Abstract

This research has been an art-based practice-led project focused on Chinese „inside painting‟ in glass art. It has attempted to create a „new model‟ for Chinese traditional inside painting through the creation of contemporary glass artworks. This is timely because Chinese academic glass teaching is emerging in universities, and cast glass techniques dominate the curriculum. The research offers an example of how traditional methods might be revitalized by one artist to extend the options for Chinese University glass teaching. Potential recipients are glass artists and students as well as curators and collectors.

This research mainly used studio-based art practices, inspired by traditional inside painting of Chinese snuff bottles, traditional Chinese painting and calligraphy, influenced by Taoism, together with Western glass painting, printing and calligraphy in order to reduce some of the existing limitations of traditional methods.

The methods of glass making for this research covered blowing, casting, flame work, fusing, slumping, incorporating „outside‟ painting combined with „inside‟ painting, and printing combined with inside painting.

Traditional inside painting techniques have developed over more than 200 years into a popular form of Chinese folk art, often based on glass snuff bottles with painted decoration on the inside. The craftsmen who make these pieces usually pay more attention to inside painting skills and overlook their own artistic expression. The designs used tend to be repetitive and copies of existing designs from other media such as ink painting or photographs. In this research, a body of inside painted glass works was produced to show how the glass form and painted content were combined. This work also helped to establish possible ways to reduce the limitations of traditional inside painting of Chinese snuff bottles.

Contextual aspects were supported by study visits to key collections and conferences, and interviews with other makers and collectors. It is hoped that this research will promote the development of traditional inside painting and lead to inside glass painting developing as a strand of the contemporary Chinese glass arts.