Stories in Stained Glass
By Frans Wesselman
Stained Glass - tabletop/hanging pieces
Original artworks
Poet: H: 25cm x W: 25cm - hanging panel - £575
Angel: H: 30cm x W: 30cm - hanging panel - £625
The Princess & the Frog: H: 25cm x W:25cm - hanging panel - £575
Midsumer Night's Dream H: 40cm x W: 29cm x D: 9.5cm - plinth - £650
These stained glass pieces (three hanging panels, the fourth on wooden plinth) are typical Wesselman stories or cameos, told in a charming and fascinating way. (Often, the same stories, scenes, characters and compositions appear in painted, printed and glass formats all produced bythe artist.)
Each square panel has a female protagonist and is vibrantly coloured, with exquisite backdrop detail and clever poses. And a theme of 'lips' unites all four artworks - lips making music, pausing on a poetic pen or about to kiss...
The poetess pauses for thought, mid-composition, and has a hint of 18th century blue stocking about her hairstyle and costume.
The angel plays a pipe, in a fine early Italian Renaissance tradition but with a hint of Pre-Raphaelite updating.
And the princess and frog are straight out of a Brothers Grimm fairytale, as Frans captures the instant just before the amphibian transforms into a handsome prince.
In the upright plinth piece, the glass is beautifully painted, etched and formed to capture the instantly-recognisable Act 3 of the Shakespearian comedy, A Midsummer Night's Dream - the moment when Bottom's head is magically tansformed into that of a donkey and Titania, under her own spell, proceeds to fall in love with him...
For all his work, initial ideas are developed in scribbles in sketchbooks. With basic composition sorted, he starts gathering drawings of the various elements - landscape aspects or buildings or animals. He draws from life, using a model, but also draws people in the street.
For etchings and stained glass, he makes quite precise working drawings; for painting less so.
"My subjects are the smaller things in life, the interactions between people or people and animals or people and the things in their head. Chance encounters. A kind of visual poetry, maybe. I am as concerned as the next person about the big issues, but I have not found a way to introduce them in my work that convinces me. The sense of fun, of wonder, is something I do experience and I hope I can convey that to others."
ABOUT FRANS WESSELMAN
People and relationships are central to the work of this Dutch-born former art teacher, always based on close observation of the natural world and of human interaction with other creatures.
Typically, his pictures tell stories - of people doing things, feeling things, sharing gentle humour. His scenes aim to convey the psyche of each character or of a situation. We have to read what's going on and he wants us to think about it, just like he's done: “I need to have my mind engaged”.
Enchanting wood cuts, etchings and stained glass pieces are often derived from famous poetry, drama, folklore, myths or travel tales, including Shakespeare and Chaucer.
Other work is from his imagination or from observation. He draws from life models and goes out with his sketch book to capture anything that takes his interest.
In 1983, Frans was elected to the Royal Society of Painter-Printmakers (RE).“I'm a painter above all. I love to look at paintings and drawings; I get a lot out of it. You can look at the detail of a picture and marvel at what the artist has achieved by a single brush stroke. That's the satisfaction, when you find the right stroke and it just lights up the whole picture.”
We show some of his watercolour paintings and limited edition fine art prints in his own mix of wood cut, lino and etching, framed and unframed. We also show a selection of stained glass pieces.