The Sunset Scene

The Sunset Scene
Artist	Tiffany Studios
Year	1915
Medium	Stained glass
Subject	The beauty of nature and the essence of life and death
Dimensions	53 1/4 x 23 1/4 x 1 3/16 in. (135.3 x 59.1 x 3 cm)
Location	Memorial Art Gallery, Rochester, New York

The Sunset Scene is an art glass window created by Tiffany Studios around 1915. This artwork was created to symbolize the voyage between life and death.^[1] Tiffany Studios manufactured many stained glass pieces, and this scene was created for Mount Hope Cemetery^[2] in Rochester New York. It is held in the MAG museum collection in Rochester, New York, gifted in memory of Mr. and Mrs. Thomas B. Dunn by their family in 2002.^[3]

The sunset scene is a leaded glass panel with a white wooden frame. The river suggests the movement of the water because of the transparent properties of the glass and the different types of glass used. The mountains are cast in shadow on the front side by the use of several layers of glass plates attached on the back side. This technique was developed by Tiffany Studios and is known as mottling. That technique is used throughout to create shadow and depth, both under the tree and among the plants where the mottled glass really adds the illusion of sunlight. According to Tiffany Census, many of the techniques used for making these types of windows include many layers and colors to depict a different motion, or to complete and enhance the fullness of the view intended for the piece.^[4]

Louis Comfort Tiffany was a well-known artist for painting, but he found himself intrigued by the unique mode of glass production in medieval Europe, and was disappointed by the type of glass produced in the 19th century in The United States.^[5] According to Rachel M. Bradshaw, “Tiffany realized that the nineteenth-century windows lacked the brilliance and quality of this medieval glass. Instead, nineteenth-century artisans emphasized naturalistic details rather than color…” (1998). According to Tiffany Windows in Richmond & Petersburg, Virginia, “The lack of quality stained-glass manufacturers in America left artisans to depend on European and English glass, usually what the foreign glass workers had rejected” (Rachael Bradshaw, pg.1), Although the United States did not have many experts in the field of glass at the time, Tiffany started doing experiments with glass and color. He was able to modernize some of the glassworks he has seen in textbooks about medieval glass, and those he had seen in Europe.

From there Tiffany started conducting more experiments and established a new era for what is known to be glasswork. An article by The Metropolitan Museum stated “Tiffany loaned to the Museum twenty-seven pieces from his own collection, representing a wider range of production techniques and more developed styles of glass. One of these new techniques produced glass that resembled Lava or 'volcanic' glass” (Bowl:51.121.13). The Metropolitan Museum of Arts also said, “Of all of Tiffany’s artistic endeavors, leaded-glass brought him the greatest recognition… Tiffany and his early rival, John La Farge, revolutionized the look of stained glass, which had remained essentially unchanged since medieval times when craftsmen utilized flat panes of white and colored glass with details painted with glass paints before firing and leading” (Alice F. & Monica O, 2007).^[6]