Harold Clayton Lloyd was an American film actor + producer + he was most famous for his silent comedies + he is best remembered for his 'glasses character' + the thrill sequences + Safety Last! is my favorite.
Useful links:
www.haroldlloyd.com
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harold_Lloyd
Saturday, January 19, 2008
NASA Learning Technologies
NASA is in the early stages of creating a virtual world designed to educate players on rocket science and technology + the goal of this virtual world is to create a synthetic environment that could serve as tools for teaching a range of complex subjects.
Useful link:
http://learn.arc.nasa.gov
I wish the gem/jewelry/art industry had a similar concept.
Useful link:
http://learn.arc.nasa.gov
I wish the gem/jewelry/art industry had a similar concept.
Cash Flu
A study by Swiss scientists revealed that the flu virus can nestle and survive on banknotes for more than two weeks + if the virus was mixed with human mucus on the banknote, it could survive for two and a half weeks + a flu pandemic could be prolonged due to the millions of bank notes in circulation + the researchers are studying to see how much of a factor banknotes might be in flu transmission + the main risks remain airborne transmission and direct human contact.
What about gemstones and jewelry! Go to the gem and jewelry markets around the world and see for yourself. Are they different from banknotes? I doubt it.
What about gemstones and jewelry! Go to the gem and jewelry markets around the world and see for yourself. Are they different from banknotes? I doubt it.
The Genie Is Out Of The Bottle
Chaim Even Zohar writes about the Brenig case + the impact + other viewpoints @ http://www.idexonline.com/portal_FullEditorial.asp
Table Cuts
(via Diamond Cuts in Historic Jewelry:1381-1910) Herbert Tillander writes:
The classical Table Cut may be defined as a pavilion-based gem with a table facet and a culet. The standard form was originally quadrangular with four main facets in the crown and four in the pavilion. Other outlines were imposed if the shape of the rough was favorable. These were described as rounds, shields, hearts, half-moons, calf’s heads, windows, epaulettes, whistles, bullets, etc. They not only had different contours but also different numbers of main facets. Occasionally they also had additional non-standard faceting.
Certain cuts which are extensions of the classical Table Cut but are faceted according to a specific pattern—for instance, the Cuboid Cut, the French Cut, the Scissor Cut and even the Brilliant Cut—are dealt with under their separate headings. The old Table Cuts themselves are subdivided into three groups according to their different height proportions, which produce different light effects. These are the Full Table Cut, the Mirror Cut and the Tablet. Briefly, the first includes the full proportioned type with c.45°angles of inclination in both crown and pavilion; the second, stones with a flat crown and a very spread table facet, but a full pavilion; the third, exceptionally flat stones with both an outsized table facet and an outsized culet.
The first Table Cuts were produced from dodecahedrons (of which there was, more or less accidentally, an ample supply) but the cutters gradually developed satisfactory angles and proportions which were commercially profitable because they could be achieved with a smaller loss of weight than a low Point Cut. Besides retaining size they were more attractive in appearance. The cutters then discovered the proportions that would give the best light effects for each shape. The style of cut which featured one square within another became particularly popular, following the vogue for similar shapes in architecture and fashion.
Table Cuts (continued)
The classical Table Cut may be defined as a pavilion-based gem with a table facet and a culet. The standard form was originally quadrangular with four main facets in the crown and four in the pavilion. Other outlines were imposed if the shape of the rough was favorable. These were described as rounds, shields, hearts, half-moons, calf’s heads, windows, epaulettes, whistles, bullets, etc. They not only had different contours but also different numbers of main facets. Occasionally they also had additional non-standard faceting.
Certain cuts which are extensions of the classical Table Cut but are faceted according to a specific pattern—for instance, the Cuboid Cut, the French Cut, the Scissor Cut and even the Brilliant Cut—are dealt with under their separate headings. The old Table Cuts themselves are subdivided into three groups according to their different height proportions, which produce different light effects. These are the Full Table Cut, the Mirror Cut and the Tablet. Briefly, the first includes the full proportioned type with c.45°angles of inclination in both crown and pavilion; the second, stones with a flat crown and a very spread table facet, but a full pavilion; the third, exceptionally flat stones with both an outsized table facet and an outsized culet.
The first Table Cuts were produced from dodecahedrons (of which there was, more or less accidentally, an ample supply) but the cutters gradually developed satisfactory angles and proportions which were commercially profitable because they could be achieved with a smaller loss of weight than a low Point Cut. Besides retaining size they were more attractive in appearance. The cutters then discovered the proportions that would give the best light effects for each shape. The style of cut which featured one square within another became particularly popular, following the vogue for similar shapes in architecture and fashion.
Table Cuts (continued)
Jewelers Of Italy
(via 5000 Years of Gems and Jewelry) Frances Rogers and Alice Beard writes:
As Rome grew in military power her ‘illustrious expeditions’ penetrated farther and farther into other countries, converting them into Roman provinces under Roman control; and as plunder from foreign lands piled high, her ruling classes grew fabulously rich. In the new provinces Roman governors performed their duties with utmost thoroughness, leaving no plum unsqueezed. One Italian governor in Spain, however, sought to maintain a reputation for taking nothing from the public treasury. Cicero tells the following story concerning this governor:
He was going through the military exercises when the gold ring which he wore was, by some accident, broken and crushed. Wishing to have another ring made, he ordered a goldsmith to be summoned to the forum at Cardova, in front of his own judgment seat, and weighed out the gold to him in public. He ordered the man to set down his bench on the forum and make the ring for him in the presence of all, to prove that he had not employed the gold of the public treasury, not even half an ounce, but had merely given his old broken ring to be worked anew.
A ring that could be crushed on a man’s finger without involving also the crushing of the finger is accounted for by the type of rings popular in that day. They were large and impressive, but by no means as heavy as they appeared because, like the rings long since known to the Greeks, they were hollow. It was amazing how the goldsmith, by dint of much hammering and some welding together of thin plates could turn a very little ingot of gold into a big and important-looking ring. Of course the hollow ring of soft metal was easily crushed.
During the later days of the republic the gorgeous gems of the Orient were fairly pouring into Rome. There were iridescent opals, moonstones, tawny yellow topazes, sky-blue sapphires, olive-green peridots, the latter brought from an island in the Red Sea. Also from the warm waters of the Red Sea came lustrous pearls. Their round or pear-shaped form made them most desirable as pendants, and these pendant pearls were often of such price that a lady might dangle a fortune from each ear. Emeralds, the most prized of all stones, came from the famous mines of Cleopatra in upper Egypt; and lapis lazuli traveled by caravan from Afghanistan.
By this time gemstones were moving outside their original sphere as charms or articles of personal adornment and becoming items of collections. It is said that Scaurus, son-in-law of Sulla, was the first Roman to become a collector of gems. Once the pace was set, other wealthy men rushed headlong in pursuit of the fascinating new hobby.
Little garnets, aquamarines, topazes and peridots, all exquisitely engraved, would be sufficiently prized by the avid collector to wring from him enormous sums of money. And even, on occasion, something more precious than money.
The story is told of a senator, Nonius by name, who possessed an opal set in a ring. The opal was the size of hazel-nut, and of such surpassing beauty that at sight of it Mark Antony was overwhelmed by so inordinate a desire to own it that no sense of justice could restrain him. His heart was set—the story goes—on giving that gem to Cleopatra. He decreed that Nonius must either hand it over to him, Mark Antony, or suffer banishment from Rome. Now to be exiled from his beloved city was a peculiarly bitter fate for any Roman, but it was a choice of Rome or the opal. Nonius was forced to choose between them and he did. The gem won. Nonius took his opal and left Roman forever.
Imperial Caesar himself was not immune to the prevailing craze for collecting gems. In fact, he outranked the other enthusiasts and founded no less than six different collections of rare gems, which were kept on display in the temple of Venus Genetrix in Caesar’s Forum.
Although a man might with dignity collect gems to his heart’s content it was by now considered effeminate for him to wear any ring except that which bore his signet. On days of mourning, even signet-rings of gold would be laid aside and an iron one substituted as an indication of grief. On the day of Caesar’s funeral the only rings in evidence were bands of dull iron, the Roman equivalent for a band of crêpe on a coat-sleeve.
Jewelers Of Italy (continued)
As Rome grew in military power her ‘illustrious expeditions’ penetrated farther and farther into other countries, converting them into Roman provinces under Roman control; and as plunder from foreign lands piled high, her ruling classes grew fabulously rich. In the new provinces Roman governors performed their duties with utmost thoroughness, leaving no plum unsqueezed. One Italian governor in Spain, however, sought to maintain a reputation for taking nothing from the public treasury. Cicero tells the following story concerning this governor:
He was going through the military exercises when the gold ring which he wore was, by some accident, broken and crushed. Wishing to have another ring made, he ordered a goldsmith to be summoned to the forum at Cardova, in front of his own judgment seat, and weighed out the gold to him in public. He ordered the man to set down his bench on the forum and make the ring for him in the presence of all, to prove that he had not employed the gold of the public treasury, not even half an ounce, but had merely given his old broken ring to be worked anew.
A ring that could be crushed on a man’s finger without involving also the crushing of the finger is accounted for by the type of rings popular in that day. They were large and impressive, but by no means as heavy as they appeared because, like the rings long since known to the Greeks, they were hollow. It was amazing how the goldsmith, by dint of much hammering and some welding together of thin plates could turn a very little ingot of gold into a big and important-looking ring. Of course the hollow ring of soft metal was easily crushed.
During the later days of the republic the gorgeous gems of the Orient were fairly pouring into Rome. There were iridescent opals, moonstones, tawny yellow topazes, sky-blue sapphires, olive-green peridots, the latter brought from an island in the Red Sea. Also from the warm waters of the Red Sea came lustrous pearls. Their round or pear-shaped form made them most desirable as pendants, and these pendant pearls were often of such price that a lady might dangle a fortune from each ear. Emeralds, the most prized of all stones, came from the famous mines of Cleopatra in upper Egypt; and lapis lazuli traveled by caravan from Afghanistan.
By this time gemstones were moving outside their original sphere as charms or articles of personal adornment and becoming items of collections. It is said that Scaurus, son-in-law of Sulla, was the first Roman to become a collector of gems. Once the pace was set, other wealthy men rushed headlong in pursuit of the fascinating new hobby.
Little garnets, aquamarines, topazes and peridots, all exquisitely engraved, would be sufficiently prized by the avid collector to wring from him enormous sums of money. And even, on occasion, something more precious than money.
The story is told of a senator, Nonius by name, who possessed an opal set in a ring. The opal was the size of hazel-nut, and of such surpassing beauty that at sight of it Mark Antony was overwhelmed by so inordinate a desire to own it that no sense of justice could restrain him. His heart was set—the story goes—on giving that gem to Cleopatra. He decreed that Nonius must either hand it over to him, Mark Antony, or suffer banishment from Rome. Now to be exiled from his beloved city was a peculiarly bitter fate for any Roman, but it was a choice of Rome or the opal. Nonius was forced to choose between them and he did. The gem won. Nonius took his opal and left Roman forever.
Imperial Caesar himself was not immune to the prevailing craze for collecting gems. In fact, he outranked the other enthusiasts and founded no less than six different collections of rare gems, which were kept on display in the temple of Venus Genetrix in Caesar’s Forum.
Although a man might with dignity collect gems to his heart’s content it was by now considered effeminate for him to wear any ring except that which bore his signet. On days of mourning, even signet-rings of gold would be laid aside and an iron one substituted as an indication of grief. On the day of Caesar’s funeral the only rings in evidence were bands of dull iron, the Roman equivalent for a band of crêpe on a coat-sleeve.
Jewelers Of Italy (continued)
The Rise Of French Painting
(via The Outline of Art) William Orpen writes:
3
Side by side with these aristocratic painters whose art reflected the temper of the French Court, we find now and then an artist of genius who expresses the life and feelings of the people. The greatest of these was Jean Baptiste Simeon Chardin (1699-1779), who was also born in Paris. Though he worked for a time under the Court painter Van Loo at Fontaineblueau, and was elected a member of the Academy in 1728, Chardin was never a favorite with the nobles of France, nor did he make any effort to pander to their taste. His pictures, like those of his predecessors the brothers Le Nain, were ‘tainted with democracy,’ and the intense humanity of Chardin links him to his great contemporary on the other side of the Channel, William Hogarth.
Though Chardin, as Lady Dilke once said, ‘treated subjects of the humblest and most unpretentious class, he brought to their rendering, not only deep feeling and a penetration which divines the innermost truths of the simplest forms of life, but a perfection of workmanship by which everything he handled was clothed with beauty.’
Like the Persian poet, Chardin could compose a song about a loaf of bread and a glass of red wine—as his beautiful still-life in the National Gallery, London, proved—while ‘The Pancake Maker’ shows what beauty and tenderness he could find in the kitchen.
Amid all the artificiality of the gaudy Court of Versailles, Chardin stands out as the supreme interpreter of the sweetness and sane beauty of domesticity. He was a poet with the unspoilt heart of a child who could reveal to us the loveliness in the common things of life.
How strong a character Chardin must have been to resist the current of the time and adhere unswervingly to his simple democratic ideals we realize when we contemplate the talent and career of Jean Honoré Fragnonard (1732-1806), who was for a time his pupil. We have only to look at Fragonard’s charming domestic scene, ‘The Happy Mother,’ in the National Gallery, London, to see that this artist also might have been a painter of the people. He shows us here the home of a blacksmith, whose forge is seen in the background, while in the center the young mother with her three children sits at a table, and beyond another woman rocks a cradle.
For good or ill Fragonard chose another path, and after he had gained from Chardin a knowledge of sound craftsmanship which he never afterwards lost, he chose a more fashionable master and became the pupil of Boucher. In 1752, at the age of twenty, he won the Prix de Rome, and in 1756 he went for four years to Italy, where he made a particular study of the decorative paintings of ‘The Last of the Venetian,’ namely, Giovanni Battista Tiepolo (1696-1769). He returned to Paris in 1761 and almost immediately became a favorite with the French nobility.
In Fragonard, wrote Lady Dilke, ‘Boucher found his true heir. The style of Court fashions and customs, highly artificial even in the affectation of nature and simplicity, the temper of society, purely sensual in spite of pretensions to sentiment, gave birth to innumerable fictions which took their place in the commerce of ordinary life. Eternal youth, perpetual pleasure, and all the wanton graces, their insincere airs masked by a voluptuous charm, came into seeming—a bright deceitful vision which cheated and allured all eyes....The hours float by in waves of laughter, and the scent of flowers which breathe of endless summer fills the air. Existence in the gardens of Fragonard is pleasure; its penalties and pains are ignored, just as sickness and sorrow were then ignored in actual life.’
Highly typical of the period and of the manner in which Fragonard catered for the taste of his patrons is his picture ‘The Swing’, painted to order and exhibiting all the characteristics which Lady Dilke has so brilliantly analyzed in the passage quoted. The workmanship is beautiful, the drawing and color are alike charming, but these displays of so-called ‘gallantry’ are detestable to many people, and through it all we are conscious of the insincerity of a clever and highly gifted painter.
Pictures which Fragonard painted purely to please himself, like ‘The Happy Mother’ and the ‘The Lady Carving her Name,’ a tiny canvas which cost Lord Hertford £1400 in 1865, are less typical of Fragonard, but often pleasanter to gaze upon than his commissions and elaborate decorations. But even in these subjects Fragonard is always frolicsome and playful where Chardin was serious and earnest, and it is impossible to escape the conclusion that Fragonard’s was essentially a shallow nature. For all his cleverness he paid the penalty of his insincerity; he outlived his popularity and ultimately died in dire poverty. In 1806 the times had changed; Napoleon and the French Revolution had swept away the frivolities of Versailles.
The Rise Of French Painting (continued)
3
Side by side with these aristocratic painters whose art reflected the temper of the French Court, we find now and then an artist of genius who expresses the life and feelings of the people. The greatest of these was Jean Baptiste Simeon Chardin (1699-1779), who was also born in Paris. Though he worked for a time under the Court painter Van Loo at Fontaineblueau, and was elected a member of the Academy in 1728, Chardin was never a favorite with the nobles of France, nor did he make any effort to pander to their taste. His pictures, like those of his predecessors the brothers Le Nain, were ‘tainted with democracy,’ and the intense humanity of Chardin links him to his great contemporary on the other side of the Channel, William Hogarth.
Though Chardin, as Lady Dilke once said, ‘treated subjects of the humblest and most unpretentious class, he brought to their rendering, not only deep feeling and a penetration which divines the innermost truths of the simplest forms of life, but a perfection of workmanship by which everything he handled was clothed with beauty.’
Like the Persian poet, Chardin could compose a song about a loaf of bread and a glass of red wine—as his beautiful still-life in the National Gallery, London, proved—while ‘The Pancake Maker’ shows what beauty and tenderness he could find in the kitchen.
Amid all the artificiality of the gaudy Court of Versailles, Chardin stands out as the supreme interpreter of the sweetness and sane beauty of domesticity. He was a poet with the unspoilt heart of a child who could reveal to us the loveliness in the common things of life.
How strong a character Chardin must have been to resist the current of the time and adhere unswervingly to his simple democratic ideals we realize when we contemplate the talent and career of Jean Honoré Fragnonard (1732-1806), who was for a time his pupil. We have only to look at Fragonard’s charming domestic scene, ‘The Happy Mother,’ in the National Gallery, London, to see that this artist also might have been a painter of the people. He shows us here the home of a blacksmith, whose forge is seen in the background, while in the center the young mother with her three children sits at a table, and beyond another woman rocks a cradle.
For good or ill Fragonard chose another path, and after he had gained from Chardin a knowledge of sound craftsmanship which he never afterwards lost, he chose a more fashionable master and became the pupil of Boucher. In 1752, at the age of twenty, he won the Prix de Rome, and in 1756 he went for four years to Italy, where he made a particular study of the decorative paintings of ‘The Last of the Venetian,’ namely, Giovanni Battista Tiepolo (1696-1769). He returned to Paris in 1761 and almost immediately became a favorite with the French nobility.
In Fragonard, wrote Lady Dilke, ‘Boucher found his true heir. The style of Court fashions and customs, highly artificial even in the affectation of nature and simplicity, the temper of society, purely sensual in spite of pretensions to sentiment, gave birth to innumerable fictions which took their place in the commerce of ordinary life. Eternal youth, perpetual pleasure, and all the wanton graces, their insincere airs masked by a voluptuous charm, came into seeming—a bright deceitful vision which cheated and allured all eyes....The hours float by in waves of laughter, and the scent of flowers which breathe of endless summer fills the air. Existence in the gardens of Fragonard is pleasure; its penalties and pains are ignored, just as sickness and sorrow were then ignored in actual life.’
Highly typical of the period and of the manner in which Fragonard catered for the taste of his patrons is his picture ‘The Swing’, painted to order and exhibiting all the characteristics which Lady Dilke has so brilliantly analyzed in the passage quoted. The workmanship is beautiful, the drawing and color are alike charming, but these displays of so-called ‘gallantry’ are detestable to many people, and through it all we are conscious of the insincerity of a clever and highly gifted painter.
Pictures which Fragonard painted purely to please himself, like ‘The Happy Mother’ and the ‘The Lady Carving her Name,’ a tiny canvas which cost Lord Hertford £1400 in 1865, are less typical of Fragonard, but often pleasanter to gaze upon than his commissions and elaborate decorations. But even in these subjects Fragonard is always frolicsome and playful where Chardin was serious and earnest, and it is impossible to escape the conclusion that Fragonard’s was essentially a shallow nature. For all his cleverness he paid the penalty of his insincerity; he outlived his popularity and ultimately died in dire poverty. In 1806 the times had changed; Napoleon and the French Revolution had swept away the frivolities of Versailles.
The Rise Of French Painting (continued)
Friday, January 18, 2008
Play Poker
In Silicon Valley, entrepreneurs may use whatever tools they've got to get ahead, but for Zach Coelius, CEO of Triggit, a new web service that helps bloggers easily add pictures, video and ads, an appetite for risk and fine-tuned poker skills helped him secure funding and get his startup off the ground + there is a good chance that the company might become a role model for other startups.
In a cutthroat gem/jewelry/art business environment, I think poker habit might help aspiring entrepreneurs to think/act differently. You may never know!
In a cutthroat gem/jewelry/art business environment, I think poker habit might help aspiring entrepreneurs to think/act differently. You may never know!
The World Database Of Happiness
THE World Database of Happiness, in Rotterdam, collects all the available information about what makes people happy and why @ http://worlddatabaseofhappiness.eur.nl
Here is an interesting observation by Eric Hoffer, an American social philosopher:
'The search for happiness is one of the chief sources of unhappiness.'
Here is an interesting observation by Eric Hoffer, an American social philosopher:
'The search for happiness is one of the chief sources of unhappiness.'
Darren Almond
Adrian Searle writes about Darren Almond's art work + his newest work in Fire Under Snow, opening this week at London's Parasol Unit @ http://arts.guardian.co.uk/art/visualart/story/0,,2242109,00.html
Useful links:
http://www.whitecube.com/artists/almond
http://www.artnet.com/artist/1411/darren-almond.html
Useful links:
http://www.whitecube.com/artists/almond
http://www.artnet.com/artist/1411/darren-almond.html
Indian Gold Market
Commodityonline writes about the overheated Indian gold market + the global currency fluctuations + the rupee swing + other viewpoints @ http://www.commodityonline.com/news/specials/newsdetails.php?id=4914
Gemory
A silicon-valley company claims it can nano-inscribe high-resolution photographs on girdles and tables, on diamonds as small as one pointers + it's forever.
Useful link:
www.gemory.com
Useful link:
www.gemory.com
The Billionaire That Wasn't
Here is the amazing story of entrepreneur/philanthropist Chuck Feeney + Economist's review + The Billionaire That Wasn't + he was an Andrew Carnegie fan + he created a foundation, the Atlantic Philanthropies, based in Bermuda + two years later he signed over his fortune to the foundation, except for sums set aside for his wife and children + his net worth fell below $5m + when he broke the news to his children, he gave them each a copy of Andrew Carnegie's essay on wealth, written in 1889.
Useful link:
http://atlanticphilanthropies.org
Useful link:
http://atlanticphilanthropies.org
Burma Update
It has been reported that 24th Gems and Jade Sales 2008 organized by the Union of Myanmar Economic Holdings will be held at Myanmar Gems Emporium Hall, from 15th January - 19th January 2008 + according to New Light of Myanmar the 45th Myanma Gems Emporium 2008 is scheduled to be held in March, 2008.
Useful links:
www.myawaddytrade.com
www.myanmar.com
Useful links:
www.myawaddytrade.com
www.myanmar.com
Sweet Smell Of Success
Sweet Smell Of Success (1957)
Directed by: Alexander Mackendrick
Screenplay: Ernest Lehman (novelette); Clifford Odets, Ernest Lehman
Cast: Burt Lancaster, Tony Curtis, Susan Harrison
(via YouTube): Sweet Smell of Success - 'In The Bag'
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TorT-kVOqP8
Sweet Smell of Success - 'Greedy Murmur of Little Men'
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N77uqGZPUPw
It's a great film + the dialogues are superb + the characters are memorable + I enjoyed it.
Directed by: Alexander Mackendrick
Screenplay: Ernest Lehman (novelette); Clifford Odets, Ernest Lehman
Cast: Burt Lancaster, Tony Curtis, Susan Harrison
(via YouTube): Sweet Smell of Success - 'In The Bag'
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TorT-kVOqP8
Sweet Smell of Success - 'Greedy Murmur of Little Men'
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N77uqGZPUPw
It's a great film + the dialogues are superb + the characters are memorable + I enjoyed it.
Jewelers Of Italy
(via 5000 Years of Gems and Jewelry) Frances Rogers and Alice Beard writes:
2. Greco-Roman Goldsmiths
While the successors of Alexander were disputing among themselves, Rome was growing into a power which ultimately dominated territory as wide as the United States; and Greece was among the nations that succumbed to her rule.
The Romans were more practical than artistic. Their houses and their clothes, in the early days, were simple and austere, lacking ornament and luxury. Nevertheless, it would seem that their simplicity of living was founded on paucity of invention rather than severity of taste. Their conquests gave them power over many countries, and also a golden opportunity for looting; and no Roman army disdained the chance to carry home the luxuries created in other lands. From Macedonia alone they brought more than two hundred wagonloads of paintings and statuary. Mosaics, rich hangings and carpets, horse-trappings set with gems, and golden jewelry sparkling with precious stones from Alexandria were conveyed over land and sea to Rome. Not only did a conquering army seize objects of art but is brought back, among its prisoners of war, artists and craftsmen, thereby insuring a further supply of the fine arts to be created at the demand of the Roman citizen.
Luxuries hitherto unknown to the Roman found a warm welcome. Greek sculptors were set to making statues of Roman gods, with the result that many of the stone deities were but idealized versions of the Greek youths who posed for the sculptors, and many of these statues later appeared in miniature designs engraved on gems. The Greek goldsmith who fashioned jewelry for his Roman patrons did so according to his native designs. The art of a conquered people continued long to dominate the art of its conquerors.
And so the once drab and bare interior of the Roman house became colorful and rich with foreign plunder and erstwhile simplicity of dress gave place to more ostentatious garb. Jewelry and ever more jewelry decked the rich Roman lady of fashion. It is curious to note how the ancient Roman jewelry reflects the spirit of the times and proclaims, like a blast of trumpets, the arrogant pride of riches. The heavy, opulent necklaces, bracelets, and rings fairly wallow in wealth of gold and suggest that the people who wore them were somewhat larger than life.
Those who disapproved of the growing trend toward finery and frivolity arose to plead for a return to the good old fashions of frugal severity in dress and austerity of behavior. They hurled thunders of condemnation at the amount of jewelry worn and especially at the great numbers of rings that loaded the fingers. And as for the frivolous fashion, to mention one, of sending Roman boys to Greek dancing classes......what was the younger generation coming to?
Long before the year 1 A.D. the censor was with us, and at that particular time he was present in the person of Cato. Cato seems to have disapproved quite comprehensively of Roman fashions, and as he had power to shape the law, he dictated law after law prohibiting the things he did not like. Jewelry in particular came under the ban of his displeasure, therefore he rather specialized in laws concerning it. He specified the number of jewels a citizen might wear and what kind of metal a man’s ring should be made of—whether gold, silver or iron—depending on the wearer’s station in life. Even senators might not wear their gold rings in private life. These rings were kept in the treasury and handed out only to those who were sent as embassies to foreign lands, in which case the ring was not merely an ornament but a badge of office.
The signet-ring of iron, being a humble thing of use and not of ostentation, appears to have escaped the censor’s ban. For a time these laws of prohibition checked and held down the love of luxury and display, but only for a while.
Jewelers Of Italy (continued)
2. Greco-Roman Goldsmiths
While the successors of Alexander were disputing among themselves, Rome was growing into a power which ultimately dominated territory as wide as the United States; and Greece was among the nations that succumbed to her rule.
The Romans were more practical than artistic. Their houses and their clothes, in the early days, were simple and austere, lacking ornament and luxury. Nevertheless, it would seem that their simplicity of living was founded on paucity of invention rather than severity of taste. Their conquests gave them power over many countries, and also a golden opportunity for looting; and no Roman army disdained the chance to carry home the luxuries created in other lands. From Macedonia alone they brought more than two hundred wagonloads of paintings and statuary. Mosaics, rich hangings and carpets, horse-trappings set with gems, and golden jewelry sparkling with precious stones from Alexandria were conveyed over land and sea to Rome. Not only did a conquering army seize objects of art but is brought back, among its prisoners of war, artists and craftsmen, thereby insuring a further supply of the fine arts to be created at the demand of the Roman citizen.
Luxuries hitherto unknown to the Roman found a warm welcome. Greek sculptors were set to making statues of Roman gods, with the result that many of the stone deities were but idealized versions of the Greek youths who posed for the sculptors, and many of these statues later appeared in miniature designs engraved on gems. The Greek goldsmith who fashioned jewelry for his Roman patrons did so according to his native designs. The art of a conquered people continued long to dominate the art of its conquerors.
And so the once drab and bare interior of the Roman house became colorful and rich with foreign plunder and erstwhile simplicity of dress gave place to more ostentatious garb. Jewelry and ever more jewelry decked the rich Roman lady of fashion. It is curious to note how the ancient Roman jewelry reflects the spirit of the times and proclaims, like a blast of trumpets, the arrogant pride of riches. The heavy, opulent necklaces, bracelets, and rings fairly wallow in wealth of gold and suggest that the people who wore them were somewhat larger than life.
Those who disapproved of the growing trend toward finery and frivolity arose to plead for a return to the good old fashions of frugal severity in dress and austerity of behavior. They hurled thunders of condemnation at the amount of jewelry worn and especially at the great numbers of rings that loaded the fingers. And as for the frivolous fashion, to mention one, of sending Roman boys to Greek dancing classes......what was the younger generation coming to?
Long before the year 1 A.D. the censor was with us, and at that particular time he was present in the person of Cato. Cato seems to have disapproved quite comprehensively of Roman fashions, and as he had power to shape the law, he dictated law after law prohibiting the things he did not like. Jewelry in particular came under the ban of his displeasure, therefore he rather specialized in laws concerning it. He specified the number of jewels a citizen might wear and what kind of metal a man’s ring should be made of—whether gold, silver or iron—depending on the wearer’s station in life. Even senators might not wear their gold rings in private life. These rings were kept in the treasury and handed out only to those who were sent as embassies to foreign lands, in which case the ring was not merely an ornament but a badge of office.
The signet-ring of iron, being a humble thing of use and not of ostentation, appears to have escaped the censor’s ban. For a time these laws of prohibition checked and held down the love of luxury and display, but only for a while.
Jewelers Of Italy (continued)
The Rise Of French Painting
(via The Outline of Art) William Orpen writes:
2
While Watteau was laying the foundations for the romantic and impressionist painting of modern France, another group of French figure-painters were evolving a national ‘grand style’ for French portraiture. This new style first made its appearance when Largilliére began painting Louis XIV and his family, and a typical example of it may be found in the Wallace Collection.
Nicholas Largilliére (1656-1746), who was nearly thirty years older than Watteau, was born in Paris, but worked for many years in London, where he was an assistant to Sir Peter Lely and a great favorite with King Charles II. But unlike his master Lely—who rivalled the Vicar of Bray in keeping in with both sides—Largilliére was a Royalist through and through, and like the faller Stuarts he returned to France and made Paris his home during the latter part of his life. His drawing is accurate but rather hard, his color harmonious and lighter in hue than that of his predecessors Mignard and Le Brun, and his great canvas at the Wallace Collection of Louis XIV with the Dauphin, the Duc de Bourgogne, the infant Du ďAnjou (afterwards Louis XV), and Madame de Maintenon, shows how magnificently he could stage and present a royal group.
Among his contemporaries were Hyacinth Rigaud (1659-1743), and his pupil Jean Baptiste Oudry (1686-1755), who won much fame as superintendent of the royal tapestry manufactories of the Gobelins and Beauvais; but his most famous successor was Jean Marc Nattier (1685-1766), a Parisian-born, who became one of the favorite portrait-painters at the Court of Louis XV. Nattier commented his career as a historical painter, and only took up portraiture in 1720 after he had lost all his savings through the speculation of John Law, the Scottish financier and adventurer. His paintings are also little hard, but they are light and gay in color and remarkably stately in their grouping and arrangement.
Another Paris-born artist acquired still wider fame. This was Francois Boucher (1703-70), who gained the first prize at the Academy when he was only twenty years old and afterwards studied in Rome. ‘No one,’ wrote the late Lady Dilke of this artist, ‘ever attacked a greater variety of styles; his drawings—often extremely good—are to be met with in every important collection. Innumerable were his easel pictures, his mural decorations, his designs for tapestries at Beauvais or the Gobelins, his scene paintings for Versailles and the Opera.’
No artist more completely illustrates and represents French taste in the eighteenth century than Francois Boucher, who was indeed the leader of fashion in this direction, and by his creative genius brought a new note into European painting. He introduced a lighter and gayer scheme of color into tapestries and decorative paintings, pale blues and pinks being dominant in his color schemes. He designed many paintings and decorations for the famous Madame de Pompadour, and the sweet color now generally known as rose du Barry was invented by Boucher and was originally called Rose Pompadour.
To do justice to the French portraiture of the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, we must remember the ornate gilt furniture of the period with which they were surrounded. Portraits like Nattier’s ‘Mademoiselle de Clermont’ and Boucher’s ‘Marquise de Pompadour’—both of which are in the Wallace Collection—must not be judged as easel paintings, but as items in an elaborate scheme of interior decoration. There is nothing like them in the history of portraiture, just as there never was a Court exactly like that of the ‘Grand Monarch’ or of his immediate successors. These portraits reconvey to us all the splendors of Versailles, its luxury and its heartlessness. They are the quintessence of aristocratic feeling, so full of culture that there is little room for humanity. The pride they express ends by alienating our sympathy, for they are the most pompous pictures the world has ever seen.
The Rise Of French Painting (continued)
2
While Watteau was laying the foundations for the romantic and impressionist painting of modern France, another group of French figure-painters were evolving a national ‘grand style’ for French portraiture. This new style first made its appearance when Largilliére began painting Louis XIV and his family, and a typical example of it may be found in the Wallace Collection.
Nicholas Largilliére (1656-1746), who was nearly thirty years older than Watteau, was born in Paris, but worked for many years in London, where he was an assistant to Sir Peter Lely and a great favorite with King Charles II. But unlike his master Lely—who rivalled the Vicar of Bray in keeping in with both sides—Largilliére was a Royalist through and through, and like the faller Stuarts he returned to France and made Paris his home during the latter part of his life. His drawing is accurate but rather hard, his color harmonious and lighter in hue than that of his predecessors Mignard and Le Brun, and his great canvas at the Wallace Collection of Louis XIV with the Dauphin, the Duc de Bourgogne, the infant Du ďAnjou (afterwards Louis XV), and Madame de Maintenon, shows how magnificently he could stage and present a royal group.
Among his contemporaries were Hyacinth Rigaud (1659-1743), and his pupil Jean Baptiste Oudry (1686-1755), who won much fame as superintendent of the royal tapestry manufactories of the Gobelins and Beauvais; but his most famous successor was Jean Marc Nattier (1685-1766), a Parisian-born, who became one of the favorite portrait-painters at the Court of Louis XV. Nattier commented his career as a historical painter, and only took up portraiture in 1720 after he had lost all his savings through the speculation of John Law, the Scottish financier and adventurer. His paintings are also little hard, but they are light and gay in color and remarkably stately in their grouping and arrangement.
Another Paris-born artist acquired still wider fame. This was Francois Boucher (1703-70), who gained the first prize at the Academy when he was only twenty years old and afterwards studied in Rome. ‘No one,’ wrote the late Lady Dilke of this artist, ‘ever attacked a greater variety of styles; his drawings—often extremely good—are to be met with in every important collection. Innumerable were his easel pictures, his mural decorations, his designs for tapestries at Beauvais or the Gobelins, his scene paintings for Versailles and the Opera.’
No artist more completely illustrates and represents French taste in the eighteenth century than Francois Boucher, who was indeed the leader of fashion in this direction, and by his creative genius brought a new note into European painting. He introduced a lighter and gayer scheme of color into tapestries and decorative paintings, pale blues and pinks being dominant in his color schemes. He designed many paintings and decorations for the famous Madame de Pompadour, and the sweet color now generally known as rose du Barry was invented by Boucher and was originally called Rose Pompadour.
To do justice to the French portraiture of the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, we must remember the ornate gilt furniture of the period with which they were surrounded. Portraits like Nattier’s ‘Mademoiselle de Clermont’ and Boucher’s ‘Marquise de Pompadour’—both of which are in the Wallace Collection—must not be judged as easel paintings, but as items in an elaborate scheme of interior decoration. There is nothing like them in the history of portraiture, just as there never was a Court exactly like that of the ‘Grand Monarch’ or of his immediate successors. These portraits reconvey to us all the splendors of Versailles, its luxury and its heartlessness. They are the quintessence of aristocratic feeling, so full of culture that there is little room for humanity. The pride they express ends by alienating our sympathy, for they are the most pompous pictures the world has ever seen.
The Rise Of French Painting (continued)
Tahitian Pearls
Tahitian cultured pearls, due to their exotic beauty + strong promotion by Perles de Tahiti, have become the best-selling pearls on the Chinese Mainland + Chinese Mainland consumers often cannot differentiate white South Sea pearls from white Chinese freshwater pearls + I think price-competitiveness + color uniqueness could also be a factor for Tahitian pearls' popularity.
Useful link:
www.perlesdetahiti.net
Useful link:
www.perlesdetahiti.net
Glittering Gold, Dazzling Diamond
Commodityonline writes about the status of gold and diamond in India + year-over-year growth in value + other viewpoints @ http://www.commodityonline.com/news/topstory/newsdetails.php?id=4892
Thursday, January 17, 2008
Heard On The Street
Some food for thought:
- Avoid the so-called inside information.
- Never buy gemstones/jewelry/art on excitement.
- Use your own judgment.
- Don't put too much reliance on advertisements.
- Don't lose confidence.
- Avoid the so-called inside information.
- Never buy gemstones/jewelry/art on excitement.
- Use your own judgment.
- Don't put too much reliance on advertisements.
- Don't lose confidence.
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