Complete Collection of Chinese Gold, Silver, Glass, and Enamel Works. Volume 4: Glassware (1)

Author: Yang Boba
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2005-01-01
Features: The six volumes of gold, silver, glass, and enamel wares are divided into three volumes of gold and silver wares, one volume of glass wares, and two volumes of enamel wares. The selected artifacts are all masterpieces from various eras. In addition to the artistic value of the artifacts themselves, they also take into account their historical, artistic, and archaeological value. Each volume is divided into three parts: one for specialized essays, two for color illustrations, and three for color illustration descriptions. It includes 322 sets of glass artifacts from the Western Zhou to the Qing Dynasty (11th century BC to 1911 AD). Glass was anciently known as "liuli," "luli," "liuli," "poli," or "liaojiao."
In China's 3,000-year glass history, the primary pursuit and aesthetic standard was to create "medicinal jade" with a warm, smooth, and beautiful texture, similar to jade. This focus on imitating jade in ancient glass has been a constant theme throughout the history of Chinese glass. This is also where the distinctive characteristics of Chinese glass lie in its formula, craftsmanship, and aesthetics. It was essential to achieve the level of "true jade," while the strength, toughness, and color of the material were secondary—as long as it resembled jade, the goal was met.
However, the influence of Western imports, such as dragonfly-eye glass beads, ancient Roman glass, Yuezhi glass, ancient Persian glass, Islamic glass, and European glass, cannot be ignored in the development of ancient glass.