St Vitus Cathedral, Prague - Mucha stained-glass window

I'm finally getting back to posting more photos of Prague.  Just too busy making quilts!  so blog posting gets postponed.

St Vitus Cathedral is within the area of the Prague Castle, perched above the town.  It is Gothic in style, although in fact was not finished until quite recently - some time in the 20th century. 

It is extremely large and very beautiful.  But what struck me most when I went inside, was the stained glass windows, which are modern, as the original ones were destroyed in the 17th century.

There are a number of windows, some constructed with a very interesting mosaic technique, with amazing colour combinations, which I will post at a future date.  But the most striking of all the windows is the one designed by Alphonse Mucha, the famous Czech Art-Nouveau artist.  It is quite extraordinary, and most unusual for a cathedral.

The detail of the figures are best appreciated in close-ups; below are the top and bottom areas of the window photographed separately:

Even so, the above are not close-up enough.  Luckily, I had with me my amazing new Canon SX30 IS, a so-called 'bridge' camera (bigger than a compact, but smaller than a DSLR) and which has this extraordinary zoom lens that goes from a 24 mm wide angle to an 840 telephoto lens.  So the following pictures were taken from the same place as the above pics - I did not have to climb onto ladders to get nearer the spots!

This group is in the lower part of the window, and also contains an ad for the window's sponsors - a bank.

This is the figure at the very top of the window - I presume it is Christ - I would guess a likely 10 metres away from me and my camera.

This is my figure figure, right below the other one - I don't know who it is supposed to represent - but it definitely has the look of an Art Nouveau figure, and it is not at all like the sort of Virgin representations one expects to find in churches.

The whole design is amazing, but what really left me breathless was the colour - not only of this window, but of the others too - just one of those experiences where you whole body and mind feels like WOWWOWWOWOWOWOWOWOWOWOW!  and you can't bear to leave the place.

Hope you enjoyed the images!

Good night!

Alicia