Sunday, March 16, 2008
Diamond Price Speculation
The world-record high prices on quality diamonds is rather interesting because this has happened before + the dealers tend to have short memories or they may be going through momentary autism, or they may never learn from past mistakes, or is it pump and dump, I really don't know, but I found the article @ http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSL126151820080312 educational + insightful + now on the dangers of speculative pricing by dealers -- you be the judge!
Cultured Pearl Association Of America
Check out the videos of 5th Annual Tahitian Pearl Trophy Ceremony at New York City's Rockefeller Center Hotel Club Quarters @ Cultured Pearl Association of America
Useful link:
www.cpaa.org
Useful link:
www.cpaa.org
The Panic Of 1907
The book The Panic of 1907: Lessons Learned from the Market's Perfect Storm by Robert F. Bruner + Sean D. Carr is a great read and timely + it's a unique study in human behavior + it's easy-to-read and insightful + gem & jewelry & art dealers should read it.
Door-to-Door Sales: The Forgotten Channel
Door-to-Door Sales: The Forgotten Channel by Dylan Bolden and Tom Lutz suggest two ways to sell even more: squeezing salespeople more efficiently, by creating denser sales territories, closer to their homes; and putting more 'feet on the street', either by contracting out or by building a robust in-house recruitment, retention and training system.
Useful link:
www.bcg.com
I think it is vital to get the incentive structure right; who knows, the concept could be applicable in the gem & jewelry sector.
Useful link:
www.bcg.com
I think it is vital to get the incentive structure right; who knows, the concept could be applicable in the gem & jewelry sector.
The Gradual Recutting Of An Indian Table Cut
(via Diamond Cuts in Historic Jewelry:1381-1910) Herbert Tillander writes:
In the Six Voyages of John Baptista Tavernier there is an illustration of the fourth diamond that Tavernier sold to Louis XIV when he returned from his last voyage in 1669. At this point the stone weighed 51 9/16 ct. From Taverniers sketches it was impossible to produce a plausible side view of the gem with the recut Brilliant inscribed. But when I inverted the pictures, as Barbot (1858) and Kluge (1860) had done, the solution became immediately obvious. The first recutting (delivered by Alvarez in 1678) involved a loss of only about 9 ct—from 51 9/16 to 42 10/16 ct. At this stage the crown was only ‘brillianteered’—that is, the forty smallest facets were applied and polished—and the bulky pavilion was left untouched. The 1691 inventory described the stone as cut ‘à facettes, à la mode’, omitting the phrase ‘des deux côtés’.
The gem was finally transformed into a well-made Brilliant in 1786, when most of the old French Crown diamonds were refashioned in Antwerp. Now it weighed only 26¾ ct and was described as ‘un très grand diamant brilliant, forme carrée, coins émousses, de bonne eau, et net’.
In the Six Voyages of John Baptista Tavernier there is an illustration of the fourth diamond that Tavernier sold to Louis XIV when he returned from his last voyage in 1669. At this point the stone weighed 51 9/16 ct. From Taverniers sketches it was impossible to produce a plausible side view of the gem with the recut Brilliant inscribed. But when I inverted the pictures, as Barbot (1858) and Kluge (1860) had done, the solution became immediately obvious. The first recutting (delivered by Alvarez in 1678) involved a loss of only about 9 ct—from 51 9/16 to 42 10/16 ct. At this stage the crown was only ‘brillianteered’—that is, the forty smallest facets were applied and polished—and the bulky pavilion was left untouched. The 1691 inventory described the stone as cut ‘à facettes, à la mode’, omitting the phrase ‘des deux côtés’.
The gem was finally transformed into a well-made Brilliant in 1786, when most of the old French Crown diamonds were refashioned in Antwerp. Now it weighed only 26¾ ct and was described as ‘un très grand diamant brilliant, forme carrée, coins émousses, de bonne eau, et net’.
The Romantic Movement In France
(via The Outline of Art) William Orpen writes:
These methods of painting—though afterwards employed by the Pre-Raphaelites—were then a complete innovation in painting, and the painting was so novel in conception, so contrary to the received ideas of the time, that when it was at length completed and shown in the Salon of 1819 it was at first greeted with nothing but abuse. Nevertheless, this picture marks a turning-point in the history of French painting; it brought strong feeling and pulsating life into the barren and frozen official art, and gave new ideals to the younger generation.
At the time the genius of Géricault was more highly appreciated in England than in France, and after the exhibition of his masterpiece the artist visited London, where his drawings and paintings of horses were intensely admired, and Géricault did signal service to the art of both countries by returning to Paris full of praise for the painting of Bonington and Constable, whose pictures he introduced to and made known in Paris. Unfortunately for the world this great genius was short-lived. Early in 1823 he was stricken down by a mortal illness, and after eleven months of terrible suffering, borne with fortitude and composure, he died in January 1824 at the early age of thirty-three. His place at the head of the Romantic School was taken by Delacroix, who had been his friend and fellow student in the studio of Guérin.
Ferdinand Victor Eugène Delacroix was born at Charenton in 1798, but spent his early years at Marseilles, where he gained that love of vivid color and bright sunshine which afterwards distinguished his paiting. His father, an ex-foreign minister under the Directory and subsequently prefect of Marseilles and Bordeaux, did not take kindly to the idea of his son becoming a painter, but he died before his son came of age, and Eugène Delacroix then found shelter with a married sister in Paris, where he overcame family opposition and was allowed to study art.
His father, however, had left him penniless, and the young artist was so poor that in 1822, after painting his first great picture ‘The Barque of Dante,’ he could not afford to buy a frame, but sent the canvas to the Salon surrounded by four laths which he had colored with yellow powder. There it was seen by Baron Gros, who generously recognized the great talent of the poor artist, and not only persuaded the administration to give the picture a handsome new frame, but hung it in a place of honor in the Salon Carré.
‘The Barque of Dante’ made the painter famous at once, and did not offend the Classicists. Gross said the picture was ‘Rubens reformed,’ and paternally advised the artist. ‘Come to us; we will teach you how to draw.’ Delacroix was grateful to Gros for his kindness, but went his own way, and two years later he shocked the Classicists and delighted te Romantics by his picture ‘The Massacre of Scio.’
It will be remembered that Constable’s ‘Hay Wain’ was exhibited in the Paris Salon of 1824, and when Delacroix saw it he was so overwhelmed by its color that he obtained permission to retouch his own ‘Massacre of Scio’. In a fortnight he completely repainted this picture, using the purest and most vivid colors he could find, with the result that it now became as brilliant in color as it had already been in action and movement. The turbulent energy in this painting was too much for the Classicists, and Gros, playing on the title, said, ‘This is the massacre of painting.’ On the other hand, enthusiastic young critics lauded the picture with extravagant praise, one of them asserting that it showed up ‘all the horror of despotism’ in art as in life.
The Romantic Movement In France (continued)
These methods of painting—though afterwards employed by the Pre-Raphaelites—were then a complete innovation in painting, and the painting was so novel in conception, so contrary to the received ideas of the time, that when it was at length completed and shown in the Salon of 1819 it was at first greeted with nothing but abuse. Nevertheless, this picture marks a turning-point in the history of French painting; it brought strong feeling and pulsating life into the barren and frozen official art, and gave new ideals to the younger generation.
At the time the genius of Géricault was more highly appreciated in England than in France, and after the exhibition of his masterpiece the artist visited London, where his drawings and paintings of horses were intensely admired, and Géricault did signal service to the art of both countries by returning to Paris full of praise for the painting of Bonington and Constable, whose pictures he introduced to and made known in Paris. Unfortunately for the world this great genius was short-lived. Early in 1823 he was stricken down by a mortal illness, and after eleven months of terrible suffering, borne with fortitude and composure, he died in January 1824 at the early age of thirty-three. His place at the head of the Romantic School was taken by Delacroix, who had been his friend and fellow student in the studio of Guérin.
Ferdinand Victor Eugène Delacroix was born at Charenton in 1798, but spent his early years at Marseilles, where he gained that love of vivid color and bright sunshine which afterwards distinguished his paiting. His father, an ex-foreign minister under the Directory and subsequently prefect of Marseilles and Bordeaux, did not take kindly to the idea of his son becoming a painter, but he died before his son came of age, and Eugène Delacroix then found shelter with a married sister in Paris, where he overcame family opposition and was allowed to study art.
His father, however, had left him penniless, and the young artist was so poor that in 1822, after painting his first great picture ‘The Barque of Dante,’ he could not afford to buy a frame, but sent the canvas to the Salon surrounded by four laths which he had colored with yellow powder. There it was seen by Baron Gros, who generously recognized the great talent of the poor artist, and not only persuaded the administration to give the picture a handsome new frame, but hung it in a place of honor in the Salon Carré.
‘The Barque of Dante’ made the painter famous at once, and did not offend the Classicists. Gross said the picture was ‘Rubens reformed,’ and paternally advised the artist. ‘Come to us; we will teach you how to draw.’ Delacroix was grateful to Gros for his kindness, but went his own way, and two years later he shocked the Classicists and delighted te Romantics by his picture ‘The Massacre of Scio.’
It will be remembered that Constable’s ‘Hay Wain’ was exhibited in the Paris Salon of 1824, and when Delacroix saw it he was so overwhelmed by its color that he obtained permission to retouch his own ‘Massacre of Scio’. In a fortnight he completely repainted this picture, using the purest and most vivid colors he could find, with the result that it now became as brilliant in color as it had already been in action and movement. The turbulent energy in this painting was too much for the Classicists, and Gros, playing on the title, said, ‘This is the massacre of painting.’ On the other hand, enthusiastic young critics lauded the picture with extravagant praise, one of them asserting that it showed up ‘all the horror of despotism’ in art as in life.
The Romantic Movement In France (continued)
Saturday, March 15, 2008
Mobile UV-Vis Spectrophotometer
The portable UV-Vis Spectrophotometer is an important analytical gemological instrument that provides high resolution absorption + photoluminescence spectrums that are useful in identifying causes of color in diamonds + treated colored diamonds + origin determination of colored stones + pearl color authenticity + it's reliable and user-friendly.
Useful link:
www.oceanoptics.com
Useful link:
www.oceanoptics.com
Guy Kawasaki
Guy Kawasaki, a well-known Silicon Valley entrepreneur, launched of his second media startup, Alltop, at South by Southwest + his business models are unique and inspiring.
Useful links:
http://sxsw.com
http://alltop.com
http://truemors.com
www.garage.com
Useful links:
http://sxsw.com
http://alltop.com
http://truemors.com
www.garage.com
The Cheating Brain
Mary Carmichael's article His Cheating Brain @ http://www.newsweek.com/id/121492 was insightful because I have come across people in the gem & jewelry & art sector with similar traits and I have always wondered how to categorize them with a sweet jargon + I liked the term 'sensation seeker' + I might add sensation seeker with corrosive phenomenal effects + the writer was spot on.
Jewelry Market Update
According to industry analysts Italian jewelers are concerned by the economic slowdown in the United States, which is the most important export market for Italian producers + the rising prices of precious metals + volatile currencies have also added to the uncertainities.
Useful link:
www.cpsarezzo.it
I think jewelry companies in the Far East + South Asia + Southest Asia + the Middle East are also concerned like the Italians by the economic slowdown in the United States + in my view the only way to survive is to focus on quality + uniqueness of products.
Useful link:
www.cpsarezzo.it
I think jewelry companies in the Far East + South Asia + Southest Asia + the Middle East are also concerned like the Italians by the economic slowdown in the United States + in my view the only way to survive is to focus on quality + uniqueness of products.
The Coen Brothers
I am intrigued by the inventive + artistic talents of The Coen Brothers (Joel directs + Ethan produces) + together they have created memorable films I like.
Useful links:
www.coenbrothers.net
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coen_Brothers
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0001054/
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0001053/
Useful links:
www.coenbrothers.net
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coen_Brothers
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0001054/
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0001053/
Functional Chocolate
According to Barry Callebaut, nearly a quarter of Western consumers are increasingly interested in chocolate (s) with physical or emotional health benefits + these include Acticoa, a cocoa powder that contains a high level of the antioxidant polyphenols, pro-biotic chocolate for gut health, and a tooth-friendly chocolate made with isomaltulose, a natural constituent of honey and sugar cane.
Useful links:
www.barry-callebaut.com
www.euromonitor.com
www.foodproductiondaily.com
http://www.hawaiianchocolate.com/chocolate_tales_marijuana.html
A lesson for the gem & jewelry & art sector! Are there any diamond (s), colored stone (s) jewelry or art works that provide emotional benefits? Over to you.
Useful links:
www.barry-callebaut.com
www.euromonitor.com
www.foodproductiondaily.com
http://www.hawaiianchocolate.com/chocolate_tales_marijuana.html
A lesson for the gem & jewelry & art sector! Are there any diamond (s), colored stone (s) jewelry or art works that provide emotional benefits? Over to you.
Certifigate: Upgrading The Jennifer Lopez Pink
Chaim Even Zohar writes about the colors of certifigate + the lack of universal nomenclature on the wording of the various color grades + the GIA monopoly on color grades + the consumer's dilema + other viewpoints @ http://www.idexonline.com/portal_FullEditorial.asp
Chaim Even Zohar is the 'natural' voice--not only for the trade but also for the consumers + he has written vividly as to what goes on behind the scene + at times I wonder whether the concept of diamond grading is an idiot's game + the consumer is but one of the victims of GIA’s certifigate + the far greatest damage was done – and still is being done + as he rightly put it, in the small colored goods community, it had become apparent that if you didn’t play the game and were out of favor with the GIA’s power brokers, you really had no chance of staying in the business. Shocking!
Chaim Even Zohar is the 'natural' voice--not only for the trade but also for the consumers + he has written vividly as to what goes on behind the scene + at times I wonder whether the concept of diamond grading is an idiot's game + the consumer is but one of the victims of GIA’s certifigate + the far greatest damage was done – and still is being done + as he rightly put it, in the small colored goods community, it had become apparent that if you didn’t play the game and were out of favor with the GIA’s power brokers, you really had no chance of staying in the business. Shocking!
The Global Business Leader
The book The Global Business Leader: Practical Advice for Success in a Transcultural Marketplace by J. Frank Brown is full of fantastic business advice + I believe his ideas are not only timely but spot on.
Useful link:
http://knowledge.insead.edu/contents/FrankBrown.cfm
Useful link:
http://knowledge.insead.edu/contents/FrankBrown.cfm
John Mawe’s Blunders
(via Diamond Cuts in Historic Jewelry:1381-1910) Herbert Tillander writes:
For many years I wondered who had first introduced the idea that, for a Brilliant to be correctly shaped, it was desirable that it should have an overall height equal to its wideth. Then I came across the following passage from the second edition of John Mawe’s Treatise on Diamonds: ‘The rule to be adopted in regulating the height of the brilliant is (supposing the stone to be a regular octahedron), to divide it into eighteen parts. Five-eighteenths are cut away to form the table, and one-eighteenth for the collet, which will reduce the height one-third, and the diameter of the collet will be one-fifth of the table. If these distances are preserved, the collet will play in the center of every facet, but if there is any variation, it will play higher or lower, and greatly diminish the intensity of luster...’
Mawe cannot have meant an octahedron, but rather a bipyramid reduced in advance to a shape with an overall height equal to its width—he goes on to repeat the rules of Jeffries and to give additional proof, both in his illustration of a correctly proportioned Brilliant and in his own text: ‘the inclination of the facets to the girdle ought to be 45°, and the bizel should be inclined to the table at the supplement of the same angle.’ His first statement is an obvious misprint or oversight, yet no writer appears to have noticed it, not even Paul Grodzinski who, in his reprinted edition of Mawe’s Treatise, comments on a number of other details but not on this. Many other writers have simply accepted the error, believing that Mawe was referring to early Brilliant Cuts with octehedral main angles. But it is obvious that a stone of this sort could have been fashioned only in the very rare instances where the rough stone was a regular octahedron. No cutter would ever have started fashioning a stone by transforming an irregular crystal into an octahedral shape, thereby considerably reducing its weight. The old rules remained in force and no changes in standard proportions were made until the late nineteenth century.
Of course, cutters did not always observe the rules for ideal proportions, but even the earliest Square Cut Brilliants were hardly likely to be fashioned from octahedral rough; for the most part they were refashionings of obselete cuts. If an old square-shaped Point or Table Cut displayed satisfying light effects, the gem was simply faceted into a Brilliant without changing the proportions. It is possible, presumably, that such recuts may occasionally have served as prototypes for fashioning directly from octehedral rough.
For many years I wondered who had first introduced the idea that, for a Brilliant to be correctly shaped, it was desirable that it should have an overall height equal to its wideth. Then I came across the following passage from the second edition of John Mawe’s Treatise on Diamonds: ‘The rule to be adopted in regulating the height of the brilliant is (supposing the stone to be a regular octahedron), to divide it into eighteen parts. Five-eighteenths are cut away to form the table, and one-eighteenth for the collet, which will reduce the height one-third, and the diameter of the collet will be one-fifth of the table. If these distances are preserved, the collet will play in the center of every facet, but if there is any variation, it will play higher or lower, and greatly diminish the intensity of luster...’
Mawe cannot have meant an octahedron, but rather a bipyramid reduced in advance to a shape with an overall height equal to its width—he goes on to repeat the rules of Jeffries and to give additional proof, both in his illustration of a correctly proportioned Brilliant and in his own text: ‘the inclination of the facets to the girdle ought to be 45°, and the bizel should be inclined to the table at the supplement of the same angle.’ His first statement is an obvious misprint or oversight, yet no writer appears to have noticed it, not even Paul Grodzinski who, in his reprinted edition of Mawe’s Treatise, comments on a number of other details but not on this. Many other writers have simply accepted the error, believing that Mawe was referring to early Brilliant Cuts with octehedral main angles. But it is obvious that a stone of this sort could have been fashioned only in the very rare instances where the rough stone was a regular octahedron. No cutter would ever have started fashioning a stone by transforming an irregular crystal into an octahedral shape, thereby considerably reducing its weight. The old rules remained in force and no changes in standard proportions were made until the late nineteenth century.
Of course, cutters did not always observe the rules for ideal proportions, but even the earliest Square Cut Brilliants were hardly likely to be fashioned from octahedral rough; for the most part they were refashionings of obselete cuts. If an old square-shaped Point or Table Cut displayed satisfying light effects, the gem was simply faceted into a Brilliant without changing the proportions. It is possible, presumably, that such recuts may occasionally have served as prototypes for fashioning directly from octehedral rough.
The Romantic Movement In France
(via The Outline of Art) William Orpen writes:
The Art of Delacroix, Gericault, Corot, Millet, And The Barbizon School
1
Some thirty years before the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood began its triumphant fight in England for the free expression of new ideals in art, a similar struggle between old and new schools of artists was waged with extraordinary vehemence in France. We saw how under the Revolution and the Empire a cold Classicism was the dominating tendency in French painting, and how gradually there arose among the younger artists a reaction against this traditional art. The spirit of unrest, which profoundly agitated France after the restoration of the Bourbons and culminated in the revolutionary explosion of 1848, first began to show itself in the art and literature of the younger generation. On one hand were the defenders of tradition, of the ‘grand style’ of Academic painting, defenders of the classic ideal based on the sculpture of ancient Greece and Rome; on the other were ardent young reformers, intoxicated with the color and movement of life itself, who found their inspiration, not in the classics, but in romantic literature, in Dante, Shakespeare, Goethe, Byron, and Sir Walter Scott. Passion, movement, the imaginative expression of life were the aims of this group of artists, who became known as the Romantics.
‘Who will deliver us from the Greeks and Romans?’ was a catchword among the young enthusiasts who found more beauty in life and Nature than in the masterpieces of ancient sculpture. The deliverer was found in the ranks of the reactionaries, in a young artist who was the pupil of Guérin the classicist. Jean Louis André Théodore Géricault was born at Rouen in 1791 and came to Paris about 1806, studying first with Carle Vernet and afterwards with Guérin. His method of drawing was so different from that approved by the school of David, that it exasperated his ‘correct’ and academic master, who told Géricault he had better give up art because it was evident he would never succeed in it.
One day as Géricault was walking along a road near St. Cloud, a dapple-grey horse in a cart turned restive and plunged about in the sunshine. Géricault whipped out his sketch-book and jotted down notes of the movement of the animal and the play of light and shade on his dappled coat, and these notes gave him the idea of a great picture. He would paint an equestrian portrait, not the stiff image of a man on a wooden horse, but a vivid presentment of the plunging, sun-illumined animal he had seen. He persuaded his friend Lieutenant Dieudonné to pose for the rider, and he had a cab-horse brought round each morning that he might freshen his eye with the points of the horse. Working with the highest enthusiasm and energy Géricault, in the space of a fortnight, produced his ‘Officier des Chasseurs à Cheval,’ now in Louvre. This picture created a sensation in the Paris Salon of 1812.
Two years afterwards Géricault repeated his success with a companion picture, ‘The Wounded Cuirassier,’ and after a short period of military service—when he had further opportunities of studying his favorite equine models—he went in 1817 to Italy, where he ‘trembled’ before the works of Michael Angleo, who henceforward became his inspiration and idol.
When Géricault returned to France in 1818, he found all Paris talking about nothing but a naval disaster of two years earlier, an account of which had just been published by two of the survivors. The drama of the shipwreck of the Medusa seized upon the imagination of the artist, who determined to make it the subject of a picture. He spent months in collecting material for this work. He found the carpenter of the Medusa and induced him to make a model of the famous raft by which the survivors were saved. He spent days in hospitals studying the effects of illness and suffering. He persuaded two of the surviving officers of the ship to give him sittings, and painted one leaning against the mast and the other holding out his two arms towards the rescuing ship on the horizon. All his models were taken from life, and it is interesting to note that his friend, the famous artist Eugène Delacroix, posed for the man who lies inert on the left with his head against the edge of the raft.
The Romantic Movement In France (continued)
The Art of Delacroix, Gericault, Corot, Millet, And The Barbizon School
1
Some thirty years before the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood began its triumphant fight in England for the free expression of new ideals in art, a similar struggle between old and new schools of artists was waged with extraordinary vehemence in France. We saw how under the Revolution and the Empire a cold Classicism was the dominating tendency in French painting, and how gradually there arose among the younger artists a reaction against this traditional art. The spirit of unrest, which profoundly agitated France after the restoration of the Bourbons and culminated in the revolutionary explosion of 1848, first began to show itself in the art and literature of the younger generation. On one hand were the defenders of tradition, of the ‘grand style’ of Academic painting, defenders of the classic ideal based on the sculpture of ancient Greece and Rome; on the other were ardent young reformers, intoxicated with the color and movement of life itself, who found their inspiration, not in the classics, but in romantic literature, in Dante, Shakespeare, Goethe, Byron, and Sir Walter Scott. Passion, movement, the imaginative expression of life were the aims of this group of artists, who became known as the Romantics.
‘Who will deliver us from the Greeks and Romans?’ was a catchword among the young enthusiasts who found more beauty in life and Nature than in the masterpieces of ancient sculpture. The deliverer was found in the ranks of the reactionaries, in a young artist who was the pupil of Guérin the classicist. Jean Louis André Théodore Géricault was born at Rouen in 1791 and came to Paris about 1806, studying first with Carle Vernet and afterwards with Guérin. His method of drawing was so different from that approved by the school of David, that it exasperated his ‘correct’ and academic master, who told Géricault he had better give up art because it was evident he would never succeed in it.
One day as Géricault was walking along a road near St. Cloud, a dapple-grey horse in a cart turned restive and plunged about in the sunshine. Géricault whipped out his sketch-book and jotted down notes of the movement of the animal and the play of light and shade on his dappled coat, and these notes gave him the idea of a great picture. He would paint an equestrian portrait, not the stiff image of a man on a wooden horse, but a vivid presentment of the plunging, sun-illumined animal he had seen. He persuaded his friend Lieutenant Dieudonné to pose for the rider, and he had a cab-horse brought round each morning that he might freshen his eye with the points of the horse. Working with the highest enthusiasm and energy Géricault, in the space of a fortnight, produced his ‘Officier des Chasseurs à Cheval,’ now in Louvre. This picture created a sensation in the Paris Salon of 1812.
Two years afterwards Géricault repeated his success with a companion picture, ‘The Wounded Cuirassier,’ and after a short period of military service—when he had further opportunities of studying his favorite equine models—he went in 1817 to Italy, where he ‘trembled’ before the works of Michael Angleo, who henceforward became his inspiration and idol.
When Géricault returned to France in 1818, he found all Paris talking about nothing but a naval disaster of two years earlier, an account of which had just been published by two of the survivors. The drama of the shipwreck of the Medusa seized upon the imagination of the artist, who determined to make it the subject of a picture. He spent months in collecting material for this work. He found the carpenter of the Medusa and induced him to make a model of the famous raft by which the survivors were saved. He spent days in hospitals studying the effects of illness and suffering. He persuaded two of the surviving officers of the ship to give him sittings, and painted one leaning against the mast and the other holding out his two arms towards the rescuing ship on the horizon. All his models were taken from life, and it is interesting to note that his friend, the famous artist Eugène Delacroix, posed for the man who lies inert on the left with his head against the edge of the raft.
The Romantic Movement In France (continued)
New Energy Sources
Earth: The Sequel: The Race to Reinvent Energy and Stop Global Warming by Fred Krupp + Miriam Horn is an inspiring book full of ideas + I think there will be new start-ups in the energy sector + some of them will be very lucky!
Useful link:
www.edf.org
Useful link:
www.edf.org
The Chinese Art Market
I found the article Pump and Dump by Gady A. Epstein @ http://www.forbes.com/global/2008/0324/022.html interesting and insightful + here is what Liang Changsheng, art director of the Contemporary Artwork Auction firm in Beijing has to say:
'The trick of creating that next hot artist is an idiot's game. First get critics to write about him(The critics are paid by artists, auction houses and galleries for this service). Then organize exhibitions to introduce his work (That's paid for, too, even at the most prestigious national museums). Then you can put the work in auction with an establishing price and buy it back yourself in order to set an example for the public. Of course, it would be better if some other bidders join in.'
This reminded me of the colored stone + diamond business, especially the high-ticket stones (rubies, sapphires, emeralds, colorless + fancy colored diamonds) with guaranteed best-grade certificates + origin report. It is definitely an idiot's game!
'The trick of creating that next hot artist is an idiot's game. First get critics to write about him(The critics are paid by artists, auction houses and galleries for this service). Then organize exhibitions to introduce his work (That's paid for, too, even at the most prestigious national museums). Then you can put the work in auction with an establishing price and buy it back yourself in order to set an example for the public. Of course, it would be better if some other bidders join in.'
This reminded me of the colored stone + diamond business, especially the high-ticket stones (rubies, sapphires, emeralds, colorless + fancy colored diamonds) with guaranteed best-grade certificates + origin report. It is definitely an idiot's game!
Ian Gittler
Ian Gittler is an author + photographer + designer living in New York City. I liked his work.
Useful link:
www.iangittler.com
Useful link:
www.iangittler.com
The Importance Of Systemic Thinking
I found the article about Toyota by J. Brian Atwater + Paul Pittman on Systematic Thinking interesting because the issues that are related to systematic thinking are also applicable to gem identification.
Useful link:
www.apics.org
Useful link:
www.apics.org
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