Thursday, February 07, 2008
Walter Schloss
I found the article on Walter Schloss via Forbes @ http://www.forbes.com/forbes/2008/0211/048.html very interesting + educational + insightful + as Warren Buffet put it rightly, Walter Schloss is a flesh-and-blood refutation of the Efficient Market Theory.
Colored Stone Update
With all the problems associated with Burmese ruby + the possible ban (questionable), Stuller's announcement that they have found a reliable source for rubies (Madagascar) is encouraging + they claim they have the right product (thousands of rubies, 4 kilos of 1.25 mm to 4 mm rounds, possibly larger, along with 4-by-3, 5-by-3, 5-by-4, and 6-by-4 ovals), eye clean, moderately included pinkish, purplish pink, medium to dark red to eye clean and bright red + they say they can guarantee the unheated/totally free of enhancements or treatments (a reference to the proliferation of glass-filled Madagascar ruby) status (not easy) of gemstones.
Useful link:
www.stuller.com
Useful link:
www.stuller.com
Ed Ruscha
Edward Ruscha is an American painter + printmaker + photographer + filmmaker + he achieved recognition for paintings incorporating words and phrases and for his many photographic books, all influenced by the deadpan irreverence of the Pop Art movement + he uses odd mediums (gunpowder, blood, fruit and vegetable juices, axle grease, and grass stains) to draw, print, and paint to create a unique work of art.
Useful links:
www.edruscha.com
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Ruscha
http://arts.guardian.co.uk/art/visualart/story/0,,2253156,00.html
Useful links:
www.edruscha.com
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Ruscha
http://arts.guardian.co.uk/art/visualart/story/0,,2253156,00.html
All the Web’s A Stage
Rachel Wolff writes about the new modified performance art, an online world populated by computer-generated beings called 'avatars' via Second Life, a network-based virtual world where anyone with a little tech savvy can download a program and create an 'avatar' whose interactions with other 'avatars' have much of the excitement, discomfort, and unpredictability of real-world encounters + the impact + other viewpoints @ http://www.artnewsonline.com/issues/article.asp?art_id=2443
Jewelers Of Renaissance
(via 5000 Years of Gems and Jewelry) Frances Rogers and Alice Beard writes:
3. Jewels For Royalty
When Cellini was at the height of his skill, he was sent for by Francis I, who gave him quarters in Paris. The splendor-loving King of France and his court delighted in extravagant display of jewelry, and Rabelais tells of magnificent bejeweled necklaces, brooches, girdle ornaments, pendants, and precious stones worn in profusion by wealthy Parisians. However, it was not to the French court but to the court of England that one must turn to find the most lavish display of personal jewelry; and although the French set the fashions it was the King of England, Henry VIII, who had the greatest purchasing power.
Henry’s fingers were always loaded with rings—he had no less than 234, and 324 brooches, when he died. His necklets were studded with diamonds and pearls, and his gold collars were hung with rich pendants. One collar and pendant worn by the King has been described by an observer as being set with a ‘rough cut diamond the size of the largest walnut I ever saw.’ And as if that were not impressive enough, Henry also wore a second gold collar over his mantle ‘with a pendent St George, entirely of diamonds.’
Accounts of pageants and court entertainments are filled with references to precious stones sewed to the garments of noblemen, who decked themselves immoderately in an extravagant desire to outshine one another.
Henry of England made great pretense of friendship for Francis I, especially when he staged the royal picnic known as the Field of the Cloth of Gold, were guests were so bedizened with jewels that, says Du Bellay, ‘they carried the price of woodland, watermill and pasture on their backs.’
In the robust time of Bluff King Hal the wearing of jewels was not considered effeminate. The male of the species was perhaps more resplendent than the female. From head to toe he glittered with all the gems he could get.
When the modern society page reports a wedding the bride’s costume is usually described at length. No one ever thinks of what the groom wears—but not so in days of yore. When Henry VIII went forth to meet his bride (number three) Anne of Cleves his costume was well worth reporting:
He wore a coat of purple velvet curiously embroidered with gold and lace. The sleeves were cut and lined with gold and clasped with great buttons of diamonds, rubies and Oriental pearls; his sword and girdle set with stones and special emeralds; his cap garnished with stones, but his bonnet was so rich of jewels that few men could value them. Besides all this he wore a colar of such Balais rubies and pearls that few men ever saw the like.
At this point the breathless reporter seems to have become speechles for lack of adjectives. He does not tell of Henry’s nether garments and his shoes, which doubtless shared in glory of gold and gems with the rest of his costume.
Henry was wont to patronize the jewelers of France and Italy, but for a number of years much of his finest jewelry was made from the designs of Hans Holbein, famous Germain painter. The majority of these drawings, belonging to the British Museum, are in pen and ink. Occasionally, however, Holbein added gold and even color to indicate decoration in enamel and precious stones.
If Holbein himself executed the jewelry there is no record of the fact. It is supposed that a goldsmith known as Hans of Antwerp made the jewels after Holbein’s designs. It was not unusual, by the sixteenth century, for one man to design and another to execute a jewel.
Cellini, who, with his own wealth of inventive ability needed no one else to set the pace for him, grumbled over the growing custom.
The draughtsmen who had been employed (by the Pope) were not in the jeweler’s trade and therefore knew nothing about giving their right place to precious stones, and the jewelers on their side had not shown them how; for I ought to say that a jeweler, when he has work with figures must of necessity understand design else he cannot produce anything worth looking at; and so it turned out that all of them had stuck that famous diamond in the middle of the breast of God the Father.
One must sympathize with Cellini’s point of view, yet even the most highly skilled craftsmen may be lacking in creative imagination, therefore it was no longer unusual for a goldsmith to buy models carved in stone or wood, or designs drawn on paper. These he would develop in gold and gemstones. He could even buy a whole pattern-book filled with miscellaneous designs for any sort of jewelry, including an odd and very fashionable gadget in the form of a whistle terminating in a case that held an earpick and a manicure knife.
The practice of using patterns designed by draughtsmen, instead of by the goldsmiths themselves, was followed also in France and Germany; and designs for jewelry were made by the leading artists of the day, Albert Dϋrer, the great German artist, among others. He was no stranger to the jeweler’s craft, for his father was a goldsmith and young Dϋrer had been trained to the trade.
Now of couse all this concentration of art, skill, and fashion turned full force on the making of jewelry produced an enormous amount of it, and necessarily the jeweler must find a market for his wares.
Henry VIII and his court provided the ideal customers, rich, splendor-loving and not too well informed concerning gemstones. England became a focus for foreign gem dealers, some of whom were not above suspicion. Cellini, with unholy glee, one gathers, tells of a merchant who sold the too-trusting Henry jewels of green glass in place of emeralds.
There came a time, however, when Henry grew ‘disinclined to buy, for,’ reports an unsuccessful salesman, ‘he has told me he has no more money, and it has cost him a great deal to make war.’
Nevertheless, shortly before his death the King, evidently unable to resist so powerful a temptation, did purchase a certain gorgeous pendant known as The Brethren.
This pendant differed from the usual type of Renaissance jewel in that its design was austerely simple, relying for beauty on the magnificence of the gemstones rather than on elaboration of setting. The central diamond was a deep pyramid, five-eighths of an inch square at the base; four big pearls adn three rich red spinels, called The Three Brethren, surrounded it.
Even before reaching the hands of Henry this jewel had become famous and gathered unto itself one of those colorful legends, part fact, part fancy, which must always be qualified by the phrase ‘tradition says.’
Tradition, in this case, says that the large diamond in the pendant was one of the earliest to be cut by De Berquem. The pendant was made by order of Charles the Bold, who, as may be inferred from such a title, specialized in military valor. He was almost continually going to war, and according to the custom of the day, he carried his most treasured jewels along with him onto the battle field. Possibly one’s precious stones were insufficiently guarded at home, but more likely it was considered well to have them at hand because of their power as amulets to insure victory and preserve life. For some years the magic of the valuable pendant seemed to work, but in 1475 it broke down. Charles, last Duke of Burgundy, met with defeat past the power of any gem to ward off, and all his treasure—including the pendant—fell into the hands of the victors. After playing a part in so many glorious conquests, The Brethren had rather a dull time of it, merely passing from one purchaser to another until once again the jewel rose to fame by becoming the property of the Magnificent Henry.
Jewelers Of Renaissance (continued)
3. Jewels For Royalty
When Cellini was at the height of his skill, he was sent for by Francis I, who gave him quarters in Paris. The splendor-loving King of France and his court delighted in extravagant display of jewelry, and Rabelais tells of magnificent bejeweled necklaces, brooches, girdle ornaments, pendants, and precious stones worn in profusion by wealthy Parisians. However, it was not to the French court but to the court of England that one must turn to find the most lavish display of personal jewelry; and although the French set the fashions it was the King of England, Henry VIII, who had the greatest purchasing power.
Henry’s fingers were always loaded with rings—he had no less than 234, and 324 brooches, when he died. His necklets were studded with diamonds and pearls, and his gold collars were hung with rich pendants. One collar and pendant worn by the King has been described by an observer as being set with a ‘rough cut diamond the size of the largest walnut I ever saw.’ And as if that were not impressive enough, Henry also wore a second gold collar over his mantle ‘with a pendent St George, entirely of diamonds.’
Accounts of pageants and court entertainments are filled with references to precious stones sewed to the garments of noblemen, who decked themselves immoderately in an extravagant desire to outshine one another.
Henry of England made great pretense of friendship for Francis I, especially when he staged the royal picnic known as the Field of the Cloth of Gold, were guests were so bedizened with jewels that, says Du Bellay, ‘they carried the price of woodland, watermill and pasture on their backs.’
In the robust time of Bluff King Hal the wearing of jewels was not considered effeminate. The male of the species was perhaps more resplendent than the female. From head to toe he glittered with all the gems he could get.
When the modern society page reports a wedding the bride’s costume is usually described at length. No one ever thinks of what the groom wears—but not so in days of yore. When Henry VIII went forth to meet his bride (number three) Anne of Cleves his costume was well worth reporting:
He wore a coat of purple velvet curiously embroidered with gold and lace. The sleeves were cut and lined with gold and clasped with great buttons of diamonds, rubies and Oriental pearls; his sword and girdle set with stones and special emeralds; his cap garnished with stones, but his bonnet was so rich of jewels that few men could value them. Besides all this he wore a colar of such Balais rubies and pearls that few men ever saw the like.
At this point the breathless reporter seems to have become speechles for lack of adjectives. He does not tell of Henry’s nether garments and his shoes, which doubtless shared in glory of gold and gems with the rest of his costume.
Henry was wont to patronize the jewelers of France and Italy, but for a number of years much of his finest jewelry was made from the designs of Hans Holbein, famous Germain painter. The majority of these drawings, belonging to the British Museum, are in pen and ink. Occasionally, however, Holbein added gold and even color to indicate decoration in enamel and precious stones.
If Holbein himself executed the jewelry there is no record of the fact. It is supposed that a goldsmith known as Hans of Antwerp made the jewels after Holbein’s designs. It was not unusual, by the sixteenth century, for one man to design and another to execute a jewel.
Cellini, who, with his own wealth of inventive ability needed no one else to set the pace for him, grumbled over the growing custom.
The draughtsmen who had been employed (by the Pope) were not in the jeweler’s trade and therefore knew nothing about giving their right place to precious stones, and the jewelers on their side had not shown them how; for I ought to say that a jeweler, when he has work with figures must of necessity understand design else he cannot produce anything worth looking at; and so it turned out that all of them had stuck that famous diamond in the middle of the breast of God the Father.
One must sympathize with Cellini’s point of view, yet even the most highly skilled craftsmen may be lacking in creative imagination, therefore it was no longer unusual for a goldsmith to buy models carved in stone or wood, or designs drawn on paper. These he would develop in gold and gemstones. He could even buy a whole pattern-book filled with miscellaneous designs for any sort of jewelry, including an odd and very fashionable gadget in the form of a whistle terminating in a case that held an earpick and a manicure knife.
The practice of using patterns designed by draughtsmen, instead of by the goldsmiths themselves, was followed also in France and Germany; and designs for jewelry were made by the leading artists of the day, Albert Dϋrer, the great German artist, among others. He was no stranger to the jeweler’s craft, for his father was a goldsmith and young Dϋrer had been trained to the trade.
Now of couse all this concentration of art, skill, and fashion turned full force on the making of jewelry produced an enormous amount of it, and necessarily the jeweler must find a market for his wares.
Henry VIII and his court provided the ideal customers, rich, splendor-loving and not too well informed concerning gemstones. England became a focus for foreign gem dealers, some of whom were not above suspicion. Cellini, with unholy glee, one gathers, tells of a merchant who sold the too-trusting Henry jewels of green glass in place of emeralds.
There came a time, however, when Henry grew ‘disinclined to buy, for,’ reports an unsuccessful salesman, ‘he has told me he has no more money, and it has cost him a great deal to make war.’
Nevertheless, shortly before his death the King, evidently unable to resist so powerful a temptation, did purchase a certain gorgeous pendant known as The Brethren.
This pendant differed from the usual type of Renaissance jewel in that its design was austerely simple, relying for beauty on the magnificence of the gemstones rather than on elaboration of setting. The central diamond was a deep pyramid, five-eighths of an inch square at the base; four big pearls adn three rich red spinels, called The Three Brethren, surrounded it.
Even before reaching the hands of Henry this jewel had become famous and gathered unto itself one of those colorful legends, part fact, part fancy, which must always be qualified by the phrase ‘tradition says.’
Tradition, in this case, says that the large diamond in the pendant was one of the earliest to be cut by De Berquem. The pendant was made by order of Charles the Bold, who, as may be inferred from such a title, specialized in military valor. He was almost continually going to war, and according to the custom of the day, he carried his most treasured jewels along with him onto the battle field. Possibly one’s precious stones were insufficiently guarded at home, but more likely it was considered well to have them at hand because of their power as amulets to insure victory and preserve life. For some years the magic of the valuable pendant seemed to work, but in 1475 it broke down. Charles, last Duke of Burgundy, met with defeat past the power of any gem to ward off, and all his treasure—including the pendant—fell into the hands of the victors. After playing a part in so many glorious conquests, The Brethren had rather a dull time of it, merely passing from one purchaser to another until once again the jewel rose to fame by becoming the property of the Magnificent Henry.
Jewelers Of Renaissance (continued)
The French Revolution And Its Influence On Art
(via The Outline of Art) William Orpen writes:
When Charles IV came to the throne Goya became still more firmly established in Court favor, though he produced the most impudent portraits of royalty that have ever been painted. Nowhere can we find a more pitiless exposure of serene stupidity than his ‘Charles IV on Horeseback’. ‘He sits there, asthmatic and fat, upon his fat asthmatic horse.....like a Moloch,’ says Dr Muther, ‘an evil god who has battened upon the life blood of his people.’ When he painted the Queen Maria Louisa, Goya portrayed her as the brazen old courtesan she was; he shows up the Crown Prince as a sly, spiteful, hypocritical meddler, and the favorite minister Godoy as a nincompoop and a panderer. When the French novelist Gautier first saw Goya’s large portrait group of the Spanish Royal Family and its favorites, his comment was, ‘A grocer’s family who have won the big lottery prize’; and that is exactly the impression the picture gives us, a collection of stupid, ill-bred people who owe their fine clothes and position to no talent or merit of their own but to sheer luck. It is amazing that this daring satirist of royalty should have gone unpunished and unreproved, but the King and his family circle were themselves too stupid to realize that the artist was holding them all up to the ridicule of the world.
As, while outwardly a courtier, he insidiously undermined the pretences of the Spanish monarchy, so while appearing to respect the observances of Catholicism, Goya surreptitiously attacked the Church which was blinding the eyes of the people. In 1797 he began to produce a series of engravings which, under the title of ‘Caprices,’ pretended to be nothing more than flights of fancy, but which were in reality biting satires on the social, political, ecclesiastical conditions of his age. He drew devout women with rolling eyes worshipping a scarecrow, priests drawling out the Litany with obvious indifference, and in one fantastic plate—which he had the audacity to dedicate to the King!—he showed a corpse rising from the grave and writing with his dead finger the word Nada, i.e ‘Nothingness.’ It was tantamount to saying that the hope of immortality held out to the people was only a murmuring, while kings and priests grew fat at their expense. If the Court and high ecclesiastics were too stupid to comprehend Goya’s message, the people understood, for the revolutionary era was at hand.
The French Revolution And Its Influence On Art (continued)
When Charles IV came to the throne Goya became still more firmly established in Court favor, though he produced the most impudent portraits of royalty that have ever been painted. Nowhere can we find a more pitiless exposure of serene stupidity than his ‘Charles IV on Horeseback’. ‘He sits there, asthmatic and fat, upon his fat asthmatic horse.....like a Moloch,’ says Dr Muther, ‘an evil god who has battened upon the life blood of his people.’ When he painted the Queen Maria Louisa, Goya portrayed her as the brazen old courtesan she was; he shows up the Crown Prince as a sly, spiteful, hypocritical meddler, and the favorite minister Godoy as a nincompoop and a panderer. When the French novelist Gautier first saw Goya’s large portrait group of the Spanish Royal Family and its favorites, his comment was, ‘A grocer’s family who have won the big lottery prize’; and that is exactly the impression the picture gives us, a collection of stupid, ill-bred people who owe their fine clothes and position to no talent or merit of their own but to sheer luck. It is amazing that this daring satirist of royalty should have gone unpunished and unreproved, but the King and his family circle were themselves too stupid to realize that the artist was holding them all up to the ridicule of the world.
As, while outwardly a courtier, he insidiously undermined the pretences of the Spanish monarchy, so while appearing to respect the observances of Catholicism, Goya surreptitiously attacked the Church which was blinding the eyes of the people. In 1797 he began to produce a series of engravings which, under the title of ‘Caprices,’ pretended to be nothing more than flights of fancy, but which were in reality biting satires on the social, political, ecclesiastical conditions of his age. He drew devout women with rolling eyes worshipping a scarecrow, priests drawling out the Litany with obvious indifference, and in one fantastic plate—which he had the audacity to dedicate to the King!—he showed a corpse rising from the grave and writing with his dead finger the word Nada, i.e ‘Nothingness.’ It was tantamount to saying that the hope of immortality held out to the people was only a murmuring, while kings and priests grew fat at their expense. If the Court and high ecclesiastics were too stupid to comprehend Goya’s message, the people understood, for the revolutionary era was at hand.
The French Revolution And Its Influence On Art (continued)
Medieval Ivories
(via iht) @ COURTAULD INSTITUTE OF ART -- To March 9: 'Medieval Ivories From the Thomson Collection.' The Art Gallery of Ontario, in Toronto, is being rebuilt under the aegis of the American architect Frank Gehry + it will house the full collection of medieval ivories from which 45 items have been selected for the exhibition + they include statuettes, folding diptychs, boxes and various instruments, both religious and secular, that attest to the skill of carvers of ivory, a hard and resistant material. (The sale of ivory is protected by strict legislation but not banned, contrary to conventional wisdom)
Useful link:
www.courtauld.ac.uk
Useful link:
www.courtauld.ac.uk
Wednesday, February 06, 2008
Quebec 2008
A joint conference organized by the Geological Association of Canada + Mineralogical Association of Canada + Society of Economic Geologists + the Society for Geology Applied to Mineral Deposits will be held in May 26-28, 2008, a unique geological/gemological/historical experience + it will include special sessions on Diamonds: From Mantle to Jewelry by Serge Perreault/James Moorhead + Rough Diamond Handling by Alain Bernard + other interesting events.
Useful link:
http://quebec2008.net
Useful link:
http://quebec2008.net
Seeking Wisdom: From Darwin To Munger
Seeking Wisdom: From Darwin To Munger by Peter Bevelin is a wonderful book on wisdom and decision-making written by a wise decision-maker + it was written by a practitioner who knows what he wants + I think the book would be an excellent gift for someone considering starting an own business.
Here is what the description of Seeking Wisdom: From Darwin To Munger says (via Amazon):
Peter Bevelin begins his fascinating book with Confucius' great wisdom: "A man who has committed a mistake and doesn't correct it, is committing another mistake." Seeking Wisdom is the result of Bevelin's learning about attaining wisdom. His quest for wisdom originated partly from making mistakes himself and observing those of others but also from the philosophy of super-investor and Berkshire Hathaway Vice Chairman Charles Munger. A man whose simplicity and clarity of thought was unequal to anything Bevelin had seen. In addition to naturalist Charles Darwin and Munger, Bevelin cites an encyclopedic range of thinkers: from first-century BCE Roman poet Publius Terentius to Mark Twainfrom Albert Einstein to Richard Feynmanfrom 16th Century French essayist Michel de Montaigne to Berkshire Hathaway Chairman Warren Buffett. In the book, he describes ideas and research findings from many different fields. This book is for those who love the constant search for knowledge. It is in the spirit of Charles Munger, who says, "All I want to know is where I'm going to die so I'll never go there." There are roads that lead to unhappiness. An understanding of how and why we can "die" should help us avoid them. We can't eliminate mistakes, but we can prevent those that can really hurt us. Using exemplars of clear thinking and attained wisdom, Bevelin focuses on how our thoughts are influenced, why we make misjudgments and tools to improve our thinking. Bevelin tackles such eternal questions as: Why do we behave like we do? What do we want out of life? What interferes with our goals? Read and study this wonderful multidisciplinary exploration of wisdom. It may change the way you think and act in business and in life.
Here is what the description of Seeking Wisdom: From Darwin To Munger says (via Amazon):
Peter Bevelin begins his fascinating book with Confucius' great wisdom: "A man who has committed a mistake and doesn't correct it, is committing another mistake." Seeking Wisdom is the result of Bevelin's learning about attaining wisdom. His quest for wisdom originated partly from making mistakes himself and observing those of others but also from the philosophy of super-investor and Berkshire Hathaway Vice Chairman Charles Munger. A man whose simplicity and clarity of thought was unequal to anything Bevelin had seen. In addition to naturalist Charles Darwin and Munger, Bevelin cites an encyclopedic range of thinkers: from first-century BCE Roman poet Publius Terentius to Mark Twainfrom Albert Einstein to Richard Feynmanfrom 16th Century French essayist Michel de Montaigne to Berkshire Hathaway Chairman Warren Buffett. In the book, he describes ideas and research findings from many different fields. This book is for those who love the constant search for knowledge. It is in the spirit of Charles Munger, who says, "All I want to know is where I'm going to die so I'll never go there." There are roads that lead to unhappiness. An understanding of how and why we can "die" should help us avoid them. We can't eliminate mistakes, but we can prevent those that can really hurt us. Using exemplars of clear thinking and attained wisdom, Bevelin focuses on how our thoughts are influenced, why we make misjudgments and tools to improve our thinking. Bevelin tackles such eternal questions as: Why do we behave like we do? What do we want out of life? What interferes with our goals? Read and study this wonderful multidisciplinary exploration of wisdom. It may change the way you think and act in business and in life.
The Mysterious Journey Of An Erotic Masterpiece
Konstantin Akinsha writes about Femme nue couchée, one of several Courbets owned by the Hungarian Jewish collector Baron Ferenc Hatvany + The Gustave Courbet show at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York on the 27th of this month, the largest retrospective devoted to the artist in 30 years + other viewpoints @ http://www.artnewsonline.com/issues/article.asp?art_id=2442
Jewelers Of Renaissance
(via 5000 Years of Gems and Jewelry) Frances Rogers and Alice Beard writes:
But even though the jewels made by his hands may be missing or unidentified, Cellini gives us up-to-the-minute jewelry news of the sixteenth century such as would undoubtedly find a place in our own daily papers if it were current today. Always a student of the antique, Cellini was much interested in the fine examples of Etruscan and Grecian gems which were constantly being unearthed. It must be admitted that his interest was twofold; there were artistic values but also financial values in jewels. He tells of dealing with certain traders who had been buying up old gems:
The peasants, while digging in the ground, frequently turned up antique medals, agates, chrysoprases, carnelians and cameos; also such fine jewels as, for instance, emeralds, sapphires, diamonds, and rubies. The peasants used to sell things of this sort to the traders for a mere trifle, and I very often, when I met them, paid the latter several times as many golden crowns as they had given giulios for some object. Independently of the profit I made by this traffic, which was at least tenfold, it brought me also into agreeable relations with nearly all the cardinals of Rome.
He continues with a description of some of the finer ‘of these curiosities.’ There was an engraved emerald, ‘big as a good-sized ballot-bean’ and ‘of such good color, that the man who bought if from me for tens of crowns sold it again for hundreds after setting it as a finger ring.’
The versatile Cellini could turn his hand to almost any branch of metal work and jewelry making. He explains his method of designing and executing a jewel, boasts of the customer who, after looking at Cellini’s drawings, asked if he were a sculptor or a painter, to which the artist replied that he was a goldsmith. After this particular design was approved by the customer, Cellini made, as usual, a little model of wax in order to show how the jewel would appear when completed. This is of interest today because sixteenth century methods of designing jewels still survive. Should you commission one of the finer jewelry houses of New York, such as Cartier’s, to make for you a special necklace, before the jewel was executed in final form you would, like Cellini’s customer, be able to judge the effect, first from a detailed drawing and then from a little model of wax in which real gemstones were mounted.
Cellini also tells of the beautiful jewelry destroyed during the war of 1527. When the troops of Francis I marched upon Rome, Pope Clement sent for Cellini. The magnificent tiaras and great collection of jewels of the Apostolic Camera were spread before the goldsmith, who was directed to remove all the gemstones from their gold settings. Each stone was then carefully wrapped up and sewed into the lining of the clothes worn by the Pope and his attendant. The elaborate mountings were given to Cellini with orders to melt them down. The gold, Cellini remarked, weighed about two hundred pounds.
At a somewhat later period the Pope sent these same precious stones to Cellini and commissioned him to design and make new settings for them—all the stones, that is, ‘except the diamond, which had been pawned to certain Genoese bankers’ when the Pope had a pressing need of money.
Now and again, Cellini comments on the lack of brilliancy in the diamonds he is called upon to set. One large stone, he said, ‘had been cut with a point, but since it did not yield the purity of luster which one expects in such a diamond, its owner had cropped the point, and in truth it was not exactly fit for either point or table cutting.’
Jewelers Of Renaissance (continued)
But even though the jewels made by his hands may be missing or unidentified, Cellini gives us up-to-the-minute jewelry news of the sixteenth century such as would undoubtedly find a place in our own daily papers if it were current today. Always a student of the antique, Cellini was much interested in the fine examples of Etruscan and Grecian gems which were constantly being unearthed. It must be admitted that his interest was twofold; there were artistic values but also financial values in jewels. He tells of dealing with certain traders who had been buying up old gems:
The peasants, while digging in the ground, frequently turned up antique medals, agates, chrysoprases, carnelians and cameos; also such fine jewels as, for instance, emeralds, sapphires, diamonds, and rubies. The peasants used to sell things of this sort to the traders for a mere trifle, and I very often, when I met them, paid the latter several times as many golden crowns as they had given giulios for some object. Independently of the profit I made by this traffic, which was at least tenfold, it brought me also into agreeable relations with nearly all the cardinals of Rome.
He continues with a description of some of the finer ‘of these curiosities.’ There was an engraved emerald, ‘big as a good-sized ballot-bean’ and ‘of such good color, that the man who bought if from me for tens of crowns sold it again for hundreds after setting it as a finger ring.’
The versatile Cellini could turn his hand to almost any branch of metal work and jewelry making. He explains his method of designing and executing a jewel, boasts of the customer who, after looking at Cellini’s drawings, asked if he were a sculptor or a painter, to which the artist replied that he was a goldsmith. After this particular design was approved by the customer, Cellini made, as usual, a little model of wax in order to show how the jewel would appear when completed. This is of interest today because sixteenth century methods of designing jewels still survive. Should you commission one of the finer jewelry houses of New York, such as Cartier’s, to make for you a special necklace, before the jewel was executed in final form you would, like Cellini’s customer, be able to judge the effect, first from a detailed drawing and then from a little model of wax in which real gemstones were mounted.
Cellini also tells of the beautiful jewelry destroyed during the war of 1527. When the troops of Francis I marched upon Rome, Pope Clement sent for Cellini. The magnificent tiaras and great collection of jewels of the Apostolic Camera were spread before the goldsmith, who was directed to remove all the gemstones from their gold settings. Each stone was then carefully wrapped up and sewed into the lining of the clothes worn by the Pope and his attendant. The elaborate mountings were given to Cellini with orders to melt them down. The gold, Cellini remarked, weighed about two hundred pounds.
At a somewhat later period the Pope sent these same precious stones to Cellini and commissioned him to design and make new settings for them—all the stones, that is, ‘except the diamond, which had been pawned to certain Genoese bankers’ when the Pope had a pressing need of money.
Now and again, Cellini comments on the lack of brilliancy in the diamonds he is called upon to set. One large stone, he said, ‘had been cut with a point, but since it did not yield the purity of luster which one expects in such a diamond, its owner had cropped the point, and in truth it was not exactly fit for either point or table cutting.’
Jewelers Of Renaissance (continued)
The French Revolution And Its Influence On Art
(via The Outline of Art) William Orpen writes:
4
The life-story of Goya is as full of storm and stress as that of his unhappy country, which between 1788 and 1815 saw more misery and more changes of government than any other country in battle-scarred Europe. Under the rule of Charles IV and his depraved consort, Queen Maria Louisa, Spain was in a miseable condition; its Court was a frivolous, shallow imitation of Versailles, and its monarchy and government were even more rotten and more corrupt than those of France under Louis XVI. A young lieutenant of the Guards, Manuel Godoy, was made Prime Minister because he was the Queen’s favorite lover, and the King was a puppet in the hands of this Spanish Messalina. Public offices were openly sold to the highest bidder, and eighteen thousand priests drained the purse of the people and stifled their intellects. Art seemd dead and past the hope of revival till Goya came to Madrid.
Francisco José de Goya Lucientes was born on March 30, 1746, that is to say, twelve years after Romney, and ten years before Raeburn. He was the son of a peasant in a village in Aragon, and legend relates that, like Giotto, he was found drawing sheep by an amateur who recognized the boy’s talent and sent him in his fourteenth year as pupil to a painter in Saragossa. There the boy grew up strong, handsome, wild, and passionate, continually involved in love affairs and quarrels. In one of the last, three men were left wounded and bleeding, and as a result of this midnight affray Goya had to leave the city hurriedly.
In 1766 he was in Madrid, and there his adventurous disposition soon got him into trouble. He was wounded in some love quarrel, placed under police supervision, and chafing at this restraint he escaped from the city with a band of bull-fighters and sailed to Italy. At the end of the sixties he was in Rome, where he appears to have been much more interested in the teeming life of the people than in antiquities of the city. Here again his amorousness got him into trouble, for it is said that one night he made his way into a nunnery, was nearly captured, and only escaped the gallows by a headlong flight from the city.
In 1771 he returned to Saragosa and found shelter in a monastery, where he seems to have reformed his manner of living, for four years later this scapegrace adventurer, the hero of a hundred fights, reappeared in Madrid as a respectable citizen, married to the sister of Bayen, a painter of good standing. Through his brother-in-law he got to know people of a better class, and he was finally introduced to the Court and permitted to paint the portrait of Charles III.
Goya’s pictures of this period reflect the manners of the Spanish Court, for pictures like ‘The Swing’ and ‘Blind Man’s Buff’ at Madrid are obviously imitations of Watteau and his school, as the Spanish Court imitated the artificiality of Versailles, only Goya, a cynic from his youth, does not give his figures the daintness of the Frenchmen.
With almost brutal realism he depicts the rouge on the women’s checks and the pencilling of their eyebrows, and seems to take a delight in unmasking their falseness and dissipation. While he was intelligent enough to perceive the rottenness of Spanish society, Goya was no moralist himself and lived the life of his time. Countless stories are told of his relations with women of high society, and Goya is said to have been the terror of all their husbands. In this connection one inevitably thinks of his famous double picture at Madrid, ‘The Maja Nude’ and ‘The Maja Clothed,’ the latter being an almost exact reproduction of the former with the garmets added, and these are so filmy, so expressive of the limbs underneath, that the second picture has justly been said to reveal a woman ‘naked in spite of her dress.’ The story runs that the lady was the Duchess of Alva, and that when the Duke desired to see Goya’s work, the painter hurriedly produced the clothed portrait and concealed the other.
The French Revolution And Its Influence On Art (continued)
4
The life-story of Goya is as full of storm and stress as that of his unhappy country, which between 1788 and 1815 saw more misery and more changes of government than any other country in battle-scarred Europe. Under the rule of Charles IV and his depraved consort, Queen Maria Louisa, Spain was in a miseable condition; its Court was a frivolous, shallow imitation of Versailles, and its monarchy and government were even more rotten and more corrupt than those of France under Louis XVI. A young lieutenant of the Guards, Manuel Godoy, was made Prime Minister because he was the Queen’s favorite lover, and the King was a puppet in the hands of this Spanish Messalina. Public offices were openly sold to the highest bidder, and eighteen thousand priests drained the purse of the people and stifled their intellects. Art seemd dead and past the hope of revival till Goya came to Madrid.
Francisco José de Goya Lucientes was born on March 30, 1746, that is to say, twelve years after Romney, and ten years before Raeburn. He was the son of a peasant in a village in Aragon, and legend relates that, like Giotto, he was found drawing sheep by an amateur who recognized the boy’s talent and sent him in his fourteenth year as pupil to a painter in Saragossa. There the boy grew up strong, handsome, wild, and passionate, continually involved in love affairs and quarrels. In one of the last, three men were left wounded and bleeding, and as a result of this midnight affray Goya had to leave the city hurriedly.
In 1766 he was in Madrid, and there his adventurous disposition soon got him into trouble. He was wounded in some love quarrel, placed under police supervision, and chafing at this restraint he escaped from the city with a band of bull-fighters and sailed to Italy. At the end of the sixties he was in Rome, where he appears to have been much more interested in the teeming life of the people than in antiquities of the city. Here again his amorousness got him into trouble, for it is said that one night he made his way into a nunnery, was nearly captured, and only escaped the gallows by a headlong flight from the city.
In 1771 he returned to Saragosa and found shelter in a monastery, where he seems to have reformed his manner of living, for four years later this scapegrace adventurer, the hero of a hundred fights, reappeared in Madrid as a respectable citizen, married to the sister of Bayen, a painter of good standing. Through his brother-in-law he got to know people of a better class, and he was finally introduced to the Court and permitted to paint the portrait of Charles III.
Goya’s pictures of this period reflect the manners of the Spanish Court, for pictures like ‘The Swing’ and ‘Blind Man’s Buff’ at Madrid are obviously imitations of Watteau and his school, as the Spanish Court imitated the artificiality of Versailles, only Goya, a cynic from his youth, does not give his figures the daintness of the Frenchmen.
With almost brutal realism he depicts the rouge on the women’s checks and the pencilling of their eyebrows, and seems to take a delight in unmasking their falseness and dissipation. While he was intelligent enough to perceive the rottenness of Spanish society, Goya was no moralist himself and lived the life of his time. Countless stories are told of his relations with women of high society, and Goya is said to have been the terror of all their husbands. In this connection one inevitably thinks of his famous double picture at Madrid, ‘The Maja Nude’ and ‘The Maja Clothed,’ the latter being an almost exact reproduction of the former with the garmets added, and these are so filmy, so expressive of the limbs underneath, that the second picture has justly been said to reveal a woman ‘naked in spite of her dress.’ The story runs that the lady was the Duchess of Alva, and that when the Duke desired to see Goya’s work, the painter hurriedly produced the clothed portrait and concealed the other.
The French Revolution And Its Influence On Art (continued)
Tuesday, February 05, 2008
Canadian Diamond Industry Update
The Prospectors and Developers Association of Canada convention will be held on March 2-5, 2008, in Toronto + it will include an update on the Canadian diamond industry (Snap Lake + Victor) + diamond prospecting roundup.
Useful link:
www.pdac.ca
Useful link:
www.pdac.ca
The Brain That Changes Itself
The Brain That Changes Itself by Norman Doidge is a fascinating book + the concept of neuroplasticity intrigues me + it's an absorbing subject.
Here is what the description of The Brain That Changes Itself says (via Amazon):
An astonishing new science called neuroplasticity is overthrowing the centuries-old notion that the human brain is immutable. Psychiatrist and psychoanalyst, Norman Doidge, M.D., traveled the country to meet both the brilliant scientists championing neuroplasticity and the people whose lives they’ve transformed—people whose mental limitations or brain damage were seen as unalterable. We see a woman born with half a brain that rewired itself to work as a whole, blind people who learn to see, learning disorders cured, IQs raised, aging brains rejuvenated, stroke patients learning to speak, children with cerebral palsy learning to move with more grace, depression and anxiety disorders successfully treated, and lifelong character traits changed. Using these marvelous stories to probe mysteries of the body, emotion, love, sex, culture, and education, Dr. Doidge has written an immensely moving, inspiring book that will permanently alter the way we look at our brains, human nature, and human potential.
Here is what the description of The Brain That Changes Itself says (via Amazon):
An astonishing new science called neuroplasticity is overthrowing the centuries-old notion that the human brain is immutable. Psychiatrist and psychoanalyst, Norman Doidge, M.D., traveled the country to meet both the brilliant scientists championing neuroplasticity and the people whose lives they’ve transformed—people whose mental limitations or brain damage were seen as unalterable. We see a woman born with half a brain that rewired itself to work as a whole, blind people who learn to see, learning disorders cured, IQs raised, aging brains rejuvenated, stroke patients learning to speak, children with cerebral palsy learning to move with more grace, depression and anxiety disorders successfully treated, and lifelong character traits changed. Using these marvelous stories to probe mysteries of the body, emotion, love, sex, culture, and education, Dr. Doidge has written an immensely moving, inspiring book that will permanently alter the way we look at our brains, human nature, and human potential.
Shark Behavior
According to Jim Sogi (via dailyspeculations) sharks have a simple system + they constantly cruise around and eat the weak or struggling fish, they never pick fights with the strong + they go check it, they give it a test, and then they eat it + if there is any problem, they are gone + they are really tough skinned and lack any emotion whatsoever + smaller fish are dominated by fear + the small sharks hunt in packs + the big ones travel the globe + there are always going to be dead, dying or injured or weak struggling fish around.
The shark pattern (s) reminds me of the trading systems, including commodities + the key players and their peculiar methodology + the fate of the small players + the end game.
The shark pattern (s) reminds me of the trading systems, including commodities + the key players and their peculiar methodology + the fate of the small players + the end game.
German Expressionist Works
The Economist writes about German Expressionist works and paintings from the Viennese Secession, a movement inspired by art nouveau + the steady rise in prices + other viewpoints @ http://www.economist.com/daily/columns/artview/displaystory.cfm?story_id=10610995
Jewelers Of Renaissance
(via 5000 Years of Gems and Jewelry) Frances Rogers and Alice Beard writes:
2. The Goldsmith-Jeweler Of Italy
The custom of training all potential artists in the workshop of the goldsmith forged a link between the jeweler’s field and that of the decorator and painter. Jewel forms were extensively used in the illumination of manuscripts and in the painted jewel-like designs which ornamented church missals, choir books, and Bibles.
Conspicuous among the names of painters who began their careers as apprentices to goldsmiths is that of Botticelli (1444-1510). Every once in a while throughout history there lives some man who likes to write down what he sees and hears and finds out about the daily lives of the people around him. Such men write with a zest and a keeness of observations that necessarily elude the serious historian who must spread his record like a great panorama over long periods of time. The writer who tells us what is happening to himself and to the man with whom he is at the moment rubbing elbows, gives us candid-camera pictures. Such a man was Pliny. When we walk the street of ancient Rome with Pliny it is not the architecture that is being pointed out for our edification. More likely our attention is being directed to the outrageous number of rings on the fingers of the elegant young Roman dandy whom we have just passed on the way. Again, at a later date, there was the good and garrulous old monk, Theophilus, who not content merely to practise the various crafts for himself, was bent also on telling in great detail just how he did it. It was that very anxiety of his to tell all about it which is responsible for giving us so accurate a record of Medieval craftsmanship. A like service was performed for posterity during the sixteenth century by that flamboyant teller of tall tales, Benvenuto Cellini (1500-71).
Cellini is considered the master of master goldsmith of his period. But if this great craftsman himself had not so impressively told us how surpassingly wonderful an artist he was, perhaps we could not be so sure about it. In any case, the very exaggerations of his gorgeous imagination give the colorful essense of his time as no mountainous accumulation of prosaic facts ever could.
Even as an apprentice Cellini was entrusted with important commissions. He tells of working on a silver salt-cellar for a cardinal. Now salt-cellars in those days were not the negligible little pieces of tableware they are at present. They were enormous in size—a foot or more in height—often made of gold and set with gems. Salt was a precious things, and the great salt-cellars of the age held about the most important place among the rich plate that set the banquet table of an illustrious person.
Although Cellini was commissioned to make a fine salt-cellar for the cardinal, he was not expected to design it himself, only to copy an antique piece of silverware. Cellini, however, was no dull apprentice who would slavishly copy the work of others. He would borrow as much as he saw fit and then allow full play to his fancy. He tells us what happened:
Besides what I copied, I enriched it with so many elegant masks of my inventions, that my master went about....boasting that so good a piece of work had been turned out from his shop.
To Cellini is often attributed the making of quantities of the fine jewels of his time. And we may be sure that so creative a craftsman did produce much work, but the eminent authority, H Clifford Smith, says: ‘Despite all that has been said respecting such jewels as the Leda and the Swan at Vienna, the Chariot of Apollo at Chantilly, and the mountings of the two cameos, the Four Cæsars and the Centaur and the Bacchic Genii in the Bibliothèque Nationale at Paris, which have, with some degree of likelihood, been attributed to Cellini, the only quite authenticated example of his work as a goldsmith is the famous gold salt-cellar at Vienna. This object when looked at from the goldsmith’s point of view, in the matter of fineness of workmanship and skill in execution, is seen to possess particular characteristics which should be sufficient to prevent the attribution to Cellini of other contemporary work, created by jewelers who clearly drew their inspiration from entirely different sources.’
Jewelers Of Renaissance (continued)
2. The Goldsmith-Jeweler Of Italy
The custom of training all potential artists in the workshop of the goldsmith forged a link between the jeweler’s field and that of the decorator and painter. Jewel forms were extensively used in the illumination of manuscripts and in the painted jewel-like designs which ornamented church missals, choir books, and Bibles.
Conspicuous among the names of painters who began their careers as apprentices to goldsmiths is that of Botticelli (1444-1510). Every once in a while throughout history there lives some man who likes to write down what he sees and hears and finds out about the daily lives of the people around him. Such men write with a zest and a keeness of observations that necessarily elude the serious historian who must spread his record like a great panorama over long periods of time. The writer who tells us what is happening to himself and to the man with whom he is at the moment rubbing elbows, gives us candid-camera pictures. Such a man was Pliny. When we walk the street of ancient Rome with Pliny it is not the architecture that is being pointed out for our edification. More likely our attention is being directed to the outrageous number of rings on the fingers of the elegant young Roman dandy whom we have just passed on the way. Again, at a later date, there was the good and garrulous old monk, Theophilus, who not content merely to practise the various crafts for himself, was bent also on telling in great detail just how he did it. It was that very anxiety of his to tell all about it which is responsible for giving us so accurate a record of Medieval craftsmanship. A like service was performed for posterity during the sixteenth century by that flamboyant teller of tall tales, Benvenuto Cellini (1500-71).
Cellini is considered the master of master goldsmith of his period. But if this great craftsman himself had not so impressively told us how surpassingly wonderful an artist he was, perhaps we could not be so sure about it. In any case, the very exaggerations of his gorgeous imagination give the colorful essense of his time as no mountainous accumulation of prosaic facts ever could.
Even as an apprentice Cellini was entrusted with important commissions. He tells of working on a silver salt-cellar for a cardinal. Now salt-cellars in those days were not the negligible little pieces of tableware they are at present. They were enormous in size—a foot or more in height—often made of gold and set with gems. Salt was a precious things, and the great salt-cellars of the age held about the most important place among the rich plate that set the banquet table of an illustrious person.
Although Cellini was commissioned to make a fine salt-cellar for the cardinal, he was not expected to design it himself, only to copy an antique piece of silverware. Cellini, however, was no dull apprentice who would slavishly copy the work of others. He would borrow as much as he saw fit and then allow full play to his fancy. He tells us what happened:
Besides what I copied, I enriched it with so many elegant masks of my inventions, that my master went about....boasting that so good a piece of work had been turned out from his shop.
To Cellini is often attributed the making of quantities of the fine jewels of his time. And we may be sure that so creative a craftsman did produce much work, but the eminent authority, H Clifford Smith, says: ‘Despite all that has been said respecting such jewels as the Leda and the Swan at Vienna, the Chariot of Apollo at Chantilly, and the mountings of the two cameos, the Four Cæsars and the Centaur and the Bacchic Genii in the Bibliothèque Nationale at Paris, which have, with some degree of likelihood, been attributed to Cellini, the only quite authenticated example of his work as a goldsmith is the famous gold salt-cellar at Vienna. This object when looked at from the goldsmith’s point of view, in the matter of fineness of workmanship and skill in execution, is seen to possess particular characteristics which should be sufficient to prevent the attribution to Cellini of other contemporary work, created by jewelers who clearly drew their inspiration from entirely different sources.’
Jewelers Of Renaissance (continued)
The French Revolution And Its Influence On Art
(via The Outline of Art) William Orpen writes:
Though he gained the prize in 1801, Ingres was not sent to Rome till 1806, and then he remained in Italy for nearly eighteen years. These were years of quiet, fruitful labor, during which the artist, in his own words, was ‘drawing to learn and painting to live,’ and by living abroad he escaped all that contemporary drama of victories and disasters, of changes of dynasties and changes of opinion, that was going on during this period in his own country. Nevertheless, they attracted attention in the Salons, though they were criticised by the followers of David. When he exhibited in 1819 his ‘Paola and Francesca di Rimini,’ the work was pronounced to be ‘Gothic’ in tendency, and in this small historical painting we can recognize the influence of the Primitives whom Ingres admired for the purity and precision of their drawing.
When Igres returned to Paris in 1824 the battle between the Classicists and the Romanticists was in full swing, and with Girodet dead, David in exile and dying, and Gros incompetent, the former were glad to welcome the support of Ingres, and soon made him the chief of their party. Ingres was amazed and enchanted at his sudden popularity and the honors now thrust upon him. He was speedily elected to Institute, and later was made a Grand Officer of the Legion of Honor and a Senator. The full story of the war between the Classicists and Romanticists must be reserved for a later chapter, but it may be said at once that Ingres threw himself heart and soul into the championship of the classics by precepts and example.
But where Ingres differed from his predecessor David was, that with him it was the treatment rather than the subject which was all important. A fanatic for drawing from the first, he held strong and peculiar views on Color. ‘A thing well drawn is always well enough painted,’ he said; and his own use of color was merely to emphasize the drawing in his pictures. ‘Rubens and Vandyck,’ he argued, ‘may please the eye, but they deceive it—they belong to a bad school of Color, the School of Falsehood.’ From his early Roman days Ingres had shown himself to be faultless draughtsman of the human figure, and his drawings and paintings of nudes are the works on which his fame most surely rests today. The most celebrated, and perhaps the most beautiful, of his works, ‘La Source’, has an interesting history, for, though begun as a study in 1824, it was not till 1856, when the artist was seventy six, that he turned it into a picture. One of the most precious gems of painting in the Louvre, this picture preserves the freshness of a young man’s fancy while it is executed with the knowledge of a lifetime. ‘It is a fragment of Nature, and it is a vision,’ is the comment of a great French critic on this picture.
If Ingres was the greatest artist the classical movement produced in France, yet he belongs too much to the nineteenth century to be considered a true product of the revolutionary and Napoleonic period. Indeed, the greatest Continental artist of that period was not a Frenchman, and it is to Spain that we must turn to find a man of oustanding genius whose protean art fully expresses the surging thoughts and feelings of this time of changes.
The French Revolution And Its Influence On Art (continued)
Though he gained the prize in 1801, Ingres was not sent to Rome till 1806, and then he remained in Italy for nearly eighteen years. These were years of quiet, fruitful labor, during which the artist, in his own words, was ‘drawing to learn and painting to live,’ and by living abroad he escaped all that contemporary drama of victories and disasters, of changes of dynasties and changes of opinion, that was going on during this period in his own country. Nevertheless, they attracted attention in the Salons, though they were criticised by the followers of David. When he exhibited in 1819 his ‘Paola and Francesca di Rimini,’ the work was pronounced to be ‘Gothic’ in tendency, and in this small historical painting we can recognize the influence of the Primitives whom Ingres admired for the purity and precision of their drawing.
When Igres returned to Paris in 1824 the battle between the Classicists and the Romanticists was in full swing, and with Girodet dead, David in exile and dying, and Gros incompetent, the former were glad to welcome the support of Ingres, and soon made him the chief of their party. Ingres was amazed and enchanted at his sudden popularity and the honors now thrust upon him. He was speedily elected to Institute, and later was made a Grand Officer of the Legion of Honor and a Senator. The full story of the war between the Classicists and Romanticists must be reserved for a later chapter, but it may be said at once that Ingres threw himself heart and soul into the championship of the classics by precepts and example.
But where Ingres differed from his predecessor David was, that with him it was the treatment rather than the subject which was all important. A fanatic for drawing from the first, he held strong and peculiar views on Color. ‘A thing well drawn is always well enough painted,’ he said; and his own use of color was merely to emphasize the drawing in his pictures. ‘Rubens and Vandyck,’ he argued, ‘may please the eye, but they deceive it—they belong to a bad school of Color, the School of Falsehood.’ From his early Roman days Ingres had shown himself to be faultless draughtsman of the human figure, and his drawings and paintings of nudes are the works on which his fame most surely rests today. The most celebrated, and perhaps the most beautiful, of his works, ‘La Source’, has an interesting history, for, though begun as a study in 1824, it was not till 1856, when the artist was seventy six, that he turned it into a picture. One of the most precious gems of painting in the Louvre, this picture preserves the freshness of a young man’s fancy while it is executed with the knowledge of a lifetime. ‘It is a fragment of Nature, and it is a vision,’ is the comment of a great French critic on this picture.
If Ingres was the greatest artist the classical movement produced in France, yet he belongs too much to the nineteenth century to be considered a true product of the revolutionary and Napoleonic period. Indeed, the greatest Continental artist of that period was not a Frenchman, and it is to Spain that we must turn to find a man of oustanding genius whose protean art fully expresses the surging thoughts and feelings of this time of changes.
The French Revolution And Its Influence On Art (continued)
Asian Art Trend
James Pomfret writes about the speculative trend in the art market (s) of Asia, especially among the nouveau riche Chinese + Indian entrepreneurs + the risks and opportunities + the impact @ http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/02/03/business/rtrinvest04.php
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