Venini and Arcade: the mastery of Murano glass

 

The blazing furnace burns at a thousand degrees Celsius. The master glassmaker inserts the crucible with a confident gesture, the same for more than ten centuries.

Inside, the purest silica sand is transformed by heat: it melts liquefied and is reborn like the Arabian phoenix in an iridescent kaleidoscope of coloured magma.

The Master then performs the creative act par excellence, the gesture that echoes the biblical creation of man himself: he imprints his own breath of life with the reed into the fumigating vitreous lava, and then forges it skilfully with ancestral tools, and again he blows and moulds the glass still soft, ductile, and gives it its final shape.

A few moments, and a unique work of art is born: the Murano Glass.

As you enter Astrua's boutiques in Alessandria, Genoa and Turin, you will notice that our love for the glass of the small Venetian island translates into the taste for the artistic decor of the design lamps - expressly designed and forged for us by the master Fornasier - that colour our spaces with light and style.

But sharing our passions with our customers and friends is the very heart of our work, and at Astrua you can also admire and possibly purchase live and online the unique works of the Murano masters of the house Venini and of Arcade.

A calembour of enchanting shapes and colours , vases that, while motionless, wrap themselves in space thanks to the dynamic spirit insufflated inside them by the master glassmaker.

The shapes of Venini glass are changeable, but unique remains the unmistakable style of this glorious maison of glass beloved all over the world (in 2012 Christie's auctioned for 241.000 euros for the vase Lacquered black and red by Carlo Scarpa): from the golden, soft composure of the 'Opalino' vase, to the rigour of the lines 'Anni Trenta' of the eponymous creation, to the iconic fluttering of the famous 'Handkerchief' vase that winks at the jaunty swish of a skirt, to the centripetal twist of the 'Torch', a dense tangle of curves.

But we also admire works concluded in themselves, art to be contemplated such as the hourglass that Venini interprets in his own way, as if to remind us with its rounded form of the ancient myth of the Eternal Return of Time.

And then there are the works that are the result of collaboration with great architects: from 'Puzzle' by Ettore Sotzas to 'Vaso Torto' by Gae Aulenti, both in a strictly limited edition .

The vases by Arcade take us to another Murano, more mysterious, where the light of the Mediterranean sun and the kiln play with the expressive power of the chiaroscuro side of glass, which expresses archaic forms and for this reason always up-to-date in its precious series limited to thirty-three pieces.

The green is tinged with the depth of a Venetian lagoon darker and more fascinating, and unravels between the essential, asymmetrically rounded shape of the Medea vase, and then chases after the extroversion of the sudden wooden knots of the 'Bois de verre', and finally reassures us with the dense capacity of the 'Mama', a cosy vase of sinuous sweetness.

The glass and vases of Murano speak the universal language of craftsmanship that becomes absolute art, and it is no coincidence that the imaginative poet D'Annunzio - who was a great admirer - intuited the creative inspiration, and addressing the master glassmakers wished:

"(...) may the design be more splendid than the glass... the beauty of your vases be so light that it truly seems to breathe the spirit".