The history of glass spans millennia. Glass The FIRST MATERIAL ever, artificially produced by humans. It would prove to be one of the worlds most stable and enduring materials.
Stained glass is both a window and an image. It holds a practical and ideological component. It also conveys messages. In the Middle Ages, especially between the 10th and 15th centuries, most people were illiterate. Churches played a big role as gathering spaces and visual storytelling centres. Stained glass windows also had a profound spiritual and psychological impact. Light has always been associated with purity and enlightenment. When the light came through these windows it transformed the churches into something ethereal. It was not just about beauty was about evoking a sense of the Devine.
It primarily started in the gothic era. Architectural flying buttresses allowed for wall openings where glass could be installed. These windows functioned through a combination of light, colour and storytelling.
Artists blended art and science. The glass was made by mixing sand, soda and other components. Heating it to high temperatures and adding metal oxides for colour. Copper for cobalt blue, Manganese for purple etc. Once cooled the glass was cut and painted and assembled using lead came
The 18th and early 19th centuries were seen as a low point in the development of stained glass. The catholic church for one started favouring a renaissance architectural style, based on the style of the Greeks and Romans. The reformation had a very problematic relationship with visual imagery.
The gothic revival happened in the 19th century. Churches that looked like medieval churches would help spirituality and enliven religion. Hence the presence of stained glass underwent a tremendous upswing. It was introduced in Civic buildings, universities and private homes as well. Stained glass windows were a mark of wealth, prestige and depicted in some cases historical events and coats of arms rather than religious themes. Even in secular buildings, religious themes were replaced particularly in the Victorian and art Neuvo periods. Nature inspired designs became a hallmark.
Today stained-glass windows continue to captivate with abstract interpretations and contemporary designs. The allure of stained glass lies in its ability to transform ordinary spaces into extraordinary ones.
Now more about the History of glass and its impact on our modern society.
Natural glass created by lightening was the first form of known glass. These glass formations were formed by high temperatures of lightning in dessert or sandy beach areas.
Obsidian glass, also natural glass, was used by stone age societies. This volcanic glass was carved into sharp tools.
The first man made was made in the coastal north Syria and the then Mesopotamia around 3500 BC and 2500 BC by Sumerians. Mostly beads were amongst the objects. Accidental production of glass is suggested to have occurred around the same time as metalworking.
Glass consists mainly of silica. By adding different elements to silica you can drastically change its properties. This we see in our current age with its technical contributions.
1500 BC first class vessels were made by covering sand core with molten glass. Examples of Vessels of glass appeared in Egypt around 1450 BC during the reign of Pharoah Thutmose 3rd.
The first glass making manual dates to 650 BC. Instructions on how to make glass are contained in cuneiform tablets that were discovered in the library of Assyrian king, Ashurbanipa.
During the 1st century BC, the Phoenicians discovered glass blowing as a technique. Growth of the use of glass products occurred throughout the Roman world. Glass bottles were produced in the Roman empire and during the 1st century AD, windowpanes were thought to be produced by the Romans. These panes were rough cast in wooden frames over a layer of sand or stone.
Glass making skills disappeared in Europe with the fall of the Roman Empire. However, Islamic glass continued with new techniques and innovation of old traditions. It was only around 1000 AD that Northern Europe developed the technique of replacing soda with potash in making glass. Until the 12 th century, stained glass was not widely used. Then only it became important in Romanesque and Gothic art. Manganese oxide added to molten glass resulted in colourless glass.
The Morano glass artists discovered this lost knowledge after the fall of the Roman empire Angelo Barovier invented Cristallo, a clear colourless glass. In the 15th Century. Glass has been used for thousands of years as a container because of its effectiveness at protecting contents.
Artists in Morano, Venice had been making glass since at least 1255. During the Middle Ages they developed Advancement techniques such as crystalline glass, enamelled glass and millefiori. Around the 1500s Venetian glass makers developed a method to make mirror out of plate glass. They covered the back of the sheet with a mercury-tin amalgam. Beside the aesthetic purpose of glass mirrors , it also later during the Renaissance led to formal use of linear perspective and encouraged artists such as Rembrandt to paint self-portraits.
Glass also features unprecedented transparency which makes it unique for optical uses. The first eyeglasses were made in Northern Italy by about 1290. This popularised reading and allowed monks in the 13th century to copy and study religious texts.The earliest known telescope appeared in 1608 in the Netherlands. Hans Lippershey tried to obtain a patent on one. It was Galileo who improved the design the following year and applied it to astronomy. Today it’s no longer just about scientific method, it is about precision optics. Think about RF transmission currently. The glass used for optical fibre is more than 30 times as transparent as the purest water. Also think about the role glass telescopes are playing in our current quest to understand the universe and the discovery of cell bacteria and viruses that resulted in live saving vaccines and antibiotics.
Glass manufacturing advanced by adding lead oxide to molten glass. It improved the appearance of vessels. George Ravenscroft in 1674 was the first to produce crystal glassware on an industrial scale. With the start of the industrial revolution in 1760, glass manufacturing took a turn upwards.
Germany started creating microscope lenses. in 1884 that revolutionized microscopy. Thanks to Abbe, Scott and Zeiss. Scott’s glass was taken to the moon and used to film the first steps. He researched the problem of thermal shock to glass and eventually invented borosilicate glass which withstands temperature differences, acidity and extreme heat. This resulted in a revolution in the kitchen with for example oven proof dishes, as well as in chemistry industry.
Quantitive chemical analysis by Jons Berzelius in 1808 contributed to the establishment of a large-scale industrial supply of purified raw materials for the glass production process.
In 1835 Justus Liebig developed a process to apply metallic silver to one side of sheet glass allowing for the mass production of mirrors.
Glass as a building material was manifested in the Crystal Palace, built by Joseph Paxton in 1851. This project was intended to house the Great Exhibition. Mass production of glass happened in 1887. This Semi-automatic process using machines was developed by the firm Ashley, in Yorkshire
Tempered glass was invented by Francois Alfred Royer. This process involved quenching almost molten glass in a heated bath of oil/grease in 1874. This led to safer military gear and automative windshields. Similarly n 1903 Eduard Benedictus, a French chemist accidently invented bulletproof/shatterproof glass. This revolutionised not only the automobile manufacturing industry tremendously, but also the war industry and architecture. Laminated glass is two or more panes of glass covered in an adhesive layer of plastic and the pressed together.
And then it all happened construction wise. The first metal/glass building was built in 1909
in Kansas City. The Boley Building was followed by the Hallidie building built in San Francisco in 1918. Today laminated glass has to withstand much more, skyscrapers are getting higher and need to withstand natures mighty forces. Alistair Pilkington in 1953, developed the revolutionary float glass process. He solved the problem of view-distorting panes. A commercial application to produce sheet glass using a molten tin bath on which the molten glass flows unhindered under the influence of gravity. In the tin bath the thickness and size of the sheet is variably defined.
In 1984 the first fluoride glass was discovered by the French university Rennes. An optical glass with low dispersion. And then recent breakthroughs just accelerated. Chemically strengthened glass only 1mm thick, flexible glass thinner than a human hair, antimicrobial glass that suppresses the growth of Mold, lenses that use optical light guides to display high quality images, bioactive glasses that heal flesh wounds, etc.
Since 2005 the European space agency has been planning the construction of a extremely large reflecting telescope. A giant mirror with a perfect location, the Atacama desert in Chile. It sees 8 million times more than Galileo’s telescope. The invention of this special kind of glass started in the 1960s, with German experiments in glass ceramics for household purposes. Glass ceramics changed the world.
4000 years of glass history. It is an incredible material. Its art and it is science. It connects continents and is a component of energy production. It is sustainable and recyclable. It surpasses boundaries between real and virtual.
It is everywhere and versatile. Think light bulbs, computer and cell phone screens, optical fibres that enable us to share thoughts at the speed of light, spectacles and special lenses, telescopes playing a fundamental role in our understanding of the solar system and so much.
It is obvious we are living in the Glass Age. Glass makes information travel faster, makes technology smarter. It is arguably one of the most transformative materials of all time.