I was super good this week and actually wrote my Fun Friday
Facts in advance, instead of leaving it till the end of the day on Friday,
because I knew I’d be really busy this Friday and wouldn’t want to do it. I
just chose this topic because I was still thinking about mirrors and also
because I haven’t covered it yet.
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| Roman cage cup. Image credit: Matthias Kabel |
The cup pictured above was a luxury item. It is an example
of a diatretum, or “reticulated cup,” and is said to represent the apogee of Roman glassmaking
technology. Only 50 of these cups survive today. Some of the cups have
inscriptions and flanges and some even have figures sculpted into the reticulation,
like the Lycurgus Cup, which now belongs to the British Museum.
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| The foot and rim were added later. Image credit: Johnbod |
It’s uncertain whether the reticulation was carved and then
fastened to the body of the cup, or whether the whole thing was carved out of
one block of glass, or even whether different techniques were used on different
cups. It’s likewise uncertain whether the cups were used for drinking, or were
used as hanging oil lamps; it’s possible that some smaller, more cup-like
specimens were used for drinking, while wider, bowl-like specimens were used as
lamps.
Glass was probably first
made in Ancient Egypt, Syria or Mesopotamia, around 5,500 years ago (if I
got my math right). The first glass objects made were beads. Glass making
technology really started taking off around 1550 BC, when people figured out
how to make glass vessels by wrapping ropes of hot glass around a form made of
clay and sand and reheating it over and over again to fuse the coils. Early
glass workers also carved and ground cold slabs and blocks of glass to form
shapes.
In the early days of glass production, the techniques
required to make the glass were closely guarded by manufacturers in Crete,
Western Asia, and Egypt. Glassmakers created ingots of glass for export. Clear
glass was discovered in the 9th century BC, and techniques for
glassmaking were first written down in about 650 BC. Glass-blowing was
discovered in the first century BC, and glass vessels become considerably more
affordable. According to Wikipedia, “Glass became the Roman plastic[citation
needed].”
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| The Roman plastic was somewhat less durable than the plastic plastic. |
By the Middle Ages, colored glass had become an important
commodity in Europe, insofar as it was used to create stained glass windows.
The earliest decorative Church windows were made from thin slices of alabaster
and date back to the 4th and 5th centuries. Stained glass
windows date back
to the late 7th century.
Stained glass windows were an important
feature of medieval churches, because they depicted Biblical scenes and
teachings to parishioners who weren’t capable of reading the relevant passages.
Sadly, much of this glass was destroyed during the Protestant Reformation and
the French Revolution. The art of stained glass making fell to the wayside
until the 19th century, when churches in Britain and on the
Continent were restored with new windows.
The art of making stained glass arrived in the United States
with the
inauguration of J&R Lamb Studios, the first American decorative arts
studio, in 1857. Later innovators like John La Farge and Louis Comfort Tiffany created
not only a bunch of windows, but also a bunch of lamps.
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| Tiffany...where have I heard that name before. |
In
the 20th century, a number of well-known artists worked with
stained glass, like Piet Mondrian and Marc Chagall (I know who those people are
because I studied art history). Today, stained glass still occupies a central
place in churches and temples, but it’s as varied in style and subject matter
as any other art form.
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| Not pictured: Jesus. |
