Glass Art
Artists first started experimenting with glass designs in a non-religious context the nineteenth century, two main figures were John LaFarge and Louis Comfort Tiffany. These two American painters tried to develop glass that possessed many different visual effects without painting it. LaFarge’s opalescent glass, copyrighted in 1879, was popularized by Tiffany (under the name of iridescent, or ‘Favrile Glass’) and became synonymous with his name and the American Studio Glass Movement, a phenomenon which considered glass as an artistic medium.
The Studio Glass Movement
A notable feature of the American Studio Glass Movement was that the artist completed all aspects of the creation of his artwork, from design through to signature. Previously, it had been glass factories that produced glass objects and they did this in mass quantities. Employees were assigned to only one of the many stages involved in the process of making each object.
Art Nouveau
Tiffany’s contribution to the art of glass making and decorating coincided with the Art Nouveau movement, an international style of decoration and architecture with particular emphasis on natural organic forms with curvilinear shapes and contours of rhythmic content.
Modern Glass Art
In the past thirty years, a rise of individual artists and new technologies has given rise to the development of what is called a New Golden Age in glass art. Artists work hard at continually combining, creating and developing unique new forms and styles. Examples of modern artworks include fused glass pictures, fused glass mirrors, vases, sculptures bowls and jewellery inlaid with precious materials such as mother of pearl and black onyx.
Making sculptures out of glass is one particularly beautiful way to go about this artistic skill as it is a medium which can be moulded into spectacular forms and shapes. Particularly notable artists in this field are Kristina Svajone Bobs (aka Svaja) and David Keenan.
Fused glass art is produced by shaping, decorating or forming glass in a kiln where it is heated to high temperatures until it becomes soft as toffee or honey. At this consistency, two or more glass elements can be combined in order to produce unique and aesthetically intriguing effects.
Glass schools and centres exist all over the world where aspiring glass artists study and experiment with the many methods available in this art. Graduates who have managed to establish themselves in the art scene include Jessamy Kelly and Joanne Mitchell, Stephen Beardsell, Colin Brown, Jill Ellinsworth and Zoe Gardener. These modern artists view glass as a lifestyle statement rather than just as a functional object.