Oberlin Observer. 1991-10-31

              OSerCin CoCCege Observer Obirlin, Ohio
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A rose for Finney
Only 83 years late, Finney Chapel
finally will be seen the way architect
Cass Gilbert intended—with a
stained-glass rose window. The in¬
stallation of a window designed by
New York artist Robert Mangold—
documented here in pictures by com¬
munications photographer Rick Sher¬
lock—was completed over fall break.
Construction of the building was
finished in the spring of 1908, just in
time for commencement, but the rose
window remained incomplete. Gil¬
bert feuded with Frederick Norton
Finney—donor of funds for the
chapel and son of Oberlin's second
president, evangelist Charles Gran-dison
Finney—about who should
pick the designer for the window,
says Danforth professor of history
Geoffrey Blodgett. Before a resolution
could be reached, money for the
project ran out. The nine-foot-high
opening stayed as a plain, translucent
leaded-glass window.
At that time Gilbert wrote: "I have
only one suggestion to make [about a
stained-glass design], and that is that
the colors should be rich and impres¬
sive, that is to say, deep blues and full
reds and yellows. Pale, thin color
would not be in harmony with the
vigorous architectural forms."
Over the last few years, Jacob Mar¬
tin '42 and his wife, Leah Nelson
Martin '41, committed funds for
completion of the window. A special
subcommittee of the architectural
review committee was formed, and
Mangold was invited to submit a
design. The artist came to Oberlin,
looked at the building, and decided
to "get away from Finney's symme¬
try" and to "create some visual ten¬
sion" in the building's facade. He
submitted a scale drawing, followed
by a three-foot-high scale model.
Mangold had done many prints,
drawings, watercolors, and acrylics—
working on canvas and paper—but
the window was his first effort with
stained glass. "With glass, you are
really working with light," he says of
the color-mixing process. "There's no
palette." He went through racks of
glass in warehouses and adjusted
colors by layering. The red ne
wanted, for example, was made with
a red sheet of glass laid on top of a
yellow. Not until the window was
assembled, however, could he see
how the light affected the colors. One
panel had to be pulled out and a
quick replacement found because the
red wasn't quite right.
Cleveland Heights fabricator Wil¬
liam Greenberg removed the old
window and assembled the new one,
erecting scaffolding inside and out¬
side Finney, hauling the new frame
up the building face, and setting the
glass in place piece by piece. He com¬
pleted the task in half a week, with
Mangold supervising the final stages.
Formal dedication will take place
on commencement weekend, in con¬
junction with Jacob Martin's 50th
reunion. The Martins paid almost all
the $27,000 cost of the project, with
the classes of 1958,1959, and 1960
picking up incidental costs as part of
its 30th cluster reunion fund-raiser.
On view at the Allen Memorial Art
Museum during commencement
weekend will be a small exhibition of
Mangold's work, including the pre¬
liminary sketches, final drawing, and
scale model for the rose window.