Masterpiece has established itself as the world's leading cross-collecting fair, offering the finest works of art, design, furniture and jewellery, from antiquity to the present day.
The unmissable event at the height of the capital's summer season, Masterpiece London provides an unparalleled opportunity for new and established collectors to discover exceptional works for sale from 160 international exhibitors; the centrepiece of a unique week of cultural experiences in the heart of London.
Great conversations on pigments and color. As an oil painter, I constantly struggle with a shade I want to mix and it's stability over time. Ive gone to mixing my own pigments to have more control and understanding of their size and shapes of particles. Most pigments on the market today tend to be finely ground to match the needs of overall masses of applications. This leads me to search for smaller pigment producers who are not trying to necessarily match the overall market's needs. Modern day, there is much less guess work and more science in producers of high end pigments. Except, "get what you pay for" is a bit of a farce. It all depends. Way too much modern alchemy focusing on richness of color that can be toned down to fit most modern artist needs and less on translucency while still holding the raw colors hue. A shadow is not an object. Rather it's reflective waves of dispersed light passing over an object. Therefore the larger the particles, jagged and glass like achieves light reflecting in multi directions as opposed to finely ground spherical particles causing more opaque light reflecting in less direction. Then of coarse there is the play of dispersion of pigments through use of various oils. One oil or other emulsifiers never fits all when a painter needs to paint over a layer in a timely matter vs wet in wet or dragging a brush or knife for different effects. Yet personally, I found the studying alchemy is much less valuable than time spent playing with pigment and additives. Mistakes shorten the learning curve vs success lengthens the learning curve and too often thinking waste valuable time. As far as toxicity, I think it's become overly paranoid for the art world. Simple practices of washing your hands often, not breathing dust and good ventilation while working with pigments, mollifiers and vast chemical additives. Society should be much more paranoid about household cleaners stored under there kitchen sinks, the chemicals they breath daily from all their comfortable furniture, beautiful rugs, massive plastics and what's coming off from all those heated back-lit screens they spend mass hrs watching. The larger the corporation the less government controls, do to expensive corporate lawyers and vast powerful investment groups. So they pick on the smallest groups like the artist who are trying to make positive changes throughout humanity. The old masters sticking brushes in their mouths, eating with unwashed hands, pounding rock dust, were less concerned about long life because life was potentially much shorter. Today, yes we should be more concerned. Yet just not slam lead or other dangerous particles because of ignorant past human handling. Rather note the percentage of human exposure for its actual chance of becoming a health problem. I'm USA born and bred and yes, we value vibrancy of life lived over common sense more often than other western cultures. The question is "are all things being considered or just what a person or group limits of what is to be considered?
That stones on one hand, and the images that they are used to represent have a gazillion meanings is obvious, most interesting... and does not a second debunk the notion that 99% of patrons of pietra dura in former times wanted to show off, and therefore making their economic and social domination highly visible. "Polysemic" is a useful word in this matter...
Caro made some great pieces - the ones that appear light and airy, like Early One Morning. Many of his other sculptures appear to be heavy and cramped, like the one behind him at 3:25.
Thanks. learned something about wood art. Used to seeing more simplified larger wooden pieces identified as Intarsia. I would think of this as Marquetry. And the concept of images made of wood differently. Now see what you've done! LOL! Appreciated.
Your enthusiasm is infectious!! Thanks for this. Am headed for Tuscany pretty soon and am hoping to see some fine intarsia art in person (sadly, I probably won't make it to Urbino)
The mainstream popularity of Naturally crystallized minerals is absolutely long overdue. There are pieces for everyone at all ranges of budgets and who wouldn’t want a piece of earths natural art to keep for themselves. I can’t stress enough that, while there are pieces worth 10’s of thousands of dollars, there are amazing pieces you can find for under even a hundred. I love how y’all stress how important it is that these pieces are fully natural. Great video !
