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Course: Europe 1800 - 1900 > Unit 6
Lesson 9: United StatesLouis Comfort Tiffany, Vase
For more information please visit http://www.moma.org/1913. Created by The Museum of Modern Art.
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- How were these colors achieved?(15 votes)
- While the glass is still molten, metallic oxides are added, which embeds any colors from the metals into the glass itself, rather than just being a painted surface. I'm not sure what Tiffany used in this piece, but different oxides have different colors, for example:
Cobalt oxide - blue to blue-violet
Iron oxide - tan to rust-brown
Copper oxide - aqua-green to rose-pink(16 votes)
- Can that actually be used as a vase? The shape is rather odd (and the vase might put the flowers to shame!)(5 votes)
- This particular vase is more an example of what can be done with a functional medium (the vase is normally just for holding other objects, such as flowers) rather then being a functional object itself. As with many modern designers, the focus is on how much variety and differentiation can be put into everyday objects, and not so much on making them functional, but rather turning them into artistic expressions. This vase by Tiffany is such an experiment.(2 votes)
- Are all of the works on those shelves by Tiffany, or were other artists present there too?(4 votes)
- From what I can see from pausing the video at about1:45, and examining the labels in full HD, it looks like the top shelf houses Tiffany's work, and the other shelves hold works by other artists, although all in the same genre of design and form.(3 votes)
- That is beautiful!! Where is it located?(2 votes)
- Why didn't you discuss how the glass was made and blown?(2 votes)
- What did she mean "accidental"?(1 vote)
- Mind blowing. How was the shape made?(1 vote)
- Does anyone know a good website on blown glass, or maybe a video on youtube?(1 vote)
- From the Chrysler Museum of Art's YouTube page: www.youtube.com/watch?v=XxgIEeIBCFo(1 vote)
Video transcript
(soft music) - Behind me you see a collection of spectacular blown-glass vases by the New York decorator designer stain glass artist Louis Comfort Tiffany. I want to focus in particular on the most spectacular of
this group in the center, this blue iridescent glass of 1913. That really marks the high point of what was an intensive expression of modern materials and forms. The glass is called favrile. It exploits the iridescent, natural, and accidental beauties of blown-glass in this form which drew its inspiration from a "Jack In The Pulpit" flower. I mean it scares me every time I look at this object. It's so fragile and
attenuated. It's (form). What I love about this glass is the way it combines ancient and modern. Tiffany was inspired by ancient,
Roman, and (terrain) glass, which has this iridescent
finish when it was dug up. At the same time, he wanted to create these startling modern objects. People were blown away when they were exhibited at the Colombian Worlds Fair and in the Paris 1900 exhibition. What you see in this blue vase of 1913 is almost like the last gasp, and the combination of this intensive expiration of form and technique for which Tiffany became
internationally famed.