Marriage from The Seven Sacrements 1969

Jean Rene Bazaine’s Marriage from The Seven Sacrements, glows with reds, yellows, and whites like hot embers. I can imagine Bazaine standing back, squinting, adding slivers of glass, shifting colours, building the composition bit by bit. It’s not easy to make a good stained glass window - there’s the lead, the glass, the light - but I can see Bazaine’s process as an act of devotion. The colours feel like a celebration, right? Marriage! But there's also the sense of warmth and comfort. You see the light streaming through, and it feels as though everything is being blessed, bathed in a vibrant glow. Bazaine reminds me of other artists like Rouault and Matisse. There is something so pure about his application of colour. These artists are all in conversation with each other. And aren’t we all? Every painter looks to the past, reinterpreting and reinvigorating what has come before. Uncertainty and discovery are the things that guide us.