A History of Glassforming (review)

As a material, glass is unique. Its lack of a crystalline structure means that artisans can do things with glass that would be impossible with metals or traditional ceramics. As Keith Cummings explains in this lavishly illustrated book, instead of melting at one particular temperature (like gold) glass gradually softens and becomes more "liquid-like" as its temperature is raised. The atomic structure of glass means that it can be a universal solvent for almost any material, from gold (which can give it a ruby-red color) to high-level nuclear waste. As a result, glass can exhibit an amazing versatility and a startling array of optical properties, from transparency to opacity to opalescence.

Cummings, a glass artist, has written a commendable introductory book which contains more information than its title might suggest. His goal is to "present an account of the history and development of glassforming processes" (p. 1), and he deliberately limits his discussion to the manipulation of glass while it is hot. Glass can also be shaped while cold by grinding, etching, engraving, and polishing. But the cold working of glass has more in common with technologies such as lapidary and stone working, and by focusing on hot working techniques Cummings engages the most salient features of glass—its response to heat and its visual versatility, which have made it so intriguing to artists and artisans for centuries. There are excellent descriptions of the various techniques artists and artisans have employed to shape hot glass. After two chapters describing (with some repetition) the nature of glass as a material, the third chapter treats the reader to clear explanations of bead making, casting, and, of course, glassblowing. These are accompanied by color pictures of many objects as well as schematic diagrams of processes.

What makes the book of particular value, however, is that Cummings supplements these descriptions (which at one time would have been seen as "internalist history") with extensive discussion of the social and economic context of glassmaking. He points out that, unlike metalworking or ceramic production, glassmaking "does not usually emerge until a culture is well established" (p. 102). As a result, glass wares tend to exhibit many design features of wood, ceramic, and metal objects—a phenomenon dubbed skeumorphism by archaeologist V. Gordon Childe in 1936. Over time, glass "usurps its borrowed forms" as glassmakers exploit the characteristic features of their material. Cummings's discussion refers to architect and designer David Pye and the artisan's brave combination of "skill and danger" (p. 77).

Historians of technology may be especially attracted to chapter 4, which gives a quick but reasonably complete chronology of glass history up to the development of industrial production in the nineteenth century. Cummings notes how the invention of glassblowing transformed the nature of glassmaking in the Roman era. He expands on this by telling how glassblowing also brought about concomitant changes in the daily life of the glass workshop, as pots of hot glass had to be kept ready to be worked. While discussing the emergence of Venice as a center of world glass production, Cummings rightly notes the "cocktail of conditions"—social, geographic, economic, and technical—that led to Venice's preeminence (p. 117). Later chapters discuss subsequent developments, including the use of glass as a design material and art medium.

If the book has a flaw, it is one of organization. It is understandably hard to integrate technical descriptions of glass forming, materials science, and the social and economic history of glassmaking. But I would like to have seen material in chapter 3 giving detailed descriptions of specific glassmaking processes connected more closely with the historical material that follows. Cummings relies on standard histories of glass, so there is little here that will not be known to a specialist in the subject. Nevertheless, readers who have a general interest in glass or who are looking for an introduction to the topic—perhaps to...