Roman Halter • Life and Art through Stained Glass 1 | Page 22

Roman Halter: stained glass artist

Stained glass is an architectural art; it must
illuminate the interior space with colour of the right
depth and balance, day and evening. With such
a powerfully luminous presence, the image and
emotional mood it projects is crucial. Successful
resolution depends upon the sensitivity, technical
ability and artistic skills and flair of the craftsman.
This is especially true when stained glass is required
to decorate a place of worship, whether synagogue,
cathedral, church, chapel, mosque or temple.
The congregation expect and want such windows
automatically to become an ingredient and enhancer
of contemplation and prayer.
Roman Halter was well positioned to make very
good stained glass. He had trained and practised
as an architect, experiences that enabled him to
understand the way light and colour behave within

buildings. He was also a man with a visual vocabulary
of his own. Marc Chagall, Henri Matisse, John Piper,
Ervin Bossanyi were all artists for whom the process
of making stained glass windows grew naturally from
their own personal vision. All made serious demands
upon the craft. By doing so, they pushed established
practice in new directions, forcing fresh ways of
seeing and new ways of working.
Halter is in this company. In principal, his
methods are not original. They hark back to the
earliest use of coloured glass in buildings in the
Middle East around the 8th century. In those days
a wooden mould would be made, shaped to fit the
window. The mould would then be filled with liquid
plaster strengthened with camel hair and dung. Holes
to direct the coloured light into the room below
would be carved by hand at a 45º angle. When the

fig. 1

Studies for stained glass with sketched tracery
Pencil and oil on canvas

fig. 2
Design for Ark, New North London Synagogue
2008
Printed plastic

16  Roman Halter