The Stained-Glass Windows


Home Up Movable objects of Art The Paintings The Stained-Glass Windows The Organ The Altars A New Plastering or not? The Polychrome Finishing Upstairs, Downstairs The Counter Reformation	Never was St Nicholas’s so well lit as during the restoration. The abundance of light illustrates how subtle this kind of architecture played with shades and colours, but also causes some problems. The upper part of the main altar and the altar of the axis chapel had never known the effect of such glaring backlight. The complex anchoring of the main altar’s upper part is strongly emphasized since the reconstruction of the clerestory and the use of clear glass.	In the past the light penetrating the church had always been reduced to a gloom thanks to the stained-glass windows. There are no remainders of these vulnerable medieval elements. The stained-glass windows that survived the religious wars disappeared when the tracery was removed and the openings were completely or partially walled up. Three severely damaged stained-glass windows from 1850 above the main altar were not put in again. Two unique stained-glass windows by J.B. Capronnier (1851 and 1860) were skilfully restored and assembled as a separate light screen in their original side chapels.