Gustav Caesar based in Germany’s gemstone capital of Idar Oberstein works with the best of the best colored gemstones + they have provided exquisite gemstones to top jewelers since 1840.
Useful link:
www.gustav-caesar.com
Tuesday, January 22, 2008
Coffee Research Labs
(via Commodityonline) Here is what Sunalini N Menon, chief executive, Coffeelab Pvt Ltd, Bangalore, India + Asia's first lady coffee taster or cupper has to say about coffee tasting + the bean of wisdom @ http://www.commodityonline.com/news/topstory/newsdetails.php?id=4977
Coffee Research Labs
1. Cooxupe: Soil Analysis Laboratory
www.cooxupe.com.br
2. Lafise: Physical, Sensorial, and Statistics Laboratory
www.ital.org.br
3. CeniCafe
www.cafedecolombia.com
4. Coffee Analysts
www.coffeeanalysts.com
5. Hawaiian Agriculture Research Center: Coffee Division
http://www.hawaiiag.org/harc/HARCCOF8.htm
6. Indian Coffee Board Coffee Research Institute
www.indiacoffee.org
Coffee Research Labs
1. Cooxupe: Soil Analysis Laboratory
www.cooxupe.com.br
2. Lafise: Physical, Sensorial, and Statistics Laboratory
www.ital.org.br
3. CeniCafe
www.cafedecolombia.com
4. Coffee Analysts
www.coffeeanalysts.com
5. Hawaiian Agriculture Research Center: Coffee Division
http://www.hawaiiag.org/harc/HARCCOF8.htm
6. Indian Coffee Board Coffee Research Institute
www.indiacoffee.org
Monday, January 21, 2008
Labs' Radio Media Tour
I think American Gem Society Laboratories's recently completed 13-stop radio media tour in the U.S is a great idea + other labs in Europe and Asia should learn from the concept because a mixture of live to broadcast and live to tape for later and repeat airing is the way to reach a wider audience + I liked it.
To listen to the radio media tour interviews, visit www.agslab.com/news_radio.html
To listen to the radio media tour interviews, visit www.agslab.com/news_radio.html
Ennio Morricone
Ennio Morricone, sometimes also credited as Dan Savio or Leo Nichols, is an Italian composer especially noted for his film scores + he has composed and arranged scores for more than 500 film and television productions + he is best known for the characteristic sparse and memorable soundtracks of Sergio Leone's spaghetti westerns A Fistful of Dollars (1964) + For a Few Dollars More (1965) + The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1966) + Once Upon a Time in the West (1968) which have been frequently cited by many in the film industry as some of the greatest film scores ever composed + I love his music.
Useful links:
www.enniomorricone.com
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ennio_Morricone
Useful links:
www.enniomorricone.com
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ennio_Morricone
Contemporary Craft
(via The Observer) Charlotte Abrahams writes about contemporary crafts + the best way to find a future classic + other viewpoints @ http://arts.guardian.co.uk/art/design/story/0,,2242524,00.html
Useful links:
craftscouncil.org.uk/collect
bonhams.com
Useful links:
craftscouncil.org.uk/collect
bonhams.com
Artist Pension Trust
(via BBC) Jorn Madslien writes about a multilingual globetrotting financier's concept in the form of the Artist Pension Trust + a structured financial approach to art + other viewpoints @ http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/7057677.stm
Useful links:
www.aptglobal.org
www.brianusher.com
Useful links:
www.aptglobal.org
www.brianusher.com
Jewelers Of Italy
(via 5000 Years of Gems and Jewelry) Frances Rogers and Alice Beard writes:
4. Rings And Seals
In the palmy days of the Roman Empire jewelry was increasingly burdened with many and varied responsibilities beyond that of personal adornment. Among the rings that were intended to serve a practical purpose was a curious one known as a ‘key ring’. This type is a ring combined with a key whose wards are at right angles to the hoop so that they lie lengthwise along the finger. It has been suggested that such rings were keys to some casket containing valuables belonging to a rich man, but as they were made only of bronze or iron and were ungainly in shape, it does not seem likely that they were actually worn by the owners of jewel caskets, but rather by some trusted servant.
Locks were still unreliable contrivances, all too easily opened by the ‘thievish slaves’ who would help themselves to provisions in the storerooms, or even to gems from their master’s jewel box. So it became the custom to seal up supplies and valuables with one signet and then lock that signet away in a cabinet which, in turn, was sealed by still another signet ring, the latter worn by the master.
Even this seemingly innocent practice did not escape the pointed pen of Pliny, who remarked that to wear but ‘a single ring upon the little finger was no more than an ostentatious advertisement that the owner has property of a more precious nature under seal at home.’ But, nevertheless, he sympathizes with the practice of locking possessions up with sealing wax:
How happy the times—how truly innocent—in which no seal was put to anything. At the present day, on the contrary, our very food even, and our drink, have to be preserved from theft through the agency of the ring; and so far is it from being sufficient to have the very keys sealed, that the signet ring is often taken off the owner’s finger while he is overpowered with sleep, or lying on his death bed....How many of the crimes stimulated by cupidity are committed through the instrumentality of rings!
Indeed, certain of the ring family became in themselves sinister instruments of death. The poison ring, although ornamental in appearance, was constructed for the special purpose of enabling its owner to commit suicide. It was made with a high, bezel, shaped like a pyramid, which was hollow and capable of holding enough poison to bring swift death to the wearer who might find himself trapped in a desperate situation and choose suicide as a way out. With one vigorous bite he could crush the soft gold, suck out the poison, and his quietus make with a mere finger ring. Hannibal made good his exit from this earth by means of a poison ring.
The method sounds quite simple and convenient in case of necessity, but it appears that one might have too much (or too many) of a good thing, as in the case of Heliogabalus, one of the later emperors of Rome. Considering his life, of ‘almost unparalleled debauchery,’ no great powers of prophecy were required to guess that he would come to a bad end, and it was foretold that he would die a violent death. Therefore he decided to choose his own manner of dying and have more than one alternative at that. He wore three rings: one set with rubies, one with sapphires, and one with emeralds. Each ring contained a different kind of poison. But when the crucial moment arrived Heliogabalus apparently became embarrassed by too many choices. Before he had time to decide which poison he would swallow, the soldiers were upon him. They dragged him all over Rome with a hook and finally threw his body into the Tiber. What became of the rings is not on record.
In its character as an amulet, a jewel might make a very wide appeal and serve many purposes. For a talisman denoting valor and zest in bloodshed, the Roman soldier wore a silver ring mounted with an engraved stone showing Mars, equipped with shield and spear. Or if he preferred a more realistic and detailed indication of his calling, he chose the design of a warrior standing on the body of his decapitated enemy and holding aloft in triumph the severed head.
Even many of the doctors still practiced their faith in magic. A string of amber beads was the accepted cure for goiter and the wearing of coral was prescribed for skin trouble by Dioscorides, Greek physician to the Romans. There seems to have been a gem remedy for all the ills of life; the list is endless.
Amulets were frequently enclosed in tiny golden vases or in cylindrical boxes and suspended from the neck. The necklace might be a simple chain, or a chain of beads with many pendants. Amber was particularly prized as a pendant, not only for its beauty but for its powers of protection against witchcraft. Sometimes a bit of amber would be found in which a small insect was enclosed, and this would bring an enormous price.
Jewelers Of Italy (continued)
4. Rings And Seals
In the palmy days of the Roman Empire jewelry was increasingly burdened with many and varied responsibilities beyond that of personal adornment. Among the rings that were intended to serve a practical purpose was a curious one known as a ‘key ring’. This type is a ring combined with a key whose wards are at right angles to the hoop so that they lie lengthwise along the finger. It has been suggested that such rings were keys to some casket containing valuables belonging to a rich man, but as they were made only of bronze or iron and were ungainly in shape, it does not seem likely that they were actually worn by the owners of jewel caskets, but rather by some trusted servant.
Locks were still unreliable contrivances, all too easily opened by the ‘thievish slaves’ who would help themselves to provisions in the storerooms, or even to gems from their master’s jewel box. So it became the custom to seal up supplies and valuables with one signet and then lock that signet away in a cabinet which, in turn, was sealed by still another signet ring, the latter worn by the master.
Even this seemingly innocent practice did not escape the pointed pen of Pliny, who remarked that to wear but ‘a single ring upon the little finger was no more than an ostentatious advertisement that the owner has property of a more precious nature under seal at home.’ But, nevertheless, he sympathizes with the practice of locking possessions up with sealing wax:
How happy the times—how truly innocent—in which no seal was put to anything. At the present day, on the contrary, our very food even, and our drink, have to be preserved from theft through the agency of the ring; and so far is it from being sufficient to have the very keys sealed, that the signet ring is often taken off the owner’s finger while he is overpowered with sleep, or lying on his death bed....How many of the crimes stimulated by cupidity are committed through the instrumentality of rings!
Indeed, certain of the ring family became in themselves sinister instruments of death. The poison ring, although ornamental in appearance, was constructed for the special purpose of enabling its owner to commit suicide. It was made with a high, bezel, shaped like a pyramid, which was hollow and capable of holding enough poison to bring swift death to the wearer who might find himself trapped in a desperate situation and choose suicide as a way out. With one vigorous bite he could crush the soft gold, suck out the poison, and his quietus make with a mere finger ring. Hannibal made good his exit from this earth by means of a poison ring.
The method sounds quite simple and convenient in case of necessity, but it appears that one might have too much (or too many) of a good thing, as in the case of Heliogabalus, one of the later emperors of Rome. Considering his life, of ‘almost unparalleled debauchery,’ no great powers of prophecy were required to guess that he would come to a bad end, and it was foretold that he would die a violent death. Therefore he decided to choose his own manner of dying and have more than one alternative at that. He wore three rings: one set with rubies, one with sapphires, and one with emeralds. Each ring contained a different kind of poison. But when the crucial moment arrived Heliogabalus apparently became embarrassed by too many choices. Before he had time to decide which poison he would swallow, the soldiers were upon him. They dragged him all over Rome with a hook and finally threw his body into the Tiber. What became of the rings is not on record.
In its character as an amulet, a jewel might make a very wide appeal and serve many purposes. For a talisman denoting valor and zest in bloodshed, the Roman soldier wore a silver ring mounted with an engraved stone showing Mars, equipped with shield and spear. Or if he preferred a more realistic and detailed indication of his calling, he chose the design of a warrior standing on the body of his decapitated enemy and holding aloft in triumph the severed head.
Even many of the doctors still practiced their faith in magic. A string of amber beads was the accepted cure for goiter and the wearing of coral was prescribed for skin trouble by Dioscorides, Greek physician to the Romans. There seems to have been a gem remedy for all the ills of life; the list is endless.
Amulets were frequently enclosed in tiny golden vases or in cylindrical boxes and suspended from the neck. The necklace might be a simple chain, or a chain of beads with many pendants. Amber was particularly prized as a pendant, not only for its beauty but for its powers of protection against witchcraft. Sometimes a bit of amber would be found in which a small insect was enclosed, and this would bring an enormous price.
Jewelers Of Italy (continued)
Table Cuts
(via Diamond Cuts in Historic Jewelry:1381-1910) Herbert Tillander writes:
From the very beginning of the fifteenth century, diamond fashioning concentrated on Pyramidal Point Cuts, Table Cuts and French Cuts. Abundant faceting went out of favor and found a restricted market merely as a curiosity. Cutters therefore concentrated on designs with large dominating faces. Even dodecahedrons were thus transformed into Table and French Cuts, simply by removing a large section of the upper part of the crystal. So far no specimen of this type has been documented; only an unprofessional sketch of the Burgundian aigrette known as the ‘Feather’ is known. However, we find Round Table Cuts described in numerous inventories. At the time the term plat stood for an overall height far less than that of pointed cuts. En façon de mirouer, signifying ‘in the shape of a mirror’—in other words, a table facet—also appears frequently and is used for both square and rounded diamonds. During the fifteenth century a wide variety of descriptions was used. Judging by the fanciful entries in inventories and other documents, it is obvious that there was no fixed terminology. The word ‘table’ itself appears to have been used in France from about the year 1000, but only to refer to pieces of furniture. It was only in 1431 that the expression diamond en table was introduced.
The great surge of artistic creativity at the time of the Renaissance was influenced by old beliefs, by new philosophy and by rational scientific thinking. Rigid rules controlled creativity in architecture, painting , sculpture and literature, and were equally important in the fashioning of diamonds. In the illustration by Luigi Pulci, the geometrical figure in the right hand of the mathematician on the left contains perfect proportions and could easily be used as a model for the angles of inclinations between crown and pavilion facets in a Table Cut. The proportions here are exactly the same as those that have been propounded ever since the end of the sixteenth century. Similar c.45° angles can be seen in the geometrical figure in the hand of the mathematician on the right.
One of Mielich’s illustrations in color of the jewels belonging to Anna, Duchess of Bavaria, shows an enseigne of Hercules standing before Eurystheus; the line drawing shows more clearly than a photograph the different cuts used to make up the jewel. It is possible to distinguish two trihedral cuts and a selection of both regular and fancy Tables, all cleverly used to represent classical architecture. Note also the pitcher and lantern carried by Hercules.
Several portraits of James I show him wearing in his hat the ‘Feather’, one of the legendary English jewels. In the schedule (inventory) of the Royal Jewels drawn up in 1606, it was described as ‘one fayre jewell, like a feather of gould, contayning a fayre table-diamond in the middest and fyve-and-twentie diamondes of diverse forms made of sondrous other jewells.’ It is interesting to see how much the Table Cuts varied and how beautifully the gems of the verticals were graduated in size. Even if the stones were taken from old jewels of the Treasury, as the schedule suggests, many of them must have been refashioned in order to fit the design of the ‘Feather’.
From the very beginning of the fifteenth century, diamond fashioning concentrated on Pyramidal Point Cuts, Table Cuts and French Cuts. Abundant faceting went out of favor and found a restricted market merely as a curiosity. Cutters therefore concentrated on designs with large dominating faces. Even dodecahedrons were thus transformed into Table and French Cuts, simply by removing a large section of the upper part of the crystal. So far no specimen of this type has been documented; only an unprofessional sketch of the Burgundian aigrette known as the ‘Feather’ is known. However, we find Round Table Cuts described in numerous inventories. At the time the term plat stood for an overall height far less than that of pointed cuts. En façon de mirouer, signifying ‘in the shape of a mirror’—in other words, a table facet—also appears frequently and is used for both square and rounded diamonds. During the fifteenth century a wide variety of descriptions was used. Judging by the fanciful entries in inventories and other documents, it is obvious that there was no fixed terminology. The word ‘table’ itself appears to have been used in France from about the year 1000, but only to refer to pieces of furniture. It was only in 1431 that the expression diamond en table was introduced.
The great surge of artistic creativity at the time of the Renaissance was influenced by old beliefs, by new philosophy and by rational scientific thinking. Rigid rules controlled creativity in architecture, painting , sculpture and literature, and were equally important in the fashioning of diamonds. In the illustration by Luigi Pulci, the geometrical figure in the right hand of the mathematician on the left contains perfect proportions and could easily be used as a model for the angles of inclinations between crown and pavilion facets in a Table Cut. The proportions here are exactly the same as those that have been propounded ever since the end of the sixteenth century. Similar c.45° angles can be seen in the geometrical figure in the hand of the mathematician on the right.
One of Mielich’s illustrations in color of the jewels belonging to Anna, Duchess of Bavaria, shows an enseigne of Hercules standing before Eurystheus; the line drawing shows more clearly than a photograph the different cuts used to make up the jewel. It is possible to distinguish two trihedral cuts and a selection of both regular and fancy Tables, all cleverly used to represent classical architecture. Note also the pitcher and lantern carried by Hercules.
Several portraits of James I show him wearing in his hat the ‘Feather’, one of the legendary English jewels. In the schedule (inventory) of the Royal Jewels drawn up in 1606, it was described as ‘one fayre jewell, like a feather of gould, contayning a fayre table-diamond in the middest and fyve-and-twentie diamondes of diverse forms made of sondrous other jewells.’ It is interesting to see how much the Table Cuts varied and how beautifully the gems of the verticals were graduated in size. Even if the stones were taken from old jewels of the Treasury, as the schedule suggests, many of them must have been refashioned in order to fit the design of the ‘Feather’.
English Masters Of The Eighteenth Century
(via The Outline of Art) William Orpen writes:
The Art Of Hogarth, Richard Wilson, And Sir Joshua Reynolds
1
In all the annals of British Art there is no more illustrious name than that of William Hogarth. Not only was he, as Mr E V Lucas has pointed out, ‘the first great national British painter, the first man to look at the English life around him like an Englishman and paint it without affectation or foreign influence, but he was the first to make pictures popular. Hogarth’s engravings from his own works produced a love of art that has steadily increased ever since. During Hogarth’s day thousands of houses that had had no pictures before acquired that picture habit which many years later Alderman Boydell and his team of engravers were to do so much to foster and establish.’
That is where Hogarth differs from the French democratic painters, from Chardin and Greuze, mentioned in the last chapter; he was an engraver as well as a painter, and so was one of the first artists in Europe to devote talent of the highest order to providing art for the masses as well as the classes. People who could not afford to buy oil paintings could buy engravings, and it was by his engravings that Hogarth first acquired fame.
William Hogarth was born in Bartholomew Close, Smithfield, on November 10, 1697. He was the son of a school master and printer’s reader, who was apparently a man of some education and had the intelligence to recognize his son’s talent for drawing, and to place no obstacle in his path. At an early age young Hogarth was apprenticed to a silversmith near Leicester Fields (now Leicester Square), for whom he chased tankards and salvers, and two years after his father’s death in 1718 he felt sufficiently confident in his powers to set up as an engraver on his own account. Meanwhile he had taken every opportunity of improving his drawing, and had attended classes at the art academy of Sir James Thornhill (1676-1734), a portrait painter and decorative artist much in favor with Queen Anne. He was especially renowned for his ceilings, and the Painted Hall at Greenwich is a famous example of Thornhill’s art.
Hogarth did not get on very well with Thornhill and his method of tuition, which consisted principally of giving his pupils pictures to copy. This did not suit a youth so enamoured of life as Hogarth, who had a habit of making notes on his thumbnail of faces and expressions and enlarging them afterwards on paper. In this way he trained his memory to carry the exact proportions and characteristics of what he had seen, so that his drawings, even done from memory, were extraordinarily vivacious and full of life. ‘Coping,’ Hogarth once said, ‘is like pouring water out of one vessel into another.’ He preferred to draw his own water, and this sturdy determination to see life for himself set him on the road to greatness. Previous English artists had not done this: they had looked at life through another man’s spectacles, and their pictures were more or less good imitations of the manner of Van Dyck, Lely, and Kneller.
Nevertheless he continued for a long time to frequent Thornhill’s academy, the real attraction being not the master’s tuition but his pretty daughter Jane. In the end Hogarth eloped with Miss Thornhill, whom he married without her father’s consent and very much against his will. At the time the match was considered a mésalliance, for Thornhill was a Member of Parliament and a knight, whereas Hogarth has as yet acquired little fame and had rather scandalized society by bringing out in 1724 a set of engravings, ‘The Talk of the Town,’ in which he satirized the tendency of fashionable London to lionise foreign singers.
Four years later, however, the tide was turned in Hogarth’s favor when Mr Gay lashed the same fashionable folly in The Beggar’s Opera, which, produced at the Lincoln’s Inn Fields Theatre in January 1728, proved to be as great a popular success then as it has been in our own day. Hogarth was naturally attracted to a piece that revealed a spirit so akin to his own, and he painted several pictures of its scenes, one of which is now in the Tate Gallery. His genial, bohemian temperament delighted in the society of actors and writers, and Hogarth’s association with the company of The Beggar’s Opera indirectly led him to take up portrait painting. One of his earliest portraits is ‘Lavinia Fenton as Polly Peachum,’ the gay young actress who created the part and became Duchess of Bolton.
This portrait—as indeed are all of Hogarth’s—is a wonderful achievement. It has nothing of the manner of Lely or Kneller or any of his predecessors; it is fresh, original, unmannered, and sets life itself before us. To some extent, perhaps he was influenced by Dutch painting, which has the same quality of honesty, but in the main he was ‘without a school, and without a precedent.’ Unlike the portrait painters who preceded and those who immediately succeeded him, Hogarth does not show us people or rank and fashion. His portraits are usually of people in his own class or lower, his relatives, actors and actresses, his servants. Hogarth was too truthful in his painting and not obsequious enough in his manner to be a favorite with society, and it was only occasionally that a member of the aristocracy had the courage to sit to him. Simon Fraser, Lord Lovat, did, and the magnificent little full length in the National Portrait Gallery shows how vividly Hogarth grasped and expressed his character.
English Masters Of The Eighteenth Century (continued)
The Art Of Hogarth, Richard Wilson, And Sir Joshua Reynolds
1
In all the annals of British Art there is no more illustrious name than that of William Hogarth. Not only was he, as Mr E V Lucas has pointed out, ‘the first great national British painter, the first man to look at the English life around him like an Englishman and paint it without affectation or foreign influence, but he was the first to make pictures popular. Hogarth’s engravings from his own works produced a love of art that has steadily increased ever since. During Hogarth’s day thousands of houses that had had no pictures before acquired that picture habit which many years later Alderman Boydell and his team of engravers were to do so much to foster and establish.’
That is where Hogarth differs from the French democratic painters, from Chardin and Greuze, mentioned in the last chapter; he was an engraver as well as a painter, and so was one of the first artists in Europe to devote talent of the highest order to providing art for the masses as well as the classes. People who could not afford to buy oil paintings could buy engravings, and it was by his engravings that Hogarth first acquired fame.
William Hogarth was born in Bartholomew Close, Smithfield, on November 10, 1697. He was the son of a school master and printer’s reader, who was apparently a man of some education and had the intelligence to recognize his son’s talent for drawing, and to place no obstacle in his path. At an early age young Hogarth was apprenticed to a silversmith near Leicester Fields (now Leicester Square), for whom he chased tankards and salvers, and two years after his father’s death in 1718 he felt sufficiently confident in his powers to set up as an engraver on his own account. Meanwhile he had taken every opportunity of improving his drawing, and had attended classes at the art academy of Sir James Thornhill (1676-1734), a portrait painter and decorative artist much in favor with Queen Anne. He was especially renowned for his ceilings, and the Painted Hall at Greenwich is a famous example of Thornhill’s art.
Hogarth did not get on very well with Thornhill and his method of tuition, which consisted principally of giving his pupils pictures to copy. This did not suit a youth so enamoured of life as Hogarth, who had a habit of making notes on his thumbnail of faces and expressions and enlarging them afterwards on paper. In this way he trained his memory to carry the exact proportions and characteristics of what he had seen, so that his drawings, even done from memory, were extraordinarily vivacious and full of life. ‘Coping,’ Hogarth once said, ‘is like pouring water out of one vessel into another.’ He preferred to draw his own water, and this sturdy determination to see life for himself set him on the road to greatness. Previous English artists had not done this: they had looked at life through another man’s spectacles, and their pictures were more or less good imitations of the manner of Van Dyck, Lely, and Kneller.
Nevertheless he continued for a long time to frequent Thornhill’s academy, the real attraction being not the master’s tuition but his pretty daughter Jane. In the end Hogarth eloped with Miss Thornhill, whom he married without her father’s consent and very much against his will. At the time the match was considered a mésalliance, for Thornhill was a Member of Parliament and a knight, whereas Hogarth has as yet acquired little fame and had rather scandalized society by bringing out in 1724 a set of engravings, ‘The Talk of the Town,’ in which he satirized the tendency of fashionable London to lionise foreign singers.
Four years later, however, the tide was turned in Hogarth’s favor when Mr Gay lashed the same fashionable folly in The Beggar’s Opera, which, produced at the Lincoln’s Inn Fields Theatre in January 1728, proved to be as great a popular success then as it has been in our own day. Hogarth was naturally attracted to a piece that revealed a spirit so akin to his own, and he painted several pictures of its scenes, one of which is now in the Tate Gallery. His genial, bohemian temperament delighted in the society of actors and writers, and Hogarth’s association with the company of The Beggar’s Opera indirectly led him to take up portrait painting. One of his earliest portraits is ‘Lavinia Fenton as Polly Peachum,’ the gay young actress who created the part and became Duchess of Bolton.
This portrait—as indeed are all of Hogarth’s—is a wonderful achievement. It has nothing of the manner of Lely or Kneller or any of his predecessors; it is fresh, original, unmannered, and sets life itself before us. To some extent, perhaps he was influenced by Dutch painting, which has the same quality of honesty, but in the main he was ‘without a school, and without a precedent.’ Unlike the portrait painters who preceded and those who immediately succeeded him, Hogarth does not show us people or rank and fashion. His portraits are usually of people in his own class or lower, his relatives, actors and actresses, his servants. Hogarth was too truthful in his painting and not obsequious enough in his manner to be a favorite with society, and it was only occasionally that a member of the aristocracy had the courage to sit to him. Simon Fraser, Lord Lovat, did, and the magnificent little full length in the National Portrait Gallery shows how vividly Hogarth grasped and expressed his character.
English Masters Of The Eighteenth Century (continued)
Sunday, January 20, 2008
The Kahlil Gibran Phenomenon
I think Kahlil Gibran is natural + 'The Prophet', a collection of twenty-six prose poems, delivered as sermons by a fictional wise man in a faraway time and place is a gem + he is perceived by the experts as the best selling poet of all time, after Shakespeare and Lao-tzu + since its publication, in 1923, 'The Prophet' has sold more than nine million copies in its American edition alone + translated into more than 20 languages + I think it's a brilliant man's philosophy on love, marriage, joy and sorrow, time, friendship +++++++
Useful links:
www.kahlil.org
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Prophet_(book)
http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/books/2008/01/07/080107crbo_books_acocella
Useful links:
www.kahlil.org
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Prophet_(book)
http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/books/2008/01/07/080107crbo_books_acocella
Energy Update
According to industry analysts today India is the fifth largest consumer of primary energy and the third largest consumer of oil in the Asia-Pacific region, after China and Japan + for all those engaged in the oil & gas business, India presents a tremendous opportunity to create value and wealth.
Useful link:
www.petrotech2009.org
Useful link:
www.petrotech2009.org
Coffee Update
Sreekumar Raghavan writes about coffee business in India + Brazil + Vietnam + trading and marketing strategies + price behavior + other viewpoints @ http://www.commodityonline.com/news/topstory/newsdetails.php?id=4963
Coffee: The Most Powerful Global Commodity
http://www.commodityonline.com/news/topstory/newsdetails.php?id=4833
Coffee: The Most Powerful Global Commodity
http://www.commodityonline.com/news/topstory/newsdetails.php?id=4833
Heard On The Street
Many hardworking dealers in gem/jewelry/art become failures as they reach the top of the pyramid because they cannot control their emotions. The password: emotional maturiy. Practice daily.
Bernard Herrmann
Bernard Herrmann was an Academy Award-winning composer + he is particularly known for the scores he created for Alfred Hitchcock's films, most famously Psycho + he also composed notable scores for many other movies including Citizen Kane + Cape Fear + Taxi Driver + he penned the music for the original sensational radio broadcast of Orson Welles' The War of the Worlds + several fantasy films + many TV programs + he is still a prominent figure in the world of film music today + I love his music.
Useful links:
www.bernardherrmann.org
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernard_Herrmann
Useful links:
www.bernardherrmann.org
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernard_Herrmann
Henri Matisse's Dance
(via The Guardian) Jonathan Jones writes about the most beautiful modern painting in the world + its real story + the chromatic miracle of Dance + its color + other viewpoints @ http://arts.guardian.co.uk/art/visualart/story/0,,2243201,00.html
Useful link:
royalacademy.org.uk
Useful link:
royalacademy.org.uk
Indian Art 2008
Udayan Mukherjee interviews (Part 1 + 2) Dinesh Vazirani, Atul Dodiya, Peter Nagy, Mortimer Chatterjee, Sumeet Chopra, Arun Wadehra + their viewpoints on auction markets + collectors market in India @ http://www.moneycontrol.com/india/video/stockmarket/08/40/newsvideo/321865
Jewelers Of Italy
(via 5000 Years of Gems and Jewelry) Frances Rogers and Alice Beard writes:
3. Jewels Of The Roman Empire
Caesar was dead. Rome was on her way toward a different form of government, and with these changes came a change in ideology, affecting styles and customs. We find no record of just when the Roman dandy first risked the accusation of effeminacy and ventured to adorn his fingers with numbers of rings. We do not know whether the fashion developed slowly or whether it sprang up like wildfire overnight, for the solemn historian is prone to neglect such details. It took Pliny (who doubtless would be a most successful columnist were he living today) to give us the human-interest side of the news. Pliny, however, did not enter the scene until about the middle of the first century A.D., and by then the fashion of wearing an extravagant amount of jewelry had reached such proportions as to make exceedingly good copy for the lively pen of that gossipy old Roman. He gives us some colorful pictures. For instance, he reports on the simple betrothal ceremony of a Roman girl: ‘She was covered from head to foot with pearls and emeralds.’ And he compares at length the current fashion of wearing innumerable rings with the good old custom of confining rings to the fourth finger of one hand:
It was the custom at first to wear rings on a single finger only, the one namely that is next to the little finger, and thus we see the case in the statues of Numa and Servius Tullius. In later times it became the practice to put rings on the finger next to the thumb, even in the case of the statues of the gods; and, more recently again, it has become the fashion to wear them upon the little finger as well. Among the people of Gallia and Britannia, the middle finger, it is said, is used for this purpose. At the present day, however, among us, this is the only finger that is excepted, all others being loaded with rings, smaller rings even being separately adapted for the smaller joints of the finger. Some there are who heap several rings on the little finger alone.
Seneca, too, expressed himself on the extremes of fashion, declaring: ‘We adorn our fingers with rings, and a jewel is displayed on every joint.’
Orators were cautioned against overloading their hands with rings; and Pliny, disgusted by such display of vanity, declared that they piqued themselves upon a thing in which only musicians glory. Such a comparison carried a sharp sting, for in those days musicians were considered no better than jugglers and buffoons—in the lowest class of entertainers.
During all this period, glass-making in Rome was flourishing industry. Besides ornamental bowls, vases, jugs, and so on, the glassmaker turned out countless trinkets such as twisted glass bangles, finger rings, bracelets and beads—innumerable beads of all colors, styles and sizes. The glass factory of that day consisted of only one small furnace run by a master glassman with the help of a slave or two. Certain of the glass makers specialized in the making of paste gems. Not only was the blue of lapis lazuli and the chestnut brown of sard duplicated in glass, but even the onyx, with its bands of light and dark, was expertly imitated.
Now it is quite usual for current books on gems to dismiss the pastes of the Roman glass maker as merely a practical method of providing colorful ring stones for those who could not afford the costly gems of the Orient. But it is well to hold in mind that in those days, and for centuries to follow, gems were largely judged on the basis of color only. To the man who was not an expert in differentiating between stones, a ruby, a garnet and a bit of ruby-colored glass might appear of equal value, and a rich red bit of glass might even seem more desirable than a pale ruby of uneven color. The glass maker of the first century A D was not above devoting his best efforts to the imitation of real stones with an eye to selling them at fabulous prices. Indeed, so prevalent was the custom of counterfeiting gems that Pliny cautioned buyers to beware of the treacherous practise.
By this time most of the precious and semi-precious stones known to us had been discovered and there is reason to believe the list now included the diamond. Greek writers of earlier days speak of the adamas (invincible) and some students point to this as proof that the diamond was known to the Greeks. However, they applied the term equally to hard metals and to emery (corundum) and there is nothing to indicate that any hard stone, such as the colorless sapphire (also corundum) did not have a better claim to the name adamas than did the diamond.
Pliny describes the adamas of his time as a stone found among the river sands of India. Some varieties, he says, resemble in shape two pyramids placed placed base to base. Since the octahedron is a form characteristic of certain diamond crystals, the river stones were probably true diamonds.
The manner of testing a genuine adamas was severe. According to Pliny the stone was placed on an anvil and hammered. If the blow broke the crystal it was proof that the gem was false; but if on the other hand, the crystal broke the anvil then it was a real adamas! Since even a diamond can be shattered into fragments by the moderate blow of a hammer, no precious stone could have survived the drastic test.
Jewelers Of Italy (continued)
3. Jewels Of The Roman Empire
Caesar was dead. Rome was on her way toward a different form of government, and with these changes came a change in ideology, affecting styles and customs. We find no record of just when the Roman dandy first risked the accusation of effeminacy and ventured to adorn his fingers with numbers of rings. We do not know whether the fashion developed slowly or whether it sprang up like wildfire overnight, for the solemn historian is prone to neglect such details. It took Pliny (who doubtless would be a most successful columnist were he living today) to give us the human-interest side of the news. Pliny, however, did not enter the scene until about the middle of the first century A.D., and by then the fashion of wearing an extravagant amount of jewelry had reached such proportions as to make exceedingly good copy for the lively pen of that gossipy old Roman. He gives us some colorful pictures. For instance, he reports on the simple betrothal ceremony of a Roman girl: ‘She was covered from head to foot with pearls and emeralds.’ And he compares at length the current fashion of wearing innumerable rings with the good old custom of confining rings to the fourth finger of one hand:
It was the custom at first to wear rings on a single finger only, the one namely that is next to the little finger, and thus we see the case in the statues of Numa and Servius Tullius. In later times it became the practice to put rings on the finger next to the thumb, even in the case of the statues of the gods; and, more recently again, it has become the fashion to wear them upon the little finger as well. Among the people of Gallia and Britannia, the middle finger, it is said, is used for this purpose. At the present day, however, among us, this is the only finger that is excepted, all others being loaded with rings, smaller rings even being separately adapted for the smaller joints of the finger. Some there are who heap several rings on the little finger alone.
Seneca, too, expressed himself on the extremes of fashion, declaring: ‘We adorn our fingers with rings, and a jewel is displayed on every joint.’
Orators were cautioned against overloading their hands with rings; and Pliny, disgusted by such display of vanity, declared that they piqued themselves upon a thing in which only musicians glory. Such a comparison carried a sharp sting, for in those days musicians were considered no better than jugglers and buffoons—in the lowest class of entertainers.
During all this period, glass-making in Rome was flourishing industry. Besides ornamental bowls, vases, jugs, and so on, the glassmaker turned out countless trinkets such as twisted glass bangles, finger rings, bracelets and beads—innumerable beads of all colors, styles and sizes. The glass factory of that day consisted of only one small furnace run by a master glassman with the help of a slave or two. Certain of the glass makers specialized in the making of paste gems. Not only was the blue of lapis lazuli and the chestnut brown of sard duplicated in glass, but even the onyx, with its bands of light and dark, was expertly imitated.
Now it is quite usual for current books on gems to dismiss the pastes of the Roman glass maker as merely a practical method of providing colorful ring stones for those who could not afford the costly gems of the Orient. But it is well to hold in mind that in those days, and for centuries to follow, gems were largely judged on the basis of color only. To the man who was not an expert in differentiating between stones, a ruby, a garnet and a bit of ruby-colored glass might appear of equal value, and a rich red bit of glass might even seem more desirable than a pale ruby of uneven color. The glass maker of the first century A D was not above devoting his best efforts to the imitation of real stones with an eye to selling them at fabulous prices. Indeed, so prevalent was the custom of counterfeiting gems that Pliny cautioned buyers to beware of the treacherous practise.
By this time most of the precious and semi-precious stones known to us had been discovered and there is reason to believe the list now included the diamond. Greek writers of earlier days speak of the adamas (invincible) and some students point to this as proof that the diamond was known to the Greeks. However, they applied the term equally to hard metals and to emery (corundum) and there is nothing to indicate that any hard stone, such as the colorless sapphire (also corundum) did not have a better claim to the name adamas than did the diamond.
Pliny describes the adamas of his time as a stone found among the river sands of India. Some varieties, he says, resemble in shape two pyramids placed placed base to base. Since the octahedron is a form characteristic of certain diamond crystals, the river stones were probably true diamonds.
The manner of testing a genuine adamas was severe. According to Pliny the stone was placed on an anvil and hammered. If the blow broke the crystal it was proof that the gem was false; but if on the other hand, the crystal broke the anvil then it was a real adamas! Since even a diamond can be shattered into fragments by the moderate blow of a hammer, no precious stone could have survived the drastic test.
Jewelers Of Italy (continued)
Table Cuts
(via Diamond Cuts in Historic Jewelry:1381-1910) Herbert Tillander writes:
The first consideration was always size. The cutters soon learned that they could retain display with one or more or even all of a diamond’s corners left blunt. The reason for these blunt corners was not, as some authors have claimed, that sharp corners were too fragile, but that they were part of a technique which left visible the largest possible area of diamond. For the same reason, cutters began to introduce small or narrow facets to take the place of damaged or missing corners, as long as this did not interfere with size. Table Cuts with rounded outlines were fashioned from naturally rounded crystals such as curved octahedrons and rhombic dodecahedrons. But at the same time cutters had to remember that excessive weight, and clumsy angles and height proportions, might seriously reduce the light effects, when a more appropriate cut might give brilliance and in some cases even fire. Such problems could be solved in the planning stage by ‘stepping’ either the crown or the pavilion or both, by raising the girdle in order to spread the cut, or by giving the diamond a fancy outline.
When eventually, by the beginning of the eighteenth century, all well-proportioned Tables had been recut into Brilliants, only those of poor quality remained on the market, and eventually the cut went completely out of fashion. A fresh supply, clumsily cut the sole purpose of retaining maximum weight, arrived from India. It is not surprising, therefore, that for a long time after the middle of the eighteenth century hardly anyone had ever seen a really beautiful Table Cut. A new term was introduced to describe these crude gems—the Indian Cut. However, the well-proportioned old Table Cut has been brought back, not exactly as it was but still beautiful. It is now known as the Square Cut (Carré) for small stones, and as the Emerald Cut for larger stones. These are always step cut, with modern height proportions.
Until the fourteenth century it was normal for at least pointed diamonds to be documented without any mention of shape or faceting. It is possible that the French expression plat (as opposed to pointe) is one of the earliest indications of the existence of Table Cuts. One also comes across the Latin phrase quadratus planus. Plat appears in the inventories of Queen Joan of France (1360), King John the Good of France (1364) and the Duke of Burgundy (1420), among a number of others. Diamonds are described as quarrez, but also as plat, en façon de mirouer and roont. Plat also refers to comparatively flat diamonds regardless of their outline or faceting. But from this time on, quarrez is also often used to indicate Table Cuts, with increasing frequency towards the end of the fifteenth century, and often combined with the word plat.
Table Cuts (continued)
The first consideration was always size. The cutters soon learned that they could retain display with one or more or even all of a diamond’s corners left blunt. The reason for these blunt corners was not, as some authors have claimed, that sharp corners were too fragile, but that they were part of a technique which left visible the largest possible area of diamond. For the same reason, cutters began to introduce small or narrow facets to take the place of damaged or missing corners, as long as this did not interfere with size. Table Cuts with rounded outlines were fashioned from naturally rounded crystals such as curved octahedrons and rhombic dodecahedrons. But at the same time cutters had to remember that excessive weight, and clumsy angles and height proportions, might seriously reduce the light effects, when a more appropriate cut might give brilliance and in some cases even fire. Such problems could be solved in the planning stage by ‘stepping’ either the crown or the pavilion or both, by raising the girdle in order to spread the cut, or by giving the diamond a fancy outline.
When eventually, by the beginning of the eighteenth century, all well-proportioned Tables had been recut into Brilliants, only those of poor quality remained on the market, and eventually the cut went completely out of fashion. A fresh supply, clumsily cut the sole purpose of retaining maximum weight, arrived from India. It is not surprising, therefore, that for a long time after the middle of the eighteenth century hardly anyone had ever seen a really beautiful Table Cut. A new term was introduced to describe these crude gems—the Indian Cut. However, the well-proportioned old Table Cut has been brought back, not exactly as it was but still beautiful. It is now known as the Square Cut (Carré) for small stones, and as the Emerald Cut for larger stones. These are always step cut, with modern height proportions.
Until the fourteenth century it was normal for at least pointed diamonds to be documented without any mention of shape or faceting. It is possible that the French expression plat (as opposed to pointe) is one of the earliest indications of the existence of Table Cuts. One also comes across the Latin phrase quadratus planus. Plat appears in the inventories of Queen Joan of France (1360), King John the Good of France (1364) and the Duke of Burgundy (1420), among a number of others. Diamonds are described as quarrez, but also as plat, en façon de mirouer and roont. Plat also refers to comparatively flat diamonds regardless of their outline or faceting. But from this time on, quarrez is also often used to indicate Table Cuts, with increasing frequency towards the end of the fifteenth century, and often combined with the word plat.
Table Cuts (continued)
The Rise Of French Painting
(via The Outline of Art) William Orpen writes:
4
Contemporary with Fragonard was a painter, who, though never the equal of Chardin as a craftsman, nevertheless approached him in the democratic temper of his art. Jean Baptiste Greuze (1725-1805), who was born near Macon and came to Paris in 1746, suddenly acquired fame and popularity when he was thirty by exhibiting at the Salon of 1755 his picture ‘A Father Explaining The Bible to his family.’ This familiar scene, with its everyday details and its personages taken from humble life, made an immediate appeal to the bourgeois, who found in it those new ideas of simplicity and morality which Jean Jacques Rousseau had spread among the middle classes. Lady Dilke, who evidently suspected the moral sincerity of Greuze, pronounced his pictures to be ‘stained by artificiality.’ His pictures were rendered attractive, she argued, by a ‘vein of wanton suggestion which found an echo in the dainty disorder in which his heroines are dressed.’
There are some strange parallels between the life of Greuze and that of Watteau, who died four years before his birth. Greuze’s father was also a carpenter, and he also opposed his son’s determination to become an artist. Greuze also began his career in extreme poverty, but fortunately he had a more robust constitution and withstood hardship better than Watteau. Greuze’s father whipped him when he caught him drawing, and Grueze also ran away to Paris with another painter, and he, too, when he got there found that nobody wanted to give him any employment. Both men were close on thirty before the turning point came, Watteau by his election to the Academy, and Grueze by the exhibition of his picture at the Salon. But there the parallel ends, and the close of Greuze’s life is more like that of Fragonard. For he also outlived his popularity and died in poverty.
It seems extraordinary that Grueze, the most popular of painters at all times, should have fared so badly at the end of his life. We cannot account for it by saying that Greuze could not accommodate himself to the change of taste brought about by the French Revolution, for throughout his career he was distinctly a bourgeois rather than an aristocratic painter. No, we must seek another explanation.
The miserable truth is that the seemingly sweet and innocent little person, who looks out at us continually from those pictures of girl’s heads which have brought the painter his greatest posthumous fame, was the cause of her immortaliser’s wretched end. To look at all the portraits of her which hang in the Wallace Collection, or at the one entitled ‘Girl Looking Up,’ which is in the National Gallery, is to find it difficult to believe that the original was an arrant little baggage. Yet some people, who profess to be judges of character, say that the Greuze girl is not so innocent as she pretends to be.
The historic truth is that she was the daughter of an old bookseller on the Quai des Augustins, Paris, and Greuze is said to have married her to save her reputation. He married Anne Gabriel in haste, and he repented at his leisure. Owing to her husband’s constant exposition of her charms, Madame Greuze became one of the noted beauties of the day, and though her husband was devoted to her and gave her crazily everything he could that she wanted, the ungrateful little hussy repaid him by robbing him not only of his peace of mind but of large sums of money that he had saved.
It is easy to be wise after the event, and Mr John Rivers in his book on Greuze and his Models maintains that every feature of Anne Gabriel ‘announced a hasty, passionate, and rather voluptuous nature’; nevertheless we are inclined, as human beings ourselves liable to error, to give our sympathy to Greuze and praise him for a generous and chivalrous action rather than to condemn him for having made an imprudent marriage. Though he painted other beautiful women, it is by his various fanciful portraits of his erring wife that Greuze has obtained his worldwide popularity, and there is hardly another instance in art of a painter who has achieved so great a fame by his exposition of the physical charms of a single model.
4
Contemporary with Fragonard was a painter, who, though never the equal of Chardin as a craftsman, nevertheless approached him in the democratic temper of his art. Jean Baptiste Greuze (1725-1805), who was born near Macon and came to Paris in 1746, suddenly acquired fame and popularity when he was thirty by exhibiting at the Salon of 1755 his picture ‘A Father Explaining The Bible to his family.’ This familiar scene, with its everyday details and its personages taken from humble life, made an immediate appeal to the bourgeois, who found in it those new ideas of simplicity and morality which Jean Jacques Rousseau had spread among the middle classes. Lady Dilke, who evidently suspected the moral sincerity of Greuze, pronounced his pictures to be ‘stained by artificiality.’ His pictures were rendered attractive, she argued, by a ‘vein of wanton suggestion which found an echo in the dainty disorder in which his heroines are dressed.’
There are some strange parallels between the life of Greuze and that of Watteau, who died four years before his birth. Greuze’s father was also a carpenter, and he also opposed his son’s determination to become an artist. Greuze also began his career in extreme poverty, but fortunately he had a more robust constitution and withstood hardship better than Watteau. Greuze’s father whipped him when he caught him drawing, and Grueze also ran away to Paris with another painter, and he, too, when he got there found that nobody wanted to give him any employment. Both men were close on thirty before the turning point came, Watteau by his election to the Academy, and Grueze by the exhibition of his picture at the Salon. But there the parallel ends, and the close of Greuze’s life is more like that of Fragonard. For he also outlived his popularity and died in poverty.
It seems extraordinary that Grueze, the most popular of painters at all times, should have fared so badly at the end of his life. We cannot account for it by saying that Greuze could not accommodate himself to the change of taste brought about by the French Revolution, for throughout his career he was distinctly a bourgeois rather than an aristocratic painter. No, we must seek another explanation.
The miserable truth is that the seemingly sweet and innocent little person, who looks out at us continually from those pictures of girl’s heads which have brought the painter his greatest posthumous fame, was the cause of her immortaliser’s wretched end. To look at all the portraits of her which hang in the Wallace Collection, or at the one entitled ‘Girl Looking Up,’ which is in the National Gallery, is to find it difficult to believe that the original was an arrant little baggage. Yet some people, who profess to be judges of character, say that the Greuze girl is not so innocent as she pretends to be.
The historic truth is that she was the daughter of an old bookseller on the Quai des Augustins, Paris, and Greuze is said to have married her to save her reputation. He married Anne Gabriel in haste, and he repented at his leisure. Owing to her husband’s constant exposition of her charms, Madame Greuze became one of the noted beauties of the day, and though her husband was devoted to her and gave her crazily everything he could that she wanted, the ungrateful little hussy repaid him by robbing him not only of his peace of mind but of large sums of money that he had saved.
It is easy to be wise after the event, and Mr John Rivers in his book on Greuze and his Models maintains that every feature of Anne Gabriel ‘announced a hasty, passionate, and rather voluptuous nature’; nevertheless we are inclined, as human beings ourselves liable to error, to give our sympathy to Greuze and praise him for a generous and chivalrous action rather than to condemn him for having made an imprudent marriage. Though he painted other beautiful women, it is by his various fanciful portraits of his erring wife that Greuze has obtained his worldwide popularity, and there is hardly another instance in art of a painter who has achieved so great a fame by his exposition of the physical charms of a single model.
Saturday, January 19, 2008
Olafur Eliasson
Olafur Eliasson will be erecting four giant waterfalls in New York for three months this summer in a public art project funded by New York's Public Art Fund (estimated cost: US$15 million) + the concept is about seeing water in a different way, which will range in height from 90 to 120 feet -- around the same as the Statue of Liberty from head to toe + the New York City officials are hoping to emulate the success of Christo and Jeanne-Claude's project, 'The Gates,' which drew around 1.5 million visitors to the city in February 2005 to view about 7,500 saffron panels draped through Central Park + the idea could bring an additional $55 million to the city's economy.
Useful link:
www.olafureliasson.net
I liked the idea + the concept is powered by renewable energy sources + the falls will be lit only by low-level lighting at night.
Useful link:
www.olafureliasson.net
I liked the idea + the concept is powered by renewable energy sources + the falls will be lit only by low-level lighting at night.
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