Born in the Middle East, blowing, the technique of which dates back to the 1st century BC, revolutionized glass production. The oriental craftsmen, probably Syrians, who knew perfectly the properties of the glass paste, discovered the advantage that could be drawn from its ductility, that is to say its stretching possibilities. The technique succeeds the methods of molding and casting, which made it possible to manufacture polychrome objects in opaque glass, very beautiful, but in reduced quantity. By allowing a faster execution of the work, the new technique led to more widely disseminate blown glass objects in all layers of society, while they were exclusively reserved for an elite. On the other hand, the invention of blowing is contemporary with the formation of the Roman Empire and its extension over vast territories. This is why it spread quickly in the Roman world and in its area of influence on both sides of the Mediterranean Basin, before reaching all of Europe.
The blower first takes from the crucible with the end of its cane digs a ball of molten glass, the paraison, operation called ” picking “. He spins his cane around until a sufficiently large piece has formed at the end of the cane. He then rolls the glass ball over marble, steel plate, in order to center it perfectly. The blowing then consists in introducing air into the vitreous mass still in the viscous state by blowing through the mouth into the hollow cane. The operation is repeated several times after successive reheating in order to obtain a mass of glass sufficient to create the object. The shape is then roughed out by reel and pendulum movements. The object is shaped or manipulated using scissors and a mallet, a hollowed-out wooden cube that allows the ball to be rounded and ovalized, pontil, steel bar, and it is snapped off the cane. The finished part is placed in an annealing oven which allows progressive cooling to prevent the glass from shattering.
This is of course the manufacture of simple shapes. Most of the time, the elements of the same piece are blown separately and fixed together hot. This is the case with stemware, for example, where the cut, the leg and the foot are made separately and then joined together.
To produce particular shapes, the technique of blown glass in a mold was imposed very early, from the birth of blown glass. It consists of blowing while maintaining the parison inside a mold in order to give it a predefined shape. It allowed Roman, then Muslim glassmakers, to execute fiasques with geometric or floral decor.
In the 20th century, industrial blowing-molding developed, succeeding the manual blowing process still practiced today by many artisans in Europe and the Mediterranean. The technique involves sending a jet of compressed air into a mold in order to develop the parison. It allows containers like bottles to be made. In France, Lalique created true masterpieces by highlighting the industrial technique of mold blowing with compressed air.
In the artistic field, traditional blowing experienced a renaissance with the birth of the “Studio Glass” movement in the United States and in Europe in the years 1960-1970. The aim of the latter was to defend the work of art produced in the glass workshop.