Window 4: The Firmament.
Window 4: The Firmament
The fourth window in the Creation and the New Creation series of windows at the church of Saints Leonard and Fergus, Dundee.
The main focus of Window 4: The Firmament is the second day of Creation in which God creates a Firmament to divide the waters above from the waters below (see Gen. 1.6-8). This aspect of the window is discussed in context on the page about The Days of Creation, the first theme that runs through the series of windows. Here, on this page, the window as a whole is discussed more fully. Note that most modern translations of the Bible translate the original Hebrew as ‘Dome’ rather than ‘Firmament’, but we are sticking with ‘Firmament’.
In the biblical story, the Firmament separates the waters above from the waters below. In this window, it is symbolised by a rainbow, a reference to the promise to Noah that a flood will never again destroy the earth and a reminder of the covenant between God and the earth (see Gen. 9.11-13).
The rainbow is depicted in stylised form, with only four colours instead of the usual seven. The four colours follow the order of blue, green, yellow and red. Dad experienced a moment of synchronicity, a sense he was on the right track, with the design of these windows when he realised this colour progression mirrored the same order of the seasons as he had portrayed them in this series of windows: blue for Winter, green for Spring, yellow for Summer and red for Autumn.
In Window 2 we see the creation of light on the first day of Creation, represented by a mixture of tinted whites against greys and blues in the Celtic latticework background. The light spreads into Window 3 where the latticework background starts to transition into blues, greys and greens of water. These colours become more prominent and brooding here in Window 4, where they more fully express water in its mysterious depths.
The waters above the Firmament are represented as big, billowy clouds, heavy and full of water with curved outlines. In the main window the lower aspects of the
The rainbow as a symbol of the Firmament, separating the waters from the waters.
clouds are dark and leaden. Their upper aspects in the transom grow paler, with the light catching their uppermost edges. The sea below the Firmament appears in a variety of blues and grey-greens, with a choppy surface and darker depths. The design of the surface of the sea is different to the surfaces of the water scenes in the windows either side which both follow a more medieval style of portraying water.
Standing out sharply against the shadowy depths at the bottom of the window is an acid-etched skeleton of a whale. This skeleton is a reminder of the story of Jonah and the whale (Jonah 1.17-2.10), which itself can be regarded as a resurrection story, linking back to Window 2: The Resurrection. It also represents the skeleton of the famous Tay Whale, which belonged to an unfortunate male humpback whale that, in 1883, swam into the Firth of Tay and met a tragic end, dying after being hunted for weeks. He was dissected and his skeleton was donated to The McManus, Dundee’s Art Gallery and Museum. While the skeleton itself is viewed side-on in the museum, Dad, for fun, portrayed it from above because viewed in this way, it looks a bit like a bishop’s mitre (a bishop’s ceremonial headdress).
Another bit of fun in this window, and easily missed, is a snorkelling honeybee, swimming just below the surface of the water. As mentioned in the Introduction, there are many worker honeybees dotted throughout these windows, painted mainly by Ester when she was nine, representing the people of the parish busily going about their work. Most of the bees are flying around in their natural habitat as you’d expect, but a few, such as this one, are doing unexpected things. It’s not every day you see a snorkelling honeybee!
The whale continues the evolutionary and historical progression started in Window 3 with jellyfish and seaweeds. It is also the first feature in the series that explicitly connects the church to its geographical location of Scotland and more
The transom, showing the upper aspects of the billowy clouds.
The Tay Whale, recalling the biblical story of Jonah and the whale.
specifically, Perthshire and Dundee. These watery and geographical links to Scotland in general and to Dundee in particular continue in the next window, Window 5: Baptism, which features salmon leaping in the River Tay today.
