Jahnstrasse 42
75173 Pforzheim
Magnificent Views? — Landscapes in Jewellery
22nd July until 13th October 2013
Landscapes — a Matter of Perspectives. Landscapes: we are surrounded by them, experience them, and they have an effect on us. We form a multitude of landscape images in our mind’s eye, and notions of landscapes typical of a certain era manifest themselves in a variety of media such as in movies, on postcards and holiday photos, in the form of cultured landscapes, nature reserves, parks or excursion destinations. In jewellery as well as in the fine arts, landscapes have evolved as an autonomous theme. The Magnificent Views? — Landscapes in Jewellery and Landscapes, a Matter of Perspectives, exhibitions organized by Pforzheim’s Jewellery Museum and the city’s Art Association in the Reuchlinhaus building explore this familiar yet always novel genre from both a historical and a contemporary angle.
Landscapes — discovery and evolution. Landscapes first had to be discovered as an autonomous theme, and then were depicted only hesitantly — not only in paintings, but also in jewellery. Starting from symbolic hints in medieval depictions of saints to the idyllic backgrounds of antique scenes painted in the Baroque period, landscapes for a long time served merely as a backdrop. The 17th, 18th and 19th centuries, when landscapes rich in details gradually evolved as the themes of paintings such as vedute, also marked the heyday of exquisite miniature enamel paintings and ivory carvings on brooches, lockets, pocket watch cases and dials serving as a keepsake of a Grand Tour, for example, an educational journey by members of the upper and middle classes.
Landscapes — venerated and endangered with the advent of large-scale middle-class tourism in the Belle Époque period, beautiful landscapes were appreciated as a value in themselves for the first time. In the late 19th century, the pleasure of delightedly contemplating landscapes made people aware of the fact that their natural surroundings were endangered by industrialization. Famous Art Nouveau artists such as René Lalique, Georges Fouquet and Lluis Masriera created avant-garde jewellery masterpieces that captured the spirit of the Fin de Siècle period. Landscapes — objets d’art and experiential environments.The advent of 'Land Art' in the 1960s marked the definitive end of landscapes’ being merely decorative backdrops and their being elevated to the status of genuine art objects. This artistic movement drew attention to the close relationship between man and environment, as well as human intervention in the environment, and the concomitant structuring design processes. Landscapes — can they still be saved? Examples of contemporary art jewellery demonstrate that even a drab industrial landscape can pique an artist’s interest. The focus is usually on individual features such as mountain ranges or plant life, or on architecture and other attributes of civilization, serving as abstracted metaphors for certain places or moods, for memories or yearnings. The perception of landscapes and nature is reflected upon as an autonomous aesthetic experience, and the resultant creations testify to the artists’ in-depth involvement with nature and our environment in view of the changes they go through as a result of human intervention in our modern industrial era.
Opening hours: Tuesday to Sunday (and holidays) - 10am - 5pm
Admission - €3
http://www.schmuckmuseum.de/flash/SMP_en.html