Sunday, January 13, 2008
Invest In Gold Funds, Not Jewelry
The experts say when the dollar weakens gold prices go up, and vice-versa + so invest in a gold fund, not jewelry because gold continues to remain a solid bet for the future + a good way to invest in the yellow metal is in the form of paper, that is, through gold funds + these funds can easily be bought and sold + as the underlying gold of your fund is in the form of bullion, there are no losses in terms of design and making charges + traditional (in Asia) investments in gold tend to be in the form of jewelry + there might be a significant loss of value when you sell your gold because a lot of your purchase price goes towards design and making charges + gold bars and coins are becoming good options + a little gold in your portfolio is good investment strategy.
Changyu Wine
Changyu Wine Group Company, Ltd., Yantai, whose previous name was Changyu Pioneer Wine Company,Yantai, was established by a well-known overseas Chinese merchant giant, Mr. Chang Bishi, with a history of 108 years + it is not only the first industrialized winery in China, but also the largest winemaking enterprise in Asia now.
Useful link:
www.changyu.com.cn
Useful link:
www.changyu.com.cn
A Bull In China
A Bull In China by Jim Rogers provides a list of companies that are relevant to the trends/observations in a section (Jims Sino Files!) + these lists are an excellent way to understand the landscape of Chinese economy + the writing style is very conversational and easy-flowing.
Here is what the description of A Bull In China says (via Amazon):
If the twentieth century was the American century, then the twenty-first century belongs to China. Now the one and only Jim Rogers shows how any investor can get in on the ground floor of “the greatest economic boom since England’s Industrial Revolution.”
In this indispensable new book, one of the world’s most successful investors, Jim Rogers, brings his unerring investment acumen to bear on this huge and unruly land now being opened to the world and exploding in potential.
Rogers didn’t just wake up a Sinophile yesterday. He’s been tracking the Chinese economy since he first went to China in 1984 in preparation for his round-the-world motorcycle trip and then again, later, when he saw Shanghai’s newly reopened stock exchange (which looked like an OTB office). In the decades that followed–especially in recent years, with the easing of Communist party financial dictates–the facts speak for themselves:
• The Chinese economy’s growth rate has averaged 9 percent since the start of the 1980s.
• China’s savings rate is over 35 percent (in America, it’s 2 percent).
• 40 percent of China’s output goes to exports (so there’s no crippling foreign debt).
• $60 billion a year in direct foreign investment, combined with a trade surplus, has brought Beijing’s foreign currency reserves to over $1 trillion.
• China’s fixed assets–ports, bridges, and roads–double every two and a half years.
In short, if projections hold, China will surpass the United States as the world’s largest economy in as little as twenty years. But the time to act is now. In A Bull in China, you’ll learn what industries offer the newest and best opportunities, from power, energy, and agriculture to tourism, water, and infrastructure. In his trademark down-to-earth style, Rogers demystifies the state policies that are driving earnings and innovation, takes the intimidation factor out of the A-shares, B-shares, and ADRs of Chinese offerings, and encourages any reader to trust his or her own expertise (if you’re a car mechanic, check out their auto industry).
A Bull in China also features fascinating profiles of “Red Chip” companies, such as Yantu Changyu, China’s largest winemaker, which sells a “Healthy Liquor” line mixed with herbal medicines. Plus, if you want to export something to China yourself–or even buy land there–Rogers tells you the steps you need to take.
No other book–and no other author–can better help you benefit from the new Chinese revolution. Jim Rogers shows you how to make the “amazing energy, potential, and entrepreneurial spirit of a billion people” work for you.
Useful links:
www.jimrogers.com
http://seekingalpha.com
Here is what the description of A Bull In China says (via Amazon):
If the twentieth century was the American century, then the twenty-first century belongs to China. Now the one and only Jim Rogers shows how any investor can get in on the ground floor of “the greatest economic boom since England’s Industrial Revolution.”
In this indispensable new book, one of the world’s most successful investors, Jim Rogers, brings his unerring investment acumen to bear on this huge and unruly land now being opened to the world and exploding in potential.
Rogers didn’t just wake up a Sinophile yesterday. He’s been tracking the Chinese economy since he first went to China in 1984 in preparation for his round-the-world motorcycle trip and then again, later, when he saw Shanghai’s newly reopened stock exchange (which looked like an OTB office). In the decades that followed–especially in recent years, with the easing of Communist party financial dictates–the facts speak for themselves:
• The Chinese economy’s growth rate has averaged 9 percent since the start of the 1980s.
• China’s savings rate is over 35 percent (in America, it’s 2 percent).
• 40 percent of China’s output goes to exports (so there’s no crippling foreign debt).
• $60 billion a year in direct foreign investment, combined with a trade surplus, has brought Beijing’s foreign currency reserves to over $1 trillion.
• China’s fixed assets–ports, bridges, and roads–double every two and a half years.
In short, if projections hold, China will surpass the United States as the world’s largest economy in as little as twenty years. But the time to act is now. In A Bull in China, you’ll learn what industries offer the newest and best opportunities, from power, energy, and agriculture to tourism, water, and infrastructure. In his trademark down-to-earth style, Rogers demystifies the state policies that are driving earnings and innovation, takes the intimidation factor out of the A-shares, B-shares, and ADRs of Chinese offerings, and encourages any reader to trust his or her own expertise (if you’re a car mechanic, check out their auto industry).
A Bull in China also features fascinating profiles of “Red Chip” companies, such as Yantu Changyu, China’s largest winemaker, which sells a “Healthy Liquor” line mixed with herbal medicines. Plus, if you want to export something to China yourself–or even buy land there–Rogers tells you the steps you need to take.
No other book–and no other author–can better help you benefit from the new Chinese revolution. Jim Rogers shows you how to make the “amazing energy, potential, and entrepreneurial spirit of a billion people” work for you.
Useful links:
www.jimrogers.com
http://seekingalpha.com
Umberto D
Umberto D (1952)
Directed by: Vittorio De Sica
Screenplay: Vittorio De Sica (screenplay uncredited); Cesare Zavattini (screenplay); Cesare Zavattini (story)
Cast: Carlo Battisti, Maria-Pia Casilio, Lina Gennari
(via YouTube): Umberto D - Final sequence (Spoilers)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=erornDbrlkk
Umberto D
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yEfWeu2geGI
Umberto D
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ift2ptZ6JXE
I think the Italian Neorealism concept + perfect clarity defines the film.
Directed by: Vittorio De Sica
Screenplay: Vittorio De Sica (screenplay uncredited); Cesare Zavattini (screenplay); Cesare Zavattini (story)
Cast: Carlo Battisti, Maria-Pia Casilio, Lina Gennari
(via YouTube): Umberto D - Final sequence (Spoilers)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=erornDbrlkk
Umberto D
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yEfWeu2geGI
Umberto D
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ift2ptZ6JXE
I think the Italian Neorealism concept + perfect clarity defines the film.
Jewelers Of Phoenicia And Greece
(via 5000 Years of Gems and Jewelry) Frances Rogers and Alice Beard writes:
1. Phoenician Traders And Craftsmen
The Phoenicians were the most adventurous sailors of their time. Acting chiefly as middlemen, their merchants not only traveled through the Mediterranean but also sought ports never reached by Egyptian ships.
Meanwhile, because of his contacts with Egypt and Assyria, where the fine glass and metal work for export trade was produced, the Phoenician developed more than a tradesman’s interest in these crafts. He wished to make as well as sell merchandise—it was good business to produce at home the goods sold abroad. So presently the artisans of Phoenicia were turning their energies to absorbing from their powerful neighbors technical knowledge concerning the minor arts. From the Egyptians they learned to make glassware and glass beads (so valuable as an article of barter), also to cast bronze, to solder gold to gold, and to shape the precious metal into jewelry. From the Babylonians they learned the at of engraving gemstones.
The Phoenicians were apt pupils, but their work continued to be a composite of the designs and methods originated by other nations. And when, after a time, Phoenician ships sailed from home ports laden with fine metal work, glass vessels and beads, jewelry, little carved amulet-scarabs, cylinders and seals—all ‘made in Phonencia’—these articles, be it noted, were excellent examples of Egyptian and Assyro-Babylonian techniques, patterns and traditions.
It was in the wearing, rather than in the making of jewelry that the Phoenicians seem to have achieved a touch of originality, particularly in the matter of earrings. A lady of fashion had her ears pierced along the rim as well as at the lobe, thus she could decorate the edges of her ears with gold rings, each carrying a drop-shaped pendant. A sound like the tinkling of tiny bells must have marked her every turn of the head.
The people of southeastern Europe still lagged far behind the high point of development reached in the Orient. They could not make for themselves the marvelous things brought to their shores by the black-bearded Phoenician traders, but when opportunity came they were as eager to purchase ornaments by barter as were the North American Indians when they exchanged furs for glass beads.
Now and again a merchant galley would land at one of the towns that bordered the sea and the inhabitants would crowd wide-eyed about her to gaze up at the strange vessel with her high stern, great sails and many oarsmen. Then under the practised hands of the sailor-merchants the ship would become such a sumptuous example of window-dressing as might fill a modern merchant with envy. Draped textiles of deep purple, gorgeous, barbaric embroideries, and fine raiment made a telling background for other luxuries. There would be platters of bronze richly engraved with the fabulous bearded sphinx, the winged bull, or perhaps a hunting scene on the Nile. There would be perfume bottles of carved alabaster, graceful vases of deep-toned, patterned glass, fans of ostrich plumes or peacock feathers and, most prized of all, the heaped jewels—necklaces, bracelets, earrings, amulet-pendants, and head-ornaments of pale gold set with precious stones or enriched with many colored enamels. And for backdrop to such a scene there was always the splendor of sea and sky.
The people who came to buy offered in exchange for foreign luxuries the products of their own countries. The Greeks, still ignorant of the mysterious processes by which raw metals and colored stones were fashioned into ornate form, were, as their later development proved, especially sensitive to beauty, therefore they were willing customers. Their own land produced olives and grapes in great abundance; and when a Phoenician galley came to display her wares, men and women thronged the shore carrying oil and sweet wine, fragrant and strong, which they offered in exchange for products made by Oriental craftsmen.
Jewelers Of Phoenicia And Greece (continued)
1. Phoenician Traders And Craftsmen
The Phoenicians were the most adventurous sailors of their time. Acting chiefly as middlemen, their merchants not only traveled through the Mediterranean but also sought ports never reached by Egyptian ships.
Meanwhile, because of his contacts with Egypt and Assyria, where the fine glass and metal work for export trade was produced, the Phoenician developed more than a tradesman’s interest in these crafts. He wished to make as well as sell merchandise—it was good business to produce at home the goods sold abroad. So presently the artisans of Phoenicia were turning their energies to absorbing from their powerful neighbors technical knowledge concerning the minor arts. From the Egyptians they learned to make glassware and glass beads (so valuable as an article of barter), also to cast bronze, to solder gold to gold, and to shape the precious metal into jewelry. From the Babylonians they learned the at of engraving gemstones.
The Phoenicians were apt pupils, but their work continued to be a composite of the designs and methods originated by other nations. And when, after a time, Phoenician ships sailed from home ports laden with fine metal work, glass vessels and beads, jewelry, little carved amulet-scarabs, cylinders and seals—all ‘made in Phonencia’—these articles, be it noted, were excellent examples of Egyptian and Assyro-Babylonian techniques, patterns and traditions.
It was in the wearing, rather than in the making of jewelry that the Phoenicians seem to have achieved a touch of originality, particularly in the matter of earrings. A lady of fashion had her ears pierced along the rim as well as at the lobe, thus she could decorate the edges of her ears with gold rings, each carrying a drop-shaped pendant. A sound like the tinkling of tiny bells must have marked her every turn of the head.
The people of southeastern Europe still lagged far behind the high point of development reached in the Orient. They could not make for themselves the marvelous things brought to their shores by the black-bearded Phoenician traders, but when opportunity came they were as eager to purchase ornaments by barter as were the North American Indians when they exchanged furs for glass beads.
Now and again a merchant galley would land at one of the towns that bordered the sea and the inhabitants would crowd wide-eyed about her to gaze up at the strange vessel with her high stern, great sails and many oarsmen. Then under the practised hands of the sailor-merchants the ship would become such a sumptuous example of window-dressing as might fill a modern merchant with envy. Draped textiles of deep purple, gorgeous, barbaric embroideries, and fine raiment made a telling background for other luxuries. There would be platters of bronze richly engraved with the fabulous bearded sphinx, the winged bull, or perhaps a hunting scene on the Nile. There would be perfume bottles of carved alabaster, graceful vases of deep-toned, patterned glass, fans of ostrich plumes or peacock feathers and, most prized of all, the heaped jewels—necklaces, bracelets, earrings, amulet-pendants, and head-ornaments of pale gold set with precious stones or enriched with many colored enamels. And for backdrop to such a scene there was always the splendor of sea and sky.
The people who came to buy offered in exchange for foreign luxuries the products of their own countries. The Greeks, still ignorant of the mysterious processes by which raw metals and colored stones were fashioned into ornate form, were, as their later development proved, especially sensitive to beauty, therefore they were willing customers. Their own land produced olives and grapes in great abundance; and when a Phoenician galley came to display her wares, men and women thronged the shore carrying oil and sweet wine, fragrant and strong, which they offered in exchange for products made by Oriental craftsmen.
Jewelers Of Phoenicia And Greece (continued)
In Search Of The Precious Stone
Albert Ramsay (Albert Ramsay & Co, 1925) writes:
From Siam I turned my attention to the famous ruby mines in Burma. Those unversed in mineralogy it is difficult to conceive sapphires and rubies belonging to the same species. Such is the case however, as both are corundum and possess similar physical characteristics—color excepted. They rank in hardness second only to the diamond. Carat for carat rubies of the first quality are rarer and consequently more valuable than diamonds of a corresponding grade. No other stone increases as rapidly in value in proportion to increase in weight as does the ruby. Dark red rubies are found in Siam and purplish ones in Ceylon but Burma alone may claim the wonderful pigeon-blood ruby.
To reach the mines I went first to Rangoon, the capital of Burma. The outstanding feature of Rangoon is the Shwe Dagon Pagoda, glittering in its golden armor. In passing, a few words descriptive of this Buddhist holy-of-holies might be apropos. Erected in 588 B.C according to tradition three women were buried alive during the rites which accompanied its inception. The Pagoda, 370 feet high, is built in the center of a vast terrace 166 feet above the ground. Upon its summit is a sort of network headpiece dangling with bells. This structure is jewel-encrusted, the upper dome being covered with eight-of-an-inch thick plates of solid gold, and the lower part overlaid with burnished goldleaf. Above all floats a banner studded with gems worth more then $1,000,000. The Shwe Dagon is surrounded by some fifteen hundred minor pagodas which, with their garish trimmings and waxwork show of alabaster images, impart the atmosphere of a fair to the entire scene.
The narrow, tortuous streets of Rangoon swarm with yellow-robed Buddhist priests, grotesque in appearance, their heads and eyebrows shaven in accordance with the mandates of their creed. The prevalence of holy men in Burma is due to a custom whereby the sons of the better families devote a certain portion of their lives to the priesthood, just as, in more civilized countries, young ladies attend convents with a view to culture and education.
Mandalay, immortalized in verse by Kipling, was reached after an eighteen hour rail journey to the northward. There I embarked upon the Irrawaddy, one of India’s great rivers. All day the quaint steamer nosed its way cautiously upstream, following the twistings and turnings of the tortuous channel. The overhanging ferns caressed the surface of the sluggish stream and each feathery leaf of the palms lining the banks found its counterpart mirrored upon the glassy surface of the backwaters. Huge rafts of teak logs, manned by Burmans, drifted slowly by, upon their journey to the sea. Waterfowl, disturbed in their quest for fish amid the bending reeds, took wing with a whirr calculated to gladden the heart of the sportsman. When night settled upon the jungle it was necessary to drop anchor owing to the dangers attending navigation in the dark. The moon, red and hot-looking, peered from behind the distant hills and, as if satisfied with what it had seen, climbed into the star-dusted heavens to be reflected later upon the river’s expanse in all of its silvery splendor. I reached Thabeitkin the following morning.
Thabeitkin is a small village and impresses one with the belief that is clinging desperately to the riverbank lest the jungle, encroaching upon the three remaining sides, succeed in crowding it into the stream. When I arrived, the village was in a state of excitement bordering upon panic over the recent destruction of one of the inhabitants by two man-eating tigers. These beasts are held in such mortal dread by the natives and so many terrifying tales are told of their depredations that I climbed into dark and I freely confess that I spent a very restless night. The following day i was so engrossed in preparations for my trip to Mogok, the ruby mines re located, that all disturbing thought of the predatory felines was banished. The British government has connected Thabeitkin and Mogok by an excellent road, seventy miles in length. The journey is a gentle ascent and the scenery, interesting for the entire distance, is particularly beautiful when nearing Mogok from which point a panoramic view of the surrounding country is obtained. Mogok, being about five thousand feet higher than the river, has a climate delightfully cool in contrast to the heat prevailing in the valley. The mining district comprises about two hundred square miles and the mines, controlled by the Burma Ruby Company, are worked in accordance with the most modern practice, surrounding hills being gradually leveled in the course of operations. Through a coincidence the finest ruby ever found in these mines was discovered on Armistice Day, 1918. It was christened ‘The Peace Ruby’ and was purchased by a native merchant for $100,000. He later sold it to an Indian Rajah. The choicest rubies are sent to the London market and the company holds weekly sales at which the native buyers purchase the balance of the output. After crudely cutting the stones thus obtained the dealers dispose of them to outside interests.
In Search Of The Precious Stone (continued)
From Siam I turned my attention to the famous ruby mines in Burma. Those unversed in mineralogy it is difficult to conceive sapphires and rubies belonging to the same species. Such is the case however, as both are corundum and possess similar physical characteristics—color excepted. They rank in hardness second only to the diamond. Carat for carat rubies of the first quality are rarer and consequently more valuable than diamonds of a corresponding grade. No other stone increases as rapidly in value in proportion to increase in weight as does the ruby. Dark red rubies are found in Siam and purplish ones in Ceylon but Burma alone may claim the wonderful pigeon-blood ruby.
To reach the mines I went first to Rangoon, the capital of Burma. The outstanding feature of Rangoon is the Shwe Dagon Pagoda, glittering in its golden armor. In passing, a few words descriptive of this Buddhist holy-of-holies might be apropos. Erected in 588 B.C according to tradition three women were buried alive during the rites which accompanied its inception. The Pagoda, 370 feet high, is built in the center of a vast terrace 166 feet above the ground. Upon its summit is a sort of network headpiece dangling with bells. This structure is jewel-encrusted, the upper dome being covered with eight-of-an-inch thick plates of solid gold, and the lower part overlaid with burnished goldleaf. Above all floats a banner studded with gems worth more then $1,000,000. The Shwe Dagon is surrounded by some fifteen hundred minor pagodas which, with their garish trimmings and waxwork show of alabaster images, impart the atmosphere of a fair to the entire scene.
The narrow, tortuous streets of Rangoon swarm with yellow-robed Buddhist priests, grotesque in appearance, their heads and eyebrows shaven in accordance with the mandates of their creed. The prevalence of holy men in Burma is due to a custom whereby the sons of the better families devote a certain portion of their lives to the priesthood, just as, in more civilized countries, young ladies attend convents with a view to culture and education.
Mandalay, immortalized in verse by Kipling, was reached after an eighteen hour rail journey to the northward. There I embarked upon the Irrawaddy, one of India’s great rivers. All day the quaint steamer nosed its way cautiously upstream, following the twistings and turnings of the tortuous channel. The overhanging ferns caressed the surface of the sluggish stream and each feathery leaf of the palms lining the banks found its counterpart mirrored upon the glassy surface of the backwaters. Huge rafts of teak logs, manned by Burmans, drifted slowly by, upon their journey to the sea. Waterfowl, disturbed in their quest for fish amid the bending reeds, took wing with a whirr calculated to gladden the heart of the sportsman. When night settled upon the jungle it was necessary to drop anchor owing to the dangers attending navigation in the dark. The moon, red and hot-looking, peered from behind the distant hills and, as if satisfied with what it had seen, climbed into the star-dusted heavens to be reflected later upon the river’s expanse in all of its silvery splendor. I reached Thabeitkin the following morning.
Thabeitkin is a small village and impresses one with the belief that is clinging desperately to the riverbank lest the jungle, encroaching upon the three remaining sides, succeed in crowding it into the stream. When I arrived, the village was in a state of excitement bordering upon panic over the recent destruction of one of the inhabitants by two man-eating tigers. These beasts are held in such mortal dread by the natives and so many terrifying tales are told of their depredations that I climbed into dark and I freely confess that I spent a very restless night. The following day i was so engrossed in preparations for my trip to Mogok, the ruby mines re located, that all disturbing thought of the predatory felines was banished. The British government has connected Thabeitkin and Mogok by an excellent road, seventy miles in length. The journey is a gentle ascent and the scenery, interesting for the entire distance, is particularly beautiful when nearing Mogok from which point a panoramic view of the surrounding country is obtained. Mogok, being about five thousand feet higher than the river, has a climate delightfully cool in contrast to the heat prevailing in the valley. The mining district comprises about two hundred square miles and the mines, controlled by the Burma Ruby Company, are worked in accordance with the most modern practice, surrounding hills being gradually leveled in the course of operations. Through a coincidence the finest ruby ever found in these mines was discovered on Armistice Day, 1918. It was christened ‘The Peace Ruby’ and was purchased by a native merchant for $100,000. He later sold it to an Indian Rajah. The choicest rubies are sent to the London market and the company holds weekly sales at which the native buyers purchase the balance of the output. After crudely cutting the stones thus obtained the dealers dispose of them to outside interests.
In Search Of The Precious Stone (continued)
Dutch Painting In The Seventeenth Century
(via The Outline of Art) William Orpen writes:
4
All classifications of so individual a thing as art are bound to be artificial and imperfect; but just as we may say that the genre-painters of Holland depicted the life of the city, and the landscape-painters the life of the country, so a third group of artists mirrored another phase of national activity in constituting themselves painters of shipping and the sea. Holland, as England once knew to her cost, was, and still is, a great maritime nation, and her sea-captains and shipowners inevitably set up a demand for pictures of the element on which they triumphed and prospered. Moreover, this low-lying land was at the mercy of the sea, which was only kept back by the dykes, so that every Dutchman may be said to have had a personal interest in the ocean. One of the earliest painters of sea-pieces with shipping was Hendrik Dubbels (1620-76), who was the master of a more famous sea-painter, Ludolf Bakhuizen (1631-1708). Bakhuizen is as much a painter of shipping as of the sea, and in addition to being a picture-painter he was a naval architect who made constructive drawings of ships for the Russian Tsar Peter the Great. There is a great deal of spirit in his sea-pieces, particularly in his tempestuous subjects, but his storms, as John Ruskin pointed out, were storms that belonged to melodrama rather than to Nature.
We do not feel, however, that there is anything theatrical in the marines of his far greater contemporary, Willem van de Velde the Younger (1633-1707), who belonged to a famous family of artists settled in Amsterdam. Some critics hold that the younger Van de Velde is at his best when depicting shipping in a calm, and assuredly he has painted the stillness of the sea with a beauty and true dignity which go straight to the heart of every sailor. But there are pictures also in which Van de Velde has portrayed crashing waters under a charged sky, and if he rarely essayed to express the terrors of a great storm, yet he succeeds perfectly in conveying the excitement and somewhat perilous exhilaration of a stiff breeze. As example of his powers in this direction is ‘A Gale’, in which we see the waves washing over a fishing-smack in the foreground, while farther on a frigate proudly approaches with bellying sails, and still farther in the distance a second frigate rides out the gale at anchor beneath the dark clouded sky. This gale is not awe-inspiring, as it might have been had Ruisdael painted it, but it is a picture that instinctively makes us square our chests and brace ourselves to meet the wind. Both the Willem van de Veldes, the father and the son who soon surpassed him in accomplishment, came over to London in 1677 and entered the service of Charles II. Willem van de Velde the Younger died at Greenwich, and owing to his long sojourn in England his pictures are plentiful in our public galleries, where they have served as models for Turner and other British sea-painters.
Painting, so flourishing in Holland at the beginning of the seventeenth century, was dead or dying when the next century dawned. The rapid rise of art to the eminence attained by Rembrandt was followed by an equally rapid decadence, so that in the early years of the eighteenth century Dutch painting, while maintaining a creditable level of craftsmanship, had sunk to the meticulous and uninspired painting of fruit, flowers, and the odd collections of inanimate objects known as ‘still life’. In the Netherlands the vein of Rubens was now exhausted and his true heir appeared in France in the person of that strangely attractive painter, Antoine Watteau.
4
All classifications of so individual a thing as art are bound to be artificial and imperfect; but just as we may say that the genre-painters of Holland depicted the life of the city, and the landscape-painters the life of the country, so a third group of artists mirrored another phase of national activity in constituting themselves painters of shipping and the sea. Holland, as England once knew to her cost, was, and still is, a great maritime nation, and her sea-captains and shipowners inevitably set up a demand for pictures of the element on which they triumphed and prospered. Moreover, this low-lying land was at the mercy of the sea, which was only kept back by the dykes, so that every Dutchman may be said to have had a personal interest in the ocean. One of the earliest painters of sea-pieces with shipping was Hendrik Dubbels (1620-76), who was the master of a more famous sea-painter, Ludolf Bakhuizen (1631-1708). Bakhuizen is as much a painter of shipping as of the sea, and in addition to being a picture-painter he was a naval architect who made constructive drawings of ships for the Russian Tsar Peter the Great. There is a great deal of spirit in his sea-pieces, particularly in his tempestuous subjects, but his storms, as John Ruskin pointed out, were storms that belonged to melodrama rather than to Nature.
We do not feel, however, that there is anything theatrical in the marines of his far greater contemporary, Willem van de Velde the Younger (1633-1707), who belonged to a famous family of artists settled in Amsterdam. Some critics hold that the younger Van de Velde is at his best when depicting shipping in a calm, and assuredly he has painted the stillness of the sea with a beauty and true dignity which go straight to the heart of every sailor. But there are pictures also in which Van de Velde has portrayed crashing waters under a charged sky, and if he rarely essayed to express the terrors of a great storm, yet he succeeds perfectly in conveying the excitement and somewhat perilous exhilaration of a stiff breeze. As example of his powers in this direction is ‘A Gale’, in which we see the waves washing over a fishing-smack in the foreground, while farther on a frigate proudly approaches with bellying sails, and still farther in the distance a second frigate rides out the gale at anchor beneath the dark clouded sky. This gale is not awe-inspiring, as it might have been had Ruisdael painted it, but it is a picture that instinctively makes us square our chests and brace ourselves to meet the wind. Both the Willem van de Veldes, the father and the son who soon surpassed him in accomplishment, came over to London in 1677 and entered the service of Charles II. Willem van de Velde the Younger died at Greenwich, and owing to his long sojourn in England his pictures are plentiful in our public galleries, where they have served as models for Turner and other British sea-painters.
Painting, so flourishing in Holland at the beginning of the seventeenth century, was dead or dying when the next century dawned. The rapid rise of art to the eminence attained by Rembrandt was followed by an equally rapid decadence, so that in the early years of the eighteenth century Dutch painting, while maintaining a creditable level of craftsmanship, had sunk to the meticulous and uninspired painting of fruit, flowers, and the odd collections of inanimate objects known as ‘still life’. In the Netherlands the vein of Rubens was now exhausted and his true heir appeared in France in the person of that strangely attractive painter, Antoine Watteau.
Saturday, January 12, 2008
Buster Keaton
Buster Keaton was an American silent film comic actor and filmmaker + he is remembered as one of the great comic innovators of the silent era + his trademark was physical comedy with a stoic, deadpan expression on his face, earning him the nickname 'The Great Stone Face' + I love watching his films.
Useful links:
www.busterkeaton.com
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buster_Keaton
Useful links:
www.busterkeaton.com
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buster_Keaton
Market News
I think the upmarket gem and jewelry firms are getting jittery from the economic slowdown in various phases + high-end consumers + consumers, at every level, are tightening their spending + the world's largest economy could contract causing a recession.
Heard On The Steet
Successful gem / jewelry / art traders have learned to filter, modulate and use whole brain thinking to their advantage as they trade the numbers + they realize that when the time is up, it is up and they are able to get out and get ready for the next opportunity + they know that time is on their side, and they are prepared for it.
George Orwell
'A mass of Latin words falls upon the facts like soft snow, blurring the outline and covering up all the details. The great enemy of clear language is insincerity. When there is a gap between one’s real and one’s declared aims, one turns as it were instinctively to long words and exhausted idioms, like a cuttlefish spurting out ink.'
- George Orwell, writer (1903-1950)
- George Orwell, writer (1903-1950)
Aglianico del Vulture
Aglianico del Vulture is a red wine produced in Basilicata (Vulture area) + it is considered one of the finest wines that is produced in Italy from Aglianico grapes + the color of the Aglianico wine is ruby garnet red with a dry and savory taste + 11.5-13 % alcohol.
Pareto Distribution
I think the Pareto distribution, named after the Italian economist Vilfredo Pareto, is a power law probability distribution concept that links with social, scientific, actuarial, and many other types of observable phenomena + it could be applicable to gem + jewlery + art trading.
The Shop Around The Corner
The Shop Around The Corner (1940)
Directed by: Ernst Lubitsch
Screenplay: Miklós László (play), Samson Raphaelson, Ben Hecht (uncredited)
Cast: Margaret Sullavan, James Stewart
(via YouTube): The Shop Around the Corner (1940) Part 1/11
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YOv03vAtrqE
The Shop Around the Corner (1940) Part 2/11
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=csb0id2iPaw
The Shop Around the Corner (1940) Part 3/11
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-cOmYtUm-EU
I think it was a touching movie + I enjoyed it.
Directed by: Ernst Lubitsch
Screenplay: Miklós László (play), Samson Raphaelson, Ben Hecht (uncredited)
Cast: Margaret Sullavan, James Stewart
(via YouTube): The Shop Around the Corner (1940) Part 1/11
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YOv03vAtrqE
The Shop Around the Corner (1940) Part 2/11
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=csb0id2iPaw
The Shop Around the Corner (1940) Part 3/11
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-cOmYtUm-EU
I think it was a touching movie + I enjoyed it.
Major Art Centers In Russia
If you ever get a chance to visit Russia, explore the Russian art collections at:
State Hermitage museum (www.hermitagemuseum.org)
State National museum (www.tretyakov.ru)
State Pushkin museum (www.russianmuseums.info)
State Tretyakov museum ( www.tretyakov.ru)
They are unique sources for inspiration.
State Hermitage museum (www.hermitagemuseum.org)
State National museum (www.tretyakov.ru)
State Pushkin museum (www.russianmuseums.info)
State Tretyakov museum ( www.tretyakov.ru)
They are unique sources for inspiration.
BPP – Getting Serious At Last
Total internal reflections of Chaim Even Zohar on Diamond Trading Company (DTC) Best Practice Principles (BPP) compliance + operational issues/failures + other viewpoints @ http://www.idexonline.com/portal_FullEditorial.asp
In Search Of The Precious Stone
Albert Ramsay (Albert Ramsay & Co, 1925) writes:
As the sun, like a glowing disc of molten copper, sank into the western sea, one involuntarily awaited the hissing steam which accompanies the immersion of hot metal in water. The afterglow, touching the detached fragments of cloud, transformed them into bits of opal floating against an iridescent background of pink, orange, and blue, marvelously blended. After ten days spend amid these pleasant surroundings we steamed up the Menam River to Bangkok, the capital of Siam.
Bangkok presented a singular yet imposing appearance. Here were balconied minarets, slender and delicately modeled, ornate in lacquer and gilt which refracted the rays of the tropical sun with dazzling brilliancy; here were pagodas, many storeyed and taping to needle-like points, with eaves whose corners curled up as does the toe of a Turkish slipper; here were houses with tiled roofs of brilliant colors. Over all was an air of mystic antiquity, unalloyed through contact with occidental progressiveness.
From Bangkok I took a coasting steamer to Chantabun, one hundred and twenty five miles to the southeastward. The sapphire mines in the Pailin district are three days journey through the jungle from Chantabun. This trip, made on horseback, indelibly impressed itself upon my memory. The native guides, their ugliness increased by their teeth, blackened through incessant chewing of the eternal betel nut of the Orient, led me along a path which would have been indiscernible to one unfamiliar with its existence. The arched branches of the trees were festooned with vines and sinuous creepers which necessitated lying flat along the horses’ backs if any progress was to be made. At times the members of the party were concealed from one another by this screen of hanging vegetation. No refreshing breeze penetrated the matted foliage to dissipate the unwholesome emanations of the damp ground, untouched by the purging beams of the sun; the atmosphere was heavy with humidity and the temperatures ranged above one hundred degrees, day and night. Eight hours of riding, ducking and dodging, brought us to a dak bungalow or rest house, where we were to spend the night. This bungalow was a bamboo shelter built upon a platform elevated about six feet above the ground to discourage any undue familiarity upon the parts of cobras, wild pigs, tigers or other rapacious beasts which roamed through the Siamese jungle in great numbers. The dak bungalow was in the middle of a small clearing upon all sides of which the forest was sending forth new growth, just as an army gradually closes in upon a besieged city. Resplendently-plumed birds flitted in and out among the lush bamboo and pendant vines; daintily-tinted orchids vied with gaudy flowers for the favor of the great butterflies which floated from one to the other like animated gems. The tout ensemble formed a never-to-be-forgotten picture of tropical luxuriance. It seemed a crime that the appreciation which such beauty merited should have been withheld owning to the oppressive and enervating heat. The intentness with which we scanned the bordering thickets and the care with which we clung to our rifles were in no way abated through the recollection of a tomb we passed in which were interred the remains of a miner who had been killed upon the spot by a tiger. Finally, hot, tired and thirsty we reached a waterhole. After thoroughly satisfying our thirst we filled the deerskin water bags and bathed our heads and hands in the ice cold water. Revived in body and spirit we proceeded and fifteen miles from the dark bungalow we arrived at a river across which we were ferried in sampans while the guides swam the stream with our horses. On the evening of the third day we reached the mines.
The following morning I inspected the sapphires and then began the strangest bargaining session to which I have ever been a party. Many of the miners are Burmese immigrants and it had been necessary for me to thoroughly acquaint myself with their methods in order to trade with them. Buyer and seller clasp hands. The miner throws his panung or waist cloth over the hands, thus concealing them from any witness who may be present. The bargaining is conducted in absolute silence, prices being indicated by pressure upon the joints of the fore and middle fingers in accordance with a code which I had previously learned in preparation. In this way the bystanders are prevented from knowing whether or not a deal has been consummated. The transfer of stones and cash takes place later.
For five days I squeezed the hand of a Burmese miner and had my own pressed by him in return. We were playing for high stakes and it was with a feeling of satisfaction that I ultimately felt the pressure which indicated that I had won. As a result I acquired in return for $200,000 in note currency, one of the finest collections that ever left the mines. Included in it was the sapphire par excellence of the Siamese mines. It had been given to the man from whom I bought it, fifteen years previous by his partner, upon the latter’s deathbed, to be held in trust for his son. Through a stroke of good fortune I had been able to save the life of the trustee’s grandson by the aid of my medical kit and as a token of appreciation he sold me the stone for $10000. The following day the old man died and although the superstitious natives interpreted his demise as a retributory punishment for having violated his trust I have often wondered if, in my eagerness, I had not worked his joints too strenuously.
In Search Of The Precious Stone (continue)
As the sun, like a glowing disc of molten copper, sank into the western sea, one involuntarily awaited the hissing steam which accompanies the immersion of hot metal in water. The afterglow, touching the detached fragments of cloud, transformed them into bits of opal floating against an iridescent background of pink, orange, and blue, marvelously blended. After ten days spend amid these pleasant surroundings we steamed up the Menam River to Bangkok, the capital of Siam.
Bangkok presented a singular yet imposing appearance. Here were balconied minarets, slender and delicately modeled, ornate in lacquer and gilt which refracted the rays of the tropical sun with dazzling brilliancy; here were pagodas, many storeyed and taping to needle-like points, with eaves whose corners curled up as does the toe of a Turkish slipper; here were houses with tiled roofs of brilliant colors. Over all was an air of mystic antiquity, unalloyed through contact with occidental progressiveness.
From Bangkok I took a coasting steamer to Chantabun, one hundred and twenty five miles to the southeastward. The sapphire mines in the Pailin district are three days journey through the jungle from Chantabun. This trip, made on horseback, indelibly impressed itself upon my memory. The native guides, their ugliness increased by their teeth, blackened through incessant chewing of the eternal betel nut of the Orient, led me along a path which would have been indiscernible to one unfamiliar with its existence. The arched branches of the trees were festooned with vines and sinuous creepers which necessitated lying flat along the horses’ backs if any progress was to be made. At times the members of the party were concealed from one another by this screen of hanging vegetation. No refreshing breeze penetrated the matted foliage to dissipate the unwholesome emanations of the damp ground, untouched by the purging beams of the sun; the atmosphere was heavy with humidity and the temperatures ranged above one hundred degrees, day and night. Eight hours of riding, ducking and dodging, brought us to a dak bungalow or rest house, where we were to spend the night. This bungalow was a bamboo shelter built upon a platform elevated about six feet above the ground to discourage any undue familiarity upon the parts of cobras, wild pigs, tigers or other rapacious beasts which roamed through the Siamese jungle in great numbers. The dak bungalow was in the middle of a small clearing upon all sides of which the forest was sending forth new growth, just as an army gradually closes in upon a besieged city. Resplendently-plumed birds flitted in and out among the lush bamboo and pendant vines; daintily-tinted orchids vied with gaudy flowers for the favor of the great butterflies which floated from one to the other like animated gems. The tout ensemble formed a never-to-be-forgotten picture of tropical luxuriance. It seemed a crime that the appreciation which such beauty merited should have been withheld owning to the oppressive and enervating heat. The intentness with which we scanned the bordering thickets and the care with which we clung to our rifles were in no way abated through the recollection of a tomb we passed in which were interred the remains of a miner who had been killed upon the spot by a tiger. Finally, hot, tired and thirsty we reached a waterhole. After thoroughly satisfying our thirst we filled the deerskin water bags and bathed our heads and hands in the ice cold water. Revived in body and spirit we proceeded and fifteen miles from the dark bungalow we arrived at a river across which we were ferried in sampans while the guides swam the stream with our horses. On the evening of the third day we reached the mines.
The following morning I inspected the sapphires and then began the strangest bargaining session to which I have ever been a party. Many of the miners are Burmese immigrants and it had been necessary for me to thoroughly acquaint myself with their methods in order to trade with them. Buyer and seller clasp hands. The miner throws his panung or waist cloth over the hands, thus concealing them from any witness who may be present. The bargaining is conducted in absolute silence, prices being indicated by pressure upon the joints of the fore and middle fingers in accordance with a code which I had previously learned in preparation. In this way the bystanders are prevented from knowing whether or not a deal has been consummated. The transfer of stones and cash takes place later.
For five days I squeezed the hand of a Burmese miner and had my own pressed by him in return. We were playing for high stakes and it was with a feeling of satisfaction that I ultimately felt the pressure which indicated that I had won. As a result I acquired in return for $200,000 in note currency, one of the finest collections that ever left the mines. Included in it was the sapphire par excellence of the Siamese mines. It had been given to the man from whom I bought it, fifteen years previous by his partner, upon the latter’s deathbed, to be held in trust for his son. Through a stroke of good fortune I had been able to save the life of the trustee’s grandson by the aid of my medical kit and as a token of appreciation he sold me the stone for $10000. The following day the old man died and although the superstitious natives interpreted his demise as a retributory punishment for having violated his trust I have often wondered if, in my eagerness, I had not worked his joints too strenuously.
In Search Of The Precious Stone (continue)
The Goldsmith – Jeweler Of Egypt
(via 5000 Years of Gems and Jewelry) Frances Rogers and Alice Beard writes:
8. Beads For Barter
There are many people even today who consider an investment in precious stones (particularly diamonds) as one of the safest and most convenient ways of accumulating wealth. A compact fortune in the tabloid form of gems can be tucked in a small corner of one’s pocket and easily converted at need into the coin of any country. The practise of using precious stones and jewelry as a medium of exchange began before recorded history.
There is no record of any money in the world earlier than about 600 B.C. Before that time everything was bought and sold by barter, the generally accepted standard being cattle. Cattle, like well-invested funds, had the advantage of increasing, therefore cattle were satisfactory as a medium of exchange when the transaction was taking place between neighbors. But obviously cattle were difficult to transport long distances. Something valuable but easily carried was essential as a medium of exchange, and jewelry, precious stones and metals, the latter valued according to weight, fulfilled the requirements.
Perhaps, the most convenient and welcome of all substitutes for currency was beads. Beads are the Adam and Eve of the jewelry family and their countless progeny have spread over all the inhabited lands of the earth from the darkest jungles of Africa to the icebound countries of the far north. Beads were cherished in the magnificent courts of the Pharaohs, and they flourish today in the ‘five-and-tens’ of the New World.
The jeweler of ancient times seems to have delighted in seeing how many different kinds of beads he could make. There were minute carved beads, balls of amethysts, and melon-shaped beads of limpid rock crystal, pale red carnelian beads shaped like an hour-glass, and cylindrical beads of green feldspar. There were ‘crumb’ beads in which small bits of soapstone or faience were cemented together. ‘Eye’ beads with fixed stare of black-glass pupils surrounded by rings of white which protruded from the sides vied in popularity with eye-agate beads. Pendants of carnelian, lapis and green feldspar were carved in an endless variety of shapes such as locusts, birds (the hawk was a favorite), animals and figures; there were miniature vases and two-handled urns, and every bead was a symbol.
The demand for beads in Egypt did not lessen as the centuries passed. During the Eighteenth Dynasty beads and pendants by the million were being manufactured. Not only were they worn by the living, but vast quantities of them were used to decorate the dead. Sometimes woven together in patterns they quite covered the mummy like a cheerful pall.
Regardless of their lavish use at home in the Nile valley, there were still countless numbers of beads that traveled by sea into other countries. Fleets of Egyptian galleys sailed constantly across the eastern end of the Mediterranean, trading with primitive settlements that dotted the southern coast of Asia Minor. Or perhaps the merchant, using a small flat-bottomed boat, carried his jeweled ornaments and beads up the Nile into Nubia, to barter them for panther skins, ebony, ivory and ostrich feathers. The inventories of those ancient cargoes read like descriptions from the Arabian Nights.
The trade routes of early times may be traced by the beads which blazed their trails. And wherever the bead went there too, of necessity, went some wave of influence caused by the intercourse between various countries. One of the tide-marks used by the archaeologist to measure the degree of a nation’s civilization is its bead and jewelry culture.
A fresco from the tomb of an Egyptian nobleman lifts the curtain of time and gives us a glimpse of what the well-dressed Egyptian wore at a dinner party, especially in the way of jewels, for apparently the emphasis of a festive costume lay not so much in the dress as in the jewelry and accessories. The simple draperies of both men and women are quite eclipsed by enormous black wigs bound round the forehead with jeweled bands from which dangle large pendants of gold. Every one’s arms, necks, wrists, and in some cases ankles, are encircled with jewels, and from their ears hang heavy earrings. The serving maids, dispensing with all draperies whatsoever, are clad simply in wigs and jewels. As a final touch of luxurious sophistication every guest wears perched on top of his or her wig a rather sizable perfume-box shaped somewhat like a beehive.
At such a banquet as that pictured in the fresco, rings would be given to the guests as favors. These rings, made of faience, were brilliant blue in color and very perishable, but that was of no consequence since they were intended to be worn only during the festive occasion.
Egypt, however, was not permitted to continue developing her arts in peace. Many wars sapped her strength, and the land was overrun with foreigners. By 1000 B.C she was well on her way downhill and under such conditions the Egyptian goldsmith found little encouragement to develop new methods or new designs. Nevertheless, he did keep on making endless jewelry after the old patterns—there was a market for it in foreign lands, a market more widespread than ever before, because a new branch of transport was gradually coming into power. No longer did the merchant ships of Egypt herself put out to sea, but Phoenician galleys laden with spices, precious stones, and the products of Egyptian and Babylonian workshops, carried on a brisk trade with the coast settlements of Greece, Italy, Africa, Spain and Britain.
8. Beads For Barter
There are many people even today who consider an investment in precious stones (particularly diamonds) as one of the safest and most convenient ways of accumulating wealth. A compact fortune in the tabloid form of gems can be tucked in a small corner of one’s pocket and easily converted at need into the coin of any country. The practise of using precious stones and jewelry as a medium of exchange began before recorded history.
There is no record of any money in the world earlier than about 600 B.C. Before that time everything was bought and sold by barter, the generally accepted standard being cattle. Cattle, like well-invested funds, had the advantage of increasing, therefore cattle were satisfactory as a medium of exchange when the transaction was taking place between neighbors. But obviously cattle were difficult to transport long distances. Something valuable but easily carried was essential as a medium of exchange, and jewelry, precious stones and metals, the latter valued according to weight, fulfilled the requirements.
Perhaps, the most convenient and welcome of all substitutes for currency was beads. Beads are the Adam and Eve of the jewelry family and their countless progeny have spread over all the inhabited lands of the earth from the darkest jungles of Africa to the icebound countries of the far north. Beads were cherished in the magnificent courts of the Pharaohs, and they flourish today in the ‘five-and-tens’ of the New World.
The jeweler of ancient times seems to have delighted in seeing how many different kinds of beads he could make. There were minute carved beads, balls of amethysts, and melon-shaped beads of limpid rock crystal, pale red carnelian beads shaped like an hour-glass, and cylindrical beads of green feldspar. There were ‘crumb’ beads in which small bits of soapstone or faience were cemented together. ‘Eye’ beads with fixed stare of black-glass pupils surrounded by rings of white which protruded from the sides vied in popularity with eye-agate beads. Pendants of carnelian, lapis and green feldspar were carved in an endless variety of shapes such as locusts, birds (the hawk was a favorite), animals and figures; there were miniature vases and two-handled urns, and every bead was a symbol.
The demand for beads in Egypt did not lessen as the centuries passed. During the Eighteenth Dynasty beads and pendants by the million were being manufactured. Not only were they worn by the living, but vast quantities of them were used to decorate the dead. Sometimes woven together in patterns they quite covered the mummy like a cheerful pall.
Regardless of their lavish use at home in the Nile valley, there were still countless numbers of beads that traveled by sea into other countries. Fleets of Egyptian galleys sailed constantly across the eastern end of the Mediterranean, trading with primitive settlements that dotted the southern coast of Asia Minor. Or perhaps the merchant, using a small flat-bottomed boat, carried his jeweled ornaments and beads up the Nile into Nubia, to barter them for panther skins, ebony, ivory and ostrich feathers. The inventories of those ancient cargoes read like descriptions from the Arabian Nights.
The trade routes of early times may be traced by the beads which blazed their trails. And wherever the bead went there too, of necessity, went some wave of influence caused by the intercourse between various countries. One of the tide-marks used by the archaeologist to measure the degree of a nation’s civilization is its bead and jewelry culture.
A fresco from the tomb of an Egyptian nobleman lifts the curtain of time and gives us a glimpse of what the well-dressed Egyptian wore at a dinner party, especially in the way of jewels, for apparently the emphasis of a festive costume lay not so much in the dress as in the jewelry and accessories. The simple draperies of both men and women are quite eclipsed by enormous black wigs bound round the forehead with jeweled bands from which dangle large pendants of gold. Every one’s arms, necks, wrists, and in some cases ankles, are encircled with jewels, and from their ears hang heavy earrings. The serving maids, dispensing with all draperies whatsoever, are clad simply in wigs and jewels. As a final touch of luxurious sophistication every guest wears perched on top of his or her wig a rather sizable perfume-box shaped somewhat like a beehive.
At such a banquet as that pictured in the fresco, rings would be given to the guests as favors. These rings, made of faience, were brilliant blue in color and very perishable, but that was of no consequence since they were intended to be worn only during the festive occasion.
Egypt, however, was not permitted to continue developing her arts in peace. Many wars sapped her strength, and the land was overrun with foreigners. By 1000 B.C she was well on her way downhill and under such conditions the Egyptian goldsmith found little encouragement to develop new methods or new designs. Nevertheless, he did keep on making endless jewelry after the old patterns—there was a market for it in foreign lands, a market more widespread than ever before, because a new branch of transport was gradually coming into power. No longer did the merchant ships of Egypt herself put out to sea, but Phoenician galleys laden with spices, precious stones, and the products of Egyptian and Babylonian workshops, carried on a brisk trade with the coast settlements of Greece, Italy, Africa, Spain and Britain.
Dutch Painting In The Seventeenth Century
(via The Outline of Art) William Orpen writes:
3
We have seen now with what variety and perfection the Dutch artists painted their national hearthside: and next we must consider how they painted their homeland. Midway between the genre painters and the landscape-painters stands Aart van der Neer (1603-77), who forms a bridge, as it were, between the two groups. Born three years before Rembrandt, he, like Jan van Goyen (1596-1656), is one of the early pioneers of landscape painting, yet by the the little figures in his landscapes he tells us a great deal of the life of Holland. Thus his ‘Skating Scene’ in the Wallace Collection has been ranked by the famous Dr Bode as ‘among the most perfect landscape delineations of winter,’ but it is also a charming picture of manners, giving us a glimpse of the life on the ice in seventeenth-century Holland.
Towards the end of his life Aart van der Neer deteriorated as other ‘Little Master’ did also; in addition to painting, he kept a tavern, and possibly business losses in the wine trade drove him to do inferior but more immediately saleable work during his last years. Nearly all his best work was done before 1665, when he was not dependent on painting for a livelihood, but a happy amateur who could paint what he liked. He was one of the first artists to attempt painting night scenes, but though the novelty of his moonlit views attracted attention his winter landscapes in daylight are usually considered to be his best work.
Agriculture has always been an important industry in Holland, and the local artists who catered so well for the needs of the citizen did not forget to make an appeal also to farmers. Of many who made a specialty of painting cattle, Paul Potter (1623-54) is the most celebrated, though he died in his twenty-ninth year. His big picture ‘The Bull’ is a favourite show piece at The Hague, where guides—most conservative critics—wax enthusiastic about its accuracy. Courageous people, however, have been known to confess that they find its precise statement of fact a little dull, though few dare to be so severe as Dr Muther, who once described Potter’s cattle as ‘essentially Dutch, for they know neither passions, nor struggles, nor movement, but chew the cud phlegmatically or lie down in comfortable repose.’
Cattle also figure largely in the paintings of Albert Cuyp (1620-91), who is splendidly represented in English collections. Cuyp was no mere animal painter: his principal interest lay neither in the beast nor in the earth, but above in the mighty vault of the heavens. He does not so much set out to paint cattle as to use cattle, and we may see in his ‘River Scene’ how effectively cows can be used as dark spots which bring out by contrast the luminosity of the sky, and as prominent objects in the foreground which emphasize the great stretch of flat landscape which reaches out to the horizon. The glowing light and golden color of Cuyp have placed him among the great sky painters of the world, and his work has for centuries been an example and an incentive to British landscape painting.
Apart from all other Dutch painters of landscape—seeming, indeed, to belong to another race—stands the austere and majestic figure of Jacob van Ruisdael (1628-82). Though he took all Nature for his province, and in his youth painted her more peaceful aspects, we instinctively associate his sublime spirit with holy spots ‘both savage and enchanted.’ It is difficult to think of him as eight years younger than Cuyp, for so serious and austere is his vision that we can hardly believe Ruisdael was ever young. Even when he paints a simple seaside scene like ‘The Shore at Scheveningen’ he gives dramatic intensity to the scene by the rolling clouds in the sky which seem to repeat the restlessness of the agitated waves. Again, in his famous painting of ‘The Mill’, for all the stillness of the scene, we feel that this is the calm before the storm—as, indeed, the sky betokens. Grandly designed as this painting is, it is one of the quietest works of the artist, who, though infinitely varied in his choice of subject delighted especially in painting waterfalls, cascades, and rocky cliffs, Ruisdael, says a gifted American painter, Mr John La Farge,
Is as different from Cuyp as shadow is from sunshine; and his grave and solemn mind gives to the simplest and most commonplace of landscapes a look of sad importance, which is almost like a reproach of lightmindedness to any other man’s work which happens to hand alongside.
Meindert Hobbema (1638-1700) was Ruisdael’s pupil and friend, but as different in temperament from his master as a man could well be. Ruisdael approaches Nature with devoutness of a worshipper approaching a shrine; Hobbema, with the unconscious ease of a man entering his own home. He painted the same subjects over and over again, but he painted them so naturally, so freshly and convincingly, that they take us straight back to Nature, not to the pictures of another artist. In the humbleness and sincerity of his naturalism he expresses everybody’s feeling of delight and thankfulness in sunny weather and fresh country air. ‘The Avenue’ is probably the best beloved landscape in the National Gallery, London, and this and other works by Hobbema have had a profound and far-reaching effect on British landscape. Out of his smiling and friendly art grew our Norwich school of landscape. Gainsborough acknowledged his worth by word and deed, and the last sentence ever uttered by John Crome was, ‘Oh, Hobbema, my dear Hobbema, how I have loved you!’ It is sad to think that this simple, honest, and most easily understood painter, a man of genius who has given happiness to millions for six generations, fared so poorly in his profession of painting that when he was thirty he sought another means of livelihood. He sought and obtained a small position in the wine customs, and thus made himself independent of picture buyers and dealers. He saw his master, the great painter Ruisdael, battling with poverty and becoming no more prosperous as the years rolled on, so Hobbema wisely determined to look elsewhere for his bread and butter and make landscape painting his hobby and pastime. It is significant to note that his supreme masterpiece, ‘The Avenue’ was painted some years after he had become a civil servant, and when, without having to think of what the buyer might or might not like, he could indulge to the full his feeling for the pattern in landscape and his sense of beauty in the elements of Nature.
It must be admitted that if Holland had a galaxy of artistic talent during the seventeenth century she did little to encourage genius. As so often happens in modern times, the mediocre painters made the best income, while the men of genius starved. This state of affairs is not satisfactory, but it is not inexplicable. The men who prospered and made money were, as a rule, painters like Gerard Dou, who painted every feather on a bird, every scale of a fish, the shine of a copper pan, and the luster of an earthenware pot. These were things within the range of everybody’s observation and interest, and demanded no imagination, no culture. Therefore the painters of pots and pans, of insects, fruit and flowers, all prospered, while great artists like Rembrandt, Hals, Vermeer, and Ruisdael, who concentrated their attention on higher things, were neglected. Anybody could understand a picture of a cat stealing a fish, but appreciate the beauty of pearly light stealing through high windows to lighten an apartment, presupposes some sense of poetry in the mind of the beholder.
Dutch Painting In The Seventeenth Century (continued)
3
We have seen now with what variety and perfection the Dutch artists painted their national hearthside: and next we must consider how they painted their homeland. Midway between the genre painters and the landscape-painters stands Aart van der Neer (1603-77), who forms a bridge, as it were, between the two groups. Born three years before Rembrandt, he, like Jan van Goyen (1596-1656), is one of the early pioneers of landscape painting, yet by the the little figures in his landscapes he tells us a great deal of the life of Holland. Thus his ‘Skating Scene’ in the Wallace Collection has been ranked by the famous Dr Bode as ‘among the most perfect landscape delineations of winter,’ but it is also a charming picture of manners, giving us a glimpse of the life on the ice in seventeenth-century Holland.
Towards the end of his life Aart van der Neer deteriorated as other ‘Little Master’ did also; in addition to painting, he kept a tavern, and possibly business losses in the wine trade drove him to do inferior but more immediately saleable work during his last years. Nearly all his best work was done before 1665, when he was not dependent on painting for a livelihood, but a happy amateur who could paint what he liked. He was one of the first artists to attempt painting night scenes, but though the novelty of his moonlit views attracted attention his winter landscapes in daylight are usually considered to be his best work.
Agriculture has always been an important industry in Holland, and the local artists who catered so well for the needs of the citizen did not forget to make an appeal also to farmers. Of many who made a specialty of painting cattle, Paul Potter (1623-54) is the most celebrated, though he died in his twenty-ninth year. His big picture ‘The Bull’ is a favourite show piece at The Hague, where guides—most conservative critics—wax enthusiastic about its accuracy. Courageous people, however, have been known to confess that they find its precise statement of fact a little dull, though few dare to be so severe as Dr Muther, who once described Potter’s cattle as ‘essentially Dutch, for they know neither passions, nor struggles, nor movement, but chew the cud phlegmatically or lie down in comfortable repose.’
Cattle also figure largely in the paintings of Albert Cuyp (1620-91), who is splendidly represented in English collections. Cuyp was no mere animal painter: his principal interest lay neither in the beast nor in the earth, but above in the mighty vault of the heavens. He does not so much set out to paint cattle as to use cattle, and we may see in his ‘River Scene’ how effectively cows can be used as dark spots which bring out by contrast the luminosity of the sky, and as prominent objects in the foreground which emphasize the great stretch of flat landscape which reaches out to the horizon. The glowing light and golden color of Cuyp have placed him among the great sky painters of the world, and his work has for centuries been an example and an incentive to British landscape painting.
Apart from all other Dutch painters of landscape—seeming, indeed, to belong to another race—stands the austere and majestic figure of Jacob van Ruisdael (1628-82). Though he took all Nature for his province, and in his youth painted her more peaceful aspects, we instinctively associate his sublime spirit with holy spots ‘both savage and enchanted.’ It is difficult to think of him as eight years younger than Cuyp, for so serious and austere is his vision that we can hardly believe Ruisdael was ever young. Even when he paints a simple seaside scene like ‘The Shore at Scheveningen’ he gives dramatic intensity to the scene by the rolling clouds in the sky which seem to repeat the restlessness of the agitated waves. Again, in his famous painting of ‘The Mill’, for all the stillness of the scene, we feel that this is the calm before the storm—as, indeed, the sky betokens. Grandly designed as this painting is, it is one of the quietest works of the artist, who, though infinitely varied in his choice of subject delighted especially in painting waterfalls, cascades, and rocky cliffs, Ruisdael, says a gifted American painter, Mr John La Farge,
Is as different from Cuyp as shadow is from sunshine; and his grave and solemn mind gives to the simplest and most commonplace of landscapes a look of sad importance, which is almost like a reproach of lightmindedness to any other man’s work which happens to hand alongside.
Meindert Hobbema (1638-1700) was Ruisdael’s pupil and friend, but as different in temperament from his master as a man could well be. Ruisdael approaches Nature with devoutness of a worshipper approaching a shrine; Hobbema, with the unconscious ease of a man entering his own home. He painted the same subjects over and over again, but he painted them so naturally, so freshly and convincingly, that they take us straight back to Nature, not to the pictures of another artist. In the humbleness and sincerity of his naturalism he expresses everybody’s feeling of delight and thankfulness in sunny weather and fresh country air. ‘The Avenue’ is probably the best beloved landscape in the National Gallery, London, and this and other works by Hobbema have had a profound and far-reaching effect on British landscape. Out of his smiling and friendly art grew our Norwich school of landscape. Gainsborough acknowledged his worth by word and deed, and the last sentence ever uttered by John Crome was, ‘Oh, Hobbema, my dear Hobbema, how I have loved you!’ It is sad to think that this simple, honest, and most easily understood painter, a man of genius who has given happiness to millions for six generations, fared so poorly in his profession of painting that when he was thirty he sought another means of livelihood. He sought and obtained a small position in the wine customs, and thus made himself independent of picture buyers and dealers. He saw his master, the great painter Ruisdael, battling with poverty and becoming no more prosperous as the years rolled on, so Hobbema wisely determined to look elsewhere for his bread and butter and make landscape painting his hobby and pastime. It is significant to note that his supreme masterpiece, ‘The Avenue’ was painted some years after he had become a civil servant, and when, without having to think of what the buyer might or might not like, he could indulge to the full his feeling for the pattern in landscape and his sense of beauty in the elements of Nature.
It must be admitted that if Holland had a galaxy of artistic talent during the seventeenth century she did little to encourage genius. As so often happens in modern times, the mediocre painters made the best income, while the men of genius starved. This state of affairs is not satisfactory, but it is not inexplicable. The men who prospered and made money were, as a rule, painters like Gerard Dou, who painted every feather on a bird, every scale of a fish, the shine of a copper pan, and the luster of an earthenware pot. These were things within the range of everybody’s observation and interest, and demanded no imagination, no culture. Therefore the painters of pots and pans, of insects, fruit and flowers, all prospered, while great artists like Rembrandt, Hals, Vermeer, and Ruisdael, who concentrated their attention on higher things, were neglected. Anybody could understand a picture of a cat stealing a fish, but appreciate the beauty of pearly light stealing through high windows to lighten an apartment, presupposes some sense of poetry in the mind of the beholder.
Dutch Painting In The Seventeenth Century (continued)
Sherlock, Jr.
Sherlock, Jr. (1924)
Directed by: Buster Keaton
Screenplay: Clyde Bruckman, Jean C. Havez, Joseph A. Mitchell
Cast: Buster Keaton, Kathryn McGuire, Joe Keaton, Ward Crane
(via YouTube): Sherlock Jr. (Silent, 1924) - Buster Keaton Pt 1 of 5
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PrfzXSUQ2J0
Sherlock Jr. (1924)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k1pvu1fOxCU
An impeccable silent comedy + I enjoyed it.
Directed by: Buster Keaton
Screenplay: Clyde Bruckman, Jean C. Havez, Joseph A. Mitchell
Cast: Buster Keaton, Kathryn McGuire, Joe Keaton, Ward Crane
(via YouTube): Sherlock Jr. (Silent, 1924) - Buster Keaton Pt 1 of 5
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PrfzXSUQ2J0
Sherlock Jr. (1924)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k1pvu1fOxCU
An impeccable silent comedy + I enjoyed it.
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