Dialogue by Mark:

A laser device, which by the way stands for "Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission Radiation"...a laser uses light to do some sort of work, like play your CD disk or help a doctor do a delicate operation. In today's Masters' Gallery we are treated to an artwork that also uses light...light shining right through the picture. It's a stained glass window built by Louis Tiffany in 1904.

Tiffany is the most famous stained glass artist of all times. When he was a young painter, he decided to decorate the windows in his studio. He wanted to use colored glass like he'd seen in the old cathedrals in Europe. But no one made glass like that any more. Tiffany researched how glass was made. he discovered that different minerals and impurities in the glass careated different colors. When the glass factories refused to make glass like this, Tiffany built furnaces and made his own.

Glass im made by melting minerals together with high heat. The melted glass can be shaped into vases or bottles, or poured out flat to make sheets. Once the glass is cooled, it can be cut into pieces.

It took hundred of pieces of stained glass to build Angel of the Resurrection. Some pieces are big, like the blue over the angel's head. Other pieces are very small, like the feathers in her wings. Some of the glass is painted, like the face and the lettering across the side windows. Every piece of glass is set into a metal framework to create the window.

Thanks to our art history expert, Kim at KidsArt, who makes stained glass windows in her spare time...and to the Indianapolis Museum of Art for this beautiful Masters' Gallery.