The History of Glasses is the Character of a Person

And the Cultural History in Intellectual Fashion

Literature Critic

Former Vice-Chancellor in Literature

Eo-ryung Lee

They say that “tools and machines are the extending of the human body”. It seems so, when looking at glasses. It is one’s own eyes and a part of the face. It is uncertain when glasses were made, but it is deduced that glasses were used as not a mere necessity, but an accessory or a symbol of one’s own status. On the internet encyclopedia, Wikipedia, there is a passage that gives an account of a monk named Fra Giordano da Rivalto, who mentions in his sermon, “I spoke with the inventor of the invention created twenty years ago”. Thus can be gathered the fact that glasses was produced in Italy in the end of the thirteenth century.

However, “because glasses were a symbol of knowledge and culture in the Middle Ages, glasses were drawn in portrait of saints even before their invention”. The effect that glasses has influenced not only the beginning of their invention, but even today on those with special occupations, as celebrities, used as their character.

Moreover, glasses were brought into Korea together with the Enlightenment civilization, thus they were not just an accessory or a tool for correcting eyesight, but symbolized the Western principle. This is why they were called ‘enlightenment glasses’ and modern gentlemen that were them were called ‘enlighteners’. Carrying gold-framed glasses with handles has become a social custom of modernization that is a small tool that cannot be excluded in novels, plays, and movies.

  There is a character that wears glasses in a Japanese animation, whose name is Megane Kko. This name has spread for popular use around the world, which illustrates the importance of glasses not only in the native Italy and Italian fashion or the western society, but also in Asian countries.

  Nevertheless, it seems as though the shock was much larger when glasses were introduced in the eastern region for the first time. In 1571 when Portugal missionary, Francis Gabral first arrived in Japan, he took out his glasses to look at his surroundings – the natives started introducing westerners as four-eyed monsters, and a small crowd of 5,000 gathered to witness this sight.

  In the west, glasses widely spread when books started being printed, and common believer were able to easily attain Bibles, after Gutenberg’s invention of new printing techniques. The supply of books and glasses were in correspondence with each other, accordingly, glasses became the symbol of scholars and knowledge. More merchants began reading for the sake of trading, leading to the increase in production and sale of glasses in markets, when glasses were previously only to be seen on desks of nobles and in libraries of convents. This verifies that knowledge propagated at a great rate, and many cultural devices increased that exploits the eyes, as reading.

  The modern civilization is symbolized by glasses, and consequently it shows a great deal of the cultural characteristic that is centered on visualism, demonstrated by the scene of Gulliver’s arrival at a remote nation of undersized people; he ensures that his glasses are in his pocket as he sighs of relief saying, “I have hope as long as I have this”.

  Looking at the popular entertainment era, glasses are used not only by religious servants or scholars, but by popular culture stars as a device of creating style, character, and aura. As General MacArthur’s colored-glasses gave him charisma as Supreme Commander of the Allied Powers of Japan, a classic case of using glasses as a symbol or a trademark is comedic actor Harold Lloyd’s circular glasses.

  With no need to enumerate with such detail, glasses, from the Middle Ages to the present day, glasses are the mirror of civilization, the character of a person, and a small, yet significant symbol of civilization that is deeply imprinted on our lifestyle. However, as a hugely common article of everyday life, it does not largely occur as the target of collection, research, study, and preservation. There are so vast a kind and many famous individuals who use them, that in order to start a glasses collection, it may be like pulling a needle out of a haystack.

  The effort that seems only impossible has been challenged by Sir Jeong-soo Lee, whose courage and devotion is fit to be praised. His splendid achievement of collecting glasses from all over the world that has unique histories, rare stories, and historical backgrounds, compiling them according to region and era, can be viewed as the collection of the history of glasses.

  Sir Jeong-soo Lee’s collection of glasses is not just a collection of tools, but is like a recorded museum of the history of civilization, knowledge, cultural history, and custom of trends in life. The message that this book of the collection of glasses from all over the world gives us is the preciousness of a single person’s power, and the beauty of his tenacious journey towards one final goal.