Boucheron: the Accessory

Boucheron (Paris)

Zigarettendose (cigarette case)

circa 1924

     It is Beauty's briar rose rendered in enamel and gold, making it all the more delicate to handle. The design is complicated, but also simple: its visual success - or in other words, what makes it so eye-catching - relies on the crisp quality of its central register which is set over a discreet gilt roundel, but which uses only a few colours. With slabs of crescent-shaped red enamel, the rose petals form six puddles against the dark green blanket of leaves, each of whose buds seem to ripple outwards in slow motion. The gold specks which blot the roundel's inside give the design a subtle asymmetry, reflecting its Asiatic inspirations such as Japonisme and Chinese woodcuts. And while the foliage appears to be a miniature panel of stencilled glass, the two diamond-set wings appear to be natural sources of light, each illuminating and flanking the rose bed with geometric precision.

     Among these details, however, it is the coral clasp that plays the most important role. Not only does it hold the piece together as well as indicate the top from bottom, but it functions as a kind of bow - one that gives the case its final dab of colour, like the finishing touch of paint on a picture. Clicking the clasp open, is it possible to imagine the interior? Is it plain or elaborate, or does it reflect the cool elegance of its exterior? Either way, the language of smoking is an act of subversive communication, and with a tool such as this surely cigarettes are not the only things meant to be lit with desire.

François-Louis David Bocion

François-Louis David Bocion

Célestine

circa 1884

     A child sitting in a tree. She casually dangles her bare feet and legs down the spine of its trunk and she looks at us with an indirect stare - is she daydreaming? Around her the air is clear. Two poultry move lazily along the ground, perhaps looking for a bit of forgotten feed, and a pair of roughly-cut stone blocks rests at the base of the girl's perch. They seem cool and smooth, just as Lac Léman in the distance, and they remain as firmly attached to the ground as the house itself, probably generations' old.

     Notice that dividing the girl from the dwelling, and from the actual dirt floor beneath her, is the fine line of clothing hung out to dry in the wind. This sits just below the picture's centre, with its opaque colouring allowing it to easily blend in with its surroundings. Maybe this detail indicates that the child is daydreaming - that she has mentally separated herself from the material world in search of a solitude different from, or even better than, that depicted in the scene. The line of clothes, a sign of domesticity and labour, acts to 'divide' the girl in both the vertical and horizontal planes of existence, placing her up high in the safe cradle of nature. Only the branches and sky frame her figure, allowing just her feet to make contact with cultivation (are they not the only part of her that 'touch' the slanted roof?) and showing her as she truly is: a child lost in translation. 

     However, whether she chooses to remain grounded in reality or to escape and drift into the unknown, like the ship in the distance, we may only guess.

Claude Monet

Claude Monet

Poplar Trees

circa 1891

     Water and fire. The speckles of blues, pinks and greens in the foreground come together to form four shoots of Poplar trunks, all standing in a deep bay of shade. Their tall thin silhouettes, defined by the contrast between the lightness of the sky and by the cool planes of colour of their bark, represent a harmony in nature - like four soft notes on a sheet of music. Their stout branches face up and outwards, and the trees appear healthy and perfectly in tune with their surroundings. A stillness varnishes the scene like a breeze: it is transparent, invisible, but nonetheless felt.

     The fresh tones of paint composing the four trunks create a screen through which the further rows of Poplars and the large sun-bathed field are seen. Using only two colour types - cool versus warm - Monet infused this picture with opposing emotions; with clashing emotions. Reduced to a collage of yellow and orange specks, the background clump of trees comes to resemble a lightly-scorched patch of canvas - it visually argues with the calm chilliness in the foreground. In this is not only the picture's balance, but its simultaneous struggle to equalise the conflicting tempers. 

     Though whose tempers are they: nature's, our own or Monet's? It is unclear - though what is clear is that, in this picutre, these moods will never merge. The foreground, the solemn, tranquil state-of-mind, reigns as the strongest of the two: unpolluted, unaffected and able to hold its ground against the fiery tempest lurking in the distance.

Pablo Picasso

Pablo Picasso

Le Taureau

circa 1958

     A piece like this needs to be held and touched. Its matte finish is accented by the warp that expands its centre outwards, making the texture more grainy and rough. But the raised cloisons remain delicate - they are fine enough to resemble a line drawing, but in this case one which is moulded from gold rather than made by a flat medium like ink.

      It seems that the entire medallion was crafted in a very short period of time: it was quickly designed, coarsely stamped and rounded and then fired, and with barely any final polishing. In this way Picasso gave it a sense of immediacy. With the wispy treatment of the bull's legs and horns as well as the arch of its back, he developed a pleasant dialogue between the medallion's physical elements. The swish-like style of the design is light and playful, which communicates well with the weightiness of the metal. But perhaps the best part of this piece is that even if untouched, it still conveys a sense of feeling - as if the image of the bull will only last for a few more moments before it melts away into the golden grain.

Vincent van Gogh

Vincent van Gogh

Irises

circa 1889

    Another picture aching with movement. It portrays the high point of a play, a dramatic one, where the irises and roses (or are they poppies?) cram themselves onto the stage with little-to-no space in which to move, all in awe of this particular white flower. Their leaves and petals twirl like flying skirts around their stalks and their heads, heavy with shades of purple, red and blue, bob up and down in a frenzy. The iris' whiteness behaves like a magnet, and for this the limited space seems even smaller. It motivates its suitors to express their energy inwardly; to be united by their 'blushing' colours and by the flow of restlessness that rushes through them like a gust of air. They are chattering nervously; they are living and breathing even though they are made with just a few flicks of flat paint. Soon will the white iris make its final speech? Will this tale end on a romantic note?

     We, the audience, are placed above the scene as if in a balcony. The perspective looks downwards, slightly from the right, so that we assume a bird's-eye-view onto the 'stage'. Confronted with the surge of deep purples and blues, and with the stark contrast of the white dab, we seem to fall into the scene - or at least hover perilously over it - risking to upset the rhythm. Do we not hold the same position as that of a suitor? Do we not wonder how such a strange but confident pose, placed so asymmetrically to the left, can render the composition balanced, even controlled? However, with respect to van Gogh (who based much of his work on impulse) these questions probably matter very little: we are meant to see what we see and feel what we feel, without doubt.