Glass Blowing History

The origins of glass are not very clear with several legends giving different accounts. One such tells the story of some Roman fisherman out to cook on a beach on an island. They set their pots on a rock called natron which is actually soda used for embalming their dead. Soon after lighting the fire, they noticed a gooey substance oozing out from beneath the rocks. This was glass which had been formed by heating of the sand and rocks together at high temperatures due to the cooking fire. A more accurate and reliable account pushes back the origin of glass even further, at around 2500 BC in Mesopotamia. Archaeological evidences show pieces of glass probably made by potters of the era by fusing sand and some minerals. It further claims that nearly a thousand years later a skilled Mesopotamian managed to create a glass tube and blow a bubble down its end, thus giving birth to what we know today as glass blowing. A metal blowpipe for designing glass was first introduced one or two centuries before the birth of Christ and since then glass production soared all around, particularly in the Roman Empire. Due to ease of availability of raw materials and the simple instruments involved in its production glass was easily afforded by all in the Empire. After the Roman Empire declined glass productions were lulled, but not for long for the Islamic kingdoms designed and used glass in the most exquisite and beautiful designs throughout their lands. Even today, buildings built in the Islamic architecture can be seen housing elaborate glass designs and patterns maintaining the valuable age old tradition.

Throughout history, glass production saw highs and lows at various times in various kingdoms and societies across the world. The cities of Venice and Murano became the centres of glass production soon after the Italian revolution. The elegant and wide uses of glass can still be seen in these cities, especially with the royalty. The British glass blowing traditions were brought to the New World by the colonists of Jamestown some of whom were glass blowers.

The industrial revolution had a massive impact on glass blowing like in every other field it touched. In the 1820s Bakewell, Page and Bakewell introduced a mechanical way to blow glass which forever changed how glass was produced in the world. The mechanical innovations suddenly reduced the earlier very time consuming and elaborate process of glass blowing to a simple automated pressing of hot glass. This not only lead to a rise in the volume of the glass articles being produced but also allowed many new articles to be made out of glass, whose production would have been highly complex and long if done by the traditional methods. There was however a huge decline in the creativity of art glass as former artists and blowers were forced to retire when factories started working instead.

This declining art was revived by Harvery Littleton in 1962 in USA when he discovered that some forms of glass could be melted even at low temperatures. This knowledge allowed people to set up small in house furnaces where they could blow glass and mould it into different designs. Today there are many schools, workshops and art glass studios all around the world which teach glass blowing techniques to produce various designs and objects.

Glass blowing is catching up as a popular hobby in many parts of the world, with this revived art providing an outlet to the creativity of people and manifesting itself in the beautiful designs, patterns and objects that are created in the process.