History of Glass

It is easy to see why we have valued glass since the beginning of time—its beauty is alluring and eternal. However, the origins of modern glass blowing are unclear. Exactly where and when it began is unknown.

Volcanoes, lightning and meteorites create natural glass such as obsidian that early people used for cutting tools, but the earliest evidence of human glass creation points to 12,000 B.C. in the Middle East.

Small stone and clay objects have been found there covered with a vitreous glaze. The glaze is true glass as it was made from soda and quartz sand with its natural lime impurities; the same basic elements used in making glass today. Manganese, iron and copper were used as coloring agents; the same metallurgical coloring agents used to color glass today.

Eventually the glazing material was used alone to make beads and other decorative objects. These glass ornaments have been found in Syria and Mesopotamia dating from 7,000 B.C.

One of the first written records of glass was noted by Pliny, a Roman historian.

In the First Century A.D. he wrote how centuries earlier a group of Phoenician sailors were camped one night on a beach. They lit a fire and with their cooking pots perched on their cargo of blocks of soda, they went to sleep. When they awoke the next morning, the fire had fused the sand and soda into glass.

With glass no longer being applied to a stone or clay base, advances in technique allowed it to be manipulated in greater volume and around 1,800 B.C. the Egyptians learned to make hollow vessels.

They created a shape by melting a pot of glass, forming a ball of sand and lime on the end of a metal rod, and dipping the ball into the pot to build up the molten layers of glass. The piece could be shaped further by rolling it on a smooth table. The metal rod was then removed and a hollow glass vessel was the result.

From 1,500 B.C. until the birth of Christ, Egypt was the center of glass production in the known world. With the industry based in Alexandria, Phoenician traders carried it throughout the Mediterranean.

During this time glass was considered precious and the quality of pieces dated to this era demonstrates its value. A small container dated from 500 B.C. is an example. It is five inches tall and decorated with beautiful translucent white glass and a complex pattern of brown glass threads in waves, spirals and zigzag patterns.

Such craftsmanship shows glass was a luxury item. In the Bible glass is compared to gold (Job 28:17).

During the First Century A.D. along the eastern Mediterranean coast, likely Syria, it was discovered that blowing through a hollow metal rod allowed glass to be formed into a mold.

The “blowpipe” was born thus revolutionizing glass fabrication and creating the first golden age of glass during the next four hundred years, the height of the Roman Empire.

This advancement along with the economic power of Rome increased the availability and popularity of glass throughout the region. Larger and more complex shapes could be created; vases, plates, bowls, goblets, jugs, bottles, lenses, pierced buttons and rudimentary window glass.

Glass manufacturing quickly spread to all of the regions conquered by Rome.

For the 600 years after the fall of the Roman Empire to the 12th Century, Arab craftsmen refined the technique of fused enamels and luster colors on glass for application to their extensive courts and mosques. Damascus became known for its beautiful glass bazaars.

In the late 13th Century Venice, Italy became the center of glass manufacturing. Fabrication techniques were imported from Syria along with Muslim artistic influence.

To guard the newly developed techniques all glass work in Venice was moved to the island of Murano, Italy. The economic value of glass was vital to the state and strict laws were enacted to protect it. For four hundred years the emigration of workmen and scrap glass from Murano was punishable by death.

By the 15th Century, glass workers who had emigrated from areas in Italy with less stringent laws had spread throughout Europe. Spain, France, Germany and England all expanded glass manufacturing with new techniques in fabrication and artistic style. The industry continued to grow.

In the late 16th Century the artisans of Murano developed their cristallo glass. It was the first perfectly clear glass capable of being blown into very thin shapes. They also refined advanced techniques of intricate decoration and raised the art to a new level of mastery.

During this time Venetian pieces of unprecedented beauty were created and it is considered the second golden age of glass.

In 1609 the first glass factory in America was built in Jamestown, Virginia. A small melting tub two feet long and one foot wide was used to make beads for barter with the Indians and green glass bottles for the colonists.

During the 17th Century many American glass factories failed due to poor financing, labor issues and dwindling fuel supply.

The 18th Century saw the rise of two noteworthy contributors to American glass, Caspar Wistar and H. W. Stiegel. Neither had a long prominence in the industry, Wistar from 1739–1779 and Steigel from 1764–1774, but their influence lasted for generations.

Wistar trained craftsman who passed techniques to sons and grandsons and widened the pool of skilled workers. Stiegel stressed the perfection of color, shape and quality. Both men contributed to the movement of high standards in American glass manufacturing.

Most valued collections of old American glass from this era are “offhand” blown glass, that is, not glass produced on the factory production lines of the day, but glass blown freehand.

It is likely workmen crafted such pieces after regular working hours, adding some color to the dregs of molten glass in a pot, and using their best skills to produce pieces for their own use and no doubt greatest pride.

The 19th Century saw the beginning of the industrial revolution and with it great strides in glass manufacturing processes. The production of glass expanded for technical applications in industrial and consumer use and artistic endeavors were less emphasized.

Artists who formerly had worked in small glass factories requiring years of experience went to work on the assembly lines of big factories.

However, in 1875 Louis Comfort Tiffany started using glass in his design work. He began his career as an artist and interior designer, but lamps, murals, tiles and decorative windows became his specialty.

As his dissatisfaction grew with the glass provided by outside suppliers, he began to experiment with techniques inspired by ancient Roman glass.

In 1881 Tiffany patented his first glass lustering technique that created a beautiful iridescent effect. He used the technique on many of his works but employed it mostly to his hand-blown vases.

Tiffany went on to develop other methods but his lustering technique was his most important contribution. He retired in 1918 and left his name and studio to others. In 1928, dissatisfied with the quality of work being done, he severed all ties and removed his name from the glass business he had founded.

In 1962 Harvey Littleton, son of a Corning Glass Works Ph.D. physicist, organized a series of glass workshops at the Toledo Museum of Art in Toledo, Ohio. He wanted to move the craft from the factory into the studio environment.

In 1964 he and fellow glass pioneer Dominick Labino built a glass furnace small enough to be set up in a home studio. This revolutionized the industry and Littleton went on to establish the hot glass program at the University of Wisconsin and became known as the founding father of the Studio Glass Movement.

From that university program emerged the first generation of studio glass artists including one student who would go on to great prominence— Dale Chihuly.

In 1971 Chihuly co-founded the Pilchuck Glass School in Washington State. His curriculum and collaboration with other pioneers spawned a new generation of glass artists and the school has become perhaps the largest educational center for glass artists in the world.

Chihuly's innovations, renowned body of work and grand installations led the studio glass movement in the latter part of the 20th Century and to the present day. He and his team continue to create and their beautiful work is displayed around the world.

In 1979 the Italian maestro Lino Tagliapietra came to teach at Pilchuck. He was born in 1934 on the island of Murano and earned the title of maestro at age 21. With the great history of Murano and Tagliapietra's decades of experience, he was one of the first masters to teach in the United States.

In the 1990s Tagliapietra became known for his own work and Chihuly has called him, “Perhaps the world’s greatest living glass blower.”

Today, modern glass blowing has spread across the globe. From backyard furnaces in third world countries to established glass factories in old world settings to young glass blowers eager with fresh designs, the glass industry is more alive and vital than it ever was.

At Offhand Glass we share this proud heritage. The tools we use today are roughly the same used by the Venetians 2,000 years ago.

Every piece of hand-blown glass that leaves our studio bears the history and love of craftsmanship of those who came before us.

 
 
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