Wednesday, February 27, 2008
Radical Design
I found the article on Radical Designs + Radical Results by Julia Hanna @ http://hbswk.hbs.edu/item/5850.html interesting + useful.
The Logic Of Life
The book The Logic of Life – The Rational Economics of an Irrational World by Tim Harford is about human behavior + makes you think differently + touches on a broad number of subjects + it's interesting and I liked it.
European Jewelry: Eighteenth And Nineteenth Centuries
(via 5000 Years of Gems and Jewelry) Frances Rogers and Alice Beard writes:
5. The Diamond Necklace
Unquestionably the most baleful jewel in all recorded history was that grandoise assemblage of precious stones known as ‘The Queen’s Diamond Necklace.’ The unhappy Marie Antoinette never owned, wore, or even saw the fateful jewel. As far as we can discover nobody ever wore it. Almost immediately after leaving the hands of the jewelers the necklace, as a unit, vanished—its diamonds were dug from their setting and scattered to travel their secret and devious ways toward the four corners of the earth. Perhaps you who read this page are wearing one of them now....Unless you are sure of the pedigree of a stone from the mine onward—who knows?—and gem, even though fresh from the jeweler’s shop, like as not has a lurid past.
The story of the famous necklace has provided endless material for history and fiction. Novels, plays and movies have used the theme ad infinitum. And in its many bearings on the lives of a whole nation the tale is too complex for retelling here. Enough to note the fact that a string of insensate gems stood for a symbol of the extravagance of Marie Antonoitte and thereby became a focussing point of hatred which rose like molten lava and overwhelmed France. Not that responsibility for the French Revolution can be laid on the innocent shoulders of a jewel, but undoubtedly the whole scandalous affair wielded a very appreciable power in exciting the blood lust of the mob.
As for the necklace itself, report goes that it was rather crude in workmanship despite its prodigious stones. Of course its short existence predated photography, and the best description is said to be that written by Thomas Carlyle, who naturally never saw it and could speak of the necklace only by virtue of research. His account has been deemed ‘quaint’ and certainly it is not limited to the aridly factual. He writes:
A row of seventeen glorious diamonds, as large almost as filberts, encircle, not too tightly, the neck, a first time. Looser, gracefully fastened thrice to these, a three-wreathed festoon, and pendants enough (simple pear-shaped, multiple star-shaped, or clustering amorphous) encircle it, unwreath it, a second time. Loosest of all, softly flowing round from behind, in priceless catenary, rush down two broad threefold rows; seem to knot themselves, round a very Queen of Diamonds, on the bosom; then rush on, again separated, as if there were length in plenty; the very tassels of them were a fortune for some men. And now lastly, two other inexpressible threefold rows, also with their tassels, will, when the Necklace is on and clasped, unite themselves behind into a doubly inexpressible six fold row; and so stream down, together or asunder, over the hind-neck—we may fancy, like lambent Zodiacal or Aurora-Borealis fire.
All these on a neck of snow slight-tinged with rose-bloom, and within it royal Life; amidst the blaze of lusters: in sylphish movements, espiègleries, coquetteries; and minuetmazes; with every movement a flash of star-rainbow colors, bright almost as the movements of the fair young soul it emblems! A glorious ornament; fit only for the Sultana of the World. Indeed, only attainable by such; for it is valued at 1,800,000 livres; say, in round numbers, and sterling money, between eighty and ninety thousand pounds.
European Jewelry: Eighteenth And Nineteenth Centuries (continued)
5. The Diamond Necklace
Unquestionably the most baleful jewel in all recorded history was that grandoise assemblage of precious stones known as ‘The Queen’s Diamond Necklace.’ The unhappy Marie Antoinette never owned, wore, or even saw the fateful jewel. As far as we can discover nobody ever wore it. Almost immediately after leaving the hands of the jewelers the necklace, as a unit, vanished—its diamonds were dug from their setting and scattered to travel their secret and devious ways toward the four corners of the earth. Perhaps you who read this page are wearing one of them now....Unless you are sure of the pedigree of a stone from the mine onward—who knows?—and gem, even though fresh from the jeweler’s shop, like as not has a lurid past.
The story of the famous necklace has provided endless material for history and fiction. Novels, plays and movies have used the theme ad infinitum. And in its many bearings on the lives of a whole nation the tale is too complex for retelling here. Enough to note the fact that a string of insensate gems stood for a symbol of the extravagance of Marie Antonoitte and thereby became a focussing point of hatred which rose like molten lava and overwhelmed France. Not that responsibility for the French Revolution can be laid on the innocent shoulders of a jewel, but undoubtedly the whole scandalous affair wielded a very appreciable power in exciting the blood lust of the mob.
As for the necklace itself, report goes that it was rather crude in workmanship despite its prodigious stones. Of course its short existence predated photography, and the best description is said to be that written by Thomas Carlyle, who naturally never saw it and could speak of the necklace only by virtue of research. His account has been deemed ‘quaint’ and certainly it is not limited to the aridly factual. He writes:
A row of seventeen glorious diamonds, as large almost as filberts, encircle, not too tightly, the neck, a first time. Looser, gracefully fastened thrice to these, a three-wreathed festoon, and pendants enough (simple pear-shaped, multiple star-shaped, or clustering amorphous) encircle it, unwreath it, a second time. Loosest of all, softly flowing round from behind, in priceless catenary, rush down two broad threefold rows; seem to knot themselves, round a very Queen of Diamonds, on the bosom; then rush on, again separated, as if there were length in plenty; the very tassels of them were a fortune for some men. And now lastly, two other inexpressible threefold rows, also with their tassels, will, when the Necklace is on and clasped, unite themselves behind into a doubly inexpressible six fold row; and so stream down, together or asunder, over the hind-neck—we may fancy, like lambent Zodiacal or Aurora-Borealis fire.
All these on a neck of snow slight-tinged with rose-bloom, and within it royal Life; amidst the blaze of lusters: in sylphish movements, espiègleries, coquetteries; and minuetmazes; with every movement a flash of star-rainbow colors, bright almost as the movements of the fair young soul it emblems! A glorious ornament; fit only for the Sultana of the World. Indeed, only attainable by such; for it is valued at 1,800,000 livres; say, in round numbers, and sterling money, between eighty and ninety thousand pounds.
European Jewelry: Eighteenth And Nineteenth Centuries (continued)
The Pre-Raphaelites
(via The Outline of Art) William Orpen writes:
The Art Of Ford, Madox Brown, Rossetti, Holman Hunt, Millais, And Burne-Jones
1
Among the pupils of John Sell Cotman when he was a drawing master at King’s College School was a strange, foreign-looking boy, the son of an Italian poet and patriot living in exile in London. This boy was Dante Gabriel Rossetti, who afterwards combined with Millais and Holman Hunt to found the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood. Innumerable books have been written in which it has been sought to show that first one and then another of these three young men was the real motive-power in the founding of a new style of painting; but the fact remains that it was not till all three came together in 1848 that any revolution was effected, and it was the peculiar and diverse gifts which each brought to the common stock which made their union so formidable and enabled them eventually to triumph over opposition and hostile criticism.
Rossetti, according to Ruskin, was ‘the chief intellectual force’ in the association; his fire, enthusiasm, and poetic feeling were valuable assets, but technically he was the least accomplished of the three. He had ideas, but at first he was weak in translating them into drawing and painting, and he shirked the drudgery of the discipline necessary to perfect his powers of expression. Millais, on the other hand, was not remarkable for original ideas, but he had brilliant powers of eye and hand; he was a precocious genius in technique to whom the problems of drawing and painting presented no difficulty. Holman Hunt had neither the facility of Millais nor the impatience of Rossetti, but he had a high seriousness of purpose and a determined perseverance which held the others steadily together and chained their endeavors to lofty ideals.
Before considering what ‘Pre-Raphaelitism’ was, and what if ultimately became, it will be helpful to glance briefly at the origin of its three founders. William Holman Hunt, the eldest of the trio, was born in Wood Street, Cheapside, on April 2, 1827. His father, the manager of a city warehouse, opposed his wish to be an artist and placed him at the age of twelve in the office of an estate agent. His employer encouraged young Hunt’s artistic leanings, and the father reluctantly allowed the boy to spend his salary on lessons from a portrait painter. In 1843 Hunt was at last allowed to devote himself to art, but entirely at his own risk, and the sixteen-year-old boy bravely struggled along, studying half the week at the Brisith Museum and supporting himself by painting portraits on the other three days. Eventually he was admitted as a probationer to the Academy Schools, where he soon made friends with his junior, Millais, and while studying still managed to earn a bare living.
The youngest of the three was John Everett Millais, who was born at Southampton in 1829. He came from a Norman family settled in Jersey, and his early childhood was spent in that island, at Le Quailhouse, near St Heliers. His father was a popular, gifted man with some artistic talent, who delighted in and encouraged the precocious ability his son soon showed in drawing. In 1837 his parents came to live in Gower Street, London, and on the advice of the Irish artist Sir Martin Archer Shee (1769-1850), who was then President of the Royal Academy, young Millais was sent to Henry Sass’s art school in Bloomsbury. Here his progress was so phenomenal that when he was only nine years old he won the silver medal of the Society of Arts. Two years later he was admitted to the Royal Academy Schools as the youngest student who ever worked there, and ‘The Child’, as he was then called, was already considered to be a marvel of precocity whose achievements rivalled those of the youthful Lawrence.
The Pre-Raphaelites (continue)
The Art Of Ford, Madox Brown, Rossetti, Holman Hunt, Millais, And Burne-Jones
1
Among the pupils of John Sell Cotman when he was a drawing master at King’s College School was a strange, foreign-looking boy, the son of an Italian poet and patriot living in exile in London. This boy was Dante Gabriel Rossetti, who afterwards combined with Millais and Holman Hunt to found the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood. Innumerable books have been written in which it has been sought to show that first one and then another of these three young men was the real motive-power in the founding of a new style of painting; but the fact remains that it was not till all three came together in 1848 that any revolution was effected, and it was the peculiar and diverse gifts which each brought to the common stock which made their union so formidable and enabled them eventually to triumph over opposition and hostile criticism.
Rossetti, according to Ruskin, was ‘the chief intellectual force’ in the association; his fire, enthusiasm, and poetic feeling were valuable assets, but technically he was the least accomplished of the three. He had ideas, but at first he was weak in translating them into drawing and painting, and he shirked the drudgery of the discipline necessary to perfect his powers of expression. Millais, on the other hand, was not remarkable for original ideas, but he had brilliant powers of eye and hand; he was a precocious genius in technique to whom the problems of drawing and painting presented no difficulty. Holman Hunt had neither the facility of Millais nor the impatience of Rossetti, but he had a high seriousness of purpose and a determined perseverance which held the others steadily together and chained their endeavors to lofty ideals.
Before considering what ‘Pre-Raphaelitism’ was, and what if ultimately became, it will be helpful to glance briefly at the origin of its three founders. William Holman Hunt, the eldest of the trio, was born in Wood Street, Cheapside, on April 2, 1827. His father, the manager of a city warehouse, opposed his wish to be an artist and placed him at the age of twelve in the office of an estate agent. His employer encouraged young Hunt’s artistic leanings, and the father reluctantly allowed the boy to spend his salary on lessons from a portrait painter. In 1843 Hunt was at last allowed to devote himself to art, but entirely at his own risk, and the sixteen-year-old boy bravely struggled along, studying half the week at the Brisith Museum and supporting himself by painting portraits on the other three days. Eventually he was admitted as a probationer to the Academy Schools, where he soon made friends with his junior, Millais, and while studying still managed to earn a bare living.
The youngest of the three was John Everett Millais, who was born at Southampton in 1829. He came from a Norman family settled in Jersey, and his early childhood was spent in that island, at Le Quailhouse, near St Heliers. His father was a popular, gifted man with some artistic talent, who delighted in and encouraged the precocious ability his son soon showed in drawing. In 1837 his parents came to live in Gower Street, London, and on the advice of the Irish artist Sir Martin Archer Shee (1769-1850), who was then President of the Royal Academy, young Millais was sent to Henry Sass’s art school in Bloomsbury. Here his progress was so phenomenal that when he was only nine years old he won the silver medal of the Society of Arts. Two years later he was admitted to the Royal Academy Schools as the youngest student who ever worked there, and ‘The Child’, as he was then called, was already considered to be a marvel of precocity whose achievements rivalled those of the youthful Lawrence.
The Pre-Raphaelites (continue)
BIL
BIL is...an open, self-organizing, emergent, and anarchic science and technology conference.
Nobody is in charge.
If you want to come, just show up.
If you have an idea to spread, start talking.
If someone is saying something interesting, stop and listen.
Useful link:
http://bilconference.com
I liked this one.
Nobody is in charge.
If you want to come, just show up.
If you have an idea to spread, start talking.
If someone is saying something interesting, stop and listen.
Useful link:
http://bilconference.com
I liked this one.
A Historic Icon
The intriguing history of The Napoleon Diamond Necklace @ http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/diamond3.html?c=y&page=2 involves both royals and con artists + analysts have identified a high proportion of the larger diamonds as rare type IIa + most of the smaller stones as type IaAB via infrared spectrophotometric analysis + luminescence reactions + it is one of the most spectacular jewelry pieces of its period.
Tuesday, February 26, 2008
Art Hotels
I found Bunny Wong's article on hotels collaborating with artists @ http://www.budgettravel.com/bt-dyn/content/article/2008/02/05/AR2008020502192.html fascinating + in my view the reexperience will always have something old/something new for everyone + I liked the idea and hope others will follow the creative concepts.
Jan De Cock
The Belgian artist De Cock's installation in the photography galleries at MOMA is intriguingly beautiful + I liked them.
Useful link:
http://www.moma.org/exhibitions/2008/jandecock/
Useful link:
http://www.moma.org/exhibitions/2008/jandecock/
Aha! Gotcha
The book Aha! Gotcha by Martin Gardner is a delight + analytical + insightful + I liked it.
Start A Business
I found the article via HBS Working Knowledge @ http://hbswk.hbs.edu/item/5841.html interesting + insightful.
European Jewelry: Eighteenth And Nineteenth Centuries
(via 5000 Years of Gems and Jewelry) Frances Rogers and Alice Beard writes:
4. Engraved Gems, Real And Imitation
Early in the eighteenth century some attempt had been made to excavate the long-buried city of Herculaneum, and later Pompeii. General interest was aroused in the classic forms of art unearthed in these ancient cities. Artists and archeologists flocked to Naples, and fashion took note. Not suddenly but by degrees did the classic influence touch one art after another.
In jewelry the effect was to increase the demand for engraved gemstones, cameos in particular. Immediately there followed a flood of imitation ‘antiques’.
Among those who experimented with making imitation gems was Henry Quinn, a physician, whose name might not have been remembered if it had not been for his young laboratory assistant, James Tassie (1735-99).
The two invented a new form of vitreous paste with which to reproduce ancient gems and medallions, not by copying the engraving by hand, but by casting wax models of the gems.
Tassie became so skillful that his imitations possessed to a high degree the color, transparency and beauty of the originals. His work attracted much attention and he was given access to the finest private collections of ancient gems in Europe in order that he might study and reproduce them. His own collection of reproduction became famous.
At the command of Catherine, Empress of Russia, Tassie made for her copies of all his pastes, a matter of several thousand specimens.
Many of Tassie’s copies eventually became treasured museum pieces. However, to a certain extent it seems to have bene unfortunate for the trade in genuine gems that the copies were so good. Numbers of them fell into the hands of unscrupulous dealers, who passed them off as real, and the too often duped public presently became suspicious of all engraved gems and fearing to find itself deceived, ceased to buy.
More familiar and well known, even down to our times, is the name of the English potter, Joshiah Wedgwood (1730-95). Besides his famous jasperware in classic style, he made cameos for jewelry. Mounted in rings, brooches, or bracelets, his little cameos in delicately tinted jasperware, partcularly in blue and white, became exceedingly popular.
European Jewelry: Eighteenth And Nineteenth Centuries (continued)
4. Engraved Gems, Real And Imitation
Early in the eighteenth century some attempt had been made to excavate the long-buried city of Herculaneum, and later Pompeii. General interest was aroused in the classic forms of art unearthed in these ancient cities. Artists and archeologists flocked to Naples, and fashion took note. Not suddenly but by degrees did the classic influence touch one art after another.
In jewelry the effect was to increase the demand for engraved gemstones, cameos in particular. Immediately there followed a flood of imitation ‘antiques’.
Among those who experimented with making imitation gems was Henry Quinn, a physician, whose name might not have been remembered if it had not been for his young laboratory assistant, James Tassie (1735-99).
The two invented a new form of vitreous paste with which to reproduce ancient gems and medallions, not by copying the engraving by hand, but by casting wax models of the gems.
Tassie became so skillful that his imitations possessed to a high degree the color, transparency and beauty of the originals. His work attracted much attention and he was given access to the finest private collections of ancient gems in Europe in order that he might study and reproduce them. His own collection of reproduction became famous.
At the command of Catherine, Empress of Russia, Tassie made for her copies of all his pastes, a matter of several thousand specimens.
Many of Tassie’s copies eventually became treasured museum pieces. However, to a certain extent it seems to have bene unfortunate for the trade in genuine gems that the copies were so good. Numbers of them fell into the hands of unscrupulous dealers, who passed them off as real, and the too often duped public presently became suspicious of all engraved gems and fearing to find itself deceived, ceased to buy.
More familiar and well known, even down to our times, is the name of the English potter, Joshiah Wedgwood (1730-95). Besides his famous jasperware in classic style, he made cameos for jewelry. Mounted in rings, brooches, or bracelets, his little cameos in delicately tinted jasperware, partcularly in blue and white, became exceedingly popular.
European Jewelry: Eighteenth And Nineteenth Centuries (continued)
Natural Landscape
(via The Outline of Art) William Orpen writes:
In 1825, when he was again living in Norwich, Cotman was elected as Associate of the Water-color Society in London, and from that year was a constant contributor to the Society’s exhibitions; but though his work was known and respected both in London and Norwich, the genius of Cotman was never recognized in his lifetime nor indeed for many years after his death. The struggle to make a living began to tell on his nerves and health, and it was in the hope of giving him some ease by assuring him a regular income that his steadfast friend Dawson Turner, the antiquary, succeeded in getting Cotman appointed in 1834 as drawing master at King’s College School, then in the Strand. Removing to London in view of this appointment, Cotman settled himself at 42 Hunter Street, Brunswick Square, but the change seemed to do him more harm than good. His health gradually declined, and the nervous depression to which he was a victim became more and more severe till in the end his mind became slightly unhinged. His eldest son, Miles Edward Cotman (1811-58), a water colorist of moderate ability, succeeded him as drawing-master at King’s College School, and on July 28, 1842, John Sell Cotman died and was quiety buried in the churchyard of St John’s Wood Chapel, close to Lord’s Cricket Ground. How little Cotman was appreciated then was made painfully evident when his remaining oil-paintings and water colors were sold at Christie’s in the following year. Works for which collectors would now gladly pay hundred of pounds hardly realized as many shillings in 1843, and the highest price for a painting by him then obtained was £8 15s; the highest price given for a Cotman water color was £6.
To discover exactly why an artist, afterwards recorgnized to be a genius, is not appreciated in his own lifetime, is never an easy task, but it is certain that many of his contemporaries considered Cotman’s work to be ‘unfinished’ because it had that vigorous breadth which now wins our admiration. Whether we look at an oil painting like his ‘Wherries on the Yare’ or a masterly water color like the ‘Greta Bridge’ at the British Museum, we cannot fail to be impressed by the grandeur which the artist has given to his rendering of the scene by his subordination of detail and suppression of all that is irrelevant.
Cotman took a big view of Nature and the breadth and simplicity of his masses materially help to give his pictures, whether in oil or water color, a monumental majesty unsurpassed even by his great contemporaries.
In 1825, when he was again living in Norwich, Cotman was elected as Associate of the Water-color Society in London, and from that year was a constant contributor to the Society’s exhibitions; but though his work was known and respected both in London and Norwich, the genius of Cotman was never recognized in his lifetime nor indeed for many years after his death. The struggle to make a living began to tell on his nerves and health, and it was in the hope of giving him some ease by assuring him a regular income that his steadfast friend Dawson Turner, the antiquary, succeeded in getting Cotman appointed in 1834 as drawing master at King’s College School, then in the Strand. Removing to London in view of this appointment, Cotman settled himself at 42 Hunter Street, Brunswick Square, but the change seemed to do him more harm than good. His health gradually declined, and the nervous depression to which he was a victim became more and more severe till in the end his mind became slightly unhinged. His eldest son, Miles Edward Cotman (1811-58), a water colorist of moderate ability, succeeded him as drawing-master at King’s College School, and on July 28, 1842, John Sell Cotman died and was quiety buried in the churchyard of St John’s Wood Chapel, close to Lord’s Cricket Ground. How little Cotman was appreciated then was made painfully evident when his remaining oil-paintings and water colors were sold at Christie’s in the following year. Works for which collectors would now gladly pay hundred of pounds hardly realized as many shillings in 1843, and the highest price for a painting by him then obtained was £8 15s; the highest price given for a Cotman water color was £6.
To discover exactly why an artist, afterwards recorgnized to be a genius, is not appreciated in his own lifetime, is never an easy task, but it is certain that many of his contemporaries considered Cotman’s work to be ‘unfinished’ because it had that vigorous breadth which now wins our admiration. Whether we look at an oil painting like his ‘Wherries on the Yare’ or a masterly water color like the ‘Greta Bridge’ at the British Museum, we cannot fail to be impressed by the grandeur which the artist has given to his rendering of the scene by his subordination of detail and suppression of all that is irrelevant.
Cotman took a big view of Nature and the breadth and simplicity of his masses materially help to give his pictures, whether in oil or water color, a monumental majesty unsurpassed even by his great contemporaries.
Uncommon Gemstones
Yellow green clinohumite and yellow chondrodite are often confused for tourmaline (s) because of its unusual colors + I have seen a few specimens in Bangkok, usually sold by dealers from Tanzania and Kenya, often mixed up with other rough colored stones + even experienced dealers go autistic when they see a mixed lot, sometimes you may have to cut and polish a few specimens to know their true identification, not always practical + if in doubt always consult a reputed gem testing laboratory.
The Rise Of Free Economics
I found the Wired article on the concept of Free! @
http://www.wired.com/techbiz/it/magazine/16-03/ff_free interesting/insightful + may be Chris Anderson is right—only time will tell.
http://www.wired.com/techbiz/it/magazine/16-03/ff_free interesting/insightful + may be Chris Anderson is right—only time will tell.
Richard Rogers
Richard Rogers is a British architect noted for his modernist + functionalist + engaging designs + I like them.
Useful links:
www.richardrogers.co.uk
www.designmuseum.org
Useful links:
www.richardrogers.co.uk
www.designmuseum.org
Monday, February 25, 2008
The $12 Million Stuffed Shark: The Curious Economics Of Contemporary Art
The $12 Million Stuffed Shark: The Curious Economics Of Contemporary Art by Don Thompson ought to be required reading for art collectors + he explains the state of the art trade + has good advice for anyone who walks into an art gallery.
The Fisherman And The Rhinoceros
The Fisherman And The Rhinoceros by Eric Briys + François de Varenne is a beautiful book, witty and illuminating + the parables are informative + the book also explains the bubbles and crashes of the financial markets + I liked it.
European Jewelry: Eighteenth And Nineteenth Centuries
(via 5000 Years of Gems and Jewelry) Frances Rogers and Alice Beard writes:
3. Snuff-Boxes And Trinkets
Under these conditions it was possible for the middle classes to possess all the various trinkets suggested by fashion.
Smoking, by now, was out of fashion. It was considered distinctly vulgar, but tobacco in another form, namely snuff, was among the imperative elegances of the times. Both ladies and gentlemen took snuff. The social ritual of offering a pinch of snuff to a friend, delicately sniffing another pinch one’s self, dusting off one’s face furbelows with a flourishing flip of the fingers (lest the brown powder deface the whiteness of ruffles), and finally snapping shut the lid of the jeweled snuff-box—all this ceremony, one suspects, may have been carefully practised before a mirror to ensure grace. At any rate, the chief factor in the performance was the snuff-box. Every richness of decoration conceivably to the jeweler and the artist was bestowed on the snuff box.
One box was not enough for the gallant; he carried numbers of them in his capacious coat-tail pockets.
Although a lady too had her snuff-box, it was her fan that furnished an accessory for graceful flourishing of dainty hands. It has always been one of the most effective implements of coquetry, and during the middle of the eighteenth century every lady carried a fan. Naturally it must be a work of art. Whatever the material—paper, silk, or chicken-skin parchment—the artist painted it, and the jeweler often set glittering gems in its handle or framework.
By now, the chatelaine was a contrivance usually consisting of a stout hook covered by a shield from which, hanging chains, were a miscellaneous assortment of small objects in elaborately wrought metal cases, often enriched with enamel. Thimble, scissors, needle-case, scent-case, seals, patch-box, toothpick-case and what not hung in a tinkling company along with a watch and its key. By 1785 there was no more popular wedding present than a chatelaine with its varied ‘equipage’ for the bride.
Buckles were an important item of dress both for men and women. Buckles to fasten laces, stock-buckles, knee-buckles, girdle-buckles, but most of all shoe-buckles, were essential and worn by everyone, including children.
When first introduced, shoe-buckles had been small, but soon they grew both in size and prominence. They were made in greatest variety of design and material, from the most inexpensive metals to gold set with gems or pinchbeck set with paste. The industry flourished until the latter part of the century when the shoestring began usurping the rights of the shoe-buckle. Then great was the outcry of the buckle-makers who tried to boycott the shoestring by methods even more curious than those of our modern placarded picket-line. On tickets to public entertainment one might find the notice, ‘Gentlemen cannot be admitted with shoestrings.’ But it was no use; shoestrings won.
Once cheap jewelry had proved its popularity, experimenters in the making of glass gems became more numerous than ever. Among them was a German, Strass by name, living in Paris, who succeeded in producing a particularly clear glass, rich in lead, and so sparkling that under the name of ‘Strass paste’ it was widely used for imitation diamonds or, when colored, for other stones.
Even the rich did not disdain to wear counterfeit jewelry upon occasion, and so flourishing became the trade that in 1767 it was incorporated as the joaillers-faussetiers of Paris.
The inexpensive products of the European jeweler were not, however, confined to local markets, for cheap jewelry, along with the ever popular bead, was an indispensable part of every exploring trader’s pack. With a handful of glass ‘pearls’, a few colored beads and some cheap trinkets, the crafty trader could create a boom in elephant hunting; and the delighted native hunter would eagerly exchange a magnificent ivory tusk for a pinchbeck bauble or for five big glass beads.
For the business man it was a deal worthy of large scale expansion. The English had great storehouses along the Thames to hold the heaped beads and gewgaws intended for bartering with any wide-eyed savage who didn’t know any better.
Even aside from the savage, beads were and are the favorite article of jewelry among almost all peoples. Both France and England exported beads by the ton; they were so cheaply made and so easily packed.
The last mentioned advantage holds good for real jewels, and has been recognized by all civilized countries in all times. A hoard of jewels is the most portable form for a large fortune and the most easily convertible into cash at short notice. It would seem as if the chief function of most crown jewels was to raise money to pay for wars. If not sold outright jewels could always be pawned.
At the close of the seventeenth century there was a marked change in the cut of man’s coat. It was now double-breasted, cut short in front with long tails behind. The closely buttoned coat made waistcoat pockets inaccessible, therefore the watch was carried in a small pocket, or fob, made at the waist band of the breeches.
Here was another opportunity for the industrious jeweler. Watches and their dangling bunches of seals were elaborated into bejeweled and enameled materpieces. The watch-case was often mounted with gems, the dial-plate intricately decorated, and even the tiny hands were shaped with an eye to beauty. The watch-key likewise was carefully designed and set with a stone. And Fashion helped the goldsmith further by suggesting that since a man had two of these little pockets, one on each side, it looked well-preserved a balance of ornament—to carry two watches, one in each pocket. It was not necessary that both should be timekeepers, one could be what was called a fausse montre - false watch—but in appearance the false was as decorative as th real watch.
The ladies, although not possessed of fob pockets, must not be outdone. They also carried two watches. A feminine touch was given to the fausse montre when its front ws a pincushion. If she chose, the lady wore her watch dangling among the many nicknacks that hung from her chatelaine.
In 1777, Paris established a loan center known as Mont-de-Piété (fund of pity); and when depression, caused by political difficulties, gripped the rich man’s pocketbook the Mont-de-Piété was glutted with jewelry. It is said that at one time the gold watches alone occupied forty casks!
European Jewelry: Eighteenth And Nineteenth Centuries (continued)
3. Snuff-Boxes And Trinkets
Under these conditions it was possible for the middle classes to possess all the various trinkets suggested by fashion.
Smoking, by now, was out of fashion. It was considered distinctly vulgar, but tobacco in another form, namely snuff, was among the imperative elegances of the times. Both ladies and gentlemen took snuff. The social ritual of offering a pinch of snuff to a friend, delicately sniffing another pinch one’s self, dusting off one’s face furbelows with a flourishing flip of the fingers (lest the brown powder deface the whiteness of ruffles), and finally snapping shut the lid of the jeweled snuff-box—all this ceremony, one suspects, may have been carefully practised before a mirror to ensure grace. At any rate, the chief factor in the performance was the snuff-box. Every richness of decoration conceivably to the jeweler and the artist was bestowed on the snuff box.
One box was not enough for the gallant; he carried numbers of them in his capacious coat-tail pockets.
Although a lady too had her snuff-box, it was her fan that furnished an accessory for graceful flourishing of dainty hands. It has always been one of the most effective implements of coquetry, and during the middle of the eighteenth century every lady carried a fan. Naturally it must be a work of art. Whatever the material—paper, silk, or chicken-skin parchment—the artist painted it, and the jeweler often set glittering gems in its handle or framework.
By now, the chatelaine was a contrivance usually consisting of a stout hook covered by a shield from which, hanging chains, were a miscellaneous assortment of small objects in elaborately wrought metal cases, often enriched with enamel. Thimble, scissors, needle-case, scent-case, seals, patch-box, toothpick-case and what not hung in a tinkling company along with a watch and its key. By 1785 there was no more popular wedding present than a chatelaine with its varied ‘equipage’ for the bride.
Buckles were an important item of dress both for men and women. Buckles to fasten laces, stock-buckles, knee-buckles, girdle-buckles, but most of all shoe-buckles, were essential and worn by everyone, including children.
When first introduced, shoe-buckles had been small, but soon they grew both in size and prominence. They were made in greatest variety of design and material, from the most inexpensive metals to gold set with gems or pinchbeck set with paste. The industry flourished until the latter part of the century when the shoestring began usurping the rights of the shoe-buckle. Then great was the outcry of the buckle-makers who tried to boycott the shoestring by methods even more curious than those of our modern placarded picket-line. On tickets to public entertainment one might find the notice, ‘Gentlemen cannot be admitted with shoestrings.’ But it was no use; shoestrings won.
Once cheap jewelry had proved its popularity, experimenters in the making of glass gems became more numerous than ever. Among them was a German, Strass by name, living in Paris, who succeeded in producing a particularly clear glass, rich in lead, and so sparkling that under the name of ‘Strass paste’ it was widely used for imitation diamonds or, when colored, for other stones.
Even the rich did not disdain to wear counterfeit jewelry upon occasion, and so flourishing became the trade that in 1767 it was incorporated as the joaillers-faussetiers of Paris.
The inexpensive products of the European jeweler were not, however, confined to local markets, for cheap jewelry, along with the ever popular bead, was an indispensable part of every exploring trader’s pack. With a handful of glass ‘pearls’, a few colored beads and some cheap trinkets, the crafty trader could create a boom in elephant hunting; and the delighted native hunter would eagerly exchange a magnificent ivory tusk for a pinchbeck bauble or for five big glass beads.
For the business man it was a deal worthy of large scale expansion. The English had great storehouses along the Thames to hold the heaped beads and gewgaws intended for bartering with any wide-eyed savage who didn’t know any better.
Even aside from the savage, beads were and are the favorite article of jewelry among almost all peoples. Both France and England exported beads by the ton; they were so cheaply made and so easily packed.
The last mentioned advantage holds good for real jewels, and has been recognized by all civilized countries in all times. A hoard of jewels is the most portable form for a large fortune and the most easily convertible into cash at short notice. It would seem as if the chief function of most crown jewels was to raise money to pay for wars. If not sold outright jewels could always be pawned.
At the close of the seventeenth century there was a marked change in the cut of man’s coat. It was now double-breasted, cut short in front with long tails behind. The closely buttoned coat made waistcoat pockets inaccessible, therefore the watch was carried in a small pocket, or fob, made at the waist band of the breeches.
Here was another opportunity for the industrious jeweler. Watches and their dangling bunches of seals were elaborated into bejeweled and enameled materpieces. The watch-case was often mounted with gems, the dial-plate intricately decorated, and even the tiny hands were shaped with an eye to beauty. The watch-key likewise was carefully designed and set with a stone. And Fashion helped the goldsmith further by suggesting that since a man had two of these little pockets, one on each side, it looked well-preserved a balance of ornament—to carry two watches, one in each pocket. It was not necessary that both should be timekeepers, one could be what was called a fausse montre - false watch—but in appearance the false was as decorative as th real watch.
The ladies, although not possessed of fob pockets, must not be outdone. They also carried two watches. A feminine touch was given to the fausse montre when its front ws a pincushion. If she chose, the lady wore her watch dangling among the many nicknacks that hung from her chatelaine.
In 1777, Paris established a loan center known as Mont-de-Piété (fund of pity); and when depression, caused by political difficulties, gripped the rich man’s pocketbook the Mont-de-Piété was glutted with jewelry. It is said that at one time the gold watches alone occupied forty casks!
European Jewelry: Eighteenth And Nineteenth Centuries (continued)
Natural Landscape
(via The Outline of Art) William Orpen writes:
4
The Norwich School owes its fame to two stars of the first magnitude, Crome and Cotman, and to a host of lesser luminaries. John Sell Cotman was fourteen years younger than Crome, and though also born at Norwich, on June 11, 1782, he did not, like Crome, acquire his art education in his native city. Cotman from the first was in a very different position. He was the son of well-to-do draper, received a good education at the Norwich Grammar Schook, and was intended to enter his father’s shop; but when his bent for art clearly declared itself his father was sensible enough to allow his son to make it his vocation and sent him to London.
Cotman remained in London from 1800 to 1806, and probably the most fruitful part of the education he received there was his association with the group of artists who frequented the house of Dr Thoman Monro, who has already been mentioned in this Outline as the friend of Turner adn Girtin. In Dr Monro’s house at 8 Adelphi Terrace, Cotman made the acquaintance of and worked with all the most brilliant young artists of the day, and in addition to the studies he made there under these stimulating circumstances he joined a sketching club which Girtin had founded.
To Girtin, who was not only an inspiring genius but also a most generous and affectionate friend, Cotman probably owed most at this stage of his career, and it must have been a great shock to him when Girtin died at the early age of twenty seven. After Girtin’s death in November 1802 London was not the same place to Cotman, and though as a young struggling artist he could hardly complain of want of success—for he had exhibited no fewer than thirty paintings at the Royal Academy between 1800 and 1806—he made up his mind to return to his native city.
In London Cotman had applied himself especially to architectural subjects, and it is possible that even in these early days he was influenced in this direction by the gifted West Country artist, Samuel Prout (1783-1852), who excelled in water colors of these subjects, and was living in London from 1802 to 1804; but when he returned to Norwich in 1806 or 1807, Cotman at first set himself up as a portrait painter. Gradually, however, under the influence of Crome—who was thirty nine when Cotman was twenty five—he devoted himself more and more to landscape. He became a member of the Norwich Society of Artists and was for a time its secretary.
Cotman was a prolific worker at this time, and to the Society’s exhibition in 1808 he contributed no fewer than sixty seven works. In 1809 he married, and soon afterwards removed to Yarmouth, where he added to his means by teaching and drawing as well as painting in oils and water colors and also etching. In 1811 he commenced a publication by subscription of his ‘Architectural Etchings’ and having made a number of topographical tours throughout the country, he published in 1816, his ‘Specimens of Norman and Gothic Architecture, Norfolk Churches,’ etc. He formed a useful association with Dawson Turner, the Norfolk antiquary, for whose antiquarian publications Cotman drew and etched the illustrations, and during the next three years (1817-19) he made annual expeditions into Normandy with this writer, whose Architectural Antiquities of Normandy, illustrated by Cotman, was published in 1822. All the time that he was engaged on drawings for these and other publications Cotman was exhibiting oil paintings and water colors both in Norwich and in London, but though several of these found purchasers the prices were so low that, notwithstanding his immense industry, Cotman could not have supported his wife and family if, in addition to all his other activities, he had not continued to give drawing lessons.
Natural Landscape (continued)
4
The Norwich School owes its fame to two stars of the first magnitude, Crome and Cotman, and to a host of lesser luminaries. John Sell Cotman was fourteen years younger than Crome, and though also born at Norwich, on June 11, 1782, he did not, like Crome, acquire his art education in his native city. Cotman from the first was in a very different position. He was the son of well-to-do draper, received a good education at the Norwich Grammar Schook, and was intended to enter his father’s shop; but when his bent for art clearly declared itself his father was sensible enough to allow his son to make it his vocation and sent him to London.
Cotman remained in London from 1800 to 1806, and probably the most fruitful part of the education he received there was his association with the group of artists who frequented the house of Dr Thoman Monro, who has already been mentioned in this Outline as the friend of Turner adn Girtin. In Dr Monro’s house at 8 Adelphi Terrace, Cotman made the acquaintance of and worked with all the most brilliant young artists of the day, and in addition to the studies he made there under these stimulating circumstances he joined a sketching club which Girtin had founded.
To Girtin, who was not only an inspiring genius but also a most generous and affectionate friend, Cotman probably owed most at this stage of his career, and it must have been a great shock to him when Girtin died at the early age of twenty seven. After Girtin’s death in November 1802 London was not the same place to Cotman, and though as a young struggling artist he could hardly complain of want of success—for he had exhibited no fewer than thirty paintings at the Royal Academy between 1800 and 1806—he made up his mind to return to his native city.
In London Cotman had applied himself especially to architectural subjects, and it is possible that even in these early days he was influenced in this direction by the gifted West Country artist, Samuel Prout (1783-1852), who excelled in water colors of these subjects, and was living in London from 1802 to 1804; but when he returned to Norwich in 1806 or 1807, Cotman at first set himself up as a portrait painter. Gradually, however, under the influence of Crome—who was thirty nine when Cotman was twenty five—he devoted himself more and more to landscape. He became a member of the Norwich Society of Artists and was for a time its secretary.
Cotman was a prolific worker at this time, and to the Society’s exhibition in 1808 he contributed no fewer than sixty seven works. In 1809 he married, and soon afterwards removed to Yarmouth, where he added to his means by teaching and drawing as well as painting in oils and water colors and also etching. In 1811 he commenced a publication by subscription of his ‘Architectural Etchings’ and having made a number of topographical tours throughout the country, he published in 1816, his ‘Specimens of Norman and Gothic Architecture, Norfolk Churches,’ etc. He formed a useful association with Dawson Turner, the Norfolk antiquary, for whose antiquarian publications Cotman drew and etched the illustrations, and during the next three years (1817-19) he made annual expeditions into Normandy with this writer, whose Architectural Antiquities of Normandy, illustrated by Cotman, was published in 1822. All the time that he was engaged on drawings for these and other publications Cotman was exhibiting oil paintings and water colors both in Norwich and in London, but though several of these found purchasers the prices were so low that, notwithstanding his immense industry, Cotman could not have supported his wife and family if, in addition to all his other activities, he had not continued to give drawing lessons.
Natural Landscape (continued)
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)