The Speaking Glass of Émile Gallé
Émile Gallé (1846-1904) was a French artist known for his innovative contributions to the Art Nouveau movement, particularly in glassmaking and ceramics. Gallé perfected techniques such as cameo glass, marquetry, and pâte de verre. His designs feature intricate botanical motifs, symbolist themes, and a deep appreciation for nature. He was a leader in the École de Nancy, an Art Nouveau workshop, and his creations had a significant influence on decorative arts at the turn of the 20th century. Gallé often turned to the literary arts to enrich his creations.
Gallé developed a technique he called "verre parlante" or "speaking glass," which involved inscribing poetic, symbolic, or philosophical messages onto his glass pieces. Gallé's creations often featured intricate designs inspired by nature. Gallé's addition of verse to his creations enhanced their aesthetic appeal, but also imbued them with layers of meaning.
This Gallé vase in the collection of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston features the inscription "échappez-vous des ombres immobiles," or “escape from the still shadows.” The line comes from the poem "La genèse polynésienne" by Charles-Marie Leconte de Lisle, part of his collection "Poèmes barbares" published in 1862. The poem interprets Polynesian creation myths and features the deity Taaroa commanding the formation of the universe. You can read the entire poem here.
My own poem “The Orpheus Vase,” published this week in Amethyst Magazine, was inspired by a similar work by Émile Gallé. You can see Gallé’s Orpheus vase here.
The Orpheus vase, which currently resides in the Musée des Arts décoratifs in Paris, depicts the lovers Orpheus and Eurydice at the moment of their tragic separation. Completely new in its use of materials and its expressive form, Gallé’s dark, tumultuous, classically-shaped funeral urn appears to be under some kind of spell, not unlike the inanimate objects that were said to be enchanted by the beautiful music and poetry of Orpheus. On one side of the glass the figures, designed by Gallé’s longtime friend Victor Prouvé, emerge from a frothy, flowing conglomeration of lava-like fluid. Gallé has captured them at the moment Orpheus realizes that his own glance has doomed Eurydice to return to the underworld, and the lyre has fallen from Orpheus’ hands and is about to be lost in the pitch. Gallé has twisted the hot glass at the base of the urn fusing the illustration with its support, further blurring the line between utility and aesthetics.
Created between 1888-1889, this Art Nouveau collaboration between Émile Gallé and Prouvé exists somewhere between their two worlds of decorative and fine arts. The subject matter can also be seen as an expression of the changing role of art itself within a changing world.
With this work, Gallé has used an experimental technique of glassmaking to produce something completely new. Instead of white figures on a blue background as in traditional cameo glass, we have an experimental mix of clear glass in combination with opaque layers of black, gray, and red to produce something truly original. The molten glass was mold-blown, hot-worked, and then carved, and gilded. The verses from Virgil are freely wheel-engraved in delicate calligraphy, elevating the engraver’s task to fine art.
The result is an expressive work, a shift for Gallé from simple, clear botanical images to a complete work of art conveying a complicated mood involving all of the senses that would appeal to a French audience of elite intellectuals who’d recognize Gallé’s symbolism and appreciate the deeper meaning behind Gallé’s “talking glass.”
In this piece, it’s possible we see Gallé’s own world in flux at the turn of the century frozen in time and space like hot glass cooled from the fiery furnace. Gallé made this piece, which he signed with the cross of Lorraine, for the Exposition Universelle in 1889 held on the 100th anniversary of the storming of the Bastille. The vase was exhibited again in 1900.
The two friends and artisans Gallé and Prouvé used poetry to infuse the Orpheus vase with layers of meaning, elevating the decorative art of glassmaking to the level of fine art. The Orpheus vase makes use of the rich and far-reaching themes of Greek mythology to stir human emotion and imbue the work with deeper significance.
The Orpheus vase comes to a life-affirming conclusion, presenting the forced separation of Orpheus and Eurydice after a long-awaited reunion as a cautionary tale, with the verse:
Ne retournez plus/en arrière/Ce serait me perdre deux fois/ Et pour toujours
Do not turn back anymore/ It would be to lose me twice/ And forever
inscribed beside the lovers. With this fantastic vision of hell paused forever in space and time, we remember that art has the power to beguile and transform and love has the power to triumph over death.
www.kellymhoule.com Kelly Houle Gallery of Original Fine Art (See my newly listed painting auctions this week ending on Sunday) Kelly M. Houle (@kellymhoule) • Instagram photos and videos Poetry — Kelly M. Houle