Murano: Behind the Glass

People from the island of Murano belong to one of those rare civilizations which – much to the joy of the historian and the anthropologist – have come down, almost unchanged, to the present time. To visit a glass furnace, enter its warehouse, explore its tortuous nooks and crannies may seem like a journey back in time, a jump into the past. It has much in common with the thrill experienced by the archaeologist, who, after years of excavations, discovers the opening that leads into a great mansion of the past, which towers in front of him, rescued from the desert sands, as intact as it was when its last tenant left it. The wonders of glass, as well as the artisans’ amazing creative skills, are overcome by the feeling of witnessing a strange time anomaly. That’s how, wishing for a brief moment to be a photographer, I tried to convey in pictures the childlike emotion I felt before such landscapes and people, as if watching something that time could not wash away, but which is still full of colour and life. Henry Thoreau Henry Thoreau - who graduated in architecture from IUAV in Venice - is an architect, painter, photographer, and has shown his works widely in Italy and abroad. As a photographer he has been for several years regulary contributing to AD France, as well as to many other major Italian and international magazines (Io Donna, Vogue Casa, Domus, L’Officiel, Panorama, More than Classic). He collaborates with the Politecnico in Milan.