Topic: is This called Art Glass?

[rosecottagesales]

Hi all

Just wondering, is there a name given for this type of glass? Art glass Murano??

Any info is much appreciated.

Thankyou

Cheers
Brenton

[ahremck]

I would definitely call it a piece of art glass.  As far as I can tell it is a small Murano ashtray.  It would have been made in two stages - the amber bubbles bowl created using a special mould to get the bubbles and a second stage to attach the clear cigarette holders.  There would be third stage where the pontil is then tidied up before sale.

I would define art glass as any piece that has been made or finished by hand.  Many items are completely machine made but many others have been made using moulds of one sort or another - basically to give consistentency to the shape of the object.  Most small makers actually create runs of very similar objects that are in fact unique as they are not made to be identical.   Other makers have production runs where hundreds or thousand of essentially identical objects are made.  I would guess that if fifty of the people who regularly contribute to this board went away and defined art glass - we would have 50 definitions - with a lot in common.

Ross

[Paul S.]

"I would define art glass as any piece that has been made or finished by hand".            Well, I'll be the first dissenter then Ross     I would have thought that a strong prerequisite for 'art glass'  -  was just that.............that the piece was artistic rather that utilitarian  -  made perhaps more for display and show, rather than use in the ordinary way.    What do you think?

[ahremck]

Well, Paul, it seems to me that my definition of art glass is somewhat wider than yours right now.  I believe an artist is a person who has the ability/skill to produce an item that another recognises as art.  Many artists produce art about the same object - over and over again and for instance a portrait painter is certainly producing an utilitarian object.  So it seems to me that the Murano maker of this piece was an artist - doing a particular style of work (that happens to be utilitarian) but of itself is unique because no two will be exactly alike.

Using your definition do you have ANY art glass in your collection.  Personally I have heaps of both art glass and production glass using my definition.

Ross

[Paul S.]

"Using your definition do you have ANY art glass in your collection"......................yes, I do Ross.....although probably very little compared perhaps to you.
Of course, you can make the definition very wide indeed if you choose, and as we all know....'art is all things to all men'  -  you only have to look at what is in some galleries to see that when stretched the word 'art' seems to encompass almost everything.............ultimately it is a very subjective subject.  In the Tate Modern in London there is a 'urinal' by Marcel Ducamp.............would you class that as art???
But without getting too carried away, I was just trying to imply that the use of the word art did, by definition, imply something we viewed for its image quality, rather than its use.    I do have some pieces that I would claim have no practical use, and are ornamental only  -  they have been made to look beautiful and attractive, and I would judge them to be 'art glass'.      Many people have skills that I certainly don't, but I wouldn't necessarily call what they produce 'art glass' - unless it is produced for no other use than its intrinsic beauty.     Now let someone else have a go.

[chopin-liszt]

I'm more in Paul's camp on this one. For it to be "Art Glass" it should have artistic merit, whether for display or use, no matter how it is made.
I'm not so sure about stuff which is reproduced en masse - that's more akin to buying a print than a painting, it's not unique and to me, that demerits it a bit from being "pure" art.
But "artistic merit" is where different folk have different opinions.
Marcel Duchamp was an artist - his perspective on the urinal was the first thing to be looked at in this way, so it qualifies - but anybody else trying to do the same (or a very similar) thing is just a copycat.
Damian Hirst is not an artist - his "ideas" are all copies of things/ideas folk have had before.

[KevinH]

I would define art glass as any piece that has been made or finished by hand.

How would pressed glass, such as items by Lalique, to name just one of many producers, fit into that definition? The original designs used to form the moulds were surely artistic, but the pressing of the actual piece would then mean it was not art glass?

Interesting discussion about to kick off, I feel.