Jewelry Art

Elizabeth Taylor's collection of jewelry designs recently went for $156,756,576.

Sometimes they're referred to as "applied arts." Included are various areas of artistic expertise such as quilting, lapidary, fashion design, interior design, architecture, and at least a dozen more. It's not a term I'm fond of. It's derogatory. It implies a lower tier of creative endeavor simply because the work is in some way practical (as if paintings aren't sometimes used to cover up cracks in the wall). To me, any designer may rise to the level of "fine" art (that art presumably having no practical purpose), just as any painter or sculptor can sink to the level of imitative hack. Over the last one-thousand plus postings here I've dealt with several design disciplines. Today it's the art of making gems and precious metals look presentable--jewelry design.

Liz as Cleopatra. The outfit is
said to have weighed more than
seventy-five pounds.

No, the late actress Elizabeth Taylor (top) was not a jewelry designer, though she could have been. The CEO of her House of Taylor jewelry line, Peter Sedghi, admitted she knew more about jewelry than he did. It's likely no one in history epitomized fine jewelry design more than the beautiful recipient of so much of it from her seven husbands, who knew what she liked (particularly Mike Todd and Richard Burton). It's quite appropriate that Liz should have become such a jewelry icon inasmuch as she played the ancient Egyptian queen Cleopatra in the 1963 MGM movie likely laden with more gold and jewelry than any other film in history (left). Though, of course, it was all costume jewelry, that didn't make the designs themselves any less striking. Irene Sharaff and Renie Conley did their research into ancient Egyptian garb and jewelry, but that didn't stand in their way in bedecking their star with over-the-top sparkling stuff the real Cleopatra would have died for. In return, they each got a sparkling gold statue for their mantels.



Phoenician bracelet, 10th century BC
--hammered gold. (Sorry, no picture
of Liz wearing it.)

Though it's difficult to place archaeological jewelry precisely, little seems to have survived from before the 13th and 12th centuries BC. Most of it is 24-carat gold and virtually none of it involved gemstones. The Phoenicians were adept (right), and may have passed the art to the Egyptians who, long before Cleopatra donned her first set of gold earrings, turned out such jewelry masterpieces as Tutankhamun's funeral mask from around 1323 BC (bottom). Recent archaeological finds in Israel indicate the Jews knew how to turn out a few gold trinkets as well.

 

Cleopatra the numismatist

It would seem that the art of jewelry design proceeded through history parallel with that of coinage, a fact not lost on MGM's Sharaff in depicting her Cleopatra wearing a necklace made entirely of gold coins (left) bearing the likeness of Julius Caesar, hoping to make Mark Anthony (Richard Burton) jealous. When pursuing the history of jewelry design, very often the major emphasis often strays to the stars of the show, the gems. Even Liz's $150-million collection was more about the stones than what held them all together. However that's like saying that the movie stars are more important than the movies in which they display their talents. That's where the art of the jewelry designer becomes paramount (pun intended). The designer writes the script. Like a scriptwriter, the jewelry designer needs a broad range of knowledge--metallurgy, art, history, gemology--and often possesses the technical skills to make up his or her designs into models for others to reproduce or for the making of molds used in casting precious metals.

 

The Bulgari emerald ensemble,
a gift in 1962 from Burton.

Jewelry design has come a long way since the Egyptians used it to dress up their mummies. Silver became popular as a less expensive substitute for gold (though it's said by some to be more difficult to work with). During the Renaissance, the goldsmith's workshop was often the doorway through which young would-be artist first apprenticed. Alchemy, if nothing else, taught jewelers how to gold plate. From Faberge to Tiffany, to Harry Winston, the jewelry artists of the past are nearly as well-known as painters, sculptors, and other "fine" artists. Today, there are so many outstanding artists turning out so much outstanding art that few jewelry designers, as well as painters, are in any danger of becoming household names. Thus we need legendary jewelry experts such as Elizabeth Taylor to serve as figureheads for this ancient art form in guaranteeing it a place of equal importance to that art which serves no practical purpose.

 

King Tut's taste in jewelry ran toward enameled gold and semi-precious stones.

 

Francis I

Francis I, King of France, 1539, Titian

Benvenuto Cellini's portrait of the king
tends to minimize his long nose.

If it weren't for art collectors there would be far fewer artists. That's as much a fact today as any time in the past, even going back to some of the very first art collectors. During the Italian Renaissance the de' Medici were among the first individual patrons of the art. They were a banking family. They had money. That, along with good taste, are the two primary prerequisites for collecting art. In France, around the same time (the early 1500s) the king of France sought to imitate the wealthy Florentines. He sent agents bearing money (if not good taste) to pick up important works of art (mostly paintings) for his new royal collection. His name was King Francis I, and without his money and good taste there would, today, be a lot less art in France. There might not even be a Louvre.

Francis I was born in 1494 at the Chateau de Cognac in west-central France. He became King by marrying the daughter of his second cousin, King Louis XII in 1514. The king died a year later and Francis at the age of 21 became king in his place. Having been the presumptive heir to the French throne since the age of four (when he and the king's daughter were betrothed) Francis had the best Renaissance education money could buy, and a mother (Louise of Savoy), from whom he inherited his good tastes. In uniting the various discordant provinces into the geographical area of France we know today, Francis came into a lot of money as the country's first, real, absolute monarch. Mostly he wasted it fighting various wars with his nemesis, Charles V of the Holy Roman Empire (a misnomer if there ever was one). However, a significant portion of the country's wealth he used to buy art and build chateaus. Despite what we might deem obscene extravagance in both areas, compared to fighting wars on all sides of him (he also fought with the Spanish, the Italians, and even the Swiss) it was money well spent.

Francis I receiving the last breath of Leonardo da Vinci in 1519,
1818, Jean-Auguste Ingres

When Francis became king, the walls of the various royal habitations in France were virtually bare. There were a few crude, portraits here and there, but no sculpture and the architecture (if you could call it that) was Medieval at best. In collecting art, Francis I also collected artists principally Andrea del Sarto, Benvenuto Cellini, Rosso Fiorentino, Giulio Romano, Primaticcio, and most notably, Leonardo da Vinci, who came to live, and later die, in the king's palace (as depicted by Ingres, above). With him, he came packing the Mono Lisa, which is why it hangs in the Louvre today.

 

The Chateau de Chambord, 1519-1546, Loire Valley, France

Palatially speaking, Francis' most notable construction was the French Renaissance Chateau de Chambord in the Loire valley. The sprawling white edifice, still under construction when the king died in 1547, has been attributed to a number of different architects, but romantic tradition maintains it was designed by Leonardo da Vinci himself shortly before his death. The king's roster of other royal residences, either built or refurbished during his reign, include the Chateau d'Ambroise, the Chateau de Blois, the Chateau de Madrid, the Château de St-Germain-en-Laye, the Chateau de Fontainebleau, as well at the Chateau du Louvre, in Paris. Today's massive Louvre art collection began with approximately 200 works amassed by Francis I. By 1682, when Louis XIV vacated the drafty old palace for Versailles, that number had grown to over 2,000. Today, the Louvre's art objects alone number some 35,000.



 

Andrea Palladio

Villa Rotonda, 1570, Veneto, Italy, Andrea Palladio

Portrait of Palladio, 1576,
G.B Maganza

Artists influence the way we live. Their creative efforts permeate virtually every aspect of our lives today from the pictures on our walls to the clothes we wear. All were designed by artists--even the convenience food we buy in stores or the plates of food set before us in fancy restaurants. However no artist has a greater impact than those who design the environment in which we live--architects. That has changed somewhat just in my lifetime as architects have passed the responsibility for interior spaces largely to what have come to be know as "interior designers" (don't call them interior decorators). However, before the two areas of expertise parted company, architects were the artists who dictated the major impact culture had upon their client's lives.

In ancient history they were known as "master builders." As the use of paper and pencils became more and more common, these master builders became more like master planners. Their apprentices took their place on building sites (and often still do today). Most such early "architects" were largely unknown. Wikipedia list three architects from the 13th century. The 14th century has four. Thereafter, their numbers approximately doubles with each passing century. By the 16th century, when architecture became an official profession, the list jumps to 17, including such names as Michelangelo, Antonio Sangallo (the elder and the younger), Raphael, Giorgio Vasari, and perhaps the most important one of all, Andrea Palladio.



Mount Vernon's Palladian window

If you've ever heard of him at all, you may have heard of his window. The palladian window came to America translated from Italian to English by publishing architects such as the Langley Brothers, William Pain, Richard Godfrey, and William Salmon. The most famous example in the U.S. was copied by George Washington's builder for the centerpiece gracing the "grand ballroom" of Mount Vernon. It's basically a central arched window with two rectangular side windows, augmented by numerous variations as to both inside and outside decoration. The Mount Vernon design probably came from the Langley's The City and Country Builder's and Workman's Treasury of Designs, published in London in 1741 (there was also a palladian door).

The title page of
I Quattro Libri dell'Architettura

Most famous architects leave behind their lasting influence when their designs are build and deemed important enough to be preserved for succeeding centuries. And certainly, the exquisite adaptation of classical Roman architecture Palladio manifested have been a factor in his lasting influence. His Villla Rotonda (1570) in Veneto, Italy and his San Giorgio Maggiore (1560-63) in Venice are considered his most outstanding works. However, in Palladio's case, more than anything else, it's his writings and drawings, which he published in four huge volumes starting in 1570, titled I Quattro Libri dell'Architettura (Four Books on Architecture). In effect, Palladio was to "write the book(s)" on the subject.

Born in 1508, more than any other single architect, Andrea Palladio has been the most influential in history, from Indigo Jones to Christopher Wren to Thomas Jefferson, his followers include a "who's who" of professionals and legions of amateurs. The Roman's copied the Greeks. Palladio copied the Romans via Vitruvius' de Architectura. More than that though, Palladio adapted the Roman style to "modern" Italian living. Every one of his nearly 70 surviving works are in the area of Venice. Yet, thanks to the English architects who unashamedly plagiarized his writings, in stone and in print (even though they were kind enough to provide attribution), Palladio is still influencing domestic architecture all around the world today. Whenever some rich home builder wants to exhibit his good taste, elements from Palladio's models continue to raise their classical head.

The Church of San Giorgio Maggiore, 1560-77, Venice, Andrea Palladio.
The façade is by Palladio as well, completed by  Vincenzo Scamozzi  and
Simone Sorella in 1611, after Palladio's death in 1580.

 

Brett Whiteley

Lavender Bay, 1975-76, Brett Whiteley--as close to a self-portrait as he gets. 

Writers and critics take it as their sworn duty to categorize artists. I mean, what would we do to give structure and meaning to all the art which has been created down through the centuries if it were not organized in some way. Art historians, being historians, tend to go first for chronology, their most natural instinct. That works relatively well in dealing with ancient art--that which has been created up until the past couple hundred years. At that point, art begins to fragment into movements that are simultaneous and quite different, sometimes even opposite. Chronology alone is inadequate, so we give the movements names and categorize their artists accordingly. But starting mostly in the 20th century, even that practice begins to fall apart. There were just too many movements and too many important artists involved in them. So, when that fails, those who worry about such stuff tend to fall back on the artists' nationality. It's a horrible habit, if for no other reason that it evokes all manner of inaccurate ethnic, national, and even racial stereotypes. American artists do not all paint alike, or even share a common background. Even if the nation is relatively small and homogeneous, the ice upon which such writers skate can still become dangerously thin. England, for instance, is small, its people not nearly as diverse as those on the North American continent, yet the diversity of its art rivals that of any country on earth.

The Wall, 1956, Brett Whiteley--he was seventeen at the time.

Today I'm going to put on my skates and venture out onto the analogical "thin ice" of discussing an Australian artist--Brett Whiteley. Why? Because with an artist such as Whiteley, no other means of categorization works...at least not any more aptly than the nationalistic term, Australian. Sure, he's mid-20th century--born in 1939, died in 1992. And, his teenage work bears traces of Abstract Expressionism, though he was literally "born too late" to be considered part of that movement. He's probably resent such a categorization in any case. By the same token, there's nothing Postmodern about his mostly figural and facial distortions, often going well beyond the grotesque. In short, Brett Whiteley fits in no traditional (or nontraditional) category except for the fact he was Australian. This is a first for me. I've never written about an Australian artist before. And if my guess is right, you've never read about an Australian artist before either.



Brett Whiteley's home studio/museum, Surry Hills, Australia

Where he painted...

Where he slept--the man lived in his warehouse studio.

If you want a self-portrait of Brett Whiteley, ignore his Lavender Bay (top). It's mostly about his studio and here, given Whiteley's style, the photos (above) are more telling. I suppose it's true that you can tell a lot about any artist by seeing his or her studio, but especially so in Whiteley's case. It's obvious he lived art. And short of a visit to his memorializing home/studio/gallery in a warehouse, open to the public in Surry Hills, Australia (an inner suburb of Sidney), the photos of his working and living space paint a picture of his mind, if not his face. 

The Olgas, 1985, Brett Whiteley--an Australian sexual landscape, goes for $3.5-million.

I don't know that there is anything distinctly Australian in Australian art (other than the landscape), but that's certainly the case with Whiteley's art, which makes any attempt to label him mostly an academic exercise. His 1985 The Olgas (above), is a rare exception (which may account for its record-setting price at auction). He's seldom non-representational but sometimes he comes close. As the photo of his easel indicates, he had a tendency to slop paint around. His paintings reflect this too, though it's never uncontrolled. He had a rancid sense of humor--warped and cunning. His time in New York during the late 1960s taught him to paint large, like an American. His time in London in the early 60s invested (some might say, infested) his work with a British irreverence that can be as charming as it is maddening. If I were to characterize his work as a whole, I'd call it: Salvador Dali on drugs.

Whiteley faces.

There is a Dali-esque surrealism, but one never flirting with believability--the druggie element. Dali distorted. Whiteley distorted distortions. His female nudes are cartoonishly voluptuous but never erotic even though bordering on the pornographic at times. And his faces...the man could capture a likeness as well as any portrait artist, but the person behind the face seems always more important than the eyes, nose, and mouth. The drugs I mentioned were not just a figurative reference. As the years passed, the appearance in paint of a drugged-out artist became all too literal. On June 15, 1992, Brett Whiteley was found dead in a hotel room of a heroin overdoes. He was 53.

Fred Herzog

My Room, Harwood Street, 1958, Fred Herzog

Seldom do I write about living artists. Even more rarely do I do photographers. It's not that I have anything against either one, it's just that there are so many of both today, it doesn't seem fair to single out a single artist for special treatment (or even a married one). Fred Herzog is different. First of all he was born in 1930 which makes him 83 years old, so while he's not dead yet, the hands of time are definitely not in his favor. As a photographer, he's also quite apart from most, even most photographers his age. Fred has lived and worked most of his life in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. Thus, to begin with, his life's work as a shutterbug has been quite focused. He's created a portrait of a city both geographically and socially. However what makes Fred Herzog's archive of images even more special is the fact that they are in color.

 

Mom's Shoes, 1969, Fred Herzog

The Old Man, 1959, Fred Herzog

Why is color special? Today, most photographer's shoot in color. However, when Herzog began making pictures seriously around 1950, most "serious" photographers didn't shoot color. Color had long since ceased to be experimental. Even amateurs could buy a roll of Kodachrome and take color pictures. But that was the problem. There was the stench of amateurism in shooting color images. Color; was considered "commercial." It was expensive; it was seen as gaudy; too "pretty," and lacking in artistic subtleties. The black and white image ruled the photographic art world, garnered all the gallery space, and captured all the awards for creative excellence. Yet Fred Herzog embraced color. He shot color slides. Today, his colored world bears such a powerful, realistic, resemblance to the "good ole days" we remember from the 50s, 60s, and 70s, any negative qualities such images might once have had from an artistic standpoint, seem moot and snobbish.

 

Hastings and Carrall, 1968, Fred Herzog--cringe worthy

Union, Back Alley, 1981, Fred Herzog

Fred Herzog didn't go for the "pretty." Though his work provides wildly extravagant opportunities to wallow feverishly in nostalgia, they are seldom pretty. Many are downright "gritty," even ugly in their harsh reality, which we've tended to forget or minimize amid the nostalgic glow of how good things "used to be." There is beauty present, though it's not to be found so much in the content as in the images themselves, his color juxtapositions, his intuitive sensitivities to the way the camera and its film handled color at a time when very few artists had such an understanding. Black and white images were safe. Color could be rambunctious and unpredictable between the clicking of the shutter and the fabrication of images in the darkroom. Moreover, color was about three times more difficult to control in the darkroom (as in red, yellow, and blue, each hue demanding special attention as the image developed). In shooting color slides, Herzog entrusted his images to a machine, allowing the color chips to fall where they might, exercising control only from behind the camera. His was an artist's mind, and an artist's eye for expressive truth, coupled with a photographer's itchy finger.

 

Painting Classes, Steveston, 1974, Fred Herzog

Canada Dry, 1966, Fred Herzog,
a tribute to Andy Warhol?

Herzog's work can be evenly divided between his shooting Vancouver and shooting those inhabiting Vancouver. Today we still have urban ugliness, but we often forget just how pervasive it was fifty years ago when beauty of any kind was so costly and inconvenient. Today we even have laws which attempt to keep our urban environment attractive, neat, clean, and healthy. Herzog records a time when the signage alone in our major cities makes us cringe today; when rusting automobiles dominated the weeds of vacant lots, when smoke, litter, and just plain garbage were taken as but one of the accepted costs of living in a big city. Yes, it was a simpler time. Yes, life was less hectic. Yes, people seemed more gentle and caring, but in gazing at Herzog's photos, we also begin to wonder if the haze of nostalgia may have also colored out recollection of the people, as well as the places we knew "back then."

Over 130 more images of Fred Herzog's work can be seen at The Equinox Gallery website.

Wreck at Georgia/Dunlevy, 1966, Fred Herzog

Awake, 1966, Fred Herzog

2nd Hand Store Boy, 1959, Fred Herezog

Andrea del Verrocchio

Bartolomeo Colleoni, 1483-88, Andrea del Verrocchio



Anyone who teaches art has probably considered the possibility (indeed, the probability) that one or more of his or her students will far exceed their own work as artists. Andrea del Verrocchio may have had such thoughts--and with good reason. Two of his students were none other then Leonardo da Vinci and Pietro Perugino, both outstanding painters, far exceeding the work of their master. Of course, Verrocchio could always claim to be a sculptor first and a painter second, though as a painting instructor, it would appear he was second to none. His workshop in Florence was unique in that Verrocchio allowed senior apprentices such as Leonardo to paint portions of commissions he worked on himself. Leonardo is said to have painted the angel on the left in Verrocchio's Baptism of Christ (below). Some experts find traces of Leonardo's brushwork in various areas all over the painting.



The Baptism of Christ, ca. 1475, Andrea del Verrocchio

David, ca. 1460,
Andrea del Verrocchio

Though Verrocchio was highly respected and considered quite accomplished in his own time, it's his connection with Leonardo which has made him famous in art circles today. Despite the differences in their ages, (Verrocchio was born in 1435, Leonardo in 1452) the two are inextricably entwined. Tradition has it Verrocchio used Leonardo, his young apprentice at the time, as the model for his David. The bronze figure, commissioned by Piero de' Medici sometime during the 1460s, would place its creation during Leonardo's early teen years (he joined Verrocchio's workshop at the age of fourteen). It's a tribute to Verrocchio's prestige as a painter. a sculptor, and a goldsmith in 15th century Florence that his workshop was able to attract such outstanding talents, in effect, serving as a guiding light for the high Renaissance.

 

Madonna and Child, 1470,
Andrea del Verrocchio

 

 

 

 

 

 

Verrocchio's painting ability and style are not such as to "knock your socks off" (so to speak). First of all, he painted in tempera (as in egg tempera) an extremely demanding and limiting medium as compared to Leonardo's oils or even fresco. Thus Verrocchio's style tends to be tight and rather "mannered" (for lack of a better term). His Madonna and seated Child is from around 1470. (Art historians seem to love that year; an excessive amount of Verrocchio's work bears that date). While the figure of the Christ child is quite animated and natural, the figure of Mary seems lifeless and frail, the face "pinched" and the whole figure disproportionate to that of the toddler in her lap.

 

Tobias and the Angel, 1470,
Andrea del Verrocchio

Tobias and the Angel (also from 1470--must have been a busy year) is, in my view, much better, more lively and engaging, though some of the same bothersome traits seen in Verrocchio's Madonna and Child are still noticeable. The figure of the angel, like that of the Christ child, seems much stronger than the rather petite Tobias, his face much too "pretty" for a male figure and again, disproportionate to the body. I'm guessing the head and figure did not belong to the same model.



Lorenzo de' Medici, ca. 1485,
Andrea del Verrocchio

Whatever skills Verrocchio may have lacked as a painter, he more than made up for as a sculptor. He was literally without peer in Florence, perhaps in all Italy during the early Renaissance. The ruling de' Medici family in Florence recognized his talents as a sculptor, becoming his most dependable clients as seen in his terracotta bust of Lorenzo (the Magnificent) from around 1485 (right). Likewise, his services were in demand elsewhere besides his hometown. In 1479 Verrocchio journeyed to nearby Venice to compete for the commission to cast a large, bronze equestrian statue of Bartolomeo Colleoni (top), a deceased Venetian general, who had willed the city the money to erect a statue of himself in San Marco Square (how modest of him). Verrocchio submitted an exceptional wax model, competing against similar models made of wood and leather. He won the hefty commission, but unfortunately, never lived to see it completed. He died in 1488 at the age of 53. The casting was made by Alessandro Leopardi, one of the artists who had lost out to Verrocchio in the competition nine years before. The work is considered Verrocchio's greatest masterpiece, the casting, while a considerable feat at the time, is often characterized as not doing justice to Verrocchio's sculptural vision.



Photo by Saiko

Giuliano de' Medici, 1475-78, Andrea del Verrocchio
(Lorenzo's brother) 

 

Victor Vasarely

Victor Vasarely (1906-1997)--art that's not easy on the eyes.

The seeds of an art movement are often planted decades before they sprout and bloom in all their artistic glory. A couple days ago I mentioned this fact with regard to the work of Frank Stella's hard-edged Minimalism and his forerunner, Kasimir Malevich. The Hungarian-born op-artist, Victor Vasarely, was another such forerunner. His Zebras (below) he painted in 1938. The difference, in Vasarely's case, is that he lived and worked long enough (he died in 1997 at the age of 90) to see his Op Art seeds sprout and take on life, then to harvest the rewards of a movement he largely started and fostered on his own (though M.C. Escher might be considered a forerunner in this genre, see 01-04-11). The only other artist to challenge Vasarely in this field of retinal fatigue was Bridget Riley (05-18-12) who was but a child of seven when Vasarely discovered zebras.

Zebras, 1938, Victor Vasarely

Blue Study, 1929,
Victor Vasarely

To the uninitiated, it would not be difficult to confuse the works of Riley and Vasarely. As for giving you a "quick and easy" rule of thumb in differentiating between them; Riley's work tends to deal more with lines while Vasarely's deals with optical masses, particularly the square and cube. As with all such guidelines, there are exceptions in both artists' work. Riley sometimes used squares and Vasarely, perhaps unavoidably, sometimes used lines to make our eyes hurt. Worse, it seems almost as if they were imitating one another at times. Beyond that, Vasarely's work tends to be more suffused with color than does Riley's optical illusions.





OB-NEG, 1955,
Victor Vasarely

Vasarely arrived at his "trick the eye" work the hard way--he all but invented the genre. Riley, of course, knew of Vasarely's work and embraced the dynamics and technical discipline, making it her own. Vasarely studied first to be a doctor (parents often do that to young, would-be artist). Then, when he was about 20, Vasarely switched to academic art instruction at a private Budapest school aligned with German Bauhaus philosophies. His Blue Study (above, left) from 1929 is indicative of how far Vasarely traveled from his student days to his mature work.



Gestalt V, 1970, Victor Vasarely

In 1930, Vasarely left the artistic backwater of Hungary for Paris. Even in Paris, life for an unknown artist was no bowl of cherries jubilee. He eked out a living from cheap hotels working as a graphics art "consultant" while bouncing around the Paris environs struggling with various schemes in hoping to become successful. His Zebras came from this period. The war came and went further adding to his travails. After the war, Vasarely experimented with Cubism, Futurism, Expressionism, Symbolism, even Surrealism, dabbling in virtually any "ism" coming along and finding little success or fulfillment in any of them. Then, around 1950, harkening back to his Zebras of a decade earlier, he decided he'd been onto something before, but simply hadn't recognized it. From that point on, Vasarely focused his inclination toward experimentation on further studies of painted optical illusions and distortions. In so doing, he discovered what most successful artists have learned the same hard way down through the 20th century--you invent your own football then run with it.

The Foundation Vasarely Museum, (1972) designed and funded by
the artist in Aix-en-Provence, France.