Tiffany Time

 

Saturday, February 11, 2012 – Tiffany Time

It was our first full day with no set agenda, so we had a late breakfast and took a nice slow (30 minutes at Elliott’s pace) walk to Park Avenue, the fashionable shopping and dining street of Winter Park.  It’s also where the Morse Museum is located, and that’s the main reason we’ve come here.  The Morse Museum houses the world’s largest collection of work by Louis Comfort Tiffany, the artist renowned for his stained glass.  I am a stained glass fanatic, in case you didn’t know it.  I studied stained glass when I lived in the Boston area and made quite a few stained glass windows.  When I traveled in Europe, I sought out famous stained glass, both from centuries past and modern times:  Sainte-Chapelle, Chartres, Notre-Dame in France; Coventry in England – to name just a few that made a big impression on me.

I was very excited about seeing Tiffany’s work here in Winter Park, and I wasn’t disappointed.  In fact, I was surprised at the breadth of his work, both stylistically, in terms of subject matter, and in use of different media.  The museum’s exhibits included not only the familiar window panels, lamps, and lighting created by Tiffany, but also jewelry and blown-glass objects such as vases, candlesticks, inkstands, and bowls.  Some pieces combined glass with bronze; others used glass, metal and enamel. 

Elliott mentioned that there were a couple of stained glass lamps in his home when he was growing up:  a table lamp in the living room and a lampshade suspended over the dining room table.  Were they perhaps Tiffany pieces?  Probably not, but it’s a shame they’re no longer in the family.   

In addition, there was a gallery devoted to his ceramic work.  All of his work, whatever the medium, had a lush, organic quality.  Many of the ceramic pieces featured motifs of flowers, leaves, and even vegetables.  One white clay vase was inspired by upright celery stalks; another took the shape of a flowering artichoke. 

I’ve always admired Tiffany’s leaded glass windows and I had a chance to examine several of them at close range.  One thing that struck me was the unusual glass he used.  Rather than being one color throughout, so many of the pieces had swirls of several colors, or contained a scattering of confetti-like pieces.  This type of glass gave Tiffany’s work a unique vibrancy and depth.  I’d never seen such glass in the studio where I purchased my supplies in Boston years ago.  At the museum, I learned that Tiffany developed new techniques for making glass and produced glass for his windows in his own studio.  One of the most fascinating rooms in the museum, at least for me, was called the Secrets of Tiffany Glassmaking.  Now I know how that unusual glass was made.  

But I haven’t mentioned Tiffany’s masterpiece yet.  It’s the Tiffany Chapel, originally created for the 1893 Columbian Exposition in Chicago.  This Byzantine-inspired chapel interior is breathtakingly beautiful.  After the fair, sections of the chapel interior traveled to various locales around the country before Tiffany brought most of them back to his estate on Long Island.  After his death in 1933, the chapel pieces fell into disrepair.  In the 1950s, the director of the Morse Museum decided to purchase the chapel elements from Tiffany’s estate.  After extensive restoration, the chapel was reassembled in the museum and opened to the public in the late 1990s.  It’s impossible to find words to describe the chapel’s magnificent beauty.  The five concentric arches, the columns, the lectern, the altar, the baptismal font, and more – all are covered with exquisite mosaics.  A massive three-dimensional stained glass cross is suspended from the ceiling.  In addition, several stained glass windows grace the interior.  We sat on a bench in the chapel, too moved by its beauty to utter a word.  You must come to Winter Park to see it.  I’m sorry I can’t share any photos with you – no photography was allowed in the museum.

Well, all the museum viewing worked up quite an appetite, so we set out in search of lunch.  Park Avenue is lined with upscale shops and restaurants, so we had no trouble finding a bite to eat.  Knowing Elliott’s love for all things French, I directed him to a French bakery and café.  We spent the rest of the afternoon strolling along this lively street and sitting in the park.  The temperatures remained in the mid-60s and the sky was an uninterrupted blue.  The walk back to the hotel took another half hour, so we’ve gotten our exercise for the day.