Tuesday 9 July 2013

Louis Davis at Dunblane Cathedral

Situated on the South wall of the choir at Dunblane Cathedral are six windows by Louis Davis . I'd never heard of him before but if this is anything to go on then I certainly hope to come across him again. There are other windows by him in the cathedral which will likely appear here another time and some across at Witterings when I do the blog for the building.

It was donated by Sir Robert Younger in 1915 (if you read the guidebook) or 1913 (if you prefer Wikipedia) but both seem to agree that it's based on a piece of religious text called Benedicite Omnia Opera. 

The outside windows of the six feature the four Archangels between them, Michael, Gabriel, Uriel and Raphael



The first window we see below is called the Allegory window and represents the features of the heavens, Sun, Moon, stars and clouds as well as the four winds.








The second window (some of which has disappeared behind the choir stall (grumble) like the Allegory window) is called the Chaos Window. It shows fire, storms, cold and snow.




Just below the rather chilly young lady above are the names of Captain Scott and the other four members of the party who died on the ill fated expedition to the South Pole in 1912. This is remembered now so must have been very fresh in the memory when the window was made.




This is the Earth Window, with representations of animals, fish and plants and also Noahs ark.





This is the Humanity Window, which has Adam and Eve in the bottom right hand corner with David and Jacob above them. To the left the blessed make their way to heavenly Jerusalem, included in their number are St Margaret of Scotland, William Blake and St Blane (who gives his name to the town).

Here's a slight zoom in of the bit with Queen Margaret, St Blane and I think that's William Blake just under them holding the book








4 comments:

  1. Hey Sandy, thought I would check out your new place! Windows wow! Magnificent would be a word I would use to describe these wonderful works of art! : )

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  2. Thanks Micheal. Of course I'm only taking the pictures - I'm even leaving the focus to My Canon. Hopefully more of the same soon.

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  3. Oh Wow, I love the idea of this, and I love your photos :D I will be visiting here often as I love stained glass windows too....oh and like you I am learning a bit more about my Canon, but do leave the focus to the camera lol :)

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  4. Hi Val, welcome across to the other side. I've quite a few windows I want to post here already, though slow connections out here on the Atlantic are making it a bit awkward - most will have to wait till I get back (I've left my leaflet of information on one set in Kirkcudbright anyway).
    The old Canon doesn't take a lot of learning, it's just a point and fire job - I never got as far as an SLR. It seems to like stained glass though (I get quite a few out of focus as well as what I post) - windows are flat I suppose and finding a focal point is easy. What it's not good at are marble sculptures indoors - it gets quite confused, poor thing.

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