Topic: Displaying colourless or cut glass - views

[flying free]

On another thread Paul mentioned about the tendancy of users of the board towards coloured glass of whatever source, rather than towards clear or colourless glass, one example being cut glass.  He posed a rhetorical question that it may be down to 'fashion'.  

My aversion to buying colourless glass is not down to fashion it is
a) partly down to my love of colour...my house and my life need colour in them  
b) I think coloured glass can be displayed better, the colour outlines the shape, and shape is as important to me as the intricacies of the colour and how it is made in the glass.  
c) I do buy some colourless glass but need the surface of it to be decorated in some way, as plain but shapely colourless glass does not float my boat
d) That the colourless pieces I would really love to buy are just way outside of my price range...ever.

I do think colourless glass can be displayed beautifully, but I think it requires the right environment for it to look great - plus dark wood furniture and great lighting.  My house is not that environment...it isn't sophisticated or serene enough  

For me in our house, I think colourless glass looks better displayed with coloured glass around it
(see goblet in pic)
Thoughts and views welcome
m

[langhaugh]

Interesting post. I'm with you in that the vast majority of my pieces have at least some colour in them. When I think what parameters govern glass designers, the three main ones that come to mind are form, technique (in the sense that bullicante and iridescence are techniques) and colour. So taking away colour narrows the range of possibilities, especially when one considers that colour and technique are usually very much intertwined.

I agree it's also fashion, a reaction against the heavy cut crystal that use to dominate. But I agree also that cold cutting is now very expensive. When you look at the work that went into cutting in the past, it's no great surprise that good quality cut glass now costs a fortune. There's some clear glass I'd love to have but can't afford it. Even production glass from the recent past like this can be expensive, Svarc from Czechoslovakia and Lundin for Orrefors, for example.

I think you can have stunning display of clear glass, but you need very specific lighting and conditions (as well as stunning glass). It then becomes expensive to display, and, even then, only spectacular when the rest of the room is dark.

I looked around and here's the closest I have to a clear glass grouping:  7 Scandinavian and a Seguso Vetri d'Arte corroso piece. The other clear pieces are scattered around the house amid the coloured pieces.

David

[kane_u_pain]

I am not much into clear glass. I only have a few pieces, which is mostly the Tapio Wirkkala pieces as I do like his textured range, 1 x Czech piece, 2 from SVdA and a few Whitefriars flint pieces.

I do think clear glass looks better with some texture too it as per Tapio and the Baxter pieces. But it definitely must be displayed with coloured glass to make it look less 'boring'.

[antiquerose123]

I am not much into clear glass. I only have a few pieces, which is mostly the Tapio Wirkkala pieces as I do like his textured range, 1 x Czech piece, 2 from SVdA and a few Whitefriars flint pieces.

I do think clear glass looks better with some texture too it as per Tapio and the Baxter pieces. But it definitely must be displayed with coloured glass to make it look less 'boring'.

I like *colors* as well...but I think if clear glass is displayed with some other colors, it helps to set it off too. 

Mind you - the cat I just posted is clear glass, but has strong edges to it.  It displays much better than maybe a Clear goblet would, since it does have harsher/stronger lines than the *Soft* round flow of a clear glass.

So the sharper edges in (clear) glass - I think makes a difference if they can be in a group of clear glass...compared to some *softer* edges of clear glass (or shapes). 

You get what I mean here.....I hope.  Just saying soft edged glass grouped together might diffuse ?? each other, and take away seeing each beauty.

 :usd:  IMHO, lol

[chopin-liszt]

To me, the whole point of glass is that it is a medium through which colour can be made into three dimensional sculptures. But I do have a few Tapio Wirkkala bits in the kitchen, they're nice shapes and textures - but with a decidedly "kitchen" sort of orientation.
I keep garlic bulbs in a Frank Thrower pot, I keep the bulb I'm currently using in a little dish shaped like hallf an onion (I don't know what it is - suspect Skruf).
I tend to see cut glass as being a completely different category of art - marks made on cold glass are not the same thing as working hot glass. It's more like drawings or sketches, just with glass being the medium they're put on.

I do think coloured glass shows cutting better.

[Leni]

I collect both clear cut and engraved and coloured glass!   Much of my house is furnished with antique furniture.  In the living room I display mostly the cut glass, on top of the dark mahogany cabinet .  I also have some of my clear etched and engraved glass in my one (modern, but dark wood) cabinet with lights, where I display my cut and engraved glass against some of my Whitefriars Ruby collection.  My coloured glass is generally displayed on white window sills or light furniture!  Best of both worlds, IMHO!  :smg:

[chopin-liszt]

That works. That really, really works.  :smg: :smg: :smg:

[beaubow]

I'll speak up on behalf of clear ("colorless") glass.

For a number of years through the last three quarters of the 20th century, a number of the best glass houses (Steuben, Waterford and Baccarat come to mind) produced only or mostly high-quality, uncolored pieces of lead crystal.  It was a conscious aesthetic and philosophical decision, derived from notions of purity based in the Modernist movement.

It was felt that forms and surfaces should serve as their own decoration, and that color should be unnecessary and it was a crutch used by poor artists to hide their weaknesses and shoddy workmanship, in the way things like moldings and wallpaper were used to cover up poor construction in houses.  These notions came from architects like Mies van der Rohe and Walter Gropius. (It's been suggested that their position may have been because they were simply lousy colorists and I think in Mies' case, there's merit to that argument.)

An American architect (who lived most of his life in my hometown of Philadelphia) summed it up well when he said, "Let brick be brick.  Let stone be stone.  Let wood be wood."  And by extension -as Stueben did after they fired Frederick Carder- glass should allowed to be simply and completely transparent.

I think there's a valid point there, and at the moment, most of my own, personal collection consists of big, solid, bold pieces executed in crystal.  I'm especially fond of the massive, blown and cut pieces Orrefors made in the 70s and 80s.  They're solid, sculptural, architectural.

And I find that crystal pieces do display well: they mass together, and overlap, reflecting and refracting light.  I have a big bow window in my living room, looking out onto the street, and the sill is full of all sorts of pieces of crystal, jostling for space with each other.

The other nice thing about pieces in crystal is that they play well together.  It makes mixing pieces from different countries and different times very easy.

I like color.  I understand color, and it's place in glass (imagine how boring Murano glass would be without color!), and when I'm buying for resale, I'll always buy colored pieces before crystal.  But for myself, for the moment, I like big chunky pieces of crystal.

[langhaugh]

Robert,

I'd love to see a picture of your bow window if you can get the glass to stop jostling each other so that you can take a picture. 

David

[beaubow]

I'll see what I can do tomorrow, as it's dark at the moment here.  They're also quite dusty at the moment, as I've in the middle of renovations on the house.