French Art Glass 1860-1914 – Makers Types / In-Depth Book (French Text)

Description

L’ART DU VERRE EN FRANCE 1860-1914 (THE ART OF FRENCH GLASS 1860-1914)
by Janine Bloch-Dermant, Edita Denoel, Office du Livre, Fribourg, France, 1974.
Please note that the text in this book is written in FRENCH only.
Makers pictured and discussed in this French only text include Philippe-Joseph Brocard, Auguste Jean, Francois-Eugene Rousseau, Amedee de Caranza, Ernest-Baptiste Leveille, Eugene Michel, lphonse-Georges Reyen, Les Freres Pannier, Emile Galle, Les Freres Daum, Les Freres Muller, Henri Cros, Albert Dammouse, Ringel d’Illzach, Georges Despret, Francois Decorchemont, and others.
The outstanding French Art Nouveau artists in glass are discussed include Eugene Michel, Galle, August and Antonin Daum, and Henri Cros, “artists who found glass the ideal medium for expressing the spirit of their time…. Their love of craftsmanship, fostered by a guild system that had preserved an ancient and difficult medium, linked them to contemporary science.  It also placed them in the vanguard of the Arts and Crafts movement, actually initiated in England by John Ruskin and William Morris, whose goal was to harmonize the useful and the beautiful.  In France, the cultural center of 19th-century Europe, all these elements came together in perfect equilibrium to produce the great revival of art glass that occurred from about 1860 to the opening World War I.  In this era of unprecedented peace, a steady stream of unique creations in glass—vases, amphora, ewers, ‘boxes,’ and bowls, lamps, reliefs, and sculptures-in-the-round—poured out from the ateliers of Paris and Nancy.  Shaped by blowing or molding, even by carving, these wonderful forms are almost always decorated, if not with enamel painting, then with acid etching or wheel engraving, usually into colors in the mass, placed there by ‘laying,’ ‘occlusion’ or ‘applique.’  Richly malleable while hot, then brittle as jewels when cold, the masterpieces of late 19th century French glass are like frozen fire and light, or the infinite meander of Art Nouveau energy suddenly fixed in timeless perfection.”  The superb color and black-and-white photographs, in-depth descriptions, and rich narrative combine to make this book an invaluable reference.
9.5” x 11.2” hardback with dust cover in very good condition.  203 pages.
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