Developed in the 9th-century Germany, the art of glass painting reached its peak in the 17th century with numerous Gothic cathedrals graced by the stained glass masterpieces. The nature of painting on glass incorporates numerous elements including aesthetic appeal, complex compositions, and consideration for effects that appear once painted glass is exposed to light sources. This applied art, almost a thousand-year-old, is multifaceted, to say the least. Artworks created with a multitude of glass painting techniques decorated walls of the medieval religious buildings that were visited by millions of people who never got the chance to observe a portrait or a landscape painting. Picasso and Braque’s favourite motifs during the period of Cubism were still lifes with musical instruments, bottles, pitchers, glasses, newspapers, playing cards, the human face and the human figure.Though slightly forgotten nowadays, the intricate art of glass painting was once the most dominant form of painting in Europe. This inclusion of real objects in art was the beginning of one of the important ideas in modern art, to work with already existing (readymade) objects. Synthetic cubism began when cubist artists started using textures and patterns in their paintings and experimenting with the collage form. Synthetic cubism art is the later phase of cubism, dating from around 1912 to 1914, and characterised by simpler shapes and brighter colours.

This simplified palette was chosen so as not to distract the viewer from the structure of the form and the density of the image at the centre of the canvas.

The artworks look severe, and are made up of an interweaving of planes and lines in muted tones of blacks, greys and ochres. Analytical cubism art is considered to run from 1908-1912. Cubism developed in two distinct phases: analytical cubism and (later) synthetic cubism.

Three dimensional glass painting