Mr Hamilton after Skirving. A Future Classic in Contemporary Jewellery

How a piece becomes a classic? I am very honoured to contribute to the discussion started here on Klimt02. As I began reading the articles and the choices related to this thread, my mind immediately recalled Italo Calvino's “Why Read the Classics?” [1]. In his witty introduction, the author listed his thirteen-point record, modelling his definition of a “classic book” and adding an interesting appendix of definitions and intuitions, such as, for example, the following: A classic is a book which has never exhausted all it has to say to its readers. ​[2]

Beyond books, I started focusing on Calvino’s definitions of a classic to define a classic piece in jewellery, thus I chose a variation on cameos, a “quintessential classical” genre of works in the field of jewellery, for I always loved glyptics: the intaglio and the carving of semi-precious stone carry – as any other work of art- an entire world within and beyond itself. This selection of works aims to show how different pieces and techniques act as “sound boxes”.


A few names come to mind. I find myself thinking of a work by Judy McCaig, or Melanie Bilenker, yet in the end I would choose Derrick Guild.


To me, all these pieces are classics. They re-meditate the oval form of the cameo, adding not only that personal artistic research, which always distinguishes contemporary jewellery from traditional pieces, but also master a skillful technique. Reinventing the ideal concept of cameos gives the viewer that special reward that only details provide to a keen eye, but also removes that film of familiarity to those who look at the pieces for the first time.
They are already classics because each time you look at them, they always have something new to tell you, and, as art is the place of resonances, they act as sound boxes. As classic pieces, they are carefully thought out, conceived, and even more carefully built in terms of rhythms, balance, and structure. Made to endure time.

As classic pieces, they surprise me each time I look at them, providing new resonances, both in terms of style, form, and concept; connecting past and present, and providing my very personal definition of classic, in relation to or in opposition to the concept itself.

I think that everyone knows when we are in front of a classic piece: no matter if ancient or a new one, we sense what Italo Calvino carefully describes in these lines: A classic is a work that relegates the noise of the present to a background hum, which at the same time, the classics cannot exist without; […] A classic is a work that persists as background noise even when a present, that is totally incompatible with it, holds sway. [3]
I couldn’t agree more.





[1]: Italo Calvino, Why Read the Classics, Vintage Books, Random House, NYC, 1981, pp.3-9, (Italo Calvino, Perché leggere i classici, Milano, Mondadori, 1995, pp. 5-13).
[2]: Ibidem, p. 5.
[3]: Italo Calvino, Op. Cit., p. 8.


Linea Melodica
François Couperin, Second Livre de pieces de clavecin, Sixième Ordre: Les Barricades Mïstérieuses, from “BARRICADES”, performed by Thomas Dunford and Jean Rondeau, ERATO Warner Classic.


Weblinks
Derrick Guild: https://derrickguild.co.uk/
Judy McCaig: https://www.instagram.com/judymccaig/
Melanie Bilenker: https://www.melaniebilenker.com/



Why Future Classics?
Our aim is not to define academic criteria or impose any form of conservatism, but to collect subjective perspectives that help us understand the values and expectations shaping our field, without reducing them to fixed rules or hierarchies.
By sharing these voices, we invite you to think together and open a conversation about durability, relevance, and the ways particular works contain certain patterns or enigmas that make them continue to speak over time.
 

About the author

Nichka Marobin is an Italian art historian specialized in Dutch and Flemish art history. She graduated from the faculty of letters of Padova (Italy) with a dissertation on Renaissance ornament prints from 1500 to 1550 in Germany and the Low Lands, focusing on the migration of forms, themes, and styles on the engravings of Cornelis Bos, Cornelis Floris II, Lucas van Leyden and the German Little Masters. In 2011, she founded The Morning Bark, a bloGazette on arts and humanities, where she posts about arts with a multidisciplinary path, including fine arts, books, fashion, and contemporary jewellery.