the moon in the stone

who, after all, is the artist? or has the concept of the individual artist always been a myth? even the most solitary of the arts, writing, is probably only solitary in a small percentage of the time; as an editor, i have seen unedited manuscripts. editors, like trans- lators, are the silent hand in the process of creating art in literature.

what about painting? there, i will admit, it's hard to imagine paintings to be group endeavors. but let's look at it from another perspective: beyond even the time when students collaborated on the master's pieces, the history of art is crammed with stories of agents and galleries telling the painters what the public wants, what they can sell.

who is the artist in these little birds, the carver of the form, or the maker of the color? for me, the color in the work of almeric walter is the revelation. turns out, though, that the two ele- ments were contributed by two different people. henri berge carved the creature, walter himself developed, or rather refined, a method of calling the most from his production of pate-de-verre.

which is just like what it sounds like, mashed then made malleable glass, poured into moulds (of the little statues) which have been painted on the inside, and then with various powders and chemicals to insist on the color to go where the artist wants. who is the artist?

pate-de-verre, marqueterie-de-verre, pate-de-cristal.... numerous glass artists were avid to employ these revived methods which had been originally popular in ancient greece and rome. to my mind, of the first, walter and berge were the undisputed mas- ters, but there were other artists who offered some wonderful pieces.

one of these was gabriel argy-rousseau, who, as far as i can determine, designed his own pieces (and is a very early user of a hyphenated last name, borrowing the 'argy' from his wife's name). i really like this piece, and some of his other work is mesmerizing, but in the end the limited pallet of both color and style, loses my interest.

francois-emile decorchment produced some spectacular pieces, his experimentation drew some fabulous results, but his output of this style was limited to far fewer than the 100 or so pieces walter and berge produced.

when i was in paris, the one item in the museum of decorative arts that most aston- ished me was a simple string of glass flowers, a necklace by lalique in which every little flower seemed to contain the light of the moon. i can't tell you how that moonlight is inserted into these pieces, nor why i am so profoundly touched by it, but it is, and i am, and for this i am grateful.

the maestro, without a doubt, despite the grand trickery of decorchement, the cool brilliant elegance of lalique, the constant charm of argy-rousseau, or the radiance of walter and berge, was, of course, emile galle.

there was no technique with which he did not experiment and excel. there was nothing in the range of art nouveau styles and techniques which he did not only make his own, but take the form to an incandescent new level.

the saddest case is that of daum, the entire clan, who were the ones to bring glassmaking to nancy. galle came to nancy a bit later, establishing his own firm, a companion and competitor to the daums. sad because while they were the first, while walter and berge started off working for him. though walter sold him the rights (non-exclusively) to his methods, to my eye, the daums were never able to quite pull it off.

daum was salieri to galle's mozart; while some of his (their) work is beautiful, as a whole it is just not a revelation of genius. but i can't presume sadness from this distance. nor envy. nor pride. what is important is that the daums created an atmosphere in which great miracles could happen, and they continue still.

i must add my gratitude for a wonderful blog
for seeing this amazing, mostly regional, work: HERE

green hair

I know you wonder why I wear
The hat which I have called Green Hair
And why I cover up my own

Which has a tawny chestnut tone

Warm, when all its lights are lit,
As a swarm of bees with the sun on it.

You say bronze hair is prettier

Than this strange green of feathery fur;

But there's a charm in
this strange green
Which is so nearly blue; I've seen

A comb of coral set with pearls
Drawn through lengths of such green curls

In the green gloom of a chilly cave
Down, far down in a hollow wave;

And under ancient forest trees
Long green tresses such as these
Shadow like a falling veil

Shy secret faces, dusky pale;
And I have seen green locks like those
Deep in a glacier, under snows.
I have seen such green hair tossed

From the brows of a creature wandering lost
On the other side of
a waning moon,
And in the golden sun at noon

I have seen young April plait
Flowers in showery hair like that,
And wring the rain from it in drops,
And spread it to dry on green hill-tops.

Now do you wonder that I wear
The hat which I have called Green Hair?
Thus with witchcraft I am crowned
And wrapped in marvels round and round;

There's sorcery in it, and surprise;

Believe your own dark-amber eyes
When mine of hazel look at you
Turned to incredible turquoise blue.

© 2008 Elinor Wylie

(the beautiful fouquet brooch
will be seen in
the boston museum of fine art's
Imperishable Beauty: Art Nouveau Jewelry, Wednesday, July 23, 2008 - Sunday, November 9, 2008)

alchemy

FAVRILE

Glassmakers,
at century's end,
compounded metallic lusters

in reference
to natural sheens (dragonfly
and beetle wings,

marbled light on kerosene)
and invented names
as coolly lustrous

as their products'
scarab- gleam: Quetzal,
Aurene, Favrile.

Suggesting,
respectively, the glaze
of feathers,

that sun-shot fog
of which halos
are composed,

and -- what?
What to make of Favrile,
Tiffany's term

for his coppery-rose
flushed with gold
like the alchemized

atmosphere of sunbeams
in a Flemish room?
Faux Moorish,

fake Japanese,
his lamps illumine
chiefly themselves,

copying waterlilies'
bronzy stems,
wisteria or trout scales;


surfaces burnished
like a tidal stream
on which an excitation

of minnows boils
and blooms, artifice
made to show us

the lavish wardrobe
of things, the world's
glaze of appearances

worked into the thin
and gleaming stuff
of craft. A story:


at the puppet opera
--where one man animated
the entire cast

while another ghosted
the voices, basso
to coloratura -- Jimmy wept

at the world of tiny gestures,
forgot, he said,
these were puppets,

forgot these wire
and plaster fabrications
were actors at all,

since their pretense
allowed the passions
released to be--

well, operatic.
It's too much,
to be expected to believe;

art's a mercuried sheen
in which we may discern,
because it is surface,

clear or vague
suggestions of our depths,
Don't we need a word


for the luster
of things which insist
on the fact they're made,

which announce
their maker's bravura?
Favrile, I'd propose,

for the perfect lamp,
too dim and strange
to help us read.

For the kimono woven,
dipped in dyes, unraveled
and loomed again

that the pattern might take on
a subtler shading
For the sonnet's

blown-glass sateen,
for bel canto,
for Faberge

For everything
which begins in limit
(where else might our work

begin?) and ends in grace,
or at least extravagance.
For the silk sleeves

of the puppet queen,
held at a ravishing angle
over her puppet lover slain,

for her lush vowels
mouthed by the plain man
hunched behind the stage.

© Mark Doty