ONE OF the country's most talented young stained glass artists has transformed the Queen's Park Synagogue, built in Glasgow during the Twenties. All 24 original clear, leaded windows have been replaced with pictorial glass of outstanding vibrancy.

Traditionally, an ambitious project on such a scale might have been carried out piecemeal over several decades, with no individual responsible for overall concept, design and craftsmanship. But this commission was entrusted to John Clark, from Glasgow, who has completed it in just over three years. The result is, to put it mildly, impressive.

The high, barrel-vaulted interior of thc South Side Jewish church is not the work of a great architect, but, in its classical simplicity and pale, unfussy paintwork, it has some pretensions to grandeur. When you enter from the west end, you cannot but be conscious of the special quality of the light that now filters down from the great eastern window, a 30ft half dome above the Ark, filled by Clark with shimmering blue/green, semi-abstract imagery.

This was the final work and based on the elements of air, fire and water, the Hebraic alphabet and the symbols of the Law - the nearest to complete abstraction. This window alone would seem to me to give cause to salute the coming to maturity of a Scottish artist of real stature.

But in general, the imagery is immediately recognizable and full of vitality, a visual celebration of Jewish Festivals throughout the year, beginning with the Sabbath. For a non-Jewish artist, then, serious research pre-dated the design work, research into Hebraic ritual and symbolism by way of the Encyclopaedia Judaica and other works on the subject including, of course, the Old Testament. And that, says John Clark, was immensely stimulating and far from restricting.

"In fact," he insists, "I was left quite free to exercise my imagination, in colour, composition and imagery, with the single exception that the use of the human figure is definitely not allowed."

But when I questioned his use of hands in more than one instance - the hands of the boy, Jacob, bound together as a sacrifice; the hand of Ruth gleaning the corn, and others casting sins into running water or holding ritual sprays of herbs - I was told Chagall had used the human hand in his windows at Jerusalem, and that John Clark had "taken permission" from the unassailable precedent, "I knew that Chagall was very orthodox, so I felt quite justified."

Permeating the whole work is a powerful sense of the important activity of cultivating the land wine and olive, grain and fruit in that famous desire to make the desert "rejoice and blossom as a rose". The artist's expectation is that his windows might begin to be used, as they ought to be and as such windows were in the old days, as teaching aids.

John Clark, now in his thirties; was already a front-runner in his student days at Glasgow School of Art where he studied under Afredo Avella. Since then his work in stained glass may be seen locally at Paisley Abbey and at the Café Gandolf in Glasgow's Merchant City, while current commissions include one from a Lutheran church in Germany and another from John McCarthy, for a window to commemorate the hostages. But a work on the scale of the Queen's Park windows would seem to be without parallel. "This kind of commission is something that normally you only dream about; something you might expect to be offered, if you are lucky, at the age of 60 or so, when your work has become really well-known." It was, indeed, an astonishing act of faith on the part of the relevant committee, but faith fully justified in the result.

Last month the new windows were dedicated by Britain's chief rabbi, Dr Jonathan Sacks, at a special service. And the Queen's Park congregation - which gave entire financial support to the project - has no intention of shutting out an interested public from the sight of its new glory, but plans to open the building on regular occasions.

Cordelia Oliver, The Scotsman, Monday 6th July 1992.