ARISTIDE NAJEAN - Murano, the Cathedral of Glass

Creative from an early age, painter, draughtsman, Aristide Najean studied architecture, artistic anatomy, and then discovered Murano glass in 1986, when he was barely 27 years old. The glass he colors, to which he gives ample, sinuous, often organic forms, as if he had the almost divine power to give it life, he sees it as the ultimate artistic expression.

First, there is the encounter with the Master Glassmaker Mario Badioli who welcomes him in his workshop and accompanies him in his learning of the material. Since then, Aristide Najean has worked with some of the greatest, including world-renowned designers such as Philippe Starck, thanks to whom he has carried out projects with Baccarat, for example, or the Royal Monceau in Paris, and the Palazzina Grassi in Venice. As a sign of destiny, the two artists met in Murano itself, this small island located north of the city of Venice, accessible by vaporetto, and that the palaces, gardens and the work of master glassmakers, above all, have made famous, since its heyday between the sixteenth and eighteenth centuries, which still continues today.

Aristide Najean has now settled permanently in Murano. His artistic contribution helps to give a new dynamic to the art of Venetian glass, as evidenced by the old workshop of Master Alfredo Barbini, which he renovated and transformed into a true cathedral of glass, open since October 2015, and that Leclaireur had the chance to visit.

Here and there a piano, canvases, and his glass works, candleholders, lamp posts, with curves that one would think were drawn by nature, and, on the floor, Najean's intricate designs, which also testify to his inexhaustible creativity. Inside this supreme work, an ode to creation, the French artist himself blows and fires his glass. In the furnaces, installed under large brick vaults, the glass takes on exuberant, almost fantastic, joyful forms. From chandeliers to majestic chandeliers, the transcended glass flows from the high ceiling, offering a cascade of light in the evening. The works are astonishing in their proportions, in the innumerable ramifications that make them up and turn them into chaos tamed by the artist, who makes lighting more than a simple functional object. Under his hand, the glass becomes a work of art, and invites to dream, even to the grandiose.

Aristide Najean's works are available at Leclaireur Boissy d'Anglas and Leclaireur Los Angeles.