Stained glass designer Louis Tiffany created in 1912 for St. George’s Episcopal Church a window entitled “Angels with Trumpet and Incense”. While it featured these two angels on the bottom, there was also a striking vision of the New City of Jerusalem on top
The subject of this window is from the Book of Revelation 9:13 – “The sixth angel blew his trumpet; and I heard a single voice speaking from among the horns of the golden incense altar which is in the presence of God.”
There are seven trumpets in Revelation, each signaling the issuing of God’s judgment on earth Angels bring God’s judgment on earth in Revelation. The blowing of these trumpets may correspond to the New Moon (or New Month) festivals in the Old Testament. Each new moon trumpet blowing was understood as a day of judgment in miniature, which warned people to prepare for the final judgment ushered in by the Feast of Trumpets and to call people back to a covenant relationship with God. When the seventh trumpet blew, it was to announce the Day of Atonement was at hand
Before the seventh angel blew his trumpet in Revelation 11, John was asked by a mighty angel (with right foot on the sea and left foot on the land) to eat the scroll telling of the things to happen (first tasting like honey, then souring his stomach) and yet to continue to prophesy further. John was told that the “holy city” (Jerusalem) would be trampled for “42 months,” during which two prophets/witnesses would tell about God, then would be killed, and would rise to heaven after 3 1/2 days — with an earthquake collapsing a tenth of the city.
This image captures the calm before the storm— the angel on the left is the seventh trumpeter, and the angel on the right bears incense. Behind the kneeling angels, billowing cloud rise up, parting at the top to reveal a glistening vision of Jerusalem. The hair and faces are painted with the reddish hair that is particularly noticeable.
The top portion of the window is the City of Jerusalem from our reading – Revelation 21:1-7. From the passage – Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. 2 And I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. 3 And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying,
“See, the home of God is among mortals.
He will dwell with them;
they will be his peoples,
and God himself will be with them;
4 he will wipe every tear from their eyes.
Death will be no more;
mourning and crying and pain will be no more,
for the first things have passed away.”
5 And the one who was seated on the throne said, “See, I am making all things new.”
How did Tiffany produce this work – The upper window shows the city of Jerusalem, coming down from heaven, emerging from a backdrop of opalescent glass, milky hues of blues, browns, and greens. The Jerusalem image fades into the background. The city shows buildings with columns and onion skin domes.
Opalescent glass is a generalized term for clear and semi-opaque pressed glass, cloudy, marbled, and sometimes accented with subtle coloring all combining to form a milky opalescence in the glass.
This opalescence is also created in the glassmaking by alternating heating and cooling of the glass and with the addition of chemical additives to create the desired effect.
The city was painted onto a sheet of colored glass with enamel. A sheet of spotted glass was then laid or plated on top, creating a sense of sunlit distance. Spotted glass was made by adding fluorine during the firing process— the fluorine crystallized and caused the spots. Drapery glass is used to produce ripples of varying hues and tints in the angels’ gowns. This type of glass has been bent and folded to produce ripples that create an illusion of depth. The solemn pose of the angels contrasts with the iridescent glimmer of the city that hovers above, instilling the design with surreal grandeur and a sense of what is to come.
Louis Tiffany’s genius was using paint and many different types of glass techniques to create his art. Just in this window you opalescent class, drapery glass and spotted glass and well as hand painted enamel.