This Autumn Landscape window presents a breathtaking array of glowing color and rich surface textures that achieve the nuances of painting. Tiffany developed a new type of glass, with variegated colors, often iridescent with a variety of textures. He incorporated virtually all available kinds of glass and techniques to achieve the amazingly realistic effect of this window.

To create the naturalistic details of the foliage in the vibrant hues of autumn, Tiffany used confetti glass, embedded with tiny flakes of various colors. He achieved the misty quality of the distant mountains by plating several layers of glass on the reverse. A clear river rambles and flows over stones simulated by marbleized glass. And the movement of water in the foreground is enlivened by the use of a rippling surface.

The Gothic tracery design of the wooden frame was dictated by the style of the massive neo-Gothic manor house for which the window was made. But the subject matter is distinctly American. It is emblematic of the “river of life,” a theme that was often used in memorial windows for churches and mausoleums. This magnificent view of nature reflects Emersonian transcendentalism, the belief in a higher reality that can be intuited, but not experienced empirically or rationally.