Théodore Gérard Hanssen "the stained glass window between wars and Faith"

Published 3 / 11 / 2021 Reading time: 4 min

Famous for having produced 33 large stained-glass windows with figures of the Basilica of the Sacred Heart of Montmartre, Théodore Gérard Hanssen has also designed works for buildings in Roanne.

Decisive events in his artistic orientation

Born in Belgium in 1885, Théodore Gérard Hanssen took courses at the Beaux-Arts in Tournai and then in Paris. Enlisted as a volunteer in 1914, he fought in the French army in Belgian uniform. Wounded, evacuated from the front, he spent his entire convalescence in Chartres. This episode in his life is decisive for his artistic vocation. Indeed, the amazed discovery of the cathedral's windows directs him towards the creation of stained-glass windows which will then be his dominant activity.

In 1922, he joined in Paris the studio of the glass painter Louis Barillet and Le Chevalier, famous glass masters in the movement of the revival of sacred art. He worked there until 1940. Again the war gave a new destiny to the artist. It is the exodus. As the German troops approached, Hanssen left the capital and after a detour via the Corrèze, settled in Roanne. He is gradually integrating and does not take long to respond to several requests.

The artist's proximity to his sponsors

The priests are generally at the origin of the orders. They organize in their parish the appeal for the donation which will make it possible to finance if not all, at least part of the stained glass windows. This is the case for the church of Saint-Nizier-sous-Charlieu.

An achievement dear to his heart: the stained glass windows of Saint-Nizier-sous-Charlieu      

The church of Saint-Nizier-sous-Charlieu is adorned with a homogeneous set of 16 stained glass windows, installed between 1949 and 1951, thanks to the financial support of industrialists from Roanne and a child of the country who made a fortune. . There are many parables, but also themes related to the rural activities of the village: grape harvest, harvest. Artist, Christian, very religious, Hanssen can thus express his religious convictions with the greatest poetry. This work occupies a very special place in his heart, since he asked to be buried in the village cemetery, a few hundred meters from its stained-glass windows.

Between heritage, renewal and modernity

Hanssen likes to create modern works with an assertive design, punctuated by a network of lead, but which are based on the foundations of the art of stained glass inherited from the Middle Ages. For this, he uses a so-called “antique” glass colored in the mass and manufactured at the Saint-Just-sur-Loire glassworks, near Saint-Etienne.

Light at the service of the liturgy

A Initial, it is the priest Jean-Marie Convert, who calls on him. He donated to the church nine stained glass windows by the artist recounting the life of saints, with evocations, again, of local country life (Our Lady of the Fields).

At the end of the 50s, the parishioners chose Hanssen for the composition of the stained glass windows in the church of Saint-Maurice-sur-Loire. The project is materialized by the design of two stained glass windows representing the martyrdom of Saint Maurice and the sending on mission, plus three large stained glass windows, on the theme of Faith, Hope and Charity.

The master glassmaker also left his mark in the Saint-Martin church of Riorges et Saint-Etienne church de Roanne. The stained glass windows with religious iconography in the chapel of the minor seminary of Saint-Gildas de Charlieu are now dispersed, following the desecration of the place. Seven of them are in the reserves of the city museum.