Glass art
Glassblowing was perhaps invented in the 1st century BC, and featured heavily in Roman glass, which was highly developed with forms such as the cage cup for a luxury market.
Some of the best known glass sculptures are statuesque or monumental works created by artists Livio Seguso, Karen LaMonte, and Stanislav Libenský and Jaroslava Brychtová.
Another example is René Roubícek's "Object" 1960, a blown and hot-worked piece of 52.2 cm (20.6 in)[1] shown at the "Design in an Age of Adversity" exhibition at the Corning Museum of Glass in 2005.
[2] A chiselled and bonded plate glass tower by Henry Richardson serves as the memorial to the Connecticut victims of the 9/11 terrorist attacks.
[3] In 2021, the artist Guillaume Bottazzi created a three-metre high glass sculpture on the “Domaine des Diamants Blancs”, in the extension of the Mallet-Stevens garden which adjoins the Villa Cavrois.
Pieces produced in small production runs, such as the lampwork figures of Stanislav Brychta, are generally called art glass.
In the mid 20th century there was a resurgence of interest in paperweight making and several artist sought to relearn the craft.
In the US, Charles Kaziun started in 1940 to produce buttons, paperweights, inkwells and other bottles, using lampwork of elegant simplicity.
[5] Starting in the late 1960s and early 70s, artists such as Francis Whittemore,[6] Paul Stankard,[7] his former assistant Jim D'Onofrio,[8] Chris Buzzini,[9] Delmo[10] and daughter Debbie Tarsitano,[11] Victor Trabucco[12] and sons, Gordon Smith,[13] Rick Ayotte[14] and his daughter Melissa, the father and son team of Bob and Ray Banford,[15] and Ken Rosenfeld[16] began breaking new ground and were able to produce fine paperweights rivaling anything produced in the classic period.
[citation needed] Several of the most common techniques for producing glass art include: blowing, kiln-casting, fusing, slumping, pâté-de-verre, flame-working, hot-sculpting and cold-working.
Cut glass is worked with a diamond saw, or copper wheels embedded with abrasives and polished to give gleaming facets; the technique used in creating Waterford crystal.
[17] Fine paperweights were originally made by skilled workers in the glass factories in Europe and the United States during the classic period (1845-1870.)
Since the late 1930s, a small number of very skilled artists have used this art form to express themselves, using mostly the classic techniques of millefiori and lampwork.
The first works that they printed were a series of artistic vessels, which were included in the Cooper Hewitt's Beauty exhibit in 2016.
Glass printing is theoretically possible at large and small physical scales and has the capacity for mass production.
Methods to make patterns on glass include caneworking such as murrine, engraving, enameling, millefiori, flamework, and gilding.
[20] The Museum of Fine Arts in Boston features a 42.5 feet (13.0 m) tall glass sculpture, Lime Green Icicle Tower, by Dale Chihuly.
The museum features works by Louis Comfort Tiffany and John Lafarge, and is open daily free to the public.
[26][27] The rumor of secret methods is partly owed to the fact that the family touch, as Leopold described it, died with the childless Rudolf, meaning Blaschka glass art ceased being produced in the mid-20th century.
Regardless, their work remains an inspiration to glassblowers today, with the Glass Flowers being among the most popular exhibits at Harvard while invertebrate models are being remembered and rediscovered everywhere.
