Renaissance Glass Essay, Research Paper

Although glassmaking was practiced in Venice from the 10th century on, the earliest known Venetian glassware dates from the 15th century. Concentrated on the island of Murano, the Venetian industry dominated the European market until 1700. The major contribution of the Venetians was the development of a highly refined, hard-soda glass of great ductility. Colorless and highly transparent, the glass resembled rock crystal and was known as cristallo.

The first cristallo wares were simple forms, often embellished with jewel-like enamel designs. Objects were also blown of colored and opaque glass. By the late 16th century, forms became lighter and more delicate. The blowers exploited the workable nature of their material to produce fanciful tours de force. A type of filigree glass was developed in Venice and widely imitated. With lacelike effect, opaque white threads were incorporated in the glass and worked into intricate patterns. Some vessels were blown entirely of opaque white glass and painted with enamels in the manner of Chinese porcelain. Novelties made of lampworked glass were made at Murano, but Nevers, France, became most famous for this type of ware by the 17th century. Particularly suited to soda glass was the practice of diamond-point engraving, a technique favored in the 17th century by Dutch artisans. By hammering the diamond-point stylus for a stippled effect, they created ambitious pictorial designs.

Glass manufacturers throughout Europe tried to copy the Venetians in their production methods, materials, and decorative vocabulary. Knowledge was spread through the glasswares themselves, through the Art of Glass (1612) by Antonio Neri, and through Venetian glassblowers. Although forbidden by law to leave Venice and to divulge the secrets of their craft, many Murano glassmakers left Italy to set up glasshouses elsewhere in Europe. Each country developed its own fa on de Venise, as nationalistic preferences for certain forms or decorations tempered the Venetian model. Italy’s influence was ultimately weakened in the 17th century by the development of new glass recipes in Germany and England.

Germany’s potash-lime glass, thicker and harder than cristallo, was well suited to wheel-engraved decoration. Caspar Lehmann, at the court of Holy Roman Emperor Rudolf II in Prague, was largely responsible for the development of engraving in the early 1600s. Glass cutters and engravers in N rnberg and Potsdam became famous for skillfully executed designs in the baroque manner. At the same time, the Germanic glasshouses continued their tradition of enameled and cold-painted glass.

The other improvement in glass that served to diminish Europe’s reliance on Venice was the lead-oxide glass formulated (circa 1676) by George Ravenscroft in England. Softer, more brilliant, and more durable than the brittle cristallo, English lead glass was considered the finest glass of the 18th century. English table glass dominated the European and colonial markets and became a model for Continental production. English innovations of the mid-18th century were glasses with air or opaque-enamel twists encased in the stems. Among the most prestigious forms of the period was the English cut-glass chandelier. Lead glass, especially suited to cutting, reached its full potential in the neoclassical wares of the Anglo-Irish period (1780-1830).