Glass

by Edward Dillon

But in the West the manufacture, though continuously carried on in many spots, was after the fall of the Western Empire relegated to the woods,—for nearly a thousand years little glass was produced of any artistic interest. Indeed, but few examples of this forest or green glass of the Middle Ages have survived to our time. During all this long interval, in one direction only, in the West, was any advance made. Within this period falls the great development of stained glass: we must turn to the glorious windows of the cathedrals of France and other Western lands, to see what the glass-workers of the time were capable of producing. In the East, on the other hand, in the lands ruled from Constantinople or influenced by Byzantine civilisation, what we know of the glass of the early Middle Ages is almost confined to the mosaic coverings of the walls of the contemporary churches. But just as distinctly as the glass in the windows of the Gothic churches, this mosaic work, for the reason we have already given, falls outside our limits.

It was not till the end of the twelfth century that any important advance was made in our narrower department of ‘hollow ware.’ Among the many beautiful things made during that glorious season of artistic production that had its start about this time in Egypt (or perhaps, rather, in the lands between the Persian Gulf and the Mediterranean)—except it be the inlaid metal work—there is nothing that now interests us so much as the enamelled glass, the beautiful ware that culminated in the magnificent Cairene mosque lamps of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. The art of enamelling on glass passed over to Venice in the fifteenth century, perhaps earlier, and there in the next century the manufacture of the famous cristallo was finally achieved, and complete mastery was obtained in the working of this pure white glass. A fresh start was now given to the industry in the north by means of the Venetian glass-workers, who were sought for in every country to teach their new methods.

In Germany alone did some of the traditions of the old forest-workers of ‘green-glass’ survive. By the end of the seventeenth century the German glass, in some respects to be regarded as a compromise between the old and new, had become the most important in Europe. For a hundred years the products of ‘the mountain fringe of Bohemia’ held the premier position, but towards the end of the eighteenth century this place was taken by the facetted flint-glass of England. It is certainly remarkable that it is only of quite recent years that any such prominent position could be claimed for France, which heretofore had been content to follow in the wake first of Venice and then of Germany and of England. At the present day, however, this at least may be said—that France is almost the only country where any really artistic work in glass, apart from the reproduction of old patterns and old methods, is being produced.

This hasty sketch of the history of glass-making will help us to understand why it is that in following the development of the art in so many lands, and for a period of more than three thousand years, there is no need to linger for any time except at a few of the more important étapes. Indeed such a procedure is forced upon us, for much of the road is quite barren, other parts are unexplored, while for whole stages we pass through prosaic districts where we find little of artistic merit to detain us.

The periods, then, of real importance in the history of glass, either from the cultur-historisch or from a purely artistic point of view, are separated by long intervals, during which little of interest was produced. The primitive glass of Egypt, the varied productions of the first centuries of the Roman Empire, the enamelled glass of the Saracens, and the Venetian glass of the Renaissance—this exhausts all that we find either of commanding historic interest or of superlative artistic merit. What follows—the German and the Netherlandish glass of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries—is still of some importance under both these heads. I can hardly say so much of the English glass of the eighteenth century; but this glass must not be neglected—it is English, and it is highly prized by many enthusiastic collectors.

It will be seen that there is a long gap between the first and second of our critical periods—between the beginning of the primitive Egyptian and the earliest Roman glass. This gap will be filled, in some measure, by some account of the rare surviving specimens of glass that can claim an Assyrian origin, of the glass pastes of the Mycenæan age, and of the few examples of glass that can be strictly classed as Greek of the classical age. So again of the second long hiatus—the interval of nearly a thousand years between the period of the Roman glass and that of the Saracens,—this may be partly filled by the few scanty pieces that have come down to us from Sassanian and Byzantine times. To this period belongs also the glass of the Germanic tribes of northern Europe, above all that of our Anglo-Saxon ancestors.

Some notice must also be taken of a few districts situated on bypaths, of the glass from countries that lie away from the main centres of production—these latter centres, I may note, until comparatively recent times are mostly to be found in close connection with the basin of the Mediterranean. To these outlying districts we must finally turn to examine the glass of Persia, of India, and above all the glass of China.

An interesting chapter, nay, a separate work, might be devoted to the classification and history of a class of objects of which the manufacture has been carried on continuously and with few changes from the time of the Middle Empire in Egypt—of beads, I mean, and other allied applications of glass, included in the French term verroterie. But, however great the claims to attention of such objects, their interest is rather archæological than artistic, and it will be sufficient to treat of them incidentally along with the, for us, more important class of ‘hollow ware’ produced with the aid of the glass-blower’s tube.

Properties and Composition of Glass

Christopher Merret, our earliest English writer on glass, sets down the properties of the material under twenty-six heads, ‘by which we may easily differentiate it from all other bodies.’ From these I will select some four or five which will be sufficient for our purpose. Thus, of glass, he says: ‘’Tis a concrete of salt and sand or stones. ’Tis artificial. It melts in a strong fire. When melted ’tis tenacious and sticks together.... When melted it cleaves to iron, etc. ’Tis ductile whilst red-hot, and fashionable into any form, but not malleable, and it may be blown into a hollowness’ (Art of Glass, 1662). Here we have briefly expressed the real differentiæ of glass. It is rather by these properties than by any virtue of transparency or of definite chemical composition that glass is to be distinguished from all other bodies; and it is only by duly taking advantage of these properties that the preparation of a vessel of glass is rendered possible.