There are some artists which come to the art world and nothing is the exact same ever again. When Murano makers Mamaracio Gino Forte and Flavio Poli started using solid mass of partially plastic and developed the newest technique called "massello ', Murano traditionalists were up in arms.
Everything these were about was under consideration: the lightness of blown, the fragile aspect of three-dimensional objects that reflect the light, were completely ignored with'massello '. But it had been Walter Furlan, another Murano artist who joined the shop of Gino Cenedese after the second World War, who showed the world what can be achieved with sculpted'a massello '.
His sculptures were brilliantly colored and although solid, was able to retain the key quality of medium - its ability to reflect light. But it had been after he met Pablo Picasso during the Murano Exhibition organized by the Istituto Veneto per il Lavoro that his art truly hit its peak. The colors and forms were showing strong Picasso influence and became instantly copied and imitated by other young glass artists, in Murano and elsewhere. Offerte di lavoro in Italia
Another glass artist that got his original training in Murano was American Dale Chihuly, who visited Murano in 1968, on a Fulbright Fellowship, to just work at the Venini factory. Besides flawless traditional techniques of Murano glass masters, what most impressed Chihuly was the team approach to blowing glass. This team work became the foundation for his work in the Pilchuck Glass School, which he co-founded in 1971 in Washington. This international glass center brought Chihuly to the avant-garde in the development of glass as a fine art and put him at the forefront of contemporary glass sculpture art.
After tens of thousands of years of glass making into useful, practical forms, albeit often extremely beautiful and artistic, it was just in the 20th century that artists started using glass as a real art form, minus the necessity to be useful. Another aspect of glass art that changed in 20th century, particularly because of Dale Chihuly is the size of glass objects. Chihuly's sculptures are often gigantic, placed in public places like Kew Gardens in London or at the Las Vegas Bellagio.
Artists like Chihuly made glass art desirable household objects, and inspired tens of thousands of artists expressing themselves in glass medium. Glass sculptures vary greatly in price and affordability, according to artists'fame and standing, but it is now possible to own a glass sculpture in our own homes. It is not necessary any more to travel all the best way to Murano to have genuine Murano art, since it is available these days all over the world through reputable glass art dealers.
Glass art is also thought in several universities and there is a great chance that we will see even more artists embracing glass as a complicated and intriguing art form. And while many artists still use ancient murano glass making techniques invented more than 100 years ago, art is constantly evolving and new artists will probably come up with new forms that may shake the art world, the same as Furlan and Chihuly did in their time.