(via The Outline of Art) William Orpen writes:
Through all this period of drudgery and semi-starvation, Watteau never despaired, and snatched every opportunity to improve his art, drawing from Nature at night and during his rare holidays and leisure moments. Then by a happy chance he made the acquaintance of the decorative artist Claude Gillot, who, after seeing Watteau’s drawings invited the young man to live with him.
Rescued from his miserable factory, Watteau worked with enthusiasm at the ornamental painting of his new friend, who was then chiefly engaged in representing scenes from Italian comedy. Watteau, who in his poverty and ill-health worshipped elegance and all the graces of life, soon rivalled and surpassed his tutor in painting slim Harlequins, simple Pierrots, dainty Columbines, and other well-defined characters of Italian comedy; and it may be that Gillot grew jealous of his protégé. After a period of warm friendship, the two artists parted on bad terms, and though Watteau in after life never ceased to praise Gillot’s pictures, he kept silent about the man, and would never answer when questioned about the breach between them. Gillot, on the other hand, tacitly acknowledged his pupil’s superiority, for some time after the quarrel he abandoned painting and devoted himself to etching.
When Watteau left Gillot, his fellow-assistant, Nicolas Lancret (1690-1743), who afterwards became his pupil, left with him, and both young men found employment with Claude Audran, a painter of ornaments, who was also a guardian of the Luxembourg Palace. This stay with Audran had a profound influence on the art of Watteau. There were no gardens of the Luxembourg in those days, and the park attached to the royal palace was full of wild and natural beauty which appealed to the young artist, and drew forth his powers as a landscape painter. It was here that he discovered and learnt to paint those noble clumps of trees which form the background to the figures of his idylls and pastorals.
Inspired thus by the externals of the palace, Watteau was also profoundly moved by what was within, the picture gallery containing the series of great paintings by Rubens which illustrated the life of Marie de Medicis. Watteau viewed these spirited paintings again and again; he copies them with zest, and became so saturated with Rubens that eventually he was able to deflect his fellow-countrymen from Italian ideals and revivify French paintings with the vigorous realism of Rubens. His worship of the great Fleming, to whom he felt himself related by ties of race as well as artistic sympathy, never degenerated into servile imitation: ‘by means of a gradually widening realism,’ says the distinguished French critic M Camille Mauclair Watteau ‘arrived at the point of preserving in his small canvass all Rubens’ admirable breadth, while achieving a masterly originality of grouping.’ A superb example of Watteau’s powers in this respect is his exquisite ‘Lady at her Toilet’ in the Wallace Collection. Here a theme, in which Rubens could hardly have avoided a certain coarseness, becomes a model of grace and refinement.
Once again the jealousy of a senior threatened Watteau’s progress. Watteau showed his master a realistic painting of soldiers on the march, and Audran, who naturally did not want to lose so talented as assistant, advised him not to paint realistic pictures lest he should lose his skill as a decorator. But Watteau, determined to devote himself to original work, was now diplomat enough to avoid a quarrel, and desirous of leaving Audran courteously, he informed him that he must return to Valenciennes to visit his family. At Valenciennes the young artist continued his studies of nature and contemporary life, and he painted a series of military pictures illustrating camp life, marches, and outpost duty. But after staying there long enough to justify his visit, he returned to Paris, where he was now not altogether unknown.
At this time his great desire was to win the Prix de Rome and to visit Italy, and with this object he competed in 1709, the subject set by the Academy being ‘David granting Abigail Nabal’s Pardon.’ The prize, however, was won by a student named Grison, Watteau being placed second and thus losing his opportunity of visiting Rome.
Still desirous of studying in Italy, and still hopeful that the Academy might help him to accomplish his desire, Watteau three years later contrived to get two of his military pictures hung in a room through which Academicians were in the habit of passing. Several admired the ‘vigorous coloring, and a certain harmony which made them appear the work of an old master,’ and one Academician, de la Fosse by name, made inquiries as to the painter. It was then discovered that his young painter, already twenty nine, was so modest that all he wanted from the Academy was its influence with the King that he might receive a small grant to enable him to study in Italy.
Attracted by his talent and modesty, M de la Fosse sought an interview with Watteau which had the most surprising results. With a rare generosity the Academician told the young man that he had no need to seek instruction in Italy, that he undervalued his own ability, and the Academicians believed he was already capable of doing them honor; in short, he had only to take the proper steps to be accepted a member of their society. The young artist did as he was told, and was immediately received as a member of the French Academy.
In all the long and memorable history of the Academy of France no incident similar to this has ever been recorded. That a young artist, without friends or fortune, who had failed to win the Prix de Rome and humbly begged for help in his studies, should spontaneously and unanimously be elected in Academician, is a miracle without precedent or sequel in the history of all Academies. This unique event was the turning point in Watteau’s career, and henceforward his fame was assured and he was able to earn his living in comfort.
The Rise Of French Painting (continued)
Tuesday, January 15, 2008
Heard On The Street
In the gem/jewelry/art markets, as in life, the only way to grow and preserve yourself is to get rid of what is not working for you.
Greg Raymer
I found Greg Raymer WSOP, Champion of 2004, an interesting personality, because when we won the title he did not let it go to his head + he uses a small fossil as a card protector while he plays poker + he plays within himself; a lesson for all.
Five Reasons To Go To Tucson
Derek Levin shares his views on the Tucson Gem and Mineral show + the business opportunities for gem and jewelry entrepreneurs + the worldwide network of people and cultures + other viewpoints @ http://www.jewelryartistmagazine.com/feature/tucson08.cfm
Useful links:
www.colored-stone.com
www.gemmaker.com
Useful links:
www.colored-stone.com
www.gemmaker.com
Monday, January 14, 2008
The Craftsman
The Craftsman by Richard Sennett is an interesting book that engages many dimensions of skill + Sennett apprises us of the surprising extent to which we can learn about ourselves through the labor of making physical things + this thought-provoking book explores the work of craftsmen past and present, identifies deep connections between material consciousness and ethical values, and challenges received ideas about what constitutes good work in today’s world.
(via Amazon) Why do people work hard, and take pride in what they do? This book, a philosophically-minded enquiry into practical activity of many different kinds past and present, is about what happens when people try to do a good job. It asks us to think about the true meaning of skill in the 'skills society' and argues that pure competition is a poor way to achieve quality work. Sennett suggests, instead, that there is a craftsman in every human being, which can sometimes be enormously motivating and inspiring - and can also in other circumstances make individuals obsessive and frustrated."The Craftsman" shows how history has drawn fault-lines between craftsman and artist, maker and user, technique and expression, practice and theory, and that individuals' pride in their work, as well as modern society in general, suffers from these historical divisions. But the past lives of crafts and craftsmen show us ways of working (using tools, acquiring skills, thinking about materials) which provide rewarding alternative ways for people to utilise their talents. We need to recognise this if motivations are to be understood and lives made as fulfilling as possible.The book divides into three parts: the first addresses the craftsman at work.
This is a story of workshops - the guilds of medieval goldsmiths, the ateliers of musical instrument makers, modern laboratories - in which masters and apprentices work together but not as equals. In its second part the book explores the development of skill: knowledge gained in the hand through touch and movement. A diverse group of case studies illustrates the grounding of skill in physical practice - from striking a piano key to the use of imperfect scientific instruments like the first telescopes or the anatomist's scalpel. The argument of the third part is that motivation counts for more than talent.Enlightenment thinkers believed that everyone possesses the ability to do good work, and that we are more likely to fail as craftsmen due to our motivation than because of our lack of ability. The book assesses and challenges this belief, concluding by considering craftsmanship as more than a technical practice, and considering the ethical questions that craftsmen's sustaining habits raise about how we anchor ourselves in the world around us.
Useful links:
Richard Sennett
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Sennett
Richard Taylor
www.wetaworkshop.co.nz
David Trubridge
www.davidtrubridge.com
(via Amazon) Why do people work hard, and take pride in what they do? This book, a philosophically-minded enquiry into practical activity of many different kinds past and present, is about what happens when people try to do a good job. It asks us to think about the true meaning of skill in the 'skills society' and argues that pure competition is a poor way to achieve quality work. Sennett suggests, instead, that there is a craftsman in every human being, which can sometimes be enormously motivating and inspiring - and can also in other circumstances make individuals obsessive and frustrated."The Craftsman" shows how history has drawn fault-lines between craftsman and artist, maker and user, technique and expression, practice and theory, and that individuals' pride in their work, as well as modern society in general, suffers from these historical divisions. But the past lives of crafts and craftsmen show us ways of working (using tools, acquiring skills, thinking about materials) which provide rewarding alternative ways for people to utilise their talents. We need to recognise this if motivations are to be understood and lives made as fulfilling as possible.The book divides into three parts: the first addresses the craftsman at work.
This is a story of workshops - the guilds of medieval goldsmiths, the ateliers of musical instrument makers, modern laboratories - in which masters and apprentices work together but not as equals. In its second part the book explores the development of skill: knowledge gained in the hand through touch and movement. A diverse group of case studies illustrates the grounding of skill in physical practice - from striking a piano key to the use of imperfect scientific instruments like the first telescopes or the anatomist's scalpel. The argument of the third part is that motivation counts for more than talent.Enlightenment thinkers believed that everyone possesses the ability to do good work, and that we are more likely to fail as craftsmen due to our motivation than because of our lack of ability. The book assesses and challenges this belief, concluding by considering craftsmanship as more than a technical practice, and considering the ethical questions that craftsmen's sustaining habits raise about how we anchor ourselves in the world around us.
Useful links:
Richard Sennett
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Sennett
Richard Taylor
www.wetaworkshop.co.nz
David Trubridge
www.davidtrubridge.com
Ulysses' Gaze
Ulysses' Gaze (1995)
Directed by: Theo Angelopoulos
Screenplay: Theo Angelopoulos, Tonino Guerra
Cast: Harvey Keitel, Maia Morgenstern, Erland Josephson
(via YouTube): Ulysses´Gaze. A tribute
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SAz9Vc2lVVA
Ulysses´Gaze official movie trailer
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DaUEulIEBV8
Ulysses´ Gaze. Dance Scene (Part 1)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FoPy6AAC16M
Ulysses´ Gaze. Dance Scene (Part 2)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kE5B7WSEOao
I think Ulysses' Gaze is a synopsis of 20th century Greek history in a film + it's natural + I enjoyed it.
Directed by: Theo Angelopoulos
Screenplay: Theo Angelopoulos, Tonino Guerra
Cast: Harvey Keitel, Maia Morgenstern, Erland Josephson
(via YouTube): Ulysses´Gaze. A tribute
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SAz9Vc2lVVA
Ulysses´Gaze official movie trailer
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DaUEulIEBV8
Ulysses´ Gaze. Dance Scene (Part 1)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FoPy6AAC16M
Ulysses´ Gaze. Dance Scene (Part 2)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kE5B7WSEOao
I think Ulysses' Gaze is a synopsis of 20th century Greek history in a film + it's natural + I enjoyed it.
Jewelers Of Phoenicia And Greece
(via 5000 Years of Gems and Jewelry) Frances Rogers and Alice Beard writes:
2. Goldsmiths Of The Classic Period
Slowly, very slowly, the once simple Greek began to learn for himself the art of shaping metals and engraving stones. At first his ambition led him only as far as copying the products brought from the Orient. Seemingly it nearly always happened like that. The novice craftsman who had already seen some particular type of jewelry started by sedulously copying the work of the master. Sometimes the pupil would outstrip the master in point of technique, yet never lay hold for himself of a single spark of originality, but only continue to imitate. In other cases, the one-time copyist would turn creative and his work would take on new forms. The craftsmen of Greece were among those who in time became creative and produced new designs.
Although at first the early Greek jewelry followed faithfully along Oriental lines—the sphinx of Egypt and the winged bull of Assyria appearing constantly in designs—yet after a time the goldsmith began to develop his own ideas of decorative art; and even when the pattern itself was borrowed from others it was given Greek characteristics. The little sacred beetle of Egypt continued to be the most popular form of signet, but interest gradually shifted from the convex back of the scarab to the device engraved on its stomach. The beetle was no longer carved with realism; its engraved base became a reflection, in miniature, of Greek art. Various gods and demons, the sphinx, the sirens, and warriors and horsemen were carved, always intaglio, on scarabs of carnelian, agate and chalcedony. They were set in swivel rings and served both as seals and ornaments.
As the artists of Greece became increasingly independent, the goldsmith modified and changed an established form until its derivation might be traced. For instance, of the little Egyptian beetle so long in vogue, he retained only its general scaraboid form, and this he set in a new manner. The signet stone, instead of being mounted on a swivel, was set solidly in a bed hollowed out of the metal of the ring.
On its now flat top the engraver cut not deities but scenes taken from daily life and especially those portraying the affairs of the gentler sex-perhaps a woman taking a bath or playing on some musical instrument. And presently, turning to nature herself for inspiration, the craftsman began to use flowers, leaves, animals, and the beauty of human body to furnish models for his designs. These he engraved on precious stones and wrought in gold. Gold, not merely as a setting for gems, but in its own right became his favorite medium. It was ornamented with embossed patterns impressed by means of stone molds, or its surface was covered with intricate designs built with tiny dots of gold, each soldered expertly into place. Rich filigree ornamentation was made with fine threads of gold twisted and bent into elaborate patterns. Enamels were used sparingly and gemstones only when they enhanced the beauty of earrings, necklaces, pendants, amulets and other jewelry.
Like the people of the East, the ancient Greeks believed in the magic powers of precious stones. But after a time, although the masses still clung to such superstitions, the more enlightened developed a certain skepticism concerning the matter; the Greek physician, for example, took a radical step. He declared that disease was not the work of some evil spirit, but that aches and pains were due to physical causes. Therefore a precious stone designed to cast out a devil (that did not exist anyway) could not cure physical ailments.
So far, his reasoning was all to the good, but even the progressive physician could not rid himself of a belief in the essential healing power of gems. He merely shifted their powers from magic to what he considered a commonsense basis. Herbs were good as medicine, but precious stones, being more rare and valuable, were even better. Fortunately the patient was not required to swallow a gem whole. The dose was made easy to take (if not palatable) by grinding the stone into powder and then mixing it with some liquid. This method of preparing the expensive remedy was practical only when the stone was comparatively soft. If it were very hard and therefore difficult to reduce to powder the patient could wear it next his skin—an external application equivalent to a plaster. Jasper, so worn, was prescribed for epilepsy; amber and coral were held in high esteem as cures for eye and throat troubles. This profound faith in the healing virtues of certain gems has taken such deep hold on the mind of mankind that it still exists, and we shall come upon it again and again in later times and in countries far from the Mediterranean.
Goldsmiths Of The Classic Period (continued)
2. Goldsmiths Of The Classic Period
Slowly, very slowly, the once simple Greek began to learn for himself the art of shaping metals and engraving stones. At first his ambition led him only as far as copying the products brought from the Orient. Seemingly it nearly always happened like that. The novice craftsman who had already seen some particular type of jewelry started by sedulously copying the work of the master. Sometimes the pupil would outstrip the master in point of technique, yet never lay hold for himself of a single spark of originality, but only continue to imitate. In other cases, the one-time copyist would turn creative and his work would take on new forms. The craftsmen of Greece were among those who in time became creative and produced new designs.
Although at first the early Greek jewelry followed faithfully along Oriental lines—the sphinx of Egypt and the winged bull of Assyria appearing constantly in designs—yet after a time the goldsmith began to develop his own ideas of decorative art; and even when the pattern itself was borrowed from others it was given Greek characteristics. The little sacred beetle of Egypt continued to be the most popular form of signet, but interest gradually shifted from the convex back of the scarab to the device engraved on its stomach. The beetle was no longer carved with realism; its engraved base became a reflection, in miniature, of Greek art. Various gods and demons, the sphinx, the sirens, and warriors and horsemen were carved, always intaglio, on scarabs of carnelian, agate and chalcedony. They were set in swivel rings and served both as seals and ornaments.
As the artists of Greece became increasingly independent, the goldsmith modified and changed an established form until its derivation might be traced. For instance, of the little Egyptian beetle so long in vogue, he retained only its general scaraboid form, and this he set in a new manner. The signet stone, instead of being mounted on a swivel, was set solidly in a bed hollowed out of the metal of the ring.
On its now flat top the engraver cut not deities but scenes taken from daily life and especially those portraying the affairs of the gentler sex-perhaps a woman taking a bath or playing on some musical instrument. And presently, turning to nature herself for inspiration, the craftsman began to use flowers, leaves, animals, and the beauty of human body to furnish models for his designs. These he engraved on precious stones and wrought in gold. Gold, not merely as a setting for gems, but in its own right became his favorite medium. It was ornamented with embossed patterns impressed by means of stone molds, or its surface was covered with intricate designs built with tiny dots of gold, each soldered expertly into place. Rich filigree ornamentation was made with fine threads of gold twisted and bent into elaborate patterns. Enamels were used sparingly and gemstones only when they enhanced the beauty of earrings, necklaces, pendants, amulets and other jewelry.
Like the people of the East, the ancient Greeks believed in the magic powers of precious stones. But after a time, although the masses still clung to such superstitions, the more enlightened developed a certain skepticism concerning the matter; the Greek physician, for example, took a radical step. He declared that disease was not the work of some evil spirit, but that aches and pains were due to physical causes. Therefore a precious stone designed to cast out a devil (that did not exist anyway) could not cure physical ailments.
So far, his reasoning was all to the good, but even the progressive physician could not rid himself of a belief in the essential healing power of gems. He merely shifted their powers from magic to what he considered a commonsense basis. Herbs were good as medicine, but precious stones, being more rare and valuable, were even better. Fortunately the patient was not required to swallow a gem whole. The dose was made easy to take (if not palatable) by grinding the stone into powder and then mixing it with some liquid. This method of preparing the expensive remedy was practical only when the stone was comparatively soft. If it were very hard and therefore difficult to reduce to powder the patient could wear it next his skin—an external application equivalent to a plaster. Jasper, so worn, was prescribed for epilepsy; amber and coral were held in high esteem as cures for eye and throat troubles. This profound faith in the healing virtues of certain gems has taken such deep hold on the mind of mankind that it still exists, and we shall come upon it again and again in later times and in countries far from the Mediterranean.
Goldsmiths Of The Classic Period (continued)
The Double Rosette
(via Diamond Cuts in Historic Jewelry:1381-1910) Herbert Tillander writes:
Aware of the very limited supply of large diamonds at acceptable prices and inspired by the success of Single Rosettes, cutters experimented with various combinations of small rough in an attempt to create attractive alternatives. Some of these turned out to be truly impressive. The four-petalled Rosette had already appeared by 1411 and the Single Rosettes with five to nine components some thirty years later. Finally, in about 1480, the ingenious Double Rosette made its appearance. Combining two completely different cuts in one design was an original and daring idea, and the result was incomparably beautiful. The fashioning of these cuts called not only for the greatest precision but also for a very large stock of rough from which to select the appropriate cleavages. It is possible that these Double Rosettes were the work of one single craftsman, or a small group of collaborators. The settings, it seems, were all produced by casting, another indication of a degree of specialization unusual at that time.
The new design comprised anything from ten to eighteen diamonds of two different shapes: the fan-shape, familiar from the Single Rosette, and the lozenge, which had the outline of an equilateral parallelogram. The lozenge cut, which was developed specifically for the Double Rosette, is quite intricate. It has two sloping main facets in the crown, similar to a Hogback. These meet at an angle of approximately 100° and are separated by a ridge shaped like a arrow, tapering facet, sharply pointed at the outer end of the stone and broad enough at the inner end to allow a pin to fix it in the center of the jewel.
The Double Rosette, even though it may appear to be quite flat, produces a distinctly three-dimensional effect which gives fascinating fire and brilliance. Earlier, such light effects had been arrived at by chance as, for instance, when ideal height proportions were discovered in Burgundian Point Cuts. It is possible that large, richly faceted Burgundian diamonds, with their almost circular outlines, were the models for which the new Rosettes were intended as a popular substitute. Calculations show that the display of a Double Rosette with sixteen components weighing about 3ct matches that of a Burgundian Point Cut of approximately 16ct—which would have to have been cut from a rough weighing at least 20-25ct! To make the Rosette it would suffice to have sixteen small cleavages weighing less than half a carat each.
I have investigated the effects of different kinds of light on a well-fashioned and clean Rosette. When dirty, Rosettes are dull and without luster, but when clean they sparkle brilliantly with all the colors of the rainbow. Candlelight seems to be particularly flattering to them.
The Double Rosette (continued)
Aware of the very limited supply of large diamonds at acceptable prices and inspired by the success of Single Rosettes, cutters experimented with various combinations of small rough in an attempt to create attractive alternatives. Some of these turned out to be truly impressive. The four-petalled Rosette had already appeared by 1411 and the Single Rosettes with five to nine components some thirty years later. Finally, in about 1480, the ingenious Double Rosette made its appearance. Combining two completely different cuts in one design was an original and daring idea, and the result was incomparably beautiful. The fashioning of these cuts called not only for the greatest precision but also for a very large stock of rough from which to select the appropriate cleavages. It is possible that these Double Rosettes were the work of one single craftsman, or a small group of collaborators. The settings, it seems, were all produced by casting, another indication of a degree of specialization unusual at that time.
The new design comprised anything from ten to eighteen diamonds of two different shapes: the fan-shape, familiar from the Single Rosette, and the lozenge, which had the outline of an equilateral parallelogram. The lozenge cut, which was developed specifically for the Double Rosette, is quite intricate. It has two sloping main facets in the crown, similar to a Hogback. These meet at an angle of approximately 100° and are separated by a ridge shaped like a arrow, tapering facet, sharply pointed at the outer end of the stone and broad enough at the inner end to allow a pin to fix it in the center of the jewel.
The Double Rosette, even though it may appear to be quite flat, produces a distinctly three-dimensional effect which gives fascinating fire and brilliance. Earlier, such light effects had been arrived at by chance as, for instance, when ideal height proportions were discovered in Burgundian Point Cuts. It is possible that large, richly faceted Burgundian diamonds, with their almost circular outlines, were the models for which the new Rosettes were intended as a popular substitute. Calculations show that the display of a Double Rosette with sixteen components weighing about 3ct matches that of a Burgundian Point Cut of approximately 16ct—which would have to have been cut from a rough weighing at least 20-25ct! To make the Rosette it would suffice to have sixteen small cleavages weighing less than half a carat each.
I have investigated the effects of different kinds of light on a well-fashioned and clean Rosette. When dirty, Rosettes are dull and without luster, but when clean they sparkle brilliantly with all the colors of the rainbow. Candlelight seems to be particularly flattering to them.
The Double Rosette (continued)
In Search Of The Precious Stone
Albert Ramsay (Albert Ramsay & Co, 1925) writes:
During my return trip from the mines I was afforded an opportunity to test the theory of psychologists to the effect that our subconscious minds control our involuntary actions and the result seemed to verify their contention. When we had arrived within about two miles of Thabeitkin I decided to walk the balance of the distance alone in hopes of bagging a bird or two for breakfast. I was proceeding quietly when a peculiar rustling in the bushes beside the road attracted my attention. Man eating tiger!—such was the thought that darted through my mind, bringing with it the recollection of the tragedy at Thabeitkin and my former fear, not dead but sleeping, sprang into life with renewed vigor. I felt instinctively that nothing but a tiger could have made that sound. Before I could budge the tomb-like silence of the jungle was shattered by a crash as of some heavy body precipitating itself through the underbrush. I then comprehended what the writers of ‘thrillers’ mean when they say: ‘His hair stood on end.’ My brain refused to function; my feet were rooted to the ground; my eyes were hypnotically fixed upon the spot from whence the tawny brute was about to spring. I stood thus transfixed, with beads of cold perspiration trickling down my forehead for what seemed an age but was, as a matter of fact, a few seconds, before the bushes parted and there appeared—not the striped form I had expected but the tusks of an elephant. Another moment and the chain which he wore upon one of the hind legs became visible, branding him a tame work-beast employed by the natives in the transportation of teakwood logs. I suddenly went as limp as a balloon tire which has formed a mesalliance with a nail and before my legs had received the bulletin flashed from my mental control station I was establishing new records for all distances up to and including two miles. Whether my failure to conduct myself in a normal manner immediately after the truth was discovered was due to exceptionally fast feet or to an unusually slow brain, is a matter of conjecture. At any rate I barely missed going right through the village and into the river.
Being desirous of adding to my collection of sapphires I turned my attention to the mines of Ceylon. Approaching Ceylon across the Bay of Bengal the empyrean dome of the firmament is apparently supported by the peaks of the mountains which rise sheer from the ocean’s depths. As the intervening distance decreases, more and more of the island becomes visible until finally, cloaked in luxuriant tropical foliage, framed by a beach of glistening white sand and set in the midst of an indigo sea, it resembles an Emerald mounted upon a slab of lapis lazuli.
Much of the sapphire-bearing ground in Ceylon is planted to rubber trees. The native miners lease sections from the plantation owners and sink shafts between the trees, frequently going down to the depth of seventy feet in order to cut the helam or sapphire bearing stratum. When that has been accomplished they drift along the helam by digging horizontal galleries. The loosened earth is carried to the shaft and raised to the surface by the aid of a windlass. Here it is piled until a sufficient quantity has been accumulated to warrant washing. The washing is performed in baskets and the operation is supervised by the owner who personally collects the gems as they are exposed. The stones are removed to the home of the plantation-owner for safe-keeping and once a month they are sold. The aphorism that self-preservation is the first law of nature was aptly demonstrated at one of these sales. The barefooted Singhalese buyers were grouped in a circle heatedly bidding for the stones. One of their number discovered a scorpion too close to his feet for comfort and, being a public-spirited individual, he informed the community of the peril by shouting: ‘Scorpion!’ at the top of his lungs. A story is told of a fleeing negro who heard the bullet of a pursuer twice—once when it passed him and again when he passed it; well, he was standing still compared to those Singhalese. Scattering gems in all directions they headed for the jungle where the last one arrived just in time to hear the warning word the second time. The intruder was killed and his mangled form exhibited to the natives as, one by one, they gingerly returned. Even that assurance failed to revive the enthusiasm of the assemblage in sapphires and the uneasy manner in which the buyers scrutinized the ground during, the balance of the sale bespoke lack of confidence in the famous words of Ethel Barrymore: ‘That’s all there is is. There is no more!’ Needless to say, that particular sale was not a success financially.
Star sapphires, native to Ceylon and Burma, are found in the same beds as sapphires. They possess a property of which even many jewelers are ignorant, i.e no matter into how many parts of a star sapphire may be cut each fragment will contain a six-pointed star of elusive light. I also acquired some fine specimens of cat’s eyes, which are steadily increasing in popularity.
As previously indicated, success in the gem business is largely dependent upon the buyer’s ability to accurately appraise the merits of concealed in the rough stones and my early training and experience in that particular fitted me admirably for the task which confronted me upon my trip. In the course of my career I have seen unscrupulous dealers take advantage of many men whose business should have rendered them immune to fraud, to mention nothing of the cases of people in whom ignorance in the matter of gems was excusable.
Upon my return from the Orient I went to South America to petition the Colombian government to grant me an option which would enable me to work the Muzo emerald mines, near Bogota, the country’s capital. These mines, which at that time had been inoperative for a number of years owing to litigation, produce emeralds far superior in quality to those found in the Siberian or other fields. I also desired to purchase a magnificent collection of emeralds which the government was holding in its vaults. The emerald is a gem has figured prominently in the annals of romance and tragedy throughout the ages. The ancients ascribed to it the power to sharpen wits, confer riches and enable its owner to foretell future events, but modern society places its stamp of favor upon the emerald for the more practical and self-evident reason of its beauty. Many persons of unquestionable discrimination and refined taste prefer the fires which smolder in the emerald’s depths to the icy austerity of the diamond. My Colombian trip proved interesting and profitable but the incidents which made it so may not be told at this time.
The foregoing are but a few experiences gleaned during my wanderings into distant lands, not only that I might obtain the jewels, but that I might also sense the thrill which comes from searching them out in nature’s hiding places. To me a gem is not merely a cold, inanimate bauble. It symbolizes years of somebody’s life consecrated to obtaining it; it is moist with the sweat of labor amid untold perils and under tropic sun; it is warm with the lifeblood of its discoverer, and as I hold it upon the palm of my hand, I can again feel the pulse of that man leap as it must have done when he first beheld the fruit of his toil. Can you blame me for being fascinated?
During my return trip from the mines I was afforded an opportunity to test the theory of psychologists to the effect that our subconscious minds control our involuntary actions and the result seemed to verify their contention. When we had arrived within about two miles of Thabeitkin I decided to walk the balance of the distance alone in hopes of bagging a bird or two for breakfast. I was proceeding quietly when a peculiar rustling in the bushes beside the road attracted my attention. Man eating tiger!—such was the thought that darted through my mind, bringing with it the recollection of the tragedy at Thabeitkin and my former fear, not dead but sleeping, sprang into life with renewed vigor. I felt instinctively that nothing but a tiger could have made that sound. Before I could budge the tomb-like silence of the jungle was shattered by a crash as of some heavy body precipitating itself through the underbrush. I then comprehended what the writers of ‘thrillers’ mean when they say: ‘His hair stood on end.’ My brain refused to function; my feet were rooted to the ground; my eyes were hypnotically fixed upon the spot from whence the tawny brute was about to spring. I stood thus transfixed, with beads of cold perspiration trickling down my forehead for what seemed an age but was, as a matter of fact, a few seconds, before the bushes parted and there appeared—not the striped form I had expected but the tusks of an elephant. Another moment and the chain which he wore upon one of the hind legs became visible, branding him a tame work-beast employed by the natives in the transportation of teakwood logs. I suddenly went as limp as a balloon tire which has formed a mesalliance with a nail and before my legs had received the bulletin flashed from my mental control station I was establishing new records for all distances up to and including two miles. Whether my failure to conduct myself in a normal manner immediately after the truth was discovered was due to exceptionally fast feet or to an unusually slow brain, is a matter of conjecture. At any rate I barely missed going right through the village and into the river.
Being desirous of adding to my collection of sapphires I turned my attention to the mines of Ceylon. Approaching Ceylon across the Bay of Bengal the empyrean dome of the firmament is apparently supported by the peaks of the mountains which rise sheer from the ocean’s depths. As the intervening distance decreases, more and more of the island becomes visible until finally, cloaked in luxuriant tropical foliage, framed by a beach of glistening white sand and set in the midst of an indigo sea, it resembles an Emerald mounted upon a slab of lapis lazuli.
Much of the sapphire-bearing ground in Ceylon is planted to rubber trees. The native miners lease sections from the plantation owners and sink shafts between the trees, frequently going down to the depth of seventy feet in order to cut the helam or sapphire bearing stratum. When that has been accomplished they drift along the helam by digging horizontal galleries. The loosened earth is carried to the shaft and raised to the surface by the aid of a windlass. Here it is piled until a sufficient quantity has been accumulated to warrant washing. The washing is performed in baskets and the operation is supervised by the owner who personally collects the gems as they are exposed. The stones are removed to the home of the plantation-owner for safe-keeping and once a month they are sold. The aphorism that self-preservation is the first law of nature was aptly demonstrated at one of these sales. The barefooted Singhalese buyers were grouped in a circle heatedly bidding for the stones. One of their number discovered a scorpion too close to his feet for comfort and, being a public-spirited individual, he informed the community of the peril by shouting: ‘Scorpion!’ at the top of his lungs. A story is told of a fleeing negro who heard the bullet of a pursuer twice—once when it passed him and again when he passed it; well, he was standing still compared to those Singhalese. Scattering gems in all directions they headed for the jungle where the last one arrived just in time to hear the warning word the second time. The intruder was killed and his mangled form exhibited to the natives as, one by one, they gingerly returned. Even that assurance failed to revive the enthusiasm of the assemblage in sapphires and the uneasy manner in which the buyers scrutinized the ground during, the balance of the sale bespoke lack of confidence in the famous words of Ethel Barrymore: ‘That’s all there is is. There is no more!’ Needless to say, that particular sale was not a success financially.
Star sapphires, native to Ceylon and Burma, are found in the same beds as sapphires. They possess a property of which even many jewelers are ignorant, i.e no matter into how many parts of a star sapphire may be cut each fragment will contain a six-pointed star of elusive light. I also acquired some fine specimens of cat’s eyes, which are steadily increasing in popularity.
As previously indicated, success in the gem business is largely dependent upon the buyer’s ability to accurately appraise the merits of concealed in the rough stones and my early training and experience in that particular fitted me admirably for the task which confronted me upon my trip. In the course of my career I have seen unscrupulous dealers take advantage of many men whose business should have rendered them immune to fraud, to mention nothing of the cases of people in whom ignorance in the matter of gems was excusable.
Upon my return from the Orient I went to South America to petition the Colombian government to grant me an option which would enable me to work the Muzo emerald mines, near Bogota, the country’s capital. These mines, which at that time had been inoperative for a number of years owing to litigation, produce emeralds far superior in quality to those found in the Siberian or other fields. I also desired to purchase a magnificent collection of emeralds which the government was holding in its vaults. The emerald is a gem has figured prominently in the annals of romance and tragedy throughout the ages. The ancients ascribed to it the power to sharpen wits, confer riches and enable its owner to foretell future events, but modern society places its stamp of favor upon the emerald for the more practical and self-evident reason of its beauty. Many persons of unquestionable discrimination and refined taste prefer the fires which smolder in the emerald’s depths to the icy austerity of the diamond. My Colombian trip proved interesting and profitable but the incidents which made it so may not be told at this time.
The foregoing are but a few experiences gleaned during my wanderings into distant lands, not only that I might obtain the jewels, but that I might also sense the thrill which comes from searching them out in nature’s hiding places. To me a gem is not merely a cold, inanimate bauble. It symbolizes years of somebody’s life consecrated to obtaining it; it is moist with the sweat of labor amid untold perils and under tropic sun; it is warm with the lifeblood of its discoverer, and as I hold it upon the palm of my hand, I can again feel the pulse of that man leap as it must have done when he first beheld the fruit of his toil. Can you blame me for being fascinated?
The Rise Of French Painting
(via The Outline of Art) William Orpen writes:
The Art Of Watteau, Chardin, Boucher, Fragonard And Greuze
1
Coming events in the world of politics cast their shadows before them on the field of art, and as soon as we begin to study closely the national painting of France during the seventeenth and succeeding century, we become conscious of two streams of tradition, one democratic and derived from the Low Countries, the other aristocratic and inspired by Italy.
These two French schools of painting, which mirror respectively the life of the nobles and the life of the peasants, give us warning of that sharp division of the classes which were afterwards to meet and mingle in the clash and conflict of the French Revolution.
The seventeenth century, which in its beginning and middle period had seen art flourishing in Holland with the rise of the Dutch Republic, witnessed towards its close the shifting of political interest from Holland to France, and the rapid growth and development of a group of artists who added to the glory of the court of Louis XIV. Although France had given birth to artists of considerable distinction long before the end of the seventeenth century, it was not till the reign of the Grand Monarch that she evolved a distinct national style of her own.
The earlier French painters were almost wholly under the influence first of Flanders and then of Italy. Thus Jean Clouet, who in 1516 was appointed Court Painter to King Francois I, was the son of a Brussels artist, and both he and his son Francois Clouet (c.1510-72), who succeeded him, carried on a Flemish tradition. Though the feminine grace of the drawing of the Clouets has been held to be characteristic of France, yet the style of both artists was so close to that of their great contemporary Holbein that it can hardly be accepted as distinctly national.
Flemish again in character was the work of the three brothers Le Nain—Antoine and Louis, who both died in 1648, and Matthieu, died 1667—who came from Laon and settled in Paris. The gentle seriousness of their paintings of rustics foreshadows the peasant masterpieces of Jean Francois Millet. They are the ancestors of the democratic painters of France. Another painter closely associated with the age of Louis XIV, Philippe de Champaigne (1602-74), who painted numerous portraits of Cardinal Richelieu, was actually born in Brussels, though he established himself in Paris at the early age of nineteen. His portraiture, with its clear outline and suave coloring, is also northern rather than southern in character.
Nicholas Poussin (1594-1665) and Claude le Lorrain (1600-82) were great masters whose innovations left an indelible impress on landscape painting—the development of which will be traced in a subsequent chapter—but though born in France, both of them spent the greater part of their lives in Rome. Their art belongs to Europe generally rather than to France. The portrait-painter Pierre Mignard (1610-95) and his great rival Charles le Brun (1619-90), who as architect and sculptor as well as painter dominated the Louis Quatorze period, were both trained in Rome and entirely Italian in style.
None of these men was strong enough to found a distinct and national French style; and the kind of painting which we look upon today as being essentially and characteristically French was not born till Antoine Watteau left his home in Valenciennes for Paris. It was this weakling, whose frail form was prematurely ravaged by consumption, who founded the greatest and strongest of all the modern schools of painting.
Antoine Watteau was born in 1683 at Valenciennes, near the Franco-Flemish frontier. His father, a tiler and carpenter, was in poor circumstances, and the boy is said to have had an unhappy childhood. Watteau senior bore the reputation of being a hard man, and wanted his son to become a tiler like himself; and when young Antoine at last obtained permission to study in the studio of a local artist, one Guerin, who was painter to the municipality of Valenciennes, the father refused to pay the expenses of his son’s education.
After the death of Guerin in 1702, Antoine Watteau, then aged nineteen, ran away to Paris with a scene-painter called Metayer. But when they had arrived in Paris, this man soon abandoned his young companion when he had no more work to give him, and henceforward Watteau, already in delicate health and disowned by his father, was alone in Paris, without money, clothes, or resources of any kind. In desperate poverty he at last found employment in a wretched workshop where cheap religious pictures were produced by the dozen, to be retailed by country shopkeepers. Nowadays chromolithographs have saved artists form this kind of drudgery, but in the early eighteenth century even the lowest-priced colored card had to be done by hand. What was required of Watteau and his fellow-laborers was rapidity of execution in making copies of popular subjects, and for this work the pay was the equivalent of half-a-crown a week one daily meal of soup.
Yet even in this miserable trade Watteau managed to distinguish himself, and was entrusted with the reproduction of a ‘St Nicholas’ that was in great demand. One day the mistress of the workshop forgot to give Watteau the ‘St Nicholas’ to copy, and remembering her oversight later in the day, she climbed up to Watteau’s attic to scold him for idling. After she had worked herself up into a passion, Watteau amazed her by showing her his day’s work, a perfect St Nicholas, which he had completely finished from memory.
The Rise Of French Painting (continued)
The Art Of Watteau, Chardin, Boucher, Fragonard And Greuze
1
Coming events in the world of politics cast their shadows before them on the field of art, and as soon as we begin to study closely the national painting of France during the seventeenth and succeeding century, we become conscious of two streams of tradition, one democratic and derived from the Low Countries, the other aristocratic and inspired by Italy.
These two French schools of painting, which mirror respectively the life of the nobles and the life of the peasants, give us warning of that sharp division of the classes which were afterwards to meet and mingle in the clash and conflict of the French Revolution.
The seventeenth century, which in its beginning and middle period had seen art flourishing in Holland with the rise of the Dutch Republic, witnessed towards its close the shifting of political interest from Holland to France, and the rapid growth and development of a group of artists who added to the glory of the court of Louis XIV. Although France had given birth to artists of considerable distinction long before the end of the seventeenth century, it was not till the reign of the Grand Monarch that she evolved a distinct national style of her own.
The earlier French painters were almost wholly under the influence first of Flanders and then of Italy. Thus Jean Clouet, who in 1516 was appointed Court Painter to King Francois I, was the son of a Brussels artist, and both he and his son Francois Clouet (c.1510-72), who succeeded him, carried on a Flemish tradition. Though the feminine grace of the drawing of the Clouets has been held to be characteristic of France, yet the style of both artists was so close to that of their great contemporary Holbein that it can hardly be accepted as distinctly national.
Flemish again in character was the work of the three brothers Le Nain—Antoine and Louis, who both died in 1648, and Matthieu, died 1667—who came from Laon and settled in Paris. The gentle seriousness of their paintings of rustics foreshadows the peasant masterpieces of Jean Francois Millet. They are the ancestors of the democratic painters of France. Another painter closely associated with the age of Louis XIV, Philippe de Champaigne (1602-74), who painted numerous portraits of Cardinal Richelieu, was actually born in Brussels, though he established himself in Paris at the early age of nineteen. His portraiture, with its clear outline and suave coloring, is also northern rather than southern in character.
Nicholas Poussin (1594-1665) and Claude le Lorrain (1600-82) were great masters whose innovations left an indelible impress on landscape painting—the development of which will be traced in a subsequent chapter—but though born in France, both of them spent the greater part of their lives in Rome. Their art belongs to Europe generally rather than to France. The portrait-painter Pierre Mignard (1610-95) and his great rival Charles le Brun (1619-90), who as architect and sculptor as well as painter dominated the Louis Quatorze period, were both trained in Rome and entirely Italian in style.
None of these men was strong enough to found a distinct and national French style; and the kind of painting which we look upon today as being essentially and characteristically French was not born till Antoine Watteau left his home in Valenciennes for Paris. It was this weakling, whose frail form was prematurely ravaged by consumption, who founded the greatest and strongest of all the modern schools of painting.
Antoine Watteau was born in 1683 at Valenciennes, near the Franco-Flemish frontier. His father, a tiler and carpenter, was in poor circumstances, and the boy is said to have had an unhappy childhood. Watteau senior bore the reputation of being a hard man, and wanted his son to become a tiler like himself; and when young Antoine at last obtained permission to study in the studio of a local artist, one Guerin, who was painter to the municipality of Valenciennes, the father refused to pay the expenses of his son’s education.
After the death of Guerin in 1702, Antoine Watteau, then aged nineteen, ran away to Paris with a scene-painter called Metayer. But when they had arrived in Paris, this man soon abandoned his young companion when he had no more work to give him, and henceforward Watteau, already in delicate health and disowned by his father, was alone in Paris, without money, clothes, or resources of any kind. In desperate poverty he at last found employment in a wretched workshop where cheap religious pictures were produced by the dozen, to be retailed by country shopkeepers. Nowadays chromolithographs have saved artists form this kind of drudgery, but in the early eighteenth century even the lowest-priced colored card had to be done by hand. What was required of Watteau and his fellow-laborers was rapidity of execution in making copies of popular subjects, and for this work the pay was the equivalent of half-a-crown a week one daily meal of soup.
Yet even in this miserable trade Watteau managed to distinguish himself, and was entrusted with the reproduction of a ‘St Nicholas’ that was in great demand. One day the mistress of the workshop forgot to give Watteau the ‘St Nicholas’ to copy, and remembering her oversight later in the day, she climbed up to Watteau’s attic to scold him for idling. After she had worked herself up into a passion, Watteau amazed her by showing her his day’s work, a perfect St Nicholas, which he had completely finished from memory.
The Rise Of French Painting (continued)
Sunday, January 13, 2008
Juan Muñoz
The Spanish sculptor Juan Muñoz (1953-2001) was an interesting storyteller + I think he knew how to connect subjective human perceptions + he saw poetry in things, and translated what he saw into an inimitable art + he understood other storytellers.
Juan Muñoz: A Retrospective is @ Tate Modern, London, from January 24 - April 27, 2008.
Useful link:
tate.org.uk
Juan Muñoz: A Retrospective is @ Tate Modern, London, from January 24 - April 27, 2008.
Useful link:
tate.org.uk
Heard On The Street
Gem / art / jewelry traders are not born + anyone given the passion + determination + willingness to work hard + lose + fall down + keep getting up can learn to trade successfully.
Karuturi
Karuturi is India's largest floriculturist company + the company has a strong foothold in Africa + growing roses in Africa is a good deal due to suitable climate, cheap farmland and labour costs, and advantages in trading with the US + European Union, the primary markets for roses in the world + African countries need not pay any duty for exporting roses to Europe + Karuturi Networks was already the largest exporter of roses from Ethopia and has the biggest greenhouse in Ethopia for roses + in 2007, it acquired Dutch floriculture major Sher Agencies, which owns large farm land in Kenya + the global floriculture market is estimated to be $80 billion + Karuturi has ambitious plans to come up with greenfield projects in Vietnam and Cambodia to get a stronger foothold in the Asian markets.
Useful links:
www.karuturi.com
www.rosebazaar.com
Useful links:
www.karuturi.com
www.rosebazaar.com
Invest In Gold Funds, Not Jewelry
The experts say when the dollar weakens gold prices go up, and vice-versa + so invest in a gold fund, not jewelry because gold continues to remain a solid bet for the future + a good way to invest in the yellow metal is in the form of paper, that is, through gold funds + these funds can easily be bought and sold + as the underlying gold of your fund is in the form of bullion, there are no losses in terms of design and making charges + traditional (in Asia) investments in gold tend to be in the form of jewelry + there might be a significant loss of value when you sell your gold because a lot of your purchase price goes towards design and making charges + gold bars and coins are becoming good options + a little gold in your portfolio is good investment strategy.
Changyu Wine
Changyu Wine Group Company, Ltd., Yantai, whose previous name was Changyu Pioneer Wine Company,Yantai, was established by a well-known overseas Chinese merchant giant, Mr. Chang Bishi, with a history of 108 years + it is not only the first industrialized winery in China, but also the largest winemaking enterprise in Asia now.
Useful link:
www.changyu.com.cn
Useful link:
www.changyu.com.cn
A Bull In China
A Bull In China by Jim Rogers provides a list of companies that are relevant to the trends/observations in a section (Jims Sino Files!) + these lists are an excellent way to understand the landscape of Chinese economy + the writing style is very conversational and easy-flowing.
Here is what the description of A Bull In China says (via Amazon):
If the twentieth century was the American century, then the twenty-first century belongs to China. Now the one and only Jim Rogers shows how any investor can get in on the ground floor of “the greatest economic boom since England’s Industrial Revolution.”
In this indispensable new book, one of the world’s most successful investors, Jim Rogers, brings his unerring investment acumen to bear on this huge and unruly land now being opened to the world and exploding in potential.
Rogers didn’t just wake up a Sinophile yesterday. He’s been tracking the Chinese economy since he first went to China in 1984 in preparation for his round-the-world motorcycle trip and then again, later, when he saw Shanghai’s newly reopened stock exchange (which looked like an OTB office). In the decades that followed–especially in recent years, with the easing of Communist party financial dictates–the facts speak for themselves:
• The Chinese economy’s growth rate has averaged 9 percent since the start of the 1980s.
• China’s savings rate is over 35 percent (in America, it’s 2 percent).
• 40 percent of China’s output goes to exports (so there’s no crippling foreign debt).
• $60 billion a year in direct foreign investment, combined with a trade surplus, has brought Beijing’s foreign currency reserves to over $1 trillion.
• China’s fixed assets–ports, bridges, and roads–double every two and a half years.
In short, if projections hold, China will surpass the United States as the world’s largest economy in as little as twenty years. But the time to act is now. In A Bull in China, you’ll learn what industries offer the newest and best opportunities, from power, energy, and agriculture to tourism, water, and infrastructure. In his trademark down-to-earth style, Rogers demystifies the state policies that are driving earnings and innovation, takes the intimidation factor out of the A-shares, B-shares, and ADRs of Chinese offerings, and encourages any reader to trust his or her own expertise (if you’re a car mechanic, check out their auto industry).
A Bull in China also features fascinating profiles of “Red Chip” companies, such as Yantu Changyu, China’s largest winemaker, which sells a “Healthy Liquor” line mixed with herbal medicines. Plus, if you want to export something to China yourself–or even buy land there–Rogers tells you the steps you need to take.
No other book–and no other author–can better help you benefit from the new Chinese revolution. Jim Rogers shows you how to make the “amazing energy, potential, and entrepreneurial spirit of a billion people” work for you.
Useful links:
www.jimrogers.com
http://seekingalpha.com
Here is what the description of A Bull In China says (via Amazon):
If the twentieth century was the American century, then the twenty-first century belongs to China. Now the one and only Jim Rogers shows how any investor can get in on the ground floor of “the greatest economic boom since England’s Industrial Revolution.”
In this indispensable new book, one of the world’s most successful investors, Jim Rogers, brings his unerring investment acumen to bear on this huge and unruly land now being opened to the world and exploding in potential.
Rogers didn’t just wake up a Sinophile yesterday. He’s been tracking the Chinese economy since he first went to China in 1984 in preparation for his round-the-world motorcycle trip and then again, later, when he saw Shanghai’s newly reopened stock exchange (which looked like an OTB office). In the decades that followed–especially in recent years, with the easing of Communist party financial dictates–the facts speak for themselves:
• The Chinese economy’s growth rate has averaged 9 percent since the start of the 1980s.
• China’s savings rate is over 35 percent (in America, it’s 2 percent).
• 40 percent of China’s output goes to exports (so there’s no crippling foreign debt).
• $60 billion a year in direct foreign investment, combined with a trade surplus, has brought Beijing’s foreign currency reserves to over $1 trillion.
• China’s fixed assets–ports, bridges, and roads–double every two and a half years.
In short, if projections hold, China will surpass the United States as the world’s largest economy in as little as twenty years. But the time to act is now. In A Bull in China, you’ll learn what industries offer the newest and best opportunities, from power, energy, and agriculture to tourism, water, and infrastructure. In his trademark down-to-earth style, Rogers demystifies the state policies that are driving earnings and innovation, takes the intimidation factor out of the A-shares, B-shares, and ADRs of Chinese offerings, and encourages any reader to trust his or her own expertise (if you’re a car mechanic, check out their auto industry).
A Bull in China also features fascinating profiles of “Red Chip” companies, such as Yantu Changyu, China’s largest winemaker, which sells a “Healthy Liquor” line mixed with herbal medicines. Plus, if you want to export something to China yourself–or even buy land there–Rogers tells you the steps you need to take.
No other book–and no other author–can better help you benefit from the new Chinese revolution. Jim Rogers shows you how to make the “amazing energy, potential, and entrepreneurial spirit of a billion people” work for you.
Useful links:
www.jimrogers.com
http://seekingalpha.com
Umberto D
Umberto D (1952)
Directed by: Vittorio De Sica
Screenplay: Vittorio De Sica (screenplay uncredited); Cesare Zavattini (screenplay); Cesare Zavattini (story)
Cast: Carlo Battisti, Maria-Pia Casilio, Lina Gennari
(via YouTube): Umberto D - Final sequence (Spoilers)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=erornDbrlkk
Umberto D
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yEfWeu2geGI
Umberto D
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ift2ptZ6JXE
I think the Italian Neorealism concept + perfect clarity defines the film.
Directed by: Vittorio De Sica
Screenplay: Vittorio De Sica (screenplay uncredited); Cesare Zavattini (screenplay); Cesare Zavattini (story)
Cast: Carlo Battisti, Maria-Pia Casilio, Lina Gennari
(via YouTube): Umberto D - Final sequence (Spoilers)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=erornDbrlkk
Umberto D
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yEfWeu2geGI
Umberto D
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ift2ptZ6JXE
I think the Italian Neorealism concept + perfect clarity defines the film.
Jewelers Of Phoenicia And Greece
(via 5000 Years of Gems and Jewelry) Frances Rogers and Alice Beard writes:
1. Phoenician Traders And Craftsmen
The Phoenicians were the most adventurous sailors of their time. Acting chiefly as middlemen, their merchants not only traveled through the Mediterranean but also sought ports never reached by Egyptian ships.
Meanwhile, because of his contacts with Egypt and Assyria, where the fine glass and metal work for export trade was produced, the Phoenician developed more than a tradesman’s interest in these crafts. He wished to make as well as sell merchandise—it was good business to produce at home the goods sold abroad. So presently the artisans of Phoenicia were turning their energies to absorbing from their powerful neighbors technical knowledge concerning the minor arts. From the Egyptians they learned to make glassware and glass beads (so valuable as an article of barter), also to cast bronze, to solder gold to gold, and to shape the precious metal into jewelry. From the Babylonians they learned the at of engraving gemstones.
The Phoenicians were apt pupils, but their work continued to be a composite of the designs and methods originated by other nations. And when, after a time, Phoenician ships sailed from home ports laden with fine metal work, glass vessels and beads, jewelry, little carved amulet-scarabs, cylinders and seals—all ‘made in Phonencia’—these articles, be it noted, were excellent examples of Egyptian and Assyro-Babylonian techniques, patterns and traditions.
It was in the wearing, rather than in the making of jewelry that the Phoenicians seem to have achieved a touch of originality, particularly in the matter of earrings. A lady of fashion had her ears pierced along the rim as well as at the lobe, thus she could decorate the edges of her ears with gold rings, each carrying a drop-shaped pendant. A sound like the tinkling of tiny bells must have marked her every turn of the head.
The people of southeastern Europe still lagged far behind the high point of development reached in the Orient. They could not make for themselves the marvelous things brought to their shores by the black-bearded Phoenician traders, but when opportunity came they were as eager to purchase ornaments by barter as were the North American Indians when they exchanged furs for glass beads.
Now and again a merchant galley would land at one of the towns that bordered the sea and the inhabitants would crowd wide-eyed about her to gaze up at the strange vessel with her high stern, great sails and many oarsmen. Then under the practised hands of the sailor-merchants the ship would become such a sumptuous example of window-dressing as might fill a modern merchant with envy. Draped textiles of deep purple, gorgeous, barbaric embroideries, and fine raiment made a telling background for other luxuries. There would be platters of bronze richly engraved with the fabulous bearded sphinx, the winged bull, or perhaps a hunting scene on the Nile. There would be perfume bottles of carved alabaster, graceful vases of deep-toned, patterned glass, fans of ostrich plumes or peacock feathers and, most prized of all, the heaped jewels—necklaces, bracelets, earrings, amulet-pendants, and head-ornaments of pale gold set with precious stones or enriched with many colored enamels. And for backdrop to such a scene there was always the splendor of sea and sky.
The people who came to buy offered in exchange for foreign luxuries the products of their own countries. The Greeks, still ignorant of the mysterious processes by which raw metals and colored stones were fashioned into ornate form, were, as their later development proved, especially sensitive to beauty, therefore they were willing customers. Their own land produced olives and grapes in great abundance; and when a Phoenician galley came to display her wares, men and women thronged the shore carrying oil and sweet wine, fragrant and strong, which they offered in exchange for products made by Oriental craftsmen.
Jewelers Of Phoenicia And Greece (continued)
1. Phoenician Traders And Craftsmen
The Phoenicians were the most adventurous sailors of their time. Acting chiefly as middlemen, their merchants not only traveled through the Mediterranean but also sought ports never reached by Egyptian ships.
Meanwhile, because of his contacts with Egypt and Assyria, where the fine glass and metal work for export trade was produced, the Phoenician developed more than a tradesman’s interest in these crafts. He wished to make as well as sell merchandise—it was good business to produce at home the goods sold abroad. So presently the artisans of Phoenicia were turning their energies to absorbing from their powerful neighbors technical knowledge concerning the minor arts. From the Egyptians they learned to make glassware and glass beads (so valuable as an article of barter), also to cast bronze, to solder gold to gold, and to shape the precious metal into jewelry. From the Babylonians they learned the at of engraving gemstones.
The Phoenicians were apt pupils, but their work continued to be a composite of the designs and methods originated by other nations. And when, after a time, Phoenician ships sailed from home ports laden with fine metal work, glass vessels and beads, jewelry, little carved amulet-scarabs, cylinders and seals—all ‘made in Phonencia’—these articles, be it noted, were excellent examples of Egyptian and Assyro-Babylonian techniques, patterns and traditions.
It was in the wearing, rather than in the making of jewelry that the Phoenicians seem to have achieved a touch of originality, particularly in the matter of earrings. A lady of fashion had her ears pierced along the rim as well as at the lobe, thus she could decorate the edges of her ears with gold rings, each carrying a drop-shaped pendant. A sound like the tinkling of tiny bells must have marked her every turn of the head.
The people of southeastern Europe still lagged far behind the high point of development reached in the Orient. They could not make for themselves the marvelous things brought to their shores by the black-bearded Phoenician traders, but when opportunity came they were as eager to purchase ornaments by barter as were the North American Indians when they exchanged furs for glass beads.
Now and again a merchant galley would land at one of the towns that bordered the sea and the inhabitants would crowd wide-eyed about her to gaze up at the strange vessel with her high stern, great sails and many oarsmen. Then under the practised hands of the sailor-merchants the ship would become such a sumptuous example of window-dressing as might fill a modern merchant with envy. Draped textiles of deep purple, gorgeous, barbaric embroideries, and fine raiment made a telling background for other luxuries. There would be platters of bronze richly engraved with the fabulous bearded sphinx, the winged bull, or perhaps a hunting scene on the Nile. There would be perfume bottles of carved alabaster, graceful vases of deep-toned, patterned glass, fans of ostrich plumes or peacock feathers and, most prized of all, the heaped jewels—necklaces, bracelets, earrings, amulet-pendants, and head-ornaments of pale gold set with precious stones or enriched with many colored enamels. And for backdrop to such a scene there was always the splendor of sea and sky.
The people who came to buy offered in exchange for foreign luxuries the products of their own countries. The Greeks, still ignorant of the mysterious processes by which raw metals and colored stones were fashioned into ornate form, were, as their later development proved, especially sensitive to beauty, therefore they were willing customers. Their own land produced olives and grapes in great abundance; and when a Phoenician galley came to display her wares, men and women thronged the shore carrying oil and sweet wine, fragrant and strong, which they offered in exchange for products made by Oriental craftsmen.
Jewelers Of Phoenicia And Greece (continued)
In Search Of The Precious Stone
Albert Ramsay (Albert Ramsay & Co, 1925) writes:
From Siam I turned my attention to the famous ruby mines in Burma. Those unversed in mineralogy it is difficult to conceive sapphires and rubies belonging to the same species. Such is the case however, as both are corundum and possess similar physical characteristics—color excepted. They rank in hardness second only to the diamond. Carat for carat rubies of the first quality are rarer and consequently more valuable than diamonds of a corresponding grade. No other stone increases as rapidly in value in proportion to increase in weight as does the ruby. Dark red rubies are found in Siam and purplish ones in Ceylon but Burma alone may claim the wonderful pigeon-blood ruby.
To reach the mines I went first to Rangoon, the capital of Burma. The outstanding feature of Rangoon is the Shwe Dagon Pagoda, glittering in its golden armor. In passing, a few words descriptive of this Buddhist holy-of-holies might be apropos. Erected in 588 B.C according to tradition three women were buried alive during the rites which accompanied its inception. The Pagoda, 370 feet high, is built in the center of a vast terrace 166 feet above the ground. Upon its summit is a sort of network headpiece dangling with bells. This structure is jewel-encrusted, the upper dome being covered with eight-of-an-inch thick plates of solid gold, and the lower part overlaid with burnished goldleaf. Above all floats a banner studded with gems worth more then $1,000,000. The Shwe Dagon is surrounded by some fifteen hundred minor pagodas which, with their garish trimmings and waxwork show of alabaster images, impart the atmosphere of a fair to the entire scene.
The narrow, tortuous streets of Rangoon swarm with yellow-robed Buddhist priests, grotesque in appearance, their heads and eyebrows shaven in accordance with the mandates of their creed. The prevalence of holy men in Burma is due to a custom whereby the sons of the better families devote a certain portion of their lives to the priesthood, just as, in more civilized countries, young ladies attend convents with a view to culture and education.
Mandalay, immortalized in verse by Kipling, was reached after an eighteen hour rail journey to the northward. There I embarked upon the Irrawaddy, one of India’s great rivers. All day the quaint steamer nosed its way cautiously upstream, following the twistings and turnings of the tortuous channel. The overhanging ferns caressed the surface of the sluggish stream and each feathery leaf of the palms lining the banks found its counterpart mirrored upon the glassy surface of the backwaters. Huge rafts of teak logs, manned by Burmans, drifted slowly by, upon their journey to the sea. Waterfowl, disturbed in their quest for fish amid the bending reeds, took wing with a whirr calculated to gladden the heart of the sportsman. When night settled upon the jungle it was necessary to drop anchor owing to the dangers attending navigation in the dark. The moon, red and hot-looking, peered from behind the distant hills and, as if satisfied with what it had seen, climbed into the star-dusted heavens to be reflected later upon the river’s expanse in all of its silvery splendor. I reached Thabeitkin the following morning.
Thabeitkin is a small village and impresses one with the belief that is clinging desperately to the riverbank lest the jungle, encroaching upon the three remaining sides, succeed in crowding it into the stream. When I arrived, the village was in a state of excitement bordering upon panic over the recent destruction of one of the inhabitants by two man-eating tigers. These beasts are held in such mortal dread by the natives and so many terrifying tales are told of their depredations that I climbed into dark and I freely confess that I spent a very restless night. The following day i was so engrossed in preparations for my trip to Mogok, the ruby mines re located, that all disturbing thought of the predatory felines was banished. The British government has connected Thabeitkin and Mogok by an excellent road, seventy miles in length. The journey is a gentle ascent and the scenery, interesting for the entire distance, is particularly beautiful when nearing Mogok from which point a panoramic view of the surrounding country is obtained. Mogok, being about five thousand feet higher than the river, has a climate delightfully cool in contrast to the heat prevailing in the valley. The mining district comprises about two hundred square miles and the mines, controlled by the Burma Ruby Company, are worked in accordance with the most modern practice, surrounding hills being gradually leveled in the course of operations. Through a coincidence the finest ruby ever found in these mines was discovered on Armistice Day, 1918. It was christened ‘The Peace Ruby’ and was purchased by a native merchant for $100,000. He later sold it to an Indian Rajah. The choicest rubies are sent to the London market and the company holds weekly sales at which the native buyers purchase the balance of the output. After crudely cutting the stones thus obtained the dealers dispose of them to outside interests.
In Search Of The Precious Stone (continued)
From Siam I turned my attention to the famous ruby mines in Burma. Those unversed in mineralogy it is difficult to conceive sapphires and rubies belonging to the same species. Such is the case however, as both are corundum and possess similar physical characteristics—color excepted. They rank in hardness second only to the diamond. Carat for carat rubies of the first quality are rarer and consequently more valuable than diamonds of a corresponding grade. No other stone increases as rapidly in value in proportion to increase in weight as does the ruby. Dark red rubies are found in Siam and purplish ones in Ceylon but Burma alone may claim the wonderful pigeon-blood ruby.
To reach the mines I went first to Rangoon, the capital of Burma. The outstanding feature of Rangoon is the Shwe Dagon Pagoda, glittering in its golden armor. In passing, a few words descriptive of this Buddhist holy-of-holies might be apropos. Erected in 588 B.C according to tradition three women were buried alive during the rites which accompanied its inception. The Pagoda, 370 feet high, is built in the center of a vast terrace 166 feet above the ground. Upon its summit is a sort of network headpiece dangling with bells. This structure is jewel-encrusted, the upper dome being covered with eight-of-an-inch thick plates of solid gold, and the lower part overlaid with burnished goldleaf. Above all floats a banner studded with gems worth more then $1,000,000. The Shwe Dagon is surrounded by some fifteen hundred minor pagodas which, with their garish trimmings and waxwork show of alabaster images, impart the atmosphere of a fair to the entire scene.
The narrow, tortuous streets of Rangoon swarm with yellow-robed Buddhist priests, grotesque in appearance, their heads and eyebrows shaven in accordance with the mandates of their creed. The prevalence of holy men in Burma is due to a custom whereby the sons of the better families devote a certain portion of their lives to the priesthood, just as, in more civilized countries, young ladies attend convents with a view to culture and education.
Mandalay, immortalized in verse by Kipling, was reached after an eighteen hour rail journey to the northward. There I embarked upon the Irrawaddy, one of India’s great rivers. All day the quaint steamer nosed its way cautiously upstream, following the twistings and turnings of the tortuous channel. The overhanging ferns caressed the surface of the sluggish stream and each feathery leaf of the palms lining the banks found its counterpart mirrored upon the glassy surface of the backwaters. Huge rafts of teak logs, manned by Burmans, drifted slowly by, upon their journey to the sea. Waterfowl, disturbed in their quest for fish amid the bending reeds, took wing with a whirr calculated to gladden the heart of the sportsman. When night settled upon the jungle it was necessary to drop anchor owing to the dangers attending navigation in the dark. The moon, red and hot-looking, peered from behind the distant hills and, as if satisfied with what it had seen, climbed into the star-dusted heavens to be reflected later upon the river’s expanse in all of its silvery splendor. I reached Thabeitkin the following morning.
Thabeitkin is a small village and impresses one with the belief that is clinging desperately to the riverbank lest the jungle, encroaching upon the three remaining sides, succeed in crowding it into the stream. When I arrived, the village was in a state of excitement bordering upon panic over the recent destruction of one of the inhabitants by two man-eating tigers. These beasts are held in such mortal dread by the natives and so many terrifying tales are told of their depredations that I climbed into dark and I freely confess that I spent a very restless night. The following day i was so engrossed in preparations for my trip to Mogok, the ruby mines re located, that all disturbing thought of the predatory felines was banished. The British government has connected Thabeitkin and Mogok by an excellent road, seventy miles in length. The journey is a gentle ascent and the scenery, interesting for the entire distance, is particularly beautiful when nearing Mogok from which point a panoramic view of the surrounding country is obtained. Mogok, being about five thousand feet higher than the river, has a climate delightfully cool in contrast to the heat prevailing in the valley. The mining district comprises about two hundred square miles and the mines, controlled by the Burma Ruby Company, are worked in accordance with the most modern practice, surrounding hills being gradually leveled in the course of operations. Through a coincidence the finest ruby ever found in these mines was discovered on Armistice Day, 1918. It was christened ‘The Peace Ruby’ and was purchased by a native merchant for $100,000. He later sold it to an Indian Rajah. The choicest rubies are sent to the London market and the company holds weekly sales at which the native buyers purchase the balance of the output. After crudely cutting the stones thus obtained the dealers dispose of them to outside interests.
In Search Of The Precious Stone (continued)
Dutch Painting In The Seventeenth Century
(via The Outline of Art) William Orpen writes:
4
All classifications of so individual a thing as art are bound to be artificial and imperfect; but just as we may say that the genre-painters of Holland depicted the life of the city, and the landscape-painters the life of the country, so a third group of artists mirrored another phase of national activity in constituting themselves painters of shipping and the sea. Holland, as England once knew to her cost, was, and still is, a great maritime nation, and her sea-captains and shipowners inevitably set up a demand for pictures of the element on which they triumphed and prospered. Moreover, this low-lying land was at the mercy of the sea, which was only kept back by the dykes, so that every Dutchman may be said to have had a personal interest in the ocean. One of the earliest painters of sea-pieces with shipping was Hendrik Dubbels (1620-76), who was the master of a more famous sea-painter, Ludolf Bakhuizen (1631-1708). Bakhuizen is as much a painter of shipping as of the sea, and in addition to being a picture-painter he was a naval architect who made constructive drawings of ships for the Russian Tsar Peter the Great. There is a great deal of spirit in his sea-pieces, particularly in his tempestuous subjects, but his storms, as John Ruskin pointed out, were storms that belonged to melodrama rather than to Nature.
We do not feel, however, that there is anything theatrical in the marines of his far greater contemporary, Willem van de Velde the Younger (1633-1707), who belonged to a famous family of artists settled in Amsterdam. Some critics hold that the younger Van de Velde is at his best when depicting shipping in a calm, and assuredly he has painted the stillness of the sea with a beauty and true dignity which go straight to the heart of every sailor. But there are pictures also in which Van de Velde has portrayed crashing waters under a charged sky, and if he rarely essayed to express the terrors of a great storm, yet he succeeds perfectly in conveying the excitement and somewhat perilous exhilaration of a stiff breeze. As example of his powers in this direction is ‘A Gale’, in which we see the waves washing over a fishing-smack in the foreground, while farther on a frigate proudly approaches with bellying sails, and still farther in the distance a second frigate rides out the gale at anchor beneath the dark clouded sky. This gale is not awe-inspiring, as it might have been had Ruisdael painted it, but it is a picture that instinctively makes us square our chests and brace ourselves to meet the wind. Both the Willem van de Veldes, the father and the son who soon surpassed him in accomplishment, came over to London in 1677 and entered the service of Charles II. Willem van de Velde the Younger died at Greenwich, and owing to his long sojourn in England his pictures are plentiful in our public galleries, where they have served as models for Turner and other British sea-painters.
Painting, so flourishing in Holland at the beginning of the seventeenth century, was dead or dying when the next century dawned. The rapid rise of art to the eminence attained by Rembrandt was followed by an equally rapid decadence, so that in the early years of the eighteenth century Dutch painting, while maintaining a creditable level of craftsmanship, had sunk to the meticulous and uninspired painting of fruit, flowers, and the odd collections of inanimate objects known as ‘still life’. In the Netherlands the vein of Rubens was now exhausted and his true heir appeared in France in the person of that strangely attractive painter, Antoine Watteau.
4
All classifications of so individual a thing as art are bound to be artificial and imperfect; but just as we may say that the genre-painters of Holland depicted the life of the city, and the landscape-painters the life of the country, so a third group of artists mirrored another phase of national activity in constituting themselves painters of shipping and the sea. Holland, as England once knew to her cost, was, and still is, a great maritime nation, and her sea-captains and shipowners inevitably set up a demand for pictures of the element on which they triumphed and prospered. Moreover, this low-lying land was at the mercy of the sea, which was only kept back by the dykes, so that every Dutchman may be said to have had a personal interest in the ocean. One of the earliest painters of sea-pieces with shipping was Hendrik Dubbels (1620-76), who was the master of a more famous sea-painter, Ludolf Bakhuizen (1631-1708). Bakhuizen is as much a painter of shipping as of the sea, and in addition to being a picture-painter he was a naval architect who made constructive drawings of ships for the Russian Tsar Peter the Great. There is a great deal of spirit in his sea-pieces, particularly in his tempestuous subjects, but his storms, as John Ruskin pointed out, were storms that belonged to melodrama rather than to Nature.
We do not feel, however, that there is anything theatrical in the marines of his far greater contemporary, Willem van de Velde the Younger (1633-1707), who belonged to a famous family of artists settled in Amsterdam. Some critics hold that the younger Van de Velde is at his best when depicting shipping in a calm, and assuredly he has painted the stillness of the sea with a beauty and true dignity which go straight to the heart of every sailor. But there are pictures also in which Van de Velde has portrayed crashing waters under a charged sky, and if he rarely essayed to express the terrors of a great storm, yet he succeeds perfectly in conveying the excitement and somewhat perilous exhilaration of a stiff breeze. As example of his powers in this direction is ‘A Gale’, in which we see the waves washing over a fishing-smack in the foreground, while farther on a frigate proudly approaches with bellying sails, and still farther in the distance a second frigate rides out the gale at anchor beneath the dark clouded sky. This gale is not awe-inspiring, as it might have been had Ruisdael painted it, but it is a picture that instinctively makes us square our chests and brace ourselves to meet the wind. Both the Willem van de Veldes, the father and the son who soon surpassed him in accomplishment, came over to London in 1677 and entered the service of Charles II. Willem van de Velde the Younger died at Greenwich, and owing to his long sojourn in England his pictures are plentiful in our public galleries, where they have served as models for Turner and other British sea-painters.
Painting, so flourishing in Holland at the beginning of the seventeenth century, was dead or dying when the next century dawned. The rapid rise of art to the eminence attained by Rembrandt was followed by an equally rapid decadence, so that in the early years of the eighteenth century Dutch painting, while maintaining a creditable level of craftsmanship, had sunk to the meticulous and uninspired painting of fruit, flowers, and the odd collections of inanimate objects known as ‘still life’. In the Netherlands the vein of Rubens was now exhausted and his true heir appeared in France in the person of that strangely attractive painter, Antoine Watteau.
Saturday, January 12, 2008
Buster Keaton
Buster Keaton was an American silent film comic actor and filmmaker + he is remembered as one of the great comic innovators of the silent era + his trademark was physical comedy with a stoic, deadpan expression on his face, earning him the nickname 'The Great Stone Face' + I love watching his films.
Useful links:
www.busterkeaton.com
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buster_Keaton
Useful links:
www.busterkeaton.com
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buster_Keaton
Market News
I think the upmarket gem and jewelry firms are getting jittery from the economic slowdown in various phases + high-end consumers + consumers, at every level, are tightening their spending + the world's largest economy could contract causing a recession.
Heard On The Steet
Successful gem / jewelry / art traders have learned to filter, modulate and use whole brain thinking to their advantage as they trade the numbers + they realize that when the time is up, it is up and they are able to get out and get ready for the next opportunity + they know that time is on their side, and they are prepared for it.
George Orwell
'A mass of Latin words falls upon the facts like soft snow, blurring the outline and covering up all the details. The great enemy of clear language is insincerity. When there is a gap between one’s real and one’s declared aims, one turns as it were instinctively to long words and exhausted idioms, like a cuttlefish spurting out ink.'
- George Orwell, writer (1903-1950)
- George Orwell, writer (1903-1950)
Aglianico del Vulture
Aglianico del Vulture is a red wine produced in Basilicata (Vulture area) + it is considered one of the finest wines that is produced in Italy from Aglianico grapes + the color of the Aglianico wine is ruby garnet red with a dry and savory taste + 11.5-13 % alcohol.
Pareto Distribution
I think the Pareto distribution, named after the Italian economist Vilfredo Pareto, is a power law probability distribution concept that links with social, scientific, actuarial, and many other types of observable phenomena + it could be applicable to gem + jewlery + art trading.
The Shop Around The Corner
The Shop Around The Corner (1940)
Directed by: Ernst Lubitsch
Screenplay: Miklós László (play), Samson Raphaelson, Ben Hecht (uncredited)
Cast: Margaret Sullavan, James Stewart
(via YouTube): The Shop Around the Corner (1940) Part 1/11
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YOv03vAtrqE
The Shop Around the Corner (1940) Part 2/11
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=csb0id2iPaw
The Shop Around the Corner (1940) Part 3/11
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-cOmYtUm-EU
I think it was a touching movie + I enjoyed it.
Directed by: Ernst Lubitsch
Screenplay: Miklós László (play), Samson Raphaelson, Ben Hecht (uncredited)
Cast: Margaret Sullavan, James Stewart
(via YouTube): The Shop Around the Corner (1940) Part 1/11
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YOv03vAtrqE
The Shop Around the Corner (1940) Part 2/11
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=csb0id2iPaw
The Shop Around the Corner (1940) Part 3/11
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-cOmYtUm-EU
I think it was a touching movie + I enjoyed it.
Major Art Centers In Russia
If you ever get a chance to visit Russia, explore the Russian art collections at:
State Hermitage museum (www.hermitagemuseum.org)
State National museum (www.tretyakov.ru)
State Pushkin museum (www.russianmuseums.info)
State Tretyakov museum ( www.tretyakov.ru)
They are unique sources for inspiration.
State Hermitage museum (www.hermitagemuseum.org)
State National museum (www.tretyakov.ru)
State Pushkin museum (www.russianmuseums.info)
State Tretyakov museum ( www.tretyakov.ru)
They are unique sources for inspiration.
BPP – Getting Serious At Last
Total internal reflections of Chaim Even Zohar on Diamond Trading Company (DTC) Best Practice Principles (BPP) compliance + operational issues/failures + other viewpoints @ http://www.idexonline.com/portal_FullEditorial.asp
In Search Of The Precious Stone
Albert Ramsay (Albert Ramsay & Co, 1925) writes:
As the sun, like a glowing disc of molten copper, sank into the western sea, one involuntarily awaited the hissing steam which accompanies the immersion of hot metal in water. The afterglow, touching the detached fragments of cloud, transformed them into bits of opal floating against an iridescent background of pink, orange, and blue, marvelously blended. After ten days spend amid these pleasant surroundings we steamed up the Menam River to Bangkok, the capital of Siam.
Bangkok presented a singular yet imposing appearance. Here were balconied minarets, slender and delicately modeled, ornate in lacquer and gilt which refracted the rays of the tropical sun with dazzling brilliancy; here were pagodas, many storeyed and taping to needle-like points, with eaves whose corners curled up as does the toe of a Turkish slipper; here were houses with tiled roofs of brilliant colors. Over all was an air of mystic antiquity, unalloyed through contact with occidental progressiveness.
From Bangkok I took a coasting steamer to Chantabun, one hundred and twenty five miles to the southeastward. The sapphire mines in the Pailin district are three days journey through the jungle from Chantabun. This trip, made on horseback, indelibly impressed itself upon my memory. The native guides, their ugliness increased by their teeth, blackened through incessant chewing of the eternal betel nut of the Orient, led me along a path which would have been indiscernible to one unfamiliar with its existence. The arched branches of the trees were festooned with vines and sinuous creepers which necessitated lying flat along the horses’ backs if any progress was to be made. At times the members of the party were concealed from one another by this screen of hanging vegetation. No refreshing breeze penetrated the matted foliage to dissipate the unwholesome emanations of the damp ground, untouched by the purging beams of the sun; the atmosphere was heavy with humidity and the temperatures ranged above one hundred degrees, day and night. Eight hours of riding, ducking and dodging, brought us to a dak bungalow or rest house, where we were to spend the night. This bungalow was a bamboo shelter built upon a platform elevated about six feet above the ground to discourage any undue familiarity upon the parts of cobras, wild pigs, tigers or other rapacious beasts which roamed through the Siamese jungle in great numbers. The dak bungalow was in the middle of a small clearing upon all sides of which the forest was sending forth new growth, just as an army gradually closes in upon a besieged city. Resplendently-plumed birds flitted in and out among the lush bamboo and pendant vines; daintily-tinted orchids vied with gaudy flowers for the favor of the great butterflies which floated from one to the other like animated gems. The tout ensemble formed a never-to-be-forgotten picture of tropical luxuriance. It seemed a crime that the appreciation which such beauty merited should have been withheld owning to the oppressive and enervating heat. The intentness with which we scanned the bordering thickets and the care with which we clung to our rifles were in no way abated through the recollection of a tomb we passed in which were interred the remains of a miner who had been killed upon the spot by a tiger. Finally, hot, tired and thirsty we reached a waterhole. After thoroughly satisfying our thirst we filled the deerskin water bags and bathed our heads and hands in the ice cold water. Revived in body and spirit we proceeded and fifteen miles from the dark bungalow we arrived at a river across which we were ferried in sampans while the guides swam the stream with our horses. On the evening of the third day we reached the mines.
The following morning I inspected the sapphires and then began the strangest bargaining session to which I have ever been a party. Many of the miners are Burmese immigrants and it had been necessary for me to thoroughly acquaint myself with their methods in order to trade with them. Buyer and seller clasp hands. The miner throws his panung or waist cloth over the hands, thus concealing them from any witness who may be present. The bargaining is conducted in absolute silence, prices being indicated by pressure upon the joints of the fore and middle fingers in accordance with a code which I had previously learned in preparation. In this way the bystanders are prevented from knowing whether or not a deal has been consummated. The transfer of stones and cash takes place later.
For five days I squeezed the hand of a Burmese miner and had my own pressed by him in return. We were playing for high stakes and it was with a feeling of satisfaction that I ultimately felt the pressure which indicated that I had won. As a result I acquired in return for $200,000 in note currency, one of the finest collections that ever left the mines. Included in it was the sapphire par excellence of the Siamese mines. It had been given to the man from whom I bought it, fifteen years previous by his partner, upon the latter’s deathbed, to be held in trust for his son. Through a stroke of good fortune I had been able to save the life of the trustee’s grandson by the aid of my medical kit and as a token of appreciation he sold me the stone for $10000. The following day the old man died and although the superstitious natives interpreted his demise as a retributory punishment for having violated his trust I have often wondered if, in my eagerness, I had not worked his joints too strenuously.
In Search Of The Precious Stone (continue)
As the sun, like a glowing disc of molten copper, sank into the western sea, one involuntarily awaited the hissing steam which accompanies the immersion of hot metal in water. The afterglow, touching the detached fragments of cloud, transformed them into bits of opal floating against an iridescent background of pink, orange, and blue, marvelously blended. After ten days spend amid these pleasant surroundings we steamed up the Menam River to Bangkok, the capital of Siam.
Bangkok presented a singular yet imposing appearance. Here were balconied minarets, slender and delicately modeled, ornate in lacquer and gilt which refracted the rays of the tropical sun with dazzling brilliancy; here were pagodas, many storeyed and taping to needle-like points, with eaves whose corners curled up as does the toe of a Turkish slipper; here were houses with tiled roofs of brilliant colors. Over all was an air of mystic antiquity, unalloyed through contact with occidental progressiveness.
From Bangkok I took a coasting steamer to Chantabun, one hundred and twenty five miles to the southeastward. The sapphire mines in the Pailin district are three days journey through the jungle from Chantabun. This trip, made on horseback, indelibly impressed itself upon my memory. The native guides, their ugliness increased by their teeth, blackened through incessant chewing of the eternal betel nut of the Orient, led me along a path which would have been indiscernible to one unfamiliar with its existence. The arched branches of the trees were festooned with vines and sinuous creepers which necessitated lying flat along the horses’ backs if any progress was to be made. At times the members of the party were concealed from one another by this screen of hanging vegetation. No refreshing breeze penetrated the matted foliage to dissipate the unwholesome emanations of the damp ground, untouched by the purging beams of the sun; the atmosphere was heavy with humidity and the temperatures ranged above one hundred degrees, day and night. Eight hours of riding, ducking and dodging, brought us to a dak bungalow or rest house, where we were to spend the night. This bungalow was a bamboo shelter built upon a platform elevated about six feet above the ground to discourage any undue familiarity upon the parts of cobras, wild pigs, tigers or other rapacious beasts which roamed through the Siamese jungle in great numbers. The dak bungalow was in the middle of a small clearing upon all sides of which the forest was sending forth new growth, just as an army gradually closes in upon a besieged city. Resplendently-plumed birds flitted in and out among the lush bamboo and pendant vines; daintily-tinted orchids vied with gaudy flowers for the favor of the great butterflies which floated from one to the other like animated gems. The tout ensemble formed a never-to-be-forgotten picture of tropical luxuriance. It seemed a crime that the appreciation which such beauty merited should have been withheld owning to the oppressive and enervating heat. The intentness with which we scanned the bordering thickets and the care with which we clung to our rifles were in no way abated through the recollection of a tomb we passed in which were interred the remains of a miner who had been killed upon the spot by a tiger. Finally, hot, tired and thirsty we reached a waterhole. After thoroughly satisfying our thirst we filled the deerskin water bags and bathed our heads and hands in the ice cold water. Revived in body and spirit we proceeded and fifteen miles from the dark bungalow we arrived at a river across which we were ferried in sampans while the guides swam the stream with our horses. On the evening of the third day we reached the mines.
The following morning I inspected the sapphires and then began the strangest bargaining session to which I have ever been a party. Many of the miners are Burmese immigrants and it had been necessary for me to thoroughly acquaint myself with their methods in order to trade with them. Buyer and seller clasp hands. The miner throws his panung or waist cloth over the hands, thus concealing them from any witness who may be present. The bargaining is conducted in absolute silence, prices being indicated by pressure upon the joints of the fore and middle fingers in accordance with a code which I had previously learned in preparation. In this way the bystanders are prevented from knowing whether or not a deal has been consummated. The transfer of stones and cash takes place later.
For five days I squeezed the hand of a Burmese miner and had my own pressed by him in return. We were playing for high stakes and it was with a feeling of satisfaction that I ultimately felt the pressure which indicated that I had won. As a result I acquired in return for $200,000 in note currency, one of the finest collections that ever left the mines. Included in it was the sapphire par excellence of the Siamese mines. It had been given to the man from whom I bought it, fifteen years previous by his partner, upon the latter’s deathbed, to be held in trust for his son. Through a stroke of good fortune I had been able to save the life of the trustee’s grandson by the aid of my medical kit and as a token of appreciation he sold me the stone for $10000. The following day the old man died and although the superstitious natives interpreted his demise as a retributory punishment for having violated his trust I have often wondered if, in my eagerness, I had not worked his joints too strenuously.
In Search Of The Precious Stone (continue)
The Goldsmith – Jeweler Of Egypt
(via 5000 Years of Gems and Jewelry) Frances Rogers and Alice Beard writes:
8. Beads For Barter
There are many people even today who consider an investment in precious stones (particularly diamonds) as one of the safest and most convenient ways of accumulating wealth. A compact fortune in the tabloid form of gems can be tucked in a small corner of one’s pocket and easily converted at need into the coin of any country. The practise of using precious stones and jewelry as a medium of exchange began before recorded history.
There is no record of any money in the world earlier than about 600 B.C. Before that time everything was bought and sold by barter, the generally accepted standard being cattle. Cattle, like well-invested funds, had the advantage of increasing, therefore cattle were satisfactory as a medium of exchange when the transaction was taking place between neighbors. But obviously cattle were difficult to transport long distances. Something valuable but easily carried was essential as a medium of exchange, and jewelry, precious stones and metals, the latter valued according to weight, fulfilled the requirements.
Perhaps, the most convenient and welcome of all substitutes for currency was beads. Beads are the Adam and Eve of the jewelry family and their countless progeny have spread over all the inhabited lands of the earth from the darkest jungles of Africa to the icebound countries of the far north. Beads were cherished in the magnificent courts of the Pharaohs, and they flourish today in the ‘five-and-tens’ of the New World.
The jeweler of ancient times seems to have delighted in seeing how many different kinds of beads he could make. There were minute carved beads, balls of amethysts, and melon-shaped beads of limpid rock crystal, pale red carnelian beads shaped like an hour-glass, and cylindrical beads of green feldspar. There were ‘crumb’ beads in which small bits of soapstone or faience were cemented together. ‘Eye’ beads with fixed stare of black-glass pupils surrounded by rings of white which protruded from the sides vied in popularity with eye-agate beads. Pendants of carnelian, lapis and green feldspar were carved in an endless variety of shapes such as locusts, birds (the hawk was a favorite), animals and figures; there were miniature vases and two-handled urns, and every bead was a symbol.
The demand for beads in Egypt did not lessen as the centuries passed. During the Eighteenth Dynasty beads and pendants by the million were being manufactured. Not only were they worn by the living, but vast quantities of them were used to decorate the dead. Sometimes woven together in patterns they quite covered the mummy like a cheerful pall.
Regardless of their lavish use at home in the Nile valley, there were still countless numbers of beads that traveled by sea into other countries. Fleets of Egyptian galleys sailed constantly across the eastern end of the Mediterranean, trading with primitive settlements that dotted the southern coast of Asia Minor. Or perhaps the merchant, using a small flat-bottomed boat, carried his jeweled ornaments and beads up the Nile into Nubia, to barter them for panther skins, ebony, ivory and ostrich feathers. The inventories of those ancient cargoes read like descriptions from the Arabian Nights.
The trade routes of early times may be traced by the beads which blazed their trails. And wherever the bead went there too, of necessity, went some wave of influence caused by the intercourse between various countries. One of the tide-marks used by the archaeologist to measure the degree of a nation’s civilization is its bead and jewelry culture.
A fresco from the tomb of an Egyptian nobleman lifts the curtain of time and gives us a glimpse of what the well-dressed Egyptian wore at a dinner party, especially in the way of jewels, for apparently the emphasis of a festive costume lay not so much in the dress as in the jewelry and accessories. The simple draperies of both men and women are quite eclipsed by enormous black wigs bound round the forehead with jeweled bands from which dangle large pendants of gold. Every one’s arms, necks, wrists, and in some cases ankles, are encircled with jewels, and from their ears hang heavy earrings. The serving maids, dispensing with all draperies whatsoever, are clad simply in wigs and jewels. As a final touch of luxurious sophistication every guest wears perched on top of his or her wig a rather sizable perfume-box shaped somewhat like a beehive.
At such a banquet as that pictured in the fresco, rings would be given to the guests as favors. These rings, made of faience, were brilliant blue in color and very perishable, but that was of no consequence since they were intended to be worn only during the festive occasion.
Egypt, however, was not permitted to continue developing her arts in peace. Many wars sapped her strength, and the land was overrun with foreigners. By 1000 B.C she was well on her way downhill and under such conditions the Egyptian goldsmith found little encouragement to develop new methods or new designs. Nevertheless, he did keep on making endless jewelry after the old patterns—there was a market for it in foreign lands, a market more widespread than ever before, because a new branch of transport was gradually coming into power. No longer did the merchant ships of Egypt herself put out to sea, but Phoenician galleys laden with spices, precious stones, and the products of Egyptian and Babylonian workshops, carried on a brisk trade with the coast settlements of Greece, Italy, Africa, Spain and Britain.
8. Beads For Barter
There are many people even today who consider an investment in precious stones (particularly diamonds) as one of the safest and most convenient ways of accumulating wealth. A compact fortune in the tabloid form of gems can be tucked in a small corner of one’s pocket and easily converted at need into the coin of any country. The practise of using precious stones and jewelry as a medium of exchange began before recorded history.
There is no record of any money in the world earlier than about 600 B.C. Before that time everything was bought and sold by barter, the generally accepted standard being cattle. Cattle, like well-invested funds, had the advantage of increasing, therefore cattle were satisfactory as a medium of exchange when the transaction was taking place between neighbors. But obviously cattle were difficult to transport long distances. Something valuable but easily carried was essential as a medium of exchange, and jewelry, precious stones and metals, the latter valued according to weight, fulfilled the requirements.
Perhaps, the most convenient and welcome of all substitutes for currency was beads. Beads are the Adam and Eve of the jewelry family and their countless progeny have spread over all the inhabited lands of the earth from the darkest jungles of Africa to the icebound countries of the far north. Beads were cherished in the magnificent courts of the Pharaohs, and they flourish today in the ‘five-and-tens’ of the New World.
The jeweler of ancient times seems to have delighted in seeing how many different kinds of beads he could make. There were minute carved beads, balls of amethysts, and melon-shaped beads of limpid rock crystal, pale red carnelian beads shaped like an hour-glass, and cylindrical beads of green feldspar. There were ‘crumb’ beads in which small bits of soapstone or faience were cemented together. ‘Eye’ beads with fixed stare of black-glass pupils surrounded by rings of white which protruded from the sides vied in popularity with eye-agate beads. Pendants of carnelian, lapis and green feldspar were carved in an endless variety of shapes such as locusts, birds (the hawk was a favorite), animals and figures; there were miniature vases and two-handled urns, and every bead was a symbol.
The demand for beads in Egypt did not lessen as the centuries passed. During the Eighteenth Dynasty beads and pendants by the million were being manufactured. Not only were they worn by the living, but vast quantities of them were used to decorate the dead. Sometimes woven together in patterns they quite covered the mummy like a cheerful pall.
Regardless of their lavish use at home in the Nile valley, there were still countless numbers of beads that traveled by sea into other countries. Fleets of Egyptian galleys sailed constantly across the eastern end of the Mediterranean, trading with primitive settlements that dotted the southern coast of Asia Minor. Or perhaps the merchant, using a small flat-bottomed boat, carried his jeweled ornaments and beads up the Nile into Nubia, to barter them for panther skins, ebony, ivory and ostrich feathers. The inventories of those ancient cargoes read like descriptions from the Arabian Nights.
The trade routes of early times may be traced by the beads which blazed their trails. And wherever the bead went there too, of necessity, went some wave of influence caused by the intercourse between various countries. One of the tide-marks used by the archaeologist to measure the degree of a nation’s civilization is its bead and jewelry culture.
A fresco from the tomb of an Egyptian nobleman lifts the curtain of time and gives us a glimpse of what the well-dressed Egyptian wore at a dinner party, especially in the way of jewels, for apparently the emphasis of a festive costume lay not so much in the dress as in the jewelry and accessories. The simple draperies of both men and women are quite eclipsed by enormous black wigs bound round the forehead with jeweled bands from which dangle large pendants of gold. Every one’s arms, necks, wrists, and in some cases ankles, are encircled with jewels, and from their ears hang heavy earrings. The serving maids, dispensing with all draperies whatsoever, are clad simply in wigs and jewels. As a final touch of luxurious sophistication every guest wears perched on top of his or her wig a rather sizable perfume-box shaped somewhat like a beehive.
At such a banquet as that pictured in the fresco, rings would be given to the guests as favors. These rings, made of faience, were brilliant blue in color and very perishable, but that was of no consequence since they were intended to be worn only during the festive occasion.
Egypt, however, was not permitted to continue developing her arts in peace. Many wars sapped her strength, and the land was overrun with foreigners. By 1000 B.C she was well on her way downhill and under such conditions the Egyptian goldsmith found little encouragement to develop new methods or new designs. Nevertheless, he did keep on making endless jewelry after the old patterns—there was a market for it in foreign lands, a market more widespread than ever before, because a new branch of transport was gradually coming into power. No longer did the merchant ships of Egypt herself put out to sea, but Phoenician galleys laden with spices, precious stones, and the products of Egyptian and Babylonian workshops, carried on a brisk trade with the coast settlements of Greece, Italy, Africa, Spain and Britain.
Dutch Painting In The Seventeenth Century
(via The Outline of Art) William Orpen writes:
3
We have seen now with what variety and perfection the Dutch artists painted their national hearthside: and next we must consider how they painted their homeland. Midway between the genre painters and the landscape-painters stands Aart van der Neer (1603-77), who forms a bridge, as it were, between the two groups. Born three years before Rembrandt, he, like Jan van Goyen (1596-1656), is one of the early pioneers of landscape painting, yet by the the little figures in his landscapes he tells us a great deal of the life of Holland. Thus his ‘Skating Scene’ in the Wallace Collection has been ranked by the famous Dr Bode as ‘among the most perfect landscape delineations of winter,’ but it is also a charming picture of manners, giving us a glimpse of the life on the ice in seventeenth-century Holland.
Towards the end of his life Aart van der Neer deteriorated as other ‘Little Master’ did also; in addition to painting, he kept a tavern, and possibly business losses in the wine trade drove him to do inferior but more immediately saleable work during his last years. Nearly all his best work was done before 1665, when he was not dependent on painting for a livelihood, but a happy amateur who could paint what he liked. He was one of the first artists to attempt painting night scenes, but though the novelty of his moonlit views attracted attention his winter landscapes in daylight are usually considered to be his best work.
Agriculture has always been an important industry in Holland, and the local artists who catered so well for the needs of the citizen did not forget to make an appeal also to farmers. Of many who made a specialty of painting cattle, Paul Potter (1623-54) is the most celebrated, though he died in his twenty-ninth year. His big picture ‘The Bull’ is a favourite show piece at The Hague, where guides—most conservative critics—wax enthusiastic about its accuracy. Courageous people, however, have been known to confess that they find its precise statement of fact a little dull, though few dare to be so severe as Dr Muther, who once described Potter’s cattle as ‘essentially Dutch, for they know neither passions, nor struggles, nor movement, but chew the cud phlegmatically or lie down in comfortable repose.’
Cattle also figure largely in the paintings of Albert Cuyp (1620-91), who is splendidly represented in English collections. Cuyp was no mere animal painter: his principal interest lay neither in the beast nor in the earth, but above in the mighty vault of the heavens. He does not so much set out to paint cattle as to use cattle, and we may see in his ‘River Scene’ how effectively cows can be used as dark spots which bring out by contrast the luminosity of the sky, and as prominent objects in the foreground which emphasize the great stretch of flat landscape which reaches out to the horizon. The glowing light and golden color of Cuyp have placed him among the great sky painters of the world, and his work has for centuries been an example and an incentive to British landscape painting.
Apart from all other Dutch painters of landscape—seeming, indeed, to belong to another race—stands the austere and majestic figure of Jacob van Ruisdael (1628-82). Though he took all Nature for his province, and in his youth painted her more peaceful aspects, we instinctively associate his sublime spirit with holy spots ‘both savage and enchanted.’ It is difficult to think of him as eight years younger than Cuyp, for so serious and austere is his vision that we can hardly believe Ruisdael was ever young. Even when he paints a simple seaside scene like ‘The Shore at Scheveningen’ he gives dramatic intensity to the scene by the rolling clouds in the sky which seem to repeat the restlessness of the agitated waves. Again, in his famous painting of ‘The Mill’, for all the stillness of the scene, we feel that this is the calm before the storm—as, indeed, the sky betokens. Grandly designed as this painting is, it is one of the quietest works of the artist, who, though infinitely varied in his choice of subject delighted especially in painting waterfalls, cascades, and rocky cliffs, Ruisdael, says a gifted American painter, Mr John La Farge,
Is as different from Cuyp as shadow is from sunshine; and his grave and solemn mind gives to the simplest and most commonplace of landscapes a look of sad importance, which is almost like a reproach of lightmindedness to any other man’s work which happens to hand alongside.
Meindert Hobbema (1638-1700) was Ruisdael’s pupil and friend, but as different in temperament from his master as a man could well be. Ruisdael approaches Nature with devoutness of a worshipper approaching a shrine; Hobbema, with the unconscious ease of a man entering his own home. He painted the same subjects over and over again, but he painted them so naturally, so freshly and convincingly, that they take us straight back to Nature, not to the pictures of another artist. In the humbleness and sincerity of his naturalism he expresses everybody’s feeling of delight and thankfulness in sunny weather and fresh country air. ‘The Avenue’ is probably the best beloved landscape in the National Gallery, London, and this and other works by Hobbema have had a profound and far-reaching effect on British landscape. Out of his smiling and friendly art grew our Norwich school of landscape. Gainsborough acknowledged his worth by word and deed, and the last sentence ever uttered by John Crome was, ‘Oh, Hobbema, my dear Hobbema, how I have loved you!’ It is sad to think that this simple, honest, and most easily understood painter, a man of genius who has given happiness to millions for six generations, fared so poorly in his profession of painting that when he was thirty he sought another means of livelihood. He sought and obtained a small position in the wine customs, and thus made himself independent of picture buyers and dealers. He saw his master, the great painter Ruisdael, battling with poverty and becoming no more prosperous as the years rolled on, so Hobbema wisely determined to look elsewhere for his bread and butter and make landscape painting his hobby and pastime. It is significant to note that his supreme masterpiece, ‘The Avenue’ was painted some years after he had become a civil servant, and when, without having to think of what the buyer might or might not like, he could indulge to the full his feeling for the pattern in landscape and his sense of beauty in the elements of Nature.
It must be admitted that if Holland had a galaxy of artistic talent during the seventeenth century she did little to encourage genius. As so often happens in modern times, the mediocre painters made the best income, while the men of genius starved. This state of affairs is not satisfactory, but it is not inexplicable. The men who prospered and made money were, as a rule, painters like Gerard Dou, who painted every feather on a bird, every scale of a fish, the shine of a copper pan, and the luster of an earthenware pot. These were things within the range of everybody’s observation and interest, and demanded no imagination, no culture. Therefore the painters of pots and pans, of insects, fruit and flowers, all prospered, while great artists like Rembrandt, Hals, Vermeer, and Ruisdael, who concentrated their attention on higher things, were neglected. Anybody could understand a picture of a cat stealing a fish, but appreciate the beauty of pearly light stealing through high windows to lighten an apartment, presupposes some sense of poetry in the mind of the beholder.
Dutch Painting In The Seventeenth Century (continued)
3
We have seen now with what variety and perfection the Dutch artists painted their national hearthside: and next we must consider how they painted their homeland. Midway between the genre painters and the landscape-painters stands Aart van der Neer (1603-77), who forms a bridge, as it were, between the two groups. Born three years before Rembrandt, he, like Jan van Goyen (1596-1656), is one of the early pioneers of landscape painting, yet by the the little figures in his landscapes he tells us a great deal of the life of Holland. Thus his ‘Skating Scene’ in the Wallace Collection has been ranked by the famous Dr Bode as ‘among the most perfect landscape delineations of winter,’ but it is also a charming picture of manners, giving us a glimpse of the life on the ice in seventeenth-century Holland.
Towards the end of his life Aart van der Neer deteriorated as other ‘Little Master’ did also; in addition to painting, he kept a tavern, and possibly business losses in the wine trade drove him to do inferior but more immediately saleable work during his last years. Nearly all his best work was done before 1665, when he was not dependent on painting for a livelihood, but a happy amateur who could paint what he liked. He was one of the first artists to attempt painting night scenes, but though the novelty of his moonlit views attracted attention his winter landscapes in daylight are usually considered to be his best work.
Agriculture has always been an important industry in Holland, and the local artists who catered so well for the needs of the citizen did not forget to make an appeal also to farmers. Of many who made a specialty of painting cattle, Paul Potter (1623-54) is the most celebrated, though he died in his twenty-ninth year. His big picture ‘The Bull’ is a favourite show piece at The Hague, where guides—most conservative critics—wax enthusiastic about its accuracy. Courageous people, however, have been known to confess that they find its precise statement of fact a little dull, though few dare to be so severe as Dr Muther, who once described Potter’s cattle as ‘essentially Dutch, for they know neither passions, nor struggles, nor movement, but chew the cud phlegmatically or lie down in comfortable repose.’
Cattle also figure largely in the paintings of Albert Cuyp (1620-91), who is splendidly represented in English collections. Cuyp was no mere animal painter: his principal interest lay neither in the beast nor in the earth, but above in the mighty vault of the heavens. He does not so much set out to paint cattle as to use cattle, and we may see in his ‘River Scene’ how effectively cows can be used as dark spots which bring out by contrast the luminosity of the sky, and as prominent objects in the foreground which emphasize the great stretch of flat landscape which reaches out to the horizon. The glowing light and golden color of Cuyp have placed him among the great sky painters of the world, and his work has for centuries been an example and an incentive to British landscape painting.
Apart from all other Dutch painters of landscape—seeming, indeed, to belong to another race—stands the austere and majestic figure of Jacob van Ruisdael (1628-82). Though he took all Nature for his province, and in his youth painted her more peaceful aspects, we instinctively associate his sublime spirit with holy spots ‘both savage and enchanted.’ It is difficult to think of him as eight years younger than Cuyp, for so serious and austere is his vision that we can hardly believe Ruisdael was ever young. Even when he paints a simple seaside scene like ‘The Shore at Scheveningen’ he gives dramatic intensity to the scene by the rolling clouds in the sky which seem to repeat the restlessness of the agitated waves. Again, in his famous painting of ‘The Mill’, for all the stillness of the scene, we feel that this is the calm before the storm—as, indeed, the sky betokens. Grandly designed as this painting is, it is one of the quietest works of the artist, who, though infinitely varied in his choice of subject delighted especially in painting waterfalls, cascades, and rocky cliffs, Ruisdael, says a gifted American painter, Mr John La Farge,
Is as different from Cuyp as shadow is from sunshine; and his grave and solemn mind gives to the simplest and most commonplace of landscapes a look of sad importance, which is almost like a reproach of lightmindedness to any other man’s work which happens to hand alongside.
Meindert Hobbema (1638-1700) was Ruisdael’s pupil and friend, but as different in temperament from his master as a man could well be. Ruisdael approaches Nature with devoutness of a worshipper approaching a shrine; Hobbema, with the unconscious ease of a man entering his own home. He painted the same subjects over and over again, but he painted them so naturally, so freshly and convincingly, that they take us straight back to Nature, not to the pictures of another artist. In the humbleness and sincerity of his naturalism he expresses everybody’s feeling of delight and thankfulness in sunny weather and fresh country air. ‘The Avenue’ is probably the best beloved landscape in the National Gallery, London, and this and other works by Hobbema have had a profound and far-reaching effect on British landscape. Out of his smiling and friendly art grew our Norwich school of landscape. Gainsborough acknowledged his worth by word and deed, and the last sentence ever uttered by John Crome was, ‘Oh, Hobbema, my dear Hobbema, how I have loved you!’ It is sad to think that this simple, honest, and most easily understood painter, a man of genius who has given happiness to millions for six generations, fared so poorly in his profession of painting that when he was thirty he sought another means of livelihood. He sought and obtained a small position in the wine customs, and thus made himself independent of picture buyers and dealers. He saw his master, the great painter Ruisdael, battling with poverty and becoming no more prosperous as the years rolled on, so Hobbema wisely determined to look elsewhere for his bread and butter and make landscape painting his hobby and pastime. It is significant to note that his supreme masterpiece, ‘The Avenue’ was painted some years after he had become a civil servant, and when, without having to think of what the buyer might or might not like, he could indulge to the full his feeling for the pattern in landscape and his sense of beauty in the elements of Nature.
It must be admitted that if Holland had a galaxy of artistic talent during the seventeenth century she did little to encourage genius. As so often happens in modern times, the mediocre painters made the best income, while the men of genius starved. This state of affairs is not satisfactory, but it is not inexplicable. The men who prospered and made money were, as a rule, painters like Gerard Dou, who painted every feather on a bird, every scale of a fish, the shine of a copper pan, and the luster of an earthenware pot. These were things within the range of everybody’s observation and interest, and demanded no imagination, no culture. Therefore the painters of pots and pans, of insects, fruit and flowers, all prospered, while great artists like Rembrandt, Hals, Vermeer, and Ruisdael, who concentrated their attention on higher things, were neglected. Anybody could understand a picture of a cat stealing a fish, but appreciate the beauty of pearly light stealing through high windows to lighten an apartment, presupposes some sense of poetry in the mind of the beholder.
Dutch Painting In The Seventeenth Century (continued)
Sherlock, Jr.
Sherlock, Jr. (1924)
Directed by: Buster Keaton
Screenplay: Clyde Bruckman, Jean C. Havez, Joseph A. Mitchell
Cast: Buster Keaton, Kathryn McGuire, Joe Keaton, Ward Crane
(via YouTube): Sherlock Jr. (Silent, 1924) - Buster Keaton Pt 1 of 5
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PrfzXSUQ2J0
Sherlock Jr. (1924)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k1pvu1fOxCU
An impeccable silent comedy + I enjoyed it.
Directed by: Buster Keaton
Screenplay: Clyde Bruckman, Jean C. Havez, Joseph A. Mitchell
Cast: Buster Keaton, Kathryn McGuire, Joe Keaton, Ward Crane
(via YouTube): Sherlock Jr. (Silent, 1924) - Buster Keaton Pt 1 of 5
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PrfzXSUQ2J0
Sherlock Jr. (1924)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k1pvu1fOxCU
An impeccable silent comedy + I enjoyed it.
Everybody's An Expert
(via New Yorker) Louis Menand's review: I think knowing a lot can actually make a person less reliable.
Useful link:
http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2005/12/05/051205crbo_books1
Useful link:
http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2005/12/05/051205crbo_books1
Crimes Of Persuasion
I came upon www.crimes-of-persuasion.com which features a list (s) of scams + it's insightful + valuable.
Macau
Macau, the Las Vegas of the Far East is becoming the newest hot spot for business + entertainment in Asia + I think in time Macau would rival Hong Kong as a jewelry hub.
Useful links:
www.macaujewelryfair.com
www.macautourism.gov.mo
www.gov.mo
Useful links:
www.macaujewelryfair.com
www.macautourism.gov.mo
www.gov.mo
Virtual Reconstruction Of Ancient Rome
A unique voyage through the past and present + roam the ancient Via Flaminia @ www.vhlab.itabc.cnr.it/flaminia + RomeReborn1.0 a project that will soon be made available to the public by university researchers.
In Search Of The Precious Stone
Albert Ramsay (Albert Ramsay & Co, 1925) writes:
The camp at Lightning Ridge consisted of a group of tents and a few shacks. Accommodations were of the crudest sort and I established my headquarters in a tent, shared with a miner. While at Walgett I had heard tales of numerous holdups and not caring to augment the natural dangers of a trip through the bush by the risk of robbery, I deposited the large sum of cash I had brought from Sydney in the town’s single bank. As a result of that decision I was the first man to pay by check at the Lightning Ridge mines. Commercial missionaries have their troubles as well do religious ones. An amusing incident in connection with my transaction will serve to illustrate the point.
Having selected a considerable parcel of opals I tendered the miner from whom I was purchasing them a check in payment. He examined it skeptically and it was after I had nearly exhausted my patience and vocabulary that he could be persuaded to accept it in lieu of cash. A group of miners who had witnessed the scene while waiting to deal with me lost interest immediately when they saw that their companion had received a slip of paper for his opals instead of currency. Neither argument not pleading availed. They were adamant, and it was not until two days later, after one of their number had gone to Walgett and verified my statements, that I was able to procure any more stones.
While at Lightning Ridge I had an experience which I never recall without a flutter. One day I decided to go shooting. I deemed it advisable to work toward the west in order that I might have the setting sun on my back as a guide during the return trip but the miner whose tent i was sharing suggested another route as being more likely to afford me a shot at a kangaroo. I followed his advice and was rewarded by the promised kangaroo and some rabbits. I was getting late and if I was to avoid being overtaken by nightfall it was imperative that I start back. Whether I was excited over my first kangaroo or whether I was too engrossed in the beauty surrounding me I do not know, but at any rate I forgot that I had altered my original intention, and proceeded away from the sun. After trudging for a long time without encountering any familiar objects the realization that I was ‘bushed’ burst upon me—in other words, I was lost in the tangled brush with darkness fast approaching. Through some psychological phenomenon it seems that in a crisis we are reminded of the most unpleasant things in connection with our particular predicament. My case was no exception and I recalled in vivid detail the story of a miner who had been ‘bushed’ the week previous and was found dead from thirst forty miles from camp. The thought of the poor chap’s fate and the excruciating torture which must have preceded it, filled me with panic and I immediately became obsessed by a mad desire for water, as commonly occurs when men realize that they are ‘bushed’. Wandering in circles, momentarily suffering more and more from thirst, I plucked handfulls of grass which I chewed in an attempt to allay my anguish. Exhausted, mentally and physically, I was about to lie down when I heard the faint tinkle of a bell. This imbued me with fresh courage and I set out to locate the source of the sound. At nine o’clock, scratched and bleeding from the briars, I stumbled upon a horse with a bell around the neck. Never before had the sight of a horse been so welcome for his presence might portend the proximity of human habitation or, things came to the worst,men had lived on horseflesh. Darkness had spread its ebon all over the wilderness and I decided to camp where I was until daybreak. Night birds called to their mates and my active imagination filled the brush with the forms of prowling beasts. As a result I was unable to sleep and in that, fate was kind to me, for about midnight the penetrating tones of an Australian ‘coo-ee’ were borne to me upon the wings of the night breeze. I fired my rifle in response and the horse bolted, but fortunately my signal had been heard and finally a black tracker appeared. My tentmate, worried over my failure to return, had spread the alarm and as a result four hundred miners set out to beat the brush in search of me. We reached camp early next morning. Perhaps it is base ingratitude to question the motives of my rescuers but I have since debated whether their solicitude for my welfare was not prompted more through the fear of losing a good customer than it was through any spirit of brotherly love.
During my two weeks stay I purchased about $50000 worth of rough stones. The return journey to Walgett was negotiated without mishap, riding at night, under the protection of an armed escort.
The fact that I had been fortunate beyond my fondest hopes in obtaining such wonderful specimens of opals whetted my desire to continue the search and I accordingly decided to proceed to Siam in quest of sapphires. As steamer ploughed northwestward across the Indian Ocean, the sea was an ever changing marvel of beauty. It resembled a huge casket, into which the jewels had been cast in promiscuous disarray. Jade and sapphire, turquoise and emerald, aquamarine and amethyst—all were inseparably mixed by nature’s magic hand. Schools of flying fish emerged, glided through the air for a brief moment, and then, with a splash that rippled the ocean’s calm surface, were gone into the depths from whence they had come. Porpoises, their backs as sleek and shiny as velvet, sported about the bow of the ship.
In Search Of The Precious Stone (continued)
The camp at Lightning Ridge consisted of a group of tents and a few shacks. Accommodations were of the crudest sort and I established my headquarters in a tent, shared with a miner. While at Walgett I had heard tales of numerous holdups and not caring to augment the natural dangers of a trip through the bush by the risk of robbery, I deposited the large sum of cash I had brought from Sydney in the town’s single bank. As a result of that decision I was the first man to pay by check at the Lightning Ridge mines. Commercial missionaries have their troubles as well do religious ones. An amusing incident in connection with my transaction will serve to illustrate the point.
Having selected a considerable parcel of opals I tendered the miner from whom I was purchasing them a check in payment. He examined it skeptically and it was after I had nearly exhausted my patience and vocabulary that he could be persuaded to accept it in lieu of cash. A group of miners who had witnessed the scene while waiting to deal with me lost interest immediately when they saw that their companion had received a slip of paper for his opals instead of currency. Neither argument not pleading availed. They were adamant, and it was not until two days later, after one of their number had gone to Walgett and verified my statements, that I was able to procure any more stones.
While at Lightning Ridge I had an experience which I never recall without a flutter. One day I decided to go shooting. I deemed it advisable to work toward the west in order that I might have the setting sun on my back as a guide during the return trip but the miner whose tent i was sharing suggested another route as being more likely to afford me a shot at a kangaroo. I followed his advice and was rewarded by the promised kangaroo and some rabbits. I was getting late and if I was to avoid being overtaken by nightfall it was imperative that I start back. Whether I was excited over my first kangaroo or whether I was too engrossed in the beauty surrounding me I do not know, but at any rate I forgot that I had altered my original intention, and proceeded away from the sun. After trudging for a long time without encountering any familiar objects the realization that I was ‘bushed’ burst upon me—in other words, I was lost in the tangled brush with darkness fast approaching. Through some psychological phenomenon it seems that in a crisis we are reminded of the most unpleasant things in connection with our particular predicament. My case was no exception and I recalled in vivid detail the story of a miner who had been ‘bushed’ the week previous and was found dead from thirst forty miles from camp. The thought of the poor chap’s fate and the excruciating torture which must have preceded it, filled me with panic and I immediately became obsessed by a mad desire for water, as commonly occurs when men realize that they are ‘bushed’. Wandering in circles, momentarily suffering more and more from thirst, I plucked handfulls of grass which I chewed in an attempt to allay my anguish. Exhausted, mentally and physically, I was about to lie down when I heard the faint tinkle of a bell. This imbued me with fresh courage and I set out to locate the source of the sound. At nine o’clock, scratched and bleeding from the briars, I stumbled upon a horse with a bell around the neck. Never before had the sight of a horse been so welcome for his presence might portend the proximity of human habitation or, things came to the worst,men had lived on horseflesh. Darkness had spread its ebon all over the wilderness and I decided to camp where I was until daybreak. Night birds called to their mates and my active imagination filled the brush with the forms of prowling beasts. As a result I was unable to sleep and in that, fate was kind to me, for about midnight the penetrating tones of an Australian ‘coo-ee’ were borne to me upon the wings of the night breeze. I fired my rifle in response and the horse bolted, but fortunately my signal had been heard and finally a black tracker appeared. My tentmate, worried over my failure to return, had spread the alarm and as a result four hundred miners set out to beat the brush in search of me. We reached camp early next morning. Perhaps it is base ingratitude to question the motives of my rescuers but I have since debated whether their solicitude for my welfare was not prompted more through the fear of losing a good customer than it was through any spirit of brotherly love.
During my two weeks stay I purchased about $50000 worth of rough stones. The return journey to Walgett was negotiated without mishap, riding at night, under the protection of an armed escort.
The fact that I had been fortunate beyond my fondest hopes in obtaining such wonderful specimens of opals whetted my desire to continue the search and I accordingly decided to proceed to Siam in quest of sapphires. As steamer ploughed northwestward across the Indian Ocean, the sea was an ever changing marvel of beauty. It resembled a huge casket, into which the jewels had been cast in promiscuous disarray. Jade and sapphire, turquoise and emerald, aquamarine and amethyst—all were inseparably mixed by nature’s magic hand. Schools of flying fish emerged, glided through the air for a brief moment, and then, with a splash that rippled the ocean’s calm surface, were gone into the depths from whence they had come. Porpoises, their backs as sleek and shiny as velvet, sported about the bow of the ship.
In Search Of The Precious Stone (continued)
The Single Rosette
(via Diamond Cuts in Historic Jewelry:1381-1910) Herbert Tillander writes:
The Pyramidal Point Cut was in fashion for at least three centuries, until it was gradually replaced by square and rectangular Table Cuts. At the same time fancy shapes and cuts also became popular, with the result that the original four-petalled Rosettes developed more complex shapes, with anything from five to ten fan-shaped petals. The pointed ends of the fan-shaped stones which made up these Single Rosettes were held in place by a central gold knob, or under a setting containing a tiny emerald or some other colored precious stone. The wider, rounded end was partly hidden under the surrounding border, and prongs were placed between the diamonds. If the stones were not quite regular in shape, extra prongs were sometimes added.
A single ‘flower’ of small diamonds gave light effect not very much better than adamantine surface reflections, and size was usually limited to around 10mm, so Rosettes of this type were used mainly for romantic decorative details on large objects ďart such as the Munich crystal bowl and the St Michael Goblet. They were seldom used alone or as central ornaments.
A five petalled rosette, based on one from the bridal crown of Princess Margaret, dating from 1468 (now in the Domshatz, Aachen) was made up of regularly formed ‘wases’, fashioned from rock crystal. Obviously, diamonds of exactly the same shape and size could not be found in sufficient quantities and they had to be fashioned from suitable cleavages. This called for very special skills, and for diamond cutters who could produce large quantities of stones and then select matching ones for all the different types of Rosette. It would have be prohibitive, as experiments have shown, to fashion one Rosette at a time.
The bridal crown of Margaret, daughter of King Edward VI of England, appears to be the earliest surviving object to contain single Rosettes. It was probably made for her wedding to Charles the Bold in 1468 and Fritz Falk believes that it came from the workshop of a Burgundian jeweler.
The St Michael Goblet is decorated with five five-petalled, five six-petalled and two seven-petalled Single Rosettes, as well as other interesting gems. The stones are actually set very close to one another, so that they almost touch.
Rosettes were not always fashioned with diamonds. Rubies, spinels and amethysts were also used. A statuette reproduced in color in Codex Aschaffenburg, with a long accompanying text, has two red single rosettes, one of them clearly nine-petalled; it is dated 1513. Among the numerous colored illustrations in the inventory of monastic objects from Halle, in Germany, are some beautiful reproductions of fifteenth and sixteenth century diamond cuts. Many of these are diamond or ruby Rosettes mostly five-petalled; a few are even Double Rosettes. An angel in the Codex Aschaffenburg has a diamond Rosette on each shoulder and a number of ruby Rosettes on its dress; the accompanying text dates the statuette to 1518.
According to studies made in Prague and Venice by Hans R Hahnloser of Berne, the rock crystal bowl can be dated to before 1337 (now on display in Munich, as part of the Palatine Collection). The mounting, of enamelled gold, was commissioned by King Henry VIII of England, designed by Hans Holbein the Younger, and probably executed in France in about 1540. The richly ornamented setting is decorated with rubies, emeralds, pearls and diamonds, including five Single Diamond Rosettes. The bowl is 15cm high and 19cm in diameter. Careful investigations made using a needle confirmed that the adjacent stones were, in fact, the small fan-shaped petals of a diamond Rosette.
On a large cross in an oil painting on parchment attributed to Hans Mielich there are thirty four diamond rosettes. That admirable goldsmith and jewelry engraver, Etienne Delaune, also known as ‘Stephanus’, is said to have conceived his designs, not only to scale and in three dimensions, but with a totally professional understanding of the jeweler’s technique. The pendant probably dates from the period when he was working in Paris (possibly under Cellini) since he did not move to Strasbourg until 1573. These facts are relevant, because the components of this seven-petalled Single Rosette are exceptionally large and of a cut entirely different from that normally found. This suggests either that the diamonds actually existed or—more likely—that they were not diamonds at all but amethysts or some other colored stones.
The Pyramidal Point Cut was in fashion for at least three centuries, until it was gradually replaced by square and rectangular Table Cuts. At the same time fancy shapes and cuts also became popular, with the result that the original four-petalled Rosettes developed more complex shapes, with anything from five to ten fan-shaped petals. The pointed ends of the fan-shaped stones which made up these Single Rosettes were held in place by a central gold knob, or under a setting containing a tiny emerald or some other colored precious stone. The wider, rounded end was partly hidden under the surrounding border, and prongs were placed between the diamonds. If the stones were not quite regular in shape, extra prongs were sometimes added.
A single ‘flower’ of small diamonds gave light effect not very much better than adamantine surface reflections, and size was usually limited to around 10mm, so Rosettes of this type were used mainly for romantic decorative details on large objects ďart such as the Munich crystal bowl and the St Michael Goblet. They were seldom used alone or as central ornaments.
A five petalled rosette, based on one from the bridal crown of Princess Margaret, dating from 1468 (now in the Domshatz, Aachen) was made up of regularly formed ‘wases’, fashioned from rock crystal. Obviously, diamonds of exactly the same shape and size could not be found in sufficient quantities and they had to be fashioned from suitable cleavages. This called for very special skills, and for diamond cutters who could produce large quantities of stones and then select matching ones for all the different types of Rosette. It would have be prohibitive, as experiments have shown, to fashion one Rosette at a time.
The bridal crown of Margaret, daughter of King Edward VI of England, appears to be the earliest surviving object to contain single Rosettes. It was probably made for her wedding to Charles the Bold in 1468 and Fritz Falk believes that it came from the workshop of a Burgundian jeweler.
The St Michael Goblet is decorated with five five-petalled, five six-petalled and two seven-petalled Single Rosettes, as well as other interesting gems. The stones are actually set very close to one another, so that they almost touch.
Rosettes were not always fashioned with diamonds. Rubies, spinels and amethysts were also used. A statuette reproduced in color in Codex Aschaffenburg, with a long accompanying text, has two red single rosettes, one of them clearly nine-petalled; it is dated 1513. Among the numerous colored illustrations in the inventory of monastic objects from Halle, in Germany, are some beautiful reproductions of fifteenth and sixteenth century diamond cuts. Many of these are diamond or ruby Rosettes mostly five-petalled; a few are even Double Rosettes. An angel in the Codex Aschaffenburg has a diamond Rosette on each shoulder and a number of ruby Rosettes on its dress; the accompanying text dates the statuette to 1518.
According to studies made in Prague and Venice by Hans R Hahnloser of Berne, the rock crystal bowl can be dated to before 1337 (now on display in Munich, as part of the Palatine Collection). The mounting, of enamelled gold, was commissioned by King Henry VIII of England, designed by Hans Holbein the Younger, and probably executed in France in about 1540. The richly ornamented setting is decorated with rubies, emeralds, pearls and diamonds, including five Single Diamond Rosettes. The bowl is 15cm high and 19cm in diameter. Careful investigations made using a needle confirmed that the adjacent stones were, in fact, the small fan-shaped petals of a diamond Rosette.
On a large cross in an oil painting on parchment attributed to Hans Mielich there are thirty four diamond rosettes. That admirable goldsmith and jewelry engraver, Etienne Delaune, also known as ‘Stephanus’, is said to have conceived his designs, not only to scale and in three dimensions, but with a totally professional understanding of the jeweler’s technique. The pendant probably dates from the period when he was working in Paris (possibly under Cellini) since he did not move to Strasbourg until 1573. These facts are relevant, because the components of this seven-petalled Single Rosette are exceptionally large and of a cut entirely different from that normally found. This suggests either that the diamonds actually existed or—more likely—that they were not diamonds at all but amethysts or some other colored stones.
The Goldsmith – Jeweler Of Egypt
(via 5000 Years of Gems and Jewelry) Frances Rogers and Alice Beard writes:
7. Enamels and Mosaics
Jewelry-making in Egypt reached its highest level toward the close of the third millennium. In craftsmanship and creative design the work of the Twelfth Dynasty was never surpassed by the Egyptian goldsmith.
During this period jewelry became more colorful than ever before because, in addition to precious stones and metals, another substance—whose infinite variety of uses is still being explored today—was employed by the goldsmith. That substance was glass. Heretofore it had been used in only two ways—as a vitreous glaze for covering objects made of clay or stone and for solid glass beads. Such a thing as an entire vase or goblet of glass was as yet unheard of.
In earlier times when the goldsmith wished to add color to his jewelry he inlaid the gold with bits of sard, turquoise or lapis lazuli. These tiny pieces of stone had to be ground into the proper shape and size by rubbing them one against another before fitting them into their metal base—a long and tedious process. Glass, on the contrary, when used as enamel in place of insets of stone, required no such expenditure of laborious grinding, and when it was set in patterns rimmed with gold the effect of jewel-like color was scarcely distinguishable from that of stone inlay.
Glass enamel and paste (artificial glass gems) are made in much the same manner. Enamel is glass that has been pulverized, mixed with gum until it forms a paste which may be applied with a brush, and then hardened by firing. It must, of course, be a type of glass which is fusible at a moderate heat, that is, lower than the melting point of the metal base on which the enamel is used. The base, usually gold or bronze, is prepared in one of two ways, either Cloisonné or Champlevé.
The Cloisonné method calls for building up, on the metal surface, a series of small fences made of fine wire or thin strips of metal, and soldered into place. The resulting little compartments or cells—cloisons—are then filled with the glass paste which, after firing, becomes hard glassy bits of enamel. The little divisions or fences separating the jewel-like dots of color remain in evidence and are an essential part of the beauty of the design.
The Champlevé method differs from Cloisonné in that instead of little metal divisions being soldered to the surface, the solid base is itself scooped out, thus forming little compartments which hold the tiny pools of paste, each enclosed by thin dividing walls of metal.
Egyptian enamels were rich and colorful. They might be turquoise blue, cobalt, emerald green, purple, or milk white; but never colorless and transparent, for all glass, at that time and for centuries to follow, was opaque.
Another form in which the Egyptian of the Twelfth Dynasty used glass to ornament his jewelry was similar to that made famous in the Middle Ages by the glass-men of Venice and known to us by its Italian name, millefiori, which means ‘million flowers’.
The flower-like mosaics were composed of many tiny bits of glass put together in this manner: First, numbers of little glass rods, each of different color, were arranged so that their ends formed the desired pattern; then the bundle was fired and while still hot and pliable was drawn out lengthwise. This greatly reduced its diameter but did not alter the arrangement of colors. The composite bundle had now become a tiny rod of mosaic glass from which thin slices were cut crosswise, polished, and mounted in rings of pale gold.
The Goldsmith – Jeweler Of Egypt (continued)
7. Enamels and Mosaics
Jewelry-making in Egypt reached its highest level toward the close of the third millennium. In craftsmanship and creative design the work of the Twelfth Dynasty was never surpassed by the Egyptian goldsmith.
During this period jewelry became more colorful than ever before because, in addition to precious stones and metals, another substance—whose infinite variety of uses is still being explored today—was employed by the goldsmith. That substance was glass. Heretofore it had been used in only two ways—as a vitreous glaze for covering objects made of clay or stone and for solid glass beads. Such a thing as an entire vase or goblet of glass was as yet unheard of.
In earlier times when the goldsmith wished to add color to his jewelry he inlaid the gold with bits of sard, turquoise or lapis lazuli. These tiny pieces of stone had to be ground into the proper shape and size by rubbing them one against another before fitting them into their metal base—a long and tedious process. Glass, on the contrary, when used as enamel in place of insets of stone, required no such expenditure of laborious grinding, and when it was set in patterns rimmed with gold the effect of jewel-like color was scarcely distinguishable from that of stone inlay.
Glass enamel and paste (artificial glass gems) are made in much the same manner. Enamel is glass that has been pulverized, mixed with gum until it forms a paste which may be applied with a brush, and then hardened by firing. It must, of course, be a type of glass which is fusible at a moderate heat, that is, lower than the melting point of the metal base on which the enamel is used. The base, usually gold or bronze, is prepared in one of two ways, either Cloisonné or Champlevé.
The Cloisonné method calls for building up, on the metal surface, a series of small fences made of fine wire or thin strips of metal, and soldered into place. The resulting little compartments or cells—cloisons—are then filled with the glass paste which, after firing, becomes hard glassy bits of enamel. The little divisions or fences separating the jewel-like dots of color remain in evidence and are an essential part of the beauty of the design.
The Champlevé method differs from Cloisonné in that instead of little metal divisions being soldered to the surface, the solid base is itself scooped out, thus forming little compartments which hold the tiny pools of paste, each enclosed by thin dividing walls of metal.
Egyptian enamels were rich and colorful. They might be turquoise blue, cobalt, emerald green, purple, or milk white; but never colorless and transparent, for all glass, at that time and for centuries to follow, was opaque.
Another form in which the Egyptian of the Twelfth Dynasty used glass to ornament his jewelry was similar to that made famous in the Middle Ages by the glass-men of Venice and known to us by its Italian name, millefiori, which means ‘million flowers’.
The flower-like mosaics were composed of many tiny bits of glass put together in this manner: First, numbers of little glass rods, each of different color, were arranged so that their ends formed the desired pattern; then the bundle was fired and while still hot and pliable was drawn out lengthwise. This greatly reduced its diameter but did not alter the arrangement of colors. The composite bundle had now become a tiny rod of mosaic glass from which thin slices were cut crosswise, polished, and mounted in rings of pale gold.
The Goldsmith – Jeweler Of Egypt (continued)
Dutch Painting In The Seventeenth Century
(via The Outline of Art) William Orpen writes:
2
Jan van der Meer, commonly known as Vermeer of Delft (1632-75), is one of the Old Masters whom modern research has rescued from unmerited neglect. Houbraken, a historian who wrote only forty years after his death, does not even mention him, and for two centuries his name was almost forgotten and his paintings were sold as works by De Hooch, Terborch, Metsu, or even Rembrandt. Then in the middle of the nineteenth century a French exile named Thoré spent three years (1858-60) studying records and archives in Holland and patiently searching out Vermeer’s paintings. Since Thoré published his account of his studies, the fame of Vermeer has rapidly spread and increased. Today he is one of the most costly and one of the most popular of the old masters.
Of his private life very little is known. Vermeer was three years younger than De Hooch, and fifteen years younger than Teborch. We know that as soon as he came of age in 1653 he married Catherine Bolenes and by her had eight children. He was evidently esteemed in his native city, for in 1662 and again in 1670 he was elected one of the principal officers of the Guild of St Luke of Delft. But fame is one thing and fortune is another. When Vermeer died in 1675 he had nothing to leave his wife and family but twenty six unsold pictures. If these were put into the market today they might fetch anything over a quarter of a million pounds—not a penny less—but there were no American millionaires in the seventeenth century; so poor Vermeer was judged to have died insolvent and his widow’s affairs had to be put in the hands of a liquidator, who happened to be the naturalist Leeuwenhoek.
To explain in words the incomparable charm of Vermeer’s painting is as simple and as difficult as to explain the beauty of light. The illumination in his pictures is as perfect as it is in the best works of De Hooch; and if the pictures of Vermeer are still more beautiful than those of De Hooch it is because Vermeer was a still finer and more subtle colorist. He was, indeed, one of the greatest colorists the world has ever known. He excelled in all subjects. His ‘Head of a Young Girl’ is one of the loveliest portraits in the world. This young girl is not strikingly beautiful in herself. She has a sweet face, and Vermeer has brought out the sweetness of her disposition and the charm of her youth; but he has done more than this: by the loveliness of his color—particularly by the contrast of the blue and lemon-yellow of which he was so fond—Vermeer has made her a joy for ever. Color of this lyrical beauty sings its own sweet song.
Vermeer’s ‘View of Delft’, also at The Hague, is the loveliest street scene or town view in art. It has the crystal purity of color and limpid atmosphere of Delft itself, which a living writer has described as ‘the cleanest city in Europe, looking as if all the houses were thoroughly scrubbed down and polished each day before sunrise.’ Nothing could be more natural, more true to the thing seen, than this painting, yet nothing could be more perfect in every quality that goes to the making of a work of art.
These two pictures are exceptional even among the paintings of Vermeer, and we come to consider his more numerous paintings of small figures in interiors, the richness he offers us makes selection embarrassing. It would be perilous to say ‘The Pearl Necklace’ is better than ‘The Milkmaid’ or other pictures one could mention; but it is certainly one of the best and shows how Vermeer could compete with De Hooch in ‘bottling sunlight’ and beat that master even at his own favorite game.
Vermeer’s art undoubtedly affected his contemporaries, those of his own age as well as those who were his juniors. Gabriel Metsu (1630-67) sometimes comes near to Vermeer, and the color of ‘The Letter Writer Surprised’ in the Wallace Collection has a tenderness which is apt to make even Terborch look a little hard. Metsu knows how to set his stage decoratively; his pictures are always sprightly; but his observation is less subtle, and his research into light and shade is not carried to the point of perfection reached by De Hooch and Vermeer.
Nicolas Maes (1632-93), another pupil of Rembrandt, though less gifted than Metsu, used to be thought of chiefly as a portrait-painter, but is now much esteemed for the anecdotal pictures he painted in his youth. ‘The Idle Servant’ is an amusing example of his work in this style, and shows both his own powers of observation and what he learnt from Rembrandt in the way of using lighting to enhance a dramatic effect. But if we look critically at the picture, say at the cat stealing the plucked bird, or at the whole area of the tiled floor, we shall have to admit that in drawing Maes was inferior to Dou, and in illumination far inferior to De Hooch or Vermeer. All these subject pictures were painted between 1655 and 1665 after which date circumstances drove Maes into ‘pot-boiling’ portraiture.
Dutch Painting In The Seventeenth Century (continued)
2
Jan van der Meer, commonly known as Vermeer of Delft (1632-75), is one of the Old Masters whom modern research has rescued from unmerited neglect. Houbraken, a historian who wrote only forty years after his death, does not even mention him, and for two centuries his name was almost forgotten and his paintings were sold as works by De Hooch, Terborch, Metsu, or even Rembrandt. Then in the middle of the nineteenth century a French exile named Thoré spent three years (1858-60) studying records and archives in Holland and patiently searching out Vermeer’s paintings. Since Thoré published his account of his studies, the fame of Vermeer has rapidly spread and increased. Today he is one of the most costly and one of the most popular of the old masters.
Of his private life very little is known. Vermeer was three years younger than De Hooch, and fifteen years younger than Teborch. We know that as soon as he came of age in 1653 he married Catherine Bolenes and by her had eight children. He was evidently esteemed in his native city, for in 1662 and again in 1670 he was elected one of the principal officers of the Guild of St Luke of Delft. But fame is one thing and fortune is another. When Vermeer died in 1675 he had nothing to leave his wife and family but twenty six unsold pictures. If these were put into the market today they might fetch anything over a quarter of a million pounds—not a penny less—but there were no American millionaires in the seventeenth century; so poor Vermeer was judged to have died insolvent and his widow’s affairs had to be put in the hands of a liquidator, who happened to be the naturalist Leeuwenhoek.
To explain in words the incomparable charm of Vermeer’s painting is as simple and as difficult as to explain the beauty of light. The illumination in his pictures is as perfect as it is in the best works of De Hooch; and if the pictures of Vermeer are still more beautiful than those of De Hooch it is because Vermeer was a still finer and more subtle colorist. He was, indeed, one of the greatest colorists the world has ever known. He excelled in all subjects. His ‘Head of a Young Girl’ is one of the loveliest portraits in the world. This young girl is not strikingly beautiful in herself. She has a sweet face, and Vermeer has brought out the sweetness of her disposition and the charm of her youth; but he has done more than this: by the loveliness of his color—particularly by the contrast of the blue and lemon-yellow of which he was so fond—Vermeer has made her a joy for ever. Color of this lyrical beauty sings its own sweet song.
Vermeer’s ‘View of Delft’, also at The Hague, is the loveliest street scene or town view in art. It has the crystal purity of color and limpid atmosphere of Delft itself, which a living writer has described as ‘the cleanest city in Europe, looking as if all the houses were thoroughly scrubbed down and polished each day before sunrise.’ Nothing could be more natural, more true to the thing seen, than this painting, yet nothing could be more perfect in every quality that goes to the making of a work of art.
These two pictures are exceptional even among the paintings of Vermeer, and we come to consider his more numerous paintings of small figures in interiors, the richness he offers us makes selection embarrassing. It would be perilous to say ‘The Pearl Necklace’ is better than ‘The Milkmaid’ or other pictures one could mention; but it is certainly one of the best and shows how Vermeer could compete with De Hooch in ‘bottling sunlight’ and beat that master even at his own favorite game.
Vermeer’s art undoubtedly affected his contemporaries, those of his own age as well as those who were his juniors. Gabriel Metsu (1630-67) sometimes comes near to Vermeer, and the color of ‘The Letter Writer Surprised’ in the Wallace Collection has a tenderness which is apt to make even Terborch look a little hard. Metsu knows how to set his stage decoratively; his pictures are always sprightly; but his observation is less subtle, and his research into light and shade is not carried to the point of perfection reached by De Hooch and Vermeer.
Nicolas Maes (1632-93), another pupil of Rembrandt, though less gifted than Metsu, used to be thought of chiefly as a portrait-painter, but is now much esteemed for the anecdotal pictures he painted in his youth. ‘The Idle Servant’ is an amusing example of his work in this style, and shows both his own powers of observation and what he learnt from Rembrandt in the way of using lighting to enhance a dramatic effect. But if we look critically at the picture, say at the cat stealing the plucked bird, or at the whole area of the tiled floor, we shall have to admit that in drawing Maes was inferior to Dou, and in illumination far inferior to De Hooch or Vermeer. All these subject pictures were painted between 1655 and 1665 after which date circumstances drove Maes into ‘pot-boiling’ portraiture.
Dutch Painting In The Seventeenth Century (continued)
Friday, January 11, 2008
2008 Tucson Show Information
The Tucson gem and mineral show is really a big gem show + here is the info @ http://www.tucsonshowguide.com/tsg/show_index.cfm
People Often Think An Opinion Heard Repeatedly From The Same Person Is Actually A Popular Opinion
I found the article via Science Daily @ http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/05/070520183447.htm educational + insightful. It could be applicable to gem/jewelry/art trading.
Useful link:
www.apa.org
Useful link:
www.apa.org
In Search Of The Precious Stone
Albert Ramsay (Albert Ramsay & Co, 1925) writes:
Man’s interest in gems has not been confined solely to their use as medium of ornament. The ancients invested them with certain talismanic qualities, a belief which has spanned the intervening centuries and which even modern science has failed to dispel entirely, as attested by the popularity of birth stones.
Jewels have been found in the tombs of pre-historic peoples, extinct long before the civilization of the Incas, of the Pharaohs or of the Montezumas prospered, and ever since, men have toiled and fought,stolen and lied for them.
Springing from a line of lapidaries as I do, the attraction which precious stones hold for me, unlike my fondness for olives, is a matter of heredity rather than an acquired taste. At the age when my playmates were reading fairy tales i was vividly devouring volumes about gems. I clung with breathless interest to every word of the tales of privation, adventure and romance which my uncle wove about the dull-colored little stones he brought home. As, under my brother’s masterful hand, they shed their rough coats and were transformed into scintillating globules of crystallized color, my admiration of the miracle was tempered by my envy of the skill which had made it possible. I impatiently awaited the time when I too might take my place at the wheel and conjure forth the charm and beauty which nature had so subtly concealed within the lifeless pebbles. At last the fated day arrived, when I was twelve years of age. Under the guidance of my uncle, I cut my first opal.
The initial estimate I formed of my ability as a cutter was destined to a depreciatory revision when I had learned more about the intricacies of the craft. A gem in the rough is to a lapidary what a plot is to a writer—both must be treated in the manner best calculated to accentuate their good points. The skilled artisan should not only be capable of recognizing the inherent possibilities of a stone but he must also be able to bring them out. The fact that each stone has its own peculiarities leads to a appreciation of the versatility which is necessarily one of the qualifications of an expert lapidary.
My experience and the years progressed apace and I became proficient in my chosen calling. In the application of my profession that spark of romance which had been responsible for my childhood interest in stories of travel was fanned into a consuming flame by the opportunities for adventure which the search for the gems I handled daily would afford. The stones which intrigued me most were the black opal, the sapphire, the star sapphire, the ruby, the cat’s eye and the emerald, all of which are accorded prominent niches in the fashion salon of the present day.
The black opal had been discovered but a short time previous in Australia and the popularity which greeted it was the last straw. I could resist the lure no longer and accordingly set out upon a quest and ultimately carried me to Australia, Siam, Burma, Ceylon and many other far and unfrequented corners of the globe.
Embarking in England I had an interesting and eventful voyage, nearly around the globe, to Sydney, the capital of New South Wales, on the southeastern coast of the island continent. Walgett, four hundred miles to the northward, was an outpost of civilization, and there the railroad ended. From that point it was necessary to proceed on horseback. The sixty mile journey to Lightning Ridge, where the black opal mines are located, was made amid the myriad wonders of the Australian bush. The horses picked their way with difficulty through the tangled undergrowth which clutched viciously with thorny fingers at man and steed. The plume-like fronds of the fern trees quivered and the cabbage palms swayed listlessly in the gentle breeze. Scattered over the terrain, beeches and cedar stood out above the surrounding brush like beacons above a rolling sea. Rabbits and other small game scurried frantically to cover and birds rose in flocks from beneath the horse’s hoofs, uttering shrill cries of protest against our incursion. At rare intervals man’s battle to wrest a living from the land was evidenced by sheep farms, nestling amid the dense tropical scrub. This district, one of the most delightful in Australia, was still untrammeled by the march of the empire.
In Search Of The Precious Stone (continued)
Man’s interest in gems has not been confined solely to their use as medium of ornament. The ancients invested them with certain talismanic qualities, a belief which has spanned the intervening centuries and which even modern science has failed to dispel entirely, as attested by the popularity of birth stones.
Jewels have been found in the tombs of pre-historic peoples, extinct long before the civilization of the Incas, of the Pharaohs or of the Montezumas prospered, and ever since, men have toiled and fought,stolen and lied for them.
Springing from a line of lapidaries as I do, the attraction which precious stones hold for me, unlike my fondness for olives, is a matter of heredity rather than an acquired taste. At the age when my playmates were reading fairy tales i was vividly devouring volumes about gems. I clung with breathless interest to every word of the tales of privation, adventure and romance which my uncle wove about the dull-colored little stones he brought home. As, under my brother’s masterful hand, they shed their rough coats and were transformed into scintillating globules of crystallized color, my admiration of the miracle was tempered by my envy of the skill which had made it possible. I impatiently awaited the time when I too might take my place at the wheel and conjure forth the charm and beauty which nature had so subtly concealed within the lifeless pebbles. At last the fated day arrived, when I was twelve years of age. Under the guidance of my uncle, I cut my first opal.
The initial estimate I formed of my ability as a cutter was destined to a depreciatory revision when I had learned more about the intricacies of the craft. A gem in the rough is to a lapidary what a plot is to a writer—both must be treated in the manner best calculated to accentuate their good points. The skilled artisan should not only be capable of recognizing the inherent possibilities of a stone but he must also be able to bring them out. The fact that each stone has its own peculiarities leads to a appreciation of the versatility which is necessarily one of the qualifications of an expert lapidary.
My experience and the years progressed apace and I became proficient in my chosen calling. In the application of my profession that spark of romance which had been responsible for my childhood interest in stories of travel was fanned into a consuming flame by the opportunities for adventure which the search for the gems I handled daily would afford. The stones which intrigued me most were the black opal, the sapphire, the star sapphire, the ruby, the cat’s eye and the emerald, all of which are accorded prominent niches in the fashion salon of the present day.
The black opal had been discovered but a short time previous in Australia and the popularity which greeted it was the last straw. I could resist the lure no longer and accordingly set out upon a quest and ultimately carried me to Australia, Siam, Burma, Ceylon and many other far and unfrequented corners of the globe.
Embarking in England I had an interesting and eventful voyage, nearly around the globe, to Sydney, the capital of New South Wales, on the southeastern coast of the island continent. Walgett, four hundred miles to the northward, was an outpost of civilization, and there the railroad ended. From that point it was necessary to proceed on horseback. The sixty mile journey to Lightning Ridge, where the black opal mines are located, was made amid the myriad wonders of the Australian bush. The horses picked their way with difficulty through the tangled undergrowth which clutched viciously with thorny fingers at man and steed. The plume-like fronds of the fern trees quivered and the cabbage palms swayed listlessly in the gentle breeze. Scattered over the terrain, beeches and cedar stood out above the surrounding brush like beacons above a rolling sea. Rabbits and other small game scurried frantically to cover and birds rose in flocks from beneath the horse’s hoofs, uttering shrill cries of protest against our incursion. At rare intervals man’s battle to wrest a living from the land was evidenced by sheep farms, nestling amid the dense tropical scrub. This district, one of the most delightful in Australia, was still untrammeled by the march of the empire.
In Search Of The Precious Stone (continued)
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