Wednesday, March 05, 2008
Global Warming + Traditional Vineyards
(via The Guardian) Robert Joseph writes about the new challenges facing Europe's traditional vineyards + the effect of climate change to the wine industry + other viewpoints @ http://lifeandhealth.guardian.co.uk/drink/story/0,,2261841,00.html
Tools For Thought
Tools for Thought: The History and Future of Mind-Expanding Technology by Howard Rheingold is an interesting book about computing + insightful + I think this book is a valuable work.
Making 1,200 Museums Bloom
Barbara Pollack writes about the new challenges facing museum curators in China + absence of training programs for museum professionals + the impact + other viewpoints @ http://artnewsonline.com/issues/article.asp?art_id=2456
The New World
(via 5000 Years of Gems and Jewelry) Frances Rogers and Alice Beard writes:
Certain parts or even whole designs were often wrought, with great skill, entirely of human hair glued to the background. Or the design might be a ‘hair painting’. We have no documents to explain the technique of this lost art, but microscopic examination discloses the fact that finely chopped hair was mixed with the pigments. Somewhat less gloomy was the miniature (portrait) of the deceased mounted on a background of his or her hair—excellent for a locket.
Miniature portrait painters found it expedient to add ‘hair work’ to their artistic accomplishments and accordingly placed in the newspapers of the day such advertisements as this:
Miniature Painting. Hair work, etc. done in the neatest manner.
Or, expressed with more distinction:
All Kinds of Hair Devices made in the most elegant style.
Watchchains and bracelets were made of hair intricately plaited in many strands. Sometimes the braid was caught at intervals by medallions of wrought gold. When the hair was rich in color the effect was surprisingly pleasing—if you did not stop to think about it.
Charles Dickens (1812-70) in Great Expectations draws attention to mourning jewelry as worn in England. America could claim an equivalent propensity to advertise bereavement in like manner.
I judged him to be a bachelor (says Dickens) from the frayed condition of his linen, and he appeared to have sustained a good many bereavements; for he wore at least four mourning rings, besides a brooch representing a lady and a weeping willow at a tomb with an urn on it. I noticed, too, several rings and seals hung at his watchchain, as if he were quite laden with rememberances of departed friends.
Of course, in inspite of fashionable gloom there was also a brighter side of life to be represented by jewelry of the Victorian period. Red coral delicately carved and mounted in gold; purple amethyst set with pearls; amber and carnelian were wont to add their charm of color to the costumes of dainty ladies.
A funnel-shaped bouquet, the flowers formally arranged in concentric rings, was in accessory to the ball gown, and to carry this, without danger to gloves, a silver filigree bouquet-holder was the last word of sophisticated elegance.
The year 1849 brought spectacular discovery of gold in the West and the consequent famous gold rush of the Forty-niners. As yet there was no railroad extending from coast to coast across the continent; but the avid fever of desire for gold travels regardless of highways. It gripped even those who lived on the far shores of the Atlantic, for news of gold is broadcast without benefit of airmail or radio. To many men gold was a loadstone of incalculable power—go they must, no matter how difficult. And the going was mighty difficult. The best they could do was to take ship down the coast to the Isthmus of Panama, where a crude railroad ran only part way across the Isthmus (there was no navigable canal in ’49). The road was still unfinished, its rails coming to an abrupt end in the wilderness. At the last tie, there was nothing for it but to get out and walk, crawl, climb, wade as best they could through tropical, fever-haunted jungles and swamps. But what matter? There was gold drawing them onward. Some died by the way, but a surprising number of men reached the Pacific Coast, where they again took ship and sailed toward their hearts’ desire. This time it was no mirage but real American gold not to be disproved.
Markets on the Atlantic Coast leaped to the new impetus and gold jewelry became the order of the day.
Some years before the famous gold rush (about 1837) a shop had been opened on Broadway in New York City. It carried stationery and fancy goods with a side-line of jewelry. At first the shop could not have been either very large or impressive, for it was originally established on a borrowed capital of only one thousand dollars. But it prospered from the start. The business was run by two young American merchants, John B Young and Charles Louis Tiffany.
Presently it was found that their stock of jewelry had to be increased because it was growing more important than the stationery. In ten years’ time the partners were manufacturing gold jewelry, and from then on the course of the great House of Tiffany was definitely set.
The next year, 1848, was a troublous year for the Old Country though not for the New. There was an epidemic of revolutions among the various peoples of Europe. One after another they began to rise and defy their governing classes. Those in office, from kings downwards, were sent flying for safety—anywhere so it was out of their own countries. Paris, never to be outdone in such matters, was staging a revolution of sorts. Aristrocrats in sudden flight from France must have money on the instant, and the quickest way to get it was to sell their jewels.
And because such a great number of diamonds had all at once been thrown on the market, their price dropped fifty per cent. Here was the chance of a century for a diamond merchant.
As it happened, John Young had gone to Paris that very year. Tiffany, in New York, sent hurried word to his partner to buy all the diamonds in Paris that he could lay hands on, and bring them back to America.
Americans were buying, not selling, diamonds. This move reaped a fortune and the growing business required more room; it moved and continued at intervals to move again, each time into larger and more impressive quarters. The firm name became Tiffany and Company in 1851. Branches were established in London and Paris, and today, as one of the leading jewelers of America, Tiffany’s imposing shop stands on the New World’s most famous highway—glamorous Fifth Avenue in New York City.
The New World (continued)
Certain parts or even whole designs were often wrought, with great skill, entirely of human hair glued to the background. Or the design might be a ‘hair painting’. We have no documents to explain the technique of this lost art, but microscopic examination discloses the fact that finely chopped hair was mixed with the pigments. Somewhat less gloomy was the miniature (portrait) of the deceased mounted on a background of his or her hair—excellent for a locket.
Miniature portrait painters found it expedient to add ‘hair work’ to their artistic accomplishments and accordingly placed in the newspapers of the day such advertisements as this:
Miniature Painting. Hair work, etc. done in the neatest manner.
Or, expressed with more distinction:
All Kinds of Hair Devices made in the most elegant style.
Watchchains and bracelets were made of hair intricately plaited in many strands. Sometimes the braid was caught at intervals by medallions of wrought gold. When the hair was rich in color the effect was surprisingly pleasing—if you did not stop to think about it.
Charles Dickens (1812-70) in Great Expectations draws attention to mourning jewelry as worn in England. America could claim an equivalent propensity to advertise bereavement in like manner.
I judged him to be a bachelor (says Dickens) from the frayed condition of his linen, and he appeared to have sustained a good many bereavements; for he wore at least four mourning rings, besides a brooch representing a lady and a weeping willow at a tomb with an urn on it. I noticed, too, several rings and seals hung at his watchchain, as if he were quite laden with rememberances of departed friends.
Of course, in inspite of fashionable gloom there was also a brighter side of life to be represented by jewelry of the Victorian period. Red coral delicately carved and mounted in gold; purple amethyst set with pearls; amber and carnelian were wont to add their charm of color to the costumes of dainty ladies.
A funnel-shaped bouquet, the flowers formally arranged in concentric rings, was in accessory to the ball gown, and to carry this, without danger to gloves, a silver filigree bouquet-holder was the last word of sophisticated elegance.
The year 1849 brought spectacular discovery of gold in the West and the consequent famous gold rush of the Forty-niners. As yet there was no railroad extending from coast to coast across the continent; but the avid fever of desire for gold travels regardless of highways. It gripped even those who lived on the far shores of the Atlantic, for news of gold is broadcast without benefit of airmail or radio. To many men gold was a loadstone of incalculable power—go they must, no matter how difficult. And the going was mighty difficult. The best they could do was to take ship down the coast to the Isthmus of Panama, where a crude railroad ran only part way across the Isthmus (there was no navigable canal in ’49). The road was still unfinished, its rails coming to an abrupt end in the wilderness. At the last tie, there was nothing for it but to get out and walk, crawl, climb, wade as best they could through tropical, fever-haunted jungles and swamps. But what matter? There was gold drawing them onward. Some died by the way, but a surprising number of men reached the Pacific Coast, where they again took ship and sailed toward their hearts’ desire. This time it was no mirage but real American gold not to be disproved.
Markets on the Atlantic Coast leaped to the new impetus and gold jewelry became the order of the day.
Some years before the famous gold rush (about 1837) a shop had been opened on Broadway in New York City. It carried stationery and fancy goods with a side-line of jewelry. At first the shop could not have been either very large or impressive, for it was originally established on a borrowed capital of only one thousand dollars. But it prospered from the start. The business was run by two young American merchants, John B Young and Charles Louis Tiffany.
Presently it was found that their stock of jewelry had to be increased because it was growing more important than the stationery. In ten years’ time the partners were manufacturing gold jewelry, and from then on the course of the great House of Tiffany was definitely set.
The next year, 1848, was a troublous year for the Old Country though not for the New. There was an epidemic of revolutions among the various peoples of Europe. One after another they began to rise and defy their governing classes. Those in office, from kings downwards, were sent flying for safety—anywhere so it was out of their own countries. Paris, never to be outdone in such matters, was staging a revolution of sorts. Aristrocrats in sudden flight from France must have money on the instant, and the quickest way to get it was to sell their jewels.
And because such a great number of diamonds had all at once been thrown on the market, their price dropped fifty per cent. Here was the chance of a century for a diamond merchant.
As it happened, John Young had gone to Paris that very year. Tiffany, in New York, sent hurried word to his partner to buy all the diamonds in Paris that he could lay hands on, and bring them back to America.
Americans were buying, not selling, diamonds. This move reaped a fortune and the growing business required more room; it moved and continued at intervals to move again, each time into larger and more impressive quarters. The firm name became Tiffany and Company in 1851. Branches were established in London and Paris, and today, as one of the leading jewelers of America, Tiffany’s imposing shop stands on the New World’s most famous highway—glamorous Fifth Avenue in New York City.
The New World (continued)
The Pre-Raphaelites
(via The Outline of Art) William Orpen writes:
‘The Hireling Shepherd’ embodies the essence of Pre-Raphaelitism and indicates its high-water mark. In the heedless sheperd, who dallies with a coquettish beauty while a wolf is worrying his sheep, a worthy moral lesson is inculcated; while its bright, jewel-like color reveals the minute fidelity with which Nature has been painted. When it was shown in the Academy of 1852 the battle was nearly over, for though there was still considerable opposition, the Pre-Raphaelite picture had now become an accepted type of painting, and other Academy exhibitors were beginning to change their practice and paint in a similar style.
The battle was won, but the Brotherhood was beginning to break up; Woolner was in Australia, Collinson thinking about retiring to a monastery, William Rossetti and Stephens had definitely become writers, and worse still, Dante Gabriel Rossetti was beginning to drift away. From 1850 to 1853 Rossetti produced no large picture, he was steeping himself in Dantesque literature and his mind was more occupied with poetry; now and again he produced some lovely little water-colors, Ruskin, who had become his principal patron, encouraging him in this direction with his purse as well as his praise. In 1853—the year in which he painted ‘The Order of Release’—Millais was elected A.R.A and in the following year Holman Hunt, who had just painted and sold for £400 ‘The Light of the World,’ set sail for Palestine in order that he might be able to paint incidents from the life of Christ with literal truth to the nature of the country in which he lived. To the end Holman Hunt remained the most consistent of all to the principles of Pre-Raphaelitism.
For a little while after his departure the influence of Holman Hunt lingered in England. ‘Autumn Leaves’ and ‘The Blind Girl,’ both painted in 1855, are true Pre-Raphaelite pictures, and they were the last paintings by Millais that Ruskin blessed. But gradually, as he went on his way alone, Millais deteriorated, and though his work rapidly won public favor so that his career henceforward was, from a wordly point of view, one of uninterrupted success, his pictures ceased to be inspired by the noble seriousness of Holman Hunt or by the poetry of Rossetti. What had been sentiment degenerated into sentimentality, and as his subject matter became commoner in quality, so an increasing laxity crept into his style of painting. ‘Bubbles,’ the child picture so extensively popularized as an advertisement by a firm of soap makers, is thte best known example of his later style, but the achievementes which come nearest to the distinction of his early work are some of his portraits, notably that of John Charles Montague, an ex-sergeant of the 16th Lancers, whom Millais painted in the uniform of ‘The Yeoman of the Guard.’ This picture was painted in 1876, and thirteen years earlier Millais had been elected R.A. In 1885 he was created a baronet, and in 1896, after the death of Lord Leighton, he was made President of the Royal Academy; but already his health was failing, and shortly after his election he died, on August 13 of the same year, and was buried in St Paul’s Cathedral by te side of his mighty predecessor, Sir Joshua Reynolds.
The Pre-Raphaelites (continued)
‘The Hireling Shepherd’ embodies the essence of Pre-Raphaelitism and indicates its high-water mark. In the heedless sheperd, who dallies with a coquettish beauty while a wolf is worrying his sheep, a worthy moral lesson is inculcated; while its bright, jewel-like color reveals the minute fidelity with which Nature has been painted. When it was shown in the Academy of 1852 the battle was nearly over, for though there was still considerable opposition, the Pre-Raphaelite picture had now become an accepted type of painting, and other Academy exhibitors were beginning to change their practice and paint in a similar style.
The battle was won, but the Brotherhood was beginning to break up; Woolner was in Australia, Collinson thinking about retiring to a monastery, William Rossetti and Stephens had definitely become writers, and worse still, Dante Gabriel Rossetti was beginning to drift away. From 1850 to 1853 Rossetti produced no large picture, he was steeping himself in Dantesque literature and his mind was more occupied with poetry; now and again he produced some lovely little water-colors, Ruskin, who had become his principal patron, encouraging him in this direction with his purse as well as his praise. In 1853—the year in which he painted ‘The Order of Release’—Millais was elected A.R.A and in the following year Holman Hunt, who had just painted and sold for £400 ‘The Light of the World,’ set sail for Palestine in order that he might be able to paint incidents from the life of Christ with literal truth to the nature of the country in which he lived. To the end Holman Hunt remained the most consistent of all to the principles of Pre-Raphaelitism.
For a little while after his departure the influence of Holman Hunt lingered in England. ‘Autumn Leaves’ and ‘The Blind Girl,’ both painted in 1855, are true Pre-Raphaelite pictures, and they were the last paintings by Millais that Ruskin blessed. But gradually, as he went on his way alone, Millais deteriorated, and though his work rapidly won public favor so that his career henceforward was, from a wordly point of view, one of uninterrupted success, his pictures ceased to be inspired by the noble seriousness of Holman Hunt or by the poetry of Rossetti. What had been sentiment degenerated into sentimentality, and as his subject matter became commoner in quality, so an increasing laxity crept into his style of painting. ‘Bubbles,’ the child picture so extensively popularized as an advertisement by a firm of soap makers, is thte best known example of his later style, but the achievementes which come nearest to the distinction of his early work are some of his portraits, notably that of John Charles Montague, an ex-sergeant of the 16th Lancers, whom Millais painted in the uniform of ‘The Yeoman of the Guard.’ This picture was painted in 1876, and thirteen years earlier Millais had been elected R.A. In 1885 he was created a baronet, and in 1896, after the death of Lord Leighton, he was made President of the Royal Academy; but already his health was failing, and shortly after his election he died, on August 13 of the same year, and was buried in St Paul’s Cathedral by te side of his mighty predecessor, Sir Joshua Reynolds.
The Pre-Raphaelites (continued)
Music With No Hassle
I found www.kuppu.com interesting + I liked the interface that looks like a radio + choose a style – jazz, classic, rock, oldies, latin – and hit play.
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