Glass - Edward Dillon

M. Gallé himself is something of a poet—of the symboliste school, I should judge. What it is that he aims at expressing by means of this often sombre glass cannot indeed be better presented than in his own words:—‘Mist and dews half shroud and half reveal the fine veinings and splashings in a grey jade-crystal vase. A thick flushing of rose-tinted glass is carved into a chimera-like flower, half influorescent, half smiling, half weary, half orchid, half pansy. A beetle drags its slow length over the rust of the lichens. Side by side with flesh-tints and carnations we see bold touches of coral pink. A pale gleam steals through the dull maze of iridium. Vegetable shadows grin at us. Phantoms of bloom are dimly seen. A fossil shell engraved beneath the fragile work contains the glass-worker’s signature.’—(Quoted by H. Frantz, Magazine of Art, vol. xx. p. 269.)

Of quite another nature is the pâte de verre, a substance somewhat of the nature of a glass frit, which has been made use of by the French sculptor, M. Henri Cros, in the modelling of polychrome reliefs and friezes. I say ‘modelling,’ for this strange material can apparently be worked like wax or plaster at one stage of its preparation. When cold it is of so tough a nature that a nail may be driven into it. At the entrance of the new hall of Sculpture at the Luxembourg may be seen a relief of this pâte de verre forming the back of a fountain. As a material it lies perhaps a little remote from the class of objects with which we have been occupied in this book. I mention it here as an example of the success which in France of late years has attended the attempt to take advantage of the new appliances and materials that, thanks to recent scientific discoveries, lie at the command of the artist and craftsman. Here, as in the case of the potter’s art, not only have old-world processes—those of the Far East above all—been revived, but a constant endeavour is being made to strike out in new directions.