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Gilsoul used new techniques and designs to reflect Northwestern education while paying homage to the Bible - Song said she sees the symbolism behind education itself as a parallel to the windows’ history.
#Stained glass design of a chapel windows
The windows bring together spirituality and education on campus, said Tiffany Song, a graduate assistant in the Office of Student Engagement, who works with the Chapel. At the time, churches were spending less money on the buildings while “hippies” gave the art of stained glass a more colorful and secular home, according to the website of the Stained Glass Association of America. For example, the panels have jellyfish on them - instead of featuring an image of Jesus on the cross. The chapel features a more modern design than the typical chapel stained glass display of biblical images, so they generated controversial attention when they were finished in 1964. His main desire was to paint, his daughter said, but he designed stained glass to put food on the table. Gilsoul moved to America after he visited on a grant to study art and fell in love with the country.
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“He had to do the sketches, which took hours and days because he had to get the brushes, watercolors, cartons, et cetera.”
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“The committee of the Alice Millar Chapel gives the themes for the windows, then my father had to do research,” Mireille said. For the campus chapel, this artist was Gilsoul. One evolution was autonomous panels - panels created by a single artist that are viewed as aesthetic fine art over functional decorative art, which serves a functional purpose, according to the website of the Stained Glass Association of America. The stained glass process took a long time, despite the advancement of glass design techniques in the 1960s. It took two years to complete the windows, said Gilsoul’s daughter, Mireille Gisoul. There’s always something new to find in these windows and a new way to be inspired by them.”īroad instructions were given to Gilsoul: to create something new that would connect the Alice Millar Chapel to Northwestern and Evanston. “I’m always amazed at how different they are depending on the season, time of day, if it’s a cloudy day, a sunny day, a rainy day. “What’s fascinating about them is that they’re different all the time,” said Eric Budzynski, the associate for Religious Life & Chapel Music at the Alice Millar Chapel. Over 50 years later, the multicolored windows in the 700-seat chapel continue to hold a lasting impression on the people who visit. A year later, he began to work on the stained glass windows for the Alice Millar Chapel at Northwestern University. Although he spoke little English, he began to design for Willet Stained Glass Studios of Philadelphia with the help of his wife, who would translate for him into their native language, French. At the end of 1961, artist Benoît Gilsoul and his family packed up their belongings and moved from Belgium to Queens.