Madonna and Child, created by John La Farge.

William Vareika Fine Arts

Some artists are easy to pigeonhole. Jackson Pollock, for example, was famously dubbed “Jack the Dripper,” even though he developed his famous drip technique relatively late in his career. Pop artist Roy Lichtenstein, meanwhile, will always be known as the “comic book guy,” even though his artistic interests ran the gamut from classical art to modern architecture.

Then there are artists like John La Farge (1835-1910).

An artistic multitasker, La Farge excelled at everything from painting and watercolor to architecture and book illustration. At a time when many American artists still looked to Europe for inspiration, he eagerly embraced non-Western art forms, ranging from Japanese prints to Islamic art and design. An avid traveler, he also was one of the first Western artists to visit Tahiti, arriving in the capital of Papeete in 1890 — more than a year before another famous visitor: Paul Gauguin.

Still, it was as a designer of stained-glass windows that La Farge achieved his greatest success. Not only did he bring a painter’s eye to the design of his windows, but he also developed his own semitransparent version of stained glass, which he called “opalescent glass.”

Combined with other innovations, including the use of multiple layers of glass to achieve greater tonal variety, La Farge’s work was generally considered the equal of — and in some cases, superior to — that of America’s other great stained-glass pioneer: Louis Comfort Tiffany.

For the next few months, nine of these remarkable windows are on display at William Vareika Fine Arts in Newport. Of these, eight come from a single commission: a private chapel for which La Farge created a suite of stained-glass windows in 1890. In keeping with the devotional nature of the commission, three of the windows depict large-scale religious figures, including a dramatic Madonna and Child that La Farge based on a famous painting by the Italian Renaissance master Raphael.

The five remaining windows are largely decorative and show off La Farge’s ability to “mash up” artistic traditions ranging from Roman art to medieval book illumination.

Originally, all eight windows were part of a Newport summer cottage owned by two well-to-do sisters — Mary Gwendolyn Byrd Caldwell and Mary Eliza Breckenridge Caldwell. When the Caldwells’ house was demolished in 1931, the windows were moved to the Sisters of Mercy convent in Fall River. Last year, the windows were moved again — this time to Salve Regina University, which plans to incorporate them into a new on-campus chapel and religious center.

The Salve chapel, which is being designed by Robert A.M. Stern, is expected to be completed next fall. In the meantime, the eight windows from the Caldwell House — and another large window on loan from a private collector — are on display on the Vareika gallery’s second floor.

Needless to say, they make for an impressive sight.

That’s especially true of the three main Caldwell windows, which sit together at the far end of the gallery’s top-floor space. Dramatically backlit, the windows sparkle with a gem-like array of colors — fiery reds and oranges, smoldering purples and yellow-golds, shimmering blues, greens and aquamarines. (No wonder La Farge was, at best, only an occasional painter: after seeing the kind of dazzling colors stained glass could produce, it’s a wonder he didn’t abandon oil painting altogether.)

The windows also feature a wide array of decorative effects — notably in the ornate floral-patterned arches that frame each of the three main figurative groups. As for the figures themselves, they range from a demure Saint Elizabeth of Hungary (identified by her best-known attribute, a basket of roses) to a crimson-robed Saint John the Evangelist and to a beatific Madonna and Child.

Though stained glass is essentially a two-dimensional medium, La Farge used a variety of techniques to give his work greater depth and definition. All three figure groupings, for example, are enclosed within larger architectural spaces that add to the illusion of depth. La Farge’s use of multiple layers of glass to create complex lighting and color effects also adds to the 3-D effect. (A case in point: the central window, where the Madonna and Child almost seem ready to burst out of the frame.)

While the stained-glass windows are clearly the stars of the show, the exhibit also features more than 100 other works by La Farge. Local art lovers, for example, might be surprised to find about a dozen sketches and watercolors of the Rhode Island coast, including views of Third Beach, Paradise Valley and the Sakonnet River. (Though a New Yorker by birth, La Farge was a frequent summer visitor to the Ocean State, where he often rented a house in the Paradise section of Middletown.)

Other highlights include a set of illustrations for Alfred Lord Tennyson’s “Enoch Arden,” some lovely flower studies and a selection of watercolors from La Farge’s Tahitian trip. The result is a mesmerizing show that celebrates the life and work of a true American original.

“John La Farge: American Artistic Genius and Renaissance Man” runs through Nov. 30 at William Vareika Fine Arts, 212 Bellevue Ave. in Newport. Hours: Monday-Saturday 10-6, Sunday 10-6 or by appointment. Contact (401) 849-6149 or www.vareikafinearts.com.

bvansicl@projo.com