Vittorio Zecchin’s Transparent Glass

Vittorio Zecchin abandoned his artistic ambitions at the turn of the 20th century. At age 23 he quit the Venetian Academy of Fine Arts, as realism-bent teachers dismissed his ideas on trace, symbolism and use of colour. He had already been working as a civil servant for nearly a decade when names like Klimt and Toorop started reaching the Venetian lagoon. The time was finally right for his artistic ambitions to reemerge.

After becoming one of the biggest names in the pictorial Liberty style, Zecchin tried his hand at applied arts, working with glassware —most famously with Cappellin Venini and Artisti Barovier.

This autumn, Le Stanze del Vetro is honouring his prolific production in an exhibition titled Transparent Glass for Cappellin and Venini, curated by Marino Barovier.

The exhibition presents approximately 250 reasons why the Zecchin-designed work was immediately distinguishable from the rest of the Murano production at the time: either for its rigorous shapes and classical proportions or for his use of intense shades of yellow, green, blue and amethyst.

Among the classical-shaped hand-blown pieces that will be on display is a Veronese vase inspired y the one depicted in the sixteenth-century Annunciation painting at Venice’s Galleria dell’Academia. A selection of Tintoretto-like tableware reference fifteenth-century paintings, while a sample of compote bowls bearing delicate eighteenth-century-style flowers speak of his more utilitarian production. “It was a turning point in twentieth-century Murano and contributed to breathe new life into glass making, which, with rare exceptions, had been lingering in the sterile repetition of dated models,” said Barovier.

Transparent Glass is the opening event of The Venice Glass Week, the first international festival dedicated to the art of glass making.

The exhibition will be open from September 11, 2017 to January 7, 2018