Jewelry is used to decorate people’s clothing and appearance. The West pays more attention to jewelry design, regards jewelry design as a category of artistic creation, and carries out artistic appreciation and aesthetic appreciation of jewelry very early. In China, the artistic discussion on jewelry design started late, but with the continuous development and change of the art market, the jewelry design industry has become a branch of modern art. In order to display artistry in jewelry design, some common art forms also appear in jewelry, realizing the combination of jewelry and various arts, which not only improves the artistic value of jewelry but also extends the art form.
Features of metal carving
Jewelry carving art is a kind of art form that applies various carving techniques to jewelry making. With the development of jewelry carving art, the materials used are becoming more and more diversified. Jewelry carving materials are mainly from gems and metals. The quality of gemstones in jewelry carving art mainly includes Hetian jade, jadeite, agate, tourmaline and crystal, especially the achievements of gem carving are the most significant. Gemstone carving is a traditional Chinese craft with thousands of years of history. Gemstone carving works have undergone the transformation from knives, axes, and jade to jade ornaments. The ancient gem and stone carving artists advocated abstract and simple style, and later the gem and stone carving artists combined sculpture and painting to make the gem and stone works present a figurative style.
From a macro point of view, with the rapid development of science and technology in China, China’s present gemstone carving materials have also increased new varieties. The introduction of some rare stones encourages creators to take the initiative to innovate and combine modern thought and technology to make the gemstone carvings more unique.
Metal carving in jewelry generally refers to shaping precious metals such as gold, silver, and copper into special shapes and carving out decorative patterns. China’s metal craft has a long history, leaving different marks in different periods, such as bronze art in the Shang Dynasty, bronze mirror art in the Tang Dynasty, Jingtai craft in the Ming Dynasty, and gold and silver craft in the Qing Dynasty. Metal carving process is an indispensable part of the jewelry metal process, its change and development not only provide a new direction and opportunity for the development of jewelry but also greatly enriches the spiritual and material civilization of mankind.
Gold and silver have good ductility and are easy to inlay, manufacture and express texture. In addition to pure gold and silver jewelry, jewelry designers like to combine gold and silver with a variety of different materials. Gold and silver combined with other materials can make jewelry more delicate to some extent. Traditional jewelry materials are only precious stones and precious metals, and today’s jewelry design is trying to explore new materials. Sculptors, for example, use organic plastic, which because of its mass production and popularity can often be used to make inexpensive products, but it is difficult to associate with jewelry design. But the plasticity of plastics is still fascinating, and the rise of 3D printing and parameterization has also given plastic its prominence in jewelry design. Many contemporary designers are exploring the use of mixed materials for jewelry design, such as wood materials plus resin, metal plus leather, etc., the difference between materials and the collision between properties can present a novel effect.
Precious metals can feel cold and hard, including gold and silver jewelry. Skillfully combining silver and traditional silver processing techniques with different forms and materials, the final work presented will be completely different. At the same time, the contrast and contrast produced by the combination of gold, silver and other materials make the work appear more colorful and unique.
The general engraving types
According to the final artistic effect of jewelry works, the carving process applied to jewelry is generally divided into relief, intaglio carving, round carving and carving process.
Relief craft is a combination of sculpture and painting activities. Relief is generally attached to another plane, occupies a small space, suitable for a variety of environmental decorations. Relief jewelry refers to jewelry works mainly made of relief technology, and relief technology is mostly used for jewelry materials on the base or part of the main body of jewelry works.
The Intaglio process is the opposite of the relief process, which is the metal, gemstone or other product material to dig inward to study the carving process, the use of different degrees of depth of the concave structure to form part of the text or pattern. In the intaglio craft, the seal ring is the most famous, and it is an art form that combines the intaglio craft with the ring. In addition to the decorative function, seal rings also have a particularly important function, in ancient times, Chinese and European aristocrat often wore their own pendant or ring decoration intaglio pattern, when a secret letter needed to be transmitted, they can use an intaglio pendant or ring paint seal, to prevent the secret letter on the way to be unsealed.
Round carving, also known as 360-degree three-dimensional carving, has a strong expression. Round carving works can be viewed from all angles so that people can appreciate the craft and artistic conception of the work from the pattern. The round carvings present artistic images in true proportions and are processed from all angles around raw materials, carving life-like figures and animals in an all-around way.
Carving is to penetrate the whole carved material, giving people a kind of exquisite artistic design beauty. The skill of carving is the most difficult to master in all carving techniques, especially in multi-layer carving. After carving, the connection of treasure and jade stone becomes more fragile and easy to break, so the choice of carving jewelry material is more complex and demanding, and its price is relatively expensive.
The general engraving process
Jewelry carving has roughly experienced several stages of casual creation, strict pattern creation and original creation. At first, artists liked to carve jewelry into auspicious ornaments or pendants and throw the melted silver or gold into cold water, so that the sharp cooling produced some strange pieces of gold and silver, and the resulting pendants were full of simple breath. Later, with a further understanding of the physical and chemical properties of gemstone materials and metal materials, jewelry artisans began to carve jewelry strictly according to design. For example, the crystal gemstone can be studied and carved to get a different effect from the carving of jade stone, and the metal material is processed with a engraving tool to achieve the three-dimensional pattern and line of different metal materials. Nowadays, the form of jewelry carving is more concise, following the principle of “from life, higher than life”, so that the development of jewelry carving continues to innovate and breakthrough.
With the continuous development and innovation of jewelry, the combination of different forms of artistic expression and jewelry design depends on the understanding of the art of jewelry designers and the proficiency of the craft in the process of jewelry production. Therefore, the key to achieving artistic form innovation in jewelry design is to improve the designer’s personal cultivation. In addition, designers should try various materials and explore the application methods of new materials to better realize novel art forms.
Japanese jewelry education
Japanese jewelry education and teaching emphasize the guiding ideology of national design, which is more suitable for the development of Chinese jewelry. Japanese jewelry design continues to emphasize the localization of design, design education also attaches great importance to the traditional Japanese gold, silver, seven-treasure burning and other crafts. This has laid a foundation for the establishment and development of Japanese jewelry design ideology education and research based on Japanese traditional aesthetics of nationalism. Although Japanese jewelry design adopts the western modern industrial design concept in the frame, it attaches importance to national culture and craft in the guiding ideology, forming a unique aesthetic taste of jewelry. This requires a large number of designers and craftsmen who understand both traditional craftsmanship and modern design language to cooperate and integrate traditional craftsmanship into modern design to bring it to life.
Jewelry sculpture art in the decoration and beautification of people’s lives at the same time, but also carries people’s yearning for the good things in life and sustenance. Carving is difficult to be identical, and through this traditional craft technology, which is not imitative in itself, it adds a unique label to the work.