96 Beautiful Glass Items That People Are Lucky To Own

Nature was the original glass artist long before humans ever stepped onto the scene. When lightning strikes a sandy beach it generates enough heat to fuse grains into fragile and spindly tubes known as fulgurites.

Volcanic eruptions also produce obsidian which is a naturally occurring volcanic glass that ancient civilizations used for sharp knives and ritual objects. It took humans a very long time to figure out how to replicate these fiery accidents. Around three thousand five hundred years ago people in Mesopotamia began experimenting with silica and soda and lime to create their own versions of this shimmering material.

These early glassworkers were not blowing bubbles yet. Instead they used a technique called core forming where they wound hot glass around a shaped center of clay and sand. It was a tedious and difficult process that resulted in thick and colorful beads or tiny jars that only the wealthiest members of society could afford.

The true revolution occurred around the first century before the common era in the region of Syria. Some anonymous genius discovered that a hollow iron pipe could be used to pick up a molten gathering of glass and inflate it with human breath. This invention of glassblowing changed the world forever because it allowed artisans to create vessels much faster and in much thinner forms.

The Roman Empire recognized the potential of this new technology immediately and they spread glasswork to every corner of their territory. For the first time in history glass became a common household item rather than a rare treasure. The Romans were also the first to experiment with window glass though it was often quite bumpy and difficult to see through clearly.

As the centuries rolled on, the island of Murano near Venice became the most prestigious center for glass production in the world. In the year twelve ninety one the Venetian government forced all glassmakers to move their furnaces to the island to protect the city from fire and to keep their trade secrets under lock and key.

Murano glassblowers were essentially prisoners of their own talent because leaving the island without permission was a crime punishable by death. These artisans developed cristallo which was a nearly colorless glass that mimicked natural rock crystal. They invented the first real mirrors and created incredibly intricate patterns by embedding colored canes of glass into clear forms.

While the Venetians were busy perfecting clarity and decoration an English entrepreneur named George Ravenscroft was tinkering with the chemistry of glass in the late seventeenth century. He added lead oxide to the recipe and created what we now call lead crystal. This new material was heavier and softer and it had a much higher refractive index than standard glass. This meant it sparkled brilliantly when cut and it became the gold standard for luxury dinnerware across Europe. At the same time the French were perfecting the casting of plate glass which allowed for the creation of massive mirrors like those found in the Hall of Mirrors at Versailles.

The transition from hand crafted art to industrial powerhouse happened during the nineteenth century. Before this time every single bottle was blown by hand and human lungs were the only power source available. That changed when Michael Owens invented the automatic bottle machine in nineteen hundred and three. This machine could produce thousands of identical bottles in a single hour which completely revolutionized the packaging and beverage industries. This shift made glass incredibly cheap and accessible but some feared that the soul of the craft was being lost to the gears of the factory.

In the middle of the twentieth century the Studio Glass Movement emerged to bring the art back to the individual artist. Harvey Littleton and Dominick Labino hosted workshops at the Toledo Museum of Art in nineteen sixty two to prove that glass could be melted in small furnaces. This meant that artists no longer had to work in large industrial settings to create their pieces.

Glass finally broke free from its identity as a purely functional material and became a respected medium for fine art. Today we use glass in ways the ancients never could have imagined from the tiny fiber optic cables that transmit data across the globe to the heat resistant tiles on spacecraft. The history of glass is a story of turning common sand into something extraordinary through the power of heat and imagination and it remains one of the most versatile substances on our planet.

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