Published in Chihuly at the V&A, Portland Press, 2001
Glassmaking in Venice has an immensely rich history. From
the 15th century onwards, the name of the small glassmakers' island of Murano has been virtually synonymous with glassware’s of the finest and
most sophisticated kind.
Venetian glassmaking has its roots in the great Roman glass traditions
on the nearby mainland. Archaeological evidence from the 7th century
points at the production of colored glass 'tesserae' or cubes used for
wall mosaics on the island of Torcello, and references to glassmakers
dating from the 10th century onwards can be found in the Venetian
archives.
A breakthrough for Venice as an aspiring trading nation came in 1204,
when the crusaders used Venetian ships to sail to Constantinople and
sack the city. As a form of payment, the Venetians claimed the treasures
looted from the city, parts of which can still be seen in the treasury
of St. Mark's Basilica. But their greatest gain was in the resulting
economic changes, as from that time onwards Venice dominated the
Mediterranean trade in luxury goods from the East.
The council of the city also made serious efforts to establish its own
production of luxury goods, especially textiles and glass, and there is
evidence that Byzantine craftsmen were brought in to help achieve this.
The glass industry became heavily regulated by the Guild of Glassmakers.
The first set of statutes governing glassmakers, the famous 'Capitulare
de Fiolaris', dates from 1271. This contains rules and regulations for
all those involved in glassmaking, from furnace owners to the youngest
apprentices, all of whom were by now organized in the Guild of
Glassmakers. The 'Capitulare' was regularly updated and amended until
the last version was issued in 1776.
These documents, together with others in the Venetian archives, provide
a vivid insight into the way in which the guild deliberately developed a
highly organized industry, one geared towards export markets and
striving for a worldwide monopoly. The guild encouraged technical
developments by providing additional trade benefits and dispensations
for their inventors. Once established and proven successful, new
techniques became jealously guarded trade secrets. Glass-recipe books,
containing glassmakers' families' secret formulae, were treasured and
closely guarded. Handed down from father to son, they were regularly
annotated with new or refined recipes and other discoveries. As the
success of Venetian glass was to a large extent based on the careful
selection and purification of raw materials, the export of these
materials was either forbidden or heavily restricted. Most importantly,
the glassmakers themselves were not allowed to practice their art
outside Murano, and they could be heavily punished if they were caught
doing so. Not only the deserters, but also the families they left
behind, could face fines, imprisonment, or the galleys. We know of one
case in which the inquisitors of the guild threatened to use a hired
assassin. The concentration of all glass furnaces on the nearby island
of Murano to reduce the risk of fires in Venice, which was the result of
a decree of 1291, also facilitated control over the glassmakers'
community.
One of the most important innovations around 1450 was the development of
an extremely pure and clear type of colorless glass called 'cristallo',
which was to become the 'trade mark' of Venetian glass. Named after
naturally occurring rock crystal, this could be blown very thinly and
tooled into the most intricate shapes. Cristallo laid the foundation for
many other great developments of the 15th and 16th centuries, both in
glassmaking techniques and in the opening up of a new repertoire of
shapes and object types.
All these protective measures and technical and stylistic developments
led to complete international dominance by the Venetian style of
glassmaking. The finest glass of Venice found its way to the courts and
the tables of the nobility and wealthy merchants across Europe. Such was
the demand for Venetian glass that an exodus of Venetian glassmakers was
inevitable. Generous payments and favorable conditions provided enough
incentive for the Italians to risk the guild's wrath and set up
workshops abroad. From the mid-16th century onwards, numerous Venetian
glass-houses sprang up in the Netherlands, France, Germany, England, and
other countries. There, Venetian glassmakers produced Venetian-style
glass using raw materials which were as close a match as possible to the
ones they used at home. The term for the glass they made, 'à la façon de
Venise' (in the Venetian manner), was already in use by the middle of
the 16th century. Depending on local demands, they often adapted their
style and used indigenous shapes and vessel-types.
As most of the façon de Venise glass-houses were high-profile business
enterprises, requiring substantial investments, there are many accounts
relating to their operation. Often contracts with the Italian
glassmakers stipulated that they should train local youths to become
skilled glassmakers. In many cases, this led to fruitful collaboration.
We know of frequent instances of Italian glassmakers marrying furnace
owners' daughters, thus consolidating business alliances. But it is easy
to imagine that there were also many frictions caused by the clash
between different cultural backgrounds, perhaps fuelled by the heat of
the furnace and the huge quantities of beer that glassmakers often drank
to withstand prolonged exposure to such high temperatures.
The great period of bloom of glassmaking in the Venetian style lasted
until the late 17th century, when such refined fragility was no longer
fashionable. In Venice itself, glassmakers were not very successful at
imitating the new types of much heavier glass from England and central
Europe. The sturdy simple shapes and the engraved decorations that were
now rapidly becoming popular did not suit the Venetian glassmakers, and
a sharp decline in the industry set in. The only wholly successful and
original Venetian products of the 18th century were exuberantly ornate
and colorful chandeliers. The situation worsened after Venice was
occupied by the French in 1797 and after Napoleon abolished the Guild of
Glassmakers in 1805. A full-scale revival of the industry in the second
half of the 19th century was largely fuelled by the growing antiquarian
interest from tourists, collectors, and design reformers. Glassmakers
re-learned lost techniques and took inspiration from the past at the
glass museum at Murano, which opened in 1861. The industry employed
chemists to develop new kinds of glass with dazzling new colors. The
resulting products may now be considered by many to be over-ornate and
top-heavy, and even a caricature of earlier Venetian styles, but with
their vibrant colors and exuberant theatrical design they laid the
foundation for the re-development of technical virtuosity on which all
later developments are based.
For the past seven centuries, the tiny island of Murano has been
completely dominated by glassmaking. To anyone walking around its canals
now, and visiting the countless glass factories, this sense of history
is tangible. Many glassmakers of today are direct descendants of the
great masters of the 15th century. The essence of glassmaking on Murano
has always been a thorough understanding of the material and a complete
reliance on hot-working techniques. Everything is made in the heat of
the roaring furnace, in an atmosphere where every movement is
orchestrated and perfect timing is essential. Masters have to start
working at the furnace at a very early age to learn the secrets and
techniques, the skills and tricks that have been passed on in their
families for hundreds of years. But it is also crucial that they learn
how to operate as part of the small team of makers around the master's
chair.
It is likely that the medieval glassmaker worked more or less alone on
the beakers and bottles he produced. A rare surviving picture of a
16th-century glasshouse in Florence, which was set up and operated
solely by Venetian glassmakers, gives us a glimpse of a more advanced
way of working. The master glassmakers, who would have been responsible
for most of the important stages in the process, sit on simple
three-legged stools at one of the 'mouths' of the furnace. Through these
openings they could reach the molten glass inside, but the openings were
also used for re-heating the glass at various stages of the process of
blowing and tooling. To the right of each of the seated masters in the
painting can be seen a standing figure of a glassblower. These are
almost certainly their assistants, who would have blown separate parts
of the object and handed them to the master at precisely the moment he
needed them. Every master had access to his own opening to the annealing
chamber at the top of the furnace. The finished hot objects were placed
in this chamber to cool gradually, thus preventing them from breaking.
In the 17th century, the invention of the glassmaker's 'chair' or
'bench' as we know it today, with long slightly sloping supports to roll
the blowpipe, was a step further in the specialization of the team. The
glassmaker would from now on remain seated most of the time, performing
only the most difficult procedures that required the highest levels of
skill. This makes perfect economic sense, as none of his valuable time
was wasted. Obviously, the degree of complexity and size of the objects
produced have always determined the exact size of the team.
In Murano, the technical bravura of the master often goes hand in hand
with an inherent sense for the theatrical. Through the ages, a visit to
the glass factory has been a standard item on the itinerary of the
foreign visitor to Venice, and this might well have encouraged the
glassmakers to perform their skill with even greater flair. But the best
glass-houses are usually well off the beaten track, allowing the masters
to concentrate wholly on their work. The traditional Venetian techniques
almost all rely on advanced hot-working skills. One of the few
exceptions to this was the technique of enameling, which was largely
abandoned after the early 16th century. Other techniques, such as 'chalcedonio',
'millefiori', and filigree glass, all involve creating decorative
effects incorporated in the material itself. These techniques rely
heavily on the technical knowledge and experience as well as the skill
of the glassmakers. During the latter part of the 16th and the 17th
centuries, new shapes and new types of vessels were introduced. The
glassmakers used predominantly colorless cristallo, often adding a
single clear blue glass trail to emphasize the shape. While they
continued to make quite simple-shaped glasses with flowing lines, there
was also a tendency towards more complex designs. The most complex
objects were designed by artists and were probably intended for special
banquet feasts. Technically, these combined mould blowing and
manipulating at the 'mouth' of the furnace (also called the glory hole)
with intricate 'lamp-worked' details, blown from the thinnest,
prefabricated tubes over an oil or paraffin flame which was powered by
foot-operated bellows. Such complicated follies were probably not
intended to last, and indeed, unfortunately, only design drawings and a
few fragments have survived.
Although the quality of craftsmanship suffered during the period of
decline in the 18th century, the sense of theatricality and the
exuberance of colors and shapes was further explored. The same is true
for the revival glass of the 19th and early 20th centuries. Modernism
arrived relatively late in Murano. In the 1920s, designers began to look
back at the simplicity of form of the early Renaissance, using subtle
monochrome colors. In the 1950s and 1960s, Italian design became a
dominant international force, and Venetian glass was very much part of
this. Designers of international calibre, working in close relationship
with the best masters of Murano, went back to the roots of Venetian
glassmaking. The best designers and masters used traditional Venetian
techniques, such as 'filigree' and millefiori, in innovative and
stimulating ways. Today, technical virtuosity has again become a
hallmark of the glassmakers of Murano. This can be observed equally well
in their highly artistic products and in their more standard repertoire,
and is even a feature of the best wares produced for tourists. Many of
the best masters have specialized and have become particularly
accomplished in one particular technique or way of working. Again, the
tradition of passing skills on in a closed and concentrated environment,
from generation to generation, has produced the most wonderful fruits.
Murano now has specialized glassblowers, makers of filigree glass, and
sculptors in hot glass, all of whom rank among the very best in the
world. Nowhere in the world can we find such technical skill, combined
with understanding of the material, as in this small island off the
Adriatic coast. But there is a real danger of artistic inbreeding in
this tiny community. This is not helped by the fact that the glassmakers
of Murano cannot even produce enough to supply their tourist market, a
consumer group which does not demand artistic innovation. It is of
paramount importance that the best masters challenge and renew
themselves continually.
This can be done only by looking beyond the direct horizon, just as
their predecessors did. It is vital that the masters travel to work
abroad and also welcome foreign artists into their workshops. This is
exactly how the industry prospered in the golden age of the 15th to 17th
century.
Copyright 2004 Red
Stick Glass Interiors, Llc. All rights reserved
VENETIAN
TRADITIONS - Reino Liefkes
