation (Apocalypse) - which describes, sometimes in graphic detail, the
end of the world. John Thornton clearly had access to Royal illuminated manuscripts which
contained images from the Apocalypse – a mark of the ambition and scale of the project in its day.
Flanking the Orb, which sits in the central Lady Chapel, St Stephen’s Chapel and All Saints Chapel
feature interactive exhibitions inspired by the major works taking place on the Minster’s east front.
The work of York Minster’s stonemasons is highlighted in the All Saints Chapel with displays
explaining the scale of the work facing the artisans in restoring the stone tracery that supports the
glass. A touch screen game allows children to virtually chip away at a block of stone, with interactive
displays featuring tools and stone taken from the building.
In St Stephen’s Chapel, the role of the glaziers is examined. A second touch-screen game invites
young visitors to join John Thornton’s team of artists and glaziers to create a virtual stained glass
window, whilst display panels explain the huge scale of the project currently being undertaken by
conservators at the York Glaziers Trust.
The Orb will open to the public on Saturday 27 October 2012, and in special evening events, as part
of the Illuminating York Festival from 31 October to 3 November. The East End, beyond the Quire,
has been closed off for the last few weeks to allow the installation to take place out of public view.
The installation of The Orb is part of York Minster Revealed, a five-year project generously supported
by a £10.5 million grant from the Heritage Lottery Fund, which incorporates the largest restoration
and conservation project of its kind in the UK. The 108 restored panels from the Great East Window
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will be reinstalled by the summer of 2016, but in the meantime, a major new visitor experience in
York Minster’s Undercroft will open in Spring 2013.
Entry into The Orb is included in admission to York Minster, which is £9.00 for adults (including up to
four children).
For more information, please visit yorkminster.org
ENDS
Notes to editors
The cost of the whole York Minster Revealed Project is £20 million, of which £10.5 million has come
from a Heritage Lottery Fund grant. The remainder of the fund has been raised by York Minster.
About the Heritage Lottery Fund
Using money raised through the National Lottery, the Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF) sustains and
transforms a wide range of heritage for present and future generations to take part in, learn from
and enjoy. From museums, parks and historic places to archaeology, natural environment and
cultural traditions, we invest in every part of our diverse heritage. HLF has supported over 30,000
projects, allocating £4.6billion across the UK. Website: www.hlf.org.uk
Jay Commins
Pamela Anthony
Footprint
PR Officer, York Minster Revealed
Tel: 0113 251 5698
Tel: 0844 939 0014
Mob: 07810 546567
Email: pamelaa@yorkminster.org
Email: jay@fim.org.uk
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UNDERSTANDING THE ARTISTRY OF THE
ORB’S FIVE PANELS
Imagine an art gallery featuring over 300 masterpieces – you could easily spend a day wandering
around, looking at and digesting, such a collection.
The Great East Window at York Minster is the largest expanse of medieval stained glass in Britain,
and possibly the world. Comprising 311 individual and unique panels – each a work of art in its own
right – the completed window would have been stunning to behold when it was first unveiled in
1408 – and indeed, was intended to be an overwhelming work to reflect the limitless power of God.
Each panel is an undiscovered masterpiece, designed by an unsung hero of English Art - John
Thornton was the English equivalent of Vermeer or Michelangelo, and his work is currently
undergoing a massive restoration as part of the York Minster Revealed project.
However, stained glass windows pose a huge challenge when viewed in their entirety – the Great
East Window has the equivalent of 311 masterpieces sat side by side. The challenge for York
Minster, therefore, is to present this artwork to the public in a digestible and accessible way.
The display launching in York Minster’s Orb in October 2012 features five of the panels – four of
which will remain on display for the full three years of the Orb’s installation, and the fifth changing
each month to enable visitors to see 40 of the restored panels at close quarters over the next 36
months. This will allow each of the panels to be viewed and appreciated in its own right as a stand-
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alone piece of art – something that will be virtually impossible once again when all the panels are
returned to their original setting in the Great East Window.
The significance of the Great East Window at the time of its commissioning should not be
underestimated. York was the second city of medieval England, and this window was intended to
reflect the city’s status as a Royal seat and a place where Parliament would meet outside of London.
The window is eloquent proof that a century before Michaelangelo was to paint the Sistine Chapel
ceiling, works of extraordinary power and artistic imagination far from the centres of the Italian
Renaissance were being created by English artists. Stained glass, a medium in decline after the
upheavals of Henry VIII’s Reformation of the English Church a century and a half later, was at its
height, achieving a status unsurpassed before or since.
Alongside the artistic merit, the Great East Window demonstrates a great achievement in structural
engineering. Great emphasis was given to creating a window with the minimum stone framing, to
enable as much glass as possible to be included in the design, and thus more light to enter York
Minster. Although there are larger medieval stained glass windows in Europe, there is no other that
contains as much stained glass as the Great East Window. This required a cutting-edge
understanding of architecture; the masonry had to support the weight of the glass and lead, which is
itself a masterpiece of medieval science.
ENDS
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JOHN THORNTON – ONE OF ENGLAND’S
GREATEST ARTISTS
Stained glass is one of the trickier art forms to display – it is designed for a specific location to sit
within a very clearly defined setting. In the case of York Minster’s Great East Window, which was
designed by the artist John Thornton in the early 15th century, it was created to add breathtaking
colour and drama to the Eastern wing of a great gothic cathedral and to celebrate the glory of God,
and indeed, except for the years of the Second World War, this outstanding work of medieval art has
remained on constant display for nearly 700 years.
Unlike Britain’s great painters working on portable canvases, this huge work of art relied on visitors
coming to see it in its setting in order to appreciate its glory. Its location, high above the ground in
York Minster, also means that visitors over the last six centuries would not be able to see the
stunning detail up close – the subtle expressions on the faces of characters and the extraordinary
textures of the beasts and birds, for example. However, in York Minster’s new Orb, visitors will be
able to see the tiny details for the first time – the brush strokes still evident in the glass paint, and
the superb depictions of scenes from The Apocalypse, featuring angels, saints and even dragons!
John Thornton was a Coventry artist specialising in stained glass who built his reputation in that
great medieval city of churches and monasteries. His reputation preceded him and he has been
compared to a modern-day David Hockney. In 1405 he was invited to York to complete the Great
East Window project and a seventeenth-century copy of the contract he signed is still held in the
York Minster archives, detailing that he was to be paid £56 for his work. It is also known that he
received a £10 bonus for completing the work on time.
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The contract was very specific about John Thornton’s involvement in the project. He was to draw all
the ‘cartoons’ (outlines followed by the glaziers when constructing the window) and personally paint
a significant number of the panels. His interpretation of the International Gothic style incorporated
characteristic faces and detailed hair painted onto the windows. He would have worked with a team
of glaziers, which is likely to have included many of York Minster’s resident glaziers. This is
significant, as it appears that they welcomed the opportunity to work with him on this project – a
reflection of the high esteem in which his work would have been regarded.
Part of the restoration project of the panels has included super high resolution photography of each
panel. This process has enabled conservators to see even the smallest detail of the brush strokes,
and even find tiny fibres of the clothing worn by the artists that became stuck in the glass – perhaps
even from the coat of John Thornton himself.
Art historians around the world recognise John Thornton as one of the greatest and most influential
medieval artists, and as the Great East Window is his largest surviving work, its importance and
global reputation is unmatched.
The new Orb plans to put John Thornton back on the artistic map, securing recognition for his works
that have endured so magnificently.
ENDS
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About The Orb
The Orb is a ten metre wide, three metre tall dome that sits to the East of York Minster’s Quire,
directly below the Great East Window. Inside are five newly-restored panels taken from the Great
East Window – four static and one which will change each month during The Orb’s three year
tenancy of the space.
The Orb is unique in many ways, particularly due to its use in a world famous medieval building and
place of worship. Mather & Co have designed a 21st century display space for 15th century
masterpieces. There is nothing comparable in cathedrals in this country.
Designing The Orb
The shiny properties of the Orb are intended to reflect York Minster back at its visitors. They will
experience a sense of movement and constant change as they circulate around it. But it’s not a
mirror, The Orb is slightly textured so that the light and colour of the Minster are distorted.
The entrance is concealed from visitors as they first approach so that The Orb will create a real sense
of wonder as they find it – a space-age structure on the Minster floor. Visitors will experience a
surprise when they enter. This hard, metallic contemporary exterior will give way to a soft intimate
interior studded with illuminated medieval glass.
Why an Orb?
The East End phase of the York Minster Revealed project and the opportunity to get up close and
personal with the jewels of the Great East Window created enormous excitement amongst the
Mather & Co design team, who wanted to design something truly dramatic, memorable and
enlightening on the Minster floor. After hours of creative thinking and development, and ultimately
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inspired by the molten shapes of a tholus, The Orb was born.
At the East End, the size of York Minster, the Great East Window and the magnificence of the
architecture make it difficult for visitors to concentrate on any detail. The design goal was to find a
way to show them the glass up close without distraction. The Orb is an intimate space where all
visitors can, perhaps for the only time since the window was made, see the intricate detail for
themselves.
Without the Orb it would be difficult to show such delicate glass at all. The environment and light
levels around it have to be protected and the Orb has been designed to do this.
How was The Orb brought it into being?
Mather & Co designed the Orb. They then commissioned Paragon Creative to manufacture it after a
great deal of design development and material testing.
The Orb’s design and manufacture has been approved and supported not only by the Minster’s Dean
and Chapter but by its Fabric Advisory Committee (FAC), the Cathedrals Fabric Commission for
England (CFCE) and by the Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF) who are supporting the project.
ENDS
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York Minster Revealed Developments in
Spring 2013
The project entitled York Minster Revealed includes a variety of elements: restoration of stone and
glass; provision of disabled access and a reinterpretation of the history and purpose of the Minster.
The Project is due to be completed in 2016 when the stained glass panels depicting the Apocalypse
will be restored in the Great East window.
Before that, however, the Undercroft will be re-opened which will prove to be a major visitor
attraction. The Undercroft is the area under the tower crossing and the quire of the Minster. This
area was excavated in the 1960s and 1970s at a time when the central tower was threatened with
collapse. There were two main results: first, an enormous amount of concrete was poured into the
foundations in order to stabilise the tower; secondly the remains of the Roman legionary
headquarters were discovered.
Since the 1970s this area has been open to the public, but the access to these foundations was such
that people with mobility problems were unable to visit: there were many levels connected by the
short flights of steps. An ingenious remodelling of the whole area, and the installation of two lifts
will mean that by late Spring 2013, this fascinating underground part of York Minster will now be
accessible to all. The Exhibition which is being prepared will give visitors a chance to understand the
extraordinary history of the site on which the present Minster stands, and important items from the
Minster’s extensive collections will be put on display.
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The Orb images
All the images below are available to download from:
www.fim.org.uk/TheOrb
Please credit all images to York Minster.
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