Glassy Napoleon

Bottle, Figure of Napoleon Bonaparte (Late 19th c.)
American
7 1/4 x 2 x 2 in.
colorless, pressed glass
Brooklyn Museum of Art

Fantastic little caricature of Napoleon. This reminds me of a quirky little museum that I went to in Munich called ZAM (I must mention the awesomeness of the internet here, as I would never have remembered the name of the museum or where it was without it). It was a museum of little museums. There was a chamber pot museum, an Easter bunny museum and some others. I particularly remember the chamber pots. Many had illustrations in the bottom of them, often of unsavory people such as Hitler. Definitely elicited some giggles.

A unique way to create a novelty item, in pressed glass. The technique of pressed glass allowed a faster, lower cost way of creating glass objects (as opposed to glass blowing).

Fused Landscape

An Afternoon with Ethan, 2008
April Surgent
fused and cameo-engraved glass 19.625" x 27" x 2.25"

I had a long day of piles not diminishing yesterday but I did discover some pretty excellent glass art. I am very slowly learning about all the techniques and forms that glass can take as an art. Most people know about glassblowing which I was happily introduced to as a student at Alfred, but the other forms of glass working are not as well-known.

A catalog of the work of Jiri Harcuba (mentor to Surgent) and April Surgent that came across my desk included a number of photographs of the artists at work taking various tools to flat pieces of glass. It is fascinating to see the results of such tedious and creative endeavors. This is the kind of art I would love to be able to own someday and it appears that I am not the only one, most of the work in this show has sold. Not only do I find the technique fascinating but the resulting images are beautiful. The choice to create diptych/triptych like compositions gives the images a greater dimension, I'm a huge fan.

Check out this glossary of glass to find out about fusing and cameo-engraving.