THE GLORY OF GLASS

The history of stained glass stretches back, like an increasingly brilliant hall, to the 11th century. There it shatters into fragments and disappears. Historians now only guess that the art developed first in the Middle East, as an offshoot of mosaic making, since stained-glass windows are nothing but translucent mosaics held together by lead.

In the Middle Ages, the very faith of Europe came to life in the cathedrals' stained-glass windows. The artists who made them were revered, but most of their names are forgotten. The art reached its highest level in France, and France's earliest known fragment is a "Head of Christ" (opposite) made in the mid-11th century for a church at Wissembourg in Alsace. The turquoise and ruby glow of its colors, the economy of its drawing, and the sorrowing intensity of its expression make the little medallion (reproduced at close to full size) a priceless masterpiece. It had an honored place last week in one of the summer's most important exhibitions: a 63-item survey of French stained glass up through the 16th century, at Paris' Museum of Decorative Arts.

The show consists chiefly of glass which was crated for safekeeping before World War II. One of the churches it came from was destroyed in the war; others were still standing but not yet ready to have their windows back. Curator Jacques Guerin staged the exhibition with dramatic solemnity, to the accompaniment of recorded church music. The galleries were illuminated by the exhibits themselves, artificially lit from behind. It was, said Guerin proudly, "the first exhibition of its kind ever held. I don't think it will ever again be possible to assemble such a collection."

With stained glass, as with most other art forms, the purest blooms were among the first to appear. The "Head of Christ," for example, outshines the more recent and more sophisticated works on the following page. From the awkward but highly animated and magnificently colored "Saint Martin" through the comparatively slick, elaborate "Pierre de Mortain" to the mannered "Sibyl," the panels show a steady change from simple, abstract design to naturalistic representation.

But stained glass lends itself best to abstract or symbolic art. Naturalism taxes the powers of the medium too heavily. (Assembled from bright bits and pieces, stained glass lacks the shading and blurring needed to create an illusion of depth.) For the last 400 years, not a single masterpiece has been done in glass. With the 20th century return to abstract and symbolic art, stained glass might come into its own once more. Last week enthusiastic young painters swelled the ranks of the 1,200 visitors who each day crowded to see the great past glory of glass.

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