Crafts: Melodies for the Eye

"I go directly and ring the bell. If they answer, fine! If they don't, I ring the bell again a year later." For Italy's Egidio Costantini, a balding man in his 50s, this persistent bell ringing has opened the doors of some of the world's most renowned artists—Oskar Kokoschka, Jean Arp, Max Ernst, Luis Fontana, Yves Klein, Jean Cocteau, Picasso. No avid autograph seeker nor voracious collector, Costantini is a contemporary Venetian visionary out to restore the grandeur that was glass four centuries ago (see color).

Forge of the Angels. Felled by a...

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