Stained Glass of
Sainte-Madeleine d'Outremont
Text: Marie-Chantal Marchand
Translation: Nathalie Senecal

Completed in 1924, this Romanesque style church with its rusticated stone facade and heavy rounded arches, was the work of architects A. D. Gascon and Louis Parent. Guido Nincheri did both the decoration and the stained glass for Sainte-Madeleine, but because of the ravages of fire and changing attitudes towards church decoration, his painting of the patroness Ste. Madeleine is one of the only surviving elements of the original interior decoration. Today, the church's minimal decorations and uniformly white walls actually heighten the dramatic effect of Nincheri's remarkable stained glass windows.

The windows of the choir represent the Four Evangelists, who are identified by their emblems. St. John is represented by the eagle; St. Luke by the bull; St. Mark, the lion and St. Matthew. the figure of a human. In the nave, Nincheri chose to illustrate scenes of Christ's life, dividing them between the private life described in the Gospels and the public life of the Epistles. The transept features unusual rose windows representing mythical Seraphins, with their three sets of wings, while the smaller windows show liturgical symbols.

The four windows in the former baptistery represent the graces bestowed by baptism. The number four is symbolic, refering to the four Biblical rivers. In each window Nincheri placed an angel. At the foot of each is one of these inscriptions: Ego te baptizo; Ego te linio: Accipe lampadem ardentem; Accipe vestem candidam.