Métiers d'Art «Les Masques»

Press release

 

 

“There is nothing on earth which is more desirous of beauty and which embellishes itself more readily than a soul… That is why few souls, on earth, can resist the domination of a soul dedicated to beauty.”

Maurice Maeterlinck, Le Trésor des Humbles

What do these masks from Africa, Asia, Oceania and the Americas tell us? And what, in particular, is their connection with Haute Horlogerie? “Everything” and “It's obvious” are possible answers. But that would be too simplistic. The road which led to the creation of this collection was long, sinuous, and peppered with obstacles patiently surmounted. The end result is well worth all the passion that has been invested in it.

The idea for this collection grew out of an awareness of a renewed interest in tribal art. The so-called primitive arts are currently experiencing a new golden age, as witnessed by the long-awaited and much delayed opening of the Quai Branly Museum in Paris and by record auction prices: in June 2006, for example, a Fang mask fetched 5.9 million euros at the French auction-house Hotel Drouot. It was the largest sum ever paid at an auction for a piece of tribal art. Admittedly, the object belonged to Pierre Vérité, one of the leading dealers in 20th century African art, but the price is light years away from the five dollars Max Ernst gave the New York second-hand goods dealer, Julius Carlebach, in 1941 for an Eskimo spoon!

One way to understanding the world
It was in the 19th century that collectors first began to display an interest in “primitive” art. They were able to perceive its intrinsic value and recognise it as a work of art. It was hardly surprising, therefore, that it was artists who were the first to decipher these objects, which said so much with so little. A few sculpted holes in the wood: two for the eyes, one for the nose, and one for the mouth. The modern artists of the time were well aware that art is one of many ways to understanding the world.

The discovery of tribal art induced these artists to follow the lessons of Cézanne, a father to all of them, to take a new look at perspective, rethink volume and space, break with realism, free themselves from the lessons of academicism, and invent a new way of representing reality in order to capture the essence of being. The Fauvists – Matisse, Derain and Vlaminck – Surrealists and Cubists all came into contact with tribal art and this way of capturing forms by stripping them to a bare minimum. “In certain masks from the Ivory Coast, the Cubists saw signs which, renouncing all imitation, invited the viewer to imagine the face whose forms were not reproduced on these masks,” wrote Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler, a leading art dealer and publisher(2).

Despite the celebrated words – “African art? Never heard of it!” – Picasso drew on African art, as well as Iberian art, for inspiration in putting the finishing touches to his painting Les Demoiselles d'Avignon, the founding work of Cubism, which he began in 1906 and finally finished in July 1907.

During a visit to the Ethnographic Museum at the Trocadéro in Paris, he found material to nurture his formal quest: “All alone in this frightful museum with masks, Red Indian dolls and dust-covered mannequins. The Demoiselles d'Avignon must have come to me that very day, not at all because of the forms, but because it was my first exorcism painting!”(1). According to the painter Wassily Kandinsky, Picasso “owes the success of his quest to African art”(3). And he was not the only one. “A whole string of French painters and, in their wake, foreign painters set off down this newly-opened path; this was the starting point of the Cubist movement,” he wrote in 1910 (3).

It was after discovering rice spoons from the Ivory Coast that Giacometti sculpted his Spoon Woman in late 1926. In 1936, the Exposition Surréaliste d'Objets, organised by André Breton at the Charles Ratton Gallery, brought together for the first time works by Salvador Dali, Max Ernst, Mirò and Giacometti with four Eskimo masks belonging to the Heye Foundation in New York. The tribal art of the Americas, with its various objects made from recuperated and ingeniously recycled material, was an unrecognised area at that time.

Mirrors of the human and divine
While painters, sculptors and poets were quick to appreciate the intrinsic artistic value of these objects, institutions took a little longer, so these masks and statuettes were more often than not exhibited in ethnographic rather than art museums.

The value of tribal art does not reside essentially in its aesthetic aspect, even though this is important. Its true beauty is linked to its usage and use, to the hands which have held it and touched it. Not to mention the powers with which it has been invested on a particular continent, at a particular time, by a particular people, according to a particular religious tradition. Like the reredoses of the Middle Ages or Giotto's frescoes, these masks have a function associated with initiations and religious rites and denote social distinction. They are, at the same time, the personification of a divinity and a spiritual entity, as well as a mirror held out to men, across time and borders, encouraging them to ask themselves those universal questions relating to the mysteries of birth, life and death, and to the relationship between the visible and invisible, between the human and the divine.

The true Art of time
Setting aside the symbolism and magic associated with these masks, there is a certain logic in bringing tribal art and the art of watchmaking together: both are the offspring of time.

The real sculptor of an object, the one who gives it its patina and significance, who hollows out or softens its contours, is time. Masks were born of a necessity. Used at every ritual, serving to mark the seasons and accompanying both the living and the dead, they possessed a clear chronological dimension. It is also easy to draw a parallel between the anonymous work of a sculptor who has created a mask and that of a watchmaker at his workbench, working away for months, sometimes years, to bring a new movement to life. When the work is finished, both craftsmen are dispossessed of the object, which does not usually bear their name. It becomes instead the property of the person who uses it and will be passed down from generation to generation, bearing with it so many questions and so few answers.

• Bibliography
• L'homme et ses masques : chefs-d'oeuvre des musées Barbier-Mueller, Geneva and Barcelona, Michel Butor, Alain-Michel Boyer, Floriane Morin, Pierre Messmer Picasso, l'homme aux mille masques, Jorge Semprun, Maria Teresa Ocaña, Jean Paul Barbier-Mueller, Pierre Daix, Collectif, Somogy, 2006 L'Art africain, Jacques Kerchache, Jean-Louis Paudrat and Lucien Stephan, Mazenod, Paris, 1988
• (1) Le primitivisme dans l'art du XXe siècle, William Rubin, Flammarion, Paris, 1991
• (2) L'art nègre et le cubisme, Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler, L'art nègre, Paris, pp. 83–88
• (3) Du spirituel dans l'art et dans la peinture en particulier, Kandinsky, Denoël

THE COLLECTION MÉTIERS D'ART “LES MASQUES”

Four years ago, in 2005, Vacheron Constantin celebrated 250 years of uninterrupted history. This jubilee event, unique in the annals of watchmaking history, was a perfect opportunity for the Geneva-based manufacture to demonstrate its mastery of horological art with exploits that redefined the limits of what is possible. Having proudly turned to its past, Vacheron Constantin is continuing its steady march towards the future, in an ongoing quest for the extraordinary. To create, astound and enchant, these are the challenges for the years to come.

Watchmaking is an art requiring fresh starts and continual improvement. How else can one go on creating surprises? Thanks in particular to one of its founders, François Constantin, the manufacture's name and reputation are synonymous with distant horizons. An accomplished ambassador and tireless traveller, he crisscrossed the world in the hazardous conditions of the times to spread the company's watchmaking expertise on other continents. By 1820, he was already exploring opportunities in China and, in 1833, the first Vacheron & Constantin watches were crossing the Atlantic. The company had realised very early on the necessity of gaining a foothold in the New World and opened a subsidiary in New York before going on to open one in Brazil around 1840, and another in India ten years later. Can a timepiece serve as a cultural bridge between nations? Both the company's founders believed so. In 2007, the manufacture felt the need to go back to basics, paying homage to man when he verges on the sublime. It was a long journey, taking its watchmakers through time and space in search of man's roots and focussing on one of the most beautiful expressions of his soul.

Three years, Twelve Masks, Three hundred exceptional timepieces

What would be the best subject to subtly evoke the human experience? The manufacture's master watchmakers and designers considered several possibilities. As it turned out, the choice of masks was an obvious one, for Geneva is extremely fortunate in having one of the world's finest museums of primitive art, the Barbier-Mueller Museum. Its proximity guided Vacheron Constantin in its final choice. The Métiers d'Art “Les Masques” collection, therefore, grew out of a reflection on the near and far, the past, present and future, and the process of constant renewal.



But one obstacle remained: to win over the museum. Would it be willing to lend its treasures for months on end so that they could be reproduced on the dial of a collector's watch? In the end, two things convinced Jean Paul Barbier-Mueller of the project's beauty and significance: a lunch during which he and the Vacheron Constantin team headed by Juan-Carlos Torres were able to share their common passion for beautiful objects, and the manufacture's philosophy.

The rest was a matter of horological magic and the commitment of a team to surpass the limits of possibility. Twelve masks were selected from the Barbier-Mueller collection for small-scale reproduction in gold. They repose majestically at the centre of each timepiece in a collection that spans two thousand years and four continents.

Because Vacheron Constantin understands the value of time, it respected the time needed to create such exceptional pieces. Long months were required first of all to perfect the movement, and then the techniques with which the master craftsmen could reproduce these works of art in miniature. There had to be plenty of time for questioning, reflection and invention.

A collection cannot be hurried. That is why the Métiers d'Art “Les Masques” collection is a story that has unfurled over time. Every year for three years – 2007 to 2009 – a boxed set of four different masks has been presented in a limited series of 25.

A complete set of the twelve timepieces reproducing the twelve masks – from the limited edition of 300 exceptional timepieces – is being unveiled at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York at an exhibition sponsored by Vacheron Constantin and called “A Legacy of Collecting: African and Oceanic Art from the Barbier-Mueller Museum, Geneva” in tribute to Jean Paul Barbier-Mueller.

A work of Art in miniature
Each timepiece is equipped with the automatic Calibre 2460G4 movement, made by the manufacture and bearing the prestigious Poinçon de Genève. Thanks to this very special movement, the time can be read without any hands: by means of a set of wheels and gears, four discs indicate the hours, minutes, day and date in windows, leaving the centre of the dial empty for the masks to be placed there and for the craftsmen to give free rein to their creativity.



The movement was completely redesigned to receive the masks; even though time is the raison d'être here, the masks are the focus of attention and had to be put in the spotlight. To ensure that they were, the team of designers decided to virtually conceal the movement. A clever technique using transparency and specially-treated glass creates the impression that the masks are floating. Each sapphire crystal has a different tint, obtained by a unique metallisation process, so that it sets off the colour of the mask. The effect is breathtaking: the miniature sculpture seems within reach, a silent guardian of ancestral secrets.

Finally, it required all Michel Butor's talent to give voice, if not life, to the masks. His magnificent words, short poems in prose dedicated to each mask, circle the sapphire dial in letters of gold. The writer's lines follow each other in a spiral that seems to have no beginning and no end, a mysterious message that can only be read when the light strikes it from a certain angle. This effect is achieved by vacuum metallisation, a sophisticated technological process in which the gold letters are sprayed onto a sapphire crystal. Thanks to the multiple play of light and transparency, the watch has secrets that it will only ever share with its owner.

2009 -  PRESENTATION OF THE THIRD AND FINAL SET