SALT LAKE CITY -- Stained glass windows are both permanent and ever-changing. They can't be easily moved from their frame or rearranged, but shifting sunbeams affect what each new admirer sees.
"Stained glass brings light and color and story into a building at the same time," said Virginia Chieffo Raguin, an art history professor at the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, Massachusetts. "No other medium does that."
The art form's unique characteristics have attracted artisans and architects for centuries, even as the demand fell for traditional houses of worship, where stained glass was first widely used, reported the Deseret News.
"In the 20th century, you get lots of secular buildings with stained glass: subway stations, schools and shopping malls," Raguin said.
Utah Valley University joins this secular stained glass movement, which often draws on storytelling techniques associated with religious displays. Officials unveiled an 80-panel stained glass project along the front of the UVU campus library.
"Roots of Knowledge," which required almost eight years of research, fundraising and labor from UVU leaders and artists at Holdman Studios, aims to capture the various sources of human knowledge, including science, literature and the world's religions. If stained glass often tells a story, these windows contain a multi-volume epic.
"I loved the idea of taking this ancient art form and channeling it into something that's appropriate for a modern, secular institution," said UVU President Matthew Holland.
Exhibits like "Roots of Knowledge" honor the rich history of stained glass artwork, while creating designs that speak to contemporary audiences, experts said. The subject matter doesn't have to be religious for stained glass to move people deeply.
"For some people (their response) will be intellectual. For some people, it will be aesthetic. For some people, it will be spiritual," Holland said. "It will reach people in different levels and ways. That's what I think great art always does."
Stained glass, like paint or colored pencils, can be used to capture all kinds of ideas or images.
But it's long been associated with religious buildings, because faith communities were able to commission pieces when the medium was first becoming popular, wrote Terry Bloxham, a stained glass expert who works at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, in an email.
"Many innovations in what we would now call the 'decorative arts' began in churches. Decorated windows, tiled floors (and) painted walls were expensive to produce and the church seems to have been the only institution in the West able to afford these arts," she said.
Religious buildings were frequented by the whole community, which meant that everyone benefited from efforts to beautify them, Raguin said.
"The religious building was the most important building in the city, even beyond the king's chapel or the king's buildings," she said. "Unlike today, everybody in the city participated in (religious life) -- the nobility and the merchants and the clergy and everybody else."
Additionally, stained glass windows helped faith communities express their identity, Raguin said, noting that "unlike regular art, like paintings, that can move from place to place, stained glass has to be made for a specific place."
Church leaders would meet with a stained glass artist to decide how to feature a local saint. As with the development of UVU's "Roots of Knowledge" display, the process required research and debate.
UVU's display, although unique in its subject and scope, follows in the footsteps of other prominent stained glass projects at U.S. universities, such as a collection of 18-foot tall panels installed in front of Princeton's art museum.
But Holland said he was still prepared for pushback to the "Roots of Knowledge" project. He didn't blame people for assuming the design would have a religious tone, even though that would be inappropriate at a school focused on inclusiveness.
The overall project is very different from famous stained glass displays in places like Chartres Cathedral in France or Washington National Cathedral in Washington, D.C. Rather than convey a biblical lesson or portray a famous saint, it tells the story of humanity, drawing on religious details in the same way it highlights scientific achievements or famous pieces of literature.