Tiffany Glass

Tiffany Glass - Body

tiffany glass

Natural Inspiration and Human Innovation

How does natural inspiration combined with human innovation create art? Louis Comfort Tiffany combined his skills as a naturalist and designer to revolutionize the world of glass art. When Tiffany began his career as an artist, he thought he would be a painter. However, he quickly developed a fascination for glass as an artform. He was also inspired by the Arts and Crafts Movement, which encouraged artists to work in media other than paint and canvas.

His goal was to create innovative, sculptural glass objects. What does it mean for an object, like a vase or a lamp, to be a sculpture?

Tiffany, and the many people he employed at his studio, created several types of glass artwork. Many of these works were decorative arts, pieces that are both functional and aesthetically beautiful. The decorative artworks in this spotlight feature lilies and ferns. You may want to explore the lily spotlight and fern spotlight before exploring Tiffany’s artworks in depth.

Lily Lamp Close Looking Video

Explore this artwork with questions about light, innovation, and nature.

Glass, Light, and Color

Glass fascinated Tiffany because it demonstrates the effect of light on color. Tiffany was interested in the science of light. Tiffany used his scientific knowledge about the transmission and reflection of light to inform his designs.

To help him showcase light and color in his work, he invented a new type of glassblowing. He called this new technique Favrile glass because the works are made by hand (Favrile comes from the old-fashioned word fabrile meaning handmade). The Favrile glassblowing process is complex. The glassblower combines different kinds of glass together, manipulating the colors and forms of the glass. At the end, the glassblower coats the work in metallic oxides to give it an iridescent (or color-changing) quality.

Tiffany’s Favrile glassworks change color in different lighting.

Compare two photographs of the same Favrile Glass Fern Vase taken from the same angle in different lighting.

Green vase against a grey background. Two large greenish grey leaves are visible on the vase. The leaves appear lighter than the background. Light reflects off the upper third of the vase.

Louis Comfort Tiffany (American, 1848 - 1933, Favrile Glass Fern Vase, ca. 1900, glass. Purchased with funds from the Art Collectors’ Council. The Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens. 2004.7.

Green vase against a white background. Two large green leaves are visible on the vase. The leaves appear darker than the background. Light reflects off the lower half of the vase.

Louis Comfort Tiffany (American, 1848 - 1933, Favrile Glass Fern Vase, ca. 1900, glass. Purchased with funds from the Art Collectors’ Council. Photography © Fredrik Nilsen Studio 2014. The Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens. 2004.7.

Questions & Prompts

  • What similarities do you see in the colors?

  • What differences do you see in the colors?

  • Which lighting do you prefer? Why?

  • Which lighting reminds you most of a natural environment? Why?

  • How does the lighting affect the shapes you see in this vase?

  • Where do you think the light source is in each of these photographs?

Title page for a book titled "ON THE ORIGIN OF SPECIES"

On the Origin of Species, Charles Darwin, author, 1850, printed book. The Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens. 32680.

An Evolving Medium for an Evolving World

About 40 years before Tiffany made his lily lamp and fern vase, Charles Darwin published On the Origin of Species. Before Darwin published his book, the Western worldview understood the natural world as relatively static. According to this understanding, the natural world had always looked and worked the way it did, and nothing ever changed. The theory of evolution changed that view.

For the first time, Europeans and people of European descent thought of the natural world as being in a state of change. Blown glass interpretations of the natural world speak to this state of change because the medium goes through so much change during the art-making process. Additionally, in Tiffany’s Favrile process, using glass of varying colors and densities results in lines or veins of color. These create differences in each piece that mimic the differences between individuals of the same species in nature. Tiffany used his art to show his understanding that the natural world is in a constant state of change.

On the Origin of Species, Charles Darwin, author, 1850, printed book. The Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens. 32680.

Transcription

Light, Color, and Your Natural World

Tiffany was fascinated by the interactions of light and color. Use your observation and art-making skills to explore these interactions.

  • Choose an outdoor plant in your environment (at home, school, a park, or somewhere else in your community) and observe it.

  • Create artwork capturing the colors of the plant.

  • Return to the same outdoor plant at a different time of day and repeat the observation and art-making processes.

  • Compare the colors in your two artworks.

References and Resources

Neustadt, Egon. 1970. The Lamps of Tiffany. New York: The Fairfield Press.

Paul, Tessa. 1992. The Art of Louis Comfort Tiffany. New York: Crescent Books.

The Rarest of Aquamarines (Tiffany Favrile Glass). 2017. The Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens. YouTube video. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uy8wlQSjnmw.