Featured Window

Our Lady of Grace, Dearborn Heights, Michigan

Click any image to enlarge.

MSGC : Collections : Window

Window

Building Name: Cathedral of St. Paul

Studio Name: Lamb (J. and R.) Co.

City: Detroit

Window Shape: 3 (arched)

Date of Window: 1979

Subject/Title of Window: South Clerestory Bay 6-Sixth Day

Brief Description of Subject: Clerestory Windows

Themes for the windows are chosen from the Old Testament. On the south side, the six days of the Creation are interpreted symbolically, beginning at the back of the nave and progressing from darkness to light as the days lead our eyes toward the high altar.

The Sixth Day. Land Animals, and Man

Gen 1:24-31 Then God said, "Let the earth bring forth the living creature according to its kind: cattle and creeping thing and beast of the earth, each according to its kind"; and it was so. And God made the beast of the earth according to its kind, cattle according to its kind, and everything that creeps on the earth according to its kind. And God saw that it was good.

Then God said, "Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth." So God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them. Then God blessed them, and God said to them, "Be fruitful and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it; have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over every living thing that moves on the earth." And God said, "See, I have given you every herb that yields seed which is on the face of all the earth, and every tree whose fruit yields seed; to you it shall be for food. "Also, to every beast of the earth, to every bird of the air, and to everything that creeps on the earth, in which there is life, I have given every green herb for food"; and it was so. Then God saw everything that He had made, and indeed it was very good. So the evening and the morning were the sixth day.

A Further Explanation of The Sixth Day
Here is the Sixth Day of Creation, when man and animals arrive on the earth. The main theme is the development of an embryo, where we follow the growth of both man and chicken. In the earliest, unrecognizable form of the embryo, it is impossible to distinguish the human form from the form of the chicken. As the forms develop within the embryo, they are similar in the early stages. However, as they grow, both the human and the chicken take on recognizable form, until man is shown as he emerges on the scene. The bird is in flight between the sea of the Fifth Day into the Sixth Day and embraces the creation of man and animals within the setting of vegetation and plant life, nourished by the sun in the heavens.

Donna Swanson Taylor, formerly of Detroit won our national competition held in 1975 for the design of the 36 clerestory windows. She will assist in their construction at the J. & R. Lamb Studios in New Jersey, the company selected to execute and install the windows. Taylor is an accomplished musician as well as a professional artist and teacher.

The MSGC is a constantly evolving database. Not all the data that has been collected by volunteers has been sorted and entered. Not every building has been completely documented.

All images in the Index are either born-digital photographs of windows or buildings or are scans of slides, prints, or other published sources. These images have been provided by volunteers and the quality of the material varies widely.

If you have any questions, additions or corrections, or think you can provide better images and are willing to share them, please contact donald20@msu.edu