Art Museums In The Middle East

I found the art museums in the Middle East educational + interesting.

Egyptian Museum
- www.egyptianmuseum.gov.eg

Coptic Museum
- www.copticmuseum.gov.eg

Mohamed Mahmoud Khalil and Wife Museum
- www.mkhalilmuseum.gov.eg

Tehran Museum of Contemporary Art
- www.tehranmoca.com

Darat al Funun Home for the Arts
- www.daratalfunun.org

Jordan National Gallery of Fine Arts
- www.nationalgallery.org

Tareq Rajab Museum
- http://trmkt.com

Istanbul Modern
- www.istanbulmodern.org

Oum Kalsoum Collection

A necklace (nine rows of pearls with multicolored enamel + white stones) belonging to Oum Kalsoum (a.k.a. The Shining Star of the Middle East), one of the greatest singers of the Arab world, given to the Egyptian singer by the founding president of the United Arab Emirates, Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan al-Nahyan, will be auctioned by Christies in Dubai, on April 29, 2008.

Useful links:
www.christies.com
www.oumkalthoum.org
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Umm_Kulthum_(singer)

Concert Film

U2 3D: Digital 3D imagery + 5.1 Surround Sound = Immersive theatrical experience @ http://www.u23dmovie.com/?section=trailer

Random Thoughts

Creating a meaningful experience requires thoughtful attention to your customers at every point of contact—what I call the 360-degree experience. There are four components to consider when designing the 360-degree experience: Know where you are in the innovation cycle + Know your DNA + Make emotional connections + Design for the complete experience.

- Sohrab Vossoughi, Founder/President, ZIBA Design
www.ziba.com

China Pearls and Jewelry City

It has been reported that Man Sang Holdings Inc. has opened its market center in China's Pearls and Jewellery (CP and J) City in Zhuji, Zhejiang Province, China + it's amazing to note the huge investment the Zhuji Government has undertaken to promote pearl and jewelry trade in the region.

Useful links:
www.man-sang.com
www.cpjcity.com

Nudge

Nudge: Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth, and Happiness by Richard H. Thaler + Cass R. Sunstein is a great book that conveys important lessons (decision making /choice architecture) in an entertaining way + I really liked this book.

Useful link:
www.nudges.org

Thomas Cletscher

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

Very fortunately, the majority of the sketches by Thomas Cletscher (1598-1668) have been preserved, and are now in an album in the Boymans-van Beuningen Museum, Rotterdam. The drawings themselves date from 1625 to about 1647. They cover a period of rapid development in the evolution of diamond cutting, and include illustrations of actual diamonds of newly introduced types and thus supplement the drawings of contemporary artists.

Cletscher, the son of a wealthy wine merchant, gained much of his experience from his brother-in-law, Jao Colen of Coole, Dean of te Guild of Goldsmiths. In 1650 Cletscher became a professional jeweler and was appointed to the Court of Orange. He became a gem-setter and a specialist in diamonds, and was thus in a position to reproduce with great accuracy the different diamond cuts and their facetings. His drawings and comments five exact details of outline, size, weight, faceting, provenance, and so on. Even those drawings not actually by Cletscher himself are of comparable precision and quality. What he was doing, in fact, was producing a detailed illustrated diary of his family business.

Cletscher eventually became Dean of the Guild of Gold and Silversmiths and Mayor of The Hague. He also had connections with banks and pawnbrokers, as an evaluator and an intermediary in important transactions, such as the pawning and eventual sale in Amsterdam of the British Crown Jewels by Queen Henrietta Maria.

Post-Impressionism, Cubism, And Futurism

(via The Outline of Art) William Orpen writes:

If we look at his landscapes, or his ‘Card Players’, or his portrait of himself, we do not think first of the light by which these things are seen, but rather of the weight, density, and solidity of the forms depicted. The art of Cézame is simpler and less complicated than that of Monet and Pissarro; his analysis of color is more summary, his expressions ruder and more forcible. His color is entirely his own, and the prevalence of browns in his pictures itself separates him from the other Impressionists; but this brown with him is not a convention, it is true to the color of the sun-scorched landscape of his home, of the South of France, in which he chiefly worked. His paintings may seem clumsy in handling beside the delicate work of Renoir and Sisley, but by reason of his whole-hearted sincerity and honesty of purpose they make a deep and strong impression. Cézanne was not a conscious revolutionary; his pronounced style was the result of a strong, incorruptibly honest mind struggling to express what his eye could see without any preconceived ideas as to the manner of expression. His private life was simple and uneventful, devoted to unremitting toil which was never recognized or honored. After studying in Paris he returned to the South of France, where he lived and married on an allowance of £12 a month made him by his father, a banker. After his father’s death he inherited a share of his fortune, but made little change in his manner of living. He did not paint to make money, but to learn more about Nature and life, and to express what he felt vaguely in his soul. It is related of him that after he had finished a study out-of-doors, he would often leave his painting against the nearest bush. With the last brush-stroke, his interest in the painting ceased: he had done all he could; and it was his wife who surreptitiously followed in his footsteps and garnered in the canvases so difficult at that time to sell.

Of Cézame it may truly be said that he did not paint to live, but lived to paint, and owing to his absorption in the act of painting, and his consequent detachment from life, he tended to paint human beings as if they were still life. So it comes about that some of Cézame’s most impressive paintings are simple pictures of still life. In his work, as M Duret has pointed out, ‘a few apples and a napkin on a table assume a kind of grandeur, in the same degree as a human head or a landscape with sea.’ In painting fruit Cézame seemed able to suggest the tremendous power of Nature, so that pears and apples spread idly on a dinner table become a revelation of the hidden forces of Nature which bring fruits to birth. It is only now and again in his figure paintings that we get a glimpse of the passion for humanity which warms the work of a Rembrandt.

This quality, however, is abundantly present in the work of his younger contemporary, Vincent Van Gogh (1853-90), who exclaimed in one of his letters, ‘I want to paint humanity, humanity, and again humanity.’ A Dutchman by birth, Van Gogh was slow to find his true vocation, and he was close on thirty before he began painting. His brief life is full of romance and pathos. Always of a fanatical temper, and the son of a Lutheran pastor, Vincent began to earn his living as assistant to an art dealer, but soon shocked his employers by his habit of quoting the Bible to prospective purchasers and pouring forth passionate sermons if they showed signs of purchasing pictures which he considered to be trivial and unworthy. For a few months he was a schoolmaster in England, but in 1877 he returned to Amsterdam, purposing to become a clergyman. He grew impatient in the dry atmosphere of a theological college; and set out as a misisonary to the mining district of Borinage, in Belgium. Here his ardent sympathies with the hardships of the workers soon got him into trouble with the authorities; he gave away all that he had wtih reckless generosity, and nearly starving himself, he began to relieve his emotions by drawing the people he could not help or comfort. Henceforward art claimed him, and though he had no prospect of being able to support himself in this way, he was encouraged to persevere, and entirely supported by his brother Theo, who had a good position in Paris. At first Van Gogh took Millet for his model, but after he had joined his brother at Paris in 1886 he was influenced by Pissarro and Seurat, and adhered to the neo-Impressionist ideals of painting. But in adopting their palette and technique Van Gogh showed his own individuality by using for the separation of color, not points or patches, but fine lines of pigment, lines whipped on with extraordinary nervous force and passion. His color touches are so alive that they have not inaptly been described as ‘wriggling little snakes.’ His portrait of himself with a beard shows his style of painting soon after he had learnt the secrets of Impressionism, and also reveals his own peculiar character. Van Gogh was not the inventor of a new technique; but he rapidly developed a distinctive style of his own, remarkable for its vehemance of attack. ‘He was the most passionate of painters, and the extraordinary intensity of his vivid impressions may be likened to our vision of things seen momentarily in the duration of a lightning flash.’

Post-Impressionism, Cubism, And Futurism (continued)

Charles Darwin's Original Drafts Goes Online

Charles Darwin's original notes and draft texts will now be available to everyone free of charge + according to Dr John van Wyhe, a Darwin specialist at Cambridge University, the online archive about Charles Darwin is so vast it would take someone two months to view it all if they downloaded one image per minute.

Useful links:
http://darwin-online.org.uk
http://www.hps.cam.ac.uk

All Roads Film Project

All Roads Film Project is a unique National Geographic initiative for indigenous and underrepresented minority-culture artists to share their cultures, stories, and perspectives through the power of film and photography.

Useful link:
http://www.nationalgeographic.com/allroads

Random Thoughts

We find that whole communities suddenly fix their minds upon one subject, and go mad in its pursuit; that millions of people become si­multaneously impressed with one delusion and run after it. . . . Sober nations have all at once become desperate gamblers, and risked almost their existence upon the turn of a piece of paper. . . . Men, it has been well said, think in herds. . . they go mad in herds, while they only re­cover their senses slowly and one by one.

- Charles Mackay
http://www.gutenberg.org/browse/authors/m#a516

Art Cologne

(via Wiki) Art Cologne is an art fair held annually in Cologne, Germany + Art Cologne is Germany's leading art fair and was established in 1967 as the World's first Art Fair + It bills itself as the 'world's oldest art fair', although in fact the 57th Street Art Fair was founded in 1948, almost two decades earlier + Perhaps a fairer title would be the 'world's oldest international art fair' + The fair was instrumental in bringing together geographically separated dealers and galleries and created the first competitive overview of the international art market + For six days each year, the fair brings together 250 leading dealers drawn from dozens of different countries, showcasing the very best that the international art market has to offer + The fair attracts both the trade and the public, including private collectors, curators, artists and art lovers.

Useful links:
http://www.koelnmesse.de/wEnglisch/artcologne/index.htm
http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/04/21/arts/koln.php

A Luxury Perfume Bottle

According to IGC Group, the EXIRE® gold perfume bottle embodies 201 brilliant EXIRE® diamonds (3,67ct) and can contain up to 4ml of perfume and elegantly fit onto a woman’s hand.

Brilliant + a unique piece of art!

Useful link:
www.igcgroup.com

Oil Paintings From Afghanistan

I found the article on oil paintings from Afghanistan @ http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/7361994.stm interesting because if the paintings are genuine then these may be the oldest known examples anywhere of painting with oil.

Useful link:
www.esrf.eu

Hot Spots

Hot Spots: Why Some Teams, Workplaces, and Organizations Buzz with Energy - And Others Don't by Lynda Gratton is a fascinating book that provides alternative ways via cooperative mindset + boundary spanning + igniting purpose + productive capacity, the essential elements required for business growth and sustainability, with real life examples.

Useful links:
www.lyndagratton.com
www.london.edu

The Lorraine Jewel

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

This rich gold and enamel pendant has been part of the Wittelsbach Collection since Prince Elector Maximilian I inherited it from his first wife, Elizabeth of Lorraine, in 1637. The early history of the jewel is unknown, but experts assume it to be of south German origin and date is to about 1600. The pendant as it was when it was in Elizabeth’s possession, a masterpiece of craftsmanship and good taste, is in no way matched by the ‘new’ pendant into which it was later transformed. The goldsmith entrusted with the alteration had neither the skill nor the artistic sensibility of its original creator.

My first impression on seeing this jewel was that the pendeloque-shaped diamond at the top must be a modern replacement because of its exceptional brilliance and rich faceting. But a careful examination made it clear that the setting had never been touched: the metal was not scratched and the enamel was intact. I realized that I was in the presence of an early gem of masterly fashioning, what one might call an ‘experimental’ brilliant. This and the other diamonds in the pendant, all carefully chosen and of great beauty, show that the jewel was intended to be exceptionally magnificent, displaying only the very best gems. A document of 1637 mentions as the main feature a ‘large triangular diamond’. A few years later this diamond was unset and replaced by a gold triangle set with several smaller diamonds. There is no record of the whereabouts of the large gem.

In attempting to reconstruct the jewel in its original form, it was necessary to decide on the most plausible shape for this large triangular diamond. I toyed with the idea of a triangular Table Cut, or a Gothic Rose Cut with trihedral faceting similar to the four surrounding diamonds, but neither of these seemed adequate. I was also strongly tempted to reproduce the design of the French Blue (now the Hope Diamond) as it was when it was fashioned in 1673, but since I could find no evidence that such a design existed at the beginning of the century, I settled for a rich faceting to match the pendeloque at the top.

This pendeloque is beautifully proportioned. It measures 18 x 13 mm, and has a square table formed by two triangles. There are thirteen facets, mostly triangular, applied all over the crown. The culet is shaped like a kite, closely following the outline of the gem. The five pavilion facets are excellent reflectors and create amazing light effects.

The four medium-sized triangular, trihedrally faceted diamonds surrounding the large triangle are regular Rose Cuts. As was often the case when display was required, the corners are blunt, and in some stones even missing altogether. The sharp triangular effect is achieved by the setting.

The faceting of the Point Cut—the largest of the stones in the gold triangle—was inspired by a crystal with narrow dodecahedral facets instead of edges. The double pyramid is 11 x 11 mm in size, and the angle of inclination is just 2° below the octahedral angle. The four rectangular diamonds in the triangle are normal Table Cuts, again with blunt corners. There are also two smaller Table Cuts and two small Point Cuts. Three fine pearls, typical of Renaissance pendants and documented in this one, are now missing.

Post-Impressionism, Cubism, And Futurism

(via The Outline of Art) William Orpen writes:

The Art Of Cézanne, Van Gogh, Gauguin, Matisse, And Picasso

1

What is ‘Post-Impressionism’? This term was invented by the English painter and art critic Mr Roger Fry, to cover various art movements which came after Impressionism, and since some of these movements have been developments of Impressionism, while others have been a reaction from it, confusion can only be avoided by considering separately the principal movements and the artists associated with them.

From the days of Giotto down to the close of the nineteenth century, the development of the main stream of European painting was in the direction of a more perfect representation of the appearances of natural forms. In the nineteenth century two causes contributed to change the direction of painting. One was the invention of Photography, which set painters wondering what part the representative element really played in a picture; the other was the new color science of the Impressionists, who seemed to have pushed truth of representation to a point where further developments were impossible. Ambitious painters sighed, like Alexander, for new worlds to conquer: the problems of foreshortening, of perspective, of the true color of shadows, all had been solved triumphantly by their predecessors. What was there left to be done by a painter who did not wish to imitate the work of any other artist? It was inevitable that a reaction should set in. Painting, had become, as we have seen, a highly complicated and scientific business. A new generation began to argue that, after all, painting was not a science but an art, and that its primary function was not the accurate representation of Nature but the expression of an emotion. A fresh start was made in a new direction. Emphasis was now to be laid on expressing an idea rather than on rendering appearances, and it was held that by reducing the facts of phenomena to a minimum the idea might be able to shine forth more brightly. The vessel of art having become overloaded, it was thought advisable to lighten the ship by throwing some of the cargo overboard.

Already there had been a forerunner in this direction. Honoré Daumier (1808-79), though chiefly known to his contemporaries as a pungent caricaturist and lithographer, also executed oil paintings which have become highly esteemed since his death. These pictures, sometimes satirising the Law Courts whose ‘justice’ roused him to fury, often based on some illuminating incident in the history of Don Quixote and Sancho Panza, were unlike any other pictures of his time, and always expressed an idea with a maximum of intellectual force and a minimum of color and pictorial means.

Half a century before his time, he had the courage to eliminate trappings and redundancies from his painting, and to give us plastic conceptions o rugged simplicity. In so doing he anticipated the most interesting and fruitful of modern pictorial movements.

It was from the heart of Impressionism itself that that most powerful reaction began, and the artist usually regarded now as the ‘Father of Post-Impressionism’ is Paul Cézane (1839-1906), who during his lifetime exhibited with the Impressionists and was long thought to be one of them. But though the friend and companion of Pissarro, Renoir, and Monet, Cézanne differed from them in many ways. To begin with, he was a southerner, born at Aix in Provence, while all the others belonged to Northern France; secondly, while accepting their color theories, he never wholly adopted in practice their prismatic palette; thirdly, while they were primarily occupied with registering fugitive effects of light, he was always most concerned with eternal verities. His aim is best explained in his own words: ‘I wish to make of Impressionism something solid and durable, like the art of the Old Masters.’

Post-Impressionism, Cubism, And Futurism (continued)

Mass Spawning Of Corals On The Palau Archipelago

The BBC article on corals on the Palau archipelago in the western Pacific @ http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7358423.stm was brilliant. I learned something new.

A Tourist Favorite

I think 'The World's Most Expensive Gold and Jewelry Sparkling Environmental-Friendly Washroom' in Hong Kong @ http://home.howstuffworks.com/most-expensive-toilet-in-world.htm/printable has become a tourist favorite because the gold bathroom is 24-carat solid gold toilet + now Hang Fung Gold Technology Group, the jewelry manufacturer/retailer who owns it may be considering melting down a portion of the solid gold toilet to cash in on the rising price of gold to finance the group's expansion in the mainland China.

Definitely a must-see before it's gone.

Useful link:
www.hangfung.com

Artists In Exile

Artists in Exile: How Refugees from Twentieth-Century War and Revolution Transformed the American Performing Arts by Joseph Horowitz is a fascinating book on how the immigrants created American culture/political strength, and I think they are still changing the cultural landscape of America in mysterious ways.

TIA (This is America).

Useful link:
http://josephhorowitz.com

I am as American as April in Arizona.
- Vladimir Nabokov

Solar Electric System Online

I found Sungevity's business model very interesting because the web-based system evaluates the solar potential for a given home via satellite data (Microsoft Virtual Earth), provides an estimate of how much the system will save them over 25 years, the prospective increase in the value of their home, and simulated imagery of what their home might look like after solar panels are installed--all that (the calculations for preparing the estimate) in about 10 to 15 minutes.

This is definitely an impulse buy + I liked it.

Useful link:
www.sungevity.com

Customer Relationships

I found the new concept in business @ http://hbswk.hbs.edu/item/5884.html interesting + deeply satisfied employee = deeply satisfied customer = lifelong profit, makes sense.

Half-Moons

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

A Half-Moon is basically one half or less of a round-cut gem, with the straight side deeply faceted to produce a balanced and attractive design. Like other fancy outlines, it must first have been suggested by irregular rough the shape of a half-moon, a shape which was believed to have talismanic powers.

Half-Moons are rare both in surviving jewels and in contemporary illustrations. Clearly, there was little incentive to fashion such a shape, a wide triangle usually being preferred. Nearly all the examples I have seen have been of Italian origin. While this cannot be pure coincidence, I have been unable to discover any reasonable explanation. According to the eminent specialist Basil Watermeyer, the Half-Moon ‘was probably born through being accidentally cleaved in the faceting process. When this happens on a round cut which is already far advanced, there is just nothing else which can be done. Often rough stones have deep fractures through the side and no other cut but the half-moon can be adapted to it....It is essential that faceting designs have a meeting point midway between table rid and girdle so that the meet of the star and top half can link up.’

Realism And Impressionism In France

(via The Outline of Art) William Orpen writes:

It has often been asked why a statue by Rodin is different from any other statue, and the explanation is simple: instead of copying Greek sculpture as others had done, Rodin did as the Greeks did—he went direct to Nature. ‘Everything,’ he said, ‘is contained in Nature, and when the artist follows Nature he gets everything.’ Rodin taught his contemporaries that distinction in sculpture is obtained, not by selecting a certain type of figure, but by gift and art of modeling. ‘Sculpture,’ he once said, ‘is the art of the hole and the lump,’ and as he went on he proved that in order to present a true appearance of form it was necessary sometimes to fashion the ‘holes’ and ‘lumps’ not exactly as they existed in anatomy, but as they appeared to the human eye. In this way Rodin introduced impressionism into sculpture, showing us heads and figures as they appeared to the human eye enveloped in atmosphere and bathed in light. His famous monument ‘The Citizens of Calais’ is remarkable, not only for the poignant expression of the different characters of the various figures, but also for the truth of atmosphere and movement in this procession winding its way along slowly and sadly. These are no graveyard figures, but living men moving and breathing in the air that surrounds them. Commemorating an historic incident when France and England were at war, this monument has become a happy and lasting token of the Entente Cordiale, for in addition to the monument at Calais a replica of it has been erected on the Victoria Embankment, London, close to the House of Lords, thanks to the generosity of English admirers of the French sculptor.

The rugged technique by which Rodin obtained his wonderful effects of atmospheric reality was long in establishing itself in public favor, yet there have been few sculptors animated with a more profound respect for the material of their art. It was Rodhin’s love of marble itself which led to a new development of his art, in which he would leave rough the matrix from which his sculpture was hewn, so that delicate heads and figures seemed to grow like flowers out of the marble of their origin. A memorable example of his work in this style is ‘Thought’, in which a feminine head of exquisite refinement and spirituality emerges from a rough-hewn block of marble.

Rodin reached his extreme limit of impressionism in sculpture with his colossal statue of ‘Balzac’, which, when exhibited in the New Salon of 1898, threw the world of art into a condition bordering upon frenzy. The man who twenty years before had been declared too skilful to be genuine was now accused of not knowing the elements of his craft. Yet the sublime simplicity of this figure, loosely wrapped in a dressing-gown, with the upturned face, the lion-maned head of genius, soaring, as it were, to heaven, revealed Rodin at his highest not only as a master of impressionist modelling, but also as a psychologist who could conceive and create an unforgettable expression of the very soul of genius.

Random Thoughts

According to Tony Tan, GIC's deputy chairman, the world could be facing a recession which is longer, deeper and wider than any recession we have encountered in the last 30 years, if swift actions are not taken.

Useful link:
www.gic.com.sg

Origin, Ceylon Sapphire

I think the initiative by the Sri Lankan Gem & Jewelry Association to promote their colored stones, especially sapphires is a great idea + it will definitely popularize Sri Lankan sapphires worldwide but also position Sri Lanka on top of the pyramid provided the origin certification is done by a laboratory that is well-known, trusted and recognized worldwide + I don't think the local gem testing laboratories have the same luster like the international laboratories + my view is it makes sense to certify good quality stones of 1 carat and above.

Useful links:
www.facetssrilanka.com
www.srilankagemautho.com
www.ips.lk

Second Life Art And Jewelry Show

The First Annual Second Life Art Exhibit & Jewelry Show (April 19 - 20, 2008) via http://www.pr.com/press-release/81473 is an interesting concept + I think it must be the largest art exhibit/jewelry show to date in cyberspace by enthusiasts from both cyber and real worlds.

Brilliant!

Useful links:
www.monogramvirtua.com
http://secondlife.com

The Father Of Emissions Trading

I found the article on Richard Sandor, a practical visionary, who invented a financial technique of capping and trading pollutants @ http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1732518,00.html interesting because I think his tools, models and ideas may be our best hope for beating climate change.

Useful link:
www.chicagoclimatex.com

Heard On The Street

The thing you are looking for won't occur until you are so discouraged that you stop looking.

Millionaire Fair

The Moscow Millionaire Fair held in Moscow, Russia is an annual fair for the exclusive Russian millionaires of today + it's perceived as the most famous luxury exhibit in Europe, if not the world + the fair is not just for the very rich, it is open for everyone to enjoy, but I think it's the millionaires who buy the real thing (s).

Useful link:
www.millionairfair.ru

Chinese Rhinoceros Horn Carvings

I found the article on Chinese Rhinoceros horn carvings @ http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/04/18/arts/raahorn.php interesting because they are stylistically different through various periods influenced by changing scholarly tastes + the value factor = size + color + rarity + quality (signed by known and recognized carvers), just like paintings, jewelry and gemstones.

Useful links:
www.christies.com
www.sothebys.com

Personality Not Included

Personality Not Included: Why Companies Lose Their Authenticity And How Great Brands Get it Back by Rohit Bhargava is a great book that leads you through the process of properly building a company personality + he explains it all in a practical, understandable way.

I liked it.

Useful link:
www.personalitynotincluded.com

Hearts

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

Gems which would today be classified as ‘triangular with rounded corners’ or ‘drops’, were at one time described as being heart-shaped. This is clear from many descriptions in French inventories dating from the middle of the seventeenth to far into the eighteenth century. It is quite possible that the term had a long tradition behind it. Another old French term for Heart was chapeau, meaning a tricorne hat.

Gradually, the conventional representation of the human heart became the standard outline. The earliest diamond of this shape that I have come across is in a portrait, A Gonzaga Princess, painted around 1605 by Frans Pourbus the Younger. The large piece of jewelry on the princess’s left sleeve contains a great variety of different cuts. The small Table Cuts and Hogbacks were especially shaped to fit very exactly into the scrolls. The pearly appearance of the small gems at the top of the jewel is puzzling. They may be pearls, but they could equally well be diamonds, like the half-moons in the brooch close to the neckline of the Princess’s dress. If they are diamonds, they are unique in having no facets at all; they must all have been bruted and polished by hand! Of course, they may well be cabochon-cut opaque gems of some other kind.

In August 1968, I analyzed the historical diamonds in a number of collections in Vienna. One of the stones, originally described as a Heart, was a tiny, flat-bottomed, multi-faceted pendeloque set in an oval mount on the Burgundian Court Goblet. Multi-faceted diamonds were not fashionable before the early seventeenth century. It is this fact that has, up to now, led people to believe that it was the final mastering of extensive fashioning that actually created the fashion for Rose Cuts and Brilliants.

E B Tiffany of Henry Birks, the Toronto jewelers, once sent me a photograph of a Heart which is in the Iranian Bank in Tehran. This diamond, said to weigh 22.93 ct, looks very like a Brilliant Cut. It is engraved on the flat end with a text in Persian, which indicates that it was fashioned in 1591 or 1592. It cannot, at that early date, have been an actual brilliant; perhaps it could best be described as a multi-faceted Table Cut.

Tavernier wrote that in 1665, among the treasures of the Mughal Emperor Aurung-Zeb, he saw a ‘trinket’ with a heart-shaped Rose Cut diamond (probably a regular Mughal Cut) weighing 35 ct. The French Blue diamond, when it had been recut in 1673, was also described as heart-shaped. The Blue Heart (31 ct) in the Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC, is another example of a Heart, and there are another two in a shoulder-knot by Diessbach in about 1673 and now in the Grünes Gewölbe, Dresden.

Realism And Impressionism In France

(via The Outline of Art) William Orpen writes:

5

By the first principle of Impressionism, the substitution of simulataneous for consecutive vision, sculpture was affected as well as painting. From the time of Louis XIV France had always had talented and accomplished sculptors at her command, but it was not until the era of Impressionism that she produced a great world-sculptor whose name was worthily coupled with that of Michael Angelo. Among the earlier French sculptors Jean Baptiste Pigalle (1714-85) was a pioneer of Realism, his vigorous and fertile imagination giving his sculpture a certain accent of life and origanility. Jean Antoine Houdon (1741-1828), his pupil, was famous for the power and truth of his portrait busts; Francois Rude (1784-1855) was a still greater liberator of French sculpture from a cramping classicism which slavishly imitated the antique. His famous group ‘Le Départ des Volontaires de 1790’ on the Arc de Triomphe shows Rude’s realism and the nobility of his expression of patriotic feeling. Antoine Louis Barye (1796-1875), both painter and sculptor, the contemporary and friend of the Barbizon landscape painters, achieved high distinction by his lifelike sculpture of animals, and his small bronze are still eagerly sought after by collectors.

It was a pupil of Barye, an even greater modeller than himself, who was to achieve the greatest fame won by any sculptor since Michael Angelo, Auguste Rodin was born at Paris in the same year as Monet, 1840. He was of humble origin, and in his youth had to earn his living by working in a mason’s yard, where he became familiar with the material he was destined to master. For years his only studio was his humble bedroom, and it was here that he modelled his early bust, ‘The Man with the Broken Nose,’ which, when exhibited at the Salon, was acknowledged to be a masterpiece of realism, modelled with a power and truth unknown for generations. When his beautiful statue, ‘The Age of Bronze,’ no in Luxembourg, was exhibited in the Salon of 1877, the authorities were so astonished by its masterly modelling that the sculptor was accused of having taken a cast from life. To prove the falsehood of this accusation Rodin made his next statue, ‘St John the Baptist’ rather more than life-size, and again the modelling was miraculous in its perfection. If the ‘Age of Youth’ with its polished rendering of the graceful form of adolscence reminds us of the best Greek sculpture, this second powerful and lifelike rendering of a mature man is comparable to the figures by the master-sculptors of the Renaissance.

Realism And Impressionism In France (continued)

Caught Up In The Drama

The title of the article is great: Put a Diamond Under Stress, and You Might Crack -- the actors in the drama include: Ralph O. Esmerian, 68, a collector of American folk art and precious gems who owns the Fred Leighton jewelry company + Merrill Lynch Mortgage Capital, a division of Merrill Lynch & Company + Peter E. Bacanovic, the former Merrill Lynch broker who was sentenced to five months in prison for his role in the Martha Stewart stock case + François Curiel, the director of Christie’s jewelry department + read the full story @ http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/20/fashion/20jewels.html

The following comments are great lessons in (jewelry) business.

'The estimates are disastrously low. It’s a fire-sale presentation. These are special pieces that deserve some respect. It’s like a magnificent Fifth Avenue mansion being offered for the price of a Third Avenue condo.'
- Ralph O. Esmerian

'Ralph is an artist, not a businessman. In his world, being a week late on a payment is nothing. When he sells a million-dollar piece of jewelry the client might walk out of the store without paying for it. He understands that it takes time for people to liquidate assets. People don’t have money sitting in cookie jars.'
- Helen Davis Chaitman

What Do Hedge-Funders Do With All That Money?

(via wsj) According to Alpha Magazine the top 25 fund managers earned US$16 billion in 2007, and what do hedge-funders do with all that money? They spend + according to Prince & Associates, most hedge funders spend their millions on art, jewelry, watches, hotels and spas.

As they say in business, if you have got it flaunt it.

Useful links:
www.alphamagazine.com
www.russalanprince.com
www.exoticexcess.com

Green Websites

I found the Green Websites via Time informative + useful.

- Grist
http://grist.org

- TreeHugger
www.treehugger.com

- Dot Earth
http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com

- climate conversation
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/climatechange

- RealClimate
www.realclimate.org

- Environmental Capital
http://blogs.wsj.com/environmentalcapital

- No Impact Man
http://noimpactman.typepad.com/blog

- EcoGeek
www.ecogeek.org

- Ecorazzi
www.ecorazzi.com

- Switchboard
http://switchboard.nrdc.org

- Mongabay
www.mongabay.com

- ClimateEthics
http://climateethics.org

- Climate Progress
http://climateprogress.org

- WorldChanging
www.worldchanging.com

- PlanetArk
www.planetark.com

Random Thoughts

The brush can capture in a single stroke the entire tragedy of a life.

- Philippe Pasqua

Alchemy Of Glass

A must-visit: The upcoming exhibition at the Corning Museum of Glass in Corning, New York, 'Glass of the Alchemists: Lead Crystal-Gold Ruby, 1650-1750,' will explore how alchemists contributed to the creation of colorless crystal and gold ruby glass, two advances of fundamental importance in the history of glassmaking + the museum is home to the world's most comprehensive collection of glass from all periods and cultures over the past 3,500 years.

Useful links:
www.cmog.org
http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/04/18/arts/raacorn.php

Christian Louboutin

I found the article on Christian Louboutin @ http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1731871,00.html interesting because beautiful shoe designs = posture and proportion, just like well-cut gemstones, good proportions, symmetry and finish = total internal reflection + no wonder his shoes are like jewels.

Useful link:
www.christianlouboutin.fr

The Back Of The Napkin

The Back of the Napkin: Solving Problems and Selling Ideas with Pictures by Dan Roam is a fascinating/insightful book on simple visuals + simple images is as much an art as a skill.

I liked it.

Useful link:
http://digitalroam.com

The Coxcomb Cut

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

A coxcomb (or cockscomb) is ‘a cap worn by a jester, like a cock’s comb in shape and color’ (Oxford English Dictionary), while Victor Gay’s Glossaire gives this defintion of the French creste: ‘ornament qui pose depuis les premières années du 13ème siècle sur le heaume (helmet), est plus connu sous le nom de cimier (souvent une aigrette de plumes)’. These two terms are used to describe a fancy type of gem cut which was already appearing in inventories in the early fifteenth century: in 1402 Duke Louis of Guyenne had ‘un rubis a crestè’. In 1420 Philip the Good had ‘ung bien gros dyament taillé en façon de creste de cog.’

It is quite evident what type of cut was meant, since it is easy to find such diamonds in various collections. However, it was not common. It was applied only when the rough was suitable and an appreciable amount of weight could be saved. Modern versions are called Multiple Step Cuts, Bent Top Cuts, or simply Bar Cuts. They are fashioned in a variety of outlines and with very varied pavilions.

Realism And Impressionism In France

(via The Outline of Art) William Orpen writes:

Claude Monet, who is still alive, has also seen pictures he sold for £4 bring thousands of pounds in America and elsewhere. Devoting himself to the painting of landscapes in bright sunlight, he has carried the pitch of painting into a higher key than any artist before him had done. ‘Pine Tree at Antibes’ is a beautiful example of his style at its maturity; radiant colors are laid side by side in small broken touches to suggest the vibration of light, while the decorative arrangement shows that Monet also has taken hints for design from the artists of Japan. Light is always the ‘principal person’ in Monet’s landscape, and since he is always aiming at seizing a fugitive effect, he has insisted on consistency of illumination at particular hours of the day and season. With this object be adopted, since the early eighties, a habit of painting the same subject under different conditions of light. He would set our early in the monrning with a carriage-load of canvases, and arriving at his destination he would start his day’s work, changing his canvas every couple of hours as the light changed. In this way he painted a series of views, all of the same subject, but all different in color and lighting. Among the most famous of these series are those known as ‘Haystacks,’ ‘The Poplars,’ ‘The Thames at Waterloo Bridge,’ ‘Rouen Cathedral,’ and ‘Waterlilies,’ the last being a scene in his own riverside garden at Giverny. When he was a young man M Monet once said, ‘I want to paint as a bird sings,’ and all his pictures have this delicious lyrical quality. While he adopted the rainbow palette and the technique of the small touch—‘the procedure by the touch’ as it is called in France—Monet has never been dogmatic in his use of divisionism.

The elaboration of Divisionism into a rigid scientific theory of painting was the work principally of two younger men; Georges Seurat (1859-91) and the living artist Paul Signac, born at Paris in 1863. But for his early death would have obtained a foremost place in modern art. It was Seurat about 1880 who definitely established the superiority, for the purposes of brilliance and intensity, of ‘optical blending’ to actual blending on the palette. The division of tones, which are never more than a convenience to painters like Monet and Sisley, became a law not to be departed from in the work of Seurat and Signac. This new scientific development of Impressionism became known as ‘neo-Impressionism.’ For a time Pissarro also practised this method of Divisionism with scrupulous exactness, but eventually he adopted a broader and freer manner, though still retaining the general principle of divided color. In addition to Seurat and Signac, the chief exponents of neo-Impressionism have been Henri-Edmond Cross (1856-1910) and the living Belgian painter, Théo van Rysselberg. This method of painting and the scientific theories on which it is based are fully described in M Paul Signac’s book D’Eugène Delacroix au Néo-Impressionisme (Paris, 1898).

Realism And Impressionism In France (continued)

Two Days In An Elevator

This is the story of Nicholas White, who was trapped in an elevator in New York City’s McGraw-Hill building for forty-one hours.

Watch it @ http://www.newyorker.com/online/video/2008/04/21/080421_elevators

What an experience!

Green Companies

I found the Green Start-Up Companies via Time informative + useful.

- Amyris Biotechnologies
www.amyrisbiotech.com

- Nanosolar
www.nanosolar.com

- First Solar
www.firstsolar.com

- Serious Materials
www.seriousmaterials.com

- PetroAlgae
www.petroalgae.com

- eMeter
www.emeter.com

- Solarcity
www.solarcity.com

- ClimateCheck
www.climate-check.com

- Verdiem
www.verdiem.com

- Enphase Energy
www.enphaseenergy.com

- Ausra
www.ausra.com

- Verenium
www.verenium.com

- Finavera
www.finavera.com

- Ergo Exergy
www.ergoexergy.com

- GridPoint
www.gridpoint.com

Random Thoughts

Being good in business is the most fascinating kind of art.

- Andy Warhol

The Art Of Investing

Only time will tell: I found the article The Art of Investing @ http://www.livemint.com/2008/04/16191717/The-Art-of-Investing.html intriguing + what's worrying is that the bourgeoning Indian art market is attracting a lot of attention worldwide due to the sudden rise of investors and collectors (with/without product knowledge) in various hues and this may be the tip of the iceberg.

Another art market bubble?

Joan Miró

(via Wiki) Joan Miró was a Catalan (Spanish) painter, sculptor and ceramicist + his work has been interpreted as Surrealism, a sandbox for the subconscious mind, a re-creation of the childlike, and a manifestation of Catalan pride + his artistic autonomy is reflected in his work and his willingness to work with several media.

I really like his style of art.

Useful links:
www.museothyssen.org
www.palazzodiamanti.it
www.nga.gov.au
www.guggenheim.org
www.expomuseum.com
www.centrepompidou.fr

The De Beers Anti-Trust Settlement: Winners and Losers

I found Chaim Even Zohar's views on the De Beers Anti-Trust Settlement @ http://www.idexonline.com/portal_FullEditorial.asp informative and insightful because at the end of the day consumers are always the losers.

Graphic Novel Update

I think comics are unique genre of art that connects people + I love it.

Useful links:
www.comic-con.org
http://act-i-vate.com
http://paulmay.livejournal.com
http://www.hollywoodcomics.com/pope.html

The Picture Of Dorian Gray

The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde is a great book, a book about you + there are lessons to be learned + I liked it.

Useful links:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0037988
http://etext.virginia.edu/toc/modeng/public/WilDori.html
http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/174

Chequer Designs

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

I have seen several diamonds dating from around 1600, and even one or two from the middle of the sixteenth century, which have surfaces covered all over with very very small squares or lozenges, rather like the design of a chessboard. One of the main reasons for this type of faceting was that at that time, when light effects were not considered important, closely packed small facets could completely disguise even very disturbing inclusions in a gem. Many of these Chequer Cuts would otherwise have been fashioned into Table Cuts.

A number of Chequer Cuts were shaped like calves’ heads, though just as many had other outlines—square, oval, round, triangular, etc. On the whole, early inventories mention either faceting or outline, but very seldom both.

Realism And Impressionism In France

(via The Outline of Art) William Orpen writes:

Another contributor to this exhibition, whose picture, ‘The Dancing Lesson’, attracted much attention, was Degas. Friendship with Manet drew Degas into this circle, though he never entirely accepted all the priciples of Impressionism. Edgar Hilaire Germain Degas (1834-1917) was born in Paris, the son of a banker, and, like Courbet and Manet, was originally destined for a legal career. In 1855, however, he entered the École des Beaux Arts, and also studied under Lamothe, a pupil of Ingres. All this life Degas, who was brought up in the classical tradition, had the deepest veneration for Ingres. He was also an admirer of Holbein and Clouet, whose pictures he copied. In 1856 he went to Rome and remained two years in Italy studying the work of the early Italian masters. Returning to Paris, he began as an historical painter, his last picture in this style being ‘A Scene of War in the Middle Ages,’ shown in the Salon of 1865. But about this time he came into contact with Manet, and through him with Pisaro, Monet, Renoir, and others who frequented the Café Guerbois in the Batingnolles, and there endlessly discussed their artistic aims and ideals. Because of this centre for social intercourse the Impressionist group was at one time nicknamed ‘The School of Batingnolles’. Owning to the powerful new influences surrounding him, Degas was led to abandon his historical works and devote himself to painting scenes of modern life. Always intensely interested in the rendering of movement, Degas was first attracted to subjects he found on the racecourse, one of the earliest successes in his new manner being ‘A Carriage at the Races’. He also painted washerwomen at their work, scenes in cafés and in theaters, and revealed himself as an artist passionately absorbed in the spectacle of city life, though with rather a cynical outlook. Degas was the greatest draughtsman among the Impressionists, and in his pictures of modern life he relied upon line more than any other of the friends with whom he exhibited, like Whistler, he was much influenced by Japanese colors prints, which gave him new ideas of pattern and design.

After the Franco-Prussian war, during which he served in the artillery, Degas concentrated on the Ballet, a subject for which he became famous throughout the world, and which occupied his best attention for twenty years. In these works Degas stands revealed as an uncompromising Realist. What he usually shows us is not the glamor and illusion of the Ballet from the spectator’s standpoint; Degas get behind the scenes and exposes the work and discipline which lie behind this artificial fairyland; he strips the dancers of their tinsel, compelling us to see that they are not lovely young nymphs, but plain, tired, hardworked women, often middle-aged. The beauty of his pictures is to be found not in any prettiness of his models but in the lighting, the arrangement, the drawing, and later, in the color, in the convincing truth of his vision, and in the decorative charm of his design. In the later seventies and thenceforward, Degas worked more frequently in pastel than in oils, and in these later pastels he adopts the prismatic hues of Luminism, based on the rainbow colors of the solar spectrum, so that these works, in addition to their masterly drawing and decorative design, have the additional beauty of shimmering, iridescent color. A superb example of his later style is the pastel ‘A Dancer on the Stage’ in the Luxembourg, Paris. Here, for once in a way, Degas forgets his cynicism and shows us the magical glamor of a première danseuse quivering with movement, bathed with light, and happy apparently in her moment of success. After 1886 Degas retired almost completely from the public eye, living the life of recluse on a fifth floor in Montmartre; refusing for the most part to sell his works or even to show them to collectors, though his fame continually increased and the value of his earlier works rose to sensational prices. Before his death his pictures ‘Dancers at the Bar,’ which he had originally sold for £20, was bought by an American collector for £17,400, this being the record price obtained today at public auction for a picture by any living artist. But Degas was equally contemptuous of praise or criticism, and to the end he declined all honors.

Realism And Impressionism In France (continued)

Oriental Rug, Gemstones, Jewelry

I found the article How To Buy an Oriental Rug @ http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1732112,00.html informative because buying rugs can be intimidating for the beginner, just like buying gemstones/jewelry + there is the clash of cultures + you shouldn't forget the first lesson: The seller is going to win, because he invented the game.

Heard On The Street

There is a market for everything + pay attention to how it works.

Iceland And Renewable Energy

Iceland's primary innovation = renewable energy + Iceland has begun making clean hydrogen fuel, a new blueprint to the rest of the world.

Useful links:
www.ectos.is
www.ge-prize.ru
www.nmi.is
www.statoilhydro.com
www.sri.com

Art Reflections In Dallas

The Goss-Michael Foundation's gallery in Dallas (USA) is a must-visit + they are showcasing works by Damien Hirst, including his 'Saint Sebastian, Exquisite Pain' — a black calf encased in a formaldehyde solution, its body pierced with arrows +++++++

Useful links:
www.gossmichaelfoundation.org
http://dallasmuseumofart.org
www.nashersculpturecenter.org
www.whitecube.com

Ólafur Elíasson

Olafur Eliasson is a Danish/Icelandic artist, who is well-known for his intellectually stimulating work of art, in my view, of a different kind, immersive and impermanent + makes you reflect and refract.

Useful links:
www.olafureliasson.net
www.moma.org
www.sfmoma.org
www.ps1.org

Jewelry Sales Training Program

I think the idea of providing custom sales training programs for jewelers (jewelry sales scenarios, role-playing, overview of sales styles, basic skills to overcome customer objections, guidance on competition, sales framework +++) by American Gem Society is brilliant + I wish there were similar programs tailored specifically for the culture-conscious jewelry sector in Asia, Europe, Africa and South America.

Useful link:
www.americangemsociety.org

Corporate Social Responsibility Educational Program

During the annual congress in Dubai, 2008, CIBJO + United Nations have decided to create a foundation that will finance and administer a worldwide Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) educational program (s) for the benefit of the jewelry industry.

Useful links:
www.cibjo.org
www.un.org

The Ten Most Beautiful Experiments

The Ten Most Beautiful Experiments by George Johnson finds beauty via science + it's a delightful book + I liked it.

The Cuboid Cut

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

The term Cuboid Cut has been given to diamonds which have all the six planes of a cube, even though they may contain combinations of the octahedron and the dodecahedron as well. Growth like this in the crystal was perhaps what first inspired cutters to produce these fancy shapes, though later Cuboid Cuts were probably also fashioned from rounded or oval dodecahedrons.

Depending on the outline of the rough, the girdle outline of a Cuboid Cut is either a regular or a slightly elongated octagon with four main square or rectangular facets in the crown sloping towards the girdle from the table. These facets, which form a cross, are separated from each other by triangular facets. The girdle, composed of eight high vertical facets, is very thick. The pavilion design is similar to that of one in a normal Table Cut. The culet is usually small and the same shape as the table. The table, the culet and four of the girdle facets form the cubic planes. The main facets correspond more or less to dodecahedral faces, and the triangular facets to octahedral faces.

Once they had achieved this original shape with very little loss of weight, some cutters ( such as the maker of the cuboid gem on the Burgundian Court Goblet) found that they had also, though probably by chance, produced a diamond of exceptional brilliance—such brilliance, in fact, that when I first saw the diamond on the Burgundian Goblet in Vienna, I thought it must be a modern replacement. Later, when I was allowed to study all the diamonds on the goblet, I was able to assure myself that this was indeed the original diamond and that it had never been replaced. The Cuboid Cut apparently became more popular than the Burgundian Point Cut in the fashioning of dodecahedral rough, but it did not survive nor evolve into any other design.

Hartley (1968) explained how to fashion, from synthetics, a Cross Brilliant. This is a design circular in outline, but with a square table—very similar, in fact, to the old Cuboid Cut. Hartley described it as being ‘very simple cut, but it has a surprising amount of brilliance’, and said that the table facet must be perfectly square adn 25-26 percent of the width of the stone. Perhaps the old Cuboid Cut has been revived!

Realism And Impressionism In France

(via The Outline of Art) William Orpen writes:

4

Camille Pissarro (1830-1930) was born at St Thomas in the Danish West Indies and came to Paris with his parents when he was twenty five. He became a pupil of Corot, and his earlier works show the influenec of Corot as regards style and color and of Millet in subject adn drawing. He was the eldest of the Impressionists, being two years older than Manet; but throughout his life Pissarro was an ardent student, never ceasing to investigate and experiment, always ready to listen to the theories and to observe the practice of a junior who claimed to have discovered a new truth. Though darker in color than his later work, a small landscape now in the Musée des Arts Decoratis at Paris, painted by Pissarro in 1869, shows that even at this time he was experimenting in the division of tones. Unfortunately nearly all the earlier paintings of Camille Pissarro are lost, for his home and studio were in the line of approach of the destroying Prussians in 1870. Owing to the war Pissarro and Monet came to London in 1871, and there they saw the later paintings of Turner, which confirmed their ideas about color and encouraged them to paint brighter and still brighter.

Claude Monet was ten years younger than Pissarro. Though born in 1840 at Paris, where his father was a merchant, he spent much of his boyhood at Havre, where he learnt a good deal about painting from Boudin. After completing his military service in Algeria, Monet returned to Paris and entered the studio of Gleyre. Here he formed a close friendship with two fellow students, Renoir and Sisley, and became acquainted later with Manet, as has already been related. Monet’s earliest paintings, however, are not lighter than those by Boudin and Corot, and he was first influenced by these and others of the Barbizon School.

Auguste Renoir (1841-1919) was born at Limoges, where his father was a tailor in a small way of business, and at the age of thirteen young Auguste began to earn his living as a painter on porcelain. This early apprenticeship left a certain trace on his art which was always decorative adn evel elegiac in spite of its later realism. In time Renoir saved up enough money to go to Paris and become a pupil of Gleyre, but while his friends were landscapists Renoir was first and foremost a figure painter.

Alfred Sisley (1839-99) was born in Paris of English parents, and his development was parallel to that of Monet, whose work his own pictures closely resemble. We may say that all these young men, together with Pissarro, were discontented with the state of painting before 1870. They looked at their pictures and they looked at Nature; but while they realized how far their painting fell short of their intention, they had not yet found the way to secure greater brilliancy and truth. That way was discovered during the ‘seventies, after Pissarro and Monet had seen the Turners in London and returned to Paris. It is possible to exaggerate the influence of Turner on the new movement, for it had really begun earlier with Delacroix, but the sight of the Turners undoubtedly hastened its accomplishment as far as Pissarro and Monet are concerned. Not the beginning of Impressionism, but the first public revelation of Impressionism, was an exhibition held at Nadar’s galleries, Boulevard des Capucines, in 1874. Here were gathered together works by many of the ‘rejected’ of 1863, Manet being the best known of them and generally considered the leader of the movement, and also works by new adherents to Impressionist doctrine. The exhibitions provoked much controversy, but it was sufficiently talked about to be something of a success, and thereafter for several years a Salon des Impressionistes was an annual event. But in 1874, the science of color was still in its infancy, and if the exhibitors were ‘Impressionists’ they were not all ‘luminists’. Even Renoir’s famous picture of people in a theatre box, painted about this time, is sombre in color, in comparison with the scintillating canvases he was to paint later.

Realism And Impressionism In France (continued)

Hormones And Market Crises

I found the article Hormones may fuel market crises @ http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/7342923.stm interesting because the Cambridge University team found testosterone levels were directly linked to the profit City of London traders made during trade sessions.

I think the diamond/colored stone dealers + auctioneers worldwide are no different from City of London traders + the team should have gone the extra mile to conduct similar research in diamond bourses + colored stone markets + auction houses worldwide to learn a bit more about testosterone levels + the impact.

Useful links:
www.nasonline.org
www.cam.ac.uk

Kurt Masur

Kurt Masur is a German conductor, noted for his interpretation of German Romantic music, is one of the most widely admired and respected musicians of his generation + I think there is brilliance and that otherness in his music, which I like.

Useful link:
www.kurtmasur.com

Champagne Diamonds Update

The world's largest supplier of champagne diamonds has released its latest range of champagne diamond promotional materials @ http://www.riotintodiamonds.com/ENG/media/media_releases_1078.asp

Useful link:
www.riotintodiamonds.com

Art Update

(via NYTimes) I liked the video art collections at Ubu + Franklin Furnace’s online archive

They were educational + entertaining.

Useful links:
www.ubu.com
http://www.ubu.com/film
http://acorn.forest.net/franklin/search.html

Jill Bolte Taylor

I found Jill Bolte Taylor's story about her stroke @ http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/view/id/229 inspiring + it's amazing how our brain connect us to the world and to one another.

Random Thoughts

'The one thing you do know when you hold an all-you-can-eat buffet, the heavy eaters show up first.'

- Jeff Bezos, founder of Amazon.com

Google Earth 4.3

The lighting effects + panorama streets of Google Earth 4.3 version @ gearthblog.com are superb + as I was watching the YouTube demo by Google of 4.3 I thought this would be a great tool for jewelers and colored stone dealers to communicate colors with their clients and customers no matter where you are.

I liked it.

McMafia

McMafia: A Journey Through the Global Criminal Underworld by Misha Glenny is a fascinating book on powerful criminal networks that have linked across continents and become sophisticated money making machines + the impact.

A must-read.

The Great Florentine Diamond—A Fancy Sancy Cut

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

The Great Florentine diamond (fashioned in 1615) has several names. It has been called the Tuscan, the Tuscany Diamond, the Grand Duke of Tuscany, and even the Austrian Yellow Diamond—an unfortunate name, since it creates confusion with another lost diamond, the Austrian Yellow Brilliant.

The stone was drop-shaped with both the front and the reverse more or less similarly faceted. The center of the front had trihedral faceting, but the mactching area on the reverse simply had nine basic facets. Both front and reverse were stepped twice, producing nine rows, each containing nine facets in the front, and seven rows of nine facets on the reverse—144 facets in all. The overall impression is of a nine-rayed star.

Through the works of Speranza Cavenago Bignami, Guido Gregorietti and others, I have been able to trace the history of this stone. P.Aloisi stated in 1932 that the rough stone was ‘acquired’ in the late sixteenth century from the King of Vijayanagar (modern Narsingha) in southern India by the Portuguese Governor of Goa, Ludovico Castro, Count of Montesanto, after the king’s defeat by Portuguese troops. The crystal was deposited with the Jesuits in Rome until, after lengthy negotiations, Grand Duke Ferdinand I of Tuscany succeeded in buying it from the Castro-Noranha family for 35000 Portuguese scudi crocati.

Duke Ferdinand’s son, Grand Duke Cosimo II (who ruled from 1609 to 1621), finally entrusted his father’s purchase to a cutter, Pompeo Studentoli, a Venetian working in Florence. The finished gem was delivered on 10 October 1615. An inventory drawn up on Cosimo’s death confirms the acquisition of the rough diamond by Ferdinand and describes the gem as ‘faceted on both sides and encircled by a diamond-encrusted gold band.’

Dr Heinz Biehn reproduced a sketch of a pendant containing the Great Florentine with a caption reading, ‘Il Gran Diamante del Serimo Gran Duca di Toschana , Pesa 138 Carati.’ Despite extensive investigation, the origin of this drawing remains obscure. The correct weight and the exact faceting indicate that it was probably drawn just after its fashioning in 1615. The outline differs slightly, most likely because the artist wished to show a perfect and therefore pleasing symmetry.

Thomas Cletscher, who must have seen the gem in Florence, produced a clearly recognizable sketch of it in about 1625: neither the faceting nor the outline is aboslutely correct, which indicates that it may have been done from memory. The faceting of the central trihedrally faceted section is fairly accurate, but the surrounding steps, which he depicts as being similarly fashioned, cannot be correct. Cletscher also gives the weights of the rough and the finished gem as being 170 ct and 120 ct, neither of which would appear to be accurate.

The next specialist to describe and sketch the diamond was Tavernier, who claims to have seen it in 1657 and on some other occasion. The outline he gives differs from the actual shape of the stone, although he reproduces the faceting correctly; but he gives faceting of the reverse of the gem with its six basic facets in the centre, instead of the trihedral faceting of the front. Max Bauer gives more plausible proportions. Other authors have either reproduced these same illustrations or drawn from their imaginations.

My own line drawing are based on the only available photograph, but this is so poor that the faceting cannot be clearly seen. The correct girdle outline is, however, found. As to the design, I have studied the sketches carefully and am convinced that this is how the faceting must have been. At first glance it looks as though the gem was almost symmetrical, but in fact this was not so. The drawings show the actual shape of the stone and a symmetrized version.

Little is known of the jewel once it was set. No doubt it remained in the Medici family ans was worn occasionally, even though there are no portraits in which it appears. It was mentioned in an inventory of 1740, after the death in 1737 of Giovanni Gasto, husband of Duchess Anna Maria. The jewel remained in her possession until her death without heirs three years later, when it became part of the Tuscan duchy treasury.

Meanwhile, in 1736, Francis Stephen, Duke of Lorraine, had been obliged to renounce his duchy because of his marriage to Maria Theresa of Austria, but had been given Tuscany instead. In 1747 he became Holy Roman Emperor and he took the Florentine diamond to Austria as one of his own personal possessions. It was set, first in a crown and then in a hat jewel. When the Austrian empire came to an end in 1918 the jewel was removed from the treasury by the ex-Emperor Karl, and disappeared.

Surprisingly little has been written about the Florentine, perhaps because it was in a private treasury and not easily available for inspection. The only known analysis was by Schrauf, who gave its weight as 27.454 grams (i.e. 137.27 ct). J Cohn, basing his statements on undisclosed sources, said that the Florentine was of a light greyish-yellow color and displayed quite exceptional dispersion (fire), which strengthened this color. He added that it was flawless and of a good make and, taking all factors into consideration, classified it as being of ‘second water.’

Realism And Impressionism In France

(via The Outline of Art) William Orpen writes:

Various names have been given to this technique. It has been called ‘Divisionism,’ because by it the tones of secondary and tertiary colors were divided into their constituent elements. It has been called ‘Pointillism,’ because the color was applied to the canvas in points instead of in sweeping brush strokes. It has been called ‘Luminism,’ because the aim of the process is primarily to express the color of light with all its sparkle and vibration. This last is the best name of all, because it serves to emphasize the new outlook of the new painters. The tendency before the Impressionists was to regard color from the standpoint of black and white. Thus, in considering a grey, it would have been asked is it a dark grey or a light grey, does it approach black or white? The Impressionists took quite a different attitude and asked whether it was a bluish grey, or a greenish grey, or a purplish grey, or a reddish grey: in a word, not whether it was light or dark, but to which color in the solar spectrum it most closely approached.

To the Impressionists shadow was not an absence of light, but light of a different quality and of different value. In their exhaustive research into the true colors of shadows in Nature, they conquered the last unknown territory in the domain of Realist Painting.

To sum up, then, it may be said the Impressionist Painting is based on two great principles:

1. The substitution of a simulataneous vision that sees a scene as a whole in place of a consecutive vision that sees Nature piece by piece.

2. The substitution of a Chiaroscuro based on the colors of the solar spectrum for a Chiaroscuro based on Black and White.

This new technique, with all the research and experiment which is implies, was not the invention of one man, but the outcome of the life studies of a whole group of men. Most prominent among those who brought Impressionist painting to perfection in theory and practice were Camille Pissaro, Claude Monet, and Auguste Renoir.

Realism And Impressionism In France (continued)

Heard On The Street

Customers want three things: the best selection + the lowest prices + the cheapest and most-convenient delivery.

Ian Fleming

I am a Ian Fleming fan (a famous British author, journalist and Second World War Navy Commander), who is best remembered for creating the character of James Bond, who loves cars, diamonds, girls and guns.

Quantum of Solace: November, 2008

Useful links:
www.ianflemingcentre.com
www.ianflemingcentenary.com
www.ianflemingfoundation.org
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/7346971.stm
www.007.com
www.mi6.co.uk
www.cubbybroccoli.com

Innovative Carver

The Carver = Motorcyle + Automobile, is just a brilliant concept. I don't drive a car, but take a look at this video

I really fell in love with the Carver.

Useful links:
www.flytheroad.com
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sg8KDHfr14w

Dyson Product Design Award

Dyson Product Design Awards are awarded annually for inventions that demonstrate exceptional ingenuity and function + it was amazing/inspiring to see talented designers with their concepts from all corners of the world in New York on April 9, 2008 for the special event.

Useful links:
www.dyson.co.nz
www.jamesdysonfoundation.com

Good design is about how something works, not just how it looks.
- James Dyson

Hermann Scheer

(via Wiki) Hermann Scheer, a physicist, a member of the German Bundestag, President of the European Association for Renewable Energy, and General Chairman of the World Council for Renewable Energy believes it is technically and environmentally feasible to harness enough solar radiation to achieve a total replacement of the fossil/nuclear energy system by a global renewable energy economy.

I think he was spot on + the benefits are huge.

Useful links:
www.wcre.de
www.eurec.be
www.hermannscheer.de
www.rightlivelihood.org
www.internationaldialogues.nl
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8nq2iLnAETA

The Art Fund Prize

I liked the purpose of The Art Fund prize because it does increase public appreciation of art via museums and galleries, and now a shortlist for the 2008 Art Fund prize for museums and galleries in the UK will be announced on April 18, 2008.

I also think other countries should follow the UK model to stimulate interest in museums and galleries for wider appreciation and participation, which I think benefits all.

Useful link:
www.theartfundprize.org.uk

Pu'er Tea

Pu'er Tea from Yunnan, has become a fashionable, must-have variety in the tea shops of Hong Kong, Shanghai and Beijing + I think in a way to appreciate Pu'er tea is similar to enjoying wine because you need to understand the different areas where tea grows to differentiate flavors + among the wealthy, health-conscious Chinese there is also a belief that Pu'er tea lowers cholesterol, cures hangovers, helps fortify teeth and trims away fat + like with many other products in China it is difficult to tell the real from imitations.

I think buying Pu'er tea is like buying rubies and sapphires--you must have product knowledge.

Useful links:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pu-erh
www.pu-erh.net
http://community.livejournal.com/puerh_tea