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"Luminous Art & Design :: Art & Artists"
Glass Design :: Biography and Books"
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Glass design is many millennia old. It was already used as architectural decoration around 2500 BC. With inventions of new techniques mass-produced glass is now commonly used for various purposes. Blown glass has become a luxury product and an art.
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Glass is a solid material, made by cooling a molten mix of inorganic compounds fast enough that no visible crystals form. Glass is usually transparent or translucent, strong, transmit light and resistant to corrosion. Molten glass can be blown, cast, rolled or pressed in different shapes. Since glass is strong and non-reactive, it is a very useful material. Many household objects are made of glass. And flasks, test tubes, lenses and other laboratory equipment are often made of glass.
Natural glass as quartz and crystal has been used by humans since prehistoric times. Glass was used as a glaze for pottery in the area around Persia in the third millennium BC. In Mesopotamia, glass was used as architectural decoration around 2500 BC. The color of natural glass is green, caused by iron impurities in the sand. Glassmakers learned to make colored glass by adding mineral oxides and produced hues of red, green, and blue. The Egyptians made beads around 1500 BC in a variety of colors by winding molten glass around a metal bar. These beads were used as a trading commodity, and especially blue beads were highly prizes, because they were believed to have magical powers.
During Roman times, there were many glass centers and new techniques for the creation of glass developed. Glass blowing was discovered in the Middle East in 20 BC. In Byzantium glass designs became much decorated and processes as enameling, staining and gilding were developed.
Venice was the leader in glassmaking for many centuries. Fearing fire and destruction to the city’s mostly wood buildings, all the glassmakers were forced to move to Murano, an island in the Venetian Lagoon, in 1291. Murano glass was different than other glass due to the high quality of the local quartz pebbles and the glassmakers developed new technologies as the Aventurine glass; glass with threads of gold. Murano’s glassmakers held a monopoly on the glass industry and were the most prominent citizens of the island. However, glassmakers weren't allowed to leave the Republic and were severely penalized for betraying the secrets of the art.
Around 1688, a process for casting glass was invented. This became a much more commonly used way of producing glass. France became the leader in the manufacturing of plate glass, which was originally developed for Louis XIV's ‘Hall of Mirrors’ at Versailles. After 1700, the manufacturing processes improved and the price of glass dropped significantly; the use of window glass became more widespread. The invention of a glass pressing machine in 1827 allowed the mass production of inexpensive glass articles. The industrialization of glass manufacturing banished blown glass to the status of a luxury product.
Hand blown or lamp worked glassware is still popular as pieces of art. Artists in glassware include Maurice Marinot, Edvard Hald, Simon Gate, Rene Lalique, and Louis Comfort Tiffany. Tiffany produced jewelry, enamels, pottery, lamps, mosaics, and stained-glass windows. For the glass he started the trademark Favrile, and the name became synonymous with handmade glass products as highly individual vases, bottles, and dishes in a multitude of colors and techniques.
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