Lucis Creator Optime

Between 1978 and 1981, Sergio de Castro, an internationally renowned French painter of Argentinean origin, created five stained glass windows depicting prophets for the north aisle of the collegiate church in Romont. The inauguration of these windows coincided with the founding of the Swiss Stained Glass Museum. In memory of these two events, in 1991 the artist donated the stained glass on display and almost a hundred preparatory documents for the windows in the collegiate church to the museum. This stained-glass window is based on a design from 1957, which the artist painted at the time for a monumental window in the church of the Benedictine monastery of Couvrechef-la-Folie in Caen, France. This interpretation of the Creation of the World, measuring six metres high and 20 metres wide, is a masterpiece of stained glass from the second half of the 20th century. The panel the artist chose to make a second time and which was subsequently gifted to the museum – a detail from the immense original iteration of the design – bears the title Lucis Creator Optime, after a hymn probably dating back to the 5th century praising God the Creator of Light. It corresponds to the first day of Creation, when God created light by separating it from the darkness and placing them in the alternation of day and night (Genesis 1, 3-5).