Window 11: The Sun & the Planets
The eleventh window in the Creation and the New Creation series of windows at the church of Saints Leonard and Fergus, Dundee.
Window 11: The Sun & the Planets is right in the middle of the Spring series. It recalls the seventeenth-century conflict between religion and science by bringing together the biblical Creation story and the father of modern science, the Italian astronomer Galileo Galilei (1564-1642). In fact, Dad sometimes calls this The Science Window.
The main focus of the window is the Sun, surrounded by its orbiting planets. It is clear looking at this window and the next, Window 12: Reconciliation, that they are connected – in the transom of the next window is a beautiful silvery moon and the backgrounds of both transoms are deep blue to represent the night sky and the heavens. Together they represent the fourth day of Creation, featured in The Days of Creation theme, when ‘God said, “Let there be lights in the firmament of heaven to separate the day from the night …”. God made the two great lights – the greater light to rule the day and the lesser light to rule the night – and the stars’ (Gen. 1.14-16). The sky over the Sidlaw Hills provides the perfect backdrop to this day of Creation.
The transom, showing the top half of the Sun and some of the orbiting planets.
In this window, the Sun, ‘the greater light to rule the day,’ is half in the transom with its bottom half dipping into the main window. All the planets, except for Earth, orbit the Sun, some in the transom and some in the main window. The planets, each cut from pieces of handmade glass, were not painted or treated in any way to allow the beauty of the glass to speak for itself.
Closest to, and just below the Sun is the slate grey planet Mercury at the top of the main window (see main image; there is no close-up picture of Mercury). Next closest to the Sun is the planet Venus, situated above the Sun in the transom. Earth, the third planet from the Sun, is missing for a reason that will become clear below, so next is the small, dusky red orb of Mars. After Mars is the gas giant Jupiter with its reddish-brown belts. The sixth planet from the Sun is Saturn with its rings, located towards the top of the main window. Dad utilised the natural streaks of colour in the glass to represent the rings of Saturn. Planets seven and eight, a blue-yellow streaked Uranus and a lovely blue Neptune, appear at the top of the transom. Pluto, the ninth planet of the solar system and the furthest
from the Sun appears in the main window, below Saturn. At the time of the making of this window, there was some debate about the status of Pluto, and in 2006 the International Astronomical Union demoted it from being a planet to being a dwarf planet, along with Ceres, Eris and others. As a consequence, Pluto wouldn’t be included in this planetary scene today.
Window 11: The Sun & the Planets.
The astronomer Galileo, peering down his telescope at Saturn with its magnificent rings.
Earth is not included as an orbiting planet because, instead, it is represented by Galileo himself, peering through a telescope at Saturn. While Galileo is famous for a number of astronomical discoveries, he is also remembered for bringing one major discovery into conflict with the Church. The conflict was about the arrangement of the heavens: the prevailing view, and the view held by the Church at the time, was that the Earth was at the centre of the Universe and that the Sun orbited it. Galileo championed an alternative theory, developed by Nicolaus Copernicus before him, that the Earth and other planets orbited the Sun.
While some of the ecclesiastical hierarchy found this Copernican view and Galileo’s arguments compelling, when they were urged to officially support it, they failed to do so. The matter was investigated by the Roman Inquisition, which concluded that the theory that the Earth and other planets orbited the Sun was foolish and heretical. Galileo later defended his position but Pope Urban VIII reacted badly to his defence. The astronomer was subsequently tried by the Inquisition, forced to recant his findings as ‘abjured, cursed and detested,’ and had to spend the rest of his life under house arrest.
A number of Galileo’s discoveries were made with the use of a telescope. One of these was that Saturn had magnificent bands around it. He is shown in this window peering down his telescope looking at Saturn. Because telescopes were rather basic back then, he couldn’t determine what the rings were and first incorrectly guessed that they were two large moons on either side of the planet, then later that they were two half ellipses.
Given the Church’s position on Galileo had not changed at the time of the making of these windows, the inclusion of this important astronomical figure was a little cheeky. Without Dad mentioning him, Fr McInally spotted Galileo’s presence and commented on it with a wry smile. Dad included the astronomer as a bit of a challenge to the Church’s view that it was an authority over everything. Unbeknown to Dad, while he was making these windows, a preliminary report commissioned by the Church concluded that Galileo had been wrongfully condemned. This led to an official pronouncement made by Pope John Paul II in 1992, 350 years after Galileo’s death and seven years after the installation of the windows, that Galileo was right.
Below Galileo and the planetary bodies is a stylised representation of five thistle heads in cruciform, set in conformity to the Celtic-style latticework background pattern. A juvenile goldfinch perches on a lead came near the bottom thistle. The thistle, as mentioned in Window 7: The Scottish Window, is an emblem of Scotland. With its thorns it is also a symbol of the passion of Christ. The seed of the thistle is one of the main sources of food for the goldfinch. We have also seen, in Window 9: The Almond Tree, that the goldfinch is a symbol of Jesus’s Passion because legend states that a small bird flew down and plucked one of the thorns from the crown. Some of Jesus’s blood splashed onto the bird as it drew out the thorn, which is how the goldfinch got its red head. Window 9 contained a child-like, immature impression of a goldfinch, prefiguring what was to become of Jesus. Here, in Window 11, the goldfinch is a specked juvenile to represent a young Jesus who has yet to fulfil his destiny. His destiny is foreshadowed in the cruciform shape made by the stylised thistles. The mature
Five stylised thistle heads in cruciform with a juvenile goldfinch perched among them.
goldfinch, complete with red head, can be seen in Window 22: Holy Orders (forthcoming), echoing the crucified Christ above it.
The flowers in the bottoms of the Spring windows reach their zenith in this one.
Returning to this window, the flowers reach their zenith as Spring starts to transition to Summer. Among the many flowers are wild rose, honeysuckle, daffodil, dandelion and cornflower. A little mouse is hiding among the flowers and several insects, including honeybees made by Ester, a common blue butterfly and a dragonfly, buzz around. The gardeners’ nemesis, the slug, even makes an appearance in one of the dandelion diamonds, as does a little caterpillar right at the bottom of the window. You have to look quite hard for them ...
Finally, among the flowers is a tiny Picasso-esque satyr playing a flute. Satyrs are pagan woodland spirits from Greek mythology and were, in late antiquity and beyond, portrayed by Christian writers as demonic, dark entities. However, again slightly cheekily, Dad included one here to connect with the planets of our solar system that were visible to the naked eye portrayed above. These planets, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn, were all named after pagan (Greek and Roman) gods and goddesses. As an aside, it is perhaps a little odd, given its antipathy to pagan things, that the Church never objected to their names.
