So called technological innovation did nothing except enabling
jewellery manufacturing, using unskilled labour. It promoted bad
taste. It allowed used to be shoe salesmen to browbeat customers
to accept inferior quality by using terms like CAD/CAM and
etc.'(Mr. Surpin)
I would like to join in to this discussion and make myself the
unpopular guy - of course I do not care. At one time, a goldsmith
was a highly valued profession and master goldsmiths could earn
excellent wages. But it took a lot of schooling to get there. There
was the apprenticeship, which is invaluable and for which there is
no alternative. You had to show talent to get accepted as an
apprentice - a willingness to work until you have it perfectly
right, nothing else is acceptable and the talent to get there -
and you had to show intellectual and artistic promise - the
expectation that, down the line, you would come up with interesting
designs of your self, perhaps even developing or improving upon some
techniques. It takes between 6 and 10 years to get there.
Now every Mary and Joe can buy her/himself some books and start
selling stuff after two months. It is not per se the technology
which did this, although it drives the process, but capitalism. We
see more āhobbyistsā every day because capitalism makes decent,
full-time, well paid work into a rare commodity and so what are
people going to do? It is a very sad situation. Thousands upon
thousands of pieces are made and presented for the sale, although
they would never pass the scrutiny of an examination of first year
education. This multiplication of inexcusably bad and uninteresting
pieces led to a world of its own, lectures are given, by people who
are themselves unqualified to teach, websites are set up, congresses
are organised - nothing has been more detrimental to the infection
with bad taste than this.
Due to cultural relativism, even common sense suffers, for who am I
to say what is interesting if you hit a rusty nail into a ring and
call that interesting. It certainly is āinnovativeā. It makes no
difference that I have many years of schooling and you have none. We
are all equal now. The worst piece imaginable is as good as the best
I have ever made, it is just ādifferentā and, besides, why do not
let the market decide? The market, this mythological shrine of
capitalism consisting of well-informed, rational actors which are to
be found absolutely nowhere. Or, take the accompanying view, that
CAD-CAM is ājust a tool,ā a false statement which is repeated ad
nauseum - in the old days we had a very famous philosopher here in
Bordeaux, his name was Jacques Ellul. He wrote some very interesting
books which are translated into English, one is his Technological
Society - but who still reads this stuff? We are all too busy
propagating myths, hoping to make a buck - exactly as Ellul
explained long time ago.
Of course, the mainstream of goldsmithing has been debased too -
from a rare, highly respected and delicate craft, it became an
industry of cast or die struck sheet or wire adorned with a low
quality diamond, because capitalism makes us all want one - itās a
sign of love for our significant other etc., it is a sign of love to
spend up to two or three monthly wages for something which has no
soul, no meaning and no beauty. And since goldsmiths have to live
too and so they went for it. It is the same old story of mass society
destroying skill and refinement. The ultimate victim of it is
society as a whole, but its members do no longer realise it.
Another victim is the authentic goldsmith, like some of my esteemed
French and Italian colleagues and good friends - first rank
goldsmiths and real artists which are very well known but who did
not even sell one piece sofar this year.
Jacques Pinaud
I am looking at
CIA