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Jewellery as an Art
02/08/12
This article first appeared in The Magazine of Art, circa 1900.]
"A thing of beauty is a joy for ever."
Pendant with jewels after Holbein
In the present day there is much talk everywhere about art, and signs are not
wanting that its vast mission as a humanising and civilising element in our
national life is slowly being recognised. Even so-called domestic arts come
in for a large share of attention, and the patterns of our wallpapers, and the
harmonious colouring of carpets and tapestries, are a matter of thought and
care in nearly every household where there is a trifle to spend on luxuries
and any pretentions to taste. Yet curiously enough our jewellery, which is the
art that lies nearest to us, and follows us wherever we go, and in which there
is so much scope for the application of beautiful design and delicate workmanship,
is left almost entirely out in the cold; and scarcely any attempt is made to
apply to it the same laws, or judge it by the same standards, that we are attempting
to set up in other things. All that we ask of our jewellery is that it shall
be costly and fashionable; not costly because of the time and loving labour
of the artist and workman who designed and produced it, but because of the material
alone out of which it is made. It is this Philistine reverence for material
that has done more than anything else to debase what was once an art to a mere
meaningless and ostentatious display. I know of no more depressing sight to
anyone who cares for art than to walk down an important street of shops in one
of our big cities, looking in the jewellers' windows on the rubbish, from an
artistic point of view, that is there spread out to tempt the public taste.
If we could find ourselves by some touch of magic, suddenly under the rule of
a stern artistic Socialism, where nothing was permitted to be bought or sold
that was not either useful or beautiful, and were a destroying spirit sent one
night through the length and breadth of the land, what a blight next morning
would have fallen on the jewellers' windows, what few things would be left!
But the shop windows are the gauge of the public taste, and it is not the tradesman
who sells this costly rubbish, nor the manufacturer who has it made, who are
to blame, but ourselves - the public - especially the women not only of to-day,
but for the last hundred years or more, who have created the demand for this
puerile stuff, and neglected what might be one of the most efficient means of
developing the art-instincts of a nation.
Etruscan gold necklace with pendent vases and heads of Io.
Etruscan Necklace: Pendent Vases and Head of Io
Jewellery has been a favourite form of personal decoration from the earliest
times. We know with what skill the Etruscans and Greeks worked in precious metals,
and that a large part of what is good in our modern jewellery is copied from
their designs, and those of other early nations. The Romans, too, wore it freely.
The manufacture was extensively encouraged in England in 1685, and it appears
as if the fondness for diamonds was greater even then than now, for they were
largely used in the ornamentation of rich apparel. We read that King Jame's
favourite, the Duke of Buckingham, could afford to have them tacked on so loosely,
that, when he chose, he could shake off a gem on the ground, and thus obtain
all the fame he desired from the pickers-up, who were generally les dames de
la Cour. But in early times the jeweller was a trained artist; and in Italy,
where the art especially flourished, many of the great masters developed themselves
out of training begun in the goldsmiths' workshops. Francia of Bologna was a
goldsmith; indeed, the very name he used was not his own, but that of his beloved
master, to whose early training he felt he owed the success of his later years,
and he delighted to sign his pictures "Francia the Goldsmith." Botticelli
also used the name of the goldsmith with whom he studied. Ghirlandajo was a
goldsmith, and the master of Michelangelo, and so was Verrocchio, the part-sculptor
of the famous Colleoni statue in Venice, and the master of Leonardo da Vinci.
Ghiberti was the stepson of a goldsmith, and to his training in his fathers'
workshop he owed the skill that enabled him not only to design, but also to
cast the famous gates of the Baptistery at Florence, which Michelangelo said
were worthy to be the gates of Paradise. It is not necessary nowadays, under
the present system of division of labour, that the jeweller who sells should
be a skilled artistic workman, able himself to produce the work to which he
stands in the useful though much abused position of the middleman, but it is
essential that he should have the taste and training of an artist, to be able,
with quick, sympathetic eye, to see what is good and what is bad in the art
he fosters, and to choose wisely the labour that shall provide it. When the
public have learnt to recognize jewellery as an art this will have to be so.
Bracelet (1), Pendant (2) and Brooches (3,4,5,6) after Holbein
But it is certain we shall never have artistic jewellery while we think only
of the material of which it is composed, and nothing at all of the workmanship,
"the meaning given it by a human mind" that is able to turn the raw,
uninteresting material into a thing of worth and beauty; and until we learn
to see that a bit of bronze or iron, wrought into beautiful and suggestive form
by the cunning of man's hand, and the sense of beauty in his heart, is far more
worthy to be possessed and worn than any amount of the finest gold stamped out
by machinery, or the largest diamonds set to imitate sprays of natural flowers,
stars, or butterflies. I do not mean to say that beautiful material wedded to
noble design and exquisite workmanship is not to be desired by those who can
afford it, but I do say, where limit of price has to be considered, let the
material be sacrificed to the workmanship, and let us have silver, bronze, or
even iron ornaments with an artist's heart and soul in them, rather than gold
and precious stones arranged for mere display because they are in the latest
fashion or because they are more costly than our neighbours can afford to wear.
I remember being greatly struck by a beautiful little model in wax, executed
by Mr. Hamo Thornycroft in the Royal Academy Exibition of 1888, intended to
be reduced to half-size and cast in bronze for the clasp of a cloak. In the
center of each side was a child's head in profile, in delicate low relief, and
round them a severely simple but beautiful design, framing the engraved names
of the children and the date. Could any mother desire a lovelier piece of jewellery
than this piece of common bronze with the faces of her children moulded in it
to wear above her heart when these baby-faces are but a memory of the childhood
that so quickly passes away?
Cloak clasp designed by Hamo Thornycroft, R.A.
Cloak Clasp by Hamo Thornycroft
Another instance of how beautiful jewellery may be produced from comparatively
mean material, by good design and skilful workmanship, may be seen in a necklace
of modern German work in South Kensington Museum. It is formed of small blackened
iron medallions, cast from the antique, and framed in gold, connected by a double
row of finely-woven iron links.
Modern German iron necklace.
Modern German Iron Necklace
In the best period of Greek art, we find that the intrinsic worth of the material
used in their jewellery is very slight, and altogether subordinate to the beauty
of workmanship and design. The famous Milo necklace in the British Museum is
a marvelous specimen of skilled workmanship; and it is in the labour of it,
and not in the material, that its great value consists.
The Milo necklace and a late Greek period Necklace in gold with garnets.
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