Imre Jakabffy (szerk.): Ars Decorativa 8. (Budapest, 1984)
VARGA, Vera: Art Nouveau art glasses
8. Bowl, Gabriel Argy-Rousseau, c. 1915. Patede-verre. Ht. 7,5 cm, D. 10,5 cm. become more and more prominent in the middle of the 19th century, and superseeded the rich and organic forms of blown glass. Ruskin valued crystal glass barbarous, because it doest't give expression to the main features of glass; its flexibility and transparency. In his opinion, the engraving technique disturbs the effection of the main features of glass and endues it with the characteristics of rock crystal. After some instinctive experiments first Gallé and following his way, the glass artists of Art Nouveau succeeded in creating forms and decorations adequate to the glass material. The most prominent among them, Gallé, Tiffany and the Daum brothers — naturally choosing different ways of solution — wanted to realize the synthesis of blown and engraved glass style, with the help of the use of more and more complex technics. The pioneer experiments of Gallé were not always successful, one of his failures in the transplantation of his principles to practice is the group of his glasses, the so called standard Gallé. Glass seems to be porcelain here, losing its transparency and characteristic colours, it has opaque white background and insignificant colours. The forms of the Tiffany glasses (in spite of the fact, that their creator had not such a creative power as Gallé had) are very proportionate, the form, the decoration, the applied executing technics are well-considered and always well-proportioned. It is partly due to the fact, that their designer didn't create a new style, he only used the characteristic features of a style, already existing, modifying it to the expression of his own taste and intellectual world, while Gallé, through several experiments had created a new artistic attitude. Gallé's aim, as we have already referred to, was not only the creation of the culture of tasteful fancy articles, but the creation of works of applied arts, which are works of art of full value and as such, are equal to the products of any kind of the „grands arts". To realize that aim — to express stronger and deeper his thoughts, Gallé created his own symbolic language of form and decoration. He used convential symbols (the contrasts of light and darkness, good and evil, dying and reviving flowers etc.) and motifs of everyday life, enriched with symbolic meaning, as well. Choosing his symbols, Gallé attached importance to the representation of certain processes, 9 the changes of days and seasons were of crucial importance. The finest example of this, is Gallé's famous work: the bed „Aube et Crépuscule", which is decorated with symbols of light and darkness and the changes of days, their passing and recommencing. 10 One of Gallé's characteristic symbols is the poppy-flower which has a funny reference in one of its representations. That is a vase made of grayish glass, the representation of it 108
