: The Renaissance brought to Europe a time of turbulent change that
touched politics and warfare and transformed science, religion
and the arts. The rich and famous of the period considered
elegant Venetian glass collectible art as well as fine tableware
and they wanted to own it.
The result, to be detailed in a major exhibition at The Corning
Museum of Glass this summer, was the spread across Europe of
glassmaking in the Venetian fashion. The exhibition is titled
"Beyond Venice, Glass in Venetian Style, 1500-1750" and will be
open through October 17. This will be the first major show to
explore in detail the impact of Venetian-style glassmaking across
Renaissance Europe.
During the time period addressed by the exhibition, Europe was
crisscrossed by a web of personal, diplomatic and commercial
networks set up by the princely elite and rich merchant traders.
These networks helped bring Italian craftsmen to glasshouses in
Austria, Spain, France, the Low Countries and England despite
attempts by Venice to protect its secrets.
"We are bringing together for the first time more than 120
historic glass objects that have never before been seen
together," said Dr David B. Whitehouse, executive director of the
museum and curator of the exhibition.
More than a third of the pieces on display come from the museum's
own collection. Others are on loan from a galaxy of museums,
including the Louvre, the British Museum, the Victoria and Albert
Museum, the J. Paul Getty Museum, The Metropolitan Museum of Art,
the Boijmans-Van Beuningen Museum in Rotterdam and the Museum of
Decorative Arts in Barcelona.
Objects from the museum's own outstanding collection explore the
anatomy of the Venetian style, highlighting the elements that
made Renaissance Venetian glass more sophisticated and appealing
than other glass of the time, which tended to be thick-walled and
green or yellow in color.
The exhibits also include images that put the glass objects
clearly in historical and cultural context. In five successive
exhibit islands, visitors can "travel" through Renaissance Europe
to see how Venetian stylistic elements were altered to reflect
local tastes and glassmaking skills in Austria, Spain, France,
the Low Countries and England. Almost from the beginning,
distinct differences began to appear.
"After a time, it was like one language with five very different
accents," said Dr Whitehouse.
For example, the Venetian dragon-stem goblet has a narrow bowl
and a tall stem made from a drawn-out piece of cane that has been
twirled into the convoluted body of a dragon with snout, mouth
and two wings at one end. In the Low Countries, the
Venetian-style goblet had no dragon, just a complicated stem and
wings that were unlike those made in Venice.
Many objects in the exhibition bear the coats of arms of royal
families. Among the oldest are three objects probably
commissioned to mark the wedding of King Louis XII of France to
Anne of Brittany in 1498. Others celebrate the marriage of
Medicis to French royalty and a noblewoman of Mantua to the
Archduke of Austria.
The Venetians' eminence in glassmaking was achieved in part
through careful attention to the technology of glassmaking. For
example, they used quartz pebbles rather than sand to avoid
impurities that could give the glass unwanted color. Learning
these and other secrets of the Venetian success took many decades
for some of the new glasshouses in Europe. Even then, some still
found it impossible to obtain the fine ingredients used by
Venice.
"The Beyond Venice" exhibition can be seen in full only at The
Corning Museum of Glass. A smaller version will appear later at
the Boijmans-Van Beuningen Museum in Rotterdam.
A hardcover, 350-page book with many color illustrations and
written by authors from five different countries accompanies the
exhibit and is available for purchase. An eight-page color
brochure is available to those touring the exhibits.
Jutta-Ann Page, former curator of European glass at the museum,
led preparations for the exhibition. She is now curator of glass
and decorative arts at the Toledo Museum of Art.
"The Italian Influence in Contemporary Glass," a companion
exhibit to "Beyond Venice," is displayed on the museum's West
Bridge to October 31. All pieces in this show, including works
from such artists as Dale Chihuly and Marvin Lipofsky, are from
the museum's collection.
The Corning Museum of Glass is on One Museum Way. For
information, 607-937-5371 or www.cmog.org.
