Window 19: Adam & Eve
The nineteenth window in the Creation and the New Creation series of windows at the church of Saints Leonard and Fergus, Dundee.
Window 19: Adam & Eve.
Window 19: Adam and Eve is the second of a pair of windows featuring the union of a woman and a man (the first of the pair is Window 18: Holy Matrimony). It is the last of the Summer series, and in it the rich russets, reds and browns of Autumn are introduced into the Celtic latticework background pattern.
It is also the last one of the Days of Creation theme that circles its way round these windows. The focal point is a depiction of Adam and Eve, created on the sixth day of creation by God ‘in our image, according to our likeness’ (Genesis 1.26). There is no visual representation in the windows of the Sabbath, the day on which God rested. Having said that, Dad regarded the coming together of the parish for Sunday Mass as a reflection of the Sabbath and so treated the two Eucharistic windows either side of the altar as representative of the Day of Rest, Window 14: The Eucharistic Bread and Window 15: The Eucharistic Wine.
Fr McInally was clear that he didn’t want a negative portrayal of Adam and Eve following their expulsion from the Garden of Eden, or ‘Fall’, which happened to them after eating fruit from the tree of knowledge of good and evil. Dad was
more than happy to go along with McInally on this and portrayed them in the window in the paradisiacal Garden, in a state of original grace.
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​They are seated on opposite sides of a small stream that runs between them, Eve with her foot dangling in the stream as the water plays over her toes. A bird flies from Adam’s outstretched arm and Eve offers Adam a flower. All vegetation, including a tree in the distance, is hinted at with minimal brush strokes and acid etching, giving the scene a glowing ethereal look that a painted image would not be able to capture.
Dad took inspiration for this scene from an Indian style illumination of Krishna and Balarama in the forest of Vrndavana in the 1980 book, Illuminations from the Bhagavad-Gita, by Kim and Chris Murray, changing some of the details and giving it a more Western feel to make it his own work.
In the midst of the Garden was the Tree of Life, mentioned in Genesis and Revelation, the first and last books of the Christian bible. It is a life-giving Tree and access to it is restored in the New Creation, when a person or people are reconciled with God through Jesus Christ. The Tree of Life is subtly suggested in the Celtic latticework background pattern of the transom; we can see the brown and gold trunk and the different shades of green for the leaves. This abstracted tree links back to the Celtic style Tree of Life motif at the base of the bishop’s crozier in Window 17: Saints Leonard & Fergus.
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So, in the coming together of the story of Adam and Eve and of the Tree of Life, Creation and the New Creation, which together form the overarching theme of this whole series of 24 windows, are linked.
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Towards the top of the Tree is a white dove, representing the Holy Spirit. It connects with the Holy Spirit hovering like a dove over the waters in Window 5: Baptism and the Picasso-esque Holy Spirit dove in the transom of Window 13: Saints Peter & Andrew.
Adam and Eve in the paradisiacal Garden of Eden.
The Tree of Life, subtly suggested in the Celtic latticework background pattern of the transom.
There is also a honeybee in the transom, one of many that feature in these windows, representative of the people of the parish. This bee is depicted as if it is falling from the Tree of Life, the only mini-reference to the biblical narrative of Adam and Eve’s fall from grace when they were driven out of the Garden of Eden.
Ester's cat and bird.
Having met many honeybees throughout the windows, we finally discover where they live – in two traditional straw skep beehives at the bottom of the main window. The skeps are surrounded by bees coming and going, including two leaving home holding suitcases! One of them has accidentally flown into the right-hand side of the window frame ... If the honeybees busily going about their work represent the parishioners, the skeps represent the work aspect of
the church, the parish office. This calls to mind what God told Adam and Eve as they departed from the garden of Eden, that ‘by the sweat of your brow you will eat your food until you return to the ground … for dust you are and to dust you will return’ (Gen. 3.19 NIV).
The traditional straw skep beehives, the homes of the many honeybees dotted around these windows.
Above the skep and bees are a cat and a bird, painted by Ester, my sister, when she was nine. I have already mentioned how she painted many of the bees in the windows. When Dad was working away on site, he would leave the workshop open for Ester who would paint various creatures on bits of glass. Dad thought this little cat and bird pair were so funny that they had to be included in the window. All he did was add a bit of colour to the cat and cut the glass to size.