Look at these. Look at them. These aren’t just bowls: these are works of the finest craftsmanship. They transcend art. They outlast their maker and their commissioner and the world they were made in; they are still important to the world even today. They are a special kind of beauty.
Tag: metalwork
Monday
This is not a candlestick made for a puny little taper. This is for a pillar candle thick as an arm that would generate enough light to work by in the late evening and even late into the night. This was the first real attempt at artificial lighting – this and oil lamps. Bigger, faster, harder.
Sunday
Say what you will: Islamic metalwork holds up really well. I think it has to do with the desert and sand corrosion v. salt corrosion from the ocean (aka, from most of western Europe), but most examples have weathered remarkably well.
Friday
I love the cross-cultural confluence of Chinese-Tibetan-Indian styles in this statuette. You can clearly tell which culture influenced which portion.
Saturday
I am so excited to talk about this clock, you have no idea! It has been one of my favorite pieces ever in the whole of art history since it came to reside in SLAM in 1997.
This clock does not fit any school of design with any degree of affinity, even the up and coming Dadaism or surrealism movements. It has elements of naturalism, elements of modernism, and elements of art deco, but conforms to none of those things. It is truly a unique animal. When you come around the corner and walk down the corridor toward it, it looks like molten, shifting metal that slowly resolves itself into a form – however, even up close, it never quite loses that molten feel, and it always seems to be in motion even though it is clearly not changeable and is not in a liquid form. It all seems very amateur and avant garde in the same moment, and many people pass it by and dismiss it straight out of hand without another thought.
Part of the reason I adore it so much is that it is so different, so unique, and there is no reason beyond Gaudi giving zero fucks and doing exactly what he wanted to do. This was his piece, and the beauty of his genius was that it still stands up today as what could be a completely contemporary piece of artwork.
Tuesday
Okay, seriously, this trumps anything that modern jewelers are churning out – hands down. If you think otherwise, there is clearly something wrong with you.
Friday
*waves from the cheap seats* I want to prop my papers on this and lecture like a bitch for hours at a time and make people miserable for… Oh wait, isn’t that like talking into the internet void about art?
Sunday
I know armour’s purpose is to protect you, but in most cases, does it have to literally be so ostentatiously bloody shiny? You don’t have to carry your entire wealth on your body to protect your dumb fighting ass. In fact, you’d think it would be detrimental to the fighting, all that shininess, all that glare…
Thursday
This actually screams post-modern art deco when you look at it properly. The lines are all the fluid, geometric forms of art deco, but taken to a streamlined form ala Bauhaus.
Wednesday
Astrolabes were the Google Maps of the world before the digital age. They are incredibly important and to have such a fine example in the SLAM collection makes my nerdy little heart indescribably happy.