Word: murano
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...clustered islets of Murano, a short gondola ride from Venice, master glassblowers have huffed and puffed since the 13th century, producing some of the world's finest glass. For centuries. Murano glassmakers isolated themselves from alien ideas, but lately the masters have been experimenting with a new form-a collaboration between glassblowers and great modern painters...
Last week in an exhibit on the Lido, Venetians and visitors got a chance to inspect 215 of the Murano masters' fragile new pieces, designed by 64 artists of ten nations. Among the glass doves, sea monsters and slender figurines was evidence that some painters had found the medium too unfamiliar and inflexible. French Architect-Painter Le Corbusier had ignored the fragility of glass and wrought a massive form which he called Architectural Harmony. France's Georges Braque's facial silhouettes on a blue salad bowl were clumsy. But the U.S.'s Alexander Calder...
...contemporary Italian art seems lacking in strength, it does often show great decorative grace. A special show of contemporary Murano glass put most Italian paintings in the shade, and some flamboyant ceramic figures of working girls by light-fingered Leoncillo Leonardi outshone more pretentious sculptures. As best Italian painter, the jury picked Giuseppe Santomaso for his pleasantly decorative abstractions, which resemble swatches of colored silk and black thread in a stiff breeze. Prize for best Italian sculptor went to Pericle Fazzini (who makes a living by conservative church commissions), for some mildly sexy contortionists in wood and bronze...
Wright drew up plans for a four-story structure of dark-veined marble ornamented with colored glass from the famed factories of nearby Murano. In his design, he kept the balconies for which Venice is famous, but separated them with sheer, vertical protrusions which would give the building definitely modern lines...
...produce its new designs, Venice still uses the old methods it has passed from generation to generation. The glass is still made at Murano, a tiny group of interconnected islands out in a lagoon. Science has given the factories some new tricks, but it still takes master blowers using long, thin blowing canes of Roman design to turn out the glass. They sit on high wooden stools, watch while apprentices make the first rough shape, then step in and blow the final form...