Window as Reception and Reception as Window: David Instructing Solomon in Burne-Jones’ Stained Glass and Method in the Visual Interpretation of the Bible

Abstract This study begins by highlighting the largely unrealized potential of biblical stained glass as a source for students of visual biblical reception and its treatment thus far in terms of either ‘visual exegesis’ or ‘visual criticism’. It then suggests that while a stained-glass window may serve as an instance of reception, it may also serve as a metaphor for the visual reception of the Bible in various media, including stained glass. The interpretive utility of this metaphor is suggested by an analysis of David Instructing Solomon (1883), a stained-glass window designed by the famous Victorian artist, Edward Burne-Jones, for Trinity Church in Boston, Massachusetts. This analysis suggests that a stained-glass window’s refraction of the Bible may be illumined by attention to a variety of personal, artistic and circumstantial contexts and factors but that a window may also invite fresh reflection on the biblical text which it interprets.