Light Through Sacred Glass: Judson Studios and the Art of Sacred Space
This program is supported by the Department of Cultural Affairs.
Walking slowly through the solemn and still corridors of the marbled enclave of a mausoleum, visitors are usually met by the tangible silence and heft of grief and memory that surrounds them. Surprisingly, there is a spring of life and light that deliberately waives the palpable tone of loss as one makes their way through the crypt. A warmth of vivid color casts its glow through the work of Judson Stained Glass, not in oppressive biblical laments but rather in peaceful, contemplative visions of lush nature, presenting a melodic and joyful reframing of an imagined hereafter enacted in glass. In this space, at this moment, glass bears witness to human fragility while simultaneously lifting the viewer's heart and mind to a state of levity and peaceful awe.
The family-owned, multigenerational legacy stained glass studio behind these works has committed its talents and creative imagination to the adornment of sacred spaces across Los Angeles and beyond. In 1906, the W.H. Judson Art Glass Company opened in the downtown theater district on Broadway, relocating to Garvanza in 1920, a neighborhood nestled close to the Arroyo Seco. Judson Studios' transformative power through glass has infused the city with contemplative and sacred space. The breadth and impact of the studio's extraordinary craftsmanship and foundational place across Los Angeles can be experienced in spaces of devotion, reflection, and prayer in the city's historic churches and cemeteries.
An abundance of Judson Studios' achievements in capturing the divine can be experienced at All Saints Episcopal Church in Pasadena, which features 58 windows designed over two decades. The original church at the property was built in 1889, with a new church begun on the same grounds in 1923. Judson was hired to fabricate and design a new choir loft window in opalescent glass to complement the existing Tiffany stained glass windows. Designed by Frederick Wilson, the choir loft window features Christ Blessing the Children (1924). The window bears witness to the majesty and ethereal nature of rendering the message of acceptance, love, and community in glass and light. Its placement above the congregation casts a warm glow through colored glass, perpetuating a message of peace to all who enter the space for prayer and reflection. The variant greens and warm blues surrounding Jesus and the children portray a lush, vibrant natural landscape reminiscent of a bountiful earth and an idyllic celestial plane.
This Judson work balances beautifully against the more traditional antique or "mouth-blown" glass windows throughout the church. These heavily painted windows are typical of the early Neo-Gothic period, where the Arts and Crafts aesthetic shines through. The figures in the windows are finely detailed and dimensional, while the backgrounds and borders are flat and geometric, accentuated with floral motifs. The designs are significantly influenced by Pre-Raphaelite painters, including Edward Burne-Jones.(1) The balance of these alternating stained glass techniques offers the visitor distinct and quiet moments of pause, an encounter with the remarkable range of glass as a medium for rendering the sacred.
Historically, Protestant tradition resists ornament, which is what is so illuminating about the contrast and glow of Judson's work in the First Baptist Church of Pasadena. Inspired by a summer touring cathedrals and abbeys in England in 1926, W.H. Judson was enamored by the unique textures and colorations of English antique glass. Upon his return to California, he was determined to incorporate the technique into his own work.
Designed by Lucile Lloyd, a painter and muralist, and realized with the help of W.H. Judson, a series of large arched windows along the clerestory feature quatrefoil medallions depicting figures from the Old Testament set into simple, diamond-paned backgrounds. These windows are distinguished by lovely multicolored designs around the central medallions, some of which have ribbon-like scrolls along their borders. English antique glass was used to achieve this effect.
Judson went on to design and fabricate windows for First Baptist into the 1960s, including a spectacular rose window with portraits of important religious figures. At the center of the rose window is the figure of Christ, with the lancets below representing faith leaders significant to the Baptist tradition.(2)
Judson's achievements in glass throughout First Baptist are remarkable, given the faith's traditional wariness of opulent or idolatrous iconography. From a purely superficial reading, one might question the seeming luxury of stained glass in a Baptist church; however, Judson's work seeks to serve a more powerful role. The translucent, gleaming representations of faith maximize the presence of the sacred. This visual purity focuses the spiritual experience inward, an internal healing flowing outward into a shared space of community and prayer.
In the Hollywood Forever Cathedral Mausoleum, eight arched landscape windows seek to bring a stillness and existential luminosity to the final resting places of some of the most famous Los Angelenos. Here, Judson's work is so awe-inspiring and luminous that it manages to dwarf the grief surrounding it. These melodic and heavenly natural landscapes seek to soothe and console those pacing the silent, cool marble interior of the mausoleum. In defiance of categorization or conventional purpose, Judson's work in a cemetery setting elevates the sacred to an experience beyond the physical world, pointing toward a dreamlike epiphany of bold, lush beauty that can only be fully inhabited in the mind's eye.
The California Mausoleum Company described Judson's contribution to the space as an invitation to "view its exquisite stained glass windows, its chapel-like corridors and feel for yourself the very sacredness of its cathedral atmosphere." Located near the kiss-covered resting place of Rudolph Valentino, a serene mountain vista glows with a peachy sunset and tall jade cypress trees, while a staircase climbs toward the mountains and a delicate branch crosses the foreground. Other Judson windows throughout the mausoleum depict similarly vivid Elysian scenes. From a distance the colors create depth; up close the plated and layered opalescent glass is impressionistic and almost psychedelic. The golden centers of chromatic sunsets and dawns catch the natural light in such a way that they appear to shine from all directions.(3)
As a rainbowed reflection lengthens across the cool marble floors of the mausoleum, one cannot help but be in awe of the longevity and grandeur of Judson's over 125-year legacy in stained glass. There is a delicate, emotive energy translated through light in these works. The warm and permeating glow imprints a sacred message that cannot be communicated with words.
Endnotes
- David Judson and Steffie Nelson, Judson: Innovation in Stained Glass (Los Angeles: Angel City Press, 2020), 82–83.
- Judson and Nelson, Judson: Innovation in Stained Glass, 84–86.
- Judson and Nelson, Judson: Innovation in Stained Glass, 100. The California Mausoleum Company promotional description is quoted within this source.
