【转载】威尼斯的玻璃艺术

威尼斯的玻璃艺术历经沧桑，重又焕发出生机。《纽约时报》对威尼斯玻璃艺术的千年历史，做了回顾。让我们一起来感受一下吧。
VENICE — The invention of glassblowing in the first century B.C. put cheap glasses on Roman tavern tables throughout the empire, and bottles and pickle jars on the shelves of even the humblest homes.

 
〔威尼斯报道〕公元前一世纪，人们发明了玻璃吹制术，价格便宜的玻璃酒杯随之遍布罗马人酒馆的餐桌；而玻璃瓶和玻璃腌菜坛也能进入寻常百姓家。
Along with many other comforts and conveniences, glass utensils, and indeed glass window panes, all but disappeared in the West with the empire’s collapse. When glassblowing was revived on any scale in the second millennium, Venice took the lead.
在罗马帝国灭亡后，玻璃制的餐具，那些真正的窗玻璃，连同其他很多给人们带来便利舒适的物品，都从西方国家中销声匿迹了。当玻璃吹制术在两千年后重又焕发生机时，威尼斯则引领了行业的风头。
But trying to hold on to that advantage was no easy matter. And over the centuries Venice’s glass industry experienced changing fortunes. The story of these ups and downs, of decline and revival, is related in “The Adventure of Glass: A Millennium of Venetian Art,” at the Correr Museum .
但要做到这一点，并不容易。数个世纪以来，威尼斯的玻璃吹制行业历经沧桑。想了解这一行业背后起起伏伏的历史，可以去科瑞尔博物馆(Correr Museum)，参观主题为“玻璃的探索历程：威尼斯玻璃艺术千年”的回顾展览。
The exhibition marks the 150th anniversary of the foundation of the Glass Museum in Murano by Vincenzo Zanetti. The exhibits include pieces from the museum that have never been shown before and additional rarities from private collections.
这一展览也是为了纪念坐落在威尼斯慕拉诺岛(Murano)的玻璃艺术博物馆(Glass Museum)建馆150周年。博物馆是由文森佐?泽内提(Vincenzo Zanetti)创立的。回顾展的部分展品就来自该玻璃艺术博物馆，以前从未展出过。还有部分珍品来自私人收藏。
The first documentary mention of a Venetian glassmaker is found on a deed of donation in 982 to the Benedictine monastery on the island of San Giorgio Maggiore by a Domenico. He is referred to as a fiolario, or bottle maker.
 

公元982年，在一份向圣?乔治?马吉奥莱岛上的本笃会修道院捐赠物品的契约中，首次提到了威尼斯的玻璃工匠。这位名叫多米尼克的工匠被称为“fiolario"，就是制瓶师的意思。
Glassmaking at this time was almost entirely utilitarian. But, as an introductory section demonstrates, this region during the centuries before the final fall of the western Roman Empire was one of the most important centers for sophisticated glass. Among the most elegant examples are a type of large, rounded jar or olla, originally used to contain food but later employed as funerary urns (although seemingly only for women and children).
这时，制作玻璃用品几乎全都是为了获取实利。随着行业的兴起，在西罗马帝国灭亡前的几个世纪里，这里成了生产精美玻璃制品最重要的中心之一。其中最为优雅的物件，是一种大的圆形罐，或者圆形的瓮。原本用来存放食物，后来就用作了骨灰盒。（虽然主要用来装妇女和小孩的骨灰。）
Altino, on the northern shores of the Venetian lagoon — whose inhabitants were to flee to Torcello in the seventh century A.D. to escape successive barbarian invasions — was a major port in imperial times and has yielded significant finds of Roman glass. These and the latest research into them are the subject of the parallel exhibition “Altino: Glass of the Venetian Lagoon” at the National Archaeological Museum of Altino, which itself recently celebrated its 50th anniversary.
阿尔蒂诺(Altino)位于威尼斯环礁湖的北岸。公元七世纪，当地居民为了躲避连续不断，野蛮的入侵，纷纷逃亡托切罗(Torcello)。阿尔蒂诺是罗马帝国的一个主要港口，在那里发现了罗马时期重要的玻璃制品。在阿尔蒂诺国家考古博物馆中，就在举办一个类似的展览，主题为：“阿尔蒂诺：威尼斯环礁湖的玻璃艺术”，同时也是为了庆祝该博物馆建立50周年。
By the time of a decree in 1292 that forbade the operation of glass furnaces in Venice, Murano was already the de facto headquarters of the industry. The makers of beads for necklaces and rosaries, who used small furnaces with a lesser risk of starting fires, were exempt from the ban. But over time the Murano glass furnaces also began to produce ever more elaborate types of beads, which came to be known as perle, or pearls.
到1292年，政府颁布法令禁止在威尼斯使用玻璃熔炉时，慕拉诺岛实际上已成为行业的中心地区。当时，使用小的玻璃熔炉，制作项链珠子和念珠，是不受禁令限制的。随着时间的推移，当地制作出更为精美的玻璃珠子，被称作丝光珠，或者玻璃珍珠。
From the late 15th century onward, Venetian beads not only achieved the largest worldwide distribution of any of Murano’s glass products, but also remained the most consistently in demand. The second section of the exhibition offers a panorama of these beads, from large pearls with intricate, colorful designs that traveled the trade routes of Africa and served both for decoration and currency, to the tiny monochrome beads used to trim women’s clothes, bags and accessories in the 19th- and 20th-century Europe and in the Americas.

从15世纪晚期开始，威尼斯玻璃珠成了慕拉诺岛出产的玻璃制品中，行销世界最广泛的产品。而且，需求势头长期不衰。展览的第二个部分，向我们全方位展示了威尼斯玻璃珠的风采。一些销往非洲的大玻璃珠花纹复杂，色彩绚烂。非洲人把这些珠子作为装饰，同时也当做货币流通。而那些小尺寸的单色玻璃珠，在19世纪到20世纪的欧洲和美洲国家，被用来装饰妇女的衣服，手袋和配饰。
It has been estimated that over 100,000 types of beads were developed in a vast range of color combinations, using the full gamut of Murano’s glass-making techniques. In 1764 the island’s workshops sent 1,040 tons of the pearls overseas. In 1868, when the industry was still struggling to re-establish other forms of glassmaking, 3,662 tons of beads were exported.
据估计，慕拉诺的能工巧匠们制作的，各种颜色组合的玻璃珠子，超过100,000种。1764年，慕拉诺岛生产出口的玻璃珠为1,040吨。到了1868年，即便岛上的工匠们在埋头对玻璃吹制技术重新探索时，玻璃珠的出口量也达到了3,662吨。
Murano’s great age of technical innovation spanned the mid-15th to the mid-16th century. It began around 1450 when, by refining the primary materials in an almost alchemical process, Angelo Barovier created a miraculously clear crystal glass. Barovier went on to develop lattimo, or milk glass, which imitated the pure opaque whiteness of porcelain, and calcedonio, which reproduced the effects of chalcedony, agate and malachite.

 
慕拉诺岛的玻璃吹制技术，在15世纪中到16世纪中期间，是一个辉煌的创新时期。著名的安奇洛?巴洛维亚(Angelo Barovier)制作出了奇迹般的水晶玻璃。他之后还开发出乳色玻璃制品"Lattimo"。这种类似白色瓷器的不透明玻璃，展现出了玉髓、玛瑙和孔雀石般的效果。
The discovery of milk glass made it possible in 1527 for the brothers Bernardo and Filippo Serena to weave in intricate patterns threads of this opaque glass into crystal glass. The technique gave rise to reticello (mesh) and retortoli (twisted) filigree glass.
在巴洛维亚乳色玻璃制作技术的基础上，伯纳(Bernardo)和菲利普(Filippo Serena)两位一起将复杂的，乳色玻璃的花纹图案熔入水晶玻璃。这项技术最终发展出了金银丝线玻璃。
At some time, around 1550, ice glass was first created by plunging hot crystal glass into cold water and then reheating it, which produced light-refracting pieces that appeared to be composed of jagged ice.
大致在1550年，当地的工匠们将熔解后的水晶玻璃一下子倒入冷水中，然后对凝结后的玻璃再次加热，制造出了冰化玻璃(Ice Glass)。这种玻璃能产生类似参差不齐的冰快所特有的折光效果。
Classic examples of all these techniques, which raised glass to the status of an applied art form and consolidated Murano’s primacy for a century or more to come, make for an absorbing display in the central rooms of the exhibition.
这些优秀的新工艺，把玻璃制作提升为一种艺术，也让慕拉诺岛在一个多世纪中，成为行业的翘楚。在整个展览的中心展馆，就集中展示了这些引人入胜的工艺技术。
In the 1670’s, Murano was challenged on two fronts with the appearance of a brilliant potassium glass in Bohemia and of a sparkling lead glass in England. Unlike Venice’s soda glass, potassium and lead glass lent themselves well to engraving and cutting when cold, and became fashionable throughout Europe.
到了1670年前后，精美的波西米亚含钾玻璃和英国的含铅玻璃制品，一起对慕拉诺的玻璃制造业产生了冲击。和慕拉诺的含碱玻璃不同，波西米亚和英国的玻璃制品冷却后，可以进行雕刻和切割，由此，风靡了欧洲大陆。
The 18th century was a period of decline for Murano, although distinctive Venetian products such as milk glass and avventurina glass were still sought. The latter, characterized by exotic one-off colored patterns, took its name from the fact that every piece was made using an unstable vitreous paste that contained tiny copper particles and, hence, was an adventure with an uncertain outcome. And, as the process often ended in failure, avventurina glass was a costly enterprise.
慕拉诺的玻璃行业在18世纪走向衰落。尽管那些威尼斯标志性的玻璃制品，如乳色玻璃和东陵玻璃制品仍受人追捧。而东陵玻璃(Avventurina Glass)在制作过程中，用含少量铜微粒的，熔解后的玻璃液一次完成。由于熔解后玻璃不稳定，因此，每件成品的花纹图案是独一无二的。在制作完成前，无法预知，过程犹如探险。而且，在对这种玻璃进行最后处理时，常会失败。这让东陵玻璃变得身价倍增。
Murano’s glass industry collapsed along with the rest of the Venetian economy with the fall of La Serenissima, or Venetian Republic, in 1797. Its recovery was delayed by the English blockade during the Napoleonic wars and then hampered by half a century of Austrian rule, when Bohemian-style imports from the Habsburg heartlands (including cut-glass goblets depicting scenes of Venice) were favored, and tariffs on raw materials further disadvantaged Murano.
1797年，威尼斯共和国垮台。慕拉诺的玻璃业连同其他行业也随之分崩离析。而拿破仑战争期间，英国人的封锁让当地玻璃制作业复苏无望。在随后的哈珀斯堡王朝统治的五十多年期间，奥地利人规定，只有从王朝中心地区进口的，波西米亚风格的玻璃制品才会受到优待。这让慕拉诺的玻璃业一直停滞不前。而对原料征收高关税，又令岛上的玻璃制作业雪上加霜。
During a lapse of nearly two generations, the knowledge of highly complex glassblowing processes was lost. In the 1830s, the bead producer Domenico Bussolin began the first steps of recovery by reviving the filigrana a retortoli, or twisted filigree, technique. The impetus for this renaissance was driven in part by the growing demand for antique pieces. This type of filigrana became familiarly known in Venetian as zanfirico, reflecting the local pronunciation of the second name of Antonio Sanquirico, a leading purveyor of fake antique glass works that he commissioned to sell in his shop near the Rialto bridge.
经过近两代人的时间，慕拉诺那些高度复杂的玻璃吹制工艺最终失传。1830年左右，一位从事玻璃珠制作的工匠，多米尼克?布索林(Domenico Bussolin)开始复原金银绞丝玻璃的制作技术。他这样做的部分原因是人们对古董玻璃制品的需求在日益增加。在威尼斯，人们把这种金银绞丝工艺制作的玻璃制品，亲切称为"Zanfirico"。因为当地叹息桥(Rialto Bridge)附近，有一间专售这种仿制古董玻璃器皿店铺，它的老板叫安东尼奥?圣奎里科(Antonio Sanquirico)，按当地人的口音，把他的姓读成了赞费里科"Zanfirico"。
But appreciation of the possibilities of applying traditional Murano virtuoso techniques to modern designs was slow in coming. Daniela Ferretti, the Correr exhibition’s designer, deftly makes this point with her arrangement, in the manner of a Giorgio Morandi still life, of four-mesh filigree bottles and vases. They were made around 1845-48 by Pietro Bigaglia. Expensive to produce in small quantities, they found no market and were donated by Bigaglia to Murano’s new glass museum in 1861.
然而，那些运用慕拉诺传统工艺制作的新潮玻璃作品，人们对它们的欣赏和接受却是姗姗来迟。丹尼尔?弗拉第(Daniela Ferretti)是科瑞尔博物馆展会的设计者。他巧妙地将四个带网眼的金银丝玻璃花瓶，通过静物画家乔治?莫兰迪(Giorgio Morandi)的构图方式，进行摆放展示。它们是由皮埃托?毕加哥利亚(Pietro Bigaglia)在1845-48年间制作的。制作花费高昂而数量很少，因为没有销路，毕加哥利亚在1861年，将其捐赠给了当时刚成立的玻璃艺术博物馆。
Indeed, as the final sections of the show illustrate, it was only during the 20th century that artists and designers discovered the rich potential of the ancient skills of Murano’s glass masters in the creation of contemporary works.
展览的最后一部分说明，只有到了20世纪，艺术家和设计师们才真正发现，慕拉诺的玻璃工匠的古老技艺，在创作当代艺术作品时，有着巨大的潜力。
The Adventure of Glass: A Millennium of Venetian Art. Correr Museum, Venice. Through April 25.
科瑞尔博物馆的玻璃艺术展览，将在今年4月25日结束。阿尔蒂诺国家考古博物馆的玻璃艺术展，将于今年的6月30日结束。
Altino: Glass of the Venetian Lagoon. National Archaeology Museum, Altino, Italy. Through June 30.