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Early History
Glass is one of the oldest forms of art. It
dates back to about 3500 years ago. There are some myths about
how glass was discovered, but I don’t think anyone knows
for sure how glass actually came to be. One idea is that a group
of Phoenician sailors set up camp on a beach one night. They built
a fire to cook some food, and set the pot in which they were to
cook on some blocks of natron, which is an alkali they were carrying
as cargo. The fire supposedly melted the sand, forming a small
stream of glass that eventually cooled and hardened. This story
probably isn’t true, it takes a lot of luck to make glass
by accident, though it is made with very basic ingredients. Sand
is the main ingredient, and then added to that are ashes from
trees or plants which help the sand to melt. Something like lime
is also added which is a stabilizing ingredient, and it protects
the glass from moisture. Virtually the same recipe is used to
make glass today, but through the years there have been many variations,
and new recipes continue to emerge.
Some of the oldest glass on record dates back
to the pre-Roman times. Solid beads and amulets have been found
which were made in the year 2500 BC. Even though glass has been
in existence for thousands of years, it wasn’t always considered
an art as it is today. Its uses, for the most part, have been
in functional pieces – things that hold things. During the
pre-Roman times, glassmakers were making vessels, but glass blowing
had not yet been invented. The vessel was made by wrapping hot
glass around a core made of clay and dung. Sometimes the glassmaker
would add color after the first clear layer was in place. After
the glass cooled the core could be picked out, leaving what glassblowers
nowadays call a vessel. Some of the earliest vessels date back
to 1500 BC in Mesopotamia and Egypt. During that time glass was
not yet a common household object. Few people knew how to make
glass, and only the pharaohs, high priests and nobles owned it.
Both Middle Easterners and Egyptians were making mosaics out of
glass. They would fuse rods of colored glass together to make
a pattern. The resulting larger rod would then be heated and pulled
out, causing the design to become smaller. Afterwards it was sliced
and arranged into a mosaic. Knowledge of glass spread outward
from Egypt and Mesopotamia mostly through the means of trade and
conquer. Egyptian and Mesopotamian glass that dates back to the
pre-Roman times have been found in the Mediterranean, Russia and
France.
The Roman Empire
The Roman Empire marks a distinct change in
the way glass was used. The incredibly important discovery of
glassblowing was made somewhere around the year 50 BC. Once vessels
could be made by blowing the glass instead of forming it around
a core, the possible shapes of vessels seemed infinite. The Roman
Empire was made up of France, Spain, Portugal, England, Belgium,
Switzerland, North Africa, parts of the Netherlands, Germany and
Austria. During the reign of the Roman Empire, glass became much
more of a household object. Blowing vessels was more efficient
than core-forming, and so glass became available to more people.
Molds were used to help shape the glass, and for leaving imprints
on the walls of a vessel. Glass could be blown into a mold that
had cuts in it, and the cuts in the mold would leave imprints
on the glass. After the hot glass was removed from the mold, the
glassblower could continue to work with it. Despite glass production
of common use objects, glassblowers were also making some of the
most lavish glass objects ever made. The beauty of the glass was
augmented with inlays of gold and brilliant colors. Many of these
glorious vessels were used to hold rare and expensive ointments,
perfumes and cosmetics. Some enameling techniques were also developing,
and glass was being used to inlay ceilings.
China & The Middle East
There is less information about glass made in
China during the time of the Roman Empire, though there is some
glass from China that dates back to 221 BC – 220 AD. The
Chinese made many engraved figures, eye beads and pi disks, which
symbolized heaven. Blown glass was probably introduced to China
by Persian glass artists.
The Middle-East was an interesting region because
any kind of self indulgent or frivolous thing was forbidden by
the Muslim religion. In the case of glass, it didn’t seem
to matter. People still decorated their homes and holy buildings
with glass. The Islamic people often used glass to imitate something
of greater value, making the glass look in some cases like turquoise
stones. It was done so well that people often had trouble telling
what was a real stone and what was actually made of glass. Pictures
and designs on glass vessels were made by first drawing out the
design, and then chipping away at the glass leaving a raised pattern.
By this time Egypt had become part of the Muslim
world, and made contributions to the art of glass enameling. The
process for enameling involved painting a silver luster on the
glass and then heating the glass up. The silver sort of fumed
the glass, giving it brown and yellow colors. Enameling was often
used in the glass lamps the Syrians made for mosques and Islamic
houses of worship. In 1400, the Mongol conqueror Tamerlaine destroyed
Damascus, and all production of Islamic glass ended abruptly.
Tamerlaine sent all the Islamic glassmakers to Samarkand, the
Mongol capital.
Europe During The Middle Ages
In Europe during the dark ages, all aspects
of life were diminished, and glass making was almost nonexistent.
By the 12th century the Catholic Church was gaining power, and
the dark ages were becoming a thing of the past. During the Middle
Ages in Europe, glass production was primarily in making colored
glass for the stained glass windows in the gothic architecture
of that time. Most of the windows told religious stories, or depicted
something from the Catholic bible. The Islamic Empire was still
on the decline, and Venice was quickly becoming the center of
all trade between the east and west. Through peaceful trading
with the Middle East, glass finally made its way to Venice. Then
in the early 1200’s, the Venetian Glassmakers’ Guild
was formed. In 1291, all the glassmakers in Venice were forced
to move to the island of Murano. This was done for a couple different
reasons. It eliminated the fear of fires starting in Venice due
to the glassblowers’ furnace, and more importantly, the
glass industry could be easily controlled. Murano was only about
an hours paddle from Venice, and gondolas were going back and
forth constantly, but the glassblowers and their families were
not allowed to leave the island. The glass industry was very secretive,
and the less people that knew how to make glass the better. If
a glassblower did leave the island, it was a crime punishable
by death. Despite the strict laws, many glassmakers did manage
to leave Murano. It was these Murano refugees who brought the
art of glassblowing to the shores of Tyrol, Vienna, Flanders,
France and England. Some of the first Venetian glass was used
for making rosaries. Beads from these rosaries have been found
which date back to the 13th century. Venetians also revolutionized
the way mirrors were made. For the first time mirrors were made
of glass instead of polished metal. The glass used for making
these mirrors had to be extremely clear. After the glass pane
was made they would line the back with foil. As Venetian glass
continued to grow, new kinds of glass began to emerge. The glassmakers
of Venice invented a glass called cristallo that was incredibly
clear. They added color to cristallo making dark blues, amethyst,
red-brown, emerald green and milky white.
Europe During The Rennaisance
In the 17th century a book was published called
L’Arte Vetraria (The Art of Glass) by Antonio Neri. For
the first time ever the secrets of glass were out. L’Arte
Vetraria had everything from how to make glass, to how to build
the equipment, to how to actually blow glass. The diamond was
becoming an item of trade, and soon diamond point engraving was
developed. Glass was also used scientifically for the first time
in telescopes and microscopes, and eyeglasses became greatly improved
and much more useful.
Though Venice still had an influential hold
on the glass industry, places in Spain, France, Germany, the Netherlands,
England and Sweden were developing their own legend in what were
known as forest glass houses. Some of the glasshouses were just
temporary buildings, but some were used for years and years. The
glassblowers in the forest developed a type of glass specific
to the ingredients available in the forest. It was made using
the ashes from the wood that was burned to heat the furnace. The
ashes were called potash. They were purified and mixed with copper
oxide, giving the glass a pale glossy green color. The glass houses
influenced more than just the art of glass. The wood that the
glassblowers cleared to heat their furnaces cleared land which
was then used agriculturally. The forest glass houses produced
mostly window glass and drinking vessels. Roemers were flared
or rounded bowls, and humpen were the large vessels made for beer.
The vessels were often very large, sometimes holding up to four
quarts of liquid, and they had knobs protruding from the sides
making them easier to hold, especially when the person drinking
was in a drunken stupor.
In the Bohemian factories diamond point engraving
was becoming more and more popular. Almost anyone could do it
because the only requirement was that a person must be a good
drawer. The Bohemian glassblowers invented a glass that was almost
perfectly clear and easy to cut. It was made using chalk as the
main ingredient, and soon people were using it all over the continent.
Wheel engraving was also becoming popular and soon glass from
Northern Europe became more coveted than Venetian glass.
Venetian glassblowers introduced fine glass
to the people of England. There was a shortage of wood, and glassblowers
were no longer allowed to use it as fuel. They began to heat their
furnaces with coal, which created a whole new set of problems.
The glassblowers had to come up with a ventilation system that
would reroute the fumes from the coal, keeping them away from
the glassblowers and the glass.
The English glassblowers invent what was known
as black glass (really a dark green) in the mid-17th century.
It was used to make thick walled vessels that were good for storage
and easy to ship. Because they were so thick and dark, they blocked
light that might damage the goods that were being transported.
Because of these black bottles, England soon became the dominating
bottle distributor.
In 1676 there came another breakthrough in glass
industry. A man named George Ravenscroft developed a formula for
making glass using lead. Ravenscroft was an English Glassmaker
who had lived in Venice for many years. At the time he developed
this new form of glass, he was secretly working in London. The
new lead glass stayed workable for a muck longer period of time
than other types of glass, and because of its weight and clarity,
people began to make vessels without decoration. More attention
was paid to the form of the glass itself, not what was adorning
it.
German and Bohemian glasscutters introduced
glass cutting to the English, and soon the English were making
candelabrum with cut glass.
In 1607 the settlers of the Jamestown colony
brought glassblowing with them to America. Glass was used mostly
for just bottles and windows, and it was hard to distribute American
made glass. Most of it was being imported from Germany. Caspar
Wistar was the first man to successfully distribute glass in America,
and after him came Henry Stiegal and then John Frederick Amelung.
The first two men failed eventually because Stiegal put more money
than he could afford into his glass, and Wistar failed due to
the disruption of the revolution. Amelung manage to stay in business
longer, and opened a large glass factory in Maryland in the year
of 1784. This was also the year that Benjamin Franklin invented
bifocals. Eventually, Amelung’s factory also failed. Even
though it was hard, American production of glass continued to
grow every decade of the 19th century. In the 1820’s the
mechanical press was introduced to the glass industry, making
production easier and faster. In 1903, a man named Michael Owens
invented an automatic bottle blowing machine that could produce
millions of light bulbs a day.
In 19th century Europe, during the years between
1815 and 1848, a style called Biedermeier was all the rage and
certainly the most fashionable. The term Biedermeier applied not
only to glass, but also to life in general. It means plain and
inoffensive, and was first used in a derogatory way. The glass
of the Biedermeier era was certainly not plain, and I suppose
for some people it could be offensive. The glass was lavishly
cut, engraved and enameled, often depicting views of Vienna and
idyllic scenes. Everything made during those years was influenced
by the romantic and comfortable lifestyles of the times.
In 1845 the excise tax on glass was lifted,
and in 1851the Great Exhibition of the Industry of all Nations
or the first World’s Fair was held. It took place in what
was known as the crystal palace, a gigantic building that covered
almost twenty acres of land. It was made using three hundred thousand
panes of glass, all made by hand in one glass house. At around
this time, styles were becoming more eclectic, and there was a
revival of the older gothic and renaissance styles. Glass was
used in people’s homes as drinking glasses, butter dishes,
tea caddies, honey jars, flower vases and cheese and sugar dishes.
The next major thing which revolutionized the
way glass was seen did not occur until the 20th century. This
is when the designer and artist became an important part of the
glass houses. Two of the first designer/artists to actually work
in glass was Emile Galle and Eugene Rouseau. They became well
known for the glass they exhibited at the Paris Exhibition in
1878. Rouseau’s work was heavily influenced by Japanese
art, and Galle was the beginning of the Art Nouveau style used
in glass. It was a very graceful style, and so lent itself exceptionally
well to the fluidity of glass. Louis Comfort Tiffany, of Tiffany’s,
the jewelry store in New York, saw Galle’s work and fell
in love. He too began to design glass, but did not actually blow
the pieces himself. Maurice Marinot was the first artist to do
all his own glass blowing single handedly. His vessels were massive
and used subtle colors.
About one hundred years after Rouseau and Galle,
after 1960, glass artists began to work in their own studios,
outside of the factory environment. All of the artistic experimentation
done in these studios is known as the studio glass movement. Rather
than being defined by a philosophy or style, the studio glass
movement id defined by the glass itself and how it works. The
studio artists always made use of both hot and cold glass techniques
including kiln fusing and stained glass. When the portable glass
furnace was introduced it opened up many more avenues of glass
work for the studio artists. The studio glass movement is international
and still developing. It is different from other glass movements
because there is heavy emphasis on the artist and designer. Sometime
they are one and the same, sometimes it takes a whole team of
people to make a piece, as with the work of Dale Chihuly. He is
a designer but not a glass blower. There is also a strong sense
of sharing and community. While the glass world used to be very
secretive, through the studio glass movement glassblowers are
now sharing ideas and technical information. It started out as
and American movement, and quickly spread to Europe, Australia
and Asia. Since the movement is no longer specific to one area
the communication between artists holds even more importance.
Through the studio glass movement the world of glass is continuing
to grow, and it’s all happening very fast. It’s an
exciting time to be part of a movement that is still in the process
of coming into its own.
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