Fire, sand and glass
THEY speak of it as the most simple of all materials, and yet the most mysterious of them all: glass. Simple because all that it takes to make it — imagination and skill apart — is sand and fire; and mysterious, because of the countless ways in which it behaves, or can be made to behave; distorting forms, creating illusions, standing things up on their head, bringing into being an infinity of images.
Man has known glass for close to 5,000 years — there are images of artisans blowing glass in the temples and tombs of Egypt in the thims of the Pharaohs, and closer home one knows of Indian glass beads that go back to the third millennium BC. And yet how little one really knows oneself, or understands, came to me sharply when I went to see the other day a Museum of Glass at Hergiswil, in the neighbourhood of the exquisite little Swiss town of Luzern.
It was with a sense of anticipation that I went, having heard much about “the Glasi”, as the glass-factory there is affectionately called, it being the oldest hand-made glass unit of the its kind in Switzerland (founded in 1817), and having come to learn that the museum of glass attached to it had won prestigious European awards. What I saw however I was entirely unprepared for.
The picturesque location at the edge of the Vierwaldstatten lake, the spick orderliness of the environment, the crisp air, one could almost take for granted, for such is the very nature of this achingly-beautiful countryside. But the museum itself — small in some ways, and certainly unpretentious — leaves a deep imprint on the mind. For it does precisely what museums are meant to do: not merely inform but excite and enrich; expand the mind.
Visitors are led into the museum in small groups, for there are no open galleries here, no extensive halls. One enters a small room, in the centre a circular table-like structure made of glass, atop which, along glass grooves, runs slowly a glass ball, by itself as if in perpetual motion, its movement tracked by a thin, sharply focussed light. As one watches, fascinated trying to take in suggestions of circularity, of the passage of time, a recorded voice begins to lead the visitor into the history of glass making, placing within it the history of the factory — the two artfully joined together. The pitch is perfect, the acoustics of the rooms flawless. Suddenly another corner of the room lights up, discreetly placed machines projecting on to small, framed screens synchronized images, tracing the development of glass across time. Silvers of history from Egypt and Greece and Venice are heard; images of exquisite glass-work flash upon the screen; the recorded voice tells you persuasively of trade-guilds and punishments meted out to artisans leaking secrets out of their workshops; priceless objects move before one’s eyes as if placed upon revolving discs.
And then, suddenly, noiselessly, a door, unseen in the dark, opens, and one is propelled into other rooms where other things unfold, each segment perfectly focussed: the commentary brief and crisp, the visual elements skillfully balanced. More recent developments swing into focus: the history of glass-making in the Black Forest of Germany, the considerations of easy transportation while locating factories, the coming in of mechanisation, the impact of the wars upon the glass industry.
But not everything is told in terms of flat, projected images. It is somewhere between a hall of mirrors, a cabinet of curiosities, a theatre of illusion, that the museum falls. Real objects, shot with history, mix with two-dimensional sights.
Suddenly, a window would noiselessly open up to reveal a dusty truck that had clocked a million miles carrying glass bottles during the war, some of them still lying tied up in it; then another dark room lights up, revealing the working desk of some former director/designer of the factory, everything in perfect place, from a modest, scratched table and overflowing shelves filled with glass to a bunch of heavy keys, a pair of spectacles resting upon an open ledger, a half-eaten apple, a thermos-flask.
One hears of glass-blowers also playing upon wind-instruments in the evening, of workers striking for higher wages, of the troubles faced by the factory, the tough competition offered to small factories making glass with hand — like the Hergiswil Glasi — by increasing mechanisation.
In the final lap, the courageous story of Roberto Niederer is told who struggled, and finally managed, to keep the factory alive, with the help of old glass workers, at the critical time when it faced closure and oblivion. It is his vision that comes across, enlivened with glimpses thrown in of old furnaces and teams of craftsmen at work, blowing glass that attracts thousands of visitors to the place, month after month, season upon tourist season. There is a sense of pride that one picks up all over the place, a feeling of triumph in the face of adversity.
But if this part of the museum is exciting, the other part, an exhibition entitled “Phenomenal Glass” is absolutely magical. For here there are aspects of glass — experimental, playful, illusory, scientific — that can keep the visitor, old and young alike, glued there for hours; musical instruments made of glass, distorting mirrors, skeins of glass-thread, sounds amplified by or completely blocked out by glass, even a green forest where, shrieking with delight, children wander abut listening to a recorded fairy tale, chancing upon hidden objects, ‘live’ and adventure. Here, one can almost pick up the sounds of minds as they snap and crackle, stretch and expand.
Why not here?
I confess that most of the time that I was in the museum, I cold not shake a feeling of envy, tinged with some depression, from my mind. Since glass was the theme, thoughts wandered in the direction of our own Firozabad where a remarkable hand-made glass industry still flourishes. But what can a visitor to the place get to learn, or see, other than eat and dust? There is history all around us, and incredible skills handed down by tradition. But what do we make of them?
