Jewelry: Back to Design

In the most ancient civilizations, jewelers made little use of precious stones--and when they did, they used them to embellish essentially sculptural designs. It was only in later times that gems themselves became jewelry's raison d'etre: partly because craftsmen learned to cut them to reveal their undeniable beauty, partly because they were believed to possess and emanate magical powers. As late as the 15th century, emeralds were prescribed as cures for epilepsy, dysentery and failing eyes, as guards against evil spirits and sure protectors of chastity. By the 20th century, says English Jewelry Expert Peter Lyon, "jewelry had declined to a point where it was only a collection of precious stones. Designing had little or nothing to do with it. The problem was how you could crowd together the greatest number of big stones."

Now the pendulum of taste is beginning to swing in the other direction. To many eyes, there is nothing so gaudy, nothing so gauche, as a huge solitaire diamond--and there is nothing so exquisite as an artfully crafted bauble. A growing number of jewelry designers here and in Europe are creating a New Jewelry that depends on purity of line, elegance of form, grace of motion to make its uncluttered point. Using materials less rare and less intrinsically valuable than gems--silver, bone, ivory and wood--their work is stark, simple and sculptural. Encrustation is gone; design, once more, is everything.

There are a number of reasons for this return to unadorned simplicity, not the least of which is crime. "Very few people wear diamonds now. The crime rate won't permit it," says Jane Norris, proprietress of Manhattan's Sculpture to Wear, which features the work of such masters as Calder, Picasso, Jean Arp and Man Ray as well as younger artists in its expensive ($50 to $3,500) collection. Her competitor Cynthia Bhaget of Amulets & Talismans agrees: "What's the sense of having diamonds if you have to keep them in the vault all the time?" Another factor in the diamond's decline is the high quality of man-made gems, which are distinguishable from the real thing only to the loupe-aided eye of a jeweler. One recent shipment of Wellington Counterfeit Diamonds was held up by U.S. Customs inspectors--until its owners could prove that the gems were artificial.

Most important of all, many of the New Jewelers began as sculptors and have retained a sculptor's respect for the inherent qualities of the materials they work with. "There is an enormous appeal in the New Jewelry," says Lyon, who serves as jewelry consultant to London's River Gallery. "It has drawn in a lot of people who like its quiet, demanding skills, enjoy the tactile qualities of the metals." In lieu of gems, some of the artists, such as American Ellen Levy and Chinese Designer Susan Sung, use different-colored metals such as silver and gold, or varied textures, to free their work from monotony. For them, as Marshall McLuhan might have put it, the material itself is the message.

It all adds up to what Ralph Turner, director of London's pacesetting Electrum Gallery, describes as "a renaissance. It's like a fresh new stream that is rushing to pour its heart out." An apt word, renaissance, for the New Jewelers are indeed going back to jewelry's birth, rediscovering and freely adapting ancient and traditional patterns, with a sense of excitement much like the Cubists' on their first encounter with primitive art. Traditional Oriental pieces, such as a high one-piece silver collar from Thailand that gives the illusion of being five separate circular necklaces heaped one atop the other, go perfectly with the elegantly simple lines of contemporary high-fashion clothing. So do the intricately crafted silver and turquoise belts and vertebrae-like necklaces hammered out by Indian metalworkers of the Navajo, Zuni and Hopi tribes. The similarity between the old and new is at times so striking--as with Edival Ramosa's curlicue aluminum and silver necklace--that some of the New Jewelry, says Lyon, "would have been more acceptable in Etruscan times."

Still, the New Jewelry is unmistakably contemporary, possessed of a modern playfulness that transforms familiar objects into something unique and unexpected. Take, for example, a Gucci bracelet (see overleaf) formed from a silver spike in a parody of the iron nails used by carpenters. Or Otis Creative Craft's silver wristlets, hammered from antique forks into dazzling abstract shapes. Rings, too, are subject to the New Jeweler's wit, as with the illusory double ring by Elsa Peretti: worn only on the little finger, it extends across the ring finger, appearing to encircle both. At first glance Noma Copley's engagement ring appears to hold an ordinary solitaire complete with 58 facets. On closer examination, the "stone" turns out to be pure gold.

To be sure, the New Jewelers, who number among their loose-knit ranks such artists as Painter Roy Lichtenstein and Sculptors Pol Bury and Barbara Chase-Riboud, are also capable of work that crosses the thin borderline between mere decoration and art. Some pieces, such as Phyllis Mark's kinetic pendants, which suspend shimmering abstract forms within silver ovals, are even sold with stands so that they can be displayed as glittering tabletop art. Other works, like the slablike silver and Lucite pendant by Denver Sculptor Barbara Locketz, need no prop at all.

For all its virtues, the New Jewelry, which at times takes massive assertive forms that resemble nothing so much as castoff machine parts, is not to everyone's taste. Not every woman has the bearing to wear it, admit its creators. "It looks great on a Milanese model," says Lyon, "but doesn't look so hot on an old bag." Even thieves have not yet become aware of its worth. In a recent robbery of the home of an American writer in Paris, everything was stolen--with the exception of one New Jewelry silver bracelet with a moonstone cap.

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