FUNK, Hans - b. ~1470 Zürich, d. ~1539 Zürich

Swiss stained-glass painter. He was mentioned before 1489 in court records in Zurich, where relatives were also active as stained-glass artists at the beginning of the 16th century. He settled c. 1499-1500 in Bern, living from 1509 in the Kirchgasse (now Münstergasse), and in 1519 he was appointed a member of the cantonal parliament (Grosser Rat). He received many commissions throughout the Swiss Confederation, above all in Bern and Fribourg, and his work exercised a significant influence on the other stained-glass artists of Berne.

The earliest records of work by Funk come from the treasury accounts of Fribourg and Bern in 1504 and 1505: in 1505 he executed a series of windows (destroyed) depicting the estates of the Alte Orte for Fribourg Town Hall. Earlier than this, however, is a window (c. 1501; Historisches Museum Bern) with both a signature and the monogram HFG (‘Hans Funk Glasmaler’). The quality of Funk’s art may be seen in the expressive characterization of the halberdiers holding the arms of Bremgarten and the Confederation, and in the combination of exact detail and liveliness in the fine gold work.

Design of a Stained-Glass Panel

The design represents the Coat of Arms of the Canton of Bern.

Glass painting began as a national art in Switzerland in the middle of the 15th century, and flourished for 200 years; it then declined in the middle of the 17th century. Glass painting, or more properly glazing, has always been a Northern art and an ecclesiastical art. It was rooted in the Gothic cathedral and blossomed there and flourished as long as the Gothic style endured, languishing when this style gave away to the Italian Renaissance and baroque. The soil which produced Gothic art was that of France, Burgundy, and the Rhine country, and the great ateliers, or glass furnaces, were in these countries. With the rise of the Swiss Confederacy, and the growing wealth and importance of the Swiss states, glaziers from France, Swabia and Burgundy were drawn to the Swiss Cantons, and settled there, forming schools and founding a new national art.