Jesus and the Samaritan woman. Eglise Saint-Sulpice de Fougères (detail) 1919

Ludovic Alleaume made this stained glass detail, Jesus and the Samaritan woman, sometime in the late 19th or early 20th century. I just love how the light filters through the colors, each pane a brushstroke in glass. Notice how the artist uses these fine black lines to define the shapes. There's a kind of freedom in it, like drawing with light. I keep thinking about the way the light creates texture, not just on the surface, but within it. Look at the Samaritan woman's white headscarf, the web of lines that seem to catch the light and make it glow from within. It's about the ambiguity, right? What you see depends on the light, your perspective, and maybe even what you bring to it. And isn’t art, like faith, a matter of perspective, of seeing something beyond what's right in front of you? It reminds me of some of the early Byzantine mosaics, where the materials are humble, but the effect is transcendent.