ART IN JEWELLERY Reflecting upon Objets d’Art In jewellery, Industrial Design studies have their basis in art education. Visual Arts courses teach theories that help students form opinions, while learning techniques based on those used by the great masters. In this way, an apprentice understands how to make choices, supported by his or her point of view. An artist’s style is reflected in the way formal elements are put down to create an image’s syntax, or better, the arrangement of line, shape, colour, light and shadow, texture and space. By continuously researching new interests, professionals keep up-to-date on important information. Since art is philosophical, a masterpiece may be analysed according to diverse methodologies of the History of Art, theorising on the experience of the poetic in artistic creation, using Formalism (formal aspects), Iconography (figurative art themes), Marxism (social and economic factors), Feminism (the condition of being a woman), Semiotics (symbols and signs), Biography and Auto-biography (artist’s experience and expression), or Psychoanalysis (author’s unconsciousness). Aesthetics of Jewellery Art During remote times, jewellery took the form of amulets. Today it is influenced by poetical and cultural symbols, based on developments in the fields of art, which in turn, are derived from man’s evolutionary processes. Essential to poetry, the metaphor is the language of images. Symbols and metaphors differ yet they are interconnected. To determine the aesthetic qualities of a piece of jewellery, which relate to the Liberal Arts, the essence of design must be evaluated. One must take into consideration the poetic structures not only in the concept, but also in the composition of a piece, and the metaphorical elements or symbolic significance. In artistic jewellery, alternative materials may be experimented with when they reaffirm the intention of the artistic message. Concepts that Influence Contemporary Jewellery While Modern Art is bound by certain conventions, Contemporary Art goes beyond its limits. Cubism and Surrealism were the main Modern Art movements in the 20th Century. In jewellery, today, Post-Modern Art developments predominate, focusing mainly on clarity and objectiveness, as summed up here below: . Purism’s forerunner was Le Corbusier (Charles-Edouard Jeanneret). The architect published his Post-Cubism Manifest, recommending the return of the more reduced and unaffected forms. Shape, line and colour were seen by the Purists as elements of a language that, established on invariable optical reactions, remain unchanged from culture to culture. They also maintained that a machine can create a piece using technology, but that it will never produce a work of art, since there is no constant value in technology. . De Stijl was a Dutch movement founded on Shoenmaekers’ philosophy, which emphasised the importance of the primary colours, besides the horizontal and vertical lines, as seen in the paintings of Piet Mondrian, an American immigrant in 1938. The term “neoplasticism” was created by the Dutchman, to designate the austere style of geometric abstraction, which he thought to be an ideal of universal harmony. . Constructivism derives from Abstract Art, and these artists drew inspiration from geometric forms, rather than from nature. Founded by Vladimir Tatlin and Alexander Rodchenko, two of the authors of the Realist Manifest, they exerted great influence on the German Bauhaus Institution, whose concept was that function should prevail over the Decorative Arts, and the artist or designer should work together with the scientist and engineer to create contents besides simple forms, with modern technological resources. . Kinetic Art was a term that appeared for the first time in 1920, in the Realist Manifest, but it was not till 1950 that it was used for classification by renowned critics. Op artists give the impression of movement by creating illusion, while Kinetic artists do the opposite: they produce illusion with rhythmic movements that may still generate another massless shape in space. . Conceptual Art refers to various manifestations and forms of art. Their common thread is the Aristotelian principle, which is that a “real” work of art must not necessarily have to be a physical product elaborated by an artist, but just its “idea” or “concept”. Therefore, the “idea” does not have to be materialised, needing only to be an attitude. . Abstract Expressionism included the formal movement of Abstract Art that referred to the drawing, the creation of image reconciled with technique, and to the painting, the reassurance of the plain surface of canvas. The main proponents were the Russian artist Wassily Kandinsky and, after World War II, the Armenian painter Arshile Gorky, who moved to New York, as well as the American Jackson Pollock, the creator of Action Painting. This was the first development in the USA that ended up by influencing other artists from several European countries, in the latter 1950s and during the 1960s. . Minimalism’s source of inspiration was the trend of the North American Abstract Sculpture movement. It endeavoured to reduce all expressive effects down to few formal categories, so as to then integrate them into the surrounding space. Its impersonality is seen as a reaction to the excess of emotion in the Abstract Expressionism. The Forerunners of Art in Contemporary Jewellery In a short period of time, the multiple revolutionary ideas of the Visual Arts influenced the traditional art of jewellery, with the new findings causing definite transformations. The first large exhibition of contemporary artistic jewellery was in 1961 at the Goldsmiths’ Hall in London. This collection spurred the movement for the use of alternative materials in jewellery, without hampering artistic significance. What occurred back then was that, for the sake of profits, the more valuable the gem, the less imaginative was the setting. Lack of gold and other precious substances in East Germany made artists turn to synthetics and recycled materials for their pieces, as in the Art Noveau and Deco periods. The opening of the first galleries of jewellery art was promising, coinciding with the attribution of formal qualities to these jewels, that is, the artist-creator had finally his or her authorship acknowledged. The first museum for contemporary jewellery was also founded in 1961 in Pforzheim - the famous Scmuckmuseum. . The 1960s During the first years of the decade, Abstract Expressionist painters exerted an influence on the asymmetric and organic works of the English John Donald and Andrew Grima. Other forerunners of the period were: the German Klauss Ullrich, with the use of veneered gold in his pieces first abstract and then geometric, and Ebbe Weiss-Weingart, for her investigative textures that emphasise the use of natural resources; the Italian sculptor Arnaldo Pomodoro, from the Informal movement, with his reliefs and elements reduced to mechanic tension, translated into visual tension; the Dutch and Pop artists Gijs Bakker and his wife Emmy van Leerson, for jewellery with macroscopic dimensions, based on the concepts of Body Art, which consider the body itself a medium of communication; and Gerda Flockinger, creative designer, carver of gems with freer forms, and bench jeweller, born in Austria but educated in England. She was also the first to offer an experimental course in goldsmithing at an art college and the first to have a solo jewellery exhibition at the Victoria and Albert museum in 1971. . The 1970s There is no division between the decades, just the continuity of the processes under development. At the beginning of the 1970s, the famous Contemporary Jewellery School of Padua was founded by Mario Pinton, Giampaolo Babetto and Francesco Pavan. Rejecting conservative symbols, povera substances, such as the synthetics, were introduced into jewellery by the Dutch jeweller Robert Smit (see below), and the German professor Claus Bury, who lectured in America, Australia, England and Israel. Studios and galleries were now visited by the general public, and interest in art jewellery was growing. Various artists of the period became famous: the German engineer Friedrich Becker, celebrated for his pieces of Kinetic Art, giving them movements that were set in motion by those of the wearer; the Japanese artist Yasuki Hiramutu, for his mastery of goldsmithing and singular ideas, such as the allusion made in gold to “crumpled paper”; the German inventor Peter Skubic, who earned a reputation for dominating both geometry and technology in his craft; the English couple David Watkins and Wendy Ramshaw, for their minimalist and abstract high-tech multicolour forms; the German Constructivist influenced by Tachism Reinhold Reiling, who was one of the first to transfer the principles of Visual Arts to jewellery; the Swiss Othmar Zschaler, with original jewels that overlay several gold foils; the Italian sculptor Bruno Martinazzi, for conceptual, ergonomic pieces with perfect fittings, that deal with tri-dimensional concerns; and the Eastern German Hermann Junger, who redefined the art of jewellery, using elements of drawing and painting coloured by gems, based on the modernist ideals of Bauhaus. Diverse poetic objects of his come in special displays, so that they may be assembled and worn, according to the occasion. . The 1980s This period was also known as “The Decade of Design”. The flexibility created by the new gem cuts, with innovative and geometric shapes on the minimalist jewellery, made the style timeless, extending beyond mere trends. As from this period on, jeweller-artists had the opportunity to participate in international exhibitions, such as Ornamenta 1 and Documenta 8, learning more about other cultures. The South African Daniel Kruger, for instance, utilised rough gems on jewellery that created more effect than the synthetic and recycled materials explored by many at the time. The German Manfred Bischoff, used Graffiti Art elements to express himself, together with references to Architecture and Art History. The American Arline Fisch developed pieces based on notions taken from crocheting, knitting and looming, while the English Catherine Martin drew inspiration from the millenary Japanese Art of weaving. Rethinking the meaning of the function of jewellery, the masterpieces at the end of the 1980’s made by the German Gerd Rothman endeavoured to incorporate the owner’s personal marks, such as one’s fingerprints or skin pores. While his countrywoman Bettina Speckner, with her Aide Memoire collection, made registers of the wearers’ remembrances in her pictures on the pieces. The traditional techniques of goldsmithing were reinterpreted and reinvented in such a manner that the modifications that took place in the 1980’s changed definitely the concepts of contemporary jewellery. . The 1990s Industrial and branded jewellery became more closely identified with fashion, ruled by the physical attributes of the materials, to the detriment of style. Giampaolo Babetto, inspired by the proportions of the architects Palladio and Mies van der Rohe (well-known for the famous phrase: “less is more”), exerted great influence on this generation of jewellery-artists. For the Neoconstructivist and professor of the School of Padua, a jewel should poeticise the technique, minimising its effects. More socially and culturally conscientious people will always be moved by the objets d’art of the great masters, such as by those of: the German Angela Hübel, whose bold rings have cognitive connotations; the also German couple Tom and Jutta Munsteiner, for the clean designs created by Jutta using Tom’s artistically carved gems thus enhancing their natural characteristics; the Dutch minimalist Robert Smit, for extremely original and spirited formal language; and the Morocco-born German artist Michael Zobel, whose inventive soldering techniques for different types of alloys unfold many new possibilities in jewellery, among other important names. XXI Century The new millennium was anticipated as the era of pure lines, of high technology. But all were surprised by the Neobaroque’s rococo style. Artists are revisiting the developments of the recent and distant past to escape the difficulties encountered in the present. Computers and globalisation, for instance, have crossed borders, increasing the quantity, but not necessarily the quality of life and information. However, art only evolves with serious experimental investigation and research. All new knowledge gained by an artist widens his or her creative and poetic vision. Changes in society and in the academic and production worlds are also reflected in the art of jewellery, since artists create messages in their artwork with social and political intentions that reach beyond the qualities of the design and materials. Outstanding creator-artists of the first years of this millennium shall only be noted towards the end of the next decade, when the necessary time has elapsed for a more precise judgement. But it has already been seen that the outward symbols of status are no longer desired by most consumers, who are now searching for things that trigger warm feelings. The emphasis in today’s jewellery is still on organic shapes with bright colours, which appeal to sensuality and eroticism. Whatever happens in the future, conceptual masterpieces shall always be a source of pleasure. Art relates to the psychological states of man: to feelings, taste, and sensitivity. In the realm of art, the power to fascinate and inspire must find what to do and how to do it in a new and original way, that is, without revivals. Bibliography Adams, L. S., Exploring Art, Laurence King Publishing, 2002. Argan, G. C., Arte e Critica de Arte, Editorial Estampa, 1988. Chalumeau, J. L., As Teorias de Arte, Instituto Piaget, 1997. Chilvers, I., Dicionario Oxford de Arte, Martins Fontes, 1988. Falk, F. and Holzach, C., Modern Jewellery 1960-1998, Arnoldsche Art Publishing, 1999. Gullar, F., Argumentação Aontra a Morte na Arte, Revan, 1998. Heidegger, M., A Origem da Obra de Arte, Biblioteca de Filosofia Contemporanea, 1977. Lacoste, J., A Filosofia de Arte, Jorge Zahar Editor, 1986. Ludwig, R., Schmuck 2000, Edition Ebner Verlag, 1999. Marcondes, L. F., Dicionario de Termos Artisticos, Ediçoes Pinakotheke, 1998. Pareyson, L., Os Problemas da Estetica, Martins Fontes, 1984. Phillips, C., Jewelry, Thames and Hudson, 1996. Jewels and Jewelry, Watson-Guptill Publications, 2000. Schadt, H., Goldsmiths’ Art, Arnoldsche Art Publishing, 1996. Stangos, N., Conceitos da Arte Moderna, Jorge Zahar Editor, 1988. Vergine, L., Art on the Cutting Edge – A Guide to Contemporary Movements, Skira Editore, 2001.