Ecclesiastical Lightscapes: Unitarian Ideals in Tiffany’s Stained Glass

The windows of Arlington Street Church by Tiffany and Company exemplify a striving for unity within the building and with the formal and ideological convictions of the congregation. Designed by Arthur Gilman, the church was completed in 1861 on newly filled land in Boston’s Back Bay. The window program begun in 1899 reflects the Unitarian principles of inclusion proclaimed by the renowned William Ellery Channing, the congregation’s former pastor. The lower six windows were inspired by Gospel narratives but can also be read as transcendental allegories. The upper windows show a series of majestic women representing the Beatitudes, the blessings described by Christ in the Sermon on the Mount. A watercolor sketch for the Beatitudes, now in the Metropolitan Museum is signed “Copyright 1905 by Frederick Wilson. Wilson’s designs served as the basis for the church’s windows fabricated from 1899 through 1930. The figures reference contemporaneous art such as Thomas W. Dewing’s painting, The Days, 1887, Wadsworth Atheneum, which depicts a parade of young women evoking a classical procession honoring Athena. The windows’ use of swirling draperies, the noble proportions of the woman, and above all, the monumental import of the image link the windows to allegorical figures of the great bronze doors of the Boston Public Library by Daniel Chester French installed in 1904. Tiffany repeated the acanthus leaf patterns of the architecture in the extremely wide borders of the windows, thus linking the windows' motifs to the fabric of the building.