Two Generations, One Window: The Church of Saint Francis of Assisi in Bila

Some windows come back to the hands that made them. In the early 1980s Milan Stanisic Senior made the stained glass windows of the Church of Saint Francis of Assisi in Bila, in Bosnia and Herzegovina, in the family studio, Atelje Stanisic. In 2007 his son, Stevan Stanisic, took the same windows down, brought them back to the studio in Sombor and restored them all. It was 2 generations of one family, working on the same glass.

A church named for the saint of light

The church is dedicated to Saint Francis of Assisi, the saint who praised God for Brother Sun and for all of creation. It is a fitting name for a church whose walls are opened by tall, narrow windows of colored glass, so that the light itself becomes part of the prayer.

From the outside the church is calm and bright: a white facade with a row of arched windows, an arcade of round arches at the entrance and a tall white bell tower beside it. Inside, between pillars of warm color with marble bases, the windows rise in a long rhythm along the nave, each one a column of color in its niche.

The designs of Ivan Tuna Jakic

The windows were made to designs by the painter Ivan Tuna Jakic. He did not draw figures for them. He drew light. Each window is a geometric composition, built from stars, crosses, circles and diamonds that repeat and interlock from the bottom of the window to its arched top.

Each window has its own color. One is violet and lilac, with crosses set in a lattice of diamonds. One burns with red crosses on a ground of white and pale blue. One glows amber and gold, with stars of 8 points. One is cool turquoise and blue, a quiet field of stars. Seen together along the nave, they read like a sequence of moods of the same light, from fire to evening.

Made by the father

Milan Stanisic Senior made the windows in the family studio in the early 1980s. He cut every piece of glass, leaded the panels and turned the drawings of Ivan Tuna Jakic into windows for the church in Bila.

Restored by the son

By 2007 the windows had stood in the church walls for a quarter of a century. That year Stevan Stanisic restored them. He took every window down, carried them to the studio in Sombor and restored them completely there, in the atelier where his father had made them. Then he brought them back to Bila and installed them again in the church.

It is rare for a craftsman to restore his own father's work. For the studio it was a reminder of what a family atelier means: the windows were made by one generation, cared for by the next, and returned to the church ready for many more years of light.

Church: Church of Saint Francis of Assisi, Bila, Bosnia and Herzegovina
Design: Ivan Tuna Jakic, painter
Fabrication: Milan Stanisic Senior, Atelje Stanisic, early 1980s
Restoration, removal and reinstallation: Stevan Stanisic, Atelje Stanisic, Sombor, 2007