Art: Saint’s Saints

A worldly, 18th Century Episcopalian named George Washington first conceived the idea of a great cathedral in the U. S. capital. Late in the materialistic 19th Century The Cathedral Church of Saints Peter & Paul was begun on Washington’s Mount St. Alban. Last week a stanch Presbyterian displayed two stained glass windows, designed for the National Cathedral, and executed with the simple, wholehearted reverence of the Gothic 13th Century. Already the author of 13 National Cathedral windows, Lawrence Bradford Saint made his— latest pair to flank the stairway to the crypt in the North Transept, as a memorial to the late William T. Hildrup Jr., Pennsylvania steel products manufacturer.

Because devout Mr. Hildrup was reading the 14th Chapter of St. John when he died 20 years ago, Lawrence Saint used his memorial windows to show eight scenes from the same Gospel. Decked in calm crimsons, blues and yellows, like their 13th Century counterparts, Mr. Saint’s saints & sinners glowed from the glass with equal clarity. A cringing Peter denied his Lord. Judas fingered his 30 pieces of silver. Jesus announced to Thomas, “I am the Truth.” Jews in the Temple treasury were told, “The truth shall make you free.”

Assisted by three of his seven red-headed sons, red-bearded Lawrence Saint made the Hildrup windows, like all his stained glass, in traditional medieval fashion, from the “cartoon” or original drawing through the firing and blowing of the glass to assembling a mosaic of 2,850 variously colored pieces in the two 10-ft. windows. The clear, simple details were added later with a needle-fine brush. In his big, cluttered studio and furnace, a converted barn at Huntingdon Valley near Bryn Athyn, Pa., Artist Saint has 1,500 color formulas based on chemical analysis of glass going back 700 years. He has made 300 shades of blue. His formula for ruby, heart of all good stained glass, covers eight typewritten pages, can “go wrong in 40 ways,” comes out striated with layers of green and white beneath the red. To approximate the colors with which pious artisans glorified God at Chartres and Poitiers, Artist Saint has cooked up messes of egg-yolk, hollyhock, calendula and portulaca. To get a certain yellow, Mr. Saint boiled a cow’s hoof, as a medieval manuscript directed. So noisome was the process that Artist Saint had to yell for his sons to carry the bubbling hellbroth away.

Son of an unprosperous artist, young Lawrence Saint worked in a wallpaper store in Pittsburgh’s East End as “salesman, janitor and general pack-horse,” was made color conscious by his merchandise. Against his father’s advice, Lawrence Saint apprenticed himself to a stained glass artist, scrimped and saved to attend the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. At this time a deep religious experience led him to join the Presbyterian Church, worry about the propriety of painting nude females. Ribald fellow students tied him up, carried him by force to a model’s stand where an undraped woman was posing. High-minded Lawrence Saint abashed his tormentors by keeping his eyes closed, walked out with dignity when released, loftily remarking: “Principle, gentlemen, in art as in other things.”

Shortly afterward, despite his absence from the life class, he won a $500 traveling scholarship. Wandering into the Sainte Chapelle in Paris just as the sunset struck its windows, Student Saint was overwhelmed by the “solid walls of jewel-like color — rubies, sapphires, golds, topaz tints, amethysts, Tokay grape shades and whites like old lace.” His interest solidly caught in this religious art, Lawrence Saint lost no time in becoming an expert on stained glass, made 50 notable illustrations for the famed Stained Glass of the Middle Ages in England and France by English Expert Hugh Arnold.

In 1913 the building of the Bryn Athyn Swedenborgian Cathedral was started by Raymond Pitcairn as a medieval craft centre. Lawrence Saint worked enthusiastically on its stained glass for eleven years, studied his subject more & more deeply, often wished he could completely approximate 13th Century windows by making his own glass instead of using the “stock” colors of commercial furnaces. Then one day he chanced to see in a yellowed newspaper clipping a photograph of the architect’s model for the National Cathedral.

He applied to the Cathedral Chapter forthwith for stained glass commissions, was investigated, put in charge of all the Cathedral’s glass. Drawing on his exhaustive theoretical knowledge, Lawrence Saint tried to construct an oil-pressure glass furnace at Huntingdon Valley, got nothing more than a sinister blast of smoke & flame which alarmed his neighbors. Such technical difficulties were soon smoothed by professional advice, and Artist Saint successfully produced his first batch of colored glass. Gathering a hatful of samples, he hastened abroad to make a comparison with the glass in Chartres Cathedral. Perched on a teetering, 50-ft. ladder, Lawrence Saint held his own glass directly against the great Western windows, shouted for joy when he realized he had duplicated the original colors in three cases out of four.

Thoroughly wedded to his work, Artist Saint is in his early 50’s, likes to give studio visitors bits of brightly colored glass, potters nervously about his workrooms with sparse reddish hair on end and reddish-grey beard wagging, continuously jots down memoranda, hopes someday to “write the whole Bible in living colors,” works with unceasing self-criticism to see that his craftsmanship is perfect, his meanings clear. With true medieval literalism, Artist Saint likes to use genuine prodigals for his Prodigal Sons, combs missions for repentant sinners when one is needed for a window.

Artist Saint’s seven sons include Sam, 24, writer, licensed pilot and glassmaker; Phil, 23, a ‘”cartoonist-evangelist” who last year contributed a religious comic strip to The Presbyterian Guardian (TIME, Oct. 28); and David (“Scelp”), 19, who blossomed out as a self-taught sculptor at 15. Most commercial member of the family is Xathanael (“Thanny”),11, who has a Philadelphia Bulletin paper route. Their mother & sister keep house, supervise some 30 meals a day.

Deeply religious, Lawrence Saint attributes his artistic success to trust in the Lord, has for 15 years faithfully discharged his duties as elder at the Huntingdon Valley Presbyterian Church, rests after Sunday service, sleeps with black goggles to shield his candid blue eyes, which are abnormally sensitive to light. For recreation, he interprets handwriting and plays such hymns as Oh Happy Day that Fixed My Choice and I Was a Wandering Sheep on his mouth organ.