Sunday, December 02, 2007
Hrothgar's Rheumy Eyes
Economist writes about the new innnovations in animation technology + other viewpoints @ http://www.economist.com/daily/columns/techview/displaystory.cfm?story_id=10170398
The Mod Bod
Hilarie M. Sheets writes about (modified) metaphors for emotions via body exploration + other viewpoints @ http://www.artnews.com/issues/article.asp?art_id=934
The Wonder Of The Renaissance
(via The Outline of Art) William Orpen writes:
In 1501, he returned to Florence to make the famous statue of ‘David’, which was to commemorate the deliverance of the city from her enemies. But no happiness awaited him in his native town. He was foolishly pitted against Leonardo da Vinci, and his envy and jealousy excited by tittle-tattlers. The two great men of time, who ought to have been understanding friends and comrades, were forced into enmity. Michael Angleo grew morose and suspicious. One day as he was walking through the streets of Florence he saw Leonardo discussing a passage in Dante with a group of citizens. Meaning nothing but kindness, Leonardo hailed his rival and said to his friends, ‘Michael Angelo here will explain the verses of which you speak.’
But the embittered sculptor scented an insult in the innocent remark and passionately retorted: ‘Explain them yourself, you who made the model of bronze horse and who, incapable of casting it, left it unfinished—to your shame, be it said.’
This allusion to his equestrian statue of Francesco Sforza, never finished, wounded Leonardo to the quick. Conscious of his fatal tendency to procrastinate, he reddened as Michael Angelo turned his back on him and strode away.
Unhappy in Florence, Michael Angelo was not sorry when in 1505 Pope Julius II called him back to Rome. Later he was to regret still more bitterly that he ever went. Julius desired a colossal mausoleum to be built for his remains, and the sculptor entered into the project with enthusiasm. He spent eight months in Carrara quarries selecting his marbles, and in December returned to Rome, where the blocks began to arrive. But a rival artist, Bramante, hinted to the Pope that it was unlucky to build your tomb in your own lifetime. The Pope hastily dropped the idea of the mausoleum, closed his door to Michael Angelo, who was left not only unpaid for his work and time, but in debt for the marbles he had obtained. The sculptor was driven out of the Vatican by a groom, and quivering with indignation the humiliated genius at once left Rome for Florence.
But no sooner was he in Florence than the Pope wanted him back at Rome. Eventually he got him back, and perhaps the eccentric, inconstant Pope meant kindly; but he reduced Michael Angelo to despair by demanding that the greatest sculptor in the world should spend his time painting the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. Again the architect Bramante was the evil genius; he had prompted the command, believing the sculptor would fail ignominiously. What was meant for his dishonor became his greatest glory.
Michael Angelo never wanted to d the work. Already his young rival Raphael had commenced painting the ‘Stanze’ of the Vatican with unparalleled success. The sculptor pleaded that this ceiling should be given to Raphael, but the Pope insisted and his will was law. On March 10, 1508 the distracted artist wrote: ‘Today I, Michael Angelo, sculptor, began the painting of the chapel.’ The next year, on January 27, 1509, he wrote again: ‘This is not my profession...I am uselessly wasting my time.’ Today the whole world thinks otherwise.
Of all the palaces of art which Europe contains, there is not one more wonderful within, or with a meaner exterior, than the Sistine Chapel. The long barn-like structure, lit by twelve round-headed windows, was built over what was once the Library by Sixtus IV. His aim was to ornament the chapel with scenes from the world’s history pointing to the coming of Christ. All the greatest artists of the preceding generation, Botticelli, Ghirlandaio, Piero di Cosimo, and Perugino had been called upon to assist in the work, and after the death of Sixtus the completion of the Chapel occupied his nephew Count Guiliano Rovere, who succeeded him as Julius II.
In 1501, he returned to Florence to make the famous statue of ‘David’, which was to commemorate the deliverance of the city from her enemies. But no happiness awaited him in his native town. He was foolishly pitted against Leonardo da Vinci, and his envy and jealousy excited by tittle-tattlers. The two great men of time, who ought to have been understanding friends and comrades, were forced into enmity. Michael Angleo grew morose and suspicious. One day as he was walking through the streets of Florence he saw Leonardo discussing a passage in Dante with a group of citizens. Meaning nothing but kindness, Leonardo hailed his rival and said to his friends, ‘Michael Angelo here will explain the verses of which you speak.’
But the embittered sculptor scented an insult in the innocent remark and passionately retorted: ‘Explain them yourself, you who made the model of bronze horse and who, incapable of casting it, left it unfinished—to your shame, be it said.’
This allusion to his equestrian statue of Francesco Sforza, never finished, wounded Leonardo to the quick. Conscious of his fatal tendency to procrastinate, he reddened as Michael Angelo turned his back on him and strode away.
Unhappy in Florence, Michael Angelo was not sorry when in 1505 Pope Julius II called him back to Rome. Later he was to regret still more bitterly that he ever went. Julius desired a colossal mausoleum to be built for his remains, and the sculptor entered into the project with enthusiasm. He spent eight months in Carrara quarries selecting his marbles, and in December returned to Rome, where the blocks began to arrive. But a rival artist, Bramante, hinted to the Pope that it was unlucky to build your tomb in your own lifetime. The Pope hastily dropped the idea of the mausoleum, closed his door to Michael Angelo, who was left not only unpaid for his work and time, but in debt for the marbles he had obtained. The sculptor was driven out of the Vatican by a groom, and quivering with indignation the humiliated genius at once left Rome for Florence.
But no sooner was he in Florence than the Pope wanted him back at Rome. Eventually he got him back, and perhaps the eccentric, inconstant Pope meant kindly; but he reduced Michael Angelo to despair by demanding that the greatest sculptor in the world should spend his time painting the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. Again the architect Bramante was the evil genius; he had prompted the command, believing the sculptor would fail ignominiously. What was meant for his dishonor became his greatest glory.
Michael Angelo never wanted to d the work. Already his young rival Raphael had commenced painting the ‘Stanze’ of the Vatican with unparalleled success. The sculptor pleaded that this ceiling should be given to Raphael, but the Pope insisted and his will was law. On March 10, 1508 the distracted artist wrote: ‘Today I, Michael Angelo, sculptor, began the painting of the chapel.’ The next year, on January 27, 1509, he wrote again: ‘This is not my profession...I am uselessly wasting my time.’ Today the whole world thinks otherwise.
Of all the palaces of art which Europe contains, there is not one more wonderful within, or with a meaner exterior, than the Sistine Chapel. The long barn-like structure, lit by twelve round-headed windows, was built over what was once the Library by Sixtus IV. His aim was to ornament the chapel with scenes from the world’s history pointing to the coming of Christ. All the greatest artists of the preceding generation, Botticelli, Ghirlandaio, Piero di Cosimo, and Perugino had been called upon to assist in the work, and after the death of Sixtus the completion of the Chapel occupied his nephew Count Guiliano Rovere, who succeeded him as Julius II.
More About Diamonds. Some Famous Stones
Louis Kornitzer's book, Gem Trader, is partly autobiographical and partly woven round the lore of pearls. It's educational + explains the distribution chain of gems, as they pass from hand to hand, from miner to cutter, from merchant to millionaire, from courtesan to receiver of stolen goods, shaping human lives as they go + the unique characters in the industry.
(via Gem Trader) Louis Kornitzer writes:
Another very common way of cutting diamonds is that which provides the stone with twenty four triangular faces. Diamonds cut in that fashion are called rose diamonds, or roses for short. One meets with sizable stones of that kind frequently in old jewelry, but nowadays only small stones are cut in the rose fashion. The jeweler uses them at the dictates of economy, and the layman who notices the difference between a rose cut and full cut diamond is quite often heard to say: ‘These are chips, aren’t they?’
An ultra-modern way of cutting diamonds is the ‘baguette’ or baton shape, which is ideal for the purpose for which it is intended, in connection with the modern designs in flexible jewelry. I am, however, of the opinion that that method of cutting diamonds deprives them of their most important quality—luster.
There was a time, from the middle of the eighteenth century until the discoveries on the South African Rand, when South America supplied the world with its diamonds, just as India had done from the earliest times until Brazil became a great name in the diamond world. Tomorrow (figuratively speaking) the great diamonds may be coming from Patagonia, and the day after from Antarctica, places still both remote from industrial strife. History has already been made by the discovery of precious minerals in unexpected localities. It may, and probably will, be again made in the same way.
The story of the great diamonds is an almost unending feast of romance, tragedy and adventure, too often tinged with the sordidness of criminal greed. Sometimes there is humor in the tale, like a bit of the private history of the Cullinan diamond which I was told.
I had known young Ascher of Amsterdam when he was scarcely out of his teens. He was a shrewd, precise, staid young man, a perfect blend of Jew and Dutchman. Yet he seemed to me to be lacking in one outstanding Jewish trait, in that he appeared to have no sense of humor. That was forty five years before he had become world famous as the head of the great Amsterdam diamond cutting establishment. Yet I was wrong in my estimate of him.
It was the Dutch firm of Ascher that was entrusted with the extremely delicate and responsible job of dividing the prodigiously large Cullinan diamond into several pieces, and for the subsequent shaping and polishing of the now historical stones which were presented to King Edward VII by the Union of South Africa. When at last the wonderful and priceless gems were ready for presentation to Their Britannic Majesties, and the date had been set for the ceremony, Mynheer Ascher crossed over from Holland in order to meet the representatives of the South African Government at Buckingham Palace and hand over the result of many month’s labor, and to be himself presented to the King and Queen.
Extraordinary precautions had been taken for the safe transit of the gems, for not only had the Dutch police sent along several of their astutest secret service men, but also two of Scotland Yard’s keenest detectives had been dispatched to prevent any unfortunate incident from occurring during the trip from the Netherlands.
To make assurance doubly sure, one of Ascher’s own trusty men had one handle of the bag containing the caskets strapped and padlocked to his wrist, while the other handle was secured in the same manner to the wrist of a Scotland Yard officer. Ascher himself held the key to the two padlocks and to the bag itself. With an escort of this kind, there was no question but that short of some accident at sea during the crossing the stones would arrive safely at their destination.
Yet, when the bag was opened in the anteroom where the official personages were to take over, the presentation caskets were found to be empty. There was tremendous consternation, as may readily be imagined. What could possibly have happened? The explanation was forthcoming, to the relieved hilarity of all present, when Mynheer Ascher turned aside and spoke to his personal servant who attended him, an old family retainer of insignificant appearance whom nobody had noticed. The old fellow felt in his pockets and produced from somewhere on his person a large colored handkerchief, into which were tied, peasant fashion, the gems that in a few minutes were to be presented to the ruler of the British Empire.
That is the reason why I think Ascher of Amsterdam must have had a considerably developed bump of humor.
More About Diamonds. Some Famous Stones (continued)
(via Gem Trader) Louis Kornitzer writes:
Another very common way of cutting diamonds is that which provides the stone with twenty four triangular faces. Diamonds cut in that fashion are called rose diamonds, or roses for short. One meets with sizable stones of that kind frequently in old jewelry, but nowadays only small stones are cut in the rose fashion. The jeweler uses them at the dictates of economy, and the layman who notices the difference between a rose cut and full cut diamond is quite often heard to say: ‘These are chips, aren’t they?’
An ultra-modern way of cutting diamonds is the ‘baguette’ or baton shape, which is ideal for the purpose for which it is intended, in connection with the modern designs in flexible jewelry. I am, however, of the opinion that that method of cutting diamonds deprives them of their most important quality—luster.
There was a time, from the middle of the eighteenth century until the discoveries on the South African Rand, when South America supplied the world with its diamonds, just as India had done from the earliest times until Brazil became a great name in the diamond world. Tomorrow (figuratively speaking) the great diamonds may be coming from Patagonia, and the day after from Antarctica, places still both remote from industrial strife. History has already been made by the discovery of precious minerals in unexpected localities. It may, and probably will, be again made in the same way.
The story of the great diamonds is an almost unending feast of romance, tragedy and adventure, too often tinged with the sordidness of criminal greed. Sometimes there is humor in the tale, like a bit of the private history of the Cullinan diamond which I was told.
I had known young Ascher of Amsterdam when he was scarcely out of his teens. He was a shrewd, precise, staid young man, a perfect blend of Jew and Dutchman. Yet he seemed to me to be lacking in one outstanding Jewish trait, in that he appeared to have no sense of humor. That was forty five years before he had become world famous as the head of the great Amsterdam diamond cutting establishment. Yet I was wrong in my estimate of him.
It was the Dutch firm of Ascher that was entrusted with the extremely delicate and responsible job of dividing the prodigiously large Cullinan diamond into several pieces, and for the subsequent shaping and polishing of the now historical stones which were presented to King Edward VII by the Union of South Africa. When at last the wonderful and priceless gems were ready for presentation to Their Britannic Majesties, and the date had been set for the ceremony, Mynheer Ascher crossed over from Holland in order to meet the representatives of the South African Government at Buckingham Palace and hand over the result of many month’s labor, and to be himself presented to the King and Queen.
Extraordinary precautions had been taken for the safe transit of the gems, for not only had the Dutch police sent along several of their astutest secret service men, but also two of Scotland Yard’s keenest detectives had been dispatched to prevent any unfortunate incident from occurring during the trip from the Netherlands.
To make assurance doubly sure, one of Ascher’s own trusty men had one handle of the bag containing the caskets strapped and padlocked to his wrist, while the other handle was secured in the same manner to the wrist of a Scotland Yard officer. Ascher himself held the key to the two padlocks and to the bag itself. With an escort of this kind, there was no question but that short of some accident at sea during the crossing the stones would arrive safely at their destination.
Yet, when the bag was opened in the anteroom where the official personages were to take over, the presentation caskets were found to be empty. There was tremendous consternation, as may readily be imagined. What could possibly have happened? The explanation was forthcoming, to the relieved hilarity of all present, when Mynheer Ascher turned aside and spoke to his personal servant who attended him, an old family retainer of insignificant appearance whom nobody had noticed. The old fellow felt in his pockets and produced from somewhere on his person a large colored handkerchief, into which were tied, peasant fashion, the gems that in a few minutes were to be presented to the ruler of the British Empire.
That is the reason why I think Ascher of Amsterdam must have had a considerably developed bump of humor.
More About Diamonds. Some Famous Stones (continued)
Saturday, December 01, 2007
Cobalt-bearing Glass Imitations
Cobalt-bearing glass imitations are still appearing in the gem market in all shapes, sizes and color shades to imitate mainstream colored stones. Watch out for these imitations in Southeast Asia + South Asia + East Africa + alluvial sources. The specimens may have the look and character of the real stones.
Usually 'momentary autism' does the trick because you think you have the right stone + you are in a hurry; you are stitched!
Usually 'momentary autism' does the trick because you think you have the right stone + you are in a hurry; you are stitched!
Central Pamir Mountains
It has been reported that gem quality corundum occurs at scattered localities in the Muzkol metamorphic complex in the Central Pamir Mountains of southeastern Tajikistan + according to experts it is associated with scapolite, biotite, muscovite, and chlorite with smaller amounts of tourmaline, apatite rutile and apatite.
Success Depends On Others Failing
Laura Blue writes about a new neurological study, published in the Nov. 23 issue of the journal Science on brain regions that process reward + the practical implications + other viewpoints @ http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1687725,00.html
It was educational and insightful.
It was educational and insightful.
Men Buy, Women Shop: The Sexes Have Different Priorities When Walking Down The Aisles
Here is an interesting study titled 'Men Buy, Women Shop' via researchers @ Wharton's Jay H. Baker Retail Initiative + the Verde Group, a Toronto consulting firm + other viewpoints @ http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article.cfm?articleid=1848
It was educational and insightful.
It was educational and insightful.
Brazil
Brazil (1985)
Directed by: Terry Gilliam
Screenplay: Terry Gilliam, Tom Stoppard, Charles McKeown
Cast: Jonathan Pryce, Robert De Niro
(via YouTube): Brazil montage/trailer
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3pbpv8_3Dw4
"Brazil" Ending (2)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=71us9TunjWU&feature=related
A unique comic fantasia. Part futurist. Part retro. I enjoyed it.
Directed by: Terry Gilliam
Screenplay: Terry Gilliam, Tom Stoppard, Charles McKeown
Cast: Jonathan Pryce, Robert De Niro
(via YouTube): Brazil montage/trailer
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3pbpv8_3Dw4
"Brazil" Ending (2)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=71us9TunjWU&feature=related
A unique comic fantasia. Part futurist. Part retro. I enjoyed it.
The Wild Ones
(via The Guardian) Here is an interesting perspective on fairies and other spirits that have long haunted the words and images of English literature + other viewpoints @ http://arts.guardian.co.uk/art/visualart/story/0,,2216168,00.html
Wyeth's Black Models
Mary Lynn Kotz writes about Andrew Wyeth + the artist's depictions of his African American friends and neighbors + other viewpoints @ http://www.artnews.com/issues/article.asp?art_id=916
Sierra Leone’s Presidential Beneficiation Visions: A Reality Test
Chaim Even Zohar writes about Sierra Leone's plans to join the diamond beneficiation concept + other viewpoints @ http://www.idexonline.com/portal_FullEditorial.asp
The Wonder Of The Renaissance
(via The Outline of Art) William Orpen writes:
3
Nine people out of ten, if asked to name the greatest artist who ever lived, would reply Michael Angelo Buonarotti, who was born in 1475 at Castel Caprese, a small town near Florence, of which his father was chief magistrate. The babe was put out to nurse with the wife of a marble worker, and in later days the great sculptor jokingly attributed his vocation to his foster-mother’s milk. His father had other ideas for him, and used a stick freely to impress on the lad the advantages of a commercial career, but Michael Angelo was obstinate and intractable. At last the father gave way, and when the son was thirteen he apprenticed him to Ghirlandaio for three years. Long before his apprenticeship was out, the boy had shown a preference for sculpture. His talent in modeling was brought to the notice of Lorenzo de Medici, who nominated him for the famous ‘Garden School’ of sculpture which he had founded under the direction of Donatello’s chief assistant Bartoldo. The ruler of Florence, pleased with the progress of his protege took him to his household, and made him an allowance of 500 ducats a month. This lasted till 1492, when Lorenzo died, and the youth had to make his own way in the world. Meanwhile a new influence came into his life.
In 1400, when Michael Angelo was boy of fifteen, Savanarola had begun to preach his impassioned sermons in Florence. The whole city trembled at the terrible voice, which hurled thunderbolts at the Pope himself. All Florence was like a revival meeting; people rushed about the street weeping and shouting, wealthy citizens became monks, high officials abdicated their positions.
Michael Angelo for the first time in his life was afraid, afraid of the unknown horrors predicted for Florence. He was miserable under the degenerate Piero de Medici, a stupid tyrant who wasted his time and his talent by commanding him to model a statue in snow. One night a poet friend of the sculptor dreamt that the dead Lorenzo appeared to him and bade him warn Piero that soon he would be driven from his house, never to return. He told the Prince, who laughed and had him well cudgelled; he told Michael Angelo, who believed and fled to Venice.
That was in October 1494. A month later Piero fled in his turn, and Florence, with the support of Savonarola, was declared a republic, owning no king but Jesus Christ. Michael Angelo soon got over his superstitious terrors. That winter he spent at Bologna in learned circles, and forgetting Savonarola, he read Dante and Petrarch; he was absorbed by the beauty of Nature and the dignity of the antique world. At the very time when his contemporaries at Florence were fanatically indulging in a religious revival, Michael Angelo seemed to assert his paganism by carving a ‘Sleeping Cupid’ so full of Greek feeling that it was sold in Rome to the Cardinal San Giorgio as an antique by a Greek sculptor. When he discovered he had been cheated, the deceived collector was so delighted to think a living Italian could rival the dead Greeks that he sent for the young sculptor and took him under his protection. In 1496, while the Florentines were heaping pagan pictures, ornaments, and books on Savonarola’s ‘Bonfire of Vanities’, when his own brother, the monk Leonardo, was being prosecuted for his faith in the Friar, Michael Angelo in Rome seemed anxious to prove himself a pagan of pagans, producing a ‘Bacchus,’ an ‘Adonis,’ and the lovely ‘Cupid’ which is now at South Kensington.
On May 23, 1498, the fickle populace of Florence turned against its idol. Savonarola was burnt to death at the stake. Still Michael Angelo appeared to take no notice. No mention of Savonarola or his martyrdom can be found in any of the sculptor’s letters.
But in his own art he made his own comment. From 1498 to 1501 he worked feverishly, perhaps remorsefully, on a marble group the like of which had never before been seen; a Virgin whose haunting face is impressed with a ‘sorrow more beautiful than beauty’s self,’ across whose knees is lying a Christ of such serene physical beauty and perfection that we say, ‘His is not dead but sleepeth.’
This was Michael Angelo’s confession to his Maker, the supreme ‘Pieta’ at St. Peter’s Rome: a work of which the exquisite beauty is only equalled by its ineffable sadness. Botticelli, too, was more moved by the end of Savonarola than ever he had been by his preaching. But Botticelli was then an old man: Michael Angelo had just turned twenty three and was only on the threshold of his career. Already his pagan days were over. Melancholy claimed him for her own, and never after let him go. In five years he had established his reputation as the greatest sculptor in the world, but then, as now, glory is not necessarily remunerative. His family believed he was making a fortune; and too proud to acknowledge his true poverty-stricken condition, he starved himself to give alms to his kindred. His own father pestered and abused him worst of all; his whole family bled him white, and then denounced him as being mean.
3
Nine people out of ten, if asked to name the greatest artist who ever lived, would reply Michael Angelo Buonarotti, who was born in 1475 at Castel Caprese, a small town near Florence, of which his father was chief magistrate. The babe was put out to nurse with the wife of a marble worker, and in later days the great sculptor jokingly attributed his vocation to his foster-mother’s milk. His father had other ideas for him, and used a stick freely to impress on the lad the advantages of a commercial career, but Michael Angelo was obstinate and intractable. At last the father gave way, and when the son was thirteen he apprenticed him to Ghirlandaio for three years. Long before his apprenticeship was out, the boy had shown a preference for sculpture. His talent in modeling was brought to the notice of Lorenzo de Medici, who nominated him for the famous ‘Garden School’ of sculpture which he had founded under the direction of Donatello’s chief assistant Bartoldo. The ruler of Florence, pleased with the progress of his protege took him to his household, and made him an allowance of 500 ducats a month. This lasted till 1492, when Lorenzo died, and the youth had to make his own way in the world. Meanwhile a new influence came into his life.
In 1400, when Michael Angelo was boy of fifteen, Savanarola had begun to preach his impassioned sermons in Florence. The whole city trembled at the terrible voice, which hurled thunderbolts at the Pope himself. All Florence was like a revival meeting; people rushed about the street weeping and shouting, wealthy citizens became monks, high officials abdicated their positions.
Michael Angelo for the first time in his life was afraid, afraid of the unknown horrors predicted for Florence. He was miserable under the degenerate Piero de Medici, a stupid tyrant who wasted his time and his talent by commanding him to model a statue in snow. One night a poet friend of the sculptor dreamt that the dead Lorenzo appeared to him and bade him warn Piero that soon he would be driven from his house, never to return. He told the Prince, who laughed and had him well cudgelled; he told Michael Angelo, who believed and fled to Venice.
That was in October 1494. A month later Piero fled in his turn, and Florence, with the support of Savonarola, was declared a republic, owning no king but Jesus Christ. Michael Angelo soon got over his superstitious terrors. That winter he spent at Bologna in learned circles, and forgetting Savonarola, he read Dante and Petrarch; he was absorbed by the beauty of Nature and the dignity of the antique world. At the very time when his contemporaries at Florence were fanatically indulging in a religious revival, Michael Angelo seemed to assert his paganism by carving a ‘Sleeping Cupid’ so full of Greek feeling that it was sold in Rome to the Cardinal San Giorgio as an antique by a Greek sculptor. When he discovered he had been cheated, the deceived collector was so delighted to think a living Italian could rival the dead Greeks that he sent for the young sculptor and took him under his protection. In 1496, while the Florentines were heaping pagan pictures, ornaments, and books on Savonarola’s ‘Bonfire of Vanities’, when his own brother, the monk Leonardo, was being prosecuted for his faith in the Friar, Michael Angelo in Rome seemed anxious to prove himself a pagan of pagans, producing a ‘Bacchus,’ an ‘Adonis,’ and the lovely ‘Cupid’ which is now at South Kensington.
On May 23, 1498, the fickle populace of Florence turned against its idol. Savonarola was burnt to death at the stake. Still Michael Angelo appeared to take no notice. No mention of Savonarola or his martyrdom can be found in any of the sculptor’s letters.
But in his own art he made his own comment. From 1498 to 1501 he worked feverishly, perhaps remorsefully, on a marble group the like of which had never before been seen; a Virgin whose haunting face is impressed with a ‘sorrow more beautiful than beauty’s self,’ across whose knees is lying a Christ of such serene physical beauty and perfection that we say, ‘His is not dead but sleepeth.’
This was Michael Angelo’s confession to his Maker, the supreme ‘Pieta’ at St. Peter’s Rome: a work of which the exquisite beauty is only equalled by its ineffable sadness. Botticelli, too, was more moved by the end of Savonarola than ever he had been by his preaching. But Botticelli was then an old man: Michael Angelo had just turned twenty three and was only on the threshold of his career. Already his pagan days were over. Melancholy claimed him for her own, and never after let him go. In five years he had established his reputation as the greatest sculptor in the world, but then, as now, glory is not necessarily remunerative. His family believed he was making a fortune; and too proud to acknowledge his true poverty-stricken condition, he starved himself to give alms to his kindred. His own father pestered and abused him worst of all; his whole family bled him white, and then denounced him as being mean.
More About Diamonds. Some Famous Stones
Louis Kornitzer's book, Gem Trader, is partly autobiographical and partly woven round the lore of pearls. It's educational + explains the distribution chain of gems, as they pass from hand to hand, from miner to cutter, from merchant to millionaire, from courtesan to receiver of stolen goods, shaping human lives as they go + the unique characters in the industry.
(via Gem Trader) Louis Kornitzer writes:
Most people know that diamonds can be white, yellow or blue white, and that blue white stones are considered to be the best, also that off-colored or yellow stones are the least esteemed.
What the average person does not realize is that diamonds may be of any color or tint, from coal-black to emerald green or rose-pink. Their coloring is due to various metallic oxides. When, therefore, diamonds are for some time exposed to high temperatures, their color is apt to change, though only temporarily. An experiment with diamond, probably the first of its kind, was carried out by Sir William Crookes, who embedded a pale-yellow diamond in radium bromide for eleven weeks. At the end of that time, the pale yellow had changed into a bluish green.
I myself saw and handled an eight carat stone which, by the same means, had been turned from brown into a poor tourmaline-green. In my opinion the stone had been utterly spoilt by the treatment, for not only had its market value not improved, but it looked a most uninteresting stone. Whether the color was permanent, no one, of course, was in a position to judge. The stone might either gradually drift back to its original color or change suddenly and unpredictably. In either case the buyer was due for an unpleasant surprise. If anyone asked my advice about such a stone I should certainly tell him not to buy, whatever the price and however attractive the new color might be, for the radioactivity to which it had been exposed is still an unknown quantity, and no one could tell what bio-chemical changes it might bring about in the body of the wearer, detrimental to his or her health. And if to wear a radium-treated stone exposes the wearer to unknown dangers, the purveyor likewise risks being mulcted of heavy damages.
Lovers of diamonds, however, need not have much fear of buying a radium-treated stone unawares, for such experiments are rare and costly and only carried out to satisfy the curiosity of savants. Likewise, the diamond-wearing classes may also calmly rejoice in their possessions without worrying much about laboratory-made diamonds, lest overnight some experimenter should make diamonds two a penny. Diamond crystals of microscopic size have, indeed, been produced in the laboratory crucible, but their cost of production stood in inverse ratio to their dimensions, which goes to prove that a laboratory success can be at the same time a financial disaster.
Not so many years ago, and not long enough ago for those of my generation to have forgotten the incident, a rogue of a French chemist managed to extract a considerable sum of money from the diamond-making process; but not by making genuine diamonds, merely by ‘telling the tale’ to a great diamond magnate and coaxing the shekels from his well-buttoned pocket.
The Frenchman claimed that he could produce good sized diamonds in the laboratory. With unerring psychological insight he approached a man already so rich that a further accretion of wealth could cause him no thrill. Such a man could be touched by only one appeal—the threat of losing what he already had. All his money was in diamonds. He was thus an easier mark than you or I would have been, and a little sleight of hand did the rest. It was money for jam until the magnate chose to test the process for himself. Then he brought the cheat into court and the whole diamond trade rocked with laughter. If I had been that magnate I should have bought the impostor’s silence for a large sum.
I wonder how many of those fortunate people who can afford to wear diamonds know how many facets there are in a brilliant, and how those facets are distributed? Not a great many, I expect, for most people are not particularly observant in small matters (or even in large ones, often).
Even the average dealer in gems and professional jeweler, who might be able to answer unhesitatingly and correctly that there are in all fifty eight facets in a full cut standard representative brilliant, might not be able to give the technical names of them. Now, if you look at a brilliant carefully, you will see that the stone is divided by the girdle into two parts, top and bottom. The girdle is that part which impinges upon the metal setting. The top is, of course, that portion of the stone which is visible in a piece of jewelry and the bottom that which is hidden in wear.
The most prominent facet is the flat surface on top called the table. Grouped around it are the eight star facets, four bezels, four lozenges, eight cross and eight skill facets. These facets, thirty three in all, account for the light reflecting surfaces placed at different angles in the top part of a representative diamond. There are, of course, other methods of cutting, both old and new, but that subject demands half a dozen chapters to itself, and would probably not interest the layman anyway. Enough to add that the underside of a diamond cut like the above has fewer facets than the top, twenty five to be exact. Their respective names and numbers are: the culet (that part which opposed to the table), four pavilion facets, four quoins, eight cross, and eight skill facets.
More About Diamonds. Some Famous Stones (continued)
(via Gem Trader) Louis Kornitzer writes:
Most people know that diamonds can be white, yellow or blue white, and that blue white stones are considered to be the best, also that off-colored or yellow stones are the least esteemed.
What the average person does not realize is that diamonds may be of any color or tint, from coal-black to emerald green or rose-pink. Their coloring is due to various metallic oxides. When, therefore, diamonds are for some time exposed to high temperatures, their color is apt to change, though only temporarily. An experiment with diamond, probably the first of its kind, was carried out by Sir William Crookes, who embedded a pale-yellow diamond in radium bromide for eleven weeks. At the end of that time, the pale yellow had changed into a bluish green.
I myself saw and handled an eight carat stone which, by the same means, had been turned from brown into a poor tourmaline-green. In my opinion the stone had been utterly spoilt by the treatment, for not only had its market value not improved, but it looked a most uninteresting stone. Whether the color was permanent, no one, of course, was in a position to judge. The stone might either gradually drift back to its original color or change suddenly and unpredictably. In either case the buyer was due for an unpleasant surprise. If anyone asked my advice about such a stone I should certainly tell him not to buy, whatever the price and however attractive the new color might be, for the radioactivity to which it had been exposed is still an unknown quantity, and no one could tell what bio-chemical changes it might bring about in the body of the wearer, detrimental to his or her health. And if to wear a radium-treated stone exposes the wearer to unknown dangers, the purveyor likewise risks being mulcted of heavy damages.
Lovers of diamonds, however, need not have much fear of buying a radium-treated stone unawares, for such experiments are rare and costly and only carried out to satisfy the curiosity of savants. Likewise, the diamond-wearing classes may also calmly rejoice in their possessions without worrying much about laboratory-made diamonds, lest overnight some experimenter should make diamonds two a penny. Diamond crystals of microscopic size have, indeed, been produced in the laboratory crucible, but their cost of production stood in inverse ratio to their dimensions, which goes to prove that a laboratory success can be at the same time a financial disaster.
Not so many years ago, and not long enough ago for those of my generation to have forgotten the incident, a rogue of a French chemist managed to extract a considerable sum of money from the diamond-making process; but not by making genuine diamonds, merely by ‘telling the tale’ to a great diamond magnate and coaxing the shekels from his well-buttoned pocket.
The Frenchman claimed that he could produce good sized diamonds in the laboratory. With unerring psychological insight he approached a man already so rich that a further accretion of wealth could cause him no thrill. Such a man could be touched by only one appeal—the threat of losing what he already had. All his money was in diamonds. He was thus an easier mark than you or I would have been, and a little sleight of hand did the rest. It was money for jam until the magnate chose to test the process for himself. Then he brought the cheat into court and the whole diamond trade rocked with laughter. If I had been that magnate I should have bought the impostor’s silence for a large sum.
I wonder how many of those fortunate people who can afford to wear diamonds know how many facets there are in a brilliant, and how those facets are distributed? Not a great many, I expect, for most people are not particularly observant in small matters (or even in large ones, often).
Even the average dealer in gems and professional jeweler, who might be able to answer unhesitatingly and correctly that there are in all fifty eight facets in a full cut standard representative brilliant, might not be able to give the technical names of them. Now, if you look at a brilliant carefully, you will see that the stone is divided by the girdle into two parts, top and bottom. The girdle is that part which impinges upon the metal setting. The top is, of course, that portion of the stone which is visible in a piece of jewelry and the bottom that which is hidden in wear.
The most prominent facet is the flat surface on top called the table. Grouped around it are the eight star facets, four bezels, four lozenges, eight cross and eight skill facets. These facets, thirty three in all, account for the light reflecting surfaces placed at different angles in the top part of a representative diamond. There are, of course, other methods of cutting, both old and new, but that subject demands half a dozen chapters to itself, and would probably not interest the layman anyway. Enough to add that the underside of a diamond cut like the above has fewer facets than the top, twenty five to be exact. Their respective names and numbers are: the culet (that part which opposed to the table), four pavilion facets, four quoins, eight cross, and eight skill facets.
More About Diamonds. Some Famous Stones (continued)
Friday, November 30, 2007
I Made It My Way
Economist writes about the concept of personal manufacturing + the phenomenon of crowdsourcing + other viewpoints @ http://www.economist.com/science/tq/displaystory.cfm?story_id=10202893
The Taille en Seize
(via Diamond Cuts in Historic Jewelry:1381-1910) Herbert Tillander writes:
The most reliable seventeenth-century sources are the pattern books published by master jewelers. Writers of the period, such as de Boot, still praised Table Cuts and paid very little attention to the numerous Fancy Cuts. Not even the new Rose Cut was deemed worthy of consideration. They all appeared to be totally unaware of the new trend towards radiantly sparkling diamond cuts. Writers of the early eighteenth century concentrate on Brilliants and Rose Cuts to the exclusion of the old-fashioned cuts. There is not a word anywhere about the influence of the changes in social life on diamond cutting and only in the nineteenth century did people become aware of this phenomenon. For the most part the works that were published were based on guesswork and imagination. Pseudo-scholars wrote wildly fanciful accounts of the changes wrought on fashions in diamond cuts, but their pronouncements were hardly ever based on serious research.
In previous centuries Table Cuts had occasionally been given additional facets, but during the seventeenth century one pattern gradually came to be accepted as the standard for multi-faceted Table Cut designs. This was the Scissor Cut. Stones cut to this pattern had varying outlines and also varying numbers of facets, but square and rectangular Scissor Cut diamonds, to the exclusion of all other shapes, consistently had sixteen facets. Apart from these, no other sixteen-facet Table Cut diamond can be found in the pattern books nor are any mentioned in contemporary inventories.
However, a large number of pointed diamonds with sixteen crown facets are to be found among the designs for jewelry made in the second half of the seventeenth century. The most famous designer was Gilles Legare, today universally acknowledged to have been the most talented member of an illustrious family of Paris jewelers. In 1663 he was appointed Crown Jeweler. His designs are almost all of diamonds with sixteen facets. This means that they were all based on four part symmetry. By splitting certain facets the number could even be increased to thirty two.
Whoever it was who introduced this design, it was evident that it was based on architectural theory, in this case on the drawings of the famous Andrea Palladio (1518-80). It is amazing that the precise reproduction of this cut, which can only have been derived from the dodecahedron or the Burgundian Point Cut, could, right up to the present day, have been confused with the Rose Cut, which has always been based on a geometry of three.
The pointed, pavilion-based sixteen cut was called the Taille en Seize. To what extent such diamonds were fashioned, and whether straight from rough crystals or as recuts of Burgundian Point Cuts, can only be surmised. Not a single diamond in the 1691 French Crown inventory is described as sixteen-cut or can be interpreted as such. On the other hand, a fair number of both fancy and standard Brilliant Cuts are mentioned in various inventories of the last quarter of the century, and the earliest historical Brilliant, the Wittelsbach, dates from about 1664. In 1678 Alvarez, diamontaire to Louis XIV, is reported to have delivered to the king not only the Hortensia Brilliant but also twelve large and hundreds of small Brilliant Cut diamonds.
The existence of the Taille en Seize has been documented by only two acknowledged experts on jewelry—C.W.King (1867) and Clifford Smith (1908)—and eventually repeated by Evans (1970). King claimed that in the seventeenth century the octagonal diamond ‘was highly in vogue on account of its Pythagorean mystic virtue: and antique gems thus reshaped frequently occur in the signets of the time.’ King was right, except that he believed that the octagonal outline was produced ‘by slicing off the corners of the square’. Smith wrote that between the years 1641 and 1643 ‘a more systematic method of faceting in sixteen facets—the Taille en Seize—began to be employed about that time. This process, thought it left much to be desired, was an immense improvement, and set forth the qualities of the stone in a way that had not been possible by the forms previously in use.’
Even though numerous authors illustrate jewels with the Taille en Seize, they fail to recognize it for what it is and mistakenly call it a Rose Cut. It was only by studying the Pythagorean diagrams in Palladio’s I Quattri Libri dell’ Architettura (1570), and then comparing them with the numerous drawings of jewelry by Gilles Legare, published in 1663, that I finally understood the history of the Taille en Seize.
The most reliable seventeenth-century sources are the pattern books published by master jewelers. Writers of the period, such as de Boot, still praised Table Cuts and paid very little attention to the numerous Fancy Cuts. Not even the new Rose Cut was deemed worthy of consideration. They all appeared to be totally unaware of the new trend towards radiantly sparkling diamond cuts. Writers of the early eighteenth century concentrate on Brilliants and Rose Cuts to the exclusion of the old-fashioned cuts. There is not a word anywhere about the influence of the changes in social life on diamond cutting and only in the nineteenth century did people become aware of this phenomenon. For the most part the works that were published were based on guesswork and imagination. Pseudo-scholars wrote wildly fanciful accounts of the changes wrought on fashions in diamond cuts, but their pronouncements were hardly ever based on serious research.
In previous centuries Table Cuts had occasionally been given additional facets, but during the seventeenth century one pattern gradually came to be accepted as the standard for multi-faceted Table Cut designs. This was the Scissor Cut. Stones cut to this pattern had varying outlines and also varying numbers of facets, but square and rectangular Scissor Cut diamonds, to the exclusion of all other shapes, consistently had sixteen facets. Apart from these, no other sixteen-facet Table Cut diamond can be found in the pattern books nor are any mentioned in contemporary inventories.
However, a large number of pointed diamonds with sixteen crown facets are to be found among the designs for jewelry made in the second half of the seventeenth century. The most famous designer was Gilles Legare, today universally acknowledged to have been the most talented member of an illustrious family of Paris jewelers. In 1663 he was appointed Crown Jeweler. His designs are almost all of diamonds with sixteen facets. This means that they were all based on four part symmetry. By splitting certain facets the number could even be increased to thirty two.
Whoever it was who introduced this design, it was evident that it was based on architectural theory, in this case on the drawings of the famous Andrea Palladio (1518-80). It is amazing that the precise reproduction of this cut, which can only have been derived from the dodecahedron or the Burgundian Point Cut, could, right up to the present day, have been confused with the Rose Cut, which has always been based on a geometry of three.
The pointed, pavilion-based sixteen cut was called the Taille en Seize. To what extent such diamonds were fashioned, and whether straight from rough crystals or as recuts of Burgundian Point Cuts, can only be surmised. Not a single diamond in the 1691 French Crown inventory is described as sixteen-cut or can be interpreted as such. On the other hand, a fair number of both fancy and standard Brilliant Cuts are mentioned in various inventories of the last quarter of the century, and the earliest historical Brilliant, the Wittelsbach, dates from about 1664. In 1678 Alvarez, diamontaire to Louis XIV, is reported to have delivered to the king not only the Hortensia Brilliant but also twelve large and hundreds of small Brilliant Cut diamonds.
The existence of the Taille en Seize has been documented by only two acknowledged experts on jewelry—C.W.King (1867) and Clifford Smith (1908)—and eventually repeated by Evans (1970). King claimed that in the seventeenth century the octagonal diamond ‘was highly in vogue on account of its Pythagorean mystic virtue: and antique gems thus reshaped frequently occur in the signets of the time.’ King was right, except that he believed that the octagonal outline was produced ‘by slicing off the corners of the square’. Smith wrote that between the years 1641 and 1643 ‘a more systematic method of faceting in sixteen facets—the Taille en Seize—began to be employed about that time. This process, thought it left much to be desired, was an immense improvement, and set forth the qualities of the stone in a way that had not been possible by the forms previously in use.’
Even though numerous authors illustrate jewels with the Taille en Seize, they fail to recognize it for what it is and mistakenly call it a Rose Cut. It was only by studying the Pythagorean diagrams in Palladio’s I Quattri Libri dell’ Architettura (1570), and then comparing them with the numerous drawings of jewelry by Gilles Legare, published in 1663, that I finally understood the history of the Taille en Seize.
The Crime Of Monsieur Lange
The Crime Of Monsieur Lange (1936)
Directed by: Jean Renoir
Screenplay: Jean Castanyer (story); Jacques Prévert
Cast: René Lefèvre, Florelle
(via YouTube): Le Crime de Monsieur Lange (1936)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zs_SIba34nA
A unique story + totally engaging portrait of ordinary people + their total internal reflections.
Directed by: Jean Renoir
Screenplay: Jean Castanyer (story); Jacques Prévert
Cast: René Lefèvre, Florelle
(via YouTube): Le Crime de Monsieur Lange (1936)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zs_SIba34nA
A unique story + totally engaging portrait of ordinary people + their total internal reflections.
The Hidden Sargent
Patricia Failing writes about John Singer Sargent + his paintings + other viewpoints @ http://www.artnews.com/issues/article.asp?art_id=915
The Wonder Of The Renaissance
(via The Outline of Art) William Orpen writes:
2
There is no one person in whom the spirit of Renaissance—that is to say, the rebirth of ancient art and learning—is so completely summed up and expressed as in Leonardo da Vinci. Yet ‘The Martyrdom of St.Sebastian,’ by the brothers Antonio and Piero del Pollaiuolo agains shows something quite modern in its feeling and expression. These two Florentines were contemporaries of Leonardo. Antonio (1432-98) was of humble origin. His father, who is as his surname shows, was a poulterer, apprenticed the boy to a goldsmith, with whom he soon made a reputation as the most skillful workman in the shop. In time he was able to open a shop of his own, and his reliefs and wax models were much admired by sculptors as well as by his patrons. Meanwhile his younger brother Piero, eleven years his junior, had been apprenticed to a painter, and in early middle age Antonio thought he would like to become a painter also. He had educated himself, learning all he could of anatomy and perspective; and found no difficulty in the drawing, but the coloring was so different from anything he had done before that at first he despaired of success; but firm in his resolve he put himself under his younger brother, and in a few months became an excellent painter.
Of all works painted by the two brothers the most famous is ‘The Martyrdom of St. Sebastian,’ now in the National Gallery.
The manysidedness, so characteristic of the artists of the Renaissance, which we have already found in Leonardo and Antonio Pollaiuolo, also distinguishes one of the most interesting of their contemporaries. Domenico Ghirlandaio (1449-94), who also was originally a goldsmith, owes his very name to a freak of fashion. He was the first to invent and make fashionable the head ornament worn by Florentine girls. Hence he became known as Ghirlandaio (the maker of garlands), not only because he was the original inventor but also we hear, because his were of such exceeding beauty that every girl wanted a garland from his shop.
Discontented with his trade, which gave comparatively small scope to his genius for design. Domenico began painting portraits of the people who came to his shop. These were so lifelike and so beautifully painted, that the fame of the artist soon spread, and he was inundated with orders for portraits, altar-pieces, and decorations for the palaces of noblemen. Pope Sixtus IV heard about him and sent to Florence, inviting him to come to Rome and join the band of famous artists who were already at work on what is now known as the Sistine Chapel.
His great work, ‘The Call of SS. Peter and Andrew,’ in the Sistine Chapel is a splendid example of the boldness of composition which he contributed to art; but his small painting at the Louvre, ‘Portrait of an Old Man and his Grandchild,’ has a far wider celebrity. It is not only as a specimen of Ghirlandaio’s decorative arrangement and intimate feeling, but as an outstanding masterpiece of Christian art, Christian because the painter has here sought and found that beauty of character which was utterly beyond the range of the pagan artists who found beauty in proportions.
When we remember that Ghirlandaio began painting late, and was carried off by a fever at the comparatively early age of forty four, we are astounded at the quantity and quality of the work he left behind. He was a man of immense energy and hated to be interrupted in his work. Once when his brother David bothered him on some domestic matter, he replied: ‘Leave me to work while you make provision, because now that I have begun to master my art I feel sorry that I am not employed to paint the entire circuit of the walls of Florence.’
2
There is no one person in whom the spirit of Renaissance—that is to say, the rebirth of ancient art and learning—is so completely summed up and expressed as in Leonardo da Vinci. Yet ‘The Martyrdom of St.Sebastian,’ by the brothers Antonio and Piero del Pollaiuolo agains shows something quite modern in its feeling and expression. These two Florentines were contemporaries of Leonardo. Antonio (1432-98) was of humble origin. His father, who is as his surname shows, was a poulterer, apprenticed the boy to a goldsmith, with whom he soon made a reputation as the most skillful workman in the shop. In time he was able to open a shop of his own, and his reliefs and wax models were much admired by sculptors as well as by his patrons. Meanwhile his younger brother Piero, eleven years his junior, had been apprenticed to a painter, and in early middle age Antonio thought he would like to become a painter also. He had educated himself, learning all he could of anatomy and perspective; and found no difficulty in the drawing, but the coloring was so different from anything he had done before that at first he despaired of success; but firm in his resolve he put himself under his younger brother, and in a few months became an excellent painter.
Of all works painted by the two brothers the most famous is ‘The Martyrdom of St. Sebastian,’ now in the National Gallery.
The manysidedness, so characteristic of the artists of the Renaissance, which we have already found in Leonardo and Antonio Pollaiuolo, also distinguishes one of the most interesting of their contemporaries. Domenico Ghirlandaio (1449-94), who also was originally a goldsmith, owes his very name to a freak of fashion. He was the first to invent and make fashionable the head ornament worn by Florentine girls. Hence he became known as Ghirlandaio (the maker of garlands), not only because he was the original inventor but also we hear, because his were of such exceeding beauty that every girl wanted a garland from his shop.
Discontented with his trade, which gave comparatively small scope to his genius for design. Domenico began painting portraits of the people who came to his shop. These were so lifelike and so beautifully painted, that the fame of the artist soon spread, and he was inundated with orders for portraits, altar-pieces, and decorations for the palaces of noblemen. Pope Sixtus IV heard about him and sent to Florence, inviting him to come to Rome and join the band of famous artists who were already at work on what is now known as the Sistine Chapel.
His great work, ‘The Call of SS. Peter and Andrew,’ in the Sistine Chapel is a splendid example of the boldness of composition which he contributed to art; but his small painting at the Louvre, ‘Portrait of an Old Man and his Grandchild,’ has a far wider celebrity. It is not only as a specimen of Ghirlandaio’s decorative arrangement and intimate feeling, but as an outstanding masterpiece of Christian art, Christian because the painter has here sought and found that beauty of character which was utterly beyond the range of the pagan artists who found beauty in proportions.
When we remember that Ghirlandaio began painting late, and was carried off by a fever at the comparatively early age of forty four, we are astounded at the quantity and quality of the work he left behind. He was a man of immense energy and hated to be interrupted in his work. Once when his brother David bothered him on some domestic matter, he replied: ‘Leave me to work while you make provision, because now that I have begun to master my art I feel sorry that I am not employed to paint the entire circuit of the walls of Florence.’
I Break Three Times Into Diamonds
Louis Kornitzer's book, Gem Trader, is partly autobiographical and partly woven round the lore of pearls. It's educational + explains the distribution chain of gems, as they pass from hand to hand, from miner to cutter, from merchant to millionaire, from courtesan to receiver of stolen goods, shaping human lives as they go + the unique characters in the industry.
(via Gem Trader) Louis Kornitzer writes:
The second operation is the so-called bruting, when two stones, each of them a diamond, are rubbed against each other in order to rough shape them. You need not imagine that the small particles which come off in the process of bruting are allowed to go to waste. Every precaution is taken to save the diamond powder that flies on to the floor and among the workmen’s clothing, and the weights of the rough stones and the finished products are carefully checked, so that not the tiniest fraction of a carat escapes. The grains are collected and added to the stock of diamond dust, which is indispensable for the third operation in the making of a diamond.
It is literal fact that only diamond cuts diamond. If a diamond cutter has no diamond dust, he cannot hope to coax a stone into mirroring light. Incidentally, it may be here remarked that a brilliant has the property of absorbing light rays and giving them out again in the dark. That peculiarity is known as phosphorescence, a word that suggests that this property is due to some chemical action within the stone, which, of course, is not the case.
When the stone has been rough-shaped and is ready for faceting and subsequent polishing, it must be fitted into some contrivance, for it would be impossible for the cutter to hold it in his bare fingers against a metal disk revolving at high speed. The device used is a copper holder into which the stone is securely fixed, and the manner of fixing it is technically described as ‘soldering’.
Now the stone is ready to receive its first facet. It is held down against a porous cast-iron wheel which has previously been edged with a liberal mixture of oil and find diamond dust. The wheel turns with a speed of some 2500 revolutions per minute. Skeif is the technical name for such a wheel, and the holder containing the stone is known as a dop. The diamond powder is prepared by pounding in a mortar small, discolored, badly flawed or broken crystals of diamond which have no jewel value.
For the final operation, that of polishing, steel, leather and felt disks are used, and the diamond powder applied to these removes the last vestiges of roughness and all scratches or surface blemishes. If any drilling has to be done, the drill to be used is tipped with a diamond splinter. The diamond has now finished with the beauty parlor and is ready to face the critical world.
All these processes have been perfected only in comparatively recent times. But yet, as has been said, gem cutting in its crude form has been known since antiquity. There are on exhibit in the Museum at Cairo, stones which, although they have been only crudely cut, bear witness to the fact that gem cutting was practised in Egypt in the early part of the third dynasty, which takes us back to 4777-4515 B.C. The craft has persisted in some sort in every civilized country ever since. For instance, thirteenth-century Paris boasted a gem cutter’s guild, and a similar guild flourished in the German city of Nuremberg round about 1370. At that period, too, Bruges, in Flanders, was already playing a leading part in the art of gem cutting, and one of the burghers of that city, Ludwig van Berghen, revolutionized diamond cutting by being the first to use a perfectly symmetrical and scientific arrangement of facets.
It was to this famous Flemish diamond cutter that Charles the Bold sent three diamonds for the purpose of having them faceted after the new fashion. Amongst these stones was one that measured three-eighths of an inch along one edge, and is said to have been the first known pyramidical stone of any important size. The stone was subsequently stolen from its royal owner’s tent or taken as loot on the battlefield by a common soldier. From fear of discovery or from ignorance of its great value, the thief cast it aside, but then recovered it and sold it to a known priest, who returned it to its owner and received a good reward. Then the diamond passed into the hands of the Bernese Government, which in turn sold it to Jacob Fugger, a member of the famous family of Augsburg merchants, for the enormous sum of 47000 florins.
But the great stone did not abide with the Fuggers. It came back to royalty in the shape of Henry VIII of England, and from him passed to his daughter Queen Mary I, who gave it to Philip of Spain. The rest of its history is obscure. It may still be a part of the Spanish crown jewels, wherever they may be, or more probably became a part of the Hapsburg treasures.
It was the Portuguese Jews from Lisbon who brought gem cutting to England and made Hatton Garden a world center for the gem trade. For when religious intolerance drove them from Portugal, as it had already driven their brethren from Spain, the justly famed Lisbon diamond cutters brought a lucrative new trade to the country which sheltered them in their exile.
While the luxury-loving and moneyed classes had to depend for diamonds upon the meagre supplies from India, Brazil and other minor sources, large stones—that is, stones over thirty carats—were so rare that a prominent London jeweler (E.W.Streeter), who was as well informed on the subject as anyone in Europe, was able to say that to the best of his belief there were no more than a hundred such stones in the whole world. Of these, in his opinion, fifty were in Europe and the rest divided between Persia, India and Borneo.
But the discovery of large diamond deposits in South Africa and the intensive mining with up-to-date methods has changed all this, and there are now a large number of considerable stones distributed over the five continents. Yet the value of big gems has gone not down, but up. A forecast of Streeter’s, made without knowledge of the new factor of South Africa, that the value of really large stones would be greatly enhanced in the future, has been fully borne out. This is due to the restrictions by the controllers of world stocks. It would, of course, benefit nobody if enormous quantities of quality diamonds were unloaded on the market, and it would harm many.
It is not by accident that practically all the outstanding stones of the old days were found in the possessions of royal personages. From very early times, for instance, the sovereigns and ruling princes of India took unto themselves all stones of any size that were found in their dominions. Some writers say that any stone over thirty carats had to be handed over, others that stones of over ten carats must be given up, surrendered to the royal treasury. None of the accounts state, however, whether the finder of the stone or the owner of the land received adequate compensation.
Whether they received any sort of gift or not, ex gratia, I feel inclined to doubt ‘adequateness’, not because of Indian princes are less just or more rapacious than other men who can force their will on their weaker fellows, but because I have known by personal experience the workings of a similar ordinance. This was in the Sulu Archipelago, where I once operated my fleet of pearling craft. The Sultan of Sulu was entitled to have first offer of all pearls found in his territorial waters (this applied to native fishing vessels and naked divers only, not to white owners). The Sultan would be shown a stone of size. If he liked the look of it he put his own price on it, and the finder had to accept what was offered if he valued his head. If the Sultan was not interested, the finder paid a mere ten percent of the pearl’s value into the royal treasury, but valuation was gain with His Highness. Naturally he did not put too high a value on a stone he liked or too low a value on one he had not use for. And Sultan Jamalal Kiram II was not such a bad sort at that, may he rest in peace. A greater tyrant could have made a greater profit than he ever bothered about.
(via Gem Trader) Louis Kornitzer writes:
The second operation is the so-called bruting, when two stones, each of them a diamond, are rubbed against each other in order to rough shape them. You need not imagine that the small particles which come off in the process of bruting are allowed to go to waste. Every precaution is taken to save the diamond powder that flies on to the floor and among the workmen’s clothing, and the weights of the rough stones and the finished products are carefully checked, so that not the tiniest fraction of a carat escapes. The grains are collected and added to the stock of diamond dust, which is indispensable for the third operation in the making of a diamond.
It is literal fact that only diamond cuts diamond. If a diamond cutter has no diamond dust, he cannot hope to coax a stone into mirroring light. Incidentally, it may be here remarked that a brilliant has the property of absorbing light rays and giving them out again in the dark. That peculiarity is known as phosphorescence, a word that suggests that this property is due to some chemical action within the stone, which, of course, is not the case.
When the stone has been rough-shaped and is ready for faceting and subsequent polishing, it must be fitted into some contrivance, for it would be impossible for the cutter to hold it in his bare fingers against a metal disk revolving at high speed. The device used is a copper holder into which the stone is securely fixed, and the manner of fixing it is technically described as ‘soldering’.
Now the stone is ready to receive its first facet. It is held down against a porous cast-iron wheel which has previously been edged with a liberal mixture of oil and find diamond dust. The wheel turns with a speed of some 2500 revolutions per minute. Skeif is the technical name for such a wheel, and the holder containing the stone is known as a dop. The diamond powder is prepared by pounding in a mortar small, discolored, badly flawed or broken crystals of diamond which have no jewel value.
For the final operation, that of polishing, steel, leather and felt disks are used, and the diamond powder applied to these removes the last vestiges of roughness and all scratches or surface blemishes. If any drilling has to be done, the drill to be used is tipped with a diamond splinter. The diamond has now finished with the beauty parlor and is ready to face the critical world.
All these processes have been perfected only in comparatively recent times. But yet, as has been said, gem cutting in its crude form has been known since antiquity. There are on exhibit in the Museum at Cairo, stones which, although they have been only crudely cut, bear witness to the fact that gem cutting was practised in Egypt in the early part of the third dynasty, which takes us back to 4777-4515 B.C. The craft has persisted in some sort in every civilized country ever since. For instance, thirteenth-century Paris boasted a gem cutter’s guild, and a similar guild flourished in the German city of Nuremberg round about 1370. At that period, too, Bruges, in Flanders, was already playing a leading part in the art of gem cutting, and one of the burghers of that city, Ludwig van Berghen, revolutionized diamond cutting by being the first to use a perfectly symmetrical and scientific arrangement of facets.
It was to this famous Flemish diamond cutter that Charles the Bold sent three diamonds for the purpose of having them faceted after the new fashion. Amongst these stones was one that measured three-eighths of an inch along one edge, and is said to have been the first known pyramidical stone of any important size. The stone was subsequently stolen from its royal owner’s tent or taken as loot on the battlefield by a common soldier. From fear of discovery or from ignorance of its great value, the thief cast it aside, but then recovered it and sold it to a known priest, who returned it to its owner and received a good reward. Then the diamond passed into the hands of the Bernese Government, which in turn sold it to Jacob Fugger, a member of the famous family of Augsburg merchants, for the enormous sum of 47000 florins.
But the great stone did not abide with the Fuggers. It came back to royalty in the shape of Henry VIII of England, and from him passed to his daughter Queen Mary I, who gave it to Philip of Spain. The rest of its history is obscure. It may still be a part of the Spanish crown jewels, wherever they may be, or more probably became a part of the Hapsburg treasures.
It was the Portuguese Jews from Lisbon who brought gem cutting to England and made Hatton Garden a world center for the gem trade. For when religious intolerance drove them from Portugal, as it had already driven their brethren from Spain, the justly famed Lisbon diamond cutters brought a lucrative new trade to the country which sheltered them in their exile.
While the luxury-loving and moneyed classes had to depend for diamonds upon the meagre supplies from India, Brazil and other minor sources, large stones—that is, stones over thirty carats—were so rare that a prominent London jeweler (E.W.Streeter), who was as well informed on the subject as anyone in Europe, was able to say that to the best of his belief there were no more than a hundred such stones in the whole world. Of these, in his opinion, fifty were in Europe and the rest divided between Persia, India and Borneo.
But the discovery of large diamond deposits in South Africa and the intensive mining with up-to-date methods has changed all this, and there are now a large number of considerable stones distributed over the five continents. Yet the value of big gems has gone not down, but up. A forecast of Streeter’s, made without knowledge of the new factor of South Africa, that the value of really large stones would be greatly enhanced in the future, has been fully borne out. This is due to the restrictions by the controllers of world stocks. It would, of course, benefit nobody if enormous quantities of quality diamonds were unloaded on the market, and it would harm many.
It is not by accident that practically all the outstanding stones of the old days were found in the possessions of royal personages. From very early times, for instance, the sovereigns and ruling princes of India took unto themselves all stones of any size that were found in their dominions. Some writers say that any stone over thirty carats had to be handed over, others that stones of over ten carats must be given up, surrendered to the royal treasury. None of the accounts state, however, whether the finder of the stone or the owner of the land received adequate compensation.
Whether they received any sort of gift or not, ex gratia, I feel inclined to doubt ‘adequateness’, not because of Indian princes are less just or more rapacious than other men who can force their will on their weaker fellows, but because I have known by personal experience the workings of a similar ordinance. This was in the Sulu Archipelago, where I once operated my fleet of pearling craft. The Sultan of Sulu was entitled to have first offer of all pearls found in his territorial waters (this applied to native fishing vessels and naked divers only, not to white owners). The Sultan would be shown a stone of size. If he liked the look of it he put his own price on it, and the finder had to accept what was offered if he valued his head. If the Sultan was not interested, the finder paid a mere ten percent of the pearl’s value into the royal treasury, but valuation was gain with His Highness. Naturally he did not put too high a value on a stone he liked or too low a value on one he had not use for. And Sultan Jamalal Kiram II was not such a bad sort at that, may he rest in peace. A greater tyrant could have made a greater profit than he ever bothered about.
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