Art glass

Definitions of art glass can be as complex and contentious as definitions of what constitutes "art" and will inevitably include many refinements and exceptions. On the one hand "art glass" is not quite of the size, uniqueness and scope to be considered as "art" - unlike glass art - but on the other, was designed or has come to be appreciated more for its decorative excellence, artistic merit or design distinctiveness than for any possible or originally intended use.

"Art glass" has been almost exclusively intended to decorate the home and was historically bought by those who could afford to commission individual work. However this last distinction today is becoming moot as glass artists strive to produce works of ever increasing distinction whether commissioned or not.

At its broadest level "art glass" can most easily be defined in opposition to glass for utilitarian purposes where the usability is more important than artistic design: glassware, for dining, drinking, and cooking in the home, and for the catering and hospitality industries, as well as glass packaging, scientific, industrial, and architectural glass are the mundane products against which "art glass" is to be compared and contrasted.

Terminology

Manufacturing techniques

There are many techniques used to produce "art glass" such as: hot casting, kiln casting, flameworking, moulding or pressing, and glassblowing. Some

Hot casting

Hot casting can be done by ladling molten glass into molds that have been created by pressing shapes into sand, carved graphite or detailed plaster/silica molds.

Kiln casting

Kiln casting glass involves heating chunks or powdered glass in a kiln until they become liquid and flow into a waiting mold below it in the kiln.

Hot sculpted

Glass can also be sculpted while molten on the end of a punty rod with hand tools either as a solid mass or on a blowpipe as part of a blown object.

Moulded glass

Moulded glass, which is also known by collectors as pressed glass, is usually made by machine, but can be done by hand.

Blown glass

Glassblowing is historically the most used technique for creating "art glass", and is still favoured by most of today's studio glass artists. This is because of the artist's intimacy with the material, and almost infinite opportunity for creativity and variation at almost every stage of the process. Glassblowing can be used to create a multitude of shapes and can incorporate color through a wide range of techniques. Colored glass can be gathered out of a crucible, clear glass can be rolled in powdered colored glass to coat the outside of a bubble, it can be rolled in chips of glass, it can be stretched into rods and incorporated through caneworking or it can be layered and cut and fused into tiles and incorporated into a bubble of glass for intricate patterns through murrine. "Blown glass" refers only to individually hand-made items but can include the use of moulds for shaping, ribbing, and spiking to produce decorative bubbles. Not all blown glass is "art glass". One major exception is scientific glassware which is often blown to order, in a studio.

'Blow and blow' and 'press and blow' methods

The similar sounding terms "blow and blow" and "press and blow" methods are very different mechanized, commercial techniques used for glass packaging such as bottles and containers for food, toiletries and cosmetics.

Contemporary art glass or Studio Glass

As a small scale craft-based industry, contemporary art glass survives on the patronage of those with the means to buy, and supports artists who struggle to make a living using ever more expensive^{[citation needed]} power and materials, and time-consuming, labour-intensive techniques which have changed little over centuries. However, those involved in the contemporary art glass scene often equate their passion to "art glass" as a whole. This is an understandable mistake^{[citation needed]} but glass made by hand in small studios has its own appellation, widely known and used since the late 1960s as studio glass.

Modern stained art glass

"Angel of Hope" Modern stained glass art by Amanda Lamb at Elegance In Art Glass studios.

Modern stained glass is a new art glass technique being used to create increasingly intricate glass work. The process begins with cutting out the desired piece of glass required, and then using colorful acrylic overlay, along with traditional led alloy soldering, to create stained glass art. This technique is also commonly used in Europe to repair old stained glass windows that consist of a color hue that is no longer available in traditional stained glass. Modern stained glass is now used in homes and businesses as an alternative to traditional stained glass due to its increased intricacy, durability, an ultraviolet radiation protection. Smaller art studios, such as Elegance In Art Glass are also using this art medium as a way to personalize this new art glass technique.

Innovation

In the late 20th century, contemporary glass artists (See the list of glass artists) have gravitated towards the application of innovative techniques in their work, among them constructing large scale architectural works, free-standing and alike. Examples include Warren Carther of Winnipeg, Manitoba in Canada, who is one of the few artists using large spans of thicker ¾ inch plate glass. The thick glass allows the artist to build with glass and to carve deeply into it without compromising the material's structural capabilities. This approach can be seen in the piece Chronos Trilogy, Hong Kong, 1998.

Historical perspective

Collectors, researchers, dealers, curators, and appraisers, however, see "art glass" through a much wider, more historical perspective. They have traditionally included pieces made using some degree of division of labour, where a number of specialised workers were used in the different processes involved in making each piece, in settings more akin to a factory than a studio.

Factory art glass

The qualifier factory glass has come into use only in recent years in relation to studio glass. Most antique art glass was made in factories, particularly in England, the United States, and Bohemia, where items were made to a standard or "pattern". This would seem contrary to art glass as distinctive and showing individual skill. However, the importance of decoration in the Victorian era in particular meant that much of the artistry lay with the decorator. Any assumption today that factory-made items were necessarily made by machine was not generally so. Up to the end of the 1930s the majority of processes involved in making decorative art glass were performed by hand.

Factory differentiation and distinctiveness

Factories got around the problem of too much "sameness" in their production in various ways. Firstly, they would frequently change designs according to demand. This was especially so in the export-dependent factories of Bohemia, where the salesmen or "journeymen" would report sales trends back to the factory each trip. Secondly, the decoration, often done by contracted "piece" workers ^[1] was often a variation on a theme for mid and lower market items. Such was the skill of these sub-contractors that a reasonable quality standard was generally maintained. Finally a high degree of differentiation could be gained from the multiplication of shapes, colours, and decorative designs so that many different combinations of these could be obtained.

Concurrently, from the same factories, came distinctive, artistic models, produced in more limited quantities for the upper market consumer. These were likely to be decorated in-house, where decorators could work more closely with designers and management. Some designs were adapted from those of students at specialist glass colleges or Fachschule at Haida and Steinschönau ^[2] where glass design was considered as important a part of the curriculum as technique.

Usable art glass

Many items of art glass were originally intended to have a use. Often that use has ceased to be relevant in the modern world but even if that's not the case, in the Victorian era and for some decades beyond, useful items were often decorated to a such a high degree that we can now appreciate them for their artistic or design merits. In some cases it's shocking to the modern mind that such delicate, frivolous, and impractical items could be used at all.

Some "art glass" retains its original purpose but has come to be appreciated more for its "art" than for its use. Collectors of antique perfume bottles, for example, tend to display their items empty. As glass packaging, these bottles would originally have been used and as such would not ordinarily have been considered "art glass". Lalique's Art Nouveau and Art Deco designs and those of Joseph Hoffman also in the Art Deco era have now come to be appreciated as "art glass" due to their stylish and highly original decorative designs.

Contemporary and older bottles which have limited design style or decoration but may be collectible would remain under the heading of "glass collectibles".

Moulded art glass

A major shift in the definition of what constituted "Art Glass" came with the 1977 publication of the book Glass - Art Nouveau to Art Deco by Victor Arwas. Following that, there was a growing recognition that moulded, mass-produced glass with little or no decoration, but of high artistic and fabrication quality such as that produced by Lalique, should be considered as "Art Glass". ^[3] Until that time only blown glass was considered.

In the post WWII period most types of moulded glass, especially if in clear glass, with minimal, functional design are usually considered glassware. In making a judgement one would need to take into account the complexity and social relevance of the design, in relation to its era and the artistic interpretation of the mould maker. However, in his ground-breaking work "Sklo Union Art before Industry: 20th Century Czech Pressed Glass" ^[4] Marcus Newhall places the mass-produced Czech Pressed Glass made by the multi-factory nationalised combine Sklo Union, in the 1950s-'70s, in its historical and social context. Through this analysis he makes a convincing case for this innovatively designed "glass for everyday use", as "art for the masses". As such, modest in cost and intent as they may be, one would have to include these daring modern and modernist designs as "Art Glass".

Other forming techniques

Hot worked glass

Hot working is the manipulation of the glass, with tools such as pincers and shears, to shape it while the glass is in its plastic state. The glass may be pulled, pinched, cut or cropped, and swung. It is usually used in conjunction with glassblowing.

On a smaller scale, lampworking is the working of hot glass at a bench, over a fixed burner. It is used for scientific glassworking, lampworking for art glass and beadworking.

Warm glass

Warm glass or kiln-formed glass is the working of glass, usually for artistic purposes, by heating it in a kiln. The processes used depend on the temperature reached and range from fusing and slumping to casting.

Art glass decorating techniques

• Colour: Glass colours
• Texture: Frosting, satinizing, glue-chip, overshot, sandblasting
• Surfaces: Overlays, cameo, cut-back, cutting
• Decor: Painted and enamelled glass, engraving

Art glass does not include

• Architectural glass
• Stained glass
• Glassware
• Glass art

Refined glassware

Upmarket refined glassware, usually "crystal", is refined both in terms of the high quality and purity of the metal (molten glass mixture) as well as in the decorative techniques used, most often cutting and gilding. Both have been and continue to be used as part of the decoration of many indisputable examples of art glass. The distinction lies in how they are used. Such glassware can be confused with art glass because of the lavish amount and style of decoration

Cut glass

There is no disputing the skill traditionally required to produce cut crystal, but these days many of the processes, as well as some or all of the cutting, is automated. A few designs show artistic flair but most tend to be regular, geometric and repetitious with little or no variation in execution. Indeed, the design can be considered as a "pattern" to be replicated as exactly as possible, the main purpose of which is to accentuate the refractive qualities or "sparkle" of the crystal, an aesthetic consideration certainly, but generally not artistic.

The vast majority of cut glass items were primarily intended for use and most, like drinking glasses, retain their original function. Vases and bowls, items which often form the "canvas" for "art glass", if in cut crystal are far more likely to be in daily use and are therefore unequivocally glassware rather than "art glass".

Hobby art glass

Practitioners of small scale glassmaking and decorating as a hobby consider their work to be "art"^{[citation needed]}, but professional glass artists and collectors do not,^{[citation needed]} that is until such time that the person is sufficiently accomplished and widely recognised. It would be extremely unusual for this to happen to an amateur^{[citation needed]}, and more likely that the person would turn "pro" long before recognition^{[citation needed]}. Hence, in general, hobby glass is not considered as "art glass"^{[citation needed]}.

Exceptions

Art cut

A clear exception could be made for those highly distinctive cut crystal designs, which were produced in relatively small or limited quantities by named designers of note. Examples here would be the designs of Keith Murray for Steven & Williams and Clyne Farquharson for John Walsh Walsh. A relatively new term is coming into use for this genre: "Art Cut" ^[5]

See also

• Caneworking
• Murrine
• Studio glass
• American Fancy
• Glass history
• Moss agate glass

Gallery

• 

  Macro detail from a glass bowl blown at The World of Glass Museum (incorporating the Pilkington Glass Museum), St. Helens, UK

• 

  Detail of sculpture by artist David Patchen.

• 

  Handmade studio glass can utilize complex techniques to achieve highly detailed patterns through murrine or caneworking as shown in this work by American artist David Patchen.

• 

  Exchange of Information II, by David Reekie

• 

  Mid 20th Century Vortex Vase, by Robert C. Fritz one of the founding fathers of the 1960s studio glass movement.

• 

  Detail of Persian Ceiling installation by Dale Chihuly at the De Young Museum in San Francisco, 2008.

References

Look up art glass in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

Notes