The Art & Science of Gems by Van Cleef & Arpels (with the participation of the French National Museum of Natural History) is an exhibition that is currently being held at the ArtScience Museum.
The museum opens daily from 10am to 7pm, daily. And the exhibition will be on from now till' the 14th of August 2016. The exhibition showcases over 450 pieces of jewellery from the Van Cleef & Arpels Collection. In parallel to that collection, the French National Museum of Natural History in Paris is also showing over 250 gems and minerals.
That adds up to a lot of pretty things to look at so obviously this is going to be a picture-heavy post. If you live in/are going to visit Singapore and intend on going to see this exhibition... I suggest you skip this post because seeing the gems and jewellery in person is so much more breath-taking, and I wouldn't want to steal the magic of seeing all of the items on display for the first time away from you.
If you're coming along on this virtual tour, though... Let me set the scene in your mind....
The exhibition space is dimly lit in order to highlight each of the pieces on display. There is a hush silence. You cannot even hear footsteps because the carpet dampens the noise of people walking around the exhibition space. The air smells very crisp. I remember the last time I visited this area of the ArtScience museum. The exhibition at that point in time showed contemporary paintings and photographs. The space was bright, and there wasn't any carpeting. My... my... How much effort they put in to really bring us a new experience.
The first space you see after you walk in is this:
Multiple lit columns that showcase each beautiful piece of jewellery. All of them beckoning you to look closer at them...
And this... This is Van Cleef & Arpels signature pieces. The Zip necklace. It's a necklace now... But you can remove a small section of the necklace, zip it up (yes. you read that right. the zip is fully functional. how cool is that?) And you can convert it to...
... a bracelet!
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| This was a still taken from a video that was being played on a tv screen in the exhibition space. |
It is at this point that I'd also like to point out how beautiful the exhibition space itself has been made to be.
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That's me; yes.
There were these blue tassels hanging all around the exhibition. You can see a giant quartz behind me. Yes; that huge bright white glowing thing is a quartz. |
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| Looking skywards. |
And now moving on to more shiny things.
They had little areas where you could do certain activities that had to do with the exhibition. Like make your own jewels from plastic shapes that they had:
Or fold your own jewels:
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| (I took mine home to complete, so this picture was taken at home.) |
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| The pink topaz are the rarest, they say. |
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I wonder what the plural form of "topaz" is....
"Topazes"? "Topazi"? |
I'm currently in love with opals. And I'm planning on making a tutorial on how to draw an opal soon. But for now, enjoy these pictures:
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It's amazing the amount of details the human eye can see.
The opals were so much more nuanced in real life... |
Shimmery gold that I felt pictures could not do justice so I took a video instead:
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| Lastly, a crown with a jewel so large, it casts a shadow on itself. |
I hope you had fun on this virtual tour. ^-^ And I hope you gained some inspiration from the many pictures shown in this post. Until next time... Keep tangling~
