Directions, map and couponA Murano Legacy
by Tina Oldknow
The Venetian Aesthetic in Contemporary American Glass.
In a recent survey, it was estimated that over three hundred
artists working in glass are living in the Pacific Northwest
region between Portland, Oregon (just south of the
Oregon-Washington border) and Bellingham, Washington (near the
U.S.-Canada border). The center of this substantial activity is
the city of Seattle and ninety kilometers to the north,
Stanwood, where Pilchuck Glass School operates. Visitors to the
Seattle area are constantly surprised by the volume of
glassmaking going on, since it is an activity that most
Americans regard as fairly unusual, even for artists.
"Seattle," Los Angeles artist Therman Statom once declared, "is
the Venice of the West." But not just because glassmakers live
there. Statom was also referring to the strong attraction of
Pacific Northwest glass artists to the Venetian style, and
particularly to the traditional glassworking techniques
practiced on the Venetian island of Murano. Characteristics of
the Venetian style in glass include the use of soda-lime glass,
the preference for blown, classically proportioned forms and
intense colors, and a flawless technique that may or may not
involve complex internal or applied decoration. Less-tangible,
but equally distinctive, is the feeling of the glass: a
liquidity, delicacy, and a joie de vivre that is effortlessly
elegant, spontaneous, and upbeat.
Seattle is not (and never could be) Venice, however, and many
artists working in glass there use a variety of warm and cold
processes (slumping, fusing, assemblage, and mixed media) that
are not found on Murano. Yet, in spite of the American artistic
vocabulary and diversity of processes characteristic of glass in
the Pacific Northwest, the influence of Venice can be discerned.
Art Glass and the American Studio Movement
At the vernissage of the 1996 Venezia Aperto Vetro, Mr. Sadao
Ukai, president of the Ukai Art Museum in Japan and a major
underwriter of this important exhibition of international
contemporary glass, acknowledged Venice as the true "Mecca of
glass." While indisputably famous glassmaking regions dot the
globe, with his statement Mr. Ukai clarified the widely felt
understanding of Venice and Murano as the place where the heart
and soul of glass reside. Why Venice? The extraordinary
influence of Venice over the glass world, which has remained
constant in spite of the ebb and flow of its long glassmaking
history, might be due to the fact that in the Venetian lagoon,
glassmaking has always been practiced as an art as well as a
craft.
The supremacy of Venetian luxury glass and the dominant position
achieved by the Murano glass industry throughout Europe and the
Near East by the 16th century is still one of the most
remarkable facets of the Italian Renaissance. For the first time
since classical antiquity, glass vessels were made in the West
not only for utilitarian use but as sumptuous objets d'art,
conforming to the highest standards of quality and displaying
the most advanced technical knowledge of the day. It is not
until the 20th century that glass, once again, undergoes such a
dramatic transformation from utilitarian object to artwork,
perhaps best exemplified by the extraordinary creations of Emile
Gallé in France, and best popularized by Louis Comfort Tiffany
in the United States. In Italy, the pioneering designs of Paolo
Venini and the Baroviers laid the artistic groundwork for that
golden age of art glass in Murano, the period just before and
after the Second World War. Echoing the international ascendancy
of Italian design in general, the decade of the 1950s was an
intensely creative one. Not since the Renaissance had Murano
commanded as much attention for the innovative and popular
designs of its glass, or the outstanding quality of its
production.
The American studio glass movement is perhaps a natural
extension of the art glass movements that have occurred
throughout the 20th century. Yet it is also a unique hybrid that
references American studio ceramics, art nouveau production
glass, contemporary sculpture, traditional European craft
processes, and performance art. Prior to the 1960s, blown glass
was not available to American artists to use outside a factory
setting; in commercial and even art glass manufacture, most
blown glass was machine-made. In the studio, the only methods of
glassworking artists could practice were stained glass and fused
or flameworked glass. Attempts by American artists to blow glass
by themselves were nearly non-existent, and while slumping and
fusing methods were more common, they were by no means in
widespread use.
The American artist most devoted to bringing glassblowing back
into the studio was the ceramist Harvey K. Littleton, whose
interest in glass as an artistic medium grew as a result of his
own experimentation with the material. Visiting the small,
intimately-sized art glass factories of Murano in the 1950s,
Littleton realized a furnace could be successfully developed for
studio use, and during a series of two workshops organized at
the Toledo Museum of Art in 1962, he and glass research
scientist Dominick Labino introduced a small, simply built
furnace that operated with a special, low-melting-temperature
glass. This technology enabled American artists for the first
time to use blown glass in the studio, and the resulting burst
of artistic activity in glass throughout the United States was
soon termed the American studio glass movement.
In general, the new studio glassblowers did not distinguish
themselves from the movement's stained-glass makers or artists
experimenting with kiln techniques such as slumping and fusing.
But glassblowing was the new movement's raison d'être. Unlike
most artistic movements, the studio glass movement defined
itself not by philosophy or style, but by medium and technique.
It was not ideologically dominated by a specific personality or
centered at any one place, but consisted instead of an open,
geographically-shifting populace. Most artists were not
interested in industry but in discovering the artistic
capabilities of the new medium for their own uses. Similarly,
American glass industry was not impressed by the new studio
movement and ignored it for its first decade, although
manufacturers often donated supplies to fledgling glassmakers.
Americans in Venice and Venetians in the Pacific Northwest
While some artists successfully took glassblowing in
experimental and innovative directions, most were hampered by
their lack of technical knowledge. Free-form, expressionistic,
and technically very limited, early studio glassblowing attempts
were often primitive at best. It soon became evident that
knowledge of how to work the material had to be obtained and
American studio glass artists shifted their focus to Europe,
looking to Sweden, Czechoslovakia, and especially Venice where
glass had thrived for centuries. The glasshouses of Murano,
however, were not inclined to invite foreigners to watch, learn,
and possibly appropriate their centuries-old techniques. In the
beginning, only one individual -- Ludovico Diaz de Santillana,
the director of Venini -- was willing to open the doors of his
factory to American artists.
In the late 1960s, American studio glass artists began their
pilgrimages to Venini to learn techniques and share design
ideas. The first representative of the new movement was Dale
Chihuly, in 1968, who was followed by Richard Marquis in 1969.
Although the Americans were aware of Venini's progressive design
policies and its influence in Murano during the 1940s and 1950s,
they were most interested in the traditional glassblowing
techniques practiced there. Chihuly was impressed by the concept
of the Venetian piazza, or glassblowing team, and the penchant
for bright colors and plastic forms in glass. Marquis focused on
specific historic techniques, such as filigrana and murrine,
later sowing his knowledge of them in workshops throughout the
United States.
As Anna Venini Diaz de Santillana, the daughter of Paolo Venini,
has observed, Venini was not just a factory, it was a school and
a culture. While disseminating technique, Venini's master
glassblowers also disseminated Venini's unique style. The
sharing of ancient traditions by Muranese masters made a
profound impact on the American studio glass movement, a debt
which Chihuly, Marquis, and other glass artists have always
gratefully acknowledged.
Dale Chihuly, Richard Marquis, and Benjamin Moore, who went to
Venini in 1978, proved to be Murano's most ardent promoters in
the United States, and particularly in the Pacific Northwest
where they all reside. Upon his return from Europe in 1969, Dale
Chihuly went to Providence to head the newly-instituted glass
department at the Rhode Island School of Design, where his
experiences at Venini were incorporated into his inimitable
teaching style. He promoted teamwork -- which earned him the
disdain of many American craftspeople -- and made a point of
gathering artists from all media to work with him and his
glassblowing students in the effort to introduce new points of
view and infuse new energy into the process of glassmaking. In
1971, Chihuly founded the Pilchuck Glass School with Seattle art
patrons John and Anne Gould Hauberg. There, glassworking
techniques imported by American artists who had been to Murano
gave young glassblowers options other than the prevailing "dip
and drip" and Tiffany-derived treatments for glass.
With the help of Benjamin Moore, Dale Chihuly brought two
Venetian glass masters from Murano to teach at Pilchuck School:
first, Checcho Ongaro, in 1978 -- who had worked with Moore and
Richard Marquis, among other Americans, at Venini -- and then
Lino Tagliapietra, in 1979, whose influence on American glass
artists has been extraordinary. While the Muranese masters had
no difficulty demonstrating their technical bravura, teaching
was another matter. Venetian glass techniques and methods
traditionally had been closely guarded since glass was first
made in Venice, and penetrating that wall of silence was no easy
feat.
The secretive nature of glassmaking and the strict hierarchy of
the traditional glasshouse owe more, perhaps, to their roots in
medieval guilds than to the Venetian government's protectionist
policies; during the Middle Ages, glass and other trades, like
stonemasonry, had a strong esoteric side. Secrecy, too, became a
glassmaking tradition in Venice over the centuries. While a
glassmaker is free to lead his life as he wishes, so the
tradition goes, the craft of glassmaking does not belong to him
alone: it is part of the long history of a glassmaking community
that continues to derive strength from, and be defined by, its
shared traditions.
At Pilchuck, Checco Ongaro realized that teaching was not for
him, and he recommended his brother-in-law, Lino Tagliapietra,
to take his place. Tagliapietra had a more open outlook and he
was as interested in the Americans and their unusual attitudes
toward glass as they were in learning from him. Tagliapietra
taught the young glassblowers everything from how to gather
glass at the furnace to how to knock a finished vessel off the
punty. His influence has been enormous, particularly in the
Pacific Northwest where many glass artists came to live, work,
and establish studios after their experiences at Pilchuck.
Façon de Venise à Seattle
For centuries, one of Murano's most frustrating problems has
been keeping their trade secrets to themselves. The explosion of
new glasses and techniques during the period from about
1450-1550 caused the first sweeping clampdowns on errant
Renaissance glassworkers, one of which was the placement of the
glassmaker's guild under the jurisdiction of the Venetian
government's Council of Ten. This powerful Council addressed
issues of national security, both military and industrial, that
in an age before copyrights was a particularly crucial function
for industry. In spite of this and other safeguards, the
constant outflux of glassmakers from Murano resulted in
Venetian-style, or façon de Venise, products cropping up
throughout glasshouses in northern and southern Europe. Although
the façon de Venise wares directly competed with genuine
Venetian glasses, they were not always slavish imitations.
Foreign glassmakers often customized Venetian techniques for
their local markets.
Looking at the Pacific Northwest / Venice glass connection from
a historical perspective, it seems that the façon de Venise
tradition (via Venini and Tagliapietra) has continued, but with
an important distinction. Instead of a fashionable marketing
tool, façon de Venise working methods in Seattle and elsewhere
in the United States have acted as a catalyst for artists to
explore additional paths in glass, contributing to the growth of
the medium as a whole. Venetian decorative techniques such as
vetro a filigrana (or zanfirico) and murrine have assumed new
identities in the work of established Pacific Northwest artists
like Richard Marquis, Flora Mace and Joey Kirkpatrick, and Fritz
Dreisbach, as well as younger artists like Kait Rhoads. While
filigrana was first developed during the Renaissance -- in 1527
by Filippo and Bernardo Catani of the Siren Glasshouse --
murrine is far older, dating back to ancient Roman times and
earlier. Murrine was first revived in Murano in 1496, again
around 1860 -- when the fashion for reproductions of ancient
glass peaked -- and yet again in the 1920s. Carlo Scarpa and his
son, Tobia Scarpa, further developed the technique for Venini
beginning in the 1940s. Richard Marquis, who began working with
murrine at Venini, single-handedly revived the technique in the
United States. Other transplanted Venetian techniques, such as
incalmo, have been transformed in the work of Seattle artists
such as Sonja Blomdahl and Dante Marioni.
The influence of Venetian glassmaking in the Pacific Northwest
extends beyond techniques to the less-defined area of style. The
sense of Venice is discernible in the flowing forms and
filigrana striping of Dale Chihuly's pastelled Seaforms, which
reference Venini's famous fazzoletto vases, and in the
exuberantly loud colors of his Venetians, bursting with applied,
furnace-worked decorations. Benjamin Moore's minimal vessels,
while uniquely Moore's in interpretation, display the modernist
classical proportions and sleek lines characteristic of certain
Venini designs. Color -- used not just as a decorative feature
but as a point of departure -- has always been important for
Murano, whether during the Renaissance or the 1950s. Dante
Marioni, who creates all of his own brilliant and saturated
colors for the giant, neoclassical urns he blows, follows in the
footsteps of great Muranese designers such as Napoleone
Martinuzzi at Venini, who excelled at color and refined form.
Other Venetian masters to have an influence in the Pacific
Northwest are Pino Signoretto and Loredano and Dino Rosin,
masters of the a massiccio technique of sculpting glass at the
furnace. Learning this technique gave Pacific Northwest artists
like William Morris the ability to take their art in new
directions, and while Morris's sculpture could never, ever be
mistaken for anything Venetian, the Venetian technique is an
integral part of it. A similar expansion of the range of
Venetian influence is seen in the artwork of Seattle artist
Josiah McElheny, who manipulates the history of glass in
conceptual installations that reinterpret and recreate
historical ideas, objects, and fictional events.
A Murano Legacy
While Swedish and Czech glassworking methods have had a
tremendous influence on American studio glass, an interest in
Venice predominates in the Pacific Northwest. As America's
premier school for glass, Pilchuck Glass School has been a
central source of transmission for the Venetian style. The
region's many studios -- particularly Dale Chihuly's studio and
the Glass Eye in Seattle, founded by Rob Adamson -- have given
young glassblowers the opportunity to find employment in their
field and to network with the region's growing community of art
dealers, collectors, museum curators, writers, and art critics
who are interested in glass. This kind of intensely focused
community is not found anywhere else in the country with the
exception of Corning in New York, where the community is united
by glass industry rather than art.
While the Venetian aesthetic in glass from the Pacific Northwest
is the topic of this article, Murano's glass legacy is not
confined to the Pacific Northwest nor to the very few artists I
have mentioned. Making everything from production art glass
vessels to large-scale glass sculpture, artists throughout the
United States are incorporating and expanding upon Venetian
techniques and elements. From a larger, historical perspective,
this widespread revival of Venetian glassworking methods
constitutes yet another Venetian glass renaissance, but one
taking place in America instead of Murano.
Tina Oldknow
(From "Vetro", inaugural issue, Centro Studio Vetro, Murano)
© 1998 Centro Studio Vetro Murano
Thanks to CSV, Murano
