(via The Outline of Art) William Orpen writes:
The Art Of Gainsborough, Romney, Raeburn, Hoppner, And Lawrence
1
Shortly before little Joshua Reynolds celebrated his fourth birthday in the West of England, there was born in the Eastern Counties a babe destined to become his greatest rival in life and death. Thomas Gainsborough was born in 1727 at Sudbury, in Suffolk. He was one of a large family, his father being a wool manufacturer and clothier of moderate means, while his mother was a woman of education, the sister of a schoolmaster and herself a skillful painter of flowers. Thomas inherited his mother’s love of nature and her talent for art, and spend his boyhood rambling about the countryside and sketching the scenery round Sudbery. His gift for catching a likeness revealed itself early. One day, having seen a man robbing an orchard, he made a quick sketch of him, with the result that the robber was recognized from Gainsborough’s drawing and arrested. The boy’s faculty for copying, however, was not always exercised in the interests of law and order; and on another occasion, when he desired to play truant, he forged his father’s handwriting in a letter to the schoolmaster, asking for a day’s holiday. The ruse succeeded, but was subsequently found out, and seeing clearly that the boy would work at nothing but his drawing and sketching, the father wisely sent his son at the age of fifteen to London to study art under the French engraver Henri Gravelot. Young Gainsborough also studied at the St Martin’s Lane Academy, and later became the pupil of the portrait-painter Francis Hayman (1708-76), with whom he continued nearly four years. In 1745 he returned to his native town of Sudbury, where he began practice as a portrait painter and occasionally painted a small landscape for his own pleasure.
Unlike Reynolds, who was ‘wedded to his art,’ Gainsborough married when he was only nineteen. He fell in love with Margaret Burr, a beautiful girl of eighteen, who fortunately possessed an income of £200 a year of her own, and as no obstacles were raised to their wedding the boy-and-girl couple settled down at Ipswich, where Gainsborough soon acquired a considerable local reputation as a portrait painter. Here his two daughters were born and the painter led a happy domestic life, sketching in the country between the intervals of his professional portraiture and spending his evenings playing the violin—for he was devoted to music—either in his own home or in the houses of some of his friends.
In 1760 he was tempted to leave this simple life at Ipswich and moved to Bath, a fashionable center to which everyone who was anyone in London society came sooner of later. From a professional point of view this move was the beginning of Gainsborough’s fortune, for the fashionable world soon flocked to the studio of this ‘new man’ who made his sitters look so august and distinguished, and the modest provincial, who had begun painting three quarter lengths at five guineas apiece, now asked eight guineas, and was soon able to increase his figure to something nearer London prices. But while his fortune waxed, his happiness waned, and having now secured the entry into the fashionable world, Gainsborough began to pay attention to other ladies and so excite his wife’s jealousy. His home life was no longer simple or happy, and as time went on his private troubles increased, for both Mrs Gainsborough and his two daughters became subject to mental derangement. To the world, however, he continued to show a cheerful face, and his sprightly conversation and humor made Gainsborough a welcome favorite in all society.
In time the fame of the Bath painter spread to London, where Gainsborough occasionally exhibited at the Society of Artists, but though in 1768 he was chosen as one of the foundation members of the Royal Academy, he did not immediately leave Bath. He came there when he was thirty three; and it was not till he was forty seven that he was persuaded to move to London. In 1774 he took a part of Schomberg House in Pall Mall, and his success was immediate. ‘The King sent for him and Duchesses besieged his studio.’ Society was rent in twain, divided into a Reynold faction and a Gainsborough faction, and under these circumstances it is not altogether surprising that Sir Joshua’s jealousy did not allow him to be quite fair to his rival, whose power of securing a likeness he once formally denied.
Many stories are told of the rivalry between the two painters, and they have mostly increased with the telling in the course of years. As an example of the growth of legends, we may cite the widely circulated story that Reynolds at an Academy banquet once proposed the health of ‘Mr Gainsborough, the landscape-painter of the day,’ whereupon Richard Wilson is said to have retorted, ‘Ay, and the greatest portrait-painter too.’
The original version of this incident is told by Thomas Wright in his Life of Richard Wilson, published in 1824, and here we learn that the dialogue took place, not at an Academy banquet, but a the Turk’s Head in Gerrard Street, shortly after Gainsborough had arrived in London from Bath. Meeting Richard Wilson there, Reynolds in a bantering spirit said, ‘Have you heard sir, that our greatest landscape-painter has come to town?’
‘Nay, Sir Joshua,’ retorted Wilson, ‘you mean our greatest portrait-painter.’ Thus what was originally a piece of good humored chaff between two great artists has been twisted by inaccurate repetition into a display of maliciousness on both sides.
Nevertheless it must be admitted that there was a decided coolness between Reynolds and Gainsborough, and this was natural enough, for not only were the two men competitors for the patronage of Society, they were also temperamentally too far apart to understand one another completely. ‘With Reynolds,’ Sir Walter Armstrong has said, ‘deliberation counted for much; Gainsborough’s good things are impromptus.’ The seriousness and slight pomposity of Reynolds could not mix easily with the free-and-easy gaiety of Gainsborough. To Gainsborough, Reynolds seemed something of a pedant; to Reynolds, Gainsborough appeared rather a frivolous person. For many years neither missed many opportunities of getting a ‘dig’ at the other.
Eighteenth Century British Portraiture (continued)
Saturday, January 26, 2008
Friday, January 25, 2008
China's Economic Growth
China's National Bureau of Statistics on Thursday released an official data on country’s economic growth at 11.4 percent in 2007, the highest in 13 years + the inflation rate rose by 4.8 per cent in 2007, the highest level in more than a decade + the growth has brought China closer to edge past Germany as the world's third largest economy after the US and Japan because of its booming exports + pumping in of massive investment on infrastructure.
Useful link:
www.stats.gov.cn/english
Useful link:
www.stats.gov.cn/english
Solazyme
Solazyme, a California biotech firm is betting algae is a fuel of the future + the company says Soladiesel will work in any diesel engine, in almost any climate + they say their technology combines all the key components: low carbon footprint + environmental sustainability + certified compatability with existing vehicles + infrastructure and energy security + they hope to mass produce Soladiesel at a competitive price within three years.
Useful link:
www.solazyme.com
Useful link:
www.solazyme.com
The Color Compendium
The Color Compendium by Augustine Hope + Margaret Walch is one of the most straightforward resources on color symbolism + it's user-friendly.
Here is what the description of The Color Compendium says (via Amazon):
The Color Compendium is the first comprehensive, illustrated encyclopedia entirely devoted to color. This extraordinary reference covers the full range of color-related subjects, including their scientific, technical, artistic, and historical aspects.
The Color Compendium features:
-An A to Z encyclopedia, extensively cross-referenced for easy access to all information
-A section of color systems, explaining their development and use- Sections on color communication and symbolism
-Biographies of leading historical and contemporary color theorists, and commentaries on their ideas
-A fully illustrated section of historic and twentieth century palettes and their source artifacts
Here is what the description of The Color Compendium says (via Amazon):
The Color Compendium is the first comprehensive, illustrated encyclopedia entirely devoted to color. This extraordinary reference covers the full range of color-related subjects, including their scientific, technical, artistic, and historical aspects.
The Color Compendium features:
-An A to Z encyclopedia, extensively cross-referenced for easy access to all information
-A section of color systems, explaining their development and use- Sections on color communication and symbolism
-Biographies of leading historical and contemporary color theorists, and commentaries on their ideas
-A fully illustrated section of historic and twentieth century palettes and their source artifacts
A R Rahman
A. R. Rahman is an award-winning composer + record producer + musician from India + he is one of the world's top 25 all-time top selling recording artists + his interest and outlook in music is said to stem from his love of experimentation covering a variety of genres.
Useful links:
www.arrahman.com
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A._R._Rahman
Useful links:
www.arrahman.com
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A._R._Rahman
Jewelers Directory
Here is an interesting concept: the just-launched European Jewellers Directory (EJD) is the brain child of former HRD marketing director Filip Van Laere + it offers listings of jewelers broken down by location, city size, type of goods sold and even scope of business @ www.jewellersdirectory.eu
John Currin
John Currin is an American painter + he is best known for satirical figurative paintings which deal with provocative sexual and social themes in a technically skillful manner + his work shows a wide range of influences, including sources as diverse as the Renaissance + popular culture magazines + contemporary fashion models + he often distorts or exaggerates the erotic forms of the female body.
Useful links:
http://www.gagosian.com/artists/john-currin
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Currin
Raw Art
http://www.newyorker.com/online/2008/01/28/slideshow_080128_currin
Useful links:
http://www.gagosian.com/artists/john-currin
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Currin
Raw Art
http://www.newyorker.com/online/2008/01/28/slideshow_080128_currin
Full Table Cuts With Blunt, Missing Or Broken Corners
(via Diamond Cuts in Historic Jewelry:1381-1910) Herbert Tillander writes:
Blunt and missing corners usually resulted from the cutter’s efforts to achieve maximum show, and were accepted even though they reduced the value of the gems. Only very rarely was a corner broken through careless handling. French inventories include the following terms: ayant tous ses coings; escorné ďun coing; escorné de deux petits coings; escorné de trois coings; escorné des quatre coings.
There is a mid-sixteenth-century cross (in the Schmuckmuseum, Pforzheim) in enamelled gold set with a number of second-rate Table diamonds, with irregular outlines and haphazard faceting. This indicates that they originated in the early fifteenth century, if not in the fourteenth, and were handed down. Similar diamonds can be seen in a number of seventeenth-century jewels; they were not fit for recutting and eventually (since they were cheap) they found applications in later jewelry of lesser value.
When Francis I established the French Crown Jewels in 1530 he chose as one of the eight pieces for the Treasury a large Table Cut diamond valued at 25000 écus. No weight was recorded but according to Sancy’s price list and estimations it must have weighed 25-26 ct. Later the king bought another, much larger, Full Table Cut diamond which was only added to the Treasury in 1559, by Francis II. This second Grande Table was listed as ‘une fort grande table de dyaman carréè, without any estimated value. A year later it was listed in the inventory as ‘une fort grande table de dyaman à pleine fons un peu longuet que achepta le roy François 1er et lui cousta 65000 écuś. Again using Sancy’s calculations, it can be estimated that this second Grande Table weighed a little over 40 ct and measured more than 20mm in width: it is said to have been one of the largest and most beautiful diamonds in Europe. In 1570 the Crown inventory described te stone as ‘une fort grande table de dyaman á plein fons un peu longuette escornèe de deux coings’, still worth 65000 écus. Catherine de’ Medici tried to pawn it in 1568 but it was refused at her valuation of 75000 écus. It was successfully pawned in 1583 to a Florentine banker called Rucellai, who eventually disposed of it; no trace of it has ever been discovered. It is possible that these two Grandes Tables, refashioned into Brilliants, are still somewhere in existence.
Full Table Cuts With Blunt, Missing Or Broken Corners (continued)
Blunt and missing corners usually resulted from the cutter’s efforts to achieve maximum show, and were accepted even though they reduced the value of the gems. Only very rarely was a corner broken through careless handling. French inventories include the following terms: ayant tous ses coings; escorné ďun coing; escorné de deux petits coings; escorné de trois coings; escorné des quatre coings.
There is a mid-sixteenth-century cross (in the Schmuckmuseum, Pforzheim) in enamelled gold set with a number of second-rate Table diamonds, with irregular outlines and haphazard faceting. This indicates that they originated in the early fifteenth century, if not in the fourteenth, and were handed down. Similar diamonds can be seen in a number of seventeenth-century jewels; they were not fit for recutting and eventually (since they were cheap) they found applications in later jewelry of lesser value.
When Francis I established the French Crown Jewels in 1530 he chose as one of the eight pieces for the Treasury a large Table Cut diamond valued at 25000 écus. No weight was recorded but according to Sancy’s price list and estimations it must have weighed 25-26 ct. Later the king bought another, much larger, Full Table Cut diamond which was only added to the Treasury in 1559, by Francis II. This second Grande Table was listed as ‘une fort grande table de dyaman carréè, without any estimated value. A year later it was listed in the inventory as ‘une fort grande table de dyaman à pleine fons un peu longuet que achepta le roy François 1er et lui cousta 65000 écuś. Again using Sancy’s calculations, it can be estimated that this second Grande Table weighed a little over 40 ct and measured more than 20mm in width: it is said to have been one of the largest and most beautiful diamonds in Europe. In 1570 the Crown inventory described te stone as ‘une fort grande table de dyaman á plein fons un peu longuette escornèe de deux coings’, still worth 65000 écus. Catherine de’ Medici tried to pawn it in 1568 but it was refused at her valuation of 75000 écus. It was successfully pawned in 1583 to a Florentine banker called Rucellai, who eventually disposed of it; no trace of it has ever been discovered. It is possible that these two Grandes Tables, refashioned into Brilliants, are still somewhere in existence.
Full Table Cuts With Blunt, Missing Or Broken Corners (continued)
Jewelers Of Italy
(via 5000 Years of Gems and Jewelry) Frances Rogers and Alice Beard writes:
8. Byzantine Jewelry
When Constantine the Great, in 330 A.D had transferred the center of imperial power to Constantinople, the jewelers of the Empire were brought into contact with the great wealth of material and opulence of Oriental ornament. They were strongly influenced by it. Greco-Roman jewelry now lost its classical character and comparative simplicity and took on gorgeous color and Oriental symbolism. From the combined influences of Europe and the Orient developed Byzantine jewelry, whose characteristics were destined to last through the greater part of the Middle Ages.
Every once in a while during various periods of history the work of the jeweler has impinged on that of the clothier. Jewelry has been worn not only as an accessory but in the form of gold embroidery and insets of precious stones as an integral part of the garment itself. Such a period came in the sixth century. Of course only the very rich might indulge in the luxury and the very questionable comfort of these bejeweled garments.
In the Roman court at Constantinople, Justinian and his wife, Theodora, wore robes stiff with jewels. In their gorgeous, heavily weighted costumes there was no trace left of the soft-flowing Greek and Roman garments of earlier times. Theodora wore an elaborate diadem hung with precious stones. Ropes of pearls and emeralds encircled her throat and lay weightily upon her shoulders; and Justinian himself was scarcely outdone in splendor of jewels by his wife.
‘By the sixth century,’ says H G Wells, ‘the population of Europe and North Africa had been stirred up like sediment.’ And even when, in the course of the next two centuries the ‘sediment’ was allowed to settle down enough for various peoples to take on national characteristics, their jewelry was slow to develop any strongly localized individuality. Wherever the East and the West had mingled, the splendor of the Orient, with its symbolic mysticism, had left its mark on the jewelry of the country.
As the fabulous wealth in jewels grew, it rose like sparkling bubbles in a boiling pot to the top ranges of society, while the daily life of the common man grew ever more poverty stricken.
During miserable Dark Ages, famine and plague, always close comrades, stalked the earth together. The seventh century was one of the blackest periods of history. Bands of robbers unchecked by authority added their quota to terror and misery and no man by himself was safe. The few goldsmiths and lapidaries who had escaped with their lives either sought the protection of some powerful lord or joined certain other men who, gathering together in groups for mutual protection, lived apart in monasteries, devoting their lives to the new religion, Christianity, and to the preservation of various arts. These men were the monks. Each one was required to practise an art or a handicraft, and many of them were expert goldsmith.
Thus, in small havens of peace and safety, many knowledges of technique and art were preserved which otherwise would have been lost in the black chaos of the Dark Ages.
In the eighth century, under a decree issued by the Byzantine Emperor Leo, the Isaurian, there began an orgy of destruction aimed chiefly at the sacred images so numerously set in in the Christian Churches. Man’s inherent lust for destruction seems unquenchable, and when backed and encouraged by authority the joy smashing knows no bounds. Unhappily similar periods of delight have been frequent in history and are in force even at the present time.
With such fervent zeal did the iconoclast crusaders carry on their mission that even the artists and goldsmiths who made the offending images were included in the general havoc and had to flee for their lives. ‘The woods and caves,’ says one old record, ‘were filled with them.’
Many of them fled to France and to Germany. In Rome, monasteries welcomed the refugees and straightway set them to work, each man according to his own craft. And so it was that throughout the various countries giving asylum to artists, the Byzantine influence was brought to bear upon the arts and crafts of those countries.
8. Byzantine Jewelry
When Constantine the Great, in 330 A.D had transferred the center of imperial power to Constantinople, the jewelers of the Empire were brought into contact with the great wealth of material and opulence of Oriental ornament. They were strongly influenced by it. Greco-Roman jewelry now lost its classical character and comparative simplicity and took on gorgeous color and Oriental symbolism. From the combined influences of Europe and the Orient developed Byzantine jewelry, whose characteristics were destined to last through the greater part of the Middle Ages.
Every once in a while during various periods of history the work of the jeweler has impinged on that of the clothier. Jewelry has been worn not only as an accessory but in the form of gold embroidery and insets of precious stones as an integral part of the garment itself. Such a period came in the sixth century. Of course only the very rich might indulge in the luxury and the very questionable comfort of these bejeweled garments.
In the Roman court at Constantinople, Justinian and his wife, Theodora, wore robes stiff with jewels. In their gorgeous, heavily weighted costumes there was no trace left of the soft-flowing Greek and Roman garments of earlier times. Theodora wore an elaborate diadem hung with precious stones. Ropes of pearls and emeralds encircled her throat and lay weightily upon her shoulders; and Justinian himself was scarcely outdone in splendor of jewels by his wife.
‘By the sixth century,’ says H G Wells, ‘the population of Europe and North Africa had been stirred up like sediment.’ And even when, in the course of the next two centuries the ‘sediment’ was allowed to settle down enough for various peoples to take on national characteristics, their jewelry was slow to develop any strongly localized individuality. Wherever the East and the West had mingled, the splendor of the Orient, with its symbolic mysticism, had left its mark on the jewelry of the country.
As the fabulous wealth in jewels grew, it rose like sparkling bubbles in a boiling pot to the top ranges of society, while the daily life of the common man grew ever more poverty stricken.
During miserable Dark Ages, famine and plague, always close comrades, stalked the earth together. The seventh century was one of the blackest periods of history. Bands of robbers unchecked by authority added their quota to terror and misery and no man by himself was safe. The few goldsmiths and lapidaries who had escaped with their lives either sought the protection of some powerful lord or joined certain other men who, gathering together in groups for mutual protection, lived apart in monasteries, devoting their lives to the new religion, Christianity, and to the preservation of various arts. These men were the monks. Each one was required to practise an art or a handicraft, and many of them were expert goldsmith.
Thus, in small havens of peace and safety, many knowledges of technique and art were preserved which otherwise would have been lost in the black chaos of the Dark Ages.
In the eighth century, under a decree issued by the Byzantine Emperor Leo, the Isaurian, there began an orgy of destruction aimed chiefly at the sacred images so numerously set in in the Christian Churches. Man’s inherent lust for destruction seems unquenchable, and when backed and encouraged by authority the joy smashing knows no bounds. Unhappily similar periods of delight have been frequent in history and are in force even at the present time.
With such fervent zeal did the iconoclast crusaders carry on their mission that even the artists and goldsmiths who made the offending images were included in the general havoc and had to flee for their lives. ‘The woods and caves,’ says one old record, ‘were filled with them.’
Many of them fled to France and to Germany. In Rome, monasteries welcomed the refugees and straightway set them to work, each man according to his own craft. And so it was that throughout the various countries giving asylum to artists, the Byzantine influence was brought to bear upon the arts and crafts of those countries.
English Masters Of The Eighteenth Century
(via The Outline of Art) William Orpen writes:
3
When Richard Wilson was already learning the business of portrait-painting in London, Joshua Reynolds was a little boy of six. He also was the son of a clergyman, the Rev. Samuel Reynolds of Plympton Earl, near Plymouth, where Joshua, the seventh son, was born on July 16, 1723. Sir Godfrey Kneller died the same year.
Nature and Fortune were both kind to Reynolds; the first endowed him with courtly manners as well as talent, the second gave him opportunities to use these to the best advantage. Doubtless Reynolds would have made his way to the front, by one path if not by another, but it was a piece of good luck for him when the Commodore Keppel of the Centurion put in at Plymouth for repairs, and met the young painter at the house of Lord Mount –Edgcumbe. Keppel took a liking to the painter and offered him a free passage on his ship to the Mediterranean. Reynolds gladly accepted, and after a long stay with Keppel at Minorca, went on to Rome, where he gave himself up to that worship of Michael Angelo that he retained all his life. His well-known deafness dates from this early period, and was the result of a cold which he caught while copying at the Vatican.
From Rome, Reynolds went to Florence, Venice, and other Italian cities, returning to England in 1753, and then he settled in London, never to leave it again except for a holiday. His younger sister Frances kept house for him, and he never married; like Michael Angelo, the object of his worship, Reynolds said he was ‘wedded to his art.’ After living for a time at 104 St Martin’s Lane, and then at 5 Great Newport Street, he made his permanent home at 47 Leicester Square, and Messrs. Puttick & Simpson now hold their auctions in the room that was once his studio.
Reynolds did not capture the town at first assault; the deep richness of the coloring he had adopted from the Venetian masters, and the atmospheric contours of his forms, did not appeal to connoisseurs accustomed to the lighter color and harder outlines of Kneller; but supported by the influence of Lord Mount-Edgcumbe and Admiral Keppel, he gradually became acknowledged as the head of his profession. When the Royal Academy was founded, his appointment as President met with universal approbation, for it was felt that no painter could fill the office so well. Reynolds, as Mr E V Lucas points out, ‘was sought not only for his brush, but also for his company; and though he did not court high society, he was sensible of the advantages it gave him. Other and finer intellects also welcomed him—such as Dr Johnson, Burke, and Goldsmith—and his house became a center of good talk.’
Reynolds was not only a great painter, but a great gentleman, for long before the King knighted him in 1769, five days before the opening of the first Academy exhibition, he had shown court and society ‘that a painter could be a wise man and a considerable man as well.’
The story of Sir Joshua’s life is not dramatic; it is the placid, smoothly running story of his art, of well-chosen friendships, of kindly actions, occasional displays of professional jealousy—for he was human and not an angel—and of a happy domestic life. When his brother-in-law Mr Palmer died in 1770, Sir Joshua adopted his daughter Theophila, then thirteen, and later her sister Mary Palmer also came to live with him, so that though a bachelor Reynolds was not without young people in his house. Both his nieces remained with him till they married, and it was Theophila’s daughter, little Theophila Gwatkin, who was the original of one of Reynold’s most charming and popular paintings, ‘The Age of Innocence.’
His grand-niece was six years old when Reynolds, in 1788, painted her portrait, a work which in conception and in every touch proclaims that it was ‘a labor of love.’ Indeed, nowhere do the simplicity, the benevolence, and the affectionate nature of the man shine out more beautifully than in his paintings of children. Splendid and decorative in its color-scheme and open air setting, his ‘Mrs Richard Hoare with her Infant Son’ in the Wallace Collection has the same winning simplicity of intention; for it is much more than a mere portrait, it is a grave and tender expression of a mother’s love. The other side of Sir Joshua’s art, ‘the grand manner,’ is seen in the famous ‘Mrs Siddons as the Tragic Muse’ and in ‘Miss Emily Pott as Thais’. This was the side most admired by his contemporaries, and we must admit that Reynolds had a rare power of dramatic presentation, which found its happiest outlet when he was dealing with contemporary subjects. ‘The Tragic Muse’ is something of a wreck today, because in his desire to emulate the deep, rich coloring of the Venetians, Reynolds made use of bitumen, a pigment which gives brilliant immediate results but never dries, and in time trickles down a canvas in channels, ruining its surface. This pigment, which liquefies like asphalt when the sun is hot, is chiefly responsible for the poor condition today of many paintings by Reynolds, and it must be admitted that as a craftsman he was not so particular as Wilson and Hogarth, who were more careful in their choice of pigments.
When Sir Joshua was sixty six he lost the sight of his left eye and from this calamity and the dread of losing the other, which was threatened, he never recovered. For three years he lingered on, seeing his friends and bearing his infirmity with fortitude, but the will to live was gone when he could no longer practice his art with assurance. He died on February 23, 1792, and was buried in state at St Paul’s Cathedral.
‘I know of no man who has passed through life with more observation than Reynolds,’ said Dr Johnson; ‘when Reynolds tells me anything, I consider myself as possessed of an idea the more.’ Sir Joshua himself was distinguished by his literary abilities, and his ‘Discourses on Painting,’ which formed his yearly address to the students of the Royal Academy, are treasured and read today both for their literary merit and their instructive art teaching.
3
When Richard Wilson was already learning the business of portrait-painting in London, Joshua Reynolds was a little boy of six. He also was the son of a clergyman, the Rev. Samuel Reynolds of Plympton Earl, near Plymouth, where Joshua, the seventh son, was born on July 16, 1723. Sir Godfrey Kneller died the same year.
Nature and Fortune were both kind to Reynolds; the first endowed him with courtly manners as well as talent, the second gave him opportunities to use these to the best advantage. Doubtless Reynolds would have made his way to the front, by one path if not by another, but it was a piece of good luck for him when the Commodore Keppel of the Centurion put in at Plymouth for repairs, and met the young painter at the house of Lord Mount –Edgcumbe. Keppel took a liking to the painter and offered him a free passage on his ship to the Mediterranean. Reynolds gladly accepted, and after a long stay with Keppel at Minorca, went on to Rome, where he gave himself up to that worship of Michael Angelo that he retained all his life. His well-known deafness dates from this early period, and was the result of a cold which he caught while copying at the Vatican.
From Rome, Reynolds went to Florence, Venice, and other Italian cities, returning to England in 1753, and then he settled in London, never to leave it again except for a holiday. His younger sister Frances kept house for him, and he never married; like Michael Angelo, the object of his worship, Reynolds said he was ‘wedded to his art.’ After living for a time at 104 St Martin’s Lane, and then at 5 Great Newport Street, he made his permanent home at 47 Leicester Square, and Messrs. Puttick & Simpson now hold their auctions in the room that was once his studio.
Reynolds did not capture the town at first assault; the deep richness of the coloring he had adopted from the Venetian masters, and the atmospheric contours of his forms, did not appeal to connoisseurs accustomed to the lighter color and harder outlines of Kneller; but supported by the influence of Lord Mount-Edgcumbe and Admiral Keppel, he gradually became acknowledged as the head of his profession. When the Royal Academy was founded, his appointment as President met with universal approbation, for it was felt that no painter could fill the office so well. Reynolds, as Mr E V Lucas points out, ‘was sought not only for his brush, but also for his company; and though he did not court high society, he was sensible of the advantages it gave him. Other and finer intellects also welcomed him—such as Dr Johnson, Burke, and Goldsmith—and his house became a center of good talk.’
Reynolds was not only a great painter, but a great gentleman, for long before the King knighted him in 1769, five days before the opening of the first Academy exhibition, he had shown court and society ‘that a painter could be a wise man and a considerable man as well.’
The story of Sir Joshua’s life is not dramatic; it is the placid, smoothly running story of his art, of well-chosen friendships, of kindly actions, occasional displays of professional jealousy—for he was human and not an angel—and of a happy domestic life. When his brother-in-law Mr Palmer died in 1770, Sir Joshua adopted his daughter Theophila, then thirteen, and later her sister Mary Palmer also came to live with him, so that though a bachelor Reynolds was not without young people in his house. Both his nieces remained with him till they married, and it was Theophila’s daughter, little Theophila Gwatkin, who was the original of one of Reynold’s most charming and popular paintings, ‘The Age of Innocence.’
His grand-niece was six years old when Reynolds, in 1788, painted her portrait, a work which in conception and in every touch proclaims that it was ‘a labor of love.’ Indeed, nowhere do the simplicity, the benevolence, and the affectionate nature of the man shine out more beautifully than in his paintings of children. Splendid and decorative in its color-scheme and open air setting, his ‘Mrs Richard Hoare with her Infant Son’ in the Wallace Collection has the same winning simplicity of intention; for it is much more than a mere portrait, it is a grave and tender expression of a mother’s love. The other side of Sir Joshua’s art, ‘the grand manner,’ is seen in the famous ‘Mrs Siddons as the Tragic Muse’ and in ‘Miss Emily Pott as Thais’. This was the side most admired by his contemporaries, and we must admit that Reynolds had a rare power of dramatic presentation, which found its happiest outlet when he was dealing with contemporary subjects. ‘The Tragic Muse’ is something of a wreck today, because in his desire to emulate the deep, rich coloring of the Venetians, Reynolds made use of bitumen, a pigment which gives brilliant immediate results but never dries, and in time trickles down a canvas in channels, ruining its surface. This pigment, which liquefies like asphalt when the sun is hot, is chiefly responsible for the poor condition today of many paintings by Reynolds, and it must be admitted that as a craftsman he was not so particular as Wilson and Hogarth, who were more careful in their choice of pigments.
When Sir Joshua was sixty six he lost the sight of his left eye and from this calamity and the dread of losing the other, which was threatened, he never recovered. For three years he lingered on, seeing his friends and bearing his infirmity with fortitude, but the will to live was gone when he could no longer practice his art with assurance. He died on February 23, 1792, and was buried in state at St Paul’s Cathedral.
‘I know of no man who has passed through life with more observation than Reynolds,’ said Dr Johnson; ‘when Reynolds tells me anything, I consider myself as possessed of an idea the more.’ Sir Joshua himself was distinguished by his literary abilities, and his ‘Discourses on Painting,’ which formed his yearly address to the students of the Royal Academy, are treasured and read today both for their literary merit and their instructive art teaching.
Thursday, January 24, 2008
Pachyrhynchus Argus
According to Andrew Parker, an evolutionary biologist at the University of Oxford in England, the weevil, Pachyrhynchus argus, has patches of scales on the top and sides of its body, some of which contain structures that resemble the spheres in opals + he believes that understanding how the beetle manufactures the tiny structures in its scales may benefit jewelers seeking a less expensive opal + the computer and telecommunications industries seeking to manufacture tiny electronics.
Useful links:
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2004/01/0112_040112_opalbeetle.html
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v426/n6968/full/426786a.html
Useful links:
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2004/01/0112_040112_opalbeetle.html
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v426/n6968/full/426786a.html
Heard On The Street
There is a big lesson to be learnt from the current market meltdown + if you are greedy, there is always someone to exploit your greed + reflect on the past and you will know what a sucker you have been + Mark Twain said it first: 'A man who tries to carry a cat home by its tail will learn a lesson that can be learned in no other way.'
The Jura, France
Anne Glusker writes about the weekend festivities in the Jura mountains of eastern France + The Percée du Vin Jaune, the opening of the latest batch of this cult wine + the unique experience + other viewpoints @ http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/01/21/travel/jura.php
Social Entrepreneurs
The Economist writes about the extraordinarily diverse bunch of social entrepreneurs doing interesting things + finding inspiration from each other + their partnerships with governments + the impact + other viewpoints @ http://www.economist.com/daily/columns/businessview/displaystory.cfm?story_id=10555875
Useful link:
www.schwabfound.org
Useful link:
www.schwabfound.org
Boucheron's 150th: A Modern Take On Art Nouveau
Suzy Menkes writes about Boucheron's 150th anniversary celebration + the magic mix and match of gemstones with paintings and sculptures + the unique three-dimensional designs with that otherness + history and other viewpoints @ http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/01/21/style/rbouch.php
Useful link:
www.boucheron.com
Useful link:
www.boucheron.com
Effective Forecasting
Paul Saffo is a futurist + he believes that anyone can sharpen their predictive skills with a few key concepts - ranging from looking for odd trends to knowing when not to make a forecast + here is an article in the Harvard Business Review .
Useful links:
www.saffo.com
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Saffo
Useful links:
www.saffo.com
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Saffo
Color + Human Response
Color & Human Response: Aspects Of Light And Color Bearing On The Reactions Of Living Things And The Welfare Of Human Beings by Faber Birren is an excellent tool for gaining + understanding the broad implications of color's effects on humans + I think colored stone dealers + jewelers should go the extra mile to learn + practice the concept so that they are able to connect the dots with real people.
Here is what the description of Color & Human Response says (via Amazon):
Here is a major work by one of the best-known color authorities in the world. Faber Bitten pioneered in the field of 'functional' color, using color properties to promote human welfare psychologically, visually, and physiologically; in this volume he has assembled a wealth of information on the subject. Color and Human Response offers intriguing factual and hypothetical observations on the influences of color in life, supported by historical references and the latest scientific data. Birren explores the biological, visual, emotional, aesthetic, and psychic responses to color — referring both to ancient symbolic uses of color as well as its application in the modern environment. His specifications for color in homes, offices, hospitals, and schools are geared toward relieving modem tensions and anxieties. Complete with drawings, color photographs, and a chapter on the personal meaning of color preferences, Color and Human Response will fascinate anyone concerned with the human environment, including scientists and psychologists. It has become a basic reference for architects, teachers, and interior and industrial designers.
Here is what the description of Color & Human Response says (via Amazon):
Here is a major work by one of the best-known color authorities in the world. Faber Bitten pioneered in the field of 'functional' color, using color properties to promote human welfare psychologically, visually, and physiologically; in this volume he has assembled a wealth of information on the subject. Color and Human Response offers intriguing factual and hypothetical observations on the influences of color in life, supported by historical references and the latest scientific data. Birren explores the biological, visual, emotional, aesthetic, and psychic responses to color — referring both to ancient symbolic uses of color as well as its application in the modern environment. His specifications for color in homes, offices, hospitals, and schools are geared toward relieving modem tensions and anxieties. Complete with drawings, color photographs, and a chapter on the personal meaning of color preferences, Color and Human Response will fascinate anyone concerned with the human environment, including scientists and psychologists. It has become a basic reference for architects, teachers, and interior and industrial designers.
Karlheinz Stockhausen
Karlheinz Stockhausen was a German composer, widely acknowledged as one of the most important but also controversial composers of the 20th century + he is known for his ground-breaking work in electronic music and aleatory (controlled chance) in serial composition + he is perceived as one of the great visionaries of 20th-century music + I think the Licht project which purports to deal with life, death, man and salvation in a universal setting was unique + I enjoyed it.
Useful links:
www.stockhausen.org
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karlheinz_Stockhausen
Useful links:
www.stockhausen.org
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karlheinz_Stockhausen
Jewelers Of Italy
(via 5000 Years of Gems and Jewelry) Frances Rogers and Alice Beard writes:
7. Decline Of The Glyptic Art
Scarcely more than one hundred years after the death of Pliny the Roman Empire was well on its way to the final crash. The arts, including glyptic art, were keeping pace downhill with the falling Empire.
Not that there was any lack of demand for engraved gems; wealthy Romans were spending exorbitant sums for them. But interest was centered not on excellence of design or technique but on the mystic significance and magical powers of the symbols engraved on the ring stones and beads. The rich man was not buying art. He was buying magic. In consequence, the work of the gem engraver grew careless and indifferent; speed in engraving the symbols was of more importance than quality of workmanship.
An uneasy sense of impending doom has a tendency to drive us, groping for escape, toward realms supernatural. The crystal-gazer and the astrologer did a thriving business in fortune-telling and prophecy. Zodiacal symbols invoking the influences of the stars were considered particularly potent. All classes, rich and poor, wore amulets of one sort or another.
In early times, what we call the ‘rank materialist’ was almost non-existent. Practically everybody believed in one or another of the many forms of superstition then current. Nevertheless there were those who craved some semblance at least of reasonable basis for belief.
There came into being a cult known as ‘Gnosticism,’ which means, knowledge of spiritual mysteries. The Gnostics believed that originally all things of the terrestrial and celestial universe had been created in an orderly harmony, that this true order had been destroyed but eventually would be restored. They sought control of occult influences through knowledge of the mystic powers of numbers, words, substances, and forms. In their quest for omniscience they impartially embraced mythology, both Greek and Oriental, the Christian and Jewish religions, philosophy, magic and as much science as was available.
Gnosticism spread fast and far. Naturally it was bound to find reflection in gems and the demand for stones engraved with the magic symbols of the Gnostics grew to such proportions that whole factories were devoted to their production. A favorite device was an image called Abraxas. The figure has the head of a cock, the body of a man, and legs which are serpents. In one hand is a shield and in the other a whip. So involved is the significance of any Gnostic symbol that authorities differ as to its meanings and we shall not attempt to unravel them here.
But to return to what was happening concerning gems in general. Silks and spices from China, furs from the forests of Scythia, and jewels from all parts of the Orient were eagerly bought up by the Romans. Says Gibbons: ‘The most remote countries of the ancient world were ransacked to supply the pomp and delicacy of Rome. Amber was brought overland from the shores of the Baltic to the Danube, and the barbarians were astonished at the price they received for so useless a commodity.’
Presently hordes of the barbarians from the North were themselves gravitating toward the Mediterranean, plundering as they went, and living on the country.
With the first great waves of Germanic tribes that swept the Roman Empire in the third century, there began a curious intermingling of the peoples of Europe which had a direct effect on all the arts of the time. And during the next few hundred years, owing to the diversity of influences brought about by warring nations and conflicting religions, the whole character of jewelry underwent a change.
Jewelers Of Italy (continued)
7. Decline Of The Glyptic Art
Scarcely more than one hundred years after the death of Pliny the Roman Empire was well on its way to the final crash. The arts, including glyptic art, were keeping pace downhill with the falling Empire.
Not that there was any lack of demand for engraved gems; wealthy Romans were spending exorbitant sums for them. But interest was centered not on excellence of design or technique but on the mystic significance and magical powers of the symbols engraved on the ring stones and beads. The rich man was not buying art. He was buying magic. In consequence, the work of the gem engraver grew careless and indifferent; speed in engraving the symbols was of more importance than quality of workmanship.
An uneasy sense of impending doom has a tendency to drive us, groping for escape, toward realms supernatural. The crystal-gazer and the astrologer did a thriving business in fortune-telling and prophecy. Zodiacal symbols invoking the influences of the stars were considered particularly potent. All classes, rich and poor, wore amulets of one sort or another.
In early times, what we call the ‘rank materialist’ was almost non-existent. Practically everybody believed in one or another of the many forms of superstition then current. Nevertheless there were those who craved some semblance at least of reasonable basis for belief.
There came into being a cult known as ‘Gnosticism,’ which means, knowledge of spiritual mysteries. The Gnostics believed that originally all things of the terrestrial and celestial universe had been created in an orderly harmony, that this true order had been destroyed but eventually would be restored. They sought control of occult influences through knowledge of the mystic powers of numbers, words, substances, and forms. In their quest for omniscience they impartially embraced mythology, both Greek and Oriental, the Christian and Jewish religions, philosophy, magic and as much science as was available.
Gnosticism spread fast and far. Naturally it was bound to find reflection in gems and the demand for stones engraved with the magic symbols of the Gnostics grew to such proportions that whole factories were devoted to their production. A favorite device was an image called Abraxas. The figure has the head of a cock, the body of a man, and legs which are serpents. In one hand is a shield and in the other a whip. So involved is the significance of any Gnostic symbol that authorities differ as to its meanings and we shall not attempt to unravel them here.
But to return to what was happening concerning gems in general. Silks and spices from China, furs from the forests of Scythia, and jewels from all parts of the Orient were eagerly bought up by the Romans. Says Gibbons: ‘The most remote countries of the ancient world were ransacked to supply the pomp and delicacy of Rome. Amber was brought overland from the shores of the Baltic to the Danube, and the barbarians were astonished at the price they received for so useless a commodity.’
Presently hordes of the barbarians from the North were themselves gravitating toward the Mediterranean, plundering as they went, and living on the country.
With the first great waves of Germanic tribes that swept the Roman Empire in the third century, there began a curious intermingling of the peoples of Europe which had a direct effect on all the arts of the time. And during the next few hundred years, owing to the diversity of influences brought about by warring nations and conflicting religions, the whole character of jewelry underwent a change.
Jewelers Of Italy (continued)
English Masters Of The Eighteenth Century
(via The Outline of Art) William Orpen writes:
2
The greatest of Hogarth’s contemporaries, the link indeed between him and Sir Joshua Reynolds, was the artist known as ‘The Father of British Landscape,’ Richard Wilson. His is one of the saddest stories in British Art, for, though acknowledged to be one of the most eminent men of his day, and attaining a modest measure of success in middle life, fortune, through no fault of his own, turned her back on him, and his later years were spent in the direst poverty.
Richard Wilson was born at Penegoes in Montgomeryshire on August 1, 1744, the day Queen Anne died and George I ascended the throne. His father was a clergyman of limited means, but his mother was well connected, and one of her well-off relatives took sufficient interest in young Richard’s talent for drawing to have him sent to London to learn painting. Though it is by his landscapes that Wilson acquired lasting fame, he began life as a portrait-painter; one of his earlier portraits of himself is in the National Gallery, while a very much later portrait, is in the Diploma Gallery of the Royal Academy. This magnificent work which speaks for itself, is enough to prove that even in portrait-painting Wilson had, among his immediate predecessors, no equal saving Hogarth.
Like Hogarth, Wilson was a sturdy, independent disposition, little inclined to truckle to the conceit of fashionable sitters or to flatter their vanity, and consequently he was not the man to make it the staff of his professional practice, though in 1748 he had acquired a considerable practice, though in 1748 he had acquired a considerable eminence in this branch of art. IN this year he was commissioned to paint a group of the Prince of Wales and Duke of York with their tutor—a portion of which now hangs in the National Portrait Gallery—and with the money earned by this and other commissions he decided in the following year to carry out a long cherished wish to visit Italy.
Hitherto there has been a general belief that Wilson did not attempt landscape painting till he found himself in Italy, but it has recently been ascertained that he unquestionably painted landscapes before he left England.
In Italy Wilson devoted more and more of his time to landscape till he finally established himself in Rome as a landscape-painter, only doing an occasional portrait. His beautiful pictures of Italian landscapes, in which dignity of design was combined with atmospheric truth and loveliness of color, soon gained him a great reputation in that city, and his landscapes were bought by the Earl of Pembroke, the Earl of Thanet, the Earl of Essex, Lord Bolingbroke, Lord Dartmouth, and other Englishmen of high rank who were visiting Italy. Consequently, when he returned to England in 1756, his reputation preceded him and he enjoyed a considerable measure of success when he first established himself in London at Covent Garden. But unfortunately for Wilson, the taste of the eighteenth century was severely classical, and after the first novelty of his Italian landscapes wore off, only one or two enlightened patrons, like Sir Richard Ford, were capable of appreciating the originality and beauty of the landscapes he painted in England. Thanks to the discrimination of Sir Richard and Lady Ford, the best collection in the world of landscapes by Richard Wilson is still in the possession of the family. It is only in the Ford Collection that the full measure of Wilson’s greatness can be seen, for while the splendor of the flaming sunset sky in ‘The Tiber, with Rome in the Distance’ reveals how Wilson showed the way to Turner, the sweet simplicity and natural beauty of ‘The Thames near Twickenham’ proves him also to have been the artistic ancestor of Constable.
Wilson’s English landscapes went begging in his own day. His memorandum-book, preserved in the Victoria and Albert Museum, South Kensington, shows how he sent them out on approval and often had them returned. As his fortunes dwindled, Wilson despairingly set about painting replicas of the Italian landscapes which he had found more saleable, and these repetitions of his Italian scenes have done much harm to his reputation in succeeding years, for the later Italian pictures do not always attain the quality of the first version when the painter was freshly inspired by the original scenery.
Nevertheless, with the help of one or two unaffected lovers of art and Nature, who bought his English landscapes, and more who bought repetitions of his Italian scenes, and with the fees of his pupils—among whom was the diarist, Joseph Farington, R.A—Wilson managed for some years to make a tolerable living, and when the Royal Academy was established in 1768, George III—who in his boyhood had had his portrait done by this landscape painter—nominated Richard Wilson as one of the founder members of the Academy. At the Academy exhibitions Wilson with credit, if without much commercial success, and nothing serious happened till 1776, when he sent a picture of ‘Sion House from Kew Gardens,’ which the King thought of buying.
Unfortunately he sent Lord Bute to bargain with the artist, and this canny nobleman thought the price asked, sixty guineas, was ‘too dear’. ‘Tell His Majesty,’ said Wilson roguishly, ‘that he may pay for it by instalments.’ Had an Irish peer been the intermediary he might have seen the joke and have made Wilson’s fortune, but Lord Bute belonged to a race that is reputed to take money very seriously, and to be not too quick at grasping the English sense of humor. He was shocked and scandalized, deeming the answer insulting to royalty.
The harmless gibe cost Wilson what little Court favor he had, and proved to be his ruin. Fortunately, before this disastrous retort had been made, he had secured the Librarianship of the Royal Academy, and the salary of this post, fifty pounds a year, was all Wilson had to live on during his later years. His few patrons fell away from him, his brother Academicians—most of whom had been rather jealous—now shunned him, and he lived in a miserable garret in Tottenham Street, Tottenham Court Road, existing chiefly on bread and porter. He had always been fond of the last—‘though not to excess,’ said Beechey, R.A., who knew him intimately—and want of nourishment rather than excess of liquor wrought sad changes in his countenance, so that he became known as ‘red-nosed Dick.’
Just before the end he had a year or two of quiet and comfort, for he left London and made his home with his relatives in Wales, where he died, at Llanberis, in 1782. Wilson did not altogether abandon portrait-painting when he returned from Italy, and in addition to the noble portrait of himself, there is in the Academy’s Diploma Gallery a very beautiful full-length of the young artist Mortimer, whom he painted about the same time. A splendid portrait of Peg Woffington, very rich in color, which hangs in the Garrick Club, is another example of Wilson’s portraiture after his return from Italy.
Richard Wilson was the first English artist to show his countrymen not only the beauty of Nature but the beauty of their own country. He should not be judged by such large pictures as ‘Niobe’ and ‘The Villa of Mæcenas,’ which he painted ‘to order,’ but rather—so far as the National Gallery is concerned—by his exquisite ‘Italian Coast Scene’ and ‘On the Wye,’ which together show how beautifully and truly Wilson rendered the characteristic scenery of the two countries he so deeply loved.
English Masters Of The Eighteenth Century (continued)
2
The greatest of Hogarth’s contemporaries, the link indeed between him and Sir Joshua Reynolds, was the artist known as ‘The Father of British Landscape,’ Richard Wilson. His is one of the saddest stories in British Art, for, though acknowledged to be one of the most eminent men of his day, and attaining a modest measure of success in middle life, fortune, through no fault of his own, turned her back on him, and his later years were spent in the direst poverty.
Richard Wilson was born at Penegoes in Montgomeryshire on August 1, 1744, the day Queen Anne died and George I ascended the throne. His father was a clergyman of limited means, but his mother was well connected, and one of her well-off relatives took sufficient interest in young Richard’s talent for drawing to have him sent to London to learn painting. Though it is by his landscapes that Wilson acquired lasting fame, he began life as a portrait-painter; one of his earlier portraits of himself is in the National Gallery, while a very much later portrait, is in the Diploma Gallery of the Royal Academy. This magnificent work which speaks for itself, is enough to prove that even in portrait-painting Wilson had, among his immediate predecessors, no equal saving Hogarth.
Like Hogarth, Wilson was a sturdy, independent disposition, little inclined to truckle to the conceit of fashionable sitters or to flatter their vanity, and consequently he was not the man to make it the staff of his professional practice, though in 1748 he had acquired a considerable practice, though in 1748 he had acquired a considerable eminence in this branch of art. IN this year he was commissioned to paint a group of the Prince of Wales and Duke of York with their tutor—a portion of which now hangs in the National Portrait Gallery—and with the money earned by this and other commissions he decided in the following year to carry out a long cherished wish to visit Italy.
Hitherto there has been a general belief that Wilson did not attempt landscape painting till he found himself in Italy, but it has recently been ascertained that he unquestionably painted landscapes before he left England.
In Italy Wilson devoted more and more of his time to landscape till he finally established himself in Rome as a landscape-painter, only doing an occasional portrait. His beautiful pictures of Italian landscapes, in which dignity of design was combined with atmospheric truth and loveliness of color, soon gained him a great reputation in that city, and his landscapes were bought by the Earl of Pembroke, the Earl of Thanet, the Earl of Essex, Lord Bolingbroke, Lord Dartmouth, and other Englishmen of high rank who were visiting Italy. Consequently, when he returned to England in 1756, his reputation preceded him and he enjoyed a considerable measure of success when he first established himself in London at Covent Garden. But unfortunately for Wilson, the taste of the eighteenth century was severely classical, and after the first novelty of his Italian landscapes wore off, only one or two enlightened patrons, like Sir Richard Ford, were capable of appreciating the originality and beauty of the landscapes he painted in England. Thanks to the discrimination of Sir Richard and Lady Ford, the best collection in the world of landscapes by Richard Wilson is still in the possession of the family. It is only in the Ford Collection that the full measure of Wilson’s greatness can be seen, for while the splendor of the flaming sunset sky in ‘The Tiber, with Rome in the Distance’ reveals how Wilson showed the way to Turner, the sweet simplicity and natural beauty of ‘The Thames near Twickenham’ proves him also to have been the artistic ancestor of Constable.
Wilson’s English landscapes went begging in his own day. His memorandum-book, preserved in the Victoria and Albert Museum, South Kensington, shows how he sent them out on approval and often had them returned. As his fortunes dwindled, Wilson despairingly set about painting replicas of the Italian landscapes which he had found more saleable, and these repetitions of his Italian scenes have done much harm to his reputation in succeeding years, for the later Italian pictures do not always attain the quality of the first version when the painter was freshly inspired by the original scenery.
Nevertheless, with the help of one or two unaffected lovers of art and Nature, who bought his English landscapes, and more who bought repetitions of his Italian scenes, and with the fees of his pupils—among whom was the diarist, Joseph Farington, R.A—Wilson managed for some years to make a tolerable living, and when the Royal Academy was established in 1768, George III—who in his boyhood had had his portrait done by this landscape painter—nominated Richard Wilson as one of the founder members of the Academy. At the Academy exhibitions Wilson with credit, if without much commercial success, and nothing serious happened till 1776, when he sent a picture of ‘Sion House from Kew Gardens,’ which the King thought of buying.
Unfortunately he sent Lord Bute to bargain with the artist, and this canny nobleman thought the price asked, sixty guineas, was ‘too dear’. ‘Tell His Majesty,’ said Wilson roguishly, ‘that he may pay for it by instalments.’ Had an Irish peer been the intermediary he might have seen the joke and have made Wilson’s fortune, but Lord Bute belonged to a race that is reputed to take money very seriously, and to be not too quick at grasping the English sense of humor. He was shocked and scandalized, deeming the answer insulting to royalty.
The harmless gibe cost Wilson what little Court favor he had, and proved to be his ruin. Fortunately, before this disastrous retort had been made, he had secured the Librarianship of the Royal Academy, and the salary of this post, fifty pounds a year, was all Wilson had to live on during his later years. His few patrons fell away from him, his brother Academicians—most of whom had been rather jealous—now shunned him, and he lived in a miserable garret in Tottenham Street, Tottenham Court Road, existing chiefly on bread and porter. He had always been fond of the last—‘though not to excess,’ said Beechey, R.A., who knew him intimately—and want of nourishment rather than excess of liquor wrought sad changes in his countenance, so that he became known as ‘red-nosed Dick.’
Just before the end he had a year or two of quiet and comfort, for he left London and made his home with his relatives in Wales, where he died, at Llanberis, in 1782. Wilson did not altogether abandon portrait-painting when he returned from Italy, and in addition to the noble portrait of himself, there is in the Academy’s Diploma Gallery a very beautiful full-length of the young artist Mortimer, whom he painted about the same time. A splendid portrait of Peg Woffington, very rich in color, which hangs in the Garrick Club, is another example of Wilson’s portraiture after his return from Italy.
Richard Wilson was the first English artist to show his countrymen not only the beauty of Nature but the beauty of their own country. He should not be judged by such large pictures as ‘Niobe’ and ‘The Villa of Mæcenas,’ which he painted ‘to order,’ but rather—so far as the National Gallery is concerned—by his exquisite ‘Italian Coast Scene’ and ‘On the Wye,’ which together show how beautifully and truly Wilson rendered the characteristic scenery of the two countries he so deeply loved.
English Masters Of The Eighteenth Century (continued)
Wednesday, January 23, 2008
The Story Of Psychology
The Story of Psychology by Morton Hunt is a great book + gem dealers, jewelers + art dealers should read not only to bring people alive from the depth of ignorance but also to analyze their own behavior.
Here is what the description of The Story of Psychology says (via Amazon):
Socrates, Plato, Descartes, Spinoza, Mesmer, William James, Pavlov, Freud, Piaget, Erikson, and Skinner. Each of these thinkers recognized that human beings could examine, comprehend, and eventually guide or influence their own thought processes, emotions, and resulting behavior. The lives and accomplishments of these pillars of psychology, expertly assembled by Morton Hunt, are set against the times in which the subjects lived. Hunt skillfully presents dramatic and lucid accounts of the techniques and validity of centuries of psychological research, and of the methods and effectiveness of major forms of psychotherapy. Fully revised, and incorporating the dramatic developments of the last fifteen years, The Story of Psychology is a graceful and absorbing chronicle of one of the great human inquiries—the search for the true causes of our behavior.
Here is what the description of The Story of Psychology says (via Amazon):
Socrates, Plato, Descartes, Spinoza, Mesmer, William James, Pavlov, Freud, Piaget, Erikson, and Skinner. Each of these thinkers recognized that human beings could examine, comprehend, and eventually guide or influence their own thought processes, emotions, and resulting behavior. The lives and accomplishments of these pillars of psychology, expertly assembled by Morton Hunt, are set against the times in which the subjects lived. Hunt skillfully presents dramatic and lucid accounts of the techniques and validity of centuries of psychological research, and of the methods and effectiveness of major forms of psychotherapy. Fully revised, and incorporating the dramatic developments of the last fifteen years, The Story of Psychology is a graceful and absorbing chronicle of one of the great human inquiries—the search for the true causes of our behavior.
Fabulous Model Of Market Crashes
(via Commodityonline) Here is an interesting observation by MIT Professor Charles Kindleberger + it's amazing to see the patterns repeat endlessly and yet we forget to learn the lessons.
Anatomy Of A Market Crisis
- Displacement
Displacement happens when the economic outlook is altered by changing profit opportunities. (currently: China and India’ emergence is propelling commodities markets)
- A boom ensues
Bank credit and personal credit expands significantly. This results in Adam Smith’s 'overtrading': pure speculation, overestimation of profits and excessive gearing step forward. (currently: sub prime lending, ETFs based on air). Bubbles occur. Economists define bubbles as 'deviations from fundamentals'. Back to my Economic Clock: the only big market that has such a deviation from fundamentals is clearly the USA and Japan. However, the current mania (Greenspan’s irrational exuberance) will keep feeding on itself. We are in this boom phase now and, excluding America, there is no bubble – markets are in line with fundamentals, with the Economic Time.
- Distress sets in
The smart money starts selling. One event is the tripwire. Currently, I thought that the sub prime mortgage matter might be such a tripwire to crisis, but I was wrong, alas! 'Revulsion' rears its ugly head: revulsion against commodities or securities leads banks to stop lending on the collateral of such assets.
- Panic sets in
Everyone bolts for the exits. Then, one of three things happens. Either prices fall so lowly that people load back up (currently: that is what February was about), market 'circuit breakers' are established, i.e. trading is stopped if certain price limits are reached, or a lender of last resort stabilizes confidence.
Useful links:
http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2003/kindleberger.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_P._Kindleberger
Anatomy Of A Market Crisis
- Displacement
Displacement happens when the economic outlook is altered by changing profit opportunities. (currently: China and India’ emergence is propelling commodities markets)
- A boom ensues
Bank credit and personal credit expands significantly. This results in Adam Smith’s 'overtrading': pure speculation, overestimation of profits and excessive gearing step forward. (currently: sub prime lending, ETFs based on air). Bubbles occur. Economists define bubbles as 'deviations from fundamentals'. Back to my Economic Clock: the only big market that has such a deviation from fundamentals is clearly the USA and Japan. However, the current mania (Greenspan’s irrational exuberance) will keep feeding on itself. We are in this boom phase now and, excluding America, there is no bubble – markets are in line with fundamentals, with the Economic Time.
- Distress sets in
The smart money starts selling. One event is the tripwire. Currently, I thought that the sub prime mortgage matter might be such a tripwire to crisis, but I was wrong, alas! 'Revulsion' rears its ugly head: revulsion against commodities or securities leads banks to stop lending on the collateral of such assets.
- Panic sets in
Everyone bolts for the exits. Then, one of three things happens. Either prices fall so lowly that people load back up (currently: that is what February was about), market 'circuit breakers' are established, i.e. trading is stopped if certain price limits are reached, or a lender of last resort stabilizes confidence.
Useful links:
http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2003/kindleberger.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_P._Kindleberger
Revival Sale
Economist writes about Bonhams Egyptian Revival sale + other viewpoints @ http://www.economist.com/daily/columns/artview/displaystory.cfm?story_id=10552924
Georges Delerue
Georges Delerue was a renowned French film composer who composed over 350 scores for cinema and television + he won numerous important awards including Rome Prize (1949) + Emmy Award (1968 - Our World) + Genie Award (1986 - Sword Of Gideon) + ACE Award (1991 - The Josephine Baker Story) + Academy Award in 1979 for A Little Romance + 4 other Academy Nominations (1969 - Anne of the Thousand Days, 1973 - The Day of the Dolphin, 1977 - Julia and 1985 - Agnes of God) + Le Figaro Magazine (France, 1981) addressed him as 'Mozart of Cinema' + that otherness in his music encapsulated the spirit of the movies for which he collaborated + I always enjoyed his music.
Useful links:
www.georges-delerue.com
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georges_Delerue
Useful links:
www.georges-delerue.com
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georges_Delerue
GemeWizard Update
It has been reported that GemeWizard, the developer of a system for describing and communicating color in gems, has announced that it will be supplying an online version of its color communication application free of charge on its website @ www.gemewizard.com
Rio Tinto’s Argyle Diamond Mine And The Origin Of Champagne Diamonds
Rio Tinto Diamonds writes:
In Australia’s isolated outback, the world’s largest diamond producer excavates millions of tons of rock in search of its exquisite jewels. In a land of rugged mountain ranges, deep gorges and arid savannah, lies the Argyle Diamond Mine—where the red earth yields enough diamonds to pave set an entire tennis court—and among them are the world’s largest supply of natural champagne and cognac color diamonds.
The Argyle Diamond Mine, 100% owned by Rio Tinto, is located in the isolated East Kimberley region of Western Australia, 2500 km (app.1550 mi.) from Perth, the capital of Western Australia. AT 2 km long (app. 1.2 mi.), 1 km wide (app.0.6 mi.) and almost 1 km deep, the open pit Argyle mine redefines the word ‘big’. It has been worked continuously, around the clock, 365 days a year, since 1983, and its ancient volcanic pipe has yielded more than 670 carats of diamond, including the beautiful champagne and cognac gems.
The Australian Aborigines, who are the traditional owners of the land on which the Argyle mine has been built, believe the Argyle mine was formed when a barramundi fish escaped through a spinifix net. The colors of the Argyle diamonds are believed to have come from the different parts of the barramundi.
The scientific explanation for the origin of color in brown diamonds has to do with trace elements in the lattice structure. Tremendous pressure exerted on a diamond deep in the earth can abnormally compress and distort its structure, thus creating a red, pink, purple, or brown stone. Evidence of graining, which scientists attribute to extreme pressure under the earth, can be seen at 10x magnification in many Argyle natural color diamonds.
The formation of natural color diamonds is a process that requires the presence of not only the original magical formula for all diamond creation of unimaginable heat and pressure place on carbon crystals, but the presence of additional trace elements as well. If nitrogen, boron, hydrogen, or other elements interacts with carbon atoms during a diamond’s creation, the diamond’s color can change. Radiation during the creation process also can impact a diamond’s color.
The physical conditions necessary to color a diamond naturally occur very scarcely, making natural color diamonds extremely rare. How rare? For every natural color diamond, there are 10000 colorless diamonds that have made the arduous journey to the earth’s surface. It is this entirely natural process of geographical formation which ensures that each natural color diamond is one-of-a-kind.
Approximately $5 billion of champagne and cognac diamond jewelry is sold annually throughout the world—easily making these stones the most accessible of all natural color diamonds.
From collectors to royalty to Hollywood celebrities, champagne diamonds have always been in vogue. The popularity of these ‘new classics’ can be traced all the way back to the 17th century, when Cardinal Jules Mazarin, the chief minister of France, was an avid collector.
Today, some of the world’s most important diamonds are natural color champagnes. Case in point: The world’s largest cut natural diamond is a dark rich champagne stone, the Golden Jubilee, which possesses a magnificence and mystery all its own. The Golden Jubilee, at 545 carats, was offered to the King of Thailand in 1997 to celebrate the 50th anniversary of his ascension to the throne. Polishing the stone took no less than three years.
Useful links:
www.riotintodiamonds.com
www.ncdia.com
I was really fortunate to view + analyze The Golden Jubilee diamond in Bangkok, Thailand + it was an experience.
In Australia’s isolated outback, the world’s largest diamond producer excavates millions of tons of rock in search of its exquisite jewels. In a land of rugged mountain ranges, deep gorges and arid savannah, lies the Argyle Diamond Mine—where the red earth yields enough diamonds to pave set an entire tennis court—and among them are the world’s largest supply of natural champagne and cognac color diamonds.
The Argyle Diamond Mine, 100% owned by Rio Tinto, is located in the isolated East Kimberley region of Western Australia, 2500 km (app.1550 mi.) from Perth, the capital of Western Australia. AT 2 km long (app. 1.2 mi.), 1 km wide (app.0.6 mi.) and almost 1 km deep, the open pit Argyle mine redefines the word ‘big’. It has been worked continuously, around the clock, 365 days a year, since 1983, and its ancient volcanic pipe has yielded more than 670 carats of diamond, including the beautiful champagne and cognac gems.
The Australian Aborigines, who are the traditional owners of the land on which the Argyle mine has been built, believe the Argyle mine was formed when a barramundi fish escaped through a spinifix net. The colors of the Argyle diamonds are believed to have come from the different parts of the barramundi.
The scientific explanation for the origin of color in brown diamonds has to do with trace elements in the lattice structure. Tremendous pressure exerted on a diamond deep in the earth can abnormally compress and distort its structure, thus creating a red, pink, purple, or brown stone. Evidence of graining, which scientists attribute to extreme pressure under the earth, can be seen at 10x magnification in many Argyle natural color diamonds.
The formation of natural color diamonds is a process that requires the presence of not only the original magical formula for all diamond creation of unimaginable heat and pressure place on carbon crystals, but the presence of additional trace elements as well. If nitrogen, boron, hydrogen, or other elements interacts with carbon atoms during a diamond’s creation, the diamond’s color can change. Radiation during the creation process also can impact a diamond’s color.
The physical conditions necessary to color a diamond naturally occur very scarcely, making natural color diamonds extremely rare. How rare? For every natural color diamond, there are 10000 colorless diamonds that have made the arduous journey to the earth’s surface. It is this entirely natural process of geographical formation which ensures that each natural color diamond is one-of-a-kind.
Approximately $5 billion of champagne and cognac diamond jewelry is sold annually throughout the world—easily making these stones the most accessible of all natural color diamonds.
From collectors to royalty to Hollywood celebrities, champagne diamonds have always been in vogue. The popularity of these ‘new classics’ can be traced all the way back to the 17th century, when Cardinal Jules Mazarin, the chief minister of France, was an avid collector.
Today, some of the world’s most important diamonds are natural color champagnes. Case in point: The world’s largest cut natural diamond is a dark rich champagne stone, the Golden Jubilee, which possesses a magnificence and mystery all its own. The Golden Jubilee, at 545 carats, was offered to the King of Thailand in 1997 to celebrate the 50th anniversary of his ascension to the throne. Polishing the stone took no less than three years.
Useful links:
www.riotintodiamonds.com
www.ncdia.com
I was really fortunate to view + analyze The Golden Jubilee diamond in Bangkok, Thailand + it was an experience.
The Significance Of An Adequate Culet
(via Diamond Cuts in Historic Jewelry:1381-1910) Herbert Tillander writes:
When the imperfections of historical diamonds are commented on, the point of criticism is usually not that the proportions are wrong but that the culet is thought to be too large. In open settings the culet looks like a hole, and in closed settings like a black spot against the corroded foiling.
The late E F Eppler is the only person to have made a scientific study of the significance of a large culet. He writes of Brilliants with 45° angles, but everything he says applies equally well to Full Table Cuts: ‘For this particular cut the output of light is surprisingly high....and depends mostly on the large culet which therefore has a great importance.’ He calculates the output of light to be 18.9 percent of the incident light, and adds: ‘With an increase in the angle of incidence, the output rises at first until, at approximately 30°, a drastically sharp drop occurs. This first part of the curve, representing the output of light for the angles of incidence between 0° and 30°, is caused simply by the culet. Increased angles again cause a peak in output at 45°, which is followed by further reduction until zero is reached at 90°.’ Later in the same article Eppler comments: ‘It is astonishing that the diamond cutter of former time found an improvement in the brilliance by applying a culet not by calculation but by practice only. In reducing the angles in crown and pavilion the culet has less importance and in the modern fine cut...the absence of the culet is an absolute necessity, if it is not applied to minimize damage.’
When the imperfections of historical diamonds are commented on, the point of criticism is usually not that the proportions are wrong but that the culet is thought to be too large. In open settings the culet looks like a hole, and in closed settings like a black spot against the corroded foiling.
The late E F Eppler is the only person to have made a scientific study of the significance of a large culet. He writes of Brilliants with 45° angles, but everything he says applies equally well to Full Table Cuts: ‘For this particular cut the output of light is surprisingly high....and depends mostly on the large culet which therefore has a great importance.’ He calculates the output of light to be 18.9 percent of the incident light, and adds: ‘With an increase in the angle of incidence, the output rises at first until, at approximately 30°, a drastically sharp drop occurs. This first part of the curve, representing the output of light for the angles of incidence between 0° and 30°, is caused simply by the culet. Increased angles again cause a peak in output at 45°, which is followed by further reduction until zero is reached at 90°.’ Later in the same article Eppler comments: ‘It is astonishing that the diamond cutter of former time found an improvement in the brilliance by applying a culet not by calculation but by practice only. In reducing the angles in crown and pavilion the culet has less importance and in the modern fine cut...the absence of the culet is an absolute necessity, if it is not applied to minimize damage.’
Jewelers Of Italy
(via 5000 Years of Gems and Jewelry) Frances Rogers and Alice Beard writes:
6. Ornaments And Artists
The Roman lady of fashion wore her hair most elaborately dressed. She was much addicted to fillets and diadems, as may be observed from various statues and pictures. Hairpins, in ancient Rome, were no inconsequent trifle bought by the package; each pin was the work of te jeweler. Often they were of solid gold and long enough to suggest a rather formidable weapon, should the lady be in need of one. There is one such hairpin in the British Museum. It is eight inches long and made of gold in the form of shaft topped with a Corinthian capital.
Bracelets were popular article of jewelry, for the upper arm as well as the wrist. Wrist bracelets, in general, were of two kinds, either in the same form as necklaces (without pendants) or made in two rounded halves connected by a hinge. Imperial gold coins were frequently introduced into almost any kind of jewelry, even into rings.
For their designs, gem engravers borrowed freely from the work of painters and sculptors. They would copy a figure from a painting or a whole statue, pedestal and all, translating picture or statue into a miniature design cut on the hard surface of red jasper. Many works of art, the originals of which were destroyed long since, have been preserved to us in the tiny form of engraved gems.
Sometimes a painter turnred the tables and chose for his subject the shop of the jeweler. A case in point still exists in the form of a mural decoration. But the artist was not minded to give a literal representation of the scene. In his painting he has visualized the craft of the goldsmith as a calling lifted to some fantastic level outside the confines of our workaday world. He painted the shop itself true to life with the usual furnishings and implements of furnace, anvil, blowpipes, hammers, scales, etc. But when it came to the workers he would have us believe that the shop is entirely taken over by a flock of chubby cupids with the traditional curly locks and little wings. Each cupid is busily engaged in one of the various tasks of the master goldsmith and his apprentices. Conspicuous among these infantile workers is the customer, a lady evidently about to purchase some precious stones which the small jeweler, standing before her, is weighing in the scales. Unlike the other characters, the lady is full grown, but like them she is blessed with a pair of decorative, though quite inadequate, wings.
In spite of the playful spirit of its representations this picture (barring the cupids) may be taken as a faithful portrait of the industry of jewelry making. The mural decoration was found in one of the rooms of the house of the Vetii at Pompeii.
On that fateful day in the year 79 A.D. when disaster came to Pompeii, the majority of its inhabitants fled in time. Among evidences of failure to escape have been found the little hoards of jewels which were so hurriedly snatched up and carried until death overtook their owners. Our old friend, Pliny, who might so well have written a graphic account of the calamity, leaves us no record of it; for in his effort to get near enough to give an eye witness report, he himself was suffocated by the poisonous fumes of Vesuvius.
Jewelers Of Italy (continued)
6. Ornaments And Artists
The Roman lady of fashion wore her hair most elaborately dressed. She was much addicted to fillets and diadems, as may be observed from various statues and pictures. Hairpins, in ancient Rome, were no inconsequent trifle bought by the package; each pin was the work of te jeweler. Often they were of solid gold and long enough to suggest a rather formidable weapon, should the lady be in need of one. There is one such hairpin in the British Museum. It is eight inches long and made of gold in the form of shaft topped with a Corinthian capital.
Bracelets were popular article of jewelry, for the upper arm as well as the wrist. Wrist bracelets, in general, were of two kinds, either in the same form as necklaces (without pendants) or made in two rounded halves connected by a hinge. Imperial gold coins were frequently introduced into almost any kind of jewelry, even into rings.
For their designs, gem engravers borrowed freely from the work of painters and sculptors. They would copy a figure from a painting or a whole statue, pedestal and all, translating picture or statue into a miniature design cut on the hard surface of red jasper. Many works of art, the originals of which were destroyed long since, have been preserved to us in the tiny form of engraved gems.
Sometimes a painter turnred the tables and chose for his subject the shop of the jeweler. A case in point still exists in the form of a mural decoration. But the artist was not minded to give a literal representation of the scene. In his painting he has visualized the craft of the goldsmith as a calling lifted to some fantastic level outside the confines of our workaday world. He painted the shop itself true to life with the usual furnishings and implements of furnace, anvil, blowpipes, hammers, scales, etc. But when it came to the workers he would have us believe that the shop is entirely taken over by a flock of chubby cupids with the traditional curly locks and little wings. Each cupid is busily engaged in one of the various tasks of the master goldsmith and his apprentices. Conspicuous among these infantile workers is the customer, a lady evidently about to purchase some precious stones which the small jeweler, standing before her, is weighing in the scales. Unlike the other characters, the lady is full grown, but like them she is blessed with a pair of decorative, though quite inadequate, wings.
In spite of the playful spirit of its representations this picture (barring the cupids) may be taken as a faithful portrait of the industry of jewelry making. The mural decoration was found in one of the rooms of the house of the Vetii at Pompeii.
On that fateful day in the year 79 A.D. when disaster came to Pompeii, the majority of its inhabitants fled in time. Among evidences of failure to escape have been found the little hoards of jewels which were so hurriedly snatched up and carried until death overtook their owners. Our old friend, Pliny, who might so well have written a graphic account of the calamity, leaves us no record of it; for in his effort to get near enough to give an eye witness report, he himself was suffocated by the poisonous fumes of Vesuvius.
Jewelers Of Italy (continued)
English Masters Of The Eighteenth Century
(via The Outline of Art) William Orpen writes:
Scene IV. The Countess’s Dressing Room
The gradations of ridiculous affectation in the Music Scene are finely imagined and preserved. The preposterous, overstrained admiration of the Lady of Quality, the sentimental, insipid, impatient delight of the Man, with his hair in paper, and sipping his tea, the pert, smirking, conceited, half-distorted approbation of the figure next to him, the transition to the total insensibility of the round face in profile, and then to the wonder of the negro boy at the rapture of his mistress, form a perfect whole. The sanguine complexion and flame-colored hair of the female virtuoso throw an additional light on the character....The gross, bloated appearance of the Italian Singer is well relieved by the hard features of the instrumental performer behind him, which might be carved of wood. The negro boy holding the chocolate, both in expression, color, and execution, is a masterpiece. The gay, lively, contrast to the profound amazement of the first.
Scene V. The Duel And Death Of The Earl
‘Silvertongue,’ the young lawyer whom in the last scene we saw passing a masquerade ticket to the Countess, has now been found out. The Earl, who surprised him with his wife, has fought a duel and is dying as the result, while the young lawyer escapes through a window as the Watch enters.
Scene VI. The Death Of The Countess
A bottle of poison on the floor shows that the Countess’s death is self-sought, while the paper near it, with the words, ‘Counsellor Silver-tongue’s Last Dying Speech,’ reveals the end of another leading character in the drama. While the father absentmindedly draws the rings from the fingers of his dying daughter, the half-starved dog ravenously snatching the meat from the table suggests with subtlety the straitened resources of the household as a result of previous prodigal expenditure.
While the merited success of his prints and subject pictures made Hogarth a very prosperous man, he served his simple character to the last, and on one occasion he walked home in the rain, completely forgetting that now he had his own coach, which was waiting for him. He had a town house at 30 Leicester Square (now rebuilt) and a country house at Chiswick, now a Hogarth Museum, and when he died in 1764 he was buried in Chiswick Churchyard.
English Masters Of The Eighteenth Century (continued)
Scene IV. The Countess’s Dressing Room
The gradations of ridiculous affectation in the Music Scene are finely imagined and preserved. The preposterous, overstrained admiration of the Lady of Quality, the sentimental, insipid, impatient delight of the Man, with his hair in paper, and sipping his tea, the pert, smirking, conceited, half-distorted approbation of the figure next to him, the transition to the total insensibility of the round face in profile, and then to the wonder of the negro boy at the rapture of his mistress, form a perfect whole. The sanguine complexion and flame-colored hair of the female virtuoso throw an additional light on the character....The gross, bloated appearance of the Italian Singer is well relieved by the hard features of the instrumental performer behind him, which might be carved of wood. The negro boy holding the chocolate, both in expression, color, and execution, is a masterpiece. The gay, lively, contrast to the profound amazement of the first.
Scene V. The Duel And Death Of The Earl
‘Silvertongue,’ the young lawyer whom in the last scene we saw passing a masquerade ticket to the Countess, has now been found out. The Earl, who surprised him with his wife, has fought a duel and is dying as the result, while the young lawyer escapes through a window as the Watch enters.
Scene VI. The Death Of The Countess
A bottle of poison on the floor shows that the Countess’s death is self-sought, while the paper near it, with the words, ‘Counsellor Silver-tongue’s Last Dying Speech,’ reveals the end of another leading character in the drama. While the father absentmindedly draws the rings from the fingers of his dying daughter, the half-starved dog ravenously snatching the meat from the table suggests with subtlety the straitened resources of the household as a result of previous prodigal expenditure.
While the merited success of his prints and subject pictures made Hogarth a very prosperous man, he served his simple character to the last, and on one occasion he walked home in the rain, completely forgetting that now he had his own coach, which was waiting for him. He had a town house at 30 Leicester Square (now rebuilt) and a country house at Chiswick, now a Hogarth Museum, and when he died in 1764 he was buried in Chiswick Churchyard.
English Masters Of The Eighteenth Century (continued)
Tuesday, January 22, 2008
Laser Ablation Inductively Coupled Plasma Mass Spectrometry (LA-ICP-MS)
Laser Ablation Inductively Coupled Plasma Mass Spectrometry (LA-ICP-MS) is a powerful but very sensitive method + is useful for trace metal analysis, especially at very low levels of concentration + it’s used in forensic analysis for criminal investigations + biology + environmental scienecs + material sciences + geosciences + mineralogy + recently in gemology to determine the origin of a gemstone based on unusual elements or the pattern of elements in its chemical makeup + treated and untreated gem materials + new and rare gemstones (pezzottaite from Madagascar/Burma, tourmalines from Paraiba (Brazil), Nigeria, Mozambique), musgravite, taaffeite, etc) + pearls + each LA-ICP-MS analysis produces a large quantity of raw data, which has to be processed to have quantitative chemical analyses of gemstones + it’s expensive with high operation/maintenance costs + requires specialists for its operation.
Useful links:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inductively_coupled_plasma_mass_spectrometry
http://www.si.edu/mci/downloads/reports/ICP-Dussubieux.pdf
http://www.ganoksin.com/borisat/nenam/gem-identification.htm
Useful links:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inductively_coupled_plasma_mass_spectrometry
http://www.si.edu/mci/downloads/reports/ICP-Dussubieux.pdf
http://www.ganoksin.com/borisat/nenam/gem-identification.htm
Theory Of Games And Economic Behavior
I think Theory Of Games And Economic Behavior by Oskar Morgenstern + John Von Neumann is a great book + the discussion of poker and the role of bluffing + the area of bargaining and cooperative game theory is very interesting.
Here is what the description of Theory Of Games And Economic Behavior says (via Amazon):
This is the classic work upon which modern-day game theory is based. What began more than sixty years ago as a modest proposal that a mathematician and an economist write a short paper together blossomed, in 1944, when Princeton University Press published Theory of Games and Economic Behavior. In it, John von Neumann and Oskar Morgenstern conceived a ground breaking mathematical theory of economic and social organization, based on a theory of games of strategy. Not only would this revolutionize economics, but the entirely new field of scientific inquiry it yielded--game theory--has since been widely used to analyze a host of real-world phenomena from arms races to optimal policy choices of presidential candidates, from vaccination policy to major league baseball salary negotiations. And it is today established throughout both the social sciences and a wide range of other sciences.
Here is what the description of Theory Of Games And Economic Behavior says (via Amazon):
This is the classic work upon which modern-day game theory is based. What began more than sixty years ago as a modest proposal that a mathematician and an economist write a short paper together blossomed, in 1944, when Princeton University Press published Theory of Games and Economic Behavior. In it, John von Neumann and Oskar Morgenstern conceived a ground breaking mathematical theory of economic and social organization, based on a theory of games of strategy. Not only would this revolutionize economics, but the entirely new field of scientific inquiry it yielded--game theory--has since been widely used to analyze a host of real-world phenomena from arms races to optimal policy choices of presidential candidates, from vaccination policy to major league baseball salary negotiations. And it is today established throughout both the social sciences and a wide range of other sciences.
The Pearl Commission Report
CIBJO's Pearl Commission headed by Martin Coeroli (president) from French Polynesia + Shigeru Akamatsu (vice president) from Japan has released its 2008 Pearl Commission Report toward the CIBJO 2008 Congress that will take place April 14-16 at the Grossvenor House hotel in Dubai, UEA + it's all about treatments and disclosure + the durability of pearls cultured in seawater.
Useful links:
www.cibjo.com
www.cibjonews.com
Useful links:
www.cibjo.com
www.cibjonews.com
The Art Of Losing Money Gracefully
Total internal reflection of James Arnold on art + art markets + other viewpoints @ http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/3116985.stm
Elmer Bernstein
Elmer Bernstein was an Academy and two-time Golden Globe award winning American film score composer + he wrote the theme songs or other music for more than 200 films and TV shows, including The Magnificent Seven + The Great Escape + The Ten Commandments + The Man with the Golden Arm + To Kill a Mockingbird + Robot Monster + Ghostbusters + the fanfare used in the National Geographic television specials + Bernstein's music has some stylistic similarities to Copland's music but I love his music.
Useful links:
www.elmerbernstein.com
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elmer_Bernstein
Useful links:
www.elmerbernstein.com
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elmer_Bernstein
The Masdar Initiative
The Masdar Initiative is an interesting concept by the government of Abu Dhabi + the magic mix and match of international joint ventures will develop 'The Masdar Sustainable City' that will produce no greenhouse gases and contain no cars + components will also include the world's largest hydrogen power plant + all energy will come from renewable resources, principally solar panels to generate electricity + buildings will be constructed to allow air in but keep the Sun's heat out + wind towers will ventilate homes and offices using natural convection.
Useful links:
www.masdaruae.com
www.fosterandpartners.com
I think it's a brilliant idea + I hope other emerging economies will follow Abu Dhabi's concept and develop sustainable cities.
Useful links:
www.masdaruae.com
www.fosterandpartners.com
I think it's a brilliant idea + I hope other emerging economies will follow Abu Dhabi's concept and develop sustainable cities.
Tips For Selling Champagne Diamonds
Rio Tinto Diamonds writes:
Market research shows that consumers are fascinated by natural color diamonds because of their rarity, uniqueness, elegance, sophistication, fashion appeal and affordability compared to white diamonds. This is particularly true of natural color champagne and cognac diamonds, which are a stunning alternative to ‘white’ or ‘colorless’ diamonds. These beautiful brown gems are ideal for the experienced diamond consumer wishing to try something new—something that will let her stand out and express her individual style and personality.
Research also demonstrates that retailers with well-educated salespeople behind the jewelry counter can dramatically increase sales of champagne diamonds.
One of the most important things your salespeople should know about champagne diamonds is that they are graded in the same way as colorless diamonds, with the exception of color. You will hear a range of colors used to describe brown diamonds. ‘Champagne’ should be used as the generic description for brown diamonds, following Argyle Diamonds’ official color categories (C1 to C7) that are now used throughout the world:
C1 – C2 : Light Champagne
C3 – C4 : Medium Champagne
C5 – C6 : Dark Champagne
C7 - Fancy Cognac
In addition, The Gemological Institute of America (GIA) and International Gemological Laboratory (IGL), two respected and renowned international diamond grading laboratories, use three parameters to describe color in natural diamonds:
Hue: refers to the diamond’s dominant color.
Tone: refers to how much lightness or darkness a diamond retains.
Saturation: describes the strength and intensity of the diamond’s hue.
According to the Natural Color Diamond Association (NCDIA), some of the key elements to focus on to help you develop a successful champagne diamond business in your store include:
Education
Make sure you and your salespeople are well educated about the unique properties and merits of champagne diamonds and able to position them in a context that will appeal to both female and male shoppers.
Presentation
With champagne diamonds, understanding and explaining the unique story behind these beautiful gems to consumers is critical. Your salespeople also should emphasize that each champagne diamond is distinct. This is part of the category’s tremendous appeal. In addition, your salespeople need to ‘personalize the purchase’ for customers by stressing that they should focus on selecting a champagne diamond in a shade that reflects their personal style.
Availability
Always carry an assortment of champagne diamond jewelry. This sets you apart from your competition; it is considered an ‘upgrade’ to any diamond assortment and should be featured in windows and cases. It also establishes you as an expert in the category, grabs your customer’s attention and sparks conversations that will lead to sales.
Versatility
Stress to your customers that champagne diamonds come in a wide range of shades and price points. Making consumers aware that these stunning stones can be unique, fashionable and affordable can be a powerful selling point.
Design
Carrying champagne diamonds in a variety of jewelry designs is a perfect way to differentiate your store, show customers how stylish they are, and build interest and repeat business in the category.
Celebrities
Celebrities dictate style and fashion—and they can create a powerful ‘buzz’ for your champagne diamonds. Use fashion magazines, photos, and other materials in your store to show customers how Hollywood’s trendsetters have embraced champagne diamonds.
Marketing
Providing in-store brochures and other countertop materials on champagne diamonds will build credibility for you and your business, peak consumer awareness and interest in the category, and increase consumer confidence in the product. Use both in-store and online marketing tools to promote your champagne diamonds.
Useful links:
www.riotintodiamonds.com
www.ncdia.com
I think it's brilliant + Follow the rules + You will sell more diamonds.
Market research shows that consumers are fascinated by natural color diamonds because of their rarity, uniqueness, elegance, sophistication, fashion appeal and affordability compared to white diamonds. This is particularly true of natural color champagne and cognac diamonds, which are a stunning alternative to ‘white’ or ‘colorless’ diamonds. These beautiful brown gems are ideal for the experienced diamond consumer wishing to try something new—something that will let her stand out and express her individual style and personality.
Research also demonstrates that retailers with well-educated salespeople behind the jewelry counter can dramatically increase sales of champagne diamonds.
One of the most important things your salespeople should know about champagne diamonds is that they are graded in the same way as colorless diamonds, with the exception of color. You will hear a range of colors used to describe brown diamonds. ‘Champagne’ should be used as the generic description for brown diamonds, following Argyle Diamonds’ official color categories (C1 to C7) that are now used throughout the world:
C1 – C2 : Light Champagne
C3 – C4 : Medium Champagne
C5 – C6 : Dark Champagne
C7 - Fancy Cognac
In addition, The Gemological Institute of America (GIA) and International Gemological Laboratory (IGL), two respected and renowned international diamond grading laboratories, use three parameters to describe color in natural diamonds:
Hue: refers to the diamond’s dominant color.
Tone: refers to how much lightness or darkness a diamond retains.
Saturation: describes the strength and intensity of the diamond’s hue.
According to the Natural Color Diamond Association (NCDIA), some of the key elements to focus on to help you develop a successful champagne diamond business in your store include:
Education
Make sure you and your salespeople are well educated about the unique properties and merits of champagne diamonds and able to position them in a context that will appeal to both female and male shoppers.
Presentation
With champagne diamonds, understanding and explaining the unique story behind these beautiful gems to consumers is critical. Your salespeople also should emphasize that each champagne diamond is distinct. This is part of the category’s tremendous appeal. In addition, your salespeople need to ‘personalize the purchase’ for customers by stressing that they should focus on selecting a champagne diamond in a shade that reflects their personal style.
Availability
Always carry an assortment of champagne diamond jewelry. This sets you apart from your competition; it is considered an ‘upgrade’ to any diamond assortment and should be featured in windows and cases. It also establishes you as an expert in the category, grabs your customer’s attention and sparks conversations that will lead to sales.
Versatility
Stress to your customers that champagne diamonds come in a wide range of shades and price points. Making consumers aware that these stunning stones can be unique, fashionable and affordable can be a powerful selling point.
Design
Carrying champagne diamonds in a variety of jewelry designs is a perfect way to differentiate your store, show customers how stylish they are, and build interest and repeat business in the category.
Celebrities
Celebrities dictate style and fashion—and they can create a powerful ‘buzz’ for your champagne diamonds. Use fashion magazines, photos, and other materials in your store to show customers how Hollywood’s trendsetters have embraced champagne diamonds.
Marketing
Providing in-store brochures and other countertop materials on champagne diamonds will build credibility for you and your business, peak consumer awareness and interest in the category, and increase consumer confidence in the product. Use both in-store and online marketing tools to promote your champagne diamonds.
Useful links:
www.riotintodiamonds.com
www.ncdia.com
I think it's brilliant + Follow the rules + You will sell more diamonds.
The Full, Or High, Table Cut
(via Diamond Cuts in Historic Jewelry:1381-1910) Herbert Tillander writes:
The Full, or High, Table Cut was the predecessor of two modern cuts, the Emerald Cut and the Square Cut. It was square or rectangular in shape and not, as a rule, stepped. The crown was high with a relatively small table facet, and the pavilion deep with a culet of just the right size to act as a reflector. In keeping with the quandrangular outline, the Full Cut had four main facets above and four main facets below the girdle. There were sometimes additional facets, but these were insignificant. The cut of a diamond was of little importance until, in the sixteenth century, intrinsic beauty gradually replaced actual weight and apparent size. Once beauty became a factor in balancing the merits of one diamond against another, it became obvious that universal standards of some sort were needed.
Juan de Arphe y Villafane, a Spaniard of German descent (his grandfather came from the town of Harff in the Rhineland), was the first to produce written rules for the proportioning of Table Cuts in 1572, but he must have either been misinformed or had some reason for describing the proportions of a spread type with very poor light effects. Perhaps he was stressing the price factor and found proportions that could be applied to comparatively inexpensive rough. The light effects could then be improved by foiling, an art which both Cellini and de Boot declared, quite rightly, to be the cure for all unsatisfactory proportions. By the sixteenth century this art had already been perfected, but it dates back to the first century.
Anselme de Boot followed de Arphe, laying down the first rules for the proportions of a perfect Full Table Cut. De Boot, who called himself Boethius, was a native of Antwerp who became physician to the Holy Roman Emperor Rudolf II. His De Gemmis et Lapidibus was first published in Latin in 1608, reprinted in 1636, and in 1647 appeared in a French translation with notes and comments by Adrianus Tollius. The French edition was renamed Le Parfaict Joaillier, ou L’Histoire des Pierreries. It included a chapter by Theophrastus and a short treatise by A de Laet entitled De Gemmis.
C W King, writing in 1865, described de Boot’s work as ‘a treatise on mineralogy still retaining practical value.’ King confirmed that the old proportions for the Table Cut were still valid, at least for Brilliants, in the second half of the nineteenth century. These proportions were modified only in the early part of this century, when the circular saw revolutionized the early stages of fashioning.
The London merchant Lewes Roberts, whose Map of Commerce was first published in 1638 with a revised edition in 1678, was a contemporary of de Boot. Robets’ rules for the ‘full ground’ Table Cut indicate proportions basically the same as those propounded by de Boot. Roberts clearly lays down a table size of 50 percent and a culet size of one third of the table. The second paragraph contains what is probably the earliest comparison of Full Table Cuts and ‘overspread’ diamonds. His words ‘as you can easily perceive by the reflection of the Collet’ indicate 45° angles of inclination for his ‘full ground’ cut. In place of ‘full ground’, other authors use such terms as ‘high’, ‘a plein fond’, and ‘Dickstein’.
The next person of importance to consider this question was the London jeweler David Jeffries. His book A Treatise on Diamonds and Pearls was first published in 1750, reprinted the following year and again in 1871, and translated into French and German. The invariables laid down for a Table Cut with perfect symmetry were the angles of 45° and the proportions of 1:2 for crown height and pavilion depth measured from the center of the imaginary girdle plane. No absolute rules could be laid down for the thickness of the girdle. It had to be just thick enough to resist chipping in normal handling, but an unnecessary thick girdle would have an adverse effect on light effects. The task of the cutter was, and still is, to balance beauty with size and weight.
The finest and most highly valued diamonds fashioned during the period when the Table Cut was at its height were fashioned with proportions practically identical to Jeffries’ rule. He worked out proportions for a Standard Cut for all pavilion-based diamonds with a view to displaying the maximum luster and brilliance. This had already been done with outstanding success in the case of the Table Cut, and even more successfully with the Brilliant.
For years I have advocated this 45° cut, and I still believe that if a cut of this type is found in an old diamond it should never be altered. Certainly diamond cutters of the first half of the eighteenth century found that 45° cut had superior light effects, and that Table Cuts were best set à jour and only poorly proportioned gems had to be set in foiled box settings.
In neither case will the poorly developed tip of a crystal affect the ultimate size of the fashioned gem. Cutters will almost always be able to find a direction which circumvents the lack of symmetry in the crystal.
The Full, or High, Table Cut was the predecessor of two modern cuts, the Emerald Cut and the Square Cut. It was square or rectangular in shape and not, as a rule, stepped. The crown was high with a relatively small table facet, and the pavilion deep with a culet of just the right size to act as a reflector. In keeping with the quandrangular outline, the Full Cut had four main facets above and four main facets below the girdle. There were sometimes additional facets, but these were insignificant. The cut of a diamond was of little importance until, in the sixteenth century, intrinsic beauty gradually replaced actual weight and apparent size. Once beauty became a factor in balancing the merits of one diamond against another, it became obvious that universal standards of some sort were needed.
Juan de Arphe y Villafane, a Spaniard of German descent (his grandfather came from the town of Harff in the Rhineland), was the first to produce written rules for the proportioning of Table Cuts in 1572, but he must have either been misinformed or had some reason for describing the proportions of a spread type with very poor light effects. Perhaps he was stressing the price factor and found proportions that could be applied to comparatively inexpensive rough. The light effects could then be improved by foiling, an art which both Cellini and de Boot declared, quite rightly, to be the cure for all unsatisfactory proportions. By the sixteenth century this art had already been perfected, but it dates back to the first century.
Anselme de Boot followed de Arphe, laying down the first rules for the proportions of a perfect Full Table Cut. De Boot, who called himself Boethius, was a native of Antwerp who became physician to the Holy Roman Emperor Rudolf II. His De Gemmis et Lapidibus was first published in Latin in 1608, reprinted in 1636, and in 1647 appeared in a French translation with notes and comments by Adrianus Tollius. The French edition was renamed Le Parfaict Joaillier, ou L’Histoire des Pierreries. It included a chapter by Theophrastus and a short treatise by A de Laet entitled De Gemmis.
C W King, writing in 1865, described de Boot’s work as ‘a treatise on mineralogy still retaining practical value.’ King confirmed that the old proportions for the Table Cut were still valid, at least for Brilliants, in the second half of the nineteenth century. These proportions were modified only in the early part of this century, when the circular saw revolutionized the early stages of fashioning.
The London merchant Lewes Roberts, whose Map of Commerce was first published in 1638 with a revised edition in 1678, was a contemporary of de Boot. Robets’ rules for the ‘full ground’ Table Cut indicate proportions basically the same as those propounded by de Boot. Roberts clearly lays down a table size of 50 percent and a culet size of one third of the table. The second paragraph contains what is probably the earliest comparison of Full Table Cuts and ‘overspread’ diamonds. His words ‘as you can easily perceive by the reflection of the Collet’ indicate 45° angles of inclination for his ‘full ground’ cut. In place of ‘full ground’, other authors use such terms as ‘high’, ‘a plein fond’, and ‘Dickstein’.
The next person of importance to consider this question was the London jeweler David Jeffries. His book A Treatise on Diamonds and Pearls was first published in 1750, reprinted the following year and again in 1871, and translated into French and German. The invariables laid down for a Table Cut with perfect symmetry were the angles of 45° and the proportions of 1:2 for crown height and pavilion depth measured from the center of the imaginary girdle plane. No absolute rules could be laid down for the thickness of the girdle. It had to be just thick enough to resist chipping in normal handling, but an unnecessary thick girdle would have an adverse effect on light effects. The task of the cutter was, and still is, to balance beauty with size and weight.
The finest and most highly valued diamonds fashioned during the period when the Table Cut was at its height were fashioned with proportions practically identical to Jeffries’ rule. He worked out proportions for a Standard Cut for all pavilion-based diamonds with a view to displaying the maximum luster and brilliance. This had already been done with outstanding success in the case of the Table Cut, and even more successfully with the Brilliant.
For years I have advocated this 45° cut, and I still believe that if a cut of this type is found in an old diamond it should never be altered. Certainly diamond cutters of the first half of the eighteenth century found that 45° cut had superior light effects, and that Table Cuts were best set à jour and only poorly proportioned gems had to be set in foiled box settings.
In neither case will the poorly developed tip of a crystal affect the ultimate size of the fashioned gem. Cutters will almost always be able to find a direction which circumvents the lack of symmetry in the crystal.
Jewelers Of Italy
(via 5000 Years of Gems and Jewelry) Frances Rogers and Alice Beard writes:
5. Cameo Cutting
Another form of pendant was the cameo, cherished for its beauty rather than its luck-bringing qualities. Every since the time of Alexander the little cameo had been growing in popularity, and during the reign of Augustus cameo portraits were all the rage. Many portraits of the Emperor were cut one a stone imported from Arabia, an agate with strongly market layers or parallel bands of black and white known as onyx. If, instead of with black, the white layer of agate is contrasted with bands of red (carnelian) or chestnut brown (sard), the stone is known as sardonyx.
When cutting a picture on banded agate the lapidary took full advantage of the different layers of color, and the subtle variations of tone resulting from the degree of thinness to which he cut the light, translucent layer. With repeated strokes of a fine chisel the craftsman would chip away the dark stratum of the stone, leaving the design to stand in relief—a light silhouette against a dark field. This process left a more or less uneven surface, and the work was carried further by aid of a drill, a wheel, and an engraving tool. Finally the stone was carefully polished.
So skilled were the engravers that by utilizing as many as five layers, or zones of color, they could carve elaborate groups of figures with drapery, flesh, hair and ornaments each in its own appropriate shade of color. One cameo masterpiece shows Augustus and Roma enthroned. Before them stands a victorious prince and in a lower zone of color are groups of captives and Roman soldiers.
Sometimes the dark, bluish gray upper layer of an onyx was cut intaglio, the figure or design appearing in the underlying white layer. It was a two colored intaglio, and a gem engraved in this manner was known as a nicolo.
Glass too was often used by the Roman cameo cutter, but unlike agate, the glass background of the design could not be removed with a chisel. All cutting of the brittle substance had to be done by grinding with an abrasive. For this, a small wheel reinforced with emery powder was used.
The most famous came work in glass is the Portland vase, that ancient urn found about the middle of the sixteenth century in a sarcophagus near Rome. The figures that encircle its maple sides are cut in the outer layer of milk-white glass, their background being the rich blue stratum of the vase. In some portions of the design the white glass is ground down to such a degree of thinness that the underlying blue glass shows through, causing the white to appear the color of pale cobalt.
Many of the old cameos in sardonyx have a small hole drilled through them and this has led to the surmise that the hole was intended to admit thread so the cameo could be sewed, as an ornament, onto clothing. According to Pliny, however, the hole only went to prove that the engraved stone had first been used as a bead in its native land, India. When it fell into the hands of the Roman lapidary he changed the banded bead into cameo.
Jewelers Of Italy (continued)
5. Cameo Cutting
Another form of pendant was the cameo, cherished for its beauty rather than its luck-bringing qualities. Every since the time of Alexander the little cameo had been growing in popularity, and during the reign of Augustus cameo portraits were all the rage. Many portraits of the Emperor were cut one a stone imported from Arabia, an agate with strongly market layers or parallel bands of black and white known as onyx. If, instead of with black, the white layer of agate is contrasted with bands of red (carnelian) or chestnut brown (sard), the stone is known as sardonyx.
When cutting a picture on banded agate the lapidary took full advantage of the different layers of color, and the subtle variations of tone resulting from the degree of thinness to which he cut the light, translucent layer. With repeated strokes of a fine chisel the craftsman would chip away the dark stratum of the stone, leaving the design to stand in relief—a light silhouette against a dark field. This process left a more or less uneven surface, and the work was carried further by aid of a drill, a wheel, and an engraving tool. Finally the stone was carefully polished.
So skilled were the engravers that by utilizing as many as five layers, or zones of color, they could carve elaborate groups of figures with drapery, flesh, hair and ornaments each in its own appropriate shade of color. One cameo masterpiece shows Augustus and Roma enthroned. Before them stands a victorious prince and in a lower zone of color are groups of captives and Roman soldiers.
Sometimes the dark, bluish gray upper layer of an onyx was cut intaglio, the figure or design appearing in the underlying white layer. It was a two colored intaglio, and a gem engraved in this manner was known as a nicolo.
Glass too was often used by the Roman cameo cutter, but unlike agate, the glass background of the design could not be removed with a chisel. All cutting of the brittle substance had to be done by grinding with an abrasive. For this, a small wheel reinforced with emery powder was used.
The most famous came work in glass is the Portland vase, that ancient urn found about the middle of the sixteenth century in a sarcophagus near Rome. The figures that encircle its maple sides are cut in the outer layer of milk-white glass, their background being the rich blue stratum of the vase. In some portions of the design the white glass is ground down to such a degree of thinness that the underlying blue glass shows through, causing the white to appear the color of pale cobalt.
Many of the old cameos in sardonyx have a small hole drilled through them and this has led to the surmise that the hole was intended to admit thread so the cameo could be sewed, as an ornament, onto clothing. According to Pliny, however, the hole only went to prove that the engraved stone had first been used as a bead in its native land, India. When it fell into the hands of the Roman lapidary he changed the banded bead into cameo.
Jewelers Of Italy (continued)
English Masters Of The Eighteenth Century
(via The Outline of Art) William Orpen writes:
Still more amazing as an example of Hogarth’s vivid characterisation and vivacity of expression is ‘The Shrimp Girl’. It is only a sketch, mostly in greys with a few touches of other colors, but there is no work in the National Gallery more abounding with life. These portraits, painted with joy for the painter’s satisfaction, never produced an income. He made his living by other pictures, and especially by his engravings, which had a wide sale and made his name a household word. The series of pictorial dramas which he invented brought him both fame and fortune, and after ‘The Rake’s Progress’ and other sets had firmly established Hogarth in popular favor, Sir James Thornhill became reconciled to his son-in-law, whom he now saw to be capable of earning a good living.
Narrative pictures were not a new thing in the history of art; the reliefs of Trajan’s Column at Rome tell the story of the Emperor’s Dacian campaigns, and we saw in the first chapter how Giotto and other early Italian painters recounted Bible stories and the lives of the saints in a series of pictures. But no painter before Hogarth had invented the story as well as illustrating it. Without any text familiar to the public, Hogarth by paint and engraving told new and original stories of his own time, and told them so clearly that they were universally understood. Sometimes these stores were almost wholly humorous, as in ‘The Election’ series, but more often they had a serious intention and amusing incidents were introduced only by way of light relief.
To regard Hogarth as a satirist first is wrong: he was more than that: he was a great moralist. For though no man more severely scourged the folly of his time, Hogarth taught his lessons not only by exposing the ridiculous, but also by revealing the tragedy of wrong and the beauty of goodness. Among his many inventions none more beautifully display his method than the ‘Marriage á la Mode’; and though each one of these pictures tells its own story clearly, it may be helpful to summarize the action of each scene, and add the illuminating comments made by the great critic Hazlitt:
Scene I. The Marriage Contract
In a splendid apartment the father of the bridegroom points to his pedigree, while the rich alderman, father of the bride, studies the marriage settlement. ‘The three figures of the young nobleman, his intended bride, and her inamorato, the lawyer, show how much Hogarth excelled in the power of giving soft and effeminate expression......Nothing,’ writes Hazlitt, ‘can be more finely managed than the differences of character in these delicate personages.’
Scene II. Shortly After Marriage
Note the delicious touch of satire in the four pictures of saints which adorn the walls of a wordily interior. An old steward, shocked at the way things are going, is leaving with a bundle of bills and one receipt. The wife sits yawning at breakfast, while the card tables and the candles, still burning, in the room seen beyond, show how the husband, lazing in his chair, had spent the night. ‘The figure, face, and attitude of the husband are inimitable,’ says Hazlitt. ‘Hogarth has with great skill contrasted the pale countenance of the husband with the yellow-whitish color of the marble mantelpiece behind him, in such a manner as to preserve the fleshy tone of the former. The airy splendor of the view of the room in this picture is probably not exceeded in any of the productions of the Flemish school.’
Scene III. The Visit To The Quack Doctor
The peer, with a cane in one hand and a box of pills in the other, rallies the sardonically smiling quack for having deceived him. ‘The young girl,’ says Hazlitt, ‘who is represented as the victim of fashionable profligacy, is unquestionably one of the artist’s chefs-ďœuvre.The exquisite delicacy of the painting is only surpassed by the felicity and subtlety of the conception. Nothing can be more striking than the contrast between the extreme softness of her person and the hardened indifference of her character.’
English Masters Of The Eighteenth Century (continued)
Still more amazing as an example of Hogarth’s vivid characterisation and vivacity of expression is ‘The Shrimp Girl’. It is only a sketch, mostly in greys with a few touches of other colors, but there is no work in the National Gallery more abounding with life. These portraits, painted with joy for the painter’s satisfaction, never produced an income. He made his living by other pictures, and especially by his engravings, which had a wide sale and made his name a household word. The series of pictorial dramas which he invented brought him both fame and fortune, and after ‘The Rake’s Progress’ and other sets had firmly established Hogarth in popular favor, Sir James Thornhill became reconciled to his son-in-law, whom he now saw to be capable of earning a good living.
Narrative pictures were not a new thing in the history of art; the reliefs of Trajan’s Column at Rome tell the story of the Emperor’s Dacian campaigns, and we saw in the first chapter how Giotto and other early Italian painters recounted Bible stories and the lives of the saints in a series of pictures. But no painter before Hogarth had invented the story as well as illustrating it. Without any text familiar to the public, Hogarth by paint and engraving told new and original stories of his own time, and told them so clearly that they were universally understood. Sometimes these stores were almost wholly humorous, as in ‘The Election’ series, but more often they had a serious intention and amusing incidents were introduced only by way of light relief.
To regard Hogarth as a satirist first is wrong: he was more than that: he was a great moralist. For though no man more severely scourged the folly of his time, Hogarth taught his lessons not only by exposing the ridiculous, but also by revealing the tragedy of wrong and the beauty of goodness. Among his many inventions none more beautifully display his method than the ‘Marriage á la Mode’; and though each one of these pictures tells its own story clearly, it may be helpful to summarize the action of each scene, and add the illuminating comments made by the great critic Hazlitt:
Scene I. The Marriage Contract
In a splendid apartment the father of the bridegroom points to his pedigree, while the rich alderman, father of the bride, studies the marriage settlement. ‘The three figures of the young nobleman, his intended bride, and her inamorato, the lawyer, show how much Hogarth excelled in the power of giving soft and effeminate expression......Nothing,’ writes Hazlitt, ‘can be more finely managed than the differences of character in these delicate personages.’
Scene II. Shortly After Marriage
Note the delicious touch of satire in the four pictures of saints which adorn the walls of a wordily interior. An old steward, shocked at the way things are going, is leaving with a bundle of bills and one receipt. The wife sits yawning at breakfast, while the card tables and the candles, still burning, in the room seen beyond, show how the husband, lazing in his chair, had spent the night. ‘The figure, face, and attitude of the husband are inimitable,’ says Hazlitt. ‘Hogarth has with great skill contrasted the pale countenance of the husband with the yellow-whitish color of the marble mantelpiece behind him, in such a manner as to preserve the fleshy tone of the former. The airy splendor of the view of the room in this picture is probably not exceeded in any of the productions of the Flemish school.’
Scene III. The Visit To The Quack Doctor
The peer, with a cane in one hand and a box of pills in the other, rallies the sardonically smiling quack for having deceived him. ‘The young girl,’ says Hazlitt, ‘who is represented as the victim of fashionable profligacy, is unquestionably one of the artist’s chefs-ďœuvre.The exquisite delicacy of the painting is only surpassed by the felicity and subtlety of the conception. Nothing can be more striking than the contrast between the extreme softness of her person and the hardened indifference of her character.’
English Masters Of The Eighteenth Century (continued)
Gemstones + Light
There are three requirements for seeing color: an object + an observer + a light source. If any of these is missing, no color will be seen + if any is changed, the color will change. When light strikes a colored gemstone, some wavelengths are absorbed and some are transmitted.
Light Sources
Sunlight = light coming directly from the sun.
Skylight = light that comes from the sky.
Daylight = combination of sunlight + skylight
Artificial Light
In dealing with colored gemstones light plays an important role. Daylight with its shifting intensity and color balance may not be ideal for grading + buying + selling gemstones. Standardized artificial lighting with a steady, known intensity and color balance should bring consistency in grading + universal communication for color values.
Types Of Artificial Light Sources
Incandescent light = incandescent lights should not be used because their color temperatures tend to be too low + they emit greater amounts of yellow, orange and red wavelengths.
Fluorescent light = the cool white fluorescent lights found in most offices should be avoided because their color temperatures tend to be too high + they emit large amounts of blue + violet wavelengths.
Daylight fluorescent light = they are designed to simulate daylight + some of them may meet the required standards.
LED = it’s the newest technology on the market + they are generally of low wattage + you may need many bulbs to illuminate a particular display more effectively + they use very little power + last longer + could simulate daylight.
At present a number of different light sources are marketed for a wide range of industries + some are suitable for viewing colored gemstones. For now, there is no internationally accepted standard grading lamp among gem dealers.
Useful links:
www.gelighting,com
www.intl-lighttech.com
www.darksky.org
www.lightingdesignlab.com
www.elec-toolbox.com
www.tir.com
www.lampsplus.com
Light Sources
Sunlight = light coming directly from the sun.
Skylight = light that comes from the sky.
Daylight = combination of sunlight + skylight
Artificial Light
In dealing with colored gemstones light plays an important role. Daylight with its shifting intensity and color balance may not be ideal for grading + buying + selling gemstones. Standardized artificial lighting with a steady, known intensity and color balance should bring consistency in grading + universal communication for color values.
Types Of Artificial Light Sources
Incandescent light = incandescent lights should not be used because their color temperatures tend to be too low + they emit greater amounts of yellow, orange and red wavelengths.
Fluorescent light = the cool white fluorescent lights found in most offices should be avoided because their color temperatures tend to be too high + they emit large amounts of blue + violet wavelengths.
Daylight fluorescent light = they are designed to simulate daylight + some of them may meet the required standards.
LED = it’s the newest technology on the market + they are generally of low wattage + you may need many bulbs to illuminate a particular display more effectively + they use very little power + last longer + could simulate daylight.
At present a number of different light sources are marketed for a wide range of industries + some are suitable for viewing colored gemstones. For now, there is no internationally accepted standard grading lamp among gem dealers.
Useful links:
www.gelighting,com
www.intl-lighttech.com
www.darksky.org
www.lightingdesignlab.com
www.elec-toolbox.com
www.tir.com
www.lampsplus.com
Gustav Caesar
Gustav Caesar based in Germany’s gemstone capital of Idar Oberstein works with the best of the best colored gemstones + they have provided exquisite gemstones to top jewelers since 1840.
Useful link:
www.gustav-caesar.com
Useful link:
www.gustav-caesar.com
Coffee Research Labs
(via Commodityonline) Here is what Sunalini N Menon, chief executive, Coffeelab Pvt Ltd, Bangalore, India + Asia's first lady coffee taster or cupper has to say about coffee tasting + the bean of wisdom @ http://www.commodityonline.com/news/topstory/newsdetails.php?id=4977
Coffee Research Labs
1. Cooxupe: Soil Analysis Laboratory
www.cooxupe.com.br
2. Lafise: Physical, Sensorial, and Statistics Laboratory
www.ital.org.br
3. CeniCafe
www.cafedecolombia.com
4. Coffee Analysts
www.coffeeanalysts.com
5. Hawaiian Agriculture Research Center: Coffee Division
http://www.hawaiiag.org/harc/HARCCOF8.htm
6. Indian Coffee Board Coffee Research Institute
www.indiacoffee.org
Coffee Research Labs
1. Cooxupe: Soil Analysis Laboratory
www.cooxupe.com.br
2. Lafise: Physical, Sensorial, and Statistics Laboratory
www.ital.org.br
3. CeniCafe
www.cafedecolombia.com
4. Coffee Analysts
www.coffeeanalysts.com
5. Hawaiian Agriculture Research Center: Coffee Division
http://www.hawaiiag.org/harc/HARCCOF8.htm
6. Indian Coffee Board Coffee Research Institute
www.indiacoffee.org
Monday, January 21, 2008
Labs' Radio Media Tour
I think American Gem Society Laboratories's recently completed 13-stop radio media tour in the U.S is a great idea + other labs in Europe and Asia should learn from the concept because a mixture of live to broadcast and live to tape for later and repeat airing is the way to reach a wider audience + I liked it.
To listen to the radio media tour interviews, visit www.agslab.com/news_radio.html
To listen to the radio media tour interviews, visit www.agslab.com/news_radio.html
Ennio Morricone
Ennio Morricone, sometimes also credited as Dan Savio or Leo Nichols, is an Italian composer especially noted for his film scores + he has composed and arranged scores for more than 500 film and television productions + he is best known for the characteristic sparse and memorable soundtracks of Sergio Leone's spaghetti westerns A Fistful of Dollars (1964) + For a Few Dollars More (1965) + The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1966) + Once Upon a Time in the West (1968) which have been frequently cited by many in the film industry as some of the greatest film scores ever composed + I love his music.
Useful links:
www.enniomorricone.com
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ennio_Morricone
Useful links:
www.enniomorricone.com
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ennio_Morricone
Contemporary Craft
(via The Observer) Charlotte Abrahams writes about contemporary crafts + the best way to find a future classic + other viewpoints @ http://arts.guardian.co.uk/art/design/story/0,,2242524,00.html
Useful links:
craftscouncil.org.uk/collect
bonhams.com
Useful links:
craftscouncil.org.uk/collect
bonhams.com
Artist Pension Trust
(via BBC) Jorn Madslien writes about a multilingual globetrotting financier's concept in the form of the Artist Pension Trust + a structured financial approach to art + other viewpoints @ http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/7057677.stm
Useful links:
www.aptglobal.org
www.brianusher.com
Useful links:
www.aptglobal.org
www.brianusher.com
Jewelers Of Italy
(via 5000 Years of Gems and Jewelry) Frances Rogers and Alice Beard writes:
4. Rings And Seals
In the palmy days of the Roman Empire jewelry was increasingly burdened with many and varied responsibilities beyond that of personal adornment. Among the rings that were intended to serve a practical purpose was a curious one known as a ‘key ring’. This type is a ring combined with a key whose wards are at right angles to the hoop so that they lie lengthwise along the finger. It has been suggested that such rings were keys to some casket containing valuables belonging to a rich man, but as they were made only of bronze or iron and were ungainly in shape, it does not seem likely that they were actually worn by the owners of jewel caskets, but rather by some trusted servant.
Locks were still unreliable contrivances, all too easily opened by the ‘thievish slaves’ who would help themselves to provisions in the storerooms, or even to gems from their master’s jewel box. So it became the custom to seal up supplies and valuables with one signet and then lock that signet away in a cabinet which, in turn, was sealed by still another signet ring, the latter worn by the master.
Even this seemingly innocent practice did not escape the pointed pen of Pliny, who remarked that to wear but ‘a single ring upon the little finger was no more than an ostentatious advertisement that the owner has property of a more precious nature under seal at home.’ But, nevertheless, he sympathizes with the practice of locking possessions up with sealing wax:
How happy the times—how truly innocent—in which no seal was put to anything. At the present day, on the contrary, our very food even, and our drink, have to be preserved from theft through the agency of the ring; and so far is it from being sufficient to have the very keys sealed, that the signet ring is often taken off the owner’s finger while he is overpowered with sleep, or lying on his death bed....How many of the crimes stimulated by cupidity are committed through the instrumentality of rings!
Indeed, certain of the ring family became in themselves sinister instruments of death. The poison ring, although ornamental in appearance, was constructed for the special purpose of enabling its owner to commit suicide. It was made with a high, bezel, shaped like a pyramid, which was hollow and capable of holding enough poison to bring swift death to the wearer who might find himself trapped in a desperate situation and choose suicide as a way out. With one vigorous bite he could crush the soft gold, suck out the poison, and his quietus make with a mere finger ring. Hannibal made good his exit from this earth by means of a poison ring.
The method sounds quite simple and convenient in case of necessity, but it appears that one might have too much (or too many) of a good thing, as in the case of Heliogabalus, one of the later emperors of Rome. Considering his life, of ‘almost unparalleled debauchery,’ no great powers of prophecy were required to guess that he would come to a bad end, and it was foretold that he would die a violent death. Therefore he decided to choose his own manner of dying and have more than one alternative at that. He wore three rings: one set with rubies, one with sapphires, and one with emeralds. Each ring contained a different kind of poison. But when the crucial moment arrived Heliogabalus apparently became embarrassed by too many choices. Before he had time to decide which poison he would swallow, the soldiers were upon him. They dragged him all over Rome with a hook and finally threw his body into the Tiber. What became of the rings is not on record.
In its character as an amulet, a jewel might make a very wide appeal and serve many purposes. For a talisman denoting valor and zest in bloodshed, the Roman soldier wore a silver ring mounted with an engraved stone showing Mars, equipped with shield and spear. Or if he preferred a more realistic and detailed indication of his calling, he chose the design of a warrior standing on the body of his decapitated enemy and holding aloft in triumph the severed head.
Even many of the doctors still practiced their faith in magic. A string of amber beads was the accepted cure for goiter and the wearing of coral was prescribed for skin trouble by Dioscorides, Greek physician to the Romans. There seems to have been a gem remedy for all the ills of life; the list is endless.
Amulets were frequently enclosed in tiny golden vases or in cylindrical boxes and suspended from the neck. The necklace might be a simple chain, or a chain of beads with many pendants. Amber was particularly prized as a pendant, not only for its beauty but for its powers of protection against witchcraft. Sometimes a bit of amber would be found in which a small insect was enclosed, and this would bring an enormous price.
Jewelers Of Italy (continued)
4. Rings And Seals
In the palmy days of the Roman Empire jewelry was increasingly burdened with many and varied responsibilities beyond that of personal adornment. Among the rings that were intended to serve a practical purpose was a curious one known as a ‘key ring’. This type is a ring combined with a key whose wards are at right angles to the hoop so that they lie lengthwise along the finger. It has been suggested that such rings were keys to some casket containing valuables belonging to a rich man, but as they were made only of bronze or iron and were ungainly in shape, it does not seem likely that they were actually worn by the owners of jewel caskets, but rather by some trusted servant.
Locks were still unreliable contrivances, all too easily opened by the ‘thievish slaves’ who would help themselves to provisions in the storerooms, or even to gems from their master’s jewel box. So it became the custom to seal up supplies and valuables with one signet and then lock that signet away in a cabinet which, in turn, was sealed by still another signet ring, the latter worn by the master.
Even this seemingly innocent practice did not escape the pointed pen of Pliny, who remarked that to wear but ‘a single ring upon the little finger was no more than an ostentatious advertisement that the owner has property of a more precious nature under seal at home.’ But, nevertheless, he sympathizes with the practice of locking possessions up with sealing wax:
How happy the times—how truly innocent—in which no seal was put to anything. At the present day, on the contrary, our very food even, and our drink, have to be preserved from theft through the agency of the ring; and so far is it from being sufficient to have the very keys sealed, that the signet ring is often taken off the owner’s finger while he is overpowered with sleep, or lying on his death bed....How many of the crimes stimulated by cupidity are committed through the instrumentality of rings!
Indeed, certain of the ring family became in themselves sinister instruments of death. The poison ring, although ornamental in appearance, was constructed for the special purpose of enabling its owner to commit suicide. It was made with a high, bezel, shaped like a pyramid, which was hollow and capable of holding enough poison to bring swift death to the wearer who might find himself trapped in a desperate situation and choose suicide as a way out. With one vigorous bite he could crush the soft gold, suck out the poison, and his quietus make with a mere finger ring. Hannibal made good his exit from this earth by means of a poison ring.
The method sounds quite simple and convenient in case of necessity, but it appears that one might have too much (or too many) of a good thing, as in the case of Heliogabalus, one of the later emperors of Rome. Considering his life, of ‘almost unparalleled debauchery,’ no great powers of prophecy were required to guess that he would come to a bad end, and it was foretold that he would die a violent death. Therefore he decided to choose his own manner of dying and have more than one alternative at that. He wore three rings: one set with rubies, one with sapphires, and one with emeralds. Each ring contained a different kind of poison. But when the crucial moment arrived Heliogabalus apparently became embarrassed by too many choices. Before he had time to decide which poison he would swallow, the soldiers were upon him. They dragged him all over Rome with a hook and finally threw his body into the Tiber. What became of the rings is not on record.
In its character as an amulet, a jewel might make a very wide appeal and serve many purposes. For a talisman denoting valor and zest in bloodshed, the Roman soldier wore a silver ring mounted with an engraved stone showing Mars, equipped with shield and spear. Or if he preferred a more realistic and detailed indication of his calling, he chose the design of a warrior standing on the body of his decapitated enemy and holding aloft in triumph the severed head.
Even many of the doctors still practiced their faith in magic. A string of amber beads was the accepted cure for goiter and the wearing of coral was prescribed for skin trouble by Dioscorides, Greek physician to the Romans. There seems to have been a gem remedy for all the ills of life; the list is endless.
Amulets were frequently enclosed in tiny golden vases or in cylindrical boxes and suspended from the neck. The necklace might be a simple chain, or a chain of beads with many pendants. Amber was particularly prized as a pendant, not only for its beauty but for its powers of protection against witchcraft. Sometimes a bit of amber would be found in which a small insect was enclosed, and this would bring an enormous price.
Jewelers Of Italy (continued)
Table Cuts
(via Diamond Cuts in Historic Jewelry:1381-1910) Herbert Tillander writes:
From the very beginning of the fifteenth century, diamond fashioning concentrated on Pyramidal Point Cuts, Table Cuts and French Cuts. Abundant faceting went out of favor and found a restricted market merely as a curiosity. Cutters therefore concentrated on designs with large dominating faces. Even dodecahedrons were thus transformed into Table and French Cuts, simply by removing a large section of the upper part of the crystal. So far no specimen of this type has been documented; only an unprofessional sketch of the Burgundian aigrette known as the ‘Feather’ is known. However, we find Round Table Cuts described in numerous inventories. At the time the term plat stood for an overall height far less than that of pointed cuts. En façon de mirouer, signifying ‘in the shape of a mirror’—in other words, a table facet—also appears frequently and is used for both square and rounded diamonds. During the fifteenth century a wide variety of descriptions was used. Judging by the fanciful entries in inventories and other documents, it is obvious that there was no fixed terminology. The word ‘table’ itself appears to have been used in France from about the year 1000, but only to refer to pieces of furniture. It was only in 1431 that the expression diamond en table was introduced.
The great surge of artistic creativity at the time of the Renaissance was influenced by old beliefs, by new philosophy and by rational scientific thinking. Rigid rules controlled creativity in architecture, painting , sculpture and literature, and were equally important in the fashioning of diamonds. In the illustration by Luigi Pulci, the geometrical figure in the right hand of the mathematician on the left contains perfect proportions and could easily be used as a model for the angles of inclinations between crown and pavilion facets in a Table Cut. The proportions here are exactly the same as those that have been propounded ever since the end of the sixteenth century. Similar c.45° angles can be seen in the geometrical figure in the hand of the mathematician on the right.
One of Mielich’s illustrations in color of the jewels belonging to Anna, Duchess of Bavaria, shows an enseigne of Hercules standing before Eurystheus; the line drawing shows more clearly than a photograph the different cuts used to make up the jewel. It is possible to distinguish two trihedral cuts and a selection of both regular and fancy Tables, all cleverly used to represent classical architecture. Note also the pitcher and lantern carried by Hercules.
Several portraits of James I show him wearing in his hat the ‘Feather’, one of the legendary English jewels. In the schedule (inventory) of the Royal Jewels drawn up in 1606, it was described as ‘one fayre jewell, like a feather of gould, contayning a fayre table-diamond in the middest and fyve-and-twentie diamondes of diverse forms made of sondrous other jewells.’ It is interesting to see how much the Table Cuts varied and how beautifully the gems of the verticals were graduated in size. Even if the stones were taken from old jewels of the Treasury, as the schedule suggests, many of them must have been refashioned in order to fit the design of the ‘Feather’.
From the very beginning of the fifteenth century, diamond fashioning concentrated on Pyramidal Point Cuts, Table Cuts and French Cuts. Abundant faceting went out of favor and found a restricted market merely as a curiosity. Cutters therefore concentrated on designs with large dominating faces. Even dodecahedrons were thus transformed into Table and French Cuts, simply by removing a large section of the upper part of the crystal. So far no specimen of this type has been documented; only an unprofessional sketch of the Burgundian aigrette known as the ‘Feather’ is known. However, we find Round Table Cuts described in numerous inventories. At the time the term plat stood for an overall height far less than that of pointed cuts. En façon de mirouer, signifying ‘in the shape of a mirror’—in other words, a table facet—also appears frequently and is used for both square and rounded diamonds. During the fifteenth century a wide variety of descriptions was used. Judging by the fanciful entries in inventories and other documents, it is obvious that there was no fixed terminology. The word ‘table’ itself appears to have been used in France from about the year 1000, but only to refer to pieces of furniture. It was only in 1431 that the expression diamond en table was introduced.
The great surge of artistic creativity at the time of the Renaissance was influenced by old beliefs, by new philosophy and by rational scientific thinking. Rigid rules controlled creativity in architecture, painting , sculpture and literature, and were equally important in the fashioning of diamonds. In the illustration by Luigi Pulci, the geometrical figure in the right hand of the mathematician on the left contains perfect proportions and could easily be used as a model for the angles of inclinations between crown and pavilion facets in a Table Cut. The proportions here are exactly the same as those that have been propounded ever since the end of the sixteenth century. Similar c.45° angles can be seen in the geometrical figure in the hand of the mathematician on the right.
One of Mielich’s illustrations in color of the jewels belonging to Anna, Duchess of Bavaria, shows an enseigne of Hercules standing before Eurystheus; the line drawing shows more clearly than a photograph the different cuts used to make up the jewel. It is possible to distinguish two trihedral cuts and a selection of both regular and fancy Tables, all cleverly used to represent classical architecture. Note also the pitcher and lantern carried by Hercules.
Several portraits of James I show him wearing in his hat the ‘Feather’, one of the legendary English jewels. In the schedule (inventory) of the Royal Jewels drawn up in 1606, it was described as ‘one fayre jewell, like a feather of gould, contayning a fayre table-diamond in the middest and fyve-and-twentie diamondes of diverse forms made of sondrous other jewells.’ It is interesting to see how much the Table Cuts varied and how beautifully the gems of the verticals were graduated in size. Even if the stones were taken from old jewels of the Treasury, as the schedule suggests, many of them must have been refashioned in order to fit the design of the ‘Feather’.
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