Academic literature on the topic 'Glass sculpture Technique'

Although glass proto-sculptures were made with deep artistic value since the most remote times, in the late 19th century the glass sculpture was developed, and during the 20th century the Studio Glass Movement reached the maximum level of technical perfection and aesthetic variety. The scientific and technical glass knowledge contributed to achieve appropriate hot and cold working procedures, and the artists improved their designs and creations. This paper focuses on the binomial glass sculpture and human motifs. The historic evolution of the glass sculpture with human motifs is analyzed, taking into account the production techniques and the relationships between the glass work and the expression of the finished artwork. A set of sculptures and sculptors are shown as representative examples of the main historical periods in which the glass plays an important role in the sculpture scene. The human representation in the glass sculpture can be considered as a constant throughout centuries, even though it is not the most frequent creative or ornamental motif. Either figurative or abstract human references can be found, although the former are the majority. This tendency is also present in the contemporary Studio Glass Movement sculptures.

The image of Our Lady of Copacabana, a gilded polychrome sculpture carved in maguey wood in 1583, is one of the most important devotions in the Americas. In former research, we have identified the use of gypsum, Armenian bole, cerussite and atacamite in its polychromy. In this study, a red sample taken from the Virgin's tunic and a blue sample extracted from the cloak have been analysed with the aim to identify both pigments and offer insights into the painting technique. Analysis by micro-Raman spectroscopy complemented with scanning electron microscopy–energy dispersive spectroscopy and high-performance liquid chromatography allowed the identification of carmine lake in the red sample. Analysis by micro-Raman spectroscopy of the surface of the blue sample and its cross section showed the presence of smalt—the blue-glass pigment—over a cerussite layer, bathed by a very thin ultramarine layer—from a probable native origin—following a pictorial tradition that would last even until the eighteenth century. This is the first time that lapis lazuli has been scientifically identified in a Spanish American colonial painted layer. This article is part of the themed issue ‘Raman spectroscopy in art and archaeology’.

Affirming himself during the postmodern period, it is as if sculptor Kuzma Kovačić never cared about the appearance of the new artistic trend. His oeuvre does not display any inclination, not even a rudimentary interest in postmodern compiling and referencing of historical sources. The age of fragmentary visual models creaed by the idea about the loss of cultural unity which attempted to construct itself on the shards of the broken ‘art-historical vase’ did not seem to touch him at all. On the other hand, Kovačić is not a follower of the preceding modernist period which emphasized the experimental nature of art, formal and analytical models where subject matter was identified with material and technique. It seems that in his case, the call of heritage and stories from the native region had outshone any interest in being part of the chronological succession of trends and generations. Grgo Gamulin once wrote that this sculptor ‘observes and forms the seasons, sea, stations of the Cross, sermons, epistles, evangelists and saints’. It seems that he is not so much looking towards what is new on the artistic horizon as towards what the home region of Hvar, the Mediterranean and Christianity have left imprinted on the millennial physiognomy of landscape and people. Kovačić wants to direct our attention to the context of culture and tradition, but also to the structure of surface, and in this, between the private and collective, the significant and insignificant, the intimate and public, he does not see any obstacle. Equally so, he does not make a difference between the traditional representational materials in sculpture and he extensively uses trivial everyday material: cotton, glass, sponge, resin, paper, cellophane, cardboard, plexi-glass, polyester, silver and gold leaves, sand, soil, polystyrene, nails, quicklime and light. The philosophy of Kovačić’s oeuvre convinces us that nothing in the world is so insignificant so as not to have a particular role in the grand scheme of things. Thus, behind proud structures of human vanity, behind large buildings, imperial residences, triumphal arches, but also in nondescript stones of human modesty one can find the hidden wisdom of eternity. For this reason, even when producing monumental works such as the doors of Hvar Cathedral, Kovačić does not indulge in the ceremonial pomp of the glorious past. Besides, he does not belong to those who reconstruct large building complexes, he is not attracted to the monuments of earthly powers and wonders of the world which aim at the sky which remains always equally distant. On the contrary, he is fond of the scratches on the wall, a clumsy record in stone, which resist the progress of time as if by a miracle, outliving many famous palaces and dilapidated temples by its perpetuity. It can even be said that these frail impressions which defy transience impress him more than the structures envisaged and created to last unchanged forever. The doors he made for Hvar Cathedral are a good example of this. They have nothing in common with the classic Gothic-Renaissance forms. Here, Kovačić seems to address deeper layers of traditional forms, and in compact and robust forms we recognize the early Christian manner, but also that of the folks people’s touching sentimentality (and piety) which did not care for the refined rules of elite culture.Neither did Kovačić lose his head by pleasing the snobbish politicians and the newly converted believers when he worked on the so-called tasks of national sovereignty, following the late 1990s change of government in Croatia. However, it can be noticed that he moved away from the works such as “Velegorki”, “Lo, the Sea is Sweating with Blood” (“Evo se more znoji krvavim znojem”) and “The Description Of the Origins of Croatian Sculpture” (“Opis početaka hrvatskog kiparstva”) to the lyrical realism evident in his depicting of popes, saints, the “Altar of the Homeland”, Christ, The Last Supper, Franjo Tuđman and Gojko Šušak. Of course, this does not mean that he has lost vitality and potency, nor that these works are bad, but simply that he took a turn towards a certain type of realism and depiction of figures, instead of representing them as signs and symbols, as he had done before the “renascence of national sovereignty”.One of the large public projects by Kuzma Kovačić was the “Altar of Croatian Homeland” on Medvedgrad. This project, executed during the presidency of Franjo Tuđman (1994), caused much public dispute, whether concerning the restoration of the feudal burg or the idea that altars without a liturgical purpose should be erected to the Homeland. However, it was generally accepted that Kuzma Kovačić’s sculptural complex was the best that happened to this lay sanctification of the place. In spite of the drawing on the geometry of Croatian chequers, with Medvedgrad Kovačić also showed that he is neither a minimalist nor a reductionist who distils forms into geometric purism. His geometry is narrative, his cubes and glass shapes contain the trace of human hand, stamps of the ages and symbolical signs. However, his projects, connected to state commissions, were criticised by parts of the general public, not because of their insufficient artistic merit and obsequiousness to political establishment and their doubtful taste (in particular that which likes to see itself as generating projects of national sovereignty and veers towards kitsch), but because of the political context which was causing hatred. The same happened to the monumental public statues of Franjo Tuđman and Gojko Šušak which were evaluated mostly in the overheated political sphere of opinions for or against the persons portrayed. Not many, not even the apologeticists of HDZ nomenclature, considered Kovačić’s sculptures and their form. Perhaps the best example is the statue of Dražen Petrović which, unlike those mentioned, had no political context and thus did not cause any controversy. In any case, it is certain that even when working on large public statues or in churches, Kovačić is equally successful in mastering the monumental form, and in the intimistic rendition of the miniature form which represents the majority of his oeuvre (and also the best). In doing so, the dimensions themselves (i.e. large scale) do not mean that Kovačić has given up on sculpture which is inherently intimistic, compact, non-representational and which directs its power towards the core, rather than expanding into external rhetoric.

This author applied personal practice in order to develop and subsequently demonstrate the feasibility of applying the techniques of inside painting of traditional Chinese snuff bottles, so as to create a body of works demonstrating totally different effects and styles. The techniques focus on free-hand blowing in this section. This new form of inside painting shown could be applied to contemporary glass sculpture making and therefore reduce, or even solve, the monopoly of traditional style.

In this essay the author discusses the benefits of introducing digital making tools into the glass artist’s practice-based research, both on a professional and student level. Using an example from his personal creative practice as a case study, the author outlines not only the practical benefits of using digital technology, but how when combined with traditional hot-worked glass techniques the synthesis can produce art objects that would otherwise be impossible using either digital or manual means alone. He argues that it is the possibility of inventing novel approaches to art making that can motivate glass artists and students to embrace digital means of making, rather than relying on appeals to practicality and efficiency alone. Includes a description of producing blown glass sculptures that combine fused water-jet cut sheet glass with traditional mold blowing and glass sculpting techniques.

The aim of this paper is to study the aspect of colonial building that relates to local history. The history of tin mining is to be acknowledged and understand as important to the local. Local history has been part of important aspect in a developing community. It signifies engagement of the link between the present and the past. It helps the community to learn about the events that has happened and in the Malaysian context, the history of the British colonial is the most relevant for it is visibility due to the architectural ruin that is on location. The method applied is Critical Self reflections and studio experimentation. Samples and images of location on site retrieved to study the visual aspect of the buildings and applied as part f the artwork. Artwork explorations are conducted to relate the material and techniques to the context of the study. The British occupation existed in Malaysia for more than two hundred years from 1795 until 1957. In Malaysia generally there are four typical colonial styles of architecture which are Moorish, Tudor, Neo Classic and Neo Gothic (A Ghafar Ahmad, 1997). The tin mining industry has brought merchant and workers to Central Perak such as Gopeng and Batu Gajah. According to (Syed Zainol Abidin Ibid,1995), during 1900 till 1940s, there are three architectural style that influenced the construction of commercial building and shop houses which are adaptation style, eclectic and Art Deco. However, after time the Colonial buildings have decayed and turn into ruins. The beauty and style of the Colonial architecture has inspired the researcher to study the building since it is visible in the surrounding central Perak and keeps an interesting story of the past. Working with glass, the researcher will fabricate the idea of colonial building and glass as a work of art.

This essay explores the relationship between the artist and their materials in the production of glass art through modern technology, and the role of glass as a medium in art rather than as a form of craft. It includes a brief history of glass as an artistic medium, the development of glass techniques and their application in the field of art. It reflects on the uniqueness of glass as a sculptural medium because of its optical properties and transparency. The rise of the American Studio Glass movement, a landmark in the history of glass art at the time, changed the tradition of using glass, and many artists began to use it to express their own artistic ideas and aesthetic views, enriching the language of glass art and making it an independent material for artistic expression. With the development of glass as a fine art media and the removal of technical limits on its use, we are seeing an increasing number of artists take use of the aesthetic and conceptual possibilities it provides. The essay uses case studies to show some artists started from materials and made some new attempts to combine works with new media.

Abstract The tools of analytical chemistry, and the expertise and enthusiasm of many of its practitioners, have had a profound influence in the field of cultural heritage [1, 2]. Analytical techniques, especially those involving non-destructive methods of examination, have played a key role in the characterization, restoration, and preservation of an incredible range of works of art and cultural heritage, including ceramics, textiles, paintings, books, drawings, sculptures, jewelry, and a myriad of artifacts made of glass, wood, or metal. In addition, modern analytical instrumentation has been successfully applied to study the techniques used to produce heritage materials, to verify the authorship or estimate the date of pieces of art, and to detect reproductions and forgeries.

In the context of the competitive actual environment, the production need to adapt to the preferences of the consumers, this represents the essential goal for all manufacturers. The production flexibility can be achieved by designing and marketing of new products or/and modify existing products in short time and at low cost. The technique presented in these article addresses of manufacturers and designers who made glass products unique or small series, adapted to consumer demands. In recent decades, digital fabrication methods are developed in various fields (aeronautics, shipbuilding, automotive, construction, architecture, industrial design and so on) and gained great popularity due to relevant advantages over the traditional production methods. Sculptural surfaces (also called free form surfaces) of the product with aestethetic requirements and/or functional role can be achieved through various technologies RP & M (Rapid Prototyping and Manufacturing). The Rapid Prototyping technologies can be grouped unto two major categories. First one refers to additive processes RP. From this point of view there are over 40 different types such as: stereo lithography (SL), Laminated Object Manufacturing (LOM), Selective Laser Sintering (SLS), 3D Printing (3DP), Solid Ground Curring (GSC) and Fused Deposition Modelling (FDM). The second one consists of subtractive Rapid Prototyping. Subtractive Rapid Prototyping (SRP) is one of the methods used for processing digital models into physical objects used for RP and for Rapid Tooling (RT). It is difficult to say what method is the best RP/RT; every one of them has advantages and disadvantages. The choice of the appropriate method depends on many factors, such as: product geometry, material type, dimensional accuracy, surface roughness on finished product, and so on. The starting point of this work consists in three photographs that are digitally processed to achieve the expansion of 2D in 3D structure. The expanded model is imported into computer-aided manufacturing (CAM) software. The parameters required to processing on Computer Numerical Control (CNC) machine are set, in order to obtain the shape of the casting mold. The schedule of heat treatment for glass is adapted according to the characterics of glass, mold material and the type of kiln. Rheological behaviour of glass has a key parameter in processing glass. The steps of kiln casting process (temperature ramps, heat treatment time) are choose at some values of viscosity (also called viscosity points ) related with glass type and size of object. The presented method can be successfully used in the manufacturing process offering to companies the possibility of increasing the capacity of new product development.

Dear readers, We are pleased to present to you Issue 2, 2022, of the scientific and analytical journal Burganov House. The Space of Culture. Upon the recommendation of the Expert Council of the Higher Attestation Commission, the journal is included in the List of Leading Peer-reviewed Scientific Journals and Publications in which the main scientific results of theses for the academic degrees of doctor and candidate of science must be published. The journal publishes scientific articles by leading specialists in various humanitarian fields, doctoral students, and graduate students. Research areas concern topical problems in multiple areas of culture, art, philology, and linguistics. This versatility of the review reveals the main specificity of the journal, which represents the current state of the cultural space. The issue opens with the article "NON-Realism of Alexander Burganov" by I.Sedova. The author believes that modern Russian sculpture, at its best, has long since moved away from direct depiction and has learned to speak about painful issues exclusively in the language of plastic arts. In this regard, the author naturally raises the question - what is the "realism in sculpture" concept today? In the process of analysing the plastic techniques of A.Burganov, the author managed to identify several patterns, including the principle of "opposition": realistic images, being in opposition to each other, begin to form the world of symbolism and surrealism. Summing up her research, the author introduces a new term, "symbolic realism", into scientific circulation. Fang Zhiyu studies the specificity of modern Chinese sculpture in the article "Traditions and Innovations in Modern Chinese Sculpture". The author believes that two directions are clearly visible in the creative work of modern Chinese sculptors. The first direction basically follows the creative method of sculptors who studied in France before the formation of the People's Republic of China; the second direction is based on traditional Chinese culture. In the formation of the modern plastic language of Chinese sculpture, both directions mutually enrich each other. In the article “On Two Viewpoints on the Dramaturgical Conflict Structure: from Hegel’s Aesthetics to the Identity of the Formalists”, V.Kolotaev analyses the nature of the dramaturgical conflict in Russian humanitarian knowledge, which occurred under the influence of aesthetic ideas about beauty, harmony, the sublime, the ideal, formulated by Hegel in Lectures on Aesthetics. The author believes that in line with classical ideas, the conflict was understood as a necessary condition for maintaining the compositional unity of the work and the development of the action. It led to the final equilibrium state of all its elements after the separation of the participants in the collision to the maximum distance. In addition to the aesthetic understanding of the conflict as the basis of the harmonic organisation of the text, the author analysed the idea of conflict as the primary condition for the development of all systems. Ding Liang continues the topic of dialogue in the space of culture between national tradition and world trends in the development of art. In the article “Analysis of Creative Education in Ceramics and Student Creativity in Colleges and Universities in China”, the author rightly argues that Chinese education and global arts education are closely related to each other in the face of the globalisation of culture and economy. A number of texts are devoted to the issues of musical culture. In the article "On the First Graduation of Vocalists of the Saratov Alekseyev Conservatory", A.Rudyakova recreates a picture of the early period of the Saratov Alekseyev Conservatory, founded in 1912, based on rare unpublished sources. In the article "Alexander Ryndin's 104 Psalm: the Problem of the Expression of Author's Will Within the Canon", I.Mertseva studies the problem of secularisation, which the traditional genres of Orthodox worship are exposed to, in connection with the renewal of the means of musical expressiveness of choral music. Biographical information about the composer and facts explaining the address to the composition on canonical liturgical texts are introduced into scientific use. The author uses an interdisciplinary approach typical of liturgical musicology, combining musicological analysis and interpretation of the liturgical text in the traditions of Russian liturgy. Also, the article provides an overview of the methods by which it is possible to study original works on canonical liturgical texts. In the article "Heraldic Motifs in Family Stained-glass Windows of the 16th Century of the von Disbach Family", D.Platonov considers the study and attribution of heraldic stained-glass windows of the Swiss Union of the 16th century, when the art of stained glass was in its heyday. The author notes that by this time, the formation of a new social class, the burghers, was completed and the rich families were able to have their own family coat of arms thanks to the special historical conditions of the Old Confederation development. Based on sources in the form of surviving armorials and official documents of the period under study, the author investigates the rules for the creation of heraldry, the artistic image, and the specifics of stained glass technology. In the article “Zaha Hadid in the United Arab Emirates. An Architect Ahead of Time”, J.Smolenkova considers the architect’s buildings from the point of view of innovative technologies, features of the artistic image and plastic design. Along with articles, this issue of the journal presents K.Lopatkina’s scientific review of the book “The Moscow Union of Artists. A Perspective from the 21st Century. Book Two” by B.Ioganson (Moscow: Booksmart, 2021). The reviewer believes that one of the essential tasks that the author of this monumental work solves is the need to demonstrate and prove that the Moscow Union of Artists was very different primarily because it included various artists. For the researcher, “the presence of a unique experience accumulated in the course of the life of this multifaceted and well-coordinated organism that regulates the artistic life of Moscow and spreads its influence far beyond the capital” comes to the fore. The publication is addressed to professionals specialising in the theory and practice of the fine arts and philology and all those interested in the arts and culture.

Touching is never a unidirectional event; what you touch will always touch you back. ‘How can the way we relate to the world around us take shape as sculpture?’ Norwegian artist Marte Johnslien asks. In the 2018 exhibition A Square on a Sphere at Lillehammer Kunstmuseum (Art Museum), Johnslien showed, amongst other works, a sculpture consisting of ceramic shapes stacked on top of each other with glass plates between. In this work, Johnslien explored a new technique of reinforcing ceramics in which she put steel mesh underneath the clay. By strengthening the thin ceramic shapes with iron, Johnslien changed the material and thus changed the texture. This chapter elaborates on how artistic presence can provide a way to access the glitch between the visible and the invisible, by exploring the ceramic works by Johnslien in light of Barad’s essay on touching, esotericist Pyotr Demianovich Ouspensky’s view on the fourth dimension, Eastern philosophy, and relativity theory.