LET THERE BE LIGHT STAINED GLASS CREATES A KALEIDOSCOPE AT GETTY.

Byline: Elizabeth Smilor Lifestyle Editor

Light is an instrument of discovery.

When light shines through a window, it illuminates a room's furnishings and details such as books or paintings, which define not only the space but those who use it.

The soft light shining through stained glass windows now on display at the J. Paul Getty Museum illuminates both sacred symbols and detailed scenes of everyday life during the Renaissance era in Germany and Switzerland.

``Almost like television, we can view an aspect of life then,'' explains Lee Hendrix, co-curator of ``Painting on Light: Drawings and Stained Glass in the Age of Durer and Holbein.''

Looking at one plate-size glass panel, she marvels at how the intricate drawings reveal hunting and fishing techniques of that time.

``This expands our vision of what they were doing then,'' she says, ``and the art they wanted to see in their daily lives.''

The exhibit, on view until Sept. 24, includes more than 60 centuries-old glass panels and approximately 80 preparatory drawings from collections in the United States, Germany, Switzerland and elsewhere.

A few of the figures on glass are nearly life-size, but most of the panels are smaller round or rectangular panes that would have been placed within larger windows in homes, town halls or churches. Some windows are paired with the cartoonlike drawings on which they are based.

The exhibition begins with works by Albrecht Durer of Nuremberg, Germany, who is more widely known for his woodcuts, along with works by his followers. It ends with panels and drawings by Hans Holbein the Younger of Basel, Switzerland, who is more famous for his portraits of King Henry VIII.

The two artists, who lived a generation apart, left distinct marks on the art of painting on glass. Durer (1471-1528) developed his own style when he was commissioned to design windows for chapels, the Bishop of Bamberg and Nuremberg's Carmelite monastery.

``Durer changed the language of drawing, creating a new, inventive vocabulary of lines and graphic details,'' Hendrix explains.

Hans Holbein the Younger (1497/98-1543) worked on a much smaller scale than Durer, but added depth to his works, giving them a three-dimensional look. In many cases, Holbein used arches in the foreground to give the work dimension and create a sense that viewers are peering into the painted scene.

``Holbein picks up on Durer's innovations, in a tonal sense, creating infinite ranges of light and dark,'' explains co-curator Barbara Butts, who is a guest curator at the St. Louis Art Museum where the exhibit will be displayed this fall.

Another part of the exhibit shows how the stained glass was created. As the exhibition's title, ``Painting on Light,'' suggests, the hand-blown glass was not only stained with such materials as silver nitrate for yellow or iron oxide for red, it was also painted with vitreous paints made by mixing crushed glass with vinegar, clove oil or gum arabic. To re-create the fine details from a drawing, a glass painter often put the charcoal drawing directly beneath a clear panel and copied the image in paint. When finished, light, as it shines through the panels, brings life to the images.

Two of Durer's larger works, ``The Annunciation'' and ``Saints Andrew and Pope Sixtus II,'' originally from the private chapel of Dr. Sixtus Tucher of Nuremberg, are reunited for the exhibit.

The windows were sold when Tucher's home was destroyed around 1833 and later repurchased by the Tucher family. But today, ``The Annunciation'' hangs in the Museum Tucherschloss in Nuremberg, while the ``Saints'' - purchased by William Randolph Hearst in 1929 - has been at Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Glendale since 1954.

``These are just two of the incredible surprises of the show,'' Hendrix says. ``The exhibition is full of discoveries. We had no idea we had such marvelous stained glass right under our noses.''

Hendrix, drawing curator for the Getty, and Butts spent the past 13 years tracking down the stained glass and drawings. They worked from a German catalog from 1913 and discovered that many of the windows had been destroyed in World War II. Others they found in unexpected places.

One window was 40 feet up a church wall, another in the dining room of a home, yet another was hidden behind a curtain in a hospital, and two were in storage at the San Diego Museum of Art embedded in 1960s-style doors.

Almost all the owners agreed to lend the windows and drawings for the exhibit.

``It came out larger than the dream,'' says Butts, expressing her amazement that they found 58 lenders around the world. ``I hope patrons realize what a spectacular medium stained glass was in the Renaissance era. And how much the glass surrounded people in their daily lives.''

The facts

--What: ``Painting on Light: Drawings and Stained Glass in the Age of Durer and Holbein.''

--Where: Getty Center, 1200 Getty Center Drive, Los Angeles.

--When: 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. Tuesday and Wednesday, 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. Thursday and Friday, 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Saturday and Sunday; through Sept. 24. Closed Mondays and major holidays.

--How much: Admission is free. Parking is $5. Parking reservations are required. Call [phone].

--What else: Parking reservations are not required between 4 and 9 p.m. Thursdays and Fridays, but the $5 fee still applies.

Looking for more stained-glass illumination?

In conjunction with ``Painting on Light,'' the Getty will hold a variety of related events, including concerts, lectures and demonstrations. Here are some of the highlights:

--The acclaimed Swiss vocal and instrumental ensemble Lucidarium presents ``Music Under Glass: The Swiss-German Reformation'' 8 p.m. July 29 and 7:30 p.m. July 30. Pre-concert lectures begin a half-hour before music begins. Both are in the Harold M. Williams Auditorium at the Getty Center. Tickets are $22 and are available through Tickets LA at [phone].

--For those interested in learning more about the history of this artform, a two-day symposium will be held Sept. 15 and 16 in the Museum Lecture Hall. Speakers include leading international scholars in old master drawings and stained glass. Tickets are $40; $20 for students. Call [phone] to register.

--The museum will also feature artists and craftspeople from Judson Studios of Los Angeles demonstrating stained-glass techniques from start to finish. Demonstrations are from 1 to 4 p.m. Sunday and July 27 and 30 and Aug. 10, 20, 24 and 27 in the Museum Art Information Room, East Pavilion. Viewing is free. Call [phone] for more information.

--The Judson Gallery of Contemporary and Traditional Art (200 S. Avenue 66, Los Angeles, 323-255-0131) will be holding lectures and tours relating to the art of stained glass from July 23 through Nov. 5. Gallery hours are 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Tuesday through Friday, noon to 4 p.m. Saturday. Call [phone] for reservations and a schedule of lectures.

For a complete list of related events, see our Web site at dailynews.com.

CAPTION(S):

11 photos, box

Photo:

(1 -- cover -- color) Stained-glass panel with Saint Beatus

(2 -- color) The quatrefoil - such as this one of the Madonna and child (circa 1505), was a popular form of glass decoration in Nuremberg.

(3 -- 5 -- color) Hans Funk's ``Canton Panel of Bern'' (1528), far left, ``The Annunciation'' (1504-05), left, and ``Saints Andrew and Pope Sixtus II'' (1504-05), above, the latter two from the workshop of Veit Hirsvogel the Elder, are all on view at the Getty.

(6 -- color) ``Saint Jerome With the Attribute of the Evangelist Mark, the Lion'' (circa 1511).

(7 -- color) ``Mater Dolorosa'' (circa 1480) is composed of pot-metal glass and vitreous paint.

(8 -- color) Based on a design by Albrecht Durer, attributed to Veit Hirsvogel the Elder, ``Death on Horseback'' came to life with grayish-green-toned glass, yellow stain and black vitreous paint within a lead border.

(9 -- 10 -- color) Hans von Kulmbach's outline of a quatrefoil in pen on cream laid paper (1518), left, was stained with warm tones to highlight the hunting scenes in the completed work, right.

(11) Niklaus Manuel Deutsch's ``Christ and the Woman Taken in Adultery'' (1527) features gradations of shadings.

Box: Looking for more stained-glass illumination? (See text)