Each plot of Emil Galle is the entire era, compressed into a “libretto” of an artwork (the term of Galle) and presented to us in the form of an essay, phrase or literary quotation, overflowing with symbols. The artisan did not just create this or that object - he sought to put into the form and decor the philosophical content that was relevant to him, focusing on eternal questions and themes. Galle was brought up in the context of the Historism era art. As an artist, while creating his works, he attempted to combine the traditions of the previous era with innovative approach to the material and new pictorial plots that were characteristic of the Art Nouveau style.

A lot from the traditions of historicism, characteristic of European art in the middle - second half of the 19th century, with its endless retrievals to previous eras was presented in the author's artistic techniques of Emile Galle. At the factory in Nancy, Galle continued to produce ceramics inspired by the eighteenth-century porcelain. Faience products were created with the Gothic style features, with heraldic images, romantic art works in the “Troubadour” style. These products often depicted both simple armorial figures and non-heraldic figures. Most of these symbols date back to the metal reinforcements of the medieval shield.

New video "Heraldry"* is posted in our video cycle "Ceramics of Emile Galle".

The origins of heraldry go back to the Middle Ages, it was then that a special heraldic language was developed - a descriptive code developed in Western European culture for recording and describing images on coats of arms and standards. In the course of their long life, Galle's art works were enriched with new meanings, often outgrowing those with which they were endowed by the author when he created them.

* Heraldry is a historical discipline that deals with the study of coats of arms, as well as the traditions and practices of their use.

Ref.: “Lorraine orchids…” Art by Galle and Daum Freres. State Hermitage Museum, 1999. St. Petersburg, JSC "Slavia"
Galle lines. “European and Russian coloured laminated glass of the late 19th – early 20th centuries in the collections of Russian museums. Moscow: First Publication Program of the V. Potanin Charitable Foundation, 2013