All That Glitters..

(via Bangkok Post, Feb 7, 2008) Karnjana Karnjanatawe writes:

You will a lot more than rings and necklaces in the city’s longest established goldsmith’s shop

Shopping for gold is easier said than done when you’re in Yaowarat, Bangkok’s China Town. But it’s not the high prices that make you hesitate, it’s the stupefying extent of the choices available. Yaowarat, also known as Thanon Sai Thong (Gold Street) has more than 100 gold shops.

The oldest of them all is Tang Toh Kang on Mangkorn Road. But it is not just age or wealth of experience that distinguishes this goldsmith’s shop from its competitors. Here, gold jewelry and ornamnents are still made the old way—painstakingly, by hand. The shop also runs the only private museum in Bangkok dedicated to goldsmithing, a treasure trove of arcane tool, trinkets and collectibles from the late 19th century.

‘We’ve been in the business for more than 130 years,’ says Chaikit Tantikarn, the shop’s deputy manager, a member of the fourth generation of the Tang Toh Kang family. In his opinion, adherence to a strict code of ethical conduct plus training staff to put the customer first are the key factors in attracting, and retaining, clients.

‘Honesty is the best policy, one we’ve always followed,’ he says.

In this country the unit of weight for gold is the baht (not to be confused with our unit of currency). Gold jewelry sold in the Kingdom must be 96.5 percent pure; the standard for gold bars is even higher—99.99 percent. But if you buy a one-baht gold necklace, how can you be really sure that it contains exactly 15.16 grammes of 96.5 percent pure gold? Which is why in this line of business, perhaps more so than in many others, trust is such an important commodity.

One mark of a reputable goldsmith’s, Chaikit says, is an establishment that is always willing to buy back gold from a customer at the current market price. He compares it to a firm offering a life-time guarantee on its products.

The shop was opened during the reign of King Rama V by Chaikit’s great grandfather, a skilled goldsmith who fled war in his native China and emigrated to Siam in search of a better life. Initially, Tang Toh Kang was only able to find poorly paid work as a laborer but he saved every penny he could and was finally able to realize the dream of being his own boss.

The family patriarch started out employing four or fie goldsmiths, offering both ready-to-wear jewelry and made-to-order items. Their creativity and the quality of their work was such that the business rapidly expanded, eventually employed around artisans. In 1921 the family moved into a new, seven-storey building in Yaowarat; it was then the tallest structure in the area. That same year Tang Toh Kang was awarded a pair of wooden garuda statuettes by King Rama VI in token of his appreciation of the excellent service provided by the shop.

As the years passed, more and more goldsmiths opened businesses in the neighborhood, with machines gradually handling many of the tasks formerly done by skilled craftsmen. But Tang Toh Kang and his team continued to make all their jewelry in the tried and trusted way, a practice which is still followed to this day.

‘We believe in hand-made products,’ says Chaikit, ‘because the quality is so much better than anything you get by using factory machines.’

Although the number of people patronizing gold shops is not as high as it was even a couple of years back, there is still a steady demand. Customers tend to buy gold jewelry not so much to wear themselves but as gifts, especially in the period leading up to Chinese New Year, or as a form of savings. And with the price of gold constantly rising, many now purchase the precious metal for speculative purposes, treating it as another kind of investment, Chaikit says.

Today his shop only employs three in-house goldsmiths, the sons of artisans who previously worked for the family. All of them live on the premises. Now 80, Hungjua Sae-haeng came to Tang Toh Kang as an apprentice at the age of 16. ‘It was during World War II and I followed by father to work here. I learned how to make jewelry bit by bit until I liked the work so much that I decided to make it a career. I think of it as a labor of love,’ he says.

Hungjua, whom colleagues respectfully address as Ah-pae (uncle), was making an oval link chain comprised of scores of very small rings. Although he wears spectacles he has no need for a magnifying glass. ‘I’m used to it,’ he says with a smile.

His work space is an old wooden table which looks like a desk you might find in a primary school. On it is a lamp, tools and several plastic bottles containing chemicals. There’s a drawer for keeping gold dust and storing other equipment. His hands are gnarled and covered in liver-spots, but steady as a rock, with none of the trembling that often affects people of his age.

Ah-pae shares the workshop with two younger artisans. Arun Haemcharoenwong, who’s only 27; and Thawee Pitakratchatasak, 51. They’ve notched up 20 and 38 years of experience, respectively, in the art of jewelry making.

‘I came here to help my father, who’s now passed away, back when I was only a kid,’ Arun recalls. ‘I was around seven when I started working in the shop,’ he says as he wields the blowtorch used to heat up the gold wire and make it soft enough to manipulate.

Observing what the other workers were doing, and closely following orders, Arun says he slowly graduated to developing his own designs. ‘Arun’s work is very detailed. He’s a goldsmith who shows a lot of promise’ was the verdict of Rungradit Ritthiching, a sales assistant in the shop who sometimes doubles as a museum guide.

Once he has made the length of wire sufficiently malleable Arun inserts one end of it in a metal contraption which contains rows of holes of different sizes. He turns a gear wheel which slowly pulls the wire through, making it longer and thinner. Then he repeats the process, using another hole with a smaller diameter to get the wire to the desired size.

To make the individual links for the gold chain, the wire is carefully bent around a wooden rod, the size of the ring depending on the thickness of the wood, and then Arun cuts a short length off with an ordinary scissors. He threads this through a completed link. Next, he uses needle nose pliers to force the two ends together to form a ring, bonding the tips using a mixture of gold dust and a liquid called nam pra san thong. His final task is to file off any rough edges.

‘An oval link necklace can be made by one man in a day or less,’ volunteers his colleague, Thawee, adding that the smaller the diameter of the links, the longer the job takes.

Nowadays most goldsmiths use machinery for all but the most delicate steps in the jewelry-making process. Doing it all by hand requires a good deal of patience and ‘heart’, as Thawee puts it. The onerous nature of the work tends to discourage newcomers to the trade, he adds.

Although this type of jewelry takes a lot longer to make than the mass-produced stuff, the advantage is that unique pieces can be made to the customer’s exact specifications. Certainly, the showroom has many unusual items on display including statuettes of animals in the Chinese zodiac and of various Chinese deities, tea sets, antique purses and little boxes.

A visit to the fourth and sixth floors of the building reveals treasures of greater antiquity. ‘Our forebears loved collecting old objects from China,’Chaikit explains, ‘and a lot of these things were left behind when the family moved out some 20 years ago. When we did a big spring clean around five years back to prepare for a visit by Princess Maha Chakri Sirindhorn we discovered more than a thousand items tucked away on the upper floors.’

It was decided t convert two floors into a museum to house te collection. Among the items on display are sets of porcelain statuettes of Fu Lu Shou, the three Chinese deities that represent happiness, wealth and longevity. Here, too, are goldsmithing tools from the century before last, postcards, weighing scales made from wood plus various sizes and types of moulds, ring and belt buckle blocks.

If you wish to visit little repository of curios, phone first for permission. And to do the place justice, reckon on spending at least an hour there. So passionate are they about their craft that time tends to fly when you get taking to such knowledgeable gentlemen as these.

For more information call 02 224 2422, 02 622 8640/2 or 02 252 2898
www.tang-toh-kang.com

Jewelers Of Renaissance

(via 5000 Years of Gems and Jewelry) Frances Rogers and Alice Beard writes:

4. Wealth Of The Incas And The Aztec Treasure

When vast and ever increasing wealth pours into the palaces of kings, there are usually stories, not always pleasant stories, concerning the sources of those floods of gold. And behind all the extravagant display of gold and jewels in the English court, behind the growing wealth of Spain and of thte principal cities of Italy, there lies a story of cruelty and loot that reaches across the Atlantic and ties up with the western continent.

In 1492, eighty seven men and one visionary leader set sail in three none too seaworthy ships. A year later the explorers returned, bringing with them, among other things, gold and marvelous tales. Columbus had not succeeded in finding a new route to the East, but he had blazed the trail for the adventurous Spaniards, who were presently to plunder two ancient civilizations—the Aztecs of Mexico and the Incas of Peru.

‘The gold of the Incas!’ Ever since the fifteenth century that phrase has spelled high adventure, fabulous wealth, and a game of hide and seek. Once set in motion a tradition of hidden treasure and the lure of it passes from generation to generation. We still search for the treasure of the Incas. How much of it remains hidden to this day?

It is said a man may well go mad at the sudden acquisition of heaped gold and gems. At all events, in Mexico and Peru the Spanish conquerors came upon such hoarded wealth as seldom falls to the lot of adventurers, and it may be inferred that their joy was not hampered by considerations of justice or mercy.

Among the treasures of the Incas were rich personal ornaments made of precious metals and quantities of emeralds and pearls. Temples were filled with vast amounts of gold and silver and their stucco walls were studded with gems.

All this wealth was treasure trove for the victorious Spaniards, but the appetite for riches grew with what it fed on. There must be more emeralds where these came from....But when the Spaniards questioned them concerning the whereabouts of the emerald mines, the Incas refused to tell. Even when the new masters attempted to extract the information by means of torture their victims remained mute.

So the Spaniards set out to discover for themselves the source of the valuable stones, but with such care had the Indians eliminated all trace of the tunnel-like openings into underground pockets of emeralds, and so quickly did the jungle growth conceal the paths that led to them, that the Spaniards did not succeed in finding a single mine until years later when, in 1555, one of the native mines of Muzo, in Colombia, was discovered quite by accident.

Peru was not only source of the treasure which voyagers brought from the new world across the sea and dispersed among the rich and the royal of Europe. There was also Mexico to provide plunder.

An old record, printed in 1521, which has the distinction of being the first printed account of events in the New World, tells of the marvelous craftsmanship of the goldsmiths of Mexico. Earrings, necklaces of hollow gold beads, armlets of gold are listed; and little figures of fish, ducks and frogs; golden fish-hooks and tiny golden bells are described.

By the time the Spaniards reached Mexico in full force the royal regalia of the Aztecs had been accumulating for generations and had become a mighty treasure.

Cortés and his soldiers marched into Mexico, following as they went the customary practice of ‘persuading’ the natives to join their standard. Before Cortés entered Mexico City, its ruling chief, Montezuma II, warned no doubt by rumors of what might be expected, had taken means to protect the massed store of gold and gems from the looting band, not, however, by force of arms but by strategy. The soldiers were allowed to roam the city in search of valuables, and they did, to be sure, find much gold and other treasure. But unfortunately for Montezuma’s policy there was an ex-carpenter among Cortés men. With the observant eye of the craftsman, he noticed that at a certain place in the plastered wall of a passageway the faint outline of a doorway was still visible under its camouflage layer of plaster. The man reported his suspicions to Cortés—and the fat was in the fire. The plaster was torn off and there indeed was a door underneath it.

We are fortunate in having the report of an eyewitness, Diaz del Castillo, the Spanish soldier-historian, concerning what happened when that hidden door was finally opened. Cortés and some of his captains were the first to enter the secret chamber. Says Diaz:

On entering a narrow and low door, they found a large and spacious room, in the middle of which was a heap of gold, jewels and precious stones as high as a man; so high was it that one was not to be seen on the other side of it....It was the treasure of all the kings. Platters, cups some with feet and some without, all gold....

This treasure of ‘all the kings’ was doomed to a fate so common to plundered jewels. The stones were pried from their settings and the elaborately wrought gold was consigned to the melting pot.

We began to melt it down with the help of natives. The resulting bars measured three fingers of a hand across. Many captains ordered very large golden chains made by the great Montezuma’s goldsmiths.... Cortés, too, ordered many jewels made, and a great service of plate.

Prescott’s Conquest of Mexico speaks of great emeralds of wonderful brilliance which had been carved by the Aztecs into fantastic forms of fishes and flowers.

Avid desire for treasure was not satisfied even by all the conveniently-at-hand collected hoards of Peru and Mexico. Shortly, the Spaniards began to work the emerald mines of Colombia and to gather pearls along the coast of South America. Back to Europe went ships whose cargoes list such items as two chests, each containing ‘one hundred weight of emeralds,’ and pearls in such numbers that they were sold at public auction in Seville—not singly but by the basket.

The rich in all high places of Europe fairly wallowed in jewels.

Jewelers Of Renaissance (continued)

The French Revolution And Its Influence On Art

(via The Outline of Art) William Orpen writes:

A more subtle example of Goya’s anti-clerical tendency is the little picture in the National Gallery, ‘The Bewitched’, in which, while professing to do no more than paint a stage scene from a popular comedy of the time, the artist shows us a priest frightened by demons in forms of a goat and jackasses.

Like most of the intellectual men in Spain, Goya had at first welcomed the coming of Napoleon, for anything seemed promise a hope of better things than the old regime. But, later, the piteous spectacle of his country in the throes of warfare seemed to rouse the patriot in him, and he began to champion its rights in a series of the most moving paintings and engravings. In 1810 he began to execute a series of engravings entitled ‘The Disasters of War’, which were absolutely a new thing in art. Hitherto artists, with few exceptions, had shown only the imposing side of war, its panoply and splendor, its daring and heroism. Goya was the first artist to make a deliberate and systematic impeachment of Militarism. Not only did he refuse to glorify the old adage that ‘it is sweet and decorous to die for one’s country,’ but he persistently showed all the blood and misery with which military glory was bought. In his engravings of the war he shows the unchaining of the ‘human beast,’ and his prints of the torturing of prisoners and the shooting of deserters are ghastly in their revelation of raging madness and the distortions of death agonies.

In his paintings also Goya told the terrible story of the tragedies which ensued when the Spanish volunteers took up arms against Napoleon’s soldiery. There is no more awful war picture in the world than Goya’s painting of an incident in 1808, in which we see the gleam of the gun-barrels, and poor wretches who have been condemned by court-martial falling forward prone before the musket-fire of the troops. The despair of the condemned, and the cold-blooded energy of the executioners are appalling.

Yet while he lamented the sufferings of the patriots during the Peninsular War, Goya could not rejoice at the restoration of the Bourbons after the fall of Napoleon. For when King Ferdinand returned to Madrid in 1814, Goya saw that all hope of liberalism and freedom of thought had vanished, and that the powers of darkness, which for the time had been scared away, again settled on the land and obscured truth, progress, and enlightenment. The last ‘disaster of the war’ was the resettlement of the Bourbons, who had ‘learnt nothing and forgotten nothing,’ on the throne of Spain, and Goya with his old fearlessness expressed his view of the matter in his engraving ‘The Death of Truth,’ in which he showed thte naked figure of Truth suffering martyrdom at the hands of the priests.

We might expect that this outspoken work would have proved too much even for the most stupid, priest-ridden Court to swallow, but nothing that Goya could do ever brought home to royalty what the artist really thought of them and their government. King Ferdinand confirmed Goya’s appointment as Court Painter, and even persuaded him to paint a portrait of him in the purple mantle of empire, but now the artist himself was too old and too sick at heart to play the hypocrite at Court and paint grandees with his tongue in his cheek. Gradually Goya withdrew from the public life and established himself in a simple country house on the outskirts of Madrid. His wife and son were both dead, since 1791 he had himself been afflicted with deafness, and in this villa the lonely painter lived out his life in company with his art. His last protest against the tendencies of the time were some small paintings of the interiors of prisons and torture-chambers, in which he reminds us that the Inquisition had again raised its head under King Ferdinand. Among his last works were scenes of bull-fights, of the details of which Goya, in his youth, had acquired a professional knowledge. Greatly as all humanitarians must detest this horrid sport, its color and movement appeal to the artistic sense, and the decorative aspect of the scene is the dominant note in Goya’s renderings of this subject.

After nine years of this lonely life Goya seems to have felt himself no longer very secure in Spain. Perhaps he feared that the clerics would in the end perceive his purpose and have their revenge on him. At all events, in 1824 he sought and obtained leave of absence for six weeks to visit the sulphur springs of Plombières in Lorraine on account of his gout. But this appears to have been merely an excuse to get out of Spain, for he never went to Plombières, but after visiting Paris, settled at Bordeaux, where, on April 16, 1828, he died as the result of a stroke of apoplexy. In his last years he was not only stone deaf but half blind, and consequently his creative work in France was small, but one engraving remains to show that the old cynic never swerved from his faith and still had hope for the future. ‘Lux ex tenebris’ is the pregnant title of this work of his old age, and in it he shows us a shaft of light falling on a dark spot of earth (Spain?) and scaring away from it owls, ravens—and priests!

Normal Accidents

Normal Accidents: Living with High-Risk Technologies by Charles Perrow is a fascinating book + it provides unique insight so that we are able to understand high risk systems + the intrepretation of accident analysis and conclusions + the people factor + the amazing thing is, it's happening today + I feel, timely.

Walter Schloss

I found the article on Walter Schloss via Forbes @ http://www.forbes.com/forbes/2008/0211/048.html very interesting + educational + insightful + as Warren Buffet put it rightly, Walter Schloss is a flesh-and-blood refutation of the Efficient Market Theory.

Colored Stone Update

With all the problems associated with Burmese ruby + the possible ban (questionable), Stuller's announcement that they have found a reliable source for rubies (Madagascar) is encouraging + they claim they have the right product (thousands of rubies, 4 kilos of 1.25 mm to 4 mm rounds, possibly larger, along with 4-by-3, 5-by-3, 5-by-4, and 6-by-4 ovals), eye clean, moderately included pinkish, purplish pink, medium to dark red to eye clean and bright red + they say they can guarantee the unheated/totally free of enhancements or treatments (a reference to the proliferation of glass-filled Madagascar ruby) status (not easy) of gemstones.

Useful link:
www.stuller.com

Ed Ruscha

Edward Ruscha is an American painter + printmaker + photographer + filmmaker + he achieved recognition for paintings incorporating words and phrases and for his many photographic books, all influenced by the deadpan irreverence of the Pop Art movement + he uses odd mediums (gunpowder, blood, fruit and vegetable juices, axle grease, and grass stains) to draw, print, and paint to create a unique work of art.

Useful links:
www.edruscha.com
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Ruscha
http://arts.guardian.co.uk/art/visualart/story/0,,2253156,00.html

All the Web’s A Stage

Rachel Wolff writes about the new modified performance art, an online world populated by computer-generated beings called 'avatars' via Second Life, a network-based virtual world where anyone with a little tech savvy can download a program and create an 'avatar' whose interactions with other 'avatars' have much of the excitement, discomfort, and unpredictability of real-world encounters + the impact + other viewpoints @ http://www.artnewsonline.com/issues/article.asp?art_id=2443

Jewelers Of Renaissance

(via 5000 Years of Gems and Jewelry) Frances Rogers and Alice Beard writes:

3. Jewels For Royalty

When Cellini was at the height of his skill, he was sent for by Francis I, who gave him quarters in Paris. The splendor-loving King of France and his court delighted in extravagant display of jewelry, and Rabelais tells of magnificent bejeweled necklaces, brooches, girdle ornaments, pendants, and precious stones worn in profusion by wealthy Parisians. However, it was not to the French court but to the court of England that one must turn to find the most lavish display of personal jewelry; and although the French set the fashions it was the King of England, Henry VIII, who had the greatest purchasing power.

Henry’s fingers were always loaded with rings—he had no less than 234, and 324 brooches, when he died. His necklets were studded with diamonds and pearls, and his gold collars were hung with rich pendants. One collar and pendant worn by the King has been described by an observer as being set with a ‘rough cut diamond the size of the largest walnut I ever saw.’ And as if that were not impressive enough, Henry also wore a second gold collar over his mantle ‘with a pendent St George, entirely of diamonds.’

Accounts of pageants and court entertainments are filled with references to precious stones sewed to the garments of noblemen, who decked themselves immoderately in an extravagant desire to outshine one another.

Henry of England made great pretense of friendship for Francis I, especially when he staged the royal picnic known as the Field of the Cloth of Gold, were guests were so bedizened with jewels that, says Du Bellay, ‘they carried the price of woodland, watermill and pasture on their backs.’

In the robust time of Bluff King Hal the wearing of jewels was not considered effeminate. The male of the species was perhaps more resplendent than the female. From head to toe he glittered with all the gems he could get.

When the modern society page reports a wedding the bride’s costume is usually described at length. No one ever thinks of what the groom wears—but not so in days of yore. When Henry VIII went forth to meet his bride (number three) Anne of Cleves his costume was well worth reporting:

He wore a coat of purple velvet curiously embroidered with gold and lace. The sleeves were cut and lined with gold and clasped with great buttons of diamonds, rubies and Oriental pearls; his sword and girdle set with stones and special emeralds; his cap garnished with stones, but his bonnet was so rich of jewels that few men could value them. Besides all this he wore a colar of such Balais rubies and pearls that few men ever saw the like.

At this point the breathless reporter seems to have become speechles for lack of adjectives. He does not tell of Henry’s nether garments and his shoes, which doubtless shared in glory of gold and gems with the rest of his costume.

Henry was wont to patronize the jewelers of France and Italy, but for a number of years much of his finest jewelry was made from the designs of Hans Holbein, famous Germain painter. The majority of these drawings, belonging to the British Museum, are in pen and ink. Occasionally, however, Holbein added gold and even color to indicate decoration in enamel and precious stones.

If Holbein himself executed the jewelry there is no record of the fact. It is supposed that a goldsmith known as Hans of Antwerp made the jewels after Holbein’s designs. It was not unusual, by the sixteenth century, for one man to design and another to execute a jewel.

Cellini, who, with his own wealth of inventive ability needed no one else to set the pace for him, grumbled over the growing custom.

The draughtsmen who had been employed (by the Pope) were not in the jeweler’s trade and therefore knew nothing about giving their right place to precious stones, and the jewelers on their side had not shown them how; for I ought to say that a jeweler, when he has work with figures must of necessity understand design else he cannot produce anything worth looking at; and so it turned out that all of them had stuck that famous diamond in the middle of the breast of God the Father.

One must sympathize with Cellini’s point of view, yet even the most highly skilled craftsmen may be lacking in creative imagination, therefore it was no longer unusual for a goldsmith to buy models carved in stone or wood, or designs drawn on paper. These he would develop in gold and gemstones. He could even buy a whole pattern-book filled with miscellaneous designs for any sort of jewelry, including an odd and very fashionable gadget in the form of a whistle terminating in a case that held an earpick and a manicure knife.

The practice of using patterns designed by draughtsmen, instead of by the goldsmiths themselves, was followed also in France and Germany; and designs for jewelry were made by the leading artists of the day, Albert Dϋrer, the great German artist, among others. He was no stranger to the jeweler’s craft, for his father was a goldsmith and young Dϋrer had been trained to the trade.

Now of couse all this concentration of art, skill, and fashion turned full force on the making of jewelry produced an enormous amount of it, and necessarily the jeweler must find a market for his wares.

Henry VIII and his court provided the ideal customers, rich, splendor-loving and not too well informed concerning gemstones. England became a focus for foreign gem dealers, some of whom were not above suspicion. Cellini, with unholy glee, one gathers, tells of a merchant who sold the too-trusting Henry jewels of green glass in place of emeralds.

There came a time, however, when Henry grew ‘disinclined to buy, for,’ reports an unsuccessful salesman, ‘he has told me he has no more money, and it has cost him a great deal to make war.’

Nevertheless, shortly before his death the King, evidently unable to resist so powerful a temptation, did purchase a certain gorgeous pendant known as The Brethren.

This pendant differed from the usual type of Renaissance jewel in that its design was austerely simple, relying for beauty on the magnificence of the gemstones rather than on elaboration of setting. The central diamond was a deep pyramid, five-eighths of an inch square at the base; four big pearls adn three rich red spinels, called The Three Brethren, surrounded it.

Even before reaching the hands of Henry this jewel had become famous and gathered unto itself one of those colorful legends, part fact, part fancy, which must always be qualified by the phrase ‘tradition says.’

Tradition, in this case, says that the large diamond in the pendant was one of the earliest to be cut by De Berquem. The pendant was made by order of Charles the Bold, who, as may be inferred from such a title, specialized in military valor. He was almost continually going to war, and according to the custom of the day, he carried his most treasured jewels along with him onto the battle field. Possibly one’s precious stones were insufficiently guarded at home, but more likely it was considered well to have them at hand because of their power as amulets to insure victory and preserve life. For some years the magic of the valuable pendant seemed to work, but in 1475 it broke down. Charles, last Duke of Burgundy, met with defeat past the power of any gem to ward off, and all his treasure—including the pendant—fell into the hands of the victors. After playing a part in so many glorious conquests, The Brethren had rather a dull time of it, merely passing from one purchaser to another until once again the jewel rose to fame by becoming the property of the Magnificent Henry.

Jewelers Of Renaissance (continued)

The French Revolution And Its Influence On Art

(via The Outline of Art) William Orpen writes:

When Charles IV came to the throne Goya became still more firmly established in Court favor, though he produced the most impudent portraits of royalty that have ever been painted. Nowhere can we find a more pitiless exposure of serene stupidity than his ‘Charles IV on Horeseback’. ‘He sits there, asthmatic and fat, upon his fat asthmatic horse.....like a Moloch,’ says Dr Muther, ‘an evil god who has battened upon the life blood of his people.’ When he painted the Queen Maria Louisa, Goya portrayed her as the brazen old courtesan she was; he shows up the Crown Prince as a sly, spiteful, hypocritical meddler, and the favorite minister Godoy as a nincompoop and a panderer. When the French novelist Gautier first saw Goya’s large portrait group of the Spanish Royal Family and its favorites, his comment was, ‘A grocer’s family who have won the big lottery prize’; and that is exactly the impression the picture gives us, a collection of stupid, ill-bred people who owe their fine clothes and position to no talent or merit of their own but to sheer luck. It is amazing that this daring satirist of royalty should have gone unpunished and unreproved, but the King and his family circle were themselves too stupid to realize that the artist was holding them all up to the ridicule of the world.

As, while outwardly a courtier, he insidiously undermined the pretences of the Spanish monarchy, so while appearing to respect the observances of Catholicism, Goya surreptitiously attacked the Church which was blinding the eyes of the people. In 1797 he began to produce a series of engravings which, under the title of ‘Caprices,’ pretended to be nothing more than flights of fancy, but which were in reality biting satires on the social, political, ecclesiastical conditions of his age. He drew devout women with rolling eyes worshipping a scarecrow, priests drawling out the Litany with obvious indifference, and in one fantastic plate—which he had the audacity to dedicate to the King!—he showed a corpse rising from the grave and writing with his dead finger the word Nada, i.e ‘Nothingness.’ It was tantamount to saying that the hope of immortality held out to the people was only a murmuring, while kings and priests grew fat at their expense. If the Court and high ecclesiastics were too stupid to comprehend Goya’s message, the people understood, for the revolutionary era was at hand.

The French Revolution And Its Influence On Art (continued)

Heard On The Street

I don't like debt + I don't like to lose money.

Medieval Ivories

(via iht) @ COURTAULD INSTITUTE OF ART -- To March 9: 'Medieval Ivories From the Thomson Collection.' The Art Gallery of Ontario, in Toronto, is being rebuilt under the aegis of the American architect Frank Gehry + it will house the full collection of medieval ivories from which 45 items have been selected for the exhibition + they include statuettes, folding diptychs, boxes and various instruments, both religious and secular, that attest to the skill of carvers of ivory, a hard and resistant material. (The sale of ivory is protected by strict legislation but not banned, contrary to conventional wisdom)

Useful link:
www.courtauld.ac.uk

Quebec 2008

A joint conference organized by the Geological Association of Canada + Mineralogical Association of Canada + Society of Economic Geologists + the Society for Geology Applied to Mineral Deposits will be held in May 26-28, 2008, a unique geological/gemological/historical experience + it will include special sessions on Diamonds: From Mantle to Jewelry by Serge Perreault/James Moorhead + Rough Diamond Handling by Alain Bernard + other interesting events.

Useful link:
http://quebec2008.net

Seeking Wisdom: From Darwin To Munger

Seeking Wisdom: From Darwin To Munger by Peter Bevelin is a wonderful book on wisdom and decision-making written by a wise decision-maker + it was written by a practitioner who knows what he wants + I think the book would be an excellent gift for someone considering starting an own business.

Here is what the description of Seeking Wisdom: From Darwin To Munger says (via Amazon):
Peter Bevelin begins his fascinating book with Confucius' great wisdom: "A man who has committed a mistake and doesn't correct it, is committing another mistake." Seeking Wisdom is the result of Bevelin's learning about attaining wisdom. His quest for wisdom originated partly from making mistakes himself and observing those of others but also from the philosophy of super-investor and Berkshire Hathaway Vice Chairman Charles Munger. A man whose simplicity and clarity of thought was unequal to anything Bevelin had seen. In addition to naturalist Charles Darwin and Munger, Bevelin cites an encyclopedic range of thinkers: from first-century BCE Roman poet Publius Terentius to Mark Twainfrom Albert Einstein to Richard Feynmanfrom 16th Century French essayist Michel de Montaigne to Berkshire Hathaway Chairman Warren Buffett. In the book, he describes ideas and research findings from many different fields. This book is for those who love the constant search for knowledge. It is in the spirit of Charles Munger, who says, "All I want to know is where I'm going to die so I'll never go there." There are roads that lead to unhappiness. An understanding of how and why we can "die" should help us avoid them. We can't eliminate mistakes, but we can prevent those that can really hurt us. Using exemplars of clear thinking and attained wisdom, Bevelin focuses on how our thoughts are influenced, why we make misjudgments and tools to improve our thinking. Bevelin tackles such eternal questions as: Why do we behave like we do? What do we want out of life? What interferes with our goals? Read and study this wonderful multidisciplinary exploration of wisdom. It may change the way you think and act in business and in life.

The Mysterious Journey Of An Erotic Masterpiece

Konstantin Akinsha writes about Femme nue couchée, one of several Courbets owned by the Hungarian Jewish collector Baron Ferenc Hatvany + The Gustave Courbet show at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York on the 27th of this month, the largest retrospective devoted to the artist in 30 years + other viewpoints @ http://www.artnewsonline.com/issues/article.asp?art_id=2442

Jewelers Of Renaissance

(via 5000 Years of Gems and Jewelry) Frances Rogers and Alice Beard writes:

But even though the jewels made by his hands may be missing or unidentified, Cellini gives us up-to-the-minute jewelry news of the sixteenth century such as would undoubtedly find a place in our own daily papers if it were current today. Always a student of the antique, Cellini was much interested in the fine examples of Etruscan and Grecian gems which were constantly being unearthed. It must be admitted that his interest was twofold; there were artistic values but also financial values in jewels. He tells of dealing with certain traders who had been buying up old gems:

The peasants, while digging in the ground, frequently turned up antique medals, agates, chrysoprases, carnelians and cameos; also such fine jewels as, for instance, emeralds, sapphires, diamonds, and rubies. The peasants used to sell things of this sort to the traders for a mere trifle, and I very often, when I met them, paid the latter several times as many golden crowns as they had given giulios for some object. Independently of the profit I made by this traffic, which was at least tenfold, it brought me also into agreeable relations with nearly all the cardinals of Rome.

He continues with a description of some of the finer ‘of these curiosities.’ There was an engraved emerald, ‘big as a good-sized ballot-bean’ and ‘of such good color, that the man who bought if from me for tens of crowns sold it again for hundreds after setting it as a finger ring.’

The versatile Cellini could turn his hand to almost any branch of metal work and jewelry making. He explains his method of designing and executing a jewel, boasts of the customer who, after looking at Cellini’s drawings, asked if he were a sculptor or a painter, to which the artist replied that he was a goldsmith. After this particular design was approved by the customer, Cellini made, as usual, a little model of wax in order to show how the jewel would appear when completed. This is of interest today because sixteenth century methods of designing jewels still survive. Should you commission one of the finer jewelry houses of New York, such as Cartier’s, to make for you a special necklace, before the jewel was executed in final form you would, like Cellini’s customer, be able to judge the effect, first from a detailed drawing and then from a little model of wax in which real gemstones were mounted.

Cellini also tells of the beautiful jewelry destroyed during the war of 1527. When the troops of Francis I marched upon Rome, Pope Clement sent for Cellini. The magnificent tiaras and great collection of jewels of the Apostolic Camera were spread before the goldsmith, who was directed to remove all the gemstones from their gold settings. Each stone was then carefully wrapped up and sewed into the lining of the clothes worn by the Pope and his attendant. The elaborate mountings were given to Cellini with orders to melt them down. The gold, Cellini remarked, weighed about two hundred pounds.

At a somewhat later period the Pope sent these same precious stones to Cellini and commissioned him to design and make new settings for them—all the stones, that is, ‘except the diamond, which had been pawned to certain Genoese bankers’ when the Pope had a pressing need of money.

Now and again, Cellini comments on the lack of brilliancy in the diamonds he is called upon to set. One large stone, he said, ‘had been cut with a point, but since it did not yield the purity of luster which one expects in such a diamond, its owner had cropped the point, and in truth it was not exactly fit for either point or table cutting.’

Jewelers Of Renaissance (continued)

The French Revolution And Its Influence On Art

(via The Outline of Art) William Orpen writes:

4

The life-story of Goya is as full of storm and stress as that of his unhappy country, which between 1788 and 1815 saw more misery and more changes of government than any other country in battle-scarred Europe. Under the rule of Charles IV and his depraved consort, Queen Maria Louisa, Spain was in a miseable condition; its Court was a frivolous, shallow imitation of Versailles, and its monarchy and government were even more rotten and more corrupt than those of France under Louis XVI. A young lieutenant of the Guards, Manuel Godoy, was made Prime Minister because he was the Queen’s favorite lover, and the King was a puppet in the hands of this Spanish Messalina. Public offices were openly sold to the highest bidder, and eighteen thousand priests drained the purse of the people and stifled their intellects. Art seemd dead and past the hope of revival till Goya came to Madrid.

Francisco José de Goya Lucientes was born on March 30, 1746, that is to say, twelve years after Romney, and ten years before Raeburn. He was the son of a peasant in a village in Aragon, and legend relates that, like Giotto, he was found drawing sheep by an amateur who recognized the boy’s talent and sent him in his fourteenth year as pupil to a painter in Saragossa. There the boy grew up strong, handsome, wild, and passionate, continually involved in love affairs and quarrels. In one of the last, three men were left wounded and bleeding, and as a result of this midnight affray Goya had to leave the city hurriedly.

In 1766 he was in Madrid, and there his adventurous disposition soon got him into trouble. He was wounded in some love quarrel, placed under police supervision, and chafing at this restraint he escaped from the city with a band of bull-fighters and sailed to Italy. At the end of the sixties he was in Rome, where he appears to have been much more interested in the teeming life of the people than in antiquities of the city. Here again his amorousness got him into trouble, for it is said that one night he made his way into a nunnery, was nearly captured, and only escaped the gallows by a headlong flight from the city.

In 1771 he returned to Saragosa and found shelter in a monastery, where he seems to have reformed his manner of living, for four years later this scapegrace adventurer, the hero of a hundred fights, reappeared in Madrid as a respectable citizen, married to the sister of Bayen, a painter of good standing. Through his brother-in-law he got to know people of a better class, and he was finally introduced to the Court and permitted to paint the portrait of Charles III.

Goya’s pictures of this period reflect the manners of the Spanish Court, for pictures like ‘The Swing’ and ‘Blind Man’s Buff’ at Madrid are obviously imitations of Watteau and his school, as the Spanish Court imitated the artificiality of Versailles, only Goya, a cynic from his youth, does not give his figures the daintness of the Frenchmen.

With almost brutal realism he depicts the rouge on the women’s checks and the pencilling of their eyebrows, and seems to take a delight in unmasking their falseness and dissipation. While he was intelligent enough to perceive the rottenness of Spanish society, Goya was no moralist himself and lived the life of his time. Countless stories are told of his relations with women of high society, and Goya is said to have been the terror of all their husbands. In this connection one inevitably thinks of his famous double picture at Madrid, ‘The Maja Nude’ and ‘The Maja Clothed,’ the latter being an almost exact reproduction of the former with the garmets added, and these are so filmy, so expressive of the limbs underneath, that the second picture has justly been said to reveal a woman ‘naked in spite of her dress.’ The story runs that the lady was the Duchess of Alva, and that when the Duke desired to see Goya’s work, the painter hurriedly produced the clothed portrait and concealed the other.

The French Revolution And Its Influence On Art (continued)

Canadian Diamond Industry Update

The Prospectors and Developers Association of Canada convention will be held on March 2-5, 2008, in Toronto + it will include an update on the Canadian diamond industry (Snap Lake + Victor) + diamond prospecting roundup.

Useful link:
www.pdac.ca

The Brain That Changes Itself

The Brain That Changes Itself by Norman Doidge is a fascinating book + the concept of neuroplasticity intrigues me + it's an absorbing subject.

Here is what the description of The Brain That Changes Itself says (via Amazon):
An astonishing new science called neuroplasticity is overthrowing the centuries-old notion that the human brain is immutable. Psychiatrist and psychoanalyst, Norman Doidge, M.D., traveled the country to meet both the brilliant scientists championing neuroplasticity and the people whose lives they’ve transformed—people whose mental limitations or brain damage were seen as unalterable. We see a woman born with half a brain that rewired itself to work as a whole, blind people who learn to see, learning disorders cured, IQs raised, aging brains rejuvenated, stroke patients learning to speak, children with cerebral palsy learning to move with more grace, depression and anxiety disorders successfully treated, and lifelong character traits changed. Using these marvelous stories to probe mysteries of the body, emotion, love, sex, culture, and education, Dr. Doidge has written an immensely moving, inspiring book that will permanently alter the way we look at our brains, human nature, and human potential.

Shark Behavior

According to Jim Sogi (via dailyspeculations) sharks have a simple system + they constantly cruise around and eat the weak or struggling fish, they never pick fights with the strong + they go check it, they give it a test, and then they eat it + if there is any problem, they are gone + they are really tough skinned and lack any emotion whatsoever + smaller fish are dominated by fear + the small sharks hunt in packs + the big ones travel the globe + there are always going to be dead, dying or injured or weak struggling fish around.

The shark pattern (s) reminds me of the trading systems, including commodities + the key players and their peculiar methodology + the fate of the small players + the end game.

German Expressionist Works

The Economist writes about German Expressionist works and paintings from the Viennese Secession, a movement inspired by art nouveau + the steady rise in prices + other viewpoints @ http://www.economist.com/daily/columns/artview/displaystory.cfm?story_id=10610995

Jewelers Of Renaissance

(via 5000 Years of Gems and Jewelry) Frances Rogers and Alice Beard writes:

2. The Goldsmith-Jeweler Of Italy
The custom of training all potential artists in the workshop of the goldsmith forged a link between the jeweler’s field and that of the decorator and painter. Jewel forms were extensively used in the illumination of manuscripts and in the painted jewel-like designs which ornamented church missals, choir books, and Bibles.

Conspicuous among the names of painters who began their careers as apprentices to goldsmiths is that of Botticelli (1444-1510). Every once in a while throughout history there lives some man who likes to write down what he sees and hears and finds out about the daily lives of the people around him. Such men write with a zest and a keeness of observations that necessarily elude the serious historian who must spread his record like a great panorama over long periods of time. The writer who tells us what is happening to himself and to the man with whom he is at the moment rubbing elbows, gives us candid-camera pictures. Such a man was Pliny. When we walk the street of ancient Rome with Pliny it is not the architecture that is being pointed out for our edification. More likely our attention is being directed to the outrageous number of rings on the fingers of the elegant young Roman dandy whom we have just passed on the way. Again, at a later date, there was the good and garrulous old monk, Theophilus, who not content merely to practise the various crafts for himself, was bent also on telling in great detail just how he did it. It was that very anxiety of his to tell all about it which is responsible for giving us so accurate a record of Medieval craftsmanship. A like service was performed for posterity during the sixteenth century by that flamboyant teller of tall tales, Benvenuto Cellini (1500-71).

Cellini is considered the master of master goldsmith of his period. But if this great craftsman himself had not so impressively told us how surpassingly wonderful an artist he was, perhaps we could not be so sure about it. In any case, the very exaggerations of his gorgeous imagination give the colorful essense of his time as no mountainous accumulation of prosaic facts ever could.

Even as an apprentice Cellini was entrusted with important commissions. He tells of working on a silver salt-cellar for a cardinal. Now salt-cellars in those days were not the negligible little pieces of tableware they are at present. They were enormous in size—a foot or more in height—often made of gold and set with gems. Salt was a precious things, and the great salt-cellars of the age held about the most important place among the rich plate that set the banquet table of an illustrious person.

Although Cellini was commissioned to make a fine salt-cellar for the cardinal, he was not expected to design it himself, only to copy an antique piece of silverware. Cellini, however, was no dull apprentice who would slavishly copy the work of others. He would borrow as much as he saw fit and then allow full play to his fancy. He tells us what happened:

Besides what I copied, I enriched it with so many elegant masks of my inventions, that my master went about....boasting that so good a piece of work had been turned out from his shop.

To Cellini is often attributed the making of quantities of the fine jewels of his time. And we may be sure that so creative a craftsman did produce much work, but the eminent authority, H Clifford Smith, says: ‘Despite all that has been said respecting such jewels as the Leda and the Swan at Vienna, the Chariot of Apollo at Chantilly, and the mountings of the two cameos, the Four Cæsars and the Centaur and the Bacchic Genii in the Bibliothèque Nationale at Paris, which have, with some degree of likelihood, been attributed to Cellini, the only quite authenticated example of his work as a goldsmith is the famous gold salt-cellar at Vienna. This object when looked at from the goldsmith’s point of view, in the matter of fineness of workmanship and skill in execution, is seen to possess particular characteristics which should be sufficient to prevent the attribution to Cellini of other contemporary work, created by jewelers who clearly drew their inspiration from entirely different sources.’

Jewelers Of Renaissance (continued)

The French Revolution And Its Influence On Art

(via The Outline of Art) William Orpen writes:

Though he gained the prize in 1801, Ingres was not sent to Rome till 1806, and then he remained in Italy for nearly eighteen years. These were years of quiet, fruitful labor, during which the artist, in his own words, was ‘drawing to learn and painting to live,’ and by living abroad he escaped all that contemporary drama of victories and disasters, of changes of dynasties and changes of opinion, that was going on during this period in his own country. Nevertheless, they attracted attention in the Salons, though they were criticised by the followers of David. When he exhibited in 1819 his ‘Paola and Francesca di Rimini,’ the work was pronounced to be ‘Gothic’ in tendency, and in this small historical painting we can recognize the influence of the Primitives whom Ingres admired for the purity and precision of their drawing.

When Igres returned to Paris in 1824 the battle between the Classicists and the Romanticists was in full swing, and with Girodet dead, David in exile and dying, and Gros incompetent, the former were glad to welcome the support of Ingres, and soon made him the chief of their party. Ingres was amazed and enchanted at his sudden popularity and the honors now thrust upon him. He was speedily elected to Institute, and later was made a Grand Officer of the Legion of Honor and a Senator. The full story of the war between the Classicists and Romanticists must be reserved for a later chapter, but it may be said at once that Ingres threw himself heart and soul into the championship of the classics by precepts and example.

But where Ingres differed from his predecessor David was, that with him it was the treatment rather than the subject which was all important. A fanatic for drawing from the first, he held strong and peculiar views on Color. ‘A thing well drawn is always well enough painted,’ he said; and his own use of color was merely to emphasize the drawing in his pictures. ‘Rubens and Vandyck,’ he argued, ‘may please the eye, but they deceive it—they belong to a bad school of Color, the School of Falsehood.’ From his early Roman days Ingres had shown himself to be faultless draughtsman of the human figure, and his drawings and paintings of nudes are the works on which his fame most surely rests today. The most celebrated, and perhaps the most beautiful, of his works, ‘La Source’, has an interesting history, for, though begun as a study in 1824, it was not till 1856, when the artist was seventy six, that he turned it into a picture. One of the most precious gems of painting in the Louvre, this picture preserves the freshness of a young man’s fancy while it is executed with the knowledge of a lifetime. ‘It is a fragment of Nature, and it is a vision,’ is the comment of a great French critic on this picture.

If Ingres was the greatest artist the classical movement produced in France, yet he belongs too much to the nineteenth century to be considered a true product of the revolutionary and Napoleonic period. Indeed, the greatest Continental artist of that period was not a Frenchman, and it is to Spain that we must turn to find a man of oustanding genius whose protean art fully expresses the surging thoughts and feelings of this time of changes.

The French Revolution And Its Influence On Art (continued)

Asian Art Trend

James Pomfret writes about the speculative trend in the art market (s) of Asia, especially among the nouveau riche Chinese + Indian entrepreneurs + the risks and opportunities + the impact @ http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/02/03/business/rtrinvest04.php

Valuable Lessons From Borsheims

Bankruptcy filings are shaking up the jewelry industry in the US + elsewhere, and when you talk to industry analysts they say it’s too early to tell what the fallout would be as a result of the peculiar trend where well-known jewelry retailers are going belly-up + when I look around I see a unique jewelry company: Borsheims + I am impressed + there is a lesson for all in the gem & jewelry sector.

Here is what Berkshire Hathaway website (via Warren E Buffet, CEO) says about Borsheim's:
Fine jewelry, watches and giftware will almost certainly cost you less at Borsheim's. I've looked at the figures for all publicly-owned jewelry companies and the contrast with Borsheim's is startling. Our one-store operation, with its huge volume, enables us to operate with costs that are fully 15-20 percentage points below those incurred by our competitors. We pass the benefits of this low-cost structure along to our customers. Every year Borsheim's sends out thousands of selections to customers who want a long-distance opportunity to inspect what it offers and decide which, if any, item they'd like to purchase. We do a huge amount of business in this low-key way, which allows the shopper to conveniently see the exceptional values that we offer. Call Joe Corritore or Susan Jacques at Borsheim's (800-642-4438) and save substantial money on your next purchase of jewelry.

Useful links:
www.borsheims.com
www.berkshirehathaway.com

‘If you don't know jewelry, know the jeweler.’ - Warren E. Buffett
I think it's the best advice.

Burmese Gems Trade

(via Irrawady) The gems trade in Burma has slumped dramatically due to the sanctions imposed by the United States in December, according to gems and jade traders inside Burma and along the border areas + residents in Mogok in central Burma, a center for rubies, confirmed that their businesses were currently in a 'wait and see' situation, relying heavily on cross-border trade + traders on the Thai-Burmese border also said the gems market has been slow + during the 24th Gems and Jade Sale in Rangoon from January 15 to 18, 2008, 357 lots of jade were sold and the event was attended by 737 local and 281 international traders.

Useful link:
www.irrawaddy.org

Jewelers Of Renaissance

(via 5000 Years of Gems and Jewelry) Frances Rogers and Alice Beard writes:

1. Europe, Fifteenth Century

No red-letter day on the calendar conveniently marks the ending of the Middle Ages and the triumphant entrance of that lusty period in history known as the Renaissance. Gradually there had come upon the Western World a great revival of artistic and intellectual life. It would seem as if some mighty reservoir of vitality had been newly tapped and men, drinking deep, were filled with such a super abundance of life that they were under compulsion to spend it on the creative arts.

Italy was the very center of the artistic revival. Wealth was pouring into the beautiful and haughty city of Venice, whose thriving export trade gave her first place among the seaports in all Europe. Palaces, churches, new and ornate buildings were rising everywhere; and workers in stone, wood, and metal had their time more than filled with commissions. Nor did the other trades and crafts find themselves neglected. Prosperous times, halcyon days, and yet—and yet no rich man knew from one day to the next what might happen to his wealth. It was one of those tense periods when it seemed best to be on the safe side adn condense riches, as far as possible, into the pleasing and portable form of precious jewels, which could at a moment’s notice travel in haste and concealment along with a fleeing owner if worse came to worst. And besides, rich jewels were visible sign of a man’s standing and substance. Even the serious and dignified man of parts wore his jewels with pride and did not leave the displaying of them entirely to the ladies of his household.

As in Italy, throughout the rest of Europe both laity and clergy kept the goldsmith busy. And the goldsmith responded by expending his utmost skill and ingenuity on the intricate design of ornaments. The jewelry of the Renaissance was preeminently colorful. Many variously colored stones and enamels would go to the making of a single jewel. Rubies, sapphires, emeralds, polychrome enamels were all mounted together in an elaboration of golden pendant—were set swinging from the jewel at whatever points the jeweler saw fit to place them. Such, in general, was the type of the Renaissance jewelry.

With increasing frequency diamond crystals, with a few of the natural faces polished, were added to the rich assemblage of colored stones. But as yet no European gem cutter had attempted to do much with cutting facets on diamonds or to change the natural shape of the hard crystal. He might grind down a few of its angles and polish the surfaces, but for the most part left the stone in general shape much as it had been when first discovered. Occassionally the diamond cutter would remove the upper and lower tips of a double pyramid shaped crystal and thus produce what is called the ‘table cut’.

During the early part of the Renaissance the diamond began slowly to emerge from its dim status. Among the lapidaries experimenting with new ways of polishing diamonds was certain gem cutter of Bruges who had novel ideas concerning the (as yet) latent beauties of the colorless stone. His name was Louis de Berquem, or according to some old records, Ludwig von Berquem. At any rate, he succeeded in cutting a number of regular facets on diamonds. These cut stones attracted much attention; but it was not until nineteen years later, in 1475, that De Berquem produced what was then considered the ‘perfect cut’. Although the full beauty of the diamond had by no means been released by this gem cutter of Bruges, still, because he had made a start in the right direction and disclosed by means of a series of facets of planned regularity, hitherto unsuspected possibilities in the long neglected diamond, his name has been remembered in the history of gems.

According to his grandson, Robert de Berquem, Louis cut three diamonds in the new mode at the order of the last Duke of Burgundy, Charles the Bold, who gave the gem cutter 3000 ducats for his work. The first of these was a thick stone in the form known as briolette. It was covered all over with facets. The second diamond was given to Pope Sixtus IV. The third, triangular in shape, was set in a ring that presently became the property of Louis XI.

During the last quarter of the fifteenth century, men trained in the workshop of Louis de Berquem were presently setting up shops of their own. Some of them drifted to Paris, others opened establishments in Antwerp, and still others went to Amsterdam.

In time, Amsterdam and Antwerp became the two great centers of the diamond cutting industry, and a spirit of rivalry soon developed between them. Meanwhile in Florence, the rediscovery of and admiration of things antique was creating a school of art whose influence extended even to the goldsmith-jeweler.

Jewelers Of Renaissance (continued)

The French Revolution And Its Influence On Art

(via The Outline of Art) William Orpen writes:

3

How great was the influence of David on the painters of his generation is revealed by the tragic story of Antoine Jean Gros (1771-1835), who killed himself because he thought he was bringing disgrace on the tradition of his master. Gros entered David’s studio in 1785, and though he was unsuccessful when he tried for the Prix de Rome in 1792, in the following year his master helped him to get a passport for Italy, and so Gros got as far as Genoa, where in 1790 he made the acquaintance of Josephine, afterwards Empress. Josephine carried him off to Milan and presented him to Bonaparte, who took a liking to the young man, attached him to his staff, and allowed him to paint that wonderful portrait, now in the Louvre, of ‘Napolean at Arcole,’ which is the most haunting and poetic of all the many portraits of the Emperor.

Thenceforward the career of Gros was outwardly a series of triumphs. Owing to his experiences in Italy—where, in 1799, he was besieged with the French army at Genoa—he had a closer acquaintance with the realities of war than any of his artist contemporaries.

In Genoa and elsewhere Gros had made a particular study of the work of Rubens and Vandyck, and in his canvases he now endeavored to emulate the opulent color of the Flemish School. Consequently his battle-pictures were so informed with knowledge and inspired by feeling and fine color that they aroused high enthusiasm in Paris. When His picture ‘Les Pestiférés de Jaffa’ was shown in the Salon of 1804, all the young artists of the day combined to hand a wreath on the frame in honor of the life, truth, and color in the work of Gros.

Already there was a beginning of a reaction in Paris against the ascetic Classicism of David, and while Gros, as an old pupil of that master, still commanded the respect of the classicists, his spirited renderings of contemporary events pleased the younger generation who were later to give birth to the Romanticists. Thus, for a time, Gros pleased both camps in painting, and his position was unimpaired when Napoleon fell and the Bourbons were restored. In 1816 he was made a member of the Institute, he was commissioned to decorate the cupola of the Panthéon, and in 1824, on the completion of this work, he was created a Baron.

Meanwhile David, exciled in Brussels, was uneasy about the style of his former pupil, whom, on leaving Paris, he had left in charge of the Classical Movement. From Brussels he wrote constantly to Gros, begging him to cease painting ‘these futile subjects and circumstantial pictures’ and to devote his talent to ‘fine historical pictures’. By this David meant, not those paintings of the battles of Aboukir, Eylau, the Pyramids, etc., which were fine historical pictures, but paintings depicting some incident in the history of Greece or Rome. These alone, according to David, were the fit themes for a noble art, and he could not accept the renderings of events of his own times as true historical pictures. Unfortunately Gros, in his unbounded veneration for his old master, took David very seriously. He saw with alarm that the younger generation of painters were departing from the classical tradition and heading for Romanticism, and he blamed himself for leading them astray.

In the very year when he was made a Baron, his fellow pupil, Girodet (1767-1824), died, and at the funeral of this follower of David, Gros lamented the loss of a great classic artist, saying: ‘For myself, not only have I not enough authority to direct the school, but I must accuse myself of being one of the first who set the bad example others have followed.’

Conscience-stricken at falling away from his master’s ideals, and particularly so when David died in the following year, Baron Gros now did violence to his own talent by forcing himself to paint subjects of which David would have approved. While the truth of his war pictures had shocked the Classic School, the artificiality of his new classical pictures roused the mocking laughter of the young and increasingly powerful Romantic School. His ‘Hercules and Diomed’ in the Salon of 1835 was openly sneered at; the younger critics treated him as a ‘dead man,’ till, wearied out and depressed by the disgrace and shame which he thought he had brought on the school of David, poor Baron Gros, on the 25th June 1835, lay down on his face in three feet of water at Meudon, where on the following day two boatmem discovered his body.

That leadership of the Classic School, for which Baron Gros, both by his art and his temperament, was utterly unfitted, was eventually assumed with honor and credit by his junior, Jean Dominique Auguste Ingres (1780-1867). A pupil of David and the winner of the Prix de Rome in 1801, Ingres was not at first regarded as a ‘safe’ classic by the purists of that school. To these pedants, who worshipped hardly any art between the antique and Raphael, Ingres was suspicious because of his loudly proclaimed admiration of the Italian Primitives. On his way to Rome, Ingres had stopped at Pisa to study the frescoes by Benozzo Gozzoli and his contemporaries in the Campo Santo. ‘We ought to copy these men on our knees,’ said the young enthusiasts, and his words were repeated to David, who regarded them an ominous.

The French Revolution And Its Influence On Art (continued)

Signs Of The Times

As the commodity price increases, organized gangs are raiding rural America, plundering commodities like wheat (according to a report by the Urban Institute in Washington, agricultural theft cost US farmers an estimated five billion dollars in 2006-7), almonds (stealing loaded containers), copper wires (stripping the copper from railway or electrical wires), hardwood trees (private forestlands/ national park forestlands/ industry forestlands) and off-loading to a buyer who is several hundred miles away from the scene of the original crime or to China / South Asia, where there is a market for stolen goods + it will be very difficult to monitor their operating systems because of the amorphous nature of the business.

Useful links:
www.urban.org
www.commodityonline.com

Colored Stone News

Lightning Ride is the most famous locality in the world for black opal + opal was first discovered in the latter part of 1800s' and the first diggings began in 1901 + black opal is found in nodules (nobbies) + when these were first encountered they were considered to be of little value because no one had ever seen black opal before + today the black opal from Lightning Ridge is considered to be the best and most valuable opal in the world + The Lightning Ridge Opal Festival + International Opal Jewellery Design Awards are interesting events for opal lovers + it's a small show, but it's an experience.

Useful link:
www.iojdaa.com.au

I found www.ridgelightning.com interesting because of the collection of photographs they have got on lightning that gives Lightning Ridge its name + it's beautiful.

Old Master Auctions

Souren Melikian writes about The Old Master auctions conducted last week at Sotheby's + beauty of the art market + the endless opportunities for those who know how to play the game + other viewpoints @ http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/02/01/arts/melik2.php

Jewelers Of The Middle Ages

(via 5000 Years of Gems and Jewelry) Frances Rogers and Alice Beard writes:

6. Rings And Magic

In medieval times and even during much of the Renaissance, religion, superstition and magic were all hugger-mugger. Ideas as well as gems were assembled in strangely ill-assorted companionship. For science was still not only an infant but the enfant terrible of the period, a thing to be suppressed as perilous both to the soul of man to the authority of the Church. Those who dared independently to seek knowledge first hand—either knowledge of natural phenomena or reasoning on the problems of the spirit—risked the accusation of heresy. Heretics were burned at the stake. Almost any one was liable to be dragged before the dread inquisitor, who tried the victim in secret without even letting him know which of his enemies had betrayed him.

Then there was the danger of witchcraft and the malevolent influence of the Evil Eye. But worse still (and this was no imaginary peril) there was the danger of being accused of practising witchcraft. If you were skeptical and did not believe in witchcraft, your disbelief was synonymous with atheism, and automatically you became a heretic.

Burning was the favorite method of exterminating both heretics and witches. After the advent of the Protestant Church, Catholics and Protestants vied with each other in witch-hunting. At this late date it is hard to say whether early records exaggerate the figures or not, but one writer boasts that in the course of one hundred and fifty years the Holy Office had burned at least 30000 witches ‘who if they had been left unpunished would easily have brought the whole world to destruction.’

With this glimpse of their background, it is not difficult to understand why our Christian forebears, whether or not they believed in magic, might have found it expedient to wear amulets and charms to protect themselves from suspicion of skepticism if nothing else.

Rings engraved with figures of saints were held in high regard, and particularly powerful was the magic of St Christopher, who could ‘give immunity from sudden death for the day to all who had looked at any representation of him.’

Another favorite ring was inscribed with the last words of Our Lord on the Cross in combination with a formula which cured epilepsy and toothache.

Belief in the medicinal properties of precious stones seems to have become more deeply rooted at this time than ever before, and the specific remedial efficacy of each stone was multiplied until practically any stone was a cure all—if you allowed the right train of superstition. A sapphire worn in a ring would cure diseases of the eye, and preserve the wearer from envy; was an antidote for poison; and, as if that were not enough for one gem to attend to, preserved the chastity of its wearer and prevented poverty, betrayal, and wrongful conviction. Besides which are told, ‘Also wytches love well this stone, for thtey wene that they may werke certen wondres by vertue of this stone.’

The French Revolution And Its Influence On Art

(via The Outline of Art) William Orpen writes:

2

Most attractive of all the portraitures of this period is the woman artist Madame Elizabeth Louise Vigée Lebrun (1755-1842). Her father, a portrait-painter himself, died when she was only twelve years old, and his daughter carried on his practice almost at once, for when she was only fifteen she was already painting portraits with success and talent. While still young she married Lebrus, a prosperous and enterprising picture-dealer, who managed her affairs well, and whose stock of Old Masters afforded the young artist many models which she studied with good results. In 1783 Vigée Lebrun was admitted to the French Academy, and during the last years of the French monarchy she was a favorite at Court and painted several portraits of Marie Antoinette and her children. In 1789, alarmed at the way things were going in France, she went to Italy, where she was received with enthusiasm and made a member of the Academies of Rome, Parma, and Bologna. Thence she went to Vienna, where she stayed three years, and subsequently visiting Prague, Dresden, Berlin, and St Petersburg, she only returned to France in 1801. Thus she escaped the Revolution altogether and saw little of the Empire, for about the time fo the Peace of Amiens she came to England, where she stayed three years, and then visited Holland and Switzerland, finally returning to France in 1809.

Entirely untouched by the Revolution and by the wave of Classicism which followed it, Mme. Vigée Lebrun was a cosmopolitan artist whose art belonged to no particular country, and whose style had more in common with English Romanticism than with the asceticism then in vogue in France. Among all her portraits none is more charming than the many she painted of herself, and of these the best known and most popular is the winning of ‘Portrait of the Artist and her Daughter’ at the Louvre. Though in time she belongs to the revolutionary era, Mme. Lebrun is, as regards her art, a survival of the old aristocratic portrait-painters of monarchical France.

The French Revolution And Its Influence On Art (continued)

Prophet Of Innovation

Prophet of Innovation by Thomas K. McCraw is a brilliant book + he is one of the best business historians in the world + writes on Joseph Schumpeter’s views on the nature of capitalist profit.

Listen to a short interview with Thomas McCraw
Host: Chris Gondek Producer: Heron & Crane

Colored Stone Update

There is a lot of talk about andesine-labradorite via JTV + the sources + the color is just beautiful, if well cut.

Useful link:
www.jewelrytelevision.com

Diamdel Markets Pandora’s Boxes

Chaim Even Zohar writes about De Beers trading subsidiary, Diamdel + the online auction concept + the impact @ http://www.idexonline.com/portal_FullEditorial.asp

Mobs, Messiahs, And Markets

Mobs, Messiahs, and Markets: Surviving the Public Spectacle in Finance and Politics by William Bonner + Lila Rajiva is an interesting book that describes follow-the- crowd syndrome + it's funny/brilliant/thought-provoking + I think it's an interesting topic to study and reflect upon.

Here is what the description of Mobs, Messiahs, And Markets says (via Amazon):
Bestselling author Bill Bonner has long been a maverick observer of the financial and political world, sharpening his sardonic wit, in particular, on the vagaries of the investing public. Market booms and busts, tulip manias and dotcom bubbles, venture capitalists and vulture funds, he lets you know, are best explained not by dry statistics and obscure theories but by the metaphors and analogies of literature.

Now, in Mobs, Messiahs, and Markets, Bonner and freelance journalist Lila Rajiva use literary economics to offer broader insights into mass behavior and its devastating effects on society. Why is it, they ask, that perfectly sane and responsible individuals can get together, and by some bizarre alchemy turn into an irrational mob? What makes them trust charlatans and demagogues who manipulate their worst instincts? Why do they abandon good sense, good behavior and good taste when an empty slogan is waved in front of them. Why is the road to hell paved with so many sterling intentions? Why is there a fool on every corner and a knave in every public office?

In attempting an answer, the authors weave a light-hearted journey through history, politics and finance to show group think at work in an improbable array of instances, from medieval crusades to the architectural follies of hedge-fund managers. Their journey takes them ultimately to the desk of the chairman of the Federal Reserve Bank and to a cautionary tale of the current bubble economy. They warn that the gush of credit let loose by Alan Greenspan and multiplied by the sophisticated number games of Wall Street whizzes is fraught with perils for the unwary. Boom without end, pronounces The Street. But Bonner and Rajiva are more cynical. When the higher math and the greater greed come together, watch out below!

Mobs, Messiahs, and Markets ends by giving concrete advice on how readers can avoid what the authors call the public spectacle of modern finance, and become, instead, private investors - knowing their own mind and following their own intuitions. The authors have no gimmicks to offer here - but instead give a better understanding of the dynamics of market behavior, allowing prudent investors to protect themselves from the fads and follies of the investment markets.

Niki de Saint Phalle

Niki de Saint Phalle was a French sculptor + painter + film maker + she became world famous for her Shooting paintings + worked with art personalities such as Arman + César Baldaccini + Christo + Gérard Deschamps + Francois Dufrêne + Raymond Hains + Yves Klein + Martial Raysse + Mimmo Rotella + Daniel Spoerri + Jean Tinguely + Jacques Villeglé + Robert Rauschenberg + Jasper Johns + Larry Rivers + Salvador Dalí for ideas + created a monumental sculpture park in Garavicchio, Tuscany, about 100 km north-west of Rome along the coast + the garden, called Giardino dei Tarocchi in Italian, contained sculptures of the symbols found on Tarot cards + many of Niki de Saint Phalle's sculptures are large and some of them are exhibited in public places + her art works are unique and display that otherness to be enjoyed by all who love art.

Useful links:
www.nikidesaintphalle.com
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Niki_de_Saint_Phalle

Heard On The Street

The way to win is to work, work, work, work and hope to have a few insights.

Paolo Longo

Paolo Longo is an Italian composer and conductor + his works (based on diverse processes as cellular proliferation and spectral synthesis) are unique + I enjoy his music.

Useful links:
www.paolo-longo.com
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paolo_Longo

Step Cuts

(via Diamond Cuts in Historic Jewelry:1381-1910) Herbert Tillander writes:

When cutters wanted to make use of pieces of rough which were too flat even for Mirror Cuts, they found that it was often possible to achieve reasonable light effects by ‘stepping’ the crown or pavilions, or even both. This technique allowed the production of large Table Cut diamonds at a far lower cost than Full or Mirror Cuts. If it was impossible to avoid an over-large culet, they compensated for this defect by foiling. In jewels of this sort which have survived, the foils have disintegrated and the culets appear as dark holes. This is the main reason why the old Table, Mirror and Table Cut diamonds in our museums, treasuries and private collections are ignored or considered to be merely primitive cuts without any charm.

Table Cut diamonds dominated the market for about two hundred years, losing ground only gradually, during the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, to Rose Cuts and Brilliants. To some extent step-cut Tables have returned to favor in modern diamonds with outlines similar to those of the old Table Cuts: squares, rectangles, triangles. If these are large enough, they can still dominate a jewel just as powerfully as their predecessors did. Smaller stones can be set in lines or groups to give an impression of opulence. And, if they are very small, they can be used to encircle and enhance a more important diamond or to enrich the color of an emerald, a sapphire or a ruby—all functions of the ancient Table Cuts. Prefixing the name Step Cut with ‘Modern’ therefore implies no change in the function or outline of a diamond, but only in its height proportions, which follow those now set down for Brilliants and other modern cuts, involving mainly lower crown and pavilion angles.

Jewelers Of The Middle Ages

(via 5000 Years of Gems and Jewelry) Frances Rogers and Alice Beard writes:

5. Pilgrims’ Signs

During the Middle Ages a most interesting form of jewel found its starting point in the then-prevalent custom of making pilgrimages to the shrines of saints and martyrs. When a pilgrim visited a shrine he bought or was given a token of that particular saint. These ‘Pilgrims’ Signs’ were made of lead or pewter and produced in unlimited numbers right at the shrine, where the metal was heated and turned into molds. Each saint had his characteristic token. It might be a tiny image of himself or some symbolic device connected with his pious acts. At any rate, each token was either provided with a pin or pierced with holes which enables it to be pinned or sewed to a garment, preferably the hat.

The shrine of Thomas à Becket, the murdered Archbishop of Canterbury, seems to have been among the most famous. At the height of its popularity, 100000 pilgrims would visit it in a year, bringing the ‘rarest and most precious gems’ as offerings, and carrying away with them the little lead tokens of the Bishop.

Among all the quantities of varied Pilgrims’ Signs, it is the scallop-shell of St James of Compostella that has survived in tradition as being the characteristic badge of a pilgrim. The leaden emblems first acquired by the visiting pilgrims were regarded as talismans and eagerly collected even by those who had not made a pilgrimage. It scarcely seems possible to speak of that sour and supersititious king of France, Louis XI, without also mentioning his old hat wtih its band stuck full of little leader saints.

The custom of wearing a Pilgrim’s Sign on the hat developed beyond its original form and significance and in time the token became an enseigne—an elaborate ornament of gold and gems. The enseigne, at the peak of its vogue, belongs to the period of the Renaissance.

Jewelers Of The Middle Ages (continued)

The French Revolution And Its Influence On Art

(via The Outline of Art) William Orpen writes:

The Work Of David, Vigée Lebrun, Gros, Ingres, And Goya

1

To look at the calm and serene British portraits in the last two chapters, it is difficult to realize that England was engaged in warfare almost continuously during the century in which they were painted. While Reynolds, Gainsborough, and their successors were building up the reputation of English art, statesmen, soldiers, and sailors were laying the foundations of the present British Empire, Wolfe in Canada, Clive in india, and Nelson on the high seas. We have seen how profusely art flowered in England while her empire abroad was expanding, and we must not turn our attention to the progress of art in that country which throughout the century was England’s constant foe.

To appreciate the effect of the French Revolution on the painters of France, it is advisable to consider briefly the condition of artists in the eighteenth century. The French Academy, founded in 1648 for the advancement of art, had become a close body, exercising a pernicious tyranny. Artists who were neither members nor associates wer not allowed to exhibit their works in public, and even Academicians were not supposed to show elsewhere: one of them, Serres by name, was actually expelled from the Academy because he had independantly exhibited his picture ‘The Pest of Marseilles’ for money. The only concession the Academy made to outsiders was to allow them once a year, on the day of the Fête Dieu, to hold an ‘Exhibition of Youth’ in the Place Dauphine, which was open for only two hours.

At last Salon held under the old monarchy in 1789 only 350 pictures were exhibited: in 1791 the National Assembly decreed that an exhibition open to all artists, French and foreign, should be held in the Louvre, and the number of pictures show was 794. In the year of the Terror (1793) the number of exhibits exceeded 1000: in 1795 the number of pictures shown increased to 3048. These figures tell their own story, and show that the first thing the French Revolution did for art was to give painters a fuller liberty to display their work to the public. Further, notwithstanding the exhausted state of the finances, the Revolutionary Government encouraged artists by distributing annual prizes to a total value of 442,000 francs, and began the systematic organization of public museums. On the 27th July 1793 the Convention decreed that a museum should be open in the Louvre, and that art treasures collected from the royal palaces, from monasteries, and from the houses of aristocrats who had fled the country should be placed there. At the same time a sum of 100,000 francs was voted for the further purchase of works of art.

While in some parts of the country an ignorant and savage mob ruthlessly destroyed many precious monuments, libraries, and art treasures, the leaders of the Revolution throughout showed a special solicitude not only for contemporary art but also for the monuments of the past. Yet while the Revolution did everything it could to foster contemporary art, and to preserve and popularize the best art of the past, it could not produce one really great master of painting or sculpture. Now, if ever, we might expect to find a realism and a rude, savage strength in art; yet the typical painting of the French revolutionary period is cold and correct, and its chief defect is its bloodlessness. While in England the taste, as we have seen, was all for a happy Romanticism in art, the taste of revolutionary France was for a stern Classicism. A nation aspiring to recover the lost virtues of antiquity was naturally disposed to find its ideal art in the antique, and just as politically its eye was on republican Rome rather than on Athens, so its Classicism in art was Roman rather than Greek. The man who gave a new direction to French painting was Jacques Louis David (1748-1825), who, curiously enough, was a distant relative of Boucher, and, for a time, worked under that master, whose art in later years he cordially detested. Later he became the pupil of Vien (1716-1809), whom he accompanied to Rome when Vien was appointed director of the French Academy in that city. In Rome David became absorbed in the study of the antique; and began painting pictures of classical subjects, which were well received when exhibited in Paris. During the Revolution David became a enthusiastic supporter of Robespierre, and though he was in danger for a time after the fall of Robespierre, he escaped the perils at the end of the Terror by wisely devoting himself to art and eschewing politics. When the Directory created the Institute of France on the ruins of the old monarchical academics, David was appointed one of the two original members of the Fine Arts section and charged with the delicate mission of selecting the other members.

Henceforward David was omnipotent in French art. Like so many other revolutionaries, he was completely carried away by the genius of the First Consul, who seemed to him the right Caesar for the new Romans. One morning, after Bonaparte had give him a sitting for a head. David spoke enthusiasitically of the General to his pupils. ‘He is a man to whom altars would have been erected in ancient times; yes, my friends, Bonaparte is my hero.’ But the portrait of his hero was never completed, and only the head remains today, for Napoleon disliked long sittings and did not care for exact likeness. What he demanded from an artist was a picture to rouse the admiration of the people, and to satisfy this demand David painted ‘Bonaparte crossing the Alps,’ ‘Napoleon distributing the Eagles to his Army,’ and similar pictures which, though correct and precise in drawing, seem cold, strained, and dull today.

The best works of David are not his official pictures, but some of his portraits, which have more force and life. The most celebrated of these portraits is his ‘Madame Recamier,’ now in the Louvre, though the painter himself did not regard it as more than an unfinished sketch which he once threatened to destroy. The sitter greatly displeased David by leaving him when the portrait was half finished and going to his pupil Gerard (1770-1837), who had suddenly become the fashion, to have another portait of herself painted by him. A few years later Madame Recamier, tired of Gerard’s flattering portraiture, came back to David and begged him to go on with his picture. ‘Madame,’ he replied, ‘artists are as capricious as women. Suffer me to keep your picture in the state where we left it.’

After Waterloo and the restoration of te Bourbons, David, who had taken so prominent a part in the Revolution, was exiled from France in 1816, and not being allowed to go to Rome as he wished, he settled in Brussels, where he continued painting classical pictures, now chiefly of Greek subjects, till he died in 1825. Even in exile David was still regarded as the head of his school, and few painters of so moderate a talent have so profoundly influenced the art of Europe. He completely crushed for the time being the ideals of Watteau and his school and of Boucher—‘cursed Boucher,’ that Boucher of ridiculous memory’—as he called him; and as a good republican he delighted other republicans by maintaining that the art of the last three Louis represented ‘the most complete decadence of taste and an epoch of corruption.’ To David and his pupils Europe owes that revival of classical subjects which was a feature of nineteenth century painting in all north-western Europe, and France owes him in addition that tradition of fine drawing which has characterized her art for the last century.

The French Revolution And Its Influence On Art (continue)

Computer Tomography

A recent development in pearl testing is the application of computer tomography + it enables a three-dimensional image of the pearl’s (Akoya cultured, South Sea, Tahitian, Cultured Blister pearls) structure to be clearly discerned + it differentiates between natural and cultured pearls + it measures nacre thickness + it’s a very expensive methodology + it’s widely used in medicine and other industries.

Useful link:
www.jcat.org

Kristoffer Zegers

Kristoffer Zegers is a Dutch composer + I enjoy his music (slow developments in clusters via glissandi) + I think its natural.

Useful link:
www.kristofferzegers.nl

Traveler IQ Challenge

(via Budgettravel) Traveler IQ challenge is an addictive trivia game that measures your ability to pick the exact location of world capitals + historical sights + cities that you've never heard of, on a colorful interactive map. I enjoyed it. It was educational.

Roger Keverne

Roger Keverne specializes in Chinese ceramics + works of art from the Neolithic to the Qing dynasty, including jades, bronzes, enamels, lacquer and other organic materials.

Useful link:
www.keverne.co.uk

Today Chinese jade carvings + items of jewelry aren't that easy to identify. The only way to identify + get a feel for the color (antique v. imitations) is by seeing as many different qualities of jade from different periods as possible. If in doubt always consult a reputed gem testing laboratory/expert for identification.

Polymer Clay As An Artistic Medium

Polymer clay is a manmade material + it’s widely used to create sculpture + figurines + jewelry.

Useful links:
www.npcg.org
www.polymerartarchive.com

Hare Brain, Tortoise Mind

Hare Brain, Tortoise Mind: How Intelligence Increases When You Think Less by Guy Claxton is very informative + highly entertaining + I think the approach will help you in business situations.

Here is what the description of Hare Brain, Tortoise Mind: How Intelligence Increases When You Think Less says (via Amazon):
In these accelerated times, our decisive and businesslike ways of thinking are unprepared for ambiguity, paradox, and sleeping on it. We assume that the quick-thinking 'hare brain' will beat out the slower Intuition of the 'tortoise mind.' However, now research in cognitive science is changing this understanding of the human mind. It suggests that patience and confusion--rather than rigor and certainty--are the essential precursors of wisdom.

With a compelling argument that the mind works best when we trust our unconscious, or undermind, psychologist Guy Claxton makes an appeal that we be less analytical and let our creativity have free rein. He also encourages reevaluation of society's obsession with results-oriented thinking and problem-solving under pressure. Packed with interesting anecdotes, a dozen puzzles to test your reasoning, and the latest related research, Hare Brain, Tortoise Mind is an illuminating, uplifting, stimulating read that focuses on a new kind of well-being and cognition.