PAINTINGS ON GLASS

Verre Eglomisé - Hinterglasmalerei - Back painting on clear glass

 

INTRODUCTION 

Yanny Petters has been painting on glass using a technique known as back painting or Verre Églomisé since she trained as a signwriter in the early 1980s. The term ‘Verre Eglomisé’ comes from the name of an artist and collector of glass paintings in the 18th century called Jean Baptiste Glomy. Her continued fascination for the technique on the back of glass has led her to explore its origins and to develop her own style and application. Here is a brief history and explanation of an art form which has all but disappeared since its heyday in the late 18th and early 19th centuries.

 

ORIGINS 

The earliest known examples were made in the 3rd to 5th centuries when the Egyptians and Romans decorated the bases of vessels with religious and secular decorative motifs. The design was protected between two fused pieces of clear glass.

 

The technique was first named Hinter Glas Malerei in Augsburg, Germany, around 1684, to differentiate it from stained glass. It was prevalent in Bohemia and Bavaria among farmers who produced work on glass to supplement their farming income. It became a folk art form, with religious icons as a popular subject, during the 18th and 19th centuries in Central Europe. It was known in the Canton province in China where non-professional artists painted copies of Old Masters and mirrors for export to Northern Europe, especially Britain,  as well as highly detailed work for the home market. Other examples of high quality painting on glass can also be found in India and Indonesia. Painting on the back of glass was also a common technique among signwriters who used it to create fascia signs, decorated windows and mirrors. It is still being employed in the present time though nowhere near as much as in Victorian and Edwardian times.

 

The technique was explored by the Blue Rider group of artists in the 1920s who turned what had been a folk art into fine art. Artists of the calibre of Kandinsky, Marc, Klee and Münter produced glass paintings. Nowadays, there are very few artists using the technique as a fine art. The Irish illustrator and cartoonist Marion King (1897-1963) patented the technique in the UK and Ireland in the 1930s and exhibited her 'invention' in Paris and New York.

 

Examples of painting on the back of glass are to be found in various important collections. The most significant of these is the Udo Dammert collection at the Schloßmuseum in Murnau, Bavaria and Vitromusée Romont in Switzerland. The technique has gained recognition as a fine art in recent years.      

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TECHNIQUE 

Backpainting/Verre Eglomisé/Hinterglasmalerei involves painting on the back of glass using opaque colours and  sometimes gold leaf. This means that the details and highlights of the painting must be applied first. Decorative mirrors are produced in a similar fashion, either by removing the silvering in the areas to be painted or in masking off the design before the glass is silvered.

 

In the past the paint used by artists was a mixture of ground pigment, linseed oil and varnish. The colour range was very limited, being mainly white, black, ochre, brick red, olive green, brown and gold. The colour was applied pure and flat, without mixing colours . Black or brown was used to outline the design and the rest of the colours were used to fill in the shapes.   

 

Today, special paints in strong, lightfast colours have been  developed for the signwriting trade. Yanny uses these paints as well as her own recipe including water based colours, acid etching & gold leaf when working on glass.

 

While being trained as a signwriter Yanny came across the technique through creating decorative pub mirrors and panels. She developed a fascination for Verre Églomisé and has been working with the technique to produce fine art paintings since the 1990s. Yanny also engraves the glass, giving the artwork a soft line and sparkle. She paints Irish Wild Plants to raise awareness of their beauty and delicacy as well as their importance to our environment and well-being at a time when our society is becoming more urbanised.