(via The Outline of Art) William Orpen writes:
For example, in the ‘Sketch for the Leaping Horse,’ the bent willow is to the right of the horse and its rider, as it doubtless was in the scene that Constable actually beheld; but in the picture of ‘The Leaping Horse in the Diploma Gallery of the Royal Academy, the tree is shifted to the other side of the horse and rider, more to your left, in order to improve the design and emphasise the rhythm of the diagonal accents from the big tree on our left to the waterweeds in the opposite lower corner. This transposition of the willowtree is exceedingly instructive, for it proves that Constable did not, as some have maintained, simply paint ‘snapshots’ of Nature; he understood the science of picture making as well as any artist, and while desirous above all of presenting the general truth of the scene before him, he did not scruple to alter the position of one particular tree or other object if thereby he thought he could improve the composition of his picture.
Constable was now fifty, but still he was only an A.R.A. Neither ‘The Leaping Horse’ nor ‘The Cornfield’, which he exhibited in 1826, moved his brother artists to make him an Academician, and though ‘The Cornfield attracted a good deal of attention and was one of the first pictures to make Constable talked about in London, it did not sell, but remained in his possession to the day of his death. There would seem to be no denying that to the end of a number of Academicians were unable to appreciate the genius of Constable, and after the death of Joseph Farington in 1821 he had no keen admirer with influence within their ranks. The story is told that one year, after he had at last been elected R.A in 1829, Constable submitted one of his works labelled with another name to the Academy jury. When the majority had voted for its rejection, Constable admitted his authorship and quietly remarked, ‘There, gentlemen, I always thought you did not like my style of painting.’
When official recognition came it was ‘too late,’ as Constable sady said. Fortunately he was not in want, for in 1828 his wife’s father had died and left Constable the sum of £20000. ‘This,’ wrote Constable, ‘I will settle on my wife and children, and I shall then be able to stand before a six-foot canvas with a mind at ease, thank God!’ From this exclamation it would certainly appear as if the painter himself took more pleasure in his six-foot sketch than in painting a picture from it for the market.
Any pleasure he migiht have experienced in his election to the Academy as a full member in 1829 was counteracted by his grief at the loss of his wife, who had just previously died. It was the thought of this faithful companion and helper that prompted Constable to say his election as R.A was ‘too late’.
Though it would be a gross exaggeration to say that Constable ever obtained anything like popularity in his own lifetime, his landscapes after 1831 began to be known to a wider public by virtue of the mezzotints of some of his best paintings by David Lucas (1802-81). Lucas was an engraver of genius, who brilliantly translated into black-and-white the beauties of Constable’s light and shadow, but when he first approached the artist for permission to engrave his work Constable was dismally despondent about project. ‘The painter himself is totally unpopular,’ he said, ‘ and will be so on this side of the grave. The subjects are nothing but art, and the buyers are wholly ignorant of that.’ Nevertheless Lucas persisted with his mezzotints, which did much to spread the fame of Constable, and these engravings are now eagerly sought for at high prices by collectors.
Though never becoming actually despondent or embittered, Constable naturally craved for the appreciation which he felt he deserved, and in the endeavor to court notice he even went so far as to advertise in the newspapers:
‘Mr Constable’s Gallery of Landscapes, by his own hand, is to be seen gratis daily, by an application at his residence.’
Natural Landscape (continued)
Wednesday, February 20, 2008
Colored Stone Update
Intense yellow green (Canary type) tourmalines from Zambia (Lundazi district, eastern Zambia) is the talk of the town + the stones are mined in eluvial/alluvial and primary deposits + most of the tourmalines are heat treated (550-550°C) to reduce the brown/orange tint + stones of mixed sizes (melee +) are encountered in the marketplace + if in doubt always consult a reputed gem testing laboratory.
Heard On The Street
The school of hard knocks (SOHK) is the best education one can have in gem / jewelry / art business + it teaches you that very often you get even basic principles completely mixed up + one lives and learns.
John Jewkes
I found John Jewkes' short summary on The Sources of Invention fascinating and educational + I think unique breakthroughs in alternative energy sources may most likely come from unexpected sources.
Tuesday, February 19, 2008
Public Art
I found the article on public art @ http://www.guardian.co.uk/arts/gallery/2008/feb/15/photography?picture=332544168 very interesting.
Frida Kahlo
The largest U.S. show of the Frida Kahlo's work in 15 years opens at the Philadelphia Museum of Art on February 20 + on view are over 40 of Frida Kahlo's famed self-portraits, spanning her life's work.
Useful links:
http://philamuseum.org
www.fridakahlo.com
Useful links:
http://philamuseum.org
www.fridakahlo.com
Natural Landscape
(via The Outline of Art) William Orpen writes:
It was in 1816 that he married Maria Bicknell, with whom he had been in love since 1811, and the correspondence between the two during these five years—several letters of which still exist—shows the simple nature of the writers and the complete trust each had in the other. The marriage was delayed owning to the long opposition of Constable’s father, and eventually it took place against his wishes, but there was no serious breach between father and son, and neither Constable senior nor Mr Bicknell, who was also very comfortably off, allowed the young couple to be in actual want. Two years before his marriage Constable had for the first time sold two landscapes to total strangers, but as yet he had no real success, and the young couple set up house modestly at 76 Charlotte Street, Fitzroy Square.
In 1819, when Constable was forty three, he exhibited at the Academy a large landscape, ‘View on the River Stour,’ which was keenly appreciated by his brother artists and resulted in his being elected as Associate, and in the following year his love of Nature led him to take a house at Hampstead.
When ‘The Hay Wain’ was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1821 it attracted compartively little attention, but three years later it was sold to a French collector, who sent it to the Paris Salon of 1824, where it created a veritable sensation. Constable was awarded a gold medal, and his picture had an immediate and lasting effect on French art. His pure and brilliant color was a revelation and an inspiration to French painters, and under the glamor of ‘The Hay Wain’ Delacroix, the leader of the French Romanticists, obtained leave to retouch his ‘Massacre of Scio’ in the same exhibition. In a fortnight he repainted it throughout, using the strongest, purest, and most vivid colors he could find, and henceforward not only were Delacroix’s ideas of color and landscape revolutionized by Constable’s masterpiece, but a whole school of French landscape painters arose, as we shall see in a later chapter, whose art to a great extent based on the example and practice of Constable.
It was in France, then, that Constable had his first real success, and Frenchmen were the first in large numbers fully to appreciate his genius. It is a piece of great good luck that ‘The Hay Wain’ ever came back to England, but fortunately it was recovered by a British collector, George Young, and at his sale in 1866 it was purchased by the late Henry Vaughan, who in 1886 gave it to the National Gallery.
In 1825 Constable, now possessing a European reputation though still neglected in his own country, sent to the Academy his famous picture ‘The Leaping Horse’, which is generally considered to be his central masterwork, though many shrewd judges consider that the essence of his fresh, naturalistic art is still more brilliantly displayed in the big preparatory six foot sketch of the same subject, now in the Victoria and Albert Museum. It was Constable’s habit to make these large preparatory sketches for pictures of special importance, and the great difference between the sketch and the picture is that the former was done in the open, directly from Nature, while the latter was worked up in the studio. Consequently the sketch always contains a freshness and vigor, something of which is lost in the picture, though this last sometimes has refinements of design, not to be found in the sketch.
Natural Landscape (continued)
It was in 1816 that he married Maria Bicknell, with whom he had been in love since 1811, and the correspondence between the two during these five years—several letters of which still exist—shows the simple nature of the writers and the complete trust each had in the other. The marriage was delayed owning to the long opposition of Constable’s father, and eventually it took place against his wishes, but there was no serious breach between father and son, and neither Constable senior nor Mr Bicknell, who was also very comfortably off, allowed the young couple to be in actual want. Two years before his marriage Constable had for the first time sold two landscapes to total strangers, but as yet he had no real success, and the young couple set up house modestly at 76 Charlotte Street, Fitzroy Square.
In 1819, when Constable was forty three, he exhibited at the Academy a large landscape, ‘View on the River Stour,’ which was keenly appreciated by his brother artists and resulted in his being elected as Associate, and in the following year his love of Nature led him to take a house at Hampstead.
When ‘The Hay Wain’ was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1821 it attracted compartively little attention, but three years later it was sold to a French collector, who sent it to the Paris Salon of 1824, where it created a veritable sensation. Constable was awarded a gold medal, and his picture had an immediate and lasting effect on French art. His pure and brilliant color was a revelation and an inspiration to French painters, and under the glamor of ‘The Hay Wain’ Delacroix, the leader of the French Romanticists, obtained leave to retouch his ‘Massacre of Scio’ in the same exhibition. In a fortnight he repainted it throughout, using the strongest, purest, and most vivid colors he could find, and henceforward not only were Delacroix’s ideas of color and landscape revolutionized by Constable’s masterpiece, but a whole school of French landscape painters arose, as we shall see in a later chapter, whose art to a great extent based on the example and practice of Constable.
It was in France, then, that Constable had his first real success, and Frenchmen were the first in large numbers fully to appreciate his genius. It is a piece of great good luck that ‘The Hay Wain’ ever came back to England, but fortunately it was recovered by a British collector, George Young, and at his sale in 1866 it was purchased by the late Henry Vaughan, who in 1886 gave it to the National Gallery.
In 1825 Constable, now possessing a European reputation though still neglected in his own country, sent to the Academy his famous picture ‘The Leaping Horse’, which is generally considered to be his central masterwork, though many shrewd judges consider that the essence of his fresh, naturalistic art is still more brilliantly displayed in the big preparatory six foot sketch of the same subject, now in the Victoria and Albert Museum. It was Constable’s habit to make these large preparatory sketches for pictures of special importance, and the great difference between the sketch and the picture is that the former was done in the open, directly from Nature, while the latter was worked up in the studio. Consequently the sketch always contains a freshness and vigor, something of which is lost in the picture, though this last sometimes has refinements of design, not to be found in the sketch.
Natural Landscape (continued)
Jewelers Of The Seventeenth Century
(via 5000 Years of Gems and Jewelry) Frances Rogers and Alice Beard writes:
2. Tavernier, Jeweler To The King
In France, during the first half of the seventeenth century, the taste for fine gemstones had been fanned to a flame by tales of the splendors of the Orient and by confirmation of those tales in the form of magnificent gems brought home by merchant-travelers.
Foremost among the travelers was Jean-Baptiste Tavernier (1605-89), who at the age of twenty-five set forth in the company of two French priests for the Orient. He spent a year in Constantinople trading in costly stones and then made his way to Persia. His description of the splendors he beheld in that land of jewels was more like a dream of enchantment than reality. Even the royal thrones were encrusted with precious stones, he said, but the throne of Shah Jehen eclipsed all others.
This was the famous peacock throne, so-called because of the great jeweled peacock placed above it. The plumage of the bird’s wide-spread tail was represented by a mass of sapphires, emeralds, and other color stones. Its body was enameled gold, studded with rich stones, and from its breast hung a huge pendent ruby and a pear-shaped pearl. Suspended in front of the throne itself was an enormous diamond so that at all times the Shah could feast his eyes on its glittering beauty.
During the course of the next thirty years Tavernier made five more journeys to the Orient, visiting the diamond mines of Golconda and the court of the Great Mogul of India, where he saw a diamond which he described as having the form of an egg cut through the middle. He estimated its value as being more than $4,000,000. This diamond, says Tavernier, was ‘rose cut’; and behind that simple fact lay one of those minor tragedies due to divergence of viewpoint between contracting parties.
The Mogul of India, instead of entrusting his great diamond to a native diamond cutter had commissioned Hortensio Borgio, a Venetian, to cut the stone.
Now, in Europe, diamonds had been cut in the form known as rose as early as 1520, the idea being to bring out the brilliance of the gem even at considerable sacrifice of its size; but in the Orient, size was all important factor. A native gem cutter would small facets (placed hit or miss) to conceal whatever flaws a diamond might have, but he wasted as little as possible of the precious material in the process. Brilliance and symmetry were secondary considerations.
Evidently neither the Mogul nor Hortensio Borgio had suspected this difference of opinion until it was too late. The luckless Venetian had reduced the weight of the great diamond to such an extent that its owner expressed his royal displeasure, not only by refusing to pay for the work but by fining the gem cutter 10000 rupees—and only stopped at that because the poor man had no more.
This big stone, ever a trouble-maker, has long since disappeared—no one knows where—for the great diamond described by Tavernier was the famous Great Mogul whose colorful story, told in a later chapter, ends in mystery.
Jewelers Of The Seventeenth Century (continued)
2. Tavernier, Jeweler To The King
In France, during the first half of the seventeenth century, the taste for fine gemstones had been fanned to a flame by tales of the splendors of the Orient and by confirmation of those tales in the form of magnificent gems brought home by merchant-travelers.
Foremost among the travelers was Jean-Baptiste Tavernier (1605-89), who at the age of twenty-five set forth in the company of two French priests for the Orient. He spent a year in Constantinople trading in costly stones and then made his way to Persia. His description of the splendors he beheld in that land of jewels was more like a dream of enchantment than reality. Even the royal thrones were encrusted with precious stones, he said, but the throne of Shah Jehen eclipsed all others.
This was the famous peacock throne, so-called because of the great jeweled peacock placed above it. The plumage of the bird’s wide-spread tail was represented by a mass of sapphires, emeralds, and other color stones. Its body was enameled gold, studded with rich stones, and from its breast hung a huge pendent ruby and a pear-shaped pearl. Suspended in front of the throne itself was an enormous diamond so that at all times the Shah could feast his eyes on its glittering beauty.
During the course of the next thirty years Tavernier made five more journeys to the Orient, visiting the diamond mines of Golconda and the court of the Great Mogul of India, where he saw a diamond which he described as having the form of an egg cut through the middle. He estimated its value as being more than $4,000,000. This diamond, says Tavernier, was ‘rose cut’; and behind that simple fact lay one of those minor tragedies due to divergence of viewpoint between contracting parties.
The Mogul of India, instead of entrusting his great diamond to a native diamond cutter had commissioned Hortensio Borgio, a Venetian, to cut the stone.
Now, in Europe, diamonds had been cut in the form known as rose as early as 1520, the idea being to bring out the brilliance of the gem even at considerable sacrifice of its size; but in the Orient, size was all important factor. A native gem cutter would small facets (placed hit or miss) to conceal whatever flaws a diamond might have, but he wasted as little as possible of the precious material in the process. Brilliance and symmetry were secondary considerations.
Evidently neither the Mogul nor Hortensio Borgio had suspected this difference of opinion until it was too late. The luckless Venetian had reduced the weight of the great diamond to such an extent that its owner expressed his royal displeasure, not only by refusing to pay for the work but by fining the gem cutter 10000 rupees—and only stopped at that because the poor man had no more.
This big stone, ever a trouble-maker, has long since disappeared—no one knows where—for the great diamond described by Tavernier was the famous Great Mogul whose colorful story, told in a later chapter, ends in mystery.
Jewelers Of The Seventeenth Century (continued)
Colored Stone Jewelry
What's intriguing in the colored stone jewelry business is that consumers are always looking for something new and different to enhance their styles + they want something that reflects and refracts their personality + they appreciate the quality, and if there is a good story, and when they see it, they want it.
Indiana Jones Movie
(via budgettravel) The movie trailer for the next Indiana Jones movie has hit the Web + what's interesting about the Indian Jones series is that the lustre/characters of the movie will be always with you forever.
Monday, February 18, 2008
Paul Reeves
Economist writes about Paul Reeves and his unique furniture collections (British design from the Gothic Revival onwards) + the upcoming exhibition/auction at Sotheby's + other viewpoints @ http://www.economist.com/daily/columns/artview/displaystory.cfm?story_id=10711664
Useful link:
www.paulreeveslondon.com
I think they are beautiful + Paul Reeves definitely has a good eye to spot the real ones.
Useful link:
www.paulreeveslondon.com
I think they are beautiful + Paul Reeves definitely has a good eye to spot the real ones.
Game Of Go
In my view, Go is a very challenging game of the highest levels + the Game of Go may have a lot to teach us about the state of mind + it’s very much a game of risk and reward.
The Cigar-butt Approach
(via Warren Buffett) A cigar butt found on the street that has only one puff left in it may not offer much of a smoke, but the 'bargain purchase' will make that puff all profit.
I have a great attachment to this style because of its simplicity and intuitive appeal + it is easier to figure out and requires less use of judgment than other forms of investing + I wonder whether the concept works in the gem/jewelry/art business.
I have a great attachment to this style because of its simplicity and intuitive appeal + it is easier to figure out and requires less use of judgment than other forms of investing + I wonder whether the concept works in the gem/jewelry/art business.
Jewelers Of The Seventeenth Century
(via 5000 Years of Gems and Jewelry) Frances Rogers and Alice Beard writes:
This work was accomplished in less than three weeks’ time, for, says a State record, 1623, ‘Mr Heriot sat up day and night to get them completed.’
In a letter to the Prince of Wales, who was then traveling in Spain, James wrote that he was sending for his ‘Babie’s owin wearing.....the Three Brethren, that you knowe full well, but newlie sette.’
Aside from the famous pendant, orders were issued concerning the selection of ‘five or six faire jewels to be worn in men’s hats, same to be of £6000 or £7000 value, and none under.’ And to these sumptuous hat ornaments for the Prince, James added ‘the Mirroure of Frawnce, the fellowe of the Portugall Dyamont, quhiche I wolde wishe you to weare alone in your hatte with a little blakke feather.’
The rich jewels of the English crown were before long to face new dangers to their permanent existence. Not long after they came into the hands of Charles I, the ‘Babie’ for whom The Brethren had already suffered resetting, financial affairs were in a bad way. But there were all those jewels which had been collecting for so many years in the royal treasury—and to these Charles turned for a source of ready money, selling and pawning jewels that merely for their historic, if not their intrinsic, value, would each be worth a small fortune today. Many of these he pawned or sold in England, but during the Civil War much valuable jewelry was sent by the King and his sympathizers from England to Amsterdam, where it was broken up, the gold melted, and the gems thrown on the market for whatever they would fetch.
Amsterdam was at that time the gem grading center of Europe. When Portugal had expelled her Jewish gem merchants many of them migrated to Amsterdam, where they opened shops in which jewelry was both sold and taken as security. Above the shop door hung three golden balls as the symbol of the retail jeweler and money lender.
But, all the cash that Amsterdam could supply in exchange for English jewels was insufficient to stem the rush of events that proved fatal, not only to King Charles, but to whatever portion of the royal collection of gems had still remained intact.
Up to this point—the death of Charles—the jewels had at least served the utilitarian purpose of providing the King with money. They had been sacrificed to Mammon but not to Malice. But now the House of Commons, determined to stamp out all things relating to monarchy, proceeded ruthlessly to demolish the emblems of royalty. Deaf to the voices of the few members who tried to halt destruction by pointing out the fact that the crown jewels intact were worth far more than their value if reduced to lumps of gold and unmounted stones, the puritanical members had their way.
Among the treasures was the ancient crown of Alfred the Great, made of gold wire and set with small gems. It was melted down and sold at £3 an ounce. Other royal ornaments, broken up or sold at auction, include scepters; crowns set with diamonds, rubies and sapphires; swords, spurs, and regal plate. The list concludes with the following statement:
The foremention’d crownes, since y inventorie was taken, are accordinge to ord’ of parm totallie broken and defaced.
Eleven years later England again had need of crowns and scepters. According to one old account:
Because through Rapine of the late unhappy times all the Royall Ornaments and Regalia heretofore preserved from age to age in the Treasury of the Church at Westminster, were taken away, sold and destroyed, the Committee mett divers times not only to direct the remaking such Royall Ornaments adn Regalia, but even to sette the form and fashion of each particular.
The new Regalia, made from Charles II, son of the ‘Martyr’, met wtih misfortune when Colonel Blood all but succeeded in making off with it. The State Crown, having been bashed in during this raid, was replaced with an entirely new one for which extra gems had to be purchased, since a number of the original ones were lost in the shuffle.
Jewelers Of The Seventeenth Century (continued)
This work was accomplished in less than three weeks’ time, for, says a State record, 1623, ‘Mr Heriot sat up day and night to get them completed.’
In a letter to the Prince of Wales, who was then traveling in Spain, James wrote that he was sending for his ‘Babie’s owin wearing.....the Three Brethren, that you knowe full well, but newlie sette.’
Aside from the famous pendant, orders were issued concerning the selection of ‘five or six faire jewels to be worn in men’s hats, same to be of £6000 or £7000 value, and none under.’ And to these sumptuous hat ornaments for the Prince, James added ‘the Mirroure of Frawnce, the fellowe of the Portugall Dyamont, quhiche I wolde wishe you to weare alone in your hatte with a little blakke feather.’
The rich jewels of the English crown were before long to face new dangers to their permanent existence. Not long after they came into the hands of Charles I, the ‘Babie’ for whom The Brethren had already suffered resetting, financial affairs were in a bad way. But there were all those jewels which had been collecting for so many years in the royal treasury—and to these Charles turned for a source of ready money, selling and pawning jewels that merely for their historic, if not their intrinsic, value, would each be worth a small fortune today. Many of these he pawned or sold in England, but during the Civil War much valuable jewelry was sent by the King and his sympathizers from England to Amsterdam, where it was broken up, the gold melted, and the gems thrown on the market for whatever they would fetch.
Amsterdam was at that time the gem grading center of Europe. When Portugal had expelled her Jewish gem merchants many of them migrated to Amsterdam, where they opened shops in which jewelry was both sold and taken as security. Above the shop door hung three golden balls as the symbol of the retail jeweler and money lender.
But, all the cash that Amsterdam could supply in exchange for English jewels was insufficient to stem the rush of events that proved fatal, not only to King Charles, but to whatever portion of the royal collection of gems had still remained intact.
Up to this point—the death of Charles—the jewels had at least served the utilitarian purpose of providing the King with money. They had been sacrificed to Mammon but not to Malice. But now the House of Commons, determined to stamp out all things relating to monarchy, proceeded ruthlessly to demolish the emblems of royalty. Deaf to the voices of the few members who tried to halt destruction by pointing out the fact that the crown jewels intact were worth far more than their value if reduced to lumps of gold and unmounted stones, the puritanical members had their way.
Among the treasures was the ancient crown of Alfred the Great, made of gold wire and set with small gems. It was melted down and sold at £3 an ounce. Other royal ornaments, broken up or sold at auction, include scepters; crowns set with diamonds, rubies and sapphires; swords, spurs, and regal plate. The list concludes with the following statement:
The foremention’d crownes, since y inventorie was taken, are accordinge to ord’ of parm totallie broken and defaced.
Eleven years later England again had need of crowns and scepters. According to one old account:
Because through Rapine of the late unhappy times all the Royall Ornaments and Regalia heretofore preserved from age to age in the Treasury of the Church at Westminster, were taken away, sold and destroyed, the Committee mett divers times not only to direct the remaking such Royall Ornaments adn Regalia, but even to sette the form and fashion of each particular.
The new Regalia, made from Charles II, son of the ‘Martyr’, met wtih misfortune when Colonel Blood all but succeeded in making off with it. The State Crown, having been bashed in during this raid, was replaced with an entirely new one for which extra gems had to be purchased, since a number of the original ones were lost in the shuffle.
Jewelers Of The Seventeenth Century (continued)
Natural Landscape
(via The Outline of Art) William Orpen writes:
Sir George Beaumont not only encouraged young Constable to go on with his sketching, but lent him works which might serve as models for his practice. Among these were two water colors by Thomas Girtin, which Constable always maintained set his feet firmly in the right road, and also Claude’s ‘Landscape with the Angel appearing to Hagar,’ a work Beaumont so loved that he took it about with him wherever he traveled. In 1826 he gave this with fifteen other pictures to the nation, but finding he could not live without it he asked for it back till his death, which occurred in the following year. This Claude is now in the National Gallery.
The opinion of this artist-baronet naturally carried weight with Constable’s father, and as a result of his influence John Constable was permitted to go to London in 1795 to study art. Here he was encouraged by Joseph Farington, A.A (1747-1821), who communicated to him some of the precepts he had himself derived from his master Richard Wilson, and in 1799 Constable, through Farington’s influence, was admitted to the Royal Academy Schools. Although the first painting Constable exhibited at the Academy was a landscape, shown in 1802, he began his professional career as a portrait painter, which was then the only profitable branch of art. But after painting some portraits and altar pieces for Brantham in 1804 and for Nayland in 1809, he came to devote himself more or less exclusively to landscape, which was the true bent of his genius. He felt he could paint his own places best, he delighted in the flats of Dedham, with its trees and slow river ‘escaping from milldams, over willows, old rotten planks, slimy posts, and brickwork’; and so he finally settled down as the painter of the rural scenery among which he had been born. In 1803 he had written, ‘I feel now, more than ever, a decided conviction that I shall some time or other make some good pictures; pictures that shall be valuable to posterity, if I do not reap the benefit of them.’
These words were prophetic, and for some years almost the only patrons the young artist had were a kindly uncle and his friend Archdeacon Fisher, the nephew and chaplain of the Bishop of Salisbury. Had Constable been content to be merely topographical artist as Farington and most of the older water colorists were, he would probably have found it easier to sell his works and make a respectable income; but from the first it was his desire not merely to paint ‘portraits of places,’ but to give a true and full impression of Nature, to paint light, dews, breezes, bloom, and freshness. The multitude of his sketches—of which a fine collection may be seen in the Victoria and Albert Museum, South Kensington—show how earnestly and assiduously he studied Nature in all her aspects to attain this end, and though a love of Nature and of truth is discernible even in his earliest works, it was only gradually that Constable acquired the breadth and freedom which distinguish his later works.
If we compare even so beautiful an example of his early style as ‘Boat-building near Flatford Mill,’ painted in 1815, with ‘The Hay Wain,’ painted in 1821, we at once perceive the tremendous advance made by the artist in the intervening six years. It is not altogether without significance to note that the greatest strides forward in his art were made during the early years of his married life, and it may not unreasonably be surmised that the happiness of his private life and domestic contentment compensated Constable for public neglect and helped to give him increased confidence in his own powers.
Natural Landscape (continued)
Sir George Beaumont not only encouraged young Constable to go on with his sketching, but lent him works which might serve as models for his practice. Among these were two water colors by Thomas Girtin, which Constable always maintained set his feet firmly in the right road, and also Claude’s ‘Landscape with the Angel appearing to Hagar,’ a work Beaumont so loved that he took it about with him wherever he traveled. In 1826 he gave this with fifteen other pictures to the nation, but finding he could not live without it he asked for it back till his death, which occurred in the following year. This Claude is now in the National Gallery.
The opinion of this artist-baronet naturally carried weight with Constable’s father, and as a result of his influence John Constable was permitted to go to London in 1795 to study art. Here he was encouraged by Joseph Farington, A.A (1747-1821), who communicated to him some of the precepts he had himself derived from his master Richard Wilson, and in 1799 Constable, through Farington’s influence, was admitted to the Royal Academy Schools. Although the first painting Constable exhibited at the Academy was a landscape, shown in 1802, he began his professional career as a portrait painter, which was then the only profitable branch of art. But after painting some portraits and altar pieces for Brantham in 1804 and for Nayland in 1809, he came to devote himself more or less exclusively to landscape, which was the true bent of his genius. He felt he could paint his own places best, he delighted in the flats of Dedham, with its trees and slow river ‘escaping from milldams, over willows, old rotten planks, slimy posts, and brickwork’; and so he finally settled down as the painter of the rural scenery among which he had been born. In 1803 he had written, ‘I feel now, more than ever, a decided conviction that I shall some time or other make some good pictures; pictures that shall be valuable to posterity, if I do not reap the benefit of them.’
These words were prophetic, and for some years almost the only patrons the young artist had were a kindly uncle and his friend Archdeacon Fisher, the nephew and chaplain of the Bishop of Salisbury. Had Constable been content to be merely topographical artist as Farington and most of the older water colorists were, he would probably have found it easier to sell his works and make a respectable income; but from the first it was his desire not merely to paint ‘portraits of places,’ but to give a true and full impression of Nature, to paint light, dews, breezes, bloom, and freshness. The multitude of his sketches—of which a fine collection may be seen in the Victoria and Albert Museum, South Kensington—show how earnestly and assiduously he studied Nature in all her aspects to attain this end, and though a love of Nature and of truth is discernible even in his earliest works, it was only gradually that Constable acquired the breadth and freedom which distinguish his later works.
If we compare even so beautiful an example of his early style as ‘Boat-building near Flatford Mill,’ painted in 1815, with ‘The Hay Wain,’ painted in 1821, we at once perceive the tremendous advance made by the artist in the intervening six years. It is not altogether without significance to note that the greatest strides forward in his art were made during the early years of his married life, and it may not unreasonably be surmised that the happiness of his private life and domestic contentment compensated Constable for public neglect and helped to give him increased confidence in his own powers.
Natural Landscape (continued)
Global Warming + Wine
At a recent wine makers conference in Barcelona, Spain, carbon dioxide storage was an important topic for discussion (s) among the experts + wine production emits large quantities of CO2, the main gas responsible for climate change + experts believe global warming would lead to harder and less aromatic wines + some have already started experimenting with carbon capture and storage techniques whereby harmful CO2 emissions are trapped and stored underground + I hope wine producers will find innovative ways to use less water, less energy, and practice a more holistic agriculture to produce quality wine.
Useful link:
www.climatechangeandwine.com
Useful link:
www.climatechangeandwine.com
Sunday, February 17, 2008
Coal Is Still King
According to the WCI’s most updated numbers, coal still represents a full quarter of the world’s energy consumption + for world electricity consumption, the share is 40% + more than half of America’s electricity comes from coal + in China and Australia, the totals are closer to 80% + in Poland and South Africa, the totals are over 90% + at the end of the day we’re all coal addicts + most of us just don’t realize it + right now, I think coal is the hottest commodity.
Useful links:
www.worldcoal.org
www.fossil.energy.gov
www.futuregenalliance.org
Useful links:
www.worldcoal.org
www.fossil.energy.gov
www.futuregenalliance.org
Random Thoughts
Many a man has fallen in love with a girl in a light so dim he would not have chosen a suit by it.
- Maurice Chevalier (Actor and singer)
- Maurice Chevalier (Actor and singer)
Diamond-encrusted Hot Wheel Car
Here is what the Mattel website has to say about the diamond-encrusted car:
Hot Wheels® today announced its year-long plans to celebrate the brand's 40-year heritage at the 105th American International Toy Fair®. Anniversary activities were kicked off with the unveiling of a custom jeweled 1:64-scale Hot Wheels® car, designed by celebrity jeweler Jason of Beverly Hills. This one-of-a-kind car, the most expensive in Hot Wheels® history, was made to commemorate the production of the 4 billionth Hot Wheels® vehicle. The diamonds on the custom-made jeweled car, valued at $140,000, totals more than 2,700 and weighs nearly 23 carats. The car is cast in 18-karat white gold with the majority of the vehicle detailed with micro pave-set brilliant blue diamonds, mimicking the Hot Wheels® Spectraflame® blue paint. Under the functional hood, the engine showcases additional micro pave-set white and black diamonds. The Hot Wheels® flame logo found on the underbelly of the car is lined with white and black diamonds. Red rubies are set as the tail lights, while black diamonds and red enamel create the "red line" tires. The custom-made case that houses the jewel-encrusted vehicle also holds 40 individual white diamonds, signifying each year in the legacy of Hot Wheels®.
I really liked it.
Useful links:
www.mattel.com
www.hotwheels.com
Hot Wheels® today announced its year-long plans to celebrate the brand's 40-year heritage at the 105th American International Toy Fair®. Anniversary activities were kicked off with the unveiling of a custom jeweled 1:64-scale Hot Wheels® car, designed by celebrity jeweler Jason of Beverly Hills. This one-of-a-kind car, the most expensive in Hot Wheels® history, was made to commemorate the production of the 4 billionth Hot Wheels® vehicle. The diamonds on the custom-made jeweled car, valued at $140,000, totals more than 2,700 and weighs nearly 23 carats. The car is cast in 18-karat white gold with the majority of the vehicle detailed with micro pave-set brilliant blue diamonds, mimicking the Hot Wheels® Spectraflame® blue paint. Under the functional hood, the engine showcases additional micro pave-set white and black diamonds. The Hot Wheels® flame logo found on the underbelly of the car is lined with white and black diamonds. Red rubies are set as the tail lights, while black diamonds and red enamel create the "red line" tires. The custom-made case that houses the jewel-encrusted vehicle also holds 40 individual white diamonds, signifying each year in the legacy of Hot Wheels®.
I really liked it.
Useful links:
www.mattel.com
www.hotwheels.com
Peter Greenaway
Peter Greenaway, the iconoclastic British film-maker, will be bringing to life the hidden stories he sees in Leonardo Da Vinci's The Last Supper, turning into a narrative that stretches from Christ's birth to his crucifixion with voice given to the thoughts of each disciple as they work out which of them will betray him + if all goes well, it's going to be one-of-a-kind movie with spectacular visual effects and educational content.
Useful link:
www.petergreenawayevents.com
Useful link:
www.petergreenawayevents.com
Vanity Fair Portraits
Vanity Fair has an impressive photographic collection + a new exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery in London will show classic images from Vanity Fair's early period + other viewpoints @ http://www.npg.org.uk/vanityfair/index.htm
I have seen a few and they are brilliant.
I have seen a few and they are brilliant.
Jewelers Of The Seventeenth Century
(via 5000 Years of Gems and Jewelry) Frances Rogers and Alice Beard writes:
1. Old Jewels In New Settings
The dauntless Elizabeth, Queen of England, had died with her clothes on, refusing to relinquish her cumbersome finery even in death. Perhaps it might be possible for a lady to carry a greater load of gold and precious stones than did the regal Elizabeth but for the time being she was champion. The culminating point in the matter of quantity had been reached, and with her death in 1603 the flood tide of jewels in Europe began gradually to recede.
James I, who succeeded Elizabeth, had a wife, Anne, who loved finery but lacked that elusive quality called style. There was little change in dress and jewels in England for some years. After Queen Anne’s death, the ladies even became a degree less flamboyant—but not so the men. Jewels seem to have found a special place of prominence on their enormous felt hats. These hats were decorated extravagantly with jeweled bands and gold clasps set with gems that held in place the bunch of plumes waving jauntily from the side, back, or upturned brim.
Pearls were especially in vogue. My lady’s hair was twined with pearls and it was the acme of elegant distinction for a gentleman to wear a single large, pear-shaped pearl dangling from one ear only, the other ear left unadorned.
Meanwhile, during the first half of the seventeenth century, Europe was torn with a series of wars. In Germany, the Thirty Years’ War had left the country ruined and desolate. The highly skilled, individualistic work of the goldsmith-jeweler is not an art that thrives in time of war. Germany’s goldsmiths, if escape were possible, fled and scattered in other lands.
Along with these unsettled times came changes of fashion. In France, the heavy velvets and stiff brocades that could almost stand alone made place for dainty silks and furbelows less stately, more gay, in accordance with the temper of the French court. Out of mode were the architectural forms, scrolls, and strapwork dear to the German school. Paris called for open lace-like settings in keeping with the new delicacy of fabrics, not the massive ornaments of the century past. The gemstone itself was now called upon to play the leading role; the setting must be subordinate.
And then, as has so often happened, came a wave of remodeling jewelry. Many a fine example of the goldsmith’s art was cast without regard to its beauty into the melting pot.
The epidemic of destruction did not confine itself to France. In Merrie England, when the new king, James I, took stock of the crown jewels, the inventory of 1603 listed ‘a fayre Flower, with three great ballaces, in the myddest a greate pointed dyamonde, and three greate perles fixed, with a fayre greate perle pendante, called The Brethren.’ It was, of course, the same historic pendant made for Charles the Bold, and later added to the royal regalia by Henry VIII. Elizabeth had kept the jewel intact, but when the fever of remodeling jewelry swept Europe, the pendant was among the royal jewels handled over to one of the court jewelers, George Heriot of Edinburgh, for refashioning.
Jewlers Of The Seventeenth Century (continued)
1. Old Jewels In New Settings
The dauntless Elizabeth, Queen of England, had died with her clothes on, refusing to relinquish her cumbersome finery even in death. Perhaps it might be possible for a lady to carry a greater load of gold and precious stones than did the regal Elizabeth but for the time being she was champion. The culminating point in the matter of quantity had been reached, and with her death in 1603 the flood tide of jewels in Europe began gradually to recede.
James I, who succeeded Elizabeth, had a wife, Anne, who loved finery but lacked that elusive quality called style. There was little change in dress and jewels in England for some years. After Queen Anne’s death, the ladies even became a degree less flamboyant—but not so the men. Jewels seem to have found a special place of prominence on their enormous felt hats. These hats were decorated extravagantly with jeweled bands and gold clasps set with gems that held in place the bunch of plumes waving jauntily from the side, back, or upturned brim.
Pearls were especially in vogue. My lady’s hair was twined with pearls and it was the acme of elegant distinction for a gentleman to wear a single large, pear-shaped pearl dangling from one ear only, the other ear left unadorned.
Meanwhile, during the first half of the seventeenth century, Europe was torn with a series of wars. In Germany, the Thirty Years’ War had left the country ruined and desolate. The highly skilled, individualistic work of the goldsmith-jeweler is not an art that thrives in time of war. Germany’s goldsmiths, if escape were possible, fled and scattered in other lands.
Along with these unsettled times came changes of fashion. In France, the heavy velvets and stiff brocades that could almost stand alone made place for dainty silks and furbelows less stately, more gay, in accordance with the temper of the French court. Out of mode were the architectural forms, scrolls, and strapwork dear to the German school. Paris called for open lace-like settings in keeping with the new delicacy of fabrics, not the massive ornaments of the century past. The gemstone itself was now called upon to play the leading role; the setting must be subordinate.
And then, as has so often happened, came a wave of remodeling jewelry. Many a fine example of the goldsmith’s art was cast without regard to its beauty into the melting pot.
The epidemic of destruction did not confine itself to France. In Merrie England, when the new king, James I, took stock of the crown jewels, the inventory of 1603 listed ‘a fayre Flower, with three great ballaces, in the myddest a greate pointed dyamonde, and three greate perles fixed, with a fayre greate perle pendante, called The Brethren.’ It was, of course, the same historic pendant made for Charles the Bold, and later added to the royal regalia by Henry VIII. Elizabeth had kept the jewel intact, but when the fever of remodeling jewelry swept Europe, the pendant was among the royal jewels handled over to one of the court jewelers, George Heriot of Edinburgh, for refashioning.
Jewlers Of The Seventeenth Century (continued)
Natural Landscape
(via The Outline of Art) William Orpen writes:
The Art Of Constable, Bonington, Crome, And Cotman
1
Unquestionably the two greatest English painters of landscape, and probably the two greatest English painters of any kind, were Turner and Constable, who were born within a year of one another. Turner, as we saw in the last chapter, amassed a large fortune; Constable, on the other hand, could hardly earn a bare living, and not until 1814, when the artist was thirty eight, did he sell a picture to any but his own personal friends.
How was it that, from a worldly point of view, Constable failed where Turner succeeded? The explanation is to be found in the totally different character of the landscapes painted by these two artists. Turner, as Claude had done before him, made frequent use of nominal subjects as an excuse for his pictures of Nature; there was a dramatic element in his art which appealed to the popular imagination, and even when, as in many of his later works, people found difficulty in apprehending the elements of his style, they were insensibly affected by the splendor of his color and brought to admit that these pictures, if difficult to understand, were paintings in the ‘grand style’.
Constable never made use of ficticious subjects and titles as an excuse for painting landscapes. His works were wholly free from any dramatic or foreign interest, and following example of the Dutch landscape painters of the seventeenth century, he whole-heartedly devoted himself to painting the simple, homely beauty of the scenery in his native land. He modestly confessed that he thought there was room for a ‘natural painter’ and by this he meant a painter who would devote himself to painting as truly as he could the beauty of Nature without importing into his pictures any extraneous reference to Homeric legend or to events in the past or present.
His landscapes were long unappreciated because they appealed to a pure love of Nature which was not fully awake in the artist’s lifetime. ‘My art,’ said Constable a little bitterly in his middle years, ‘flatters nobody by imitation, it courts nobody by smoothness, tickles nobody by petiteness, it is without either fal-de-lal or fiddle-de-dee; how can I then hope to be popular?’
John Constable was born on June 11, 1776, nearly fourteen months, to be precise, after the birth of Turner. He was the son of a miller who owned watermills at Flatford and Dedham and two windmills at East Berghholt in Suffolk. It was at the mill house in East Berghholt that John Constable was born, and here he passed the greater part of his youth. His father wished him to enter the Church, but Constable had no inclination in this direction, and after he had finished his education in the local school, at the age of eighteen he assisted his father in the mill at East Bergholt which figures in so many of his landscapes.
Meanwhile his love of Nature and art was encouraged by a great amateur who happened to have his seat in the neighboring county of Essex and wa quick to recognize the talent of young Constable. Sir George Beaumont (1753-1827) was something of a painter himself, he had been a pupil of Richard Wilson; and he was an enthusiastic patron of art and artists. He had peculiar ideas about color, and his well-known saying that ‘a good picture, like good fiddle, should be brown,’ was not helpful to a painter like Constable, who saw them; but at this time Constable was beginner, and the friendly encouragement and advice of Beaumont decided Constable’s career.
One of the best things about Sir George Beaumont, to whose zeal and generosity we owe in large measure the establishment of the National Gallery, was his unremitting efforts to make England appreciate the genius of her own artists. As a young man he had waggishly shown up the ignorance of the public and its ridiculous passion for foreign artists by advertising in the newspapers that a wonderful German had arrived in Bond Street who could take likenesses by a new method of heating the mirror in which the sitter looked, and for ever fixing and preserving the reflection! On the next day a crowd of fashionable folk flocked to Bond Street, only to be laughed at by the practical joker and his friends.
Natural Landscape (continued)
The Art Of Constable, Bonington, Crome, And Cotman
1
Unquestionably the two greatest English painters of landscape, and probably the two greatest English painters of any kind, were Turner and Constable, who were born within a year of one another. Turner, as we saw in the last chapter, amassed a large fortune; Constable, on the other hand, could hardly earn a bare living, and not until 1814, when the artist was thirty eight, did he sell a picture to any but his own personal friends.
How was it that, from a worldly point of view, Constable failed where Turner succeeded? The explanation is to be found in the totally different character of the landscapes painted by these two artists. Turner, as Claude had done before him, made frequent use of nominal subjects as an excuse for his pictures of Nature; there was a dramatic element in his art which appealed to the popular imagination, and even when, as in many of his later works, people found difficulty in apprehending the elements of his style, they were insensibly affected by the splendor of his color and brought to admit that these pictures, if difficult to understand, were paintings in the ‘grand style’.
Constable never made use of ficticious subjects and titles as an excuse for painting landscapes. His works were wholly free from any dramatic or foreign interest, and following example of the Dutch landscape painters of the seventeenth century, he whole-heartedly devoted himself to painting the simple, homely beauty of the scenery in his native land. He modestly confessed that he thought there was room for a ‘natural painter’ and by this he meant a painter who would devote himself to painting as truly as he could the beauty of Nature without importing into his pictures any extraneous reference to Homeric legend or to events in the past or present.
His landscapes were long unappreciated because they appealed to a pure love of Nature which was not fully awake in the artist’s lifetime. ‘My art,’ said Constable a little bitterly in his middle years, ‘flatters nobody by imitation, it courts nobody by smoothness, tickles nobody by petiteness, it is without either fal-de-lal or fiddle-de-dee; how can I then hope to be popular?’
John Constable was born on June 11, 1776, nearly fourteen months, to be precise, after the birth of Turner. He was the son of a miller who owned watermills at Flatford and Dedham and two windmills at East Berghholt in Suffolk. It was at the mill house in East Berghholt that John Constable was born, and here he passed the greater part of his youth. His father wished him to enter the Church, but Constable had no inclination in this direction, and after he had finished his education in the local school, at the age of eighteen he assisted his father in the mill at East Bergholt which figures in so many of his landscapes.
Meanwhile his love of Nature and art was encouraged by a great amateur who happened to have his seat in the neighboring county of Essex and wa quick to recognize the talent of young Constable. Sir George Beaumont (1753-1827) was something of a painter himself, he had been a pupil of Richard Wilson; and he was an enthusiastic patron of art and artists. He had peculiar ideas about color, and his well-known saying that ‘a good picture, like good fiddle, should be brown,’ was not helpful to a painter like Constable, who saw them; but at this time Constable was beginner, and the friendly encouragement and advice of Beaumont decided Constable’s career.
One of the best things about Sir George Beaumont, to whose zeal and generosity we owe in large measure the establishment of the National Gallery, was his unremitting efforts to make England appreciate the genius of her own artists. As a young man he had waggishly shown up the ignorance of the public and its ridiculous passion for foreign artists by advertising in the newspapers that a wonderful German had arrived in Bond Street who could take likenesses by a new method of heating the mirror in which the sitter looked, and for ever fixing and preserving the reflection! On the next day a crowd of fashionable folk flocked to Bond Street, only to be laughed at by the practical joker and his friends.
Natural Landscape (continued)
Saturday, February 16, 2008
Heard On The Street
Remember: the market is always right + you can never be taught about market, you have to learn it + you must balance fear and greed.
Eric Estorick
The story of Eric Estorick is unique + the collection of art and sculpture (s) dating from 1890 to the 1950s includes Giacomo Balla + Umberto Boccioni, Carlo Carrà + Gino Severini + Luigi Russolo + Ardengo Soffici + works by Giorgio de Chirico + Amedeo Modigliani + Giorgio Morandi + Mario Sironi + Marino Marini + the Estorick Collection of Modern Italian Art museum in Canonbury Square in the district of Islington on the northern fringes of central London is the United Kingdom's only gallery devoted to modern Italian art.
Useful links:
www.estorickcollection.com
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Estorick_Collection_of_Modern_Italian_Art
http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/02/15/arts/melik16.php
What made Eric a great collector?
A wonderful eye, timing, foresight, energy.
-Michael Estorick
I think that neatly sums up what it takes to be an art hunter, whether as a dealer or a collector.
Useful links:
www.estorickcollection.com
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Estorick_Collection_of_Modern_Italian_Art
http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/02/15/arts/melik16.php
What made Eric a great collector?
A wonderful eye, timing, foresight, energy.
-Michael Estorick
I think that neatly sums up what it takes to be an art hunter, whether as a dealer or a collector.
Flawless
Trailer for 'Flawless', the new diamond movie @ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2GfpT1GCXy8
I hope you will like it.
I hope you will like it.
The Detective And The Investor
The Detective and The Investor by Robert G. Hagstrom is an interesting novel book on how the investigative methods used by the great fictional detectives to analyse the evidence and solve the mystery can be used by investors when analysing a business and determining its value + I liked it.
I was wondering whether the concept could be applied in gem and jewelry analysis + valuation.
I was wondering whether the concept could be applied in gem and jewelry analysis + valuation.
Failed Leadership And Fraudulent Certificates
Chaim Even Zohar writes about the state of DDC (Diamond Dealers Club) today + leadership issues and the impact + GIA’s Certifigate scandal and the key players + other viewpoints @ http://www.idexonline.com/portal_Forum_Type.asp?id=31
Jewelers Of Renaissance
(via 5000 Years of Gems and Jewelry) Frances Rogers and Alice Beard writes:
- Fancy Or Gadget Rings
It seems probable that a great number of gadget rings perished along with the charm of their novelty. Nevertheless some types of these hybrids still exist to rejoice the hearts of collectors. Among them may be listed such items as the pugilist’s ring intended to be used as a weapon, something akin to ‘brass knuckles’; the compass ring, self-explanatory; the puzzle ring, ornamented with a rebus, and the tobacco stopper.
Tobacco had been introduced into Europe during the latter part of the sixteenth century, but it was too costly a luxury for any but the very wealthy. It was smoked in a small pipe and the smoke was expelled through the nose, not through the mouth. One may picture the young exquisite of the day daintly packing tobacco into his pipe with his golden ring, and breathing smoke from his nostrils—a strange new fashion—a sight to provoke awed admiration tinged with alarm! The tobacco stopper no doubt served its purpose well enough but it must have been an awkward ring to wear.
Then there was the ‘writing diamond’ ring. Vivid among our childhood’s memories of English history, as taught in schools, is the threadbare and doubtless unauthenticatic story of Queen Elizabeth and the aspiring gentleman who wrote upon the windowpane with his ring:
Fain would I climb but that I fear to fall.
And the Queen trying her hand at diamond writing, followed with:
If they heart fail thee, do not climb at all.
We used to think diamond writing must have been a difficult feat and that the ring was made for the sole purpose of writing messages or names on windowpanes. Probably it was used to greater advantage in the new fad for engraving glass tableware.
It Italy, the makers of fine glassware had recently invented a new mode of decorating a thin crystal goblet by covering it with an intricate and lacy design made up of a myriad of fine dots. The engraving tool was a diamond point. Presently glass-men of other countries took by glass-stippling, and before long the layman followed suit. He made a hobby of stippling fairy-like pictures on drinking glasses, and since it was a dainty art it appealed to the ladies, and a pointed diamond set in a ring was a charming tool.
There are many rings of the Renaissance whose bezel is made in the form of a little case with a hinged lid, or with a sliding panel beneath the bezel, thus providing a small space where perfume or poison could be kept. An ingenious form of poison ring borrowed its idea from the rattlesnake. A small hollow tube with a sharp point like a fang was connected with a reservoir of poison. When the point was turned inward, a tiny but fatal pucture could be made merely by clasping the hand of an enemy with warm enthusiasm.
- Fancy Or Gadget Rings
It seems probable that a great number of gadget rings perished along with the charm of their novelty. Nevertheless some types of these hybrids still exist to rejoice the hearts of collectors. Among them may be listed such items as the pugilist’s ring intended to be used as a weapon, something akin to ‘brass knuckles’; the compass ring, self-explanatory; the puzzle ring, ornamented with a rebus, and the tobacco stopper.
Tobacco had been introduced into Europe during the latter part of the sixteenth century, but it was too costly a luxury for any but the very wealthy. It was smoked in a small pipe and the smoke was expelled through the nose, not through the mouth. One may picture the young exquisite of the day daintly packing tobacco into his pipe with his golden ring, and breathing smoke from his nostrils—a strange new fashion—a sight to provoke awed admiration tinged with alarm! The tobacco stopper no doubt served its purpose well enough but it must have been an awkward ring to wear.
Then there was the ‘writing diamond’ ring. Vivid among our childhood’s memories of English history, as taught in schools, is the threadbare and doubtless unauthenticatic story of Queen Elizabeth and the aspiring gentleman who wrote upon the windowpane with his ring:
Fain would I climb but that I fear to fall.
And the Queen trying her hand at diamond writing, followed with:
If they heart fail thee, do not climb at all.
We used to think diamond writing must have been a difficult feat and that the ring was made for the sole purpose of writing messages or names on windowpanes. Probably it was used to greater advantage in the new fad for engraving glass tableware.
It Italy, the makers of fine glassware had recently invented a new mode of decorating a thin crystal goblet by covering it with an intricate and lacy design made up of a myriad of fine dots. The engraving tool was a diamond point. Presently glass-men of other countries took by glass-stippling, and before long the layman followed suit. He made a hobby of stippling fairy-like pictures on drinking glasses, and since it was a dainty art it appealed to the ladies, and a pointed diamond set in a ring was a charming tool.
There are many rings of the Renaissance whose bezel is made in the form of a little case with a hinged lid, or with a sliding panel beneath the bezel, thus providing a small space where perfume or poison could be kept. An ingenious form of poison ring borrowed its idea from the rattlesnake. A small hollow tube with a sharp point like a fang was connected with a reservoir of poison. When the point was turned inward, a tiny but fatal pucture could be made merely by clasping the hand of an enemy with warm enthusiasm.
The Rise Of Landscape Painting
(via The Outline of Art) William Orpen writes:
From Birmingham David Cox went to London to paint scenery—at four shillings a square yard!—in the Surrey Theatre, varying this work with sepia drawings, which he sold to a dealer at two guineas a dozen for school copies. Meanwhile he made every endeavor to improve his art and took lessons from John Varley (1778-1842), an artist of refined accomplishment, who was one of the founders of the Water-color Society in 1804. Varley, who had had his own struggles before he made a position for himself as one of the best water-colorists of his time, like Cox so much and thought so highly of his talent that he would not allow the young man to pay him for his lessons.
Under Varley’s tuition Cox rapidly improved his art and his circumstances; he was able to quit the theatre and earn money in his turn by giving lessons, and in 1805 he made his first visit to Wales, where he discovered Bettws-y-Coed, ever after to be his Mecca. On his return he exhibited his Welsh water colors, which attracted some attention, and in 1808 he married and settled down in a little house on Dulwich Common. Here he gave lessons to pupils and polished his own art by the diligent study of the surrounding scenery, learning to render the varied effects of Nature and the aspects of morning, noon, and twilight. In 1813 he was elected a member of the Water-color Society and became one of the principal contributors to its exhibitions.
In 1829 he made a tour on the Continent, choosing his subjects on the coasts and in the market places of Antwerp and Brussels, and the crowded bridges of Paris, but he liked best the scenery of his own country, particularly the mountainous country of Wales and Scotland, whose gloomy passes he painted with great effect and grandeur. He also painted many views of the Thames and of the country round London, but till he was past fifty he worked exclusively in water-colors.
In 1839, however, when he was fifty six, Cox became acquainted with a young Bristol painter, William James Mϋller (1812-45), who had just returned from a long journey through Greece and Egypt. Mϋller was himself a very brilliant colorist and a skillful painter in oils; the man and his work made a deep impression on Cox, who studied Mϋller and watched him at work, and henceforward devoted himself more to oils than to water-colors. About 1841 Cox left London and settled at Greenfield House, Harborne, near Birmingham, and there, with an annual excursion of some weeks to his beloved Bettwys-y-Coed, he lived till the day of his death on June 7, 1859. During these later years Cox gave himself chiefly to oil-painting; his best pictures were seldom seen in London during his own lifetime, and when shown were not generally appreciated. It was only after his death that his merit as an oil painter became widely recognized.
Whether in oil or in water color the work of David Cox is distinguished by its light, its vigor, and its spaciousness. His pictures ‘A Windy Day,’ also known as ‘Crossing the Common,’ is a happy example of the scene and weather he excelled in rendering.
From Birmingham David Cox went to London to paint scenery—at four shillings a square yard!—in the Surrey Theatre, varying this work with sepia drawings, which he sold to a dealer at two guineas a dozen for school copies. Meanwhile he made every endeavor to improve his art and took lessons from John Varley (1778-1842), an artist of refined accomplishment, who was one of the founders of the Water-color Society in 1804. Varley, who had had his own struggles before he made a position for himself as one of the best water-colorists of his time, like Cox so much and thought so highly of his talent that he would not allow the young man to pay him for his lessons.
Under Varley’s tuition Cox rapidly improved his art and his circumstances; he was able to quit the theatre and earn money in his turn by giving lessons, and in 1805 he made his first visit to Wales, where he discovered Bettws-y-Coed, ever after to be his Mecca. On his return he exhibited his Welsh water colors, which attracted some attention, and in 1808 he married and settled down in a little house on Dulwich Common. Here he gave lessons to pupils and polished his own art by the diligent study of the surrounding scenery, learning to render the varied effects of Nature and the aspects of morning, noon, and twilight. In 1813 he was elected a member of the Water-color Society and became one of the principal contributors to its exhibitions.
In 1829 he made a tour on the Continent, choosing his subjects on the coasts and in the market places of Antwerp and Brussels, and the crowded bridges of Paris, but he liked best the scenery of his own country, particularly the mountainous country of Wales and Scotland, whose gloomy passes he painted with great effect and grandeur. He also painted many views of the Thames and of the country round London, but till he was past fifty he worked exclusively in water-colors.
In 1839, however, when he was fifty six, Cox became acquainted with a young Bristol painter, William James Mϋller (1812-45), who had just returned from a long journey through Greece and Egypt. Mϋller was himself a very brilliant colorist and a skillful painter in oils; the man and his work made a deep impression on Cox, who studied Mϋller and watched him at work, and henceforward devoted himself more to oils than to water-colors. About 1841 Cox left London and settled at Greenfield House, Harborne, near Birmingham, and there, with an annual excursion of some weeks to his beloved Bettwys-y-Coed, he lived till the day of his death on June 7, 1859. During these later years Cox gave himself chiefly to oil-painting; his best pictures were seldom seen in London during his own lifetime, and when shown were not generally appreciated. It was only after his death that his merit as an oil painter became widely recognized.
Whether in oil or in water color the work of David Cox is distinguished by its light, its vigor, and its spaciousness. His pictures ‘A Windy Day,’ also known as ‘Crossing the Common,’ is a happy example of the scene and weather he excelled in rendering.
Heard On The Street
We have no way of knowing what lays ahead for us in the future + all we can do is use the information at hand to make the best decision possible.
The Estanque
(via Diamond Cuts in Historic Jewelry:1381-1910) Herbert Tillander writes:
During his travels in the Netherlands towards the end of 1559, King Philip II of Spain bought the largest diamond ever seen in Europe. The merchant who sold him the rough stone was (according to Charles de Lecluse, who spells the name in various ways) Juan Carlos Affaitatus. King Philip had the stone fashioned into a single exceptionally fine gem weighing nearly 50 ct, which was given the name of Estanque, meaning ‘impervious’ or ‘adamantine’. He presented the diamond, and the famous Peregrina pearl, to his third wife Elizabeth of Valois as a wedding present. On 13th February 1560 she rode in state into Toledo, wearing both these jewels and another large Table Cut diamond. This second Table can be seen in portraits of the English Queen, Mary Tudor, Philp’s second wife, on whose death in 1558 the diamond returned to the Spanish Crown.
Large Table Cut diamonds were the height of fashion in Spain at that time; they often had drop-shaped pearls suspended from them. The Peregrina and the Estanque were later combined into one jewel known as the Joyel Rico or the Jewel of the Austrias, which suggests that it was created for Philip’s fourth wife, Anne of Austria.
It has only been possible to analyze the cut of the stone through the efforts of Dr Muller, who discovered a most interesting description in Saez Diez’s manual for jewelers, published in 1781. Diez claimed that the area of the gem was equal to the area of a 56ct diamond. He had not actually seen the gem, but it is clear that a trustworthy informant had compared the size of the Estanque with Jeffries’ charts.
A number of portraits of Spanish queens show the Estanque diamond, but in most of them the brushwork is imprecise. However, in the portrait of Margarita of Austria, wife of Philip III of Spain, Bartolomé Gonzales (appointed Pintor del Rei in 1617) has reproduced the gem with exceptional accuracy. He shows the size of the table and the culet, the stepping of the pavilion, and the reflections of the culet in the crown facets. These last indicate that it was a shallow stone.
Drawing of the Estanque diamond: diameter of 22mm, a table size of 78 percent and a crown height of 11 percent. The angles of inclination are 45° both above and below the girdle. The application of a step near the culet was a device widely used in Antwerp throughout the period when Table Cuts remained in fashion. It made it possible to reduce the size of the culet and at the same time to retain the 45° angles of the pavilion. If the step was applied at precisely the right point, it gave increased reflections of light from the pavilion. The broken lines in the diagram indicate the shape of a standard High Table Cut.
Two other painting of the Estanque diamond confirm my analysis of it: a portrait of Queen Anna by Alonso Sanchez Coello and a portrait of Queen Margarita, said to have been painted by Diego Velázquez and his studio.
During his travels in the Netherlands towards the end of 1559, King Philip II of Spain bought the largest diamond ever seen in Europe. The merchant who sold him the rough stone was (according to Charles de Lecluse, who spells the name in various ways) Juan Carlos Affaitatus. King Philip had the stone fashioned into a single exceptionally fine gem weighing nearly 50 ct, which was given the name of Estanque, meaning ‘impervious’ or ‘adamantine’. He presented the diamond, and the famous Peregrina pearl, to his third wife Elizabeth of Valois as a wedding present. On 13th February 1560 she rode in state into Toledo, wearing both these jewels and another large Table Cut diamond. This second Table can be seen in portraits of the English Queen, Mary Tudor, Philp’s second wife, on whose death in 1558 the diamond returned to the Spanish Crown.
Large Table Cut diamonds were the height of fashion in Spain at that time; they often had drop-shaped pearls suspended from them. The Peregrina and the Estanque were later combined into one jewel known as the Joyel Rico or the Jewel of the Austrias, which suggests that it was created for Philip’s fourth wife, Anne of Austria.
It has only been possible to analyze the cut of the stone through the efforts of Dr Muller, who discovered a most interesting description in Saez Diez’s manual for jewelers, published in 1781. Diez claimed that the area of the gem was equal to the area of a 56ct diamond. He had not actually seen the gem, but it is clear that a trustworthy informant had compared the size of the Estanque with Jeffries’ charts.
A number of portraits of Spanish queens show the Estanque diamond, but in most of them the brushwork is imprecise. However, in the portrait of Margarita of Austria, wife of Philip III of Spain, Bartolomé Gonzales (appointed Pintor del Rei in 1617) has reproduced the gem with exceptional accuracy. He shows the size of the table and the culet, the stepping of the pavilion, and the reflections of the culet in the crown facets. These last indicate that it was a shallow stone.
Drawing of the Estanque diamond: diameter of 22mm, a table size of 78 percent and a crown height of 11 percent. The angles of inclination are 45° both above and below the girdle. The application of a step near the culet was a device widely used in Antwerp throughout the period when Table Cuts remained in fashion. It made it possible to reduce the size of the culet and at the same time to retain the 45° angles of the pavilion. If the step was applied at precisely the right point, it gave increased reflections of light from the pavilion. The broken lines in the diagram indicate the shape of a standard High Table Cut.
Two other painting of the Estanque diamond confirm my analysis of it: a portrait of Queen Anna by Alonso Sanchez Coello and a portrait of Queen Margarita, said to have been painted by Diego Velázquez and his studio.
Friday, February 15, 2008
Jean-Michel Basquiat
Jean-Michel Basquiat was an American artist + he became popular, first as a graffiti artist in New York City, and then as a successful 1980s-era Neo-expressionist artist + his paintings continue to influence modern day artists and command high prices + in my view his strong use of color and the social commentary in his work creates that otherness.
Useful links:
www.basquiat.com
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean-Michel_Basquiat
Every single line means something.
- Jean-Michel Basquiat
Useful links:
www.basquiat.com
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean-Michel_Basquiat
Every single line means something.
- Jean-Michel Basquiat
The Davis Dynasty
The Davis Dynasty by John Rothchild is a wonderful book about Shelby Davis, one of Wall Street's most successful and least-known investors + its part character study/part Wall Street history + I liked it.
Gulf Stream Energy
Scientists believe that the mighty Gulf Stream, off Florida’s coast rushes by at nearly 8.5 billion gallons per second, the world’s most powerful sustained ocean current + it represent a new, plentiful and uninterrupted source of clean energy + but for now, no one knows the environmental consequences + I think a cost-efficient ‘energy mix’ could be one solution + it’s encouraging to see innovative companies researching for alternative sources to replace fossil fuels.
Useful links:
www.epri.com
www.finavera.com
www.ferc.gov
http://coet.fau.edu
Useful links:
www.epri.com
www.finavera.com
www.ferc.gov
http://coet.fau.edu
Jewelers Of Renaissance
(via 5000 Years of Gems and Jewelry) Frances Rogers and Alice Beard writes:
- Rings Of Romance And Sentiment
Betrothal rings, wedding rings, love rings, rings as token of friendship or of loyalty to some chosen hero, rings given wholesale in commemoration of an event such as a wedding or a funeral, individual mourning rings—rings no end.
It would seem that a ring more than any other form of jewelry must support the total weight of human emotions and stand by as emblem of joy, woe, and all the intervening shades of feeling that make up the sum of personal relations.
The custom of exchanging betrothal rings traces back to classical times. In ancient Rome the ring represented a pledge made by the father or guardian of the woman to the man destined to be her husband. He in turn pledged himself by the presentation of a ring to his bride-to-be. Such a contract appears not to have been unbreakable if the parties concerned changed their minds. But by the end of the Middle Ages, it would seem that betrothal and marriage had become so closely related that the wedding ring and the betrothal ring merged into one.
Among the Early Christian writings is a passage stating that a betrothal ring ‘is given by the espouser to the espoused either for a sign of mutual fidelity or still more to join their hearts by this pledge, and therefore the ring is placed on the fourth finger because a certain vein, it is said, flows thence to the heart.’
Since the thumb was counted as the first finger, doubtless the finger referred to was in fact the third. Nearly all medieval paintings which represent a wedding ceremony show the ring being placed on the right hand. A change of practice in placing the ring on the third finger of the left instead of the right hand first appears in the Book of Common Prayer of Edward VI (1549).
The ring as a symbol of marriage seems to be one of our permanent institutions, continuing through changes of fashion both in its outward form and in the ceremony of conferring it. Even when the English Puritans tried their best to do away with the wedding ring they failed to suppress it.
Fashion in wedding rings has been changeable, swinging from the simplest band of metal without any ornament to elaborately wrought designs or rings set with stones, then back again to the plain metal hoop.
As a marked instance of elaboration stands the Jewish wedding ring. Far too unwieldy for daily wear, it was used only during the wedding ceremony. In many of these heavy rings the bezel took the form of a gabled building, a synagogue or Solomon’s Temple; sometimes wrought in great detail with roof tiles of enamel and a couple of weather vanes that could revolve as practically as real weather vanes of normal size. The bands of these rings were also elaborately ornamented and often bore a Hebrew inscription meaning Good Luck.
Emblematic of love and friendship was the gimmel ring which consisted of two rings closely locked together, but capable of being separated so that two lovers or friends could each wear, in a sense, the same ring.
Another ring signifying a close bond was the fede ring, whose symbol of two clasped hands can be traced back to classical times and from then onward to the present day. Not infrequently the gimmel and the fede were combined, the double ring bearing the symbolic device of clasped hands, perhaps the better to denote a double quota of ardent devotion between the two parties concerned. There was nothing lukewarm about the Renaissance. Emotions were as spectacular and colorful as jewels and as readily displayed, unless there was some very good reason other than shyness for concealing them.
During the Middle Ages began a vogue for a type of love ring known as the ‘posy’ ring. The vogue grew in popularity, reaching its peak in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.
The posy or poesy ring, while it might indicate the emotional bond between two lovers, was also handy for the expression of calmer sentiments. In either case the sentiment was usually conveyed in the form of a rhyme engraved on the ring band.
Here are some posy ring inscriptions:
- Let this present my good intent.
- Thy friend am I, and so will dye.
- If I think my wife is fair, what need other people care?
- My dearest Betty is good and pretty.
- I like, I love, as turtledove.
- This and the giver, are thine forever.
Supposedly the versified sentiment originated with the ‘giver’ and sometimes it did. But on the whole, jewelers could tell a different story. They had a store of ready-made rhymes which saved the purchaser a lot of trouble. By 1674, there was published a book entitled Love’s Garland, or Posies for Rings, Handkerchiefs, and Gloves, and such like pretty Tokens that Lovers send their Loves. That book finds an amusing parallel in the ready-made appropriate greetings and messages for all occasions recently provided by the telegraph company. Thought-saving devices have a perennial welcome.
Somewhat related to the custom of tying a string around your finger to make you remember something was the custom of giving rings to commemorate an event, joyous or woeful. The fashion of giving rings to wedding guests seems to have reached a high peak in Elizabeth’s time when Sir Edward Killey ‘is said to have presented four thousand pounds’ worth of gold rings at the marriage of one of his maid-servants.’ Even so, the giving of rings at weddings never became as widespread and excessively practised as did the bestowal of funeral rings. Since a certain sum was often set aside and directions given in the will of the deceased for the purchase commemorative rings, it is difficult to say whether the custom was inspired merely by fashion or by a pathetic longing to be remembered after death.
Although the practice of inscribing rings with the date of death of the deceased can be traced back to the Middle Ages, a distinctive type of mourning ring was not evolved until about the middle of the seventeenth century. Then there was no mistaking it. Inside the hoop was engraved the name and date of death; outside, it was decorated with a skeleton in gold on a black background; and the bezel was set with a crystal which covered either the representation of a skull or a lock of the deceased’s hair. Sometimes his initials were formed in gold thread on a ground of colored silk.
It appears that the ring is the Jack-of-all-trades among jewels—or at least that the jeweler has done his best to load it with responsibilities other than its nature as an ornament requires.
In the latter part of the Middle Ages education was still a luxury beyond reach of the masses. Many people could neither read nor write and the custom of using a signet ring was almost as necessary as it had been back in ancient Egypt. The usual type of gem ring was ‘stirrup-shape.’ Its engraved device might be some emblem or it might be a portrait of the owner. The merchant had his own special signet ring, a trademark with which to stamp his goods so that even though his customers might not be able to read they would have no difficulty in recognizing his distinctive seal.
The signet ring, still serving more than one purpose, was wont most conveniently to combine practical use and romantic sentiment. One famous example bears the letters H.M. in a monogram bound by a truelover’s knot. Inside the hoop is engraved HENRIL DARNLEY, 1655. Touched not alone with romance but with tragedy, is this signet-betrothal ring, for it is believed to be that given by the ill-fated Mary, Queen of Scots, to her future husband, Darnley.
Entirely fitting, practical, and dignified was the signet ring; but treading on the heels of dignity came numbers of contraptions—hybrid rings intended both for use and ornament and not making a very good job of either career. For this type of ring our modern colloquial term ‘gadget’ is aptly descriptive.
Jewelers Of Renaissance (continued)
- Rings Of Romance And Sentiment
Betrothal rings, wedding rings, love rings, rings as token of friendship or of loyalty to some chosen hero, rings given wholesale in commemoration of an event such as a wedding or a funeral, individual mourning rings—rings no end.
It would seem that a ring more than any other form of jewelry must support the total weight of human emotions and stand by as emblem of joy, woe, and all the intervening shades of feeling that make up the sum of personal relations.
The custom of exchanging betrothal rings traces back to classical times. In ancient Rome the ring represented a pledge made by the father or guardian of the woman to the man destined to be her husband. He in turn pledged himself by the presentation of a ring to his bride-to-be. Such a contract appears not to have been unbreakable if the parties concerned changed their minds. But by the end of the Middle Ages, it would seem that betrothal and marriage had become so closely related that the wedding ring and the betrothal ring merged into one.
Among the Early Christian writings is a passage stating that a betrothal ring ‘is given by the espouser to the espoused either for a sign of mutual fidelity or still more to join their hearts by this pledge, and therefore the ring is placed on the fourth finger because a certain vein, it is said, flows thence to the heart.’
Since the thumb was counted as the first finger, doubtless the finger referred to was in fact the third. Nearly all medieval paintings which represent a wedding ceremony show the ring being placed on the right hand. A change of practice in placing the ring on the third finger of the left instead of the right hand first appears in the Book of Common Prayer of Edward VI (1549).
The ring as a symbol of marriage seems to be one of our permanent institutions, continuing through changes of fashion both in its outward form and in the ceremony of conferring it. Even when the English Puritans tried their best to do away with the wedding ring they failed to suppress it.
Fashion in wedding rings has been changeable, swinging from the simplest band of metal without any ornament to elaborately wrought designs or rings set with stones, then back again to the plain metal hoop.
As a marked instance of elaboration stands the Jewish wedding ring. Far too unwieldy for daily wear, it was used only during the wedding ceremony. In many of these heavy rings the bezel took the form of a gabled building, a synagogue or Solomon’s Temple; sometimes wrought in great detail with roof tiles of enamel and a couple of weather vanes that could revolve as practically as real weather vanes of normal size. The bands of these rings were also elaborately ornamented and often bore a Hebrew inscription meaning Good Luck.
Emblematic of love and friendship was the gimmel ring which consisted of two rings closely locked together, but capable of being separated so that two lovers or friends could each wear, in a sense, the same ring.
Another ring signifying a close bond was the fede ring, whose symbol of two clasped hands can be traced back to classical times and from then onward to the present day. Not infrequently the gimmel and the fede were combined, the double ring bearing the symbolic device of clasped hands, perhaps the better to denote a double quota of ardent devotion between the two parties concerned. There was nothing lukewarm about the Renaissance. Emotions were as spectacular and colorful as jewels and as readily displayed, unless there was some very good reason other than shyness for concealing them.
During the Middle Ages began a vogue for a type of love ring known as the ‘posy’ ring. The vogue grew in popularity, reaching its peak in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.
The posy or poesy ring, while it might indicate the emotional bond between two lovers, was also handy for the expression of calmer sentiments. In either case the sentiment was usually conveyed in the form of a rhyme engraved on the ring band.
Here are some posy ring inscriptions:
- Let this present my good intent.
- Thy friend am I, and so will dye.
- If I think my wife is fair, what need other people care?
- My dearest Betty is good and pretty.
- I like, I love, as turtledove.
- This and the giver, are thine forever.
Supposedly the versified sentiment originated with the ‘giver’ and sometimes it did. But on the whole, jewelers could tell a different story. They had a store of ready-made rhymes which saved the purchaser a lot of trouble. By 1674, there was published a book entitled Love’s Garland, or Posies for Rings, Handkerchiefs, and Gloves, and such like pretty Tokens that Lovers send their Loves. That book finds an amusing parallel in the ready-made appropriate greetings and messages for all occasions recently provided by the telegraph company. Thought-saving devices have a perennial welcome.
Somewhat related to the custom of tying a string around your finger to make you remember something was the custom of giving rings to commemorate an event, joyous or woeful. The fashion of giving rings to wedding guests seems to have reached a high peak in Elizabeth’s time when Sir Edward Killey ‘is said to have presented four thousand pounds’ worth of gold rings at the marriage of one of his maid-servants.’ Even so, the giving of rings at weddings never became as widespread and excessively practised as did the bestowal of funeral rings. Since a certain sum was often set aside and directions given in the will of the deceased for the purchase commemorative rings, it is difficult to say whether the custom was inspired merely by fashion or by a pathetic longing to be remembered after death.
Although the practice of inscribing rings with the date of death of the deceased can be traced back to the Middle Ages, a distinctive type of mourning ring was not evolved until about the middle of the seventeenth century. Then there was no mistaking it. Inside the hoop was engraved the name and date of death; outside, it was decorated with a skeleton in gold on a black background; and the bezel was set with a crystal which covered either the representation of a skull or a lock of the deceased’s hair. Sometimes his initials were formed in gold thread on a ground of colored silk.
It appears that the ring is the Jack-of-all-trades among jewels—or at least that the jeweler has done his best to load it with responsibilities other than its nature as an ornament requires.
In the latter part of the Middle Ages education was still a luxury beyond reach of the masses. Many people could neither read nor write and the custom of using a signet ring was almost as necessary as it had been back in ancient Egypt. The usual type of gem ring was ‘stirrup-shape.’ Its engraved device might be some emblem or it might be a portrait of the owner. The merchant had his own special signet ring, a trademark with which to stamp his goods so that even though his customers might not be able to read they would have no difficulty in recognizing his distinctive seal.
The signet ring, still serving more than one purpose, was wont most conveniently to combine practical use and romantic sentiment. One famous example bears the letters H.M. in a monogram bound by a truelover’s knot. Inside the hoop is engraved HENRIL DARNLEY, 1655. Touched not alone with romance but with tragedy, is this signet-betrothal ring, for it is believed to be that given by the ill-fated Mary, Queen of Scots, to her future husband, Darnley.
Entirely fitting, practical, and dignified was the signet ring; but treading on the heels of dignity came numbers of contraptions—hybrid rings intended both for use and ornament and not making a very good job of either career. For this type of ring our modern colloquial term ‘gadget’ is aptly descriptive.
Jewelers Of Renaissance (continued)
The Rise Of Landscape Painting
4
Jealous as he was of other painters, there was one of his contemporaries for whose art Turner had nothing but admiration. ‘Had Girtin lived,’ he once said, ‘I should have starved,’ and he roundly admitted that painter’s ‘White House in Chelsea’ to be better than anything of his own up to that time. Thomas Girtin was born in 1773 at Southwark, where his father was a rope manufacturer, and, like Turner, he was for a time the pupil of Dayes. But for his short life—for he died in 1802 at the early age of twenty seven—he would probably have rivalled Turner as a painter in oils, and though his career was cut short he lived long enough to make himself one of the greatest of our painters in water colors. In this medium his style was bold and vigorous, and by suppressing irrelevant detail he gave a sense of grandeur to the scenes he depicted. His chief sketching-ground was the northern countries, and particularly its cathedral cities, and his favorite subjects were the ruins of our old abbeys and castles, and the hilly scenery of the north. The water color at South Kensington of ‘Kirkstall Abbey’ is a fine example of his power to present his subject with truth and majesty.
A younger fellow-student with Turner and Girtin in the hospitable house of Dr Monro was another artist who achieved fame chiefly as a painter in water colors. This was Peter De Wint, born at Stone in Staffordshire in 1784. His father was a Dutch physician belonging to an old and respected Amsterdam family who settled in England. Peter, his fourth son, was originally intended for the medical profession, but was allowed to follow art, and placed with the engraver, John Raphael Smith, in 1802. Five years later he was admitted to the Royal Academy School, and the same year (1807) he exhibited at the Academy for the first time, sending three landscapes, and thereafter he exhibited there occasionally till 1828. But his reputation was principally made by the drawings he contributed to the Water-color Society, of which he was elected an Associate in 1810 and was long one of the chief ornaments.
De Wint loved to paint direct from Nature, and was never so happy as when in the fields. His subjects are principally chosen in the eastern and northern countries, and though often tempted to extend his studies to the Continent, the love of England and English scenery was so strong that, except for one visit to Normandy, he never left these shores. He formed a style of his own, notable for the simplicity and breadth of his light and shade, and the fresh limpidity of his color. He was a great purist in technique and objected to the use of Chinese white and body color, which he thought tended to give a heavy effect to a drawing. He excelled in river scenes, and ‘The Trent near Burton,’ in the Victoria and Albert Museum, South Kensignton, is a beautiful example of his tender and faithful rendering of a typical English scene.
While De Wint excelled in painting the placid aspects of landscapes, his contemporary, David Cox, was at his best on a widy day or in stormy weather. Cox was the son of a blacksmith and was born at Deritend, a suburb of Birmingham, on April 29, 1783. During his school days he had an accident and broke his leg, and this misfortune proved to be his good fortune, for having been given a box of colors with which to amuse himself while he was laid up, young David made such good use of the paints that his parents perceived the bent of his genius, and when he was well again apprenticed him to a painter. David Cox received his first tuition from an artist who painted miniatures for lockets, but when his master committed suicide young Cox went to the other extreme of painting, and at the age of seventeen he became an assistant scene-painter at the Birmingham Theatre. It is said that he even took a small part now and then at this theatre, which was then managed by the father of Macready.
The Rise Of Landscape Painting (continued)
Jealous as he was of other painters, there was one of his contemporaries for whose art Turner had nothing but admiration. ‘Had Girtin lived,’ he once said, ‘I should have starved,’ and he roundly admitted that painter’s ‘White House in Chelsea’ to be better than anything of his own up to that time. Thomas Girtin was born in 1773 at Southwark, where his father was a rope manufacturer, and, like Turner, he was for a time the pupil of Dayes. But for his short life—for he died in 1802 at the early age of twenty seven—he would probably have rivalled Turner as a painter in oils, and though his career was cut short he lived long enough to make himself one of the greatest of our painters in water colors. In this medium his style was bold and vigorous, and by suppressing irrelevant detail he gave a sense of grandeur to the scenes he depicted. His chief sketching-ground was the northern countries, and particularly its cathedral cities, and his favorite subjects were the ruins of our old abbeys and castles, and the hilly scenery of the north. The water color at South Kensington of ‘Kirkstall Abbey’ is a fine example of his power to present his subject with truth and majesty.
A younger fellow-student with Turner and Girtin in the hospitable house of Dr Monro was another artist who achieved fame chiefly as a painter in water colors. This was Peter De Wint, born at Stone in Staffordshire in 1784. His father was a Dutch physician belonging to an old and respected Amsterdam family who settled in England. Peter, his fourth son, was originally intended for the medical profession, but was allowed to follow art, and placed with the engraver, John Raphael Smith, in 1802. Five years later he was admitted to the Royal Academy School, and the same year (1807) he exhibited at the Academy for the first time, sending three landscapes, and thereafter he exhibited there occasionally till 1828. But his reputation was principally made by the drawings he contributed to the Water-color Society, of which he was elected an Associate in 1810 and was long one of the chief ornaments.
De Wint loved to paint direct from Nature, and was never so happy as when in the fields. His subjects are principally chosen in the eastern and northern countries, and though often tempted to extend his studies to the Continent, the love of England and English scenery was so strong that, except for one visit to Normandy, he never left these shores. He formed a style of his own, notable for the simplicity and breadth of his light and shade, and the fresh limpidity of his color. He was a great purist in technique and objected to the use of Chinese white and body color, which he thought tended to give a heavy effect to a drawing. He excelled in river scenes, and ‘The Trent near Burton,’ in the Victoria and Albert Museum, South Kensignton, is a beautiful example of his tender and faithful rendering of a typical English scene.
While De Wint excelled in painting the placid aspects of landscapes, his contemporary, David Cox, was at his best on a widy day or in stormy weather. Cox was the son of a blacksmith and was born at Deritend, a suburb of Birmingham, on April 29, 1783. During his school days he had an accident and broke his leg, and this misfortune proved to be his good fortune, for having been given a box of colors with which to amuse himself while he was laid up, young David made such good use of the paints that his parents perceived the bent of his genius, and when he was well again apprenticed him to a painter. David Cox received his first tuition from an artist who painted miniatures for lockets, but when his master committed suicide young Cox went to the other extreme of painting, and at the age of seventeen he became an assistant scene-painter at the Birmingham Theatre. It is said that he even took a small part now and then at this theatre, which was then managed by the father of Macready.
The Rise Of Landscape Painting (continued)
FTC Update
Here is an interesting FTC consumer alert on shopping jewelry @ http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/edu/pubs/consumer/alerts/alt011.shtm + I think the FTC's interpretation of natural v real may confuse the novice who may not be familiar with gemological jargons + my view is, if in doubt always consult a reputed gem testing laboratory.
Thursday, February 14, 2008
New Energy Source
The scientists from the Georgia Institute of Technology have produced a unique fabric (by growing zinc oxide nanowires around kevlar textile fibers + weaving the fibres together; when the wires rub against each other, an electric charge builts up and is channeled into a cathode output), a personalized form of piezoelectric power generation, in which mechanical stress is turned into electricity + the researchers say their fabric could have military application in places where other types of power generation are impractical + I think the civilian possibilities are endless.
Useful links:
www.gatech.edu
www.nature.com
www.wired.com
Useful links:
www.gatech.edu
www.nature.com
www.wired.com
Art Update
Object ID is an international standard for describing cultural objects + it has been developed through the collaboration of the museum community, police and customs agencies, the art trade, insurance industry, and valuers of art and antiques.
Useful link:
www.object-id.com
Useful link:
www.object-id.com
Natural Color Diamond Update
The Natural Color Diamond Association + The Nielsen Company has launched a unique program called Marketscope, which I think may be an effective medium to share market research + demographic data for the members of the association + the concept may initiate effective marketing and increased sales + I wish them good luck with the new concept.
Useful links:
www.ncdia.com
www.nielsen.com
Useful links:
www.ncdia.com
www.nielsen.com
The Mind Of Wall Street
The Mind of Wall Street by Leon Levy + Eugene Linden is about two loves of Leon Levy's life -- the stock market and psychology + there are nuggets of wisdom garnered over a lifetime of investing that one finds in the book + I liked it.
Patrick O'Brian
I think all of the books by Patrick O'Brian in the Aubrey/Maturin series contain insights about economics that are timeless and valuable.
Jewelers Of Renaissance
(via 5000 Years of Gems and Jewelry) Frances Rogers and Alice Beard writes:
- Curative Rings
Since ideas of religion, magic and medicine were still so entangled one with the other that there were no clearly defined boundaries between them, it naturally follows that this confusion is shown in the rings of the period. Belief in the curative powers of gemstones and the efficacy of inscriptions and devices engraved thereon had survived the Middle Ages and flourished as mightily during the Renaissance as it had it earlier times. To be sure, by now, a few scholars voiced skepticism concerning certain supersititions, while stoutly maintaining that others were facts. But on the whole, everybody believed that the right kind of ring would cure ills of body, soul, or estate according to need. Some details concerning these beliefs have already been given in former chapters.
There is one type of curative rings, however, that seems to have gained particular prominence during the Renaissance, namely, the ‘cramp ring’. It was supposed to be a protection, as the name indicates, against cramps. Tradition says these rings were made from gold coins given by successive kings of England at the offertory at Westminster Abbey on Good Friday. But a cramp ring was not always made of gold. During the sixteenth century, when its fame had spread from England to other countries of Europe, the great demand was met by rings of baser metal. Cellini refers to a cramp ring made of lead and copper, worth tenpence.
The toadstone, highly prized as a ring-charm, has been immortalized by Shakespeare:
Sweet are the uses of adversity;
Which, like the toad, ugly and venomous,
Wears yet a precious jewel in his head.
But unfortunately for this poetic conception, the toadstone is not a stone (being the fossilized tooth of a fish) nor—quite obviously—does it come from the head of a toad. Nevertheless such stones were believed to be carried in the heads of large old toads and were recommended for curing dropsy and the spleen. Directions for procuring a toadstone are set forth in the Kyranides, a work of Gnostic tendencies, thought to have been written at Alexandria:
The earth-toad, called saccos, whose breath is poisonous, has a stone in the marrow of its head. If you take it when the moon is waning, put it in a linen cloth for forty days, and then cut it from the cloth and take the stone, you will have a powerful amulet.
The toadstone possessed great sensitivity. If brought in contact with poison it was said to change color and to sweat. And whether or not your toadstone was genuine could be most easily proved. All that was necessary was to place the stone in front of a toad and if the toad straightway snatched up the stone, then it was a real toadstone, but if the toad remained indifferent then your stone was not genuine.
One of the first illustrated books on drugs, the Hortus Sanitatis, written in 1483, has hand-illuminated pictures, one of which shows the proper way to extract a curative toadstone from your toad. Another picture illustrates the manner in which a bloodstone should be applied to the nose in order to prevent nosebleed.
An elaborate full-page drawing represents the interior of a lapidary-apothecary’s shop. At the back is a doctor instructing his pupil in the medicinal virtues of stones, while in the front of the shop six customers at once are buying ‘medicine rocks.’ It takes two clerks to wait on them, and apparently no medicine except ‘rocks,’ judging form the display on the five tables, is carried in stock by this shop, although of course doctors did not confine their nostrums entirely to the mineral kingdom. They used both vegetable and animal ingredients, often cooking up the most revolting messes, the worse the better, for their long-suffering patients to swallow.
Jewelers Of Renaissance (continued)
- Curative Rings
Since ideas of religion, magic and medicine were still so entangled one with the other that there were no clearly defined boundaries between them, it naturally follows that this confusion is shown in the rings of the period. Belief in the curative powers of gemstones and the efficacy of inscriptions and devices engraved thereon had survived the Middle Ages and flourished as mightily during the Renaissance as it had it earlier times. To be sure, by now, a few scholars voiced skepticism concerning certain supersititions, while stoutly maintaining that others were facts. But on the whole, everybody believed that the right kind of ring would cure ills of body, soul, or estate according to need. Some details concerning these beliefs have already been given in former chapters.
There is one type of curative rings, however, that seems to have gained particular prominence during the Renaissance, namely, the ‘cramp ring’. It was supposed to be a protection, as the name indicates, against cramps. Tradition says these rings were made from gold coins given by successive kings of England at the offertory at Westminster Abbey on Good Friday. But a cramp ring was not always made of gold. During the sixteenth century, when its fame had spread from England to other countries of Europe, the great demand was met by rings of baser metal. Cellini refers to a cramp ring made of lead and copper, worth tenpence.
The toadstone, highly prized as a ring-charm, has been immortalized by Shakespeare:
Sweet are the uses of adversity;
Which, like the toad, ugly and venomous,
Wears yet a precious jewel in his head.
But unfortunately for this poetic conception, the toadstone is not a stone (being the fossilized tooth of a fish) nor—quite obviously—does it come from the head of a toad. Nevertheless such stones were believed to be carried in the heads of large old toads and were recommended for curing dropsy and the spleen. Directions for procuring a toadstone are set forth in the Kyranides, a work of Gnostic tendencies, thought to have been written at Alexandria:
The earth-toad, called saccos, whose breath is poisonous, has a stone in the marrow of its head. If you take it when the moon is waning, put it in a linen cloth for forty days, and then cut it from the cloth and take the stone, you will have a powerful amulet.
The toadstone possessed great sensitivity. If brought in contact with poison it was said to change color and to sweat. And whether or not your toadstone was genuine could be most easily proved. All that was necessary was to place the stone in front of a toad and if the toad straightway snatched up the stone, then it was a real toadstone, but if the toad remained indifferent then your stone was not genuine.
One of the first illustrated books on drugs, the Hortus Sanitatis, written in 1483, has hand-illuminated pictures, one of which shows the proper way to extract a curative toadstone from your toad. Another picture illustrates the manner in which a bloodstone should be applied to the nose in order to prevent nosebleed.
An elaborate full-page drawing represents the interior of a lapidary-apothecary’s shop. At the back is a doctor instructing his pupil in the medicinal virtues of stones, while in the front of the shop six customers at once are buying ‘medicine rocks.’ It takes two clerks to wait on them, and apparently no medicine except ‘rocks,’ judging form the display on the five tables, is carried in stock by this shop, although of course doctors did not confine their nostrums entirely to the mineral kingdom. They used both vegetable and animal ingredients, often cooking up the most revolting messes, the worse the better, for their long-suffering patients to swallow.
Jewelers Of Renaissance (continued)
The Rise Of Landscape Painting
(via The Outline of Art) William Orpen writes:
In 1840, when Turner was sixty five, he met a young man of twenty one, fresh from Oxford, who, from the time he first saw the illustrations to Roger’s Italy, had worshipped the genius of Turner, and was destined to become his persistent and most eloquent champion. This was John Ruskin, who in 1843—the year in which Turner painted ‘The Approach to Venice’ – published the first volume of his Modern Painters, an epoch-making book, the real subject of which was the superiority of Turner to all painters past and present. Henceforward, however others might laugh at and ridicule his magical color visions, Turner now had an enthusiastic defender whose opinions yearly became more authoritative and more widely respected. It is no exaggeration to say that to the constant eulogy of Ruskin is due in no small measure the universal esteem in which Turner is held today.
Though he never married, Turner had a natural liking for a quiet domestic existence, and after his father’s death he began to lead a double life. Under the assumed name of Booth he formed a connection with a woman who kept a house at 119 Cheyne Walk, where he had been accustomed occasionally to lodge, and ‘Puggy’ or ‘Admiral’ Booth became a well-known character in Chelsea, where he was reputed to be a retired mariner of eccentric disposition, fond of his glass, and never tired of watching the sun. On the roof of the house in Cheyne Walk there was a gallery, and here ‘Mr Booth’ would sit for hours at dawn and sunset. The secret of his double existence was not discovered till the day before his death, for he had been accustomed to absent himself from Queen Anne Street for long intervals and therefore was not missed. Suddenly those who knew him as Turner learnt that the great artist was lying dead in a little house at Chelsea, where his last illness had seized him, and where he died on December 19, 1851. The body was removed to the house in Queen Anne Street, and afterwards buried in the crypt of St Paul’s Cathedral.
Turner left a fortune of £140,000, and after making a number of small annuities left the bulk of it for the benefit of art and artists; but his will, drawn by himself, was so vague and unskillfully framed that, after four years litigation, a compromise was arranged on the advice of the Lord Chancellor. The Royal Academy received £20000, which is set aside as the Turner Fund for the relief of poor artists not members of their body, and the National Gallery acquired the magnificent gift of 362 oil paintings, 135 finished water colors, 1757 studies in color, and thousands of drawings and sketches. The task of sifting, arranging, and cataloguing the water colors and sketches which Turner bequeathed to the nation was rightly placed in the sympathetic hands of his great advocate, John Ruskin.
The life of Turner, as we have seen, was full of strangeness and contradictions, and it is possible he may have inherited some of his eccentricities from his mother, a woman of fierce temper, who eventually became insane. There was little correspodence between his art and his life, for, as Mr E V Lucas has justly said: ‘Turner’s works are marvels of loveliness and grandeur; Turner was grubby, miserly, jealous, and squalid in his tastes. He saw visions and glorified even what was already glorious; and he deliberately chose to live in houses think with grime, and often to consort with inferior persons.’ The evidence before us compels us to believe that he was really happier as ‘Puggy Booth’ with a few cronies in a Chelsea bar-parlor than as ‘the famous Mr Turner’ in the company of his patron, Lord Egremont, or in the hospitable mansion of Mr Fawkes of Farnley Hall.
The Rise Of Landscape Painting (continued)
In 1840, when Turner was sixty five, he met a young man of twenty one, fresh from Oxford, who, from the time he first saw the illustrations to Roger’s Italy, had worshipped the genius of Turner, and was destined to become his persistent and most eloquent champion. This was John Ruskin, who in 1843—the year in which Turner painted ‘The Approach to Venice’ – published the first volume of his Modern Painters, an epoch-making book, the real subject of which was the superiority of Turner to all painters past and present. Henceforward, however others might laugh at and ridicule his magical color visions, Turner now had an enthusiastic defender whose opinions yearly became more authoritative and more widely respected. It is no exaggeration to say that to the constant eulogy of Ruskin is due in no small measure the universal esteem in which Turner is held today.
Though he never married, Turner had a natural liking for a quiet domestic existence, and after his father’s death he began to lead a double life. Under the assumed name of Booth he formed a connection with a woman who kept a house at 119 Cheyne Walk, where he had been accustomed occasionally to lodge, and ‘Puggy’ or ‘Admiral’ Booth became a well-known character in Chelsea, where he was reputed to be a retired mariner of eccentric disposition, fond of his glass, and never tired of watching the sun. On the roof of the house in Cheyne Walk there was a gallery, and here ‘Mr Booth’ would sit for hours at dawn and sunset. The secret of his double existence was not discovered till the day before his death, for he had been accustomed to absent himself from Queen Anne Street for long intervals and therefore was not missed. Suddenly those who knew him as Turner learnt that the great artist was lying dead in a little house at Chelsea, where his last illness had seized him, and where he died on December 19, 1851. The body was removed to the house in Queen Anne Street, and afterwards buried in the crypt of St Paul’s Cathedral.
Turner left a fortune of £140,000, and after making a number of small annuities left the bulk of it for the benefit of art and artists; but his will, drawn by himself, was so vague and unskillfully framed that, after four years litigation, a compromise was arranged on the advice of the Lord Chancellor. The Royal Academy received £20000, which is set aside as the Turner Fund for the relief of poor artists not members of their body, and the National Gallery acquired the magnificent gift of 362 oil paintings, 135 finished water colors, 1757 studies in color, and thousands of drawings and sketches. The task of sifting, arranging, and cataloguing the water colors and sketches which Turner bequeathed to the nation was rightly placed in the sympathetic hands of his great advocate, John Ruskin.
The life of Turner, as we have seen, was full of strangeness and contradictions, and it is possible he may have inherited some of his eccentricities from his mother, a woman of fierce temper, who eventually became insane. There was little correspodence between his art and his life, for, as Mr E V Lucas has justly said: ‘Turner’s works are marvels of loveliness and grandeur; Turner was grubby, miserly, jealous, and squalid in his tastes. He saw visions and glorified even what was already glorious; and he deliberately chose to live in houses think with grime, and often to consort with inferior persons.’ The evidence before us compels us to believe that he was really happier as ‘Puggy Booth’ with a few cronies in a Chelsea bar-parlor than as ‘the famous Mr Turner’ in the company of his patron, Lord Egremont, or in the hospitable mansion of Mr Fawkes of Farnley Hall.
The Rise Of Landscape Painting (continued)
Miloš Forman
Milos Forman is an actor + screenwriter + professor + two-time Academy Award-winning film director + the 1975 adaptation of Ken Kesey's novel One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, won five Academy Awards (my favorite) + other great movies include Hair (musical, 1979) + Ragtime (1981) + Amadeus (1984) + Valmont (1989) + The People vs. Larry Flynt (1996) + Man on the Moon (1999) + Goya's Ghosts (2006) + I love his movies.
Useful links:
www.milosforman.com
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milo%C5%A1_Forman
Useful links:
www.milosforman.com
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milo%C5%A1_Forman
Gold Update
Quite recently the Group of Seven (G-7) approved the sale of gold by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) from April as part of a broad reform of its budget, but the big question is whether the U.S Congress (USA is the largest single member nation + the largest single contributor of the IMF's gold) is going to authorize the reform + I think a win or a loss for gold may depend on the precise size, timing and methodology of the disposals + the best thing to do is to watch the US dollar and equity markets (prime movers for the precious metal) and see if the proposed sale is going to impact gold market prices.
Useful links:
www.imf.org
www.bis.org
www.ecb.int
www.thegartmanletter.com
www.thebulliondesk.com
www.kitco.com
Useful links:
www.imf.org
www.bis.org
www.ecb.int
www.thegartmanletter.com
www.thebulliondesk.com
www.kitco.com
Wednesday, February 13, 2008
Signs Of The Time
It was interesting to read the comment (s) by Israel's largest diamond dealer Lev Leviev at the the Third International Diamond Conference in Tel Aviv, 2008 about the state of the diamond industry: 'You can’t blame the diamond producers for their desire to achieve the highest prices possible + oil, gold, coal and other minerals saw prices rise 300-400 percent in the last five years – much more than diamonds + we grew second and third tier polishers that grew with us + each gets a different (category of) diamonds, and they don’t compete with each other + the competition between manufacturers when they all sell the same items causes them to lower prices.'
I think he is right + the industry need a unified strategy + it's all about effective/mutually beneficial distribution methodology + at the end of the day it's all about profit not prices.
I think he is right + the industry need a unified strategy + it's all about effective/mutually beneficial distribution methodology + at the end of the day it's all about profit not prices.
Microtrends
Microtrends: The Small Forces Behind Tomorrow's Big Changes by Mark Penn + E. Kinney Zalesne is intriguing + it makes you think differently + we are a collection of communities with many individual tastes and lifestyles + I liked the book.
Herbie Hancock
Herbert Hancock is an Academy Award and Grammy award-winning American jazz pianist and composer + he is one of jazz music's most important and influential pianists and composers + he blends elements of rock, funk, and soul to create that otherness.
Useful links:
www.herbiehancock.com
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herbie_Hancock
Useful links:
www.herbiehancock.com
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herbie_Hancock
Jewelers Of Renaissance
(via 5000 Years of Gems and Jewelry) Frances Rogers and Alice Beard writes:
8. Rings Innumerable
Among the advantages possessed by rings of the Renaissance was the prodigious quantity of them that one could (and not infrequently did) wear all at the same time. Rings on all ten fingers, counting the thumbs, and three rings to a finger—as shown in a contemporary portrait—a display like that runs into numbers. Men as well as women loaded their hands with rings. There were rings for ‘every finger joint up to the very nail.’ In a luxury-loving age quantity was a most desirable asset. Perhaps the dandy stopped somewhere short of losing power to bend his fingers by reason of their ornaments, but extras could always be strung on his necklace, or fastened on his golden hatband or swung pendent from his sword hilt or find a place on a rosary tied to his forearm. There was always room for spare rings when space on fingers was pre-empted.
There were rings to be worn outside gloves and gloves slashed for the purpose of showing the jeweled rings worn under the glove. The list is interminable. It is impossible to bring all rings within definite limits of classification. Many of them overlapped and served two or more purposes.
The following classifications are loosely grouped for convenience of references, and therefore disclaim the too technical distinctions. We will consider rings under four headings:
- Ecclesiastical rings
- Curative rings
- Rings of romance and sentiment
- Fancy or gadget rings
- Ecclesiastical Rings
Members of the higher clergy, even as the Roman senators of classical times, wore rings as badges of office. A special type of ring was an essential accessory to the canonical vestments. But the rings of the clergy had also a symbolic significance according to the precious stones with which they were set. A sapphire, blue like the heavens, meant purity; a ruby, red like the rising sun, meant glory; an emerald, a green like the cool verdure of earth, meant tranquility; and the clear, limpid crystal meant simplicity. These rings were made especially for the individual who wore them, and when he died his ring was usually buried with him.
The sapphire had long been the gem assigned to cardinals, tradition having honored the sapphire as the stone on which was written the Law given to Moses. According to a decree issued by the Pope in the ninth century the cardinal wore his ring on the right hand, the hand which gave the blessing.
During great ceremonies, certain types of clerical rings were worn, not on the bare hand but over elaborate gloves which were themselves sometimes heavily bejeweled. These rings were large, though not as surprisingly large as the so-called ‘papal rings’ of the later Middle Ages, which were so massive that obviously they were never intended to be worn on the finger.
Papal rings have been found in various countries, but no record has been discovered which would explain their use. It has been surmised that they acted as credentials for a messenger when he was sent by the Pope to a king, and probably the weighty ring was worn suspended by a cord about the neck. This supposition has been arrived at from the fact that a papal ring often bore the combined arms of the Pope and the king, and although elaborately carved, the materials used had little intrinsic value. Often such rings were only gilded bronze and the ‘stone’ nothing but paste, or perhaps crystal set over colored foil. Its very lack of value ensured safe conduct for the papal ring on its various journeyings—such an intrinsically valueless jewel would be of small interest to any bandit even though the woods were full of these gentry.
Customs of the Church are not wont to change with the rapidity of secular customs. Rings worn as sacred emblems of the Church sometimes remain unchanged for centuries. A most interesting example is the Ring of the Fisherman, symbol of the Pope’s office as head of the Catholic Church. From medieval times, through the Renaissance and down to our own times the Fisherman’s Ring has survived the changing boundary lines both of land and of thought.
The ring is made of gold and engraved with a device of St Peter fishing from a boat. Every pope wears the Fisherman’s Ring; but although it is the same in form and meaning, it is not actually the same ring. At the death of a pope the ring of office is removed from his finger and later it is broken. A new Fisherman’s Ring is made for the new pope, the title which he chooses is engraved upon it, and it is then placed upon his finger during the coronation ceremonies.
To be worn by the layman, there was the ‘decade ring,’ which could be used in place of a rosary. It had ten round projecting knobs—equivalent to beads—and a crucifix or a Madonna, or sometimes the sacred monogram and three nails engraved on the bezel. An Ave was repeated as each knob was touched and a Pater Noster at the bezel.
Sometimes the religious ring was a reliquary. There is a record of a piece of the True Cross set in a ring, and also a ring containing a ‘relick of St Peter’s finger.’
A ring, by reason of its circular form, signifies eternity. Therefore it was considered best fitted of all jewelry to bear an emblem which should remind the wearer of the transitory nature of life and the necessity of being prepared for death. Many of the religious rings worn by the laity were intended as a none too gentle reminder that all is vanity. One of the most favored designs was a skull and crossbones with an inscription, such as ‘Behold-The-End,’ ‘Dye-To-Live,’ ‘Rather-Death-Than-Fals-Fayth,’ or some equally chilling admonition.
Represented in one form or another, this idea of remembering death in the midst of life can be traced back to the ancient Egyptians. In medieval England, under supervision of the Church, it was called to attention in the form of a morality play showing how death comes in contact with all classes of humanity from the Pope down. In Italy, painters and sculptors decorated church walls with the grim theme.
At first the various representations were grave and solemn, but later they assumed the nature of a dance in which Death led his reluctant victims to their inevitable fate—the sardonic danse macabre.
Toward the middle of the sixteenth century the warning memento mori took on the guise of a fashion, greatly stimulated by the favorite of Henry II of France, Diane de Poitiers. The lady, being a widow, wore black and white, and much of her jewelry bore symbols of death. The French court followed suit, and the gruesome style was set.
Jewelers Of Renaissance (continued)
8. Rings Innumerable
Among the advantages possessed by rings of the Renaissance was the prodigious quantity of them that one could (and not infrequently did) wear all at the same time. Rings on all ten fingers, counting the thumbs, and three rings to a finger—as shown in a contemporary portrait—a display like that runs into numbers. Men as well as women loaded their hands with rings. There were rings for ‘every finger joint up to the very nail.’ In a luxury-loving age quantity was a most desirable asset. Perhaps the dandy stopped somewhere short of losing power to bend his fingers by reason of their ornaments, but extras could always be strung on his necklace, or fastened on his golden hatband or swung pendent from his sword hilt or find a place on a rosary tied to his forearm. There was always room for spare rings when space on fingers was pre-empted.
There were rings to be worn outside gloves and gloves slashed for the purpose of showing the jeweled rings worn under the glove. The list is interminable. It is impossible to bring all rings within definite limits of classification. Many of them overlapped and served two or more purposes.
The following classifications are loosely grouped for convenience of references, and therefore disclaim the too technical distinctions. We will consider rings under four headings:
- Ecclesiastical rings
- Curative rings
- Rings of romance and sentiment
- Fancy or gadget rings
- Ecclesiastical Rings
Members of the higher clergy, even as the Roman senators of classical times, wore rings as badges of office. A special type of ring was an essential accessory to the canonical vestments. But the rings of the clergy had also a symbolic significance according to the precious stones with which they were set. A sapphire, blue like the heavens, meant purity; a ruby, red like the rising sun, meant glory; an emerald, a green like the cool verdure of earth, meant tranquility; and the clear, limpid crystal meant simplicity. These rings were made especially for the individual who wore them, and when he died his ring was usually buried with him.
The sapphire had long been the gem assigned to cardinals, tradition having honored the sapphire as the stone on which was written the Law given to Moses. According to a decree issued by the Pope in the ninth century the cardinal wore his ring on the right hand, the hand which gave the blessing.
During great ceremonies, certain types of clerical rings were worn, not on the bare hand but over elaborate gloves which were themselves sometimes heavily bejeweled. These rings were large, though not as surprisingly large as the so-called ‘papal rings’ of the later Middle Ages, which were so massive that obviously they were never intended to be worn on the finger.
Papal rings have been found in various countries, but no record has been discovered which would explain their use. It has been surmised that they acted as credentials for a messenger when he was sent by the Pope to a king, and probably the weighty ring was worn suspended by a cord about the neck. This supposition has been arrived at from the fact that a papal ring often bore the combined arms of the Pope and the king, and although elaborately carved, the materials used had little intrinsic value. Often such rings were only gilded bronze and the ‘stone’ nothing but paste, or perhaps crystal set over colored foil. Its very lack of value ensured safe conduct for the papal ring on its various journeyings—such an intrinsically valueless jewel would be of small interest to any bandit even though the woods were full of these gentry.
Customs of the Church are not wont to change with the rapidity of secular customs. Rings worn as sacred emblems of the Church sometimes remain unchanged for centuries. A most interesting example is the Ring of the Fisherman, symbol of the Pope’s office as head of the Catholic Church. From medieval times, through the Renaissance and down to our own times the Fisherman’s Ring has survived the changing boundary lines both of land and of thought.
The ring is made of gold and engraved with a device of St Peter fishing from a boat. Every pope wears the Fisherman’s Ring; but although it is the same in form and meaning, it is not actually the same ring. At the death of a pope the ring of office is removed from his finger and later it is broken. A new Fisherman’s Ring is made for the new pope, the title which he chooses is engraved upon it, and it is then placed upon his finger during the coronation ceremonies.
To be worn by the layman, there was the ‘decade ring,’ which could be used in place of a rosary. It had ten round projecting knobs—equivalent to beads—and a crucifix or a Madonna, or sometimes the sacred monogram and three nails engraved on the bezel. An Ave was repeated as each knob was touched and a Pater Noster at the bezel.
Sometimes the religious ring was a reliquary. There is a record of a piece of the True Cross set in a ring, and also a ring containing a ‘relick of St Peter’s finger.’
A ring, by reason of its circular form, signifies eternity. Therefore it was considered best fitted of all jewelry to bear an emblem which should remind the wearer of the transitory nature of life and the necessity of being prepared for death. Many of the religious rings worn by the laity were intended as a none too gentle reminder that all is vanity. One of the most favored designs was a skull and crossbones with an inscription, such as ‘Behold-The-End,’ ‘Dye-To-Live,’ ‘Rather-Death-Than-Fals-Fayth,’ or some equally chilling admonition.
Represented in one form or another, this idea of remembering death in the midst of life can be traced back to the ancient Egyptians. In medieval England, under supervision of the Church, it was called to attention in the form of a morality play showing how death comes in contact with all classes of humanity from the Pope down. In Italy, painters and sculptors decorated church walls with the grim theme.
At first the various representations were grave and solemn, but later they assumed the nature of a dance in which Death led his reluctant victims to their inevitable fate—the sardonic danse macabre.
Toward the middle of the sixteenth century the warning memento mori took on the guise of a fashion, greatly stimulated by the favorite of Henry II of France, Diane de Poitiers. The lady, being a widow, wore black and white, and much of her jewelry bore symbols of death. The French court followed suit, and the gruesome style was set.
Jewelers Of Renaissance (continued)
The Rise Of Landscape Painting
(via The Outline of Art) William Orpen writes:
As Turner altered his style of oil painting, so also he revolutionized his practice in water color. Originally, in common with the older members of the Early English Water Color School, Turner began a drawing by laying in the gradations of light and shade with grey or some other neutral tint, and afterwards represented te hue of each object by tinting it with color; but this he found resulted in a certain heaviness of aspect. Accordingly, in his later water colors he proceeded to treat the whole surface of his drawing as color, using at one the pigments by which the scene might most properly be represented. By delicate hatchings he achieved wonderful qualities of broken hues, air tints, and atmosphere, so that the view when finished glowed and sparkled with the brilliance of Nature’s own colors. This method of putting on the color direct, without any under-painting of the subject in light and shade, has been to a great extent the foundation of modern painting.
Determined to outshine his fellows, Turner had a habit, dreaded by other artists, of coming to the Academy on Varnishing Day armed with his paint box, and putting a brilliant touch or two on his own canvas when necessary to heighten its effect if its brilliance happened to be in any way challenged by that of a neighboring picture. The brightness of the yellows and reds in his ‘Fighting Temeraire being Towed to her Last Berth’ is said to be due to after-touches put on to ‘kill’ a highly colored painting by Geddes which hung near it in the Academy of 1839. Towards another landscape painter Turner was merciless, but he had respect and kindly feeling for Sir Thomas Lawrence, and on one occasion he darkened a landscape of his with lamp-black because it injured the effect of pictures by Lawrence on either side.
As he grew older, and particularly after his visit to Venice in 1832, Turner became more and more ambitious of realizing to the uttermost the fugitive radiances of dawn and sunset. Light, or rather the color of light, became the objective of his painting, to the exclusion of almost everything else, and few of his contemporaries could follow him as he devoted his brush more and more to depicting the pageant of the heavens. His work when exhibited was severely criticised and held up to ridicule and mirth by Thackeray and other wits; he was regarded as a madman and accused, as other artists after him have been, of ‘flinging a pot of paint in the public’s face.’ Even ‘The Fighting Temeraire,’ which seems to us so poetic today in its contrast of moonlight with sunlight, to match the contrast between the sailing ship that was passing away and the steamer that heralded the future, even this work was deemed to be exaggerated and extravagant, and to most of the admirers of his earlier pictures paintings like ‘The Approach to Venice’ were utterly incomprehensible.
Fortunately, Turner was now independent of patrons and could paint as he liked. During the earlier part of his career he had amassed a considerable fortune, a great part of which was derived from the engravings of his works, for he was a good business man, able to retain an interest in his works. He had commenced in 1808 the series of etchings known as the ‘Liber Studiorum,’ and the excellence of these plates—now of great rarity and value—had led to his employment as an illustrator, and his fame was greatly increased and extended by the beautiful work he did for books like Roger’s Italy and Poems, The Rivers of France, Southern Coast Scenery, etc. He had a fine studio at what is now 23 Queen Anne Street, and he also owned a house at Twickenham, where he lived with his father, who had retired from business and made his home with his son from about 1807 till his death in 1829. Here, with his father and an old housekeeper, Turner led a retired life; but though habitually taciturn and reserved, he could be jovial at a convival gathering of artists which he now and then attended.
The Rise Of Landscape Painting (continue)
As Turner altered his style of oil painting, so also he revolutionized his practice in water color. Originally, in common with the older members of the Early English Water Color School, Turner began a drawing by laying in the gradations of light and shade with grey or some other neutral tint, and afterwards represented te hue of each object by tinting it with color; but this he found resulted in a certain heaviness of aspect. Accordingly, in his later water colors he proceeded to treat the whole surface of his drawing as color, using at one the pigments by which the scene might most properly be represented. By delicate hatchings he achieved wonderful qualities of broken hues, air tints, and atmosphere, so that the view when finished glowed and sparkled with the brilliance of Nature’s own colors. This method of putting on the color direct, without any under-painting of the subject in light and shade, has been to a great extent the foundation of modern painting.
Determined to outshine his fellows, Turner had a habit, dreaded by other artists, of coming to the Academy on Varnishing Day armed with his paint box, and putting a brilliant touch or two on his own canvas when necessary to heighten its effect if its brilliance happened to be in any way challenged by that of a neighboring picture. The brightness of the yellows and reds in his ‘Fighting Temeraire being Towed to her Last Berth’ is said to be due to after-touches put on to ‘kill’ a highly colored painting by Geddes which hung near it in the Academy of 1839. Towards another landscape painter Turner was merciless, but he had respect and kindly feeling for Sir Thomas Lawrence, and on one occasion he darkened a landscape of his with lamp-black because it injured the effect of pictures by Lawrence on either side.
As he grew older, and particularly after his visit to Venice in 1832, Turner became more and more ambitious of realizing to the uttermost the fugitive radiances of dawn and sunset. Light, or rather the color of light, became the objective of his painting, to the exclusion of almost everything else, and few of his contemporaries could follow him as he devoted his brush more and more to depicting the pageant of the heavens. His work when exhibited was severely criticised and held up to ridicule and mirth by Thackeray and other wits; he was regarded as a madman and accused, as other artists after him have been, of ‘flinging a pot of paint in the public’s face.’ Even ‘The Fighting Temeraire,’ which seems to us so poetic today in its contrast of moonlight with sunlight, to match the contrast between the sailing ship that was passing away and the steamer that heralded the future, even this work was deemed to be exaggerated and extravagant, and to most of the admirers of his earlier pictures paintings like ‘The Approach to Venice’ were utterly incomprehensible.
Fortunately, Turner was now independent of patrons and could paint as he liked. During the earlier part of his career he had amassed a considerable fortune, a great part of which was derived from the engravings of his works, for he was a good business man, able to retain an interest in his works. He had commenced in 1808 the series of etchings known as the ‘Liber Studiorum,’ and the excellence of these plates—now of great rarity and value—had led to his employment as an illustrator, and his fame was greatly increased and extended by the beautiful work he did for books like Roger’s Italy and Poems, The Rivers of France, Southern Coast Scenery, etc. He had a fine studio at what is now 23 Queen Anne Street, and he also owned a house at Twickenham, where he lived with his father, who had retired from business and made his home with his son from about 1807 till his death in 1829. Here, with his father and an old housekeeper, Turner led a retired life; but though habitually taciturn and reserved, he could be jovial at a convival gathering of artists which he now and then attended.
The Rise Of Landscape Painting (continue)
Tuesday, February 12, 2008
Colored Stone Update
It's hard to believe that suppliers of Andesine were ignorant about treatment (s), but now colored stone industry sources are saying that Andesine starts out as near colorless feldspar, and is then heat treated + the red-orange and green andesine we've been seeing over the past few years is the result of heat treatment (shocking!) + if in doubt always consult a reputed gem testing laboratory.
Useful links:
www.jewelrytelevision.com
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UKBb_6VUEag
Useful links:
www.jewelrytelevision.com
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UKBb_6VUEag
The Manga Bible
I found the Bible rooted in manga, the Japanese form of graphic novel, The Manga Bible: From Genesis to Revelation by Ajinbayo Akinsiku interesting because it focuses on action and epic + it opens up new ways of understanding Scripture + I liked it.
Useful link:
www.themangabible.com
Useful link:
www.themangabible.com
Valentine's Day Trend
As Valentine's Day approaches, a new trend is rippling through the flower, chocolate and diamond industry: consumers want items they purchase that are not harmful to the Earth and its inhabitants + more and more people are starting to ask questions about where products are coming from + demand a more socially and environmentally friendly product.
Useful links:
Flower
www.amystewart.com
www.lewisriver.com
www.esmeraldafarms.com
www.scscertified.com
Chocolate
www.wholefoodsmarket.com
www.equalexchange.com
www.seedsofchange.com
www.dagobachocolate.com
www.uncommongoods.com
Diamond
www.brilliantearth.com
Useful links:
Flower
www.amystewart.com
www.lewisriver.com
www.esmeraldafarms.com
www.scscertified.com
Chocolate
www.wholefoodsmarket.com
www.equalexchange.com
www.seedsofchange.com
www.dagobachocolate.com
www.uncommongoods.com
Diamond
www.brilliantearth.com
The Geography Of Bliss
The Geography Of Bliss: One Grump's Search for the Happiest Places in the World by Eric Weiner is an interesting book, with a mixture of travel + psychology + science + humor to investigate not what happiness is, but where it is + I liked it.
Useful link:
www.ericweinerbooks.com
Useful link:
www.ericweinerbooks.com
Oil Industry Art Show
An art exhibition (Pier Arts Centre in Stromness) documenting life in the North Sea oil and gas industry by Sutherland-based artist Sue Jane Taylor is being held in Orkney + it features paintings, drawings and etchings, a visual record of the impact the North Sea oil industry has had on communities over 20 years.
Useful links:
www.suejanetaylor.co.uk
www.pierartscentre.com
Useful links:
www.suejanetaylor.co.uk
www.pierartscentre.com
Jewelers Of Renaissance
(via 5000 Years of Gems and Jewelry) Frances Rogers and Alice Beard writes:
7. Enseignes
The little leaden saints or ‘tokens’ so extensively worn during the Middle Ages introduced a fashion that persisted through many years of the Renaissance. These emblems, not originally intended for ornament, were often pinned or sewed to the hat, from which conspicuous vantage point they indicated that the wearer had made pilgrimage to the shrine of some saint.
As times changed, the emblems as a whole took on secular, rather than purely religious, significance and the onetime token frankly developed into an adornment known as an enseigne or ‘medallion’. Almost everyone who had a hat saw to it that his headgear bore some kind of emblem. If a man were poor his hat ornament was made of one of the baser metals, copper or bronze. These could be turned out by the dozen, because instead of being handmade they were cast or stamped with a die.
Far different was the enseigne of the rich, termed te bijou par excellence. The goldsmith gave to this hat jewel his highest level of workmanship, his greatest ingenuity of design and his richest materials.
Now beyond a certain point, description of visual appearances is all too prone to leave the same impression as a frame without a picture. The ‘picture’ in this case was the meaning of the device. The typical enseigne of the period, apart from its character as an ornament, illustrates a certain phase of mental attitude.
The Renaissance was a riddle-loving age, an age of quip and quirk and antic disposition. Set conspicuously on the hat for all to see, these ‘toys of the imagination’ embodied this characteristic. They expressed some fancy, notion or idea peculiar to the wearer, but they expressed it indirectly, half revealing, half concealing the meaning. It was like trimming your hat with a rebus which gave the observer an opportunity to exercise his wits on solving the bejeweled puzzle. Rather a welcome pastime in dull company.
Jewelers Of Renaissance (continued)
7. Enseignes
The little leaden saints or ‘tokens’ so extensively worn during the Middle Ages introduced a fashion that persisted through many years of the Renaissance. These emblems, not originally intended for ornament, were often pinned or sewed to the hat, from which conspicuous vantage point they indicated that the wearer had made pilgrimage to the shrine of some saint.
As times changed, the emblems as a whole took on secular, rather than purely religious, significance and the onetime token frankly developed into an adornment known as an enseigne or ‘medallion’. Almost everyone who had a hat saw to it that his headgear bore some kind of emblem. If a man were poor his hat ornament was made of one of the baser metals, copper or bronze. These could be turned out by the dozen, because instead of being handmade they were cast or stamped with a die.
Far different was the enseigne of the rich, termed te bijou par excellence. The goldsmith gave to this hat jewel his highest level of workmanship, his greatest ingenuity of design and his richest materials.
Now beyond a certain point, description of visual appearances is all too prone to leave the same impression as a frame without a picture. The ‘picture’ in this case was the meaning of the device. The typical enseigne of the period, apart from its character as an ornament, illustrates a certain phase of mental attitude.
The Renaissance was a riddle-loving age, an age of quip and quirk and antic disposition. Set conspicuously on the hat for all to see, these ‘toys of the imagination’ embodied this characteristic. They expressed some fancy, notion or idea peculiar to the wearer, but they expressed it indirectly, half revealing, half concealing the meaning. It was like trimming your hat with a rebus which gave the observer an opportunity to exercise his wits on solving the bejeweled puzzle. Rather a welcome pastime in dull company.
Jewelers Of Renaissance (continued)
The Rise Of Landscape Painting
(via The Outline of Art) William Orpen writes:
At Dr Monro’s house Turner met John Robert Cozens (1752-99), a most poetic painter in water colors and the son of a water color artist, Alexander Cozens, who died in 1786; and while Turner owed most to his diligent study of Nature, he always owned his obligation to Cozens, who was indeed his immediate predecessor in water color and the first to produce those atmospheric effects which Turner rivalled and excelled.
In 1799, at age of twenty four, Turner was elected as Associate of the Royal Academy and henceforward, surer of himself and his public, he eschewed the merely topographical imitation of landscape for a nobler art. He looked beyond the mere details to a larger treatment of Nature, seizing all the poetry of sunshine, and the mists of morn and eve, with the grandeur of storm and the glow of sunset. In feeling his way to this period of his first style Turner looked not only to Nature but also to the example of his great predecessors, Claude Richard Wilson, and the Dutch painters of the seventeenth century. The influence of the Dutch School, and particularly of Van de Velde, is apparent in many of these early works, even in ‘Calais Pier’, which, painted in 1803, was held by Ruskin to be ‘the first which bears the sign manual and sign mental of Turner’s colossal power.’ Already, however, Turner had improved on Van de Velde, who was never able to interpret weather so truly and vigorously as it is painted in the rolling sea and windy sky of this stimulating sea piece.
The year before this picture was painted, Turner was elected R A (1802), and during the succeeding years he spent much time in traveling, visiting France, Switzerland, Italy, and the Rhine, and producing innumerable water colors, as well as some of his finest oil paintings.
That splendor of the sky, which was to be peculiar glory of Turner, is first indicated in his ‘Sun rising through Vapor’, painted in 1807, and it was possibly because this was the first picture in which he was able to obtain the effect after which he strove most earnestly that he was so attached to this picture. He sold it, but twenty years later, at the De Tabley sale of 1827, he bought it back for £514 10s. in order that he might bequeath this to the nation, together with his ‘Dido Building Carthage’ on condition they should be hung in perpetuity beside Claude’s ‘Marriage of Isaac and Rebecca’ and ‘Embarkation of the Queen of Sheba.’ Conscious of his own powers and confident in the verdict of posterity, Turner was jealous of other painter’s fame, and he was enraged at the way in which English connoisseurs extolled the pictures of Claude while they neglected his own works.
The pictures already mentioned, together with the lovely ‘Crossing the Brook,’ a view near Weir Head, Tamar, looking towards Plymouth and Mount Edgcumbe, also painted in 1815, may be regarded as the chief masterpieces in oils of Turner’s first period. After 1820 a great change was manifest in his manner of painting. In the early paintings dark predominated, with a very limited portion of light, and he painted solidly throughout with a vigorous and full brush; but his later works are based on a light ground with a small proportion of dark, and using opaque touches of te purest orange, blue purple, and other powerful colors, Turner obtained infinitely delicate gradations which produced a splendid and harmonious effect. This new manner is first seen in his ‘Bay of Baiæ,’ painted in 1823, and six years later, in 1829, it is revealed in all its glory in one of Turner’s most beautiful and poetical works, ‘Ulysses Deriding Polyphemus,’ in which, as Redgrave has said, ‘while in no way gaudy, it seems impossible to surpass the power of color which he has attained, or the terrible beauty in which he has clothed his poetic conception.’ In this glorious picture, ‘a work almost without a parallel in art,’ the nominal subject has little more power over us today than it has in the Claudes. Turner’s painting attracts us primarily, not as an illustration to a familiar story from Homer, but as a glowing piece of color, a magnificently decorative transcription of a flaming sunrise. And with all this the picture is a ‘magic casement’ through which our imagination looks out on a world of romance, for in this color is all the intoxication of triumph, of final victory after perils escaped; and though Turner himself probably did not know it, and few who look upon his masterpiece are conscious of the fact, this picture subconsciously expresses the elation, the pride, and even the touch of insolence, that all England felt after her victorious issue from the Napoleonic wars.
The Rise Of Landscape Painting (continued)
At Dr Monro’s house Turner met John Robert Cozens (1752-99), a most poetic painter in water colors and the son of a water color artist, Alexander Cozens, who died in 1786; and while Turner owed most to his diligent study of Nature, he always owned his obligation to Cozens, who was indeed his immediate predecessor in water color and the first to produce those atmospheric effects which Turner rivalled and excelled.
In 1799, at age of twenty four, Turner was elected as Associate of the Royal Academy and henceforward, surer of himself and his public, he eschewed the merely topographical imitation of landscape for a nobler art. He looked beyond the mere details to a larger treatment of Nature, seizing all the poetry of sunshine, and the mists of morn and eve, with the grandeur of storm and the glow of sunset. In feeling his way to this period of his first style Turner looked not only to Nature but also to the example of his great predecessors, Claude Richard Wilson, and the Dutch painters of the seventeenth century. The influence of the Dutch School, and particularly of Van de Velde, is apparent in many of these early works, even in ‘Calais Pier’, which, painted in 1803, was held by Ruskin to be ‘the first which bears the sign manual and sign mental of Turner’s colossal power.’ Already, however, Turner had improved on Van de Velde, who was never able to interpret weather so truly and vigorously as it is painted in the rolling sea and windy sky of this stimulating sea piece.
The year before this picture was painted, Turner was elected R A (1802), and during the succeeding years he spent much time in traveling, visiting France, Switzerland, Italy, and the Rhine, and producing innumerable water colors, as well as some of his finest oil paintings.
That splendor of the sky, which was to be peculiar glory of Turner, is first indicated in his ‘Sun rising through Vapor’, painted in 1807, and it was possibly because this was the first picture in which he was able to obtain the effect after which he strove most earnestly that he was so attached to this picture. He sold it, but twenty years later, at the De Tabley sale of 1827, he bought it back for £514 10s. in order that he might bequeath this to the nation, together with his ‘Dido Building Carthage’ on condition they should be hung in perpetuity beside Claude’s ‘Marriage of Isaac and Rebecca’ and ‘Embarkation of the Queen of Sheba.’ Conscious of his own powers and confident in the verdict of posterity, Turner was jealous of other painter’s fame, and he was enraged at the way in which English connoisseurs extolled the pictures of Claude while they neglected his own works.
The pictures already mentioned, together with the lovely ‘Crossing the Brook,’ a view near Weir Head, Tamar, looking towards Plymouth and Mount Edgcumbe, also painted in 1815, may be regarded as the chief masterpieces in oils of Turner’s first period. After 1820 a great change was manifest in his manner of painting. In the early paintings dark predominated, with a very limited portion of light, and he painted solidly throughout with a vigorous and full brush; but his later works are based on a light ground with a small proportion of dark, and using opaque touches of te purest orange, blue purple, and other powerful colors, Turner obtained infinitely delicate gradations which produced a splendid and harmonious effect. This new manner is first seen in his ‘Bay of Baiæ,’ painted in 1823, and six years later, in 1829, it is revealed in all its glory in one of Turner’s most beautiful and poetical works, ‘Ulysses Deriding Polyphemus,’ in which, as Redgrave has said, ‘while in no way gaudy, it seems impossible to surpass the power of color which he has attained, or the terrible beauty in which he has clothed his poetic conception.’ In this glorious picture, ‘a work almost without a parallel in art,’ the nominal subject has little more power over us today than it has in the Claudes. Turner’s painting attracts us primarily, not as an illustration to a familiar story from Homer, but as a glowing piece of color, a magnificently decorative transcription of a flaming sunrise. And with all this the picture is a ‘magic casement’ through which our imagination looks out on a world of romance, for in this color is all the intoxication of triumph, of final victory after perils escaped; and though Turner himself probably did not know it, and few who look upon his masterpiece are conscious of the fact, this picture subconsciously expresses the elation, the pride, and even the touch of insolence, that all England felt after her victorious issue from the Napoleonic wars.
The Rise Of Landscape Painting (continued)
Synthetic Diamond Update
The latest CVD (chemical vapor deposition) synthetic diamonds produced by Apollo Diamond Inc are better in color and clarity (a significant improvement) + well-proportioned, relatively large colorless, near-colorless and fancy-colored diamonds (comparable in quality to many natural diamonds in the gem market) are available (0.14-0.71ct range) + for now CVD synthetic diamonds are identifiable by their (unusual internal graining, fluorescence zoning) unique gemological and spectroscopic features + I think, CVD diamond growth techniques will continue to improve in the coming years and will eventually be in the gem market + if in doubt always consult a reputed gem testing laboratory.
Useful link:
www.apollodiamond.com
Useful link:
www.apollodiamond.com
Monday, February 11, 2008
Gem Scam Lives On
Siriporn Sachamuneewongse writes about the typical gem scams in Bangkok (Thailand) + the official view (s) + the dos and dont's + other viewpoints @ http://www.bangkokpost.com/100208_Perspective/10Feb2008_pers002.php
Useful links:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thai_gem_scam
www.geocities.com/thaigemscamgroup
www.youtube.com/watch?v=2AJHi8uC7T8
Useful links:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thai_gem_scam
www.geocities.com/thaigemscamgroup
www.youtube.com/watch?v=2AJHi8uC7T8
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