Venetian Glass

The Venetian art of glass-blowing, the longest-standing tradition of its kind in Europe, is spotlighted in this lovely, eye-catching volume, itself a work of art. In her absorbing text accompanying some 200 color plates, Mentasti, a Venice-born historian of glass, follows a succession of styles from Art Nouveau through the Viennese Secession, Art Deco, the 1930s Novecento style with its transparent, simple forms, to the burst of creativity in the '60s and '70s and the contemporary return to color and representation. Gianni Toso's satiric figurines, Alessandro Pianon's blown-glass chicks with iron feet, Luciano Vistosi's human skull sculpted out of green crystal and Napoleone Martinuzzi's spirited pony in coral glass stand out among pieces that achieve dazzling effects through polychrome, enameling, latticework, iridescence and other techniques. (May)