Bvlgari Ultranero Saphir Tourbillon & Greubel Forsey

Bernard Cheong's thought-provoking post delves into the artistic and philosophical dimensions of watchmaking, using the Bvlgari Ultranero Saphir Tourbillon and Greubel Forsey's work as a lens. He challenges traditional perceptions, drawing parallels between horological innovation and art movements like Impressionism. Cheong's reflections encourage readers to consider how modern watchmaking pushes boundaries and redefines aesthetic appreciation.

Using the Greubel Forsey MOP platinum incline 30 double concentric tourbillon as a comparison for sheer emotional experience.

Although not to everyone's favorite top 10, nothing really is, except for life.

My own irrelevant opinions aside, I guess the game changers Greubel Forsey were like the artists before the Paris Salon, the official art exhibition of the Académie des Beaux-Arts in Paris.

The increasingly conservative and academic juries were not receptive to the Impressionist painters, whose works were usually rejected, or poorly placed if accepted. The Salon opposed the Impressionists' shift away from traditional painting styles.

In 1863 the Salon jury turned away an unusually high number of the submitted paintings. An uproar resulted, particularly from regular exhibitors who had been rejected.

Many, today, changed our lifes in subtle and wonderfully colorful ways, extending beyond art.

So...no doubt the great art of Patek and of Lange hold strong and hold true, and I support them too.

The lesson I took away from reading about the beginning of the modern occupation of art critic, was that I was too preoccupied with trying to make others see the way I saw things.

I have no influence at all over how and in what way a watch will be distributed.

I was allowed an unfair advance over my friends in 1973 to 1998.

I utilized every political tool to shape tastes. Instead, the wiser ones began magazines and organized shows and websites.

Bvlgari is and remains an old favorite house....making many winners and losers, but always living thru it all.

Greubel Forsey, I have been bowled over by them ever since Opus 6, possibly the last opus made by Max and completed with Hamdi in 2006.

Now, the age of lighting with lume, instead of just marking them, has begun.

Notice how the light gently illuminates the dial with green.

 Here in bright daylight:

Will Greubel Forsey be the next  24 Marc Chagall,  June] 1887 – 28 March 1985?

Too young? Born after the torments of the Paris Salon?

The art historian Michael J. Lewis, Chagall was considered to be "the last survivor of the first generation of European modernists".

He created his own mixture and style of modern art based on his idea of Eastern European Jewish folk culture. He spent the wartime years in Soviet Belarus, becoming one of the country's most distinguished artists and a member of the modernist avant-garde....sounds familiar?

Of course, many will never consider that watch making and its designing gestation be even compared to art, but why not?

There are millions of copies and prints of great art to be enjoyed, much less copies, if at all legal or even possible to enjoy if not the real object.

Chagall experienced modernism's "golden age" in Paris, where "he synthesized the art forms of Cubism, Symbolism, and Fauvism, and the influence of Fauvism gave rise to Surrealism".

"When Matisse dies," Pablo Picasso remarked in the 1950s, "Chagall will be the only painter left who understands what colour really is".

Many of Matisse's paintings from 1898 to 1901 make use of a Divisionist technique he adopted after reading Paul Signac's essay, "D'Eugène Delacroix au Néo-impressionisme".

As collectors, we share something with the great man:

Matisse immersed himself in the work of others and went into debt from buying work from painters he admired.

We should support these watch makers.

Remember:

In 1887 he went to Paris to study law, working as a court administrator, after gaining his qualification. He first started to paint in 1889, after his mother brought him art supplies during a period of convalescence following an attack of appendicitis. He discovered "a kind of paradise" as he later described it, and decided to become an artist, deeply disappointing his father.

Around April 1906 he met Pablo Picasso, who was 11 years younger than Matisse. The two became lifelong friends as well as rivals and are often compared. One key difference between them is that Matisse drew and painted from nature, while Picasso was much more inclined to work from imagination.

Socialites and hobbyists made them famous, Matisse and Picasso became part of their social circle and routinely joined the gatherings that took place on Saturday evenings. Gertrude attributed the beginnings of the Saturday evening salons to Matisse, remarking:

"More and more frequently, people began visiting to see the Matisse paintings—and the Cézannes: Matisse brought people, everybody brought somebody, and they came at any time and it began to be a nuisance, and it was in this way that Saturday evenings began."

TRIVIA

Impressionism is a 19th-century art movement.

Impressionist painting characteristics include relatively small, thin, yet visible brush strokes, open composition, emphasis on accurate depiction of light in its changing qualities (often accentuating the effects of the passage of time), ordinary subject matter, inclusion of movement as a crucial element of human perception and experience, and unusual visual angles.

It originated with a group of Paris-based artists.

Their independent exhibitions brought them to prominence during the 1870s and 1880s, in spite of harsh opposition from the conventional art community in France.

My heroes are the men below:

A favourite meeting place for the artists was the Café Guerbois on Avenue de Clichy in Paris, where the discussions were often led by Édouard Manet, whom the younger artists greatly admired. They were soon joined by Camille Pissarro, Paul Cézanne, and Armand Guillaumin.

They discovered that they shared an interest in painting landscape and contemporary life rather than historical or mythological scenes. Following a practice that had become increasingly popular by mid-century, they often ventured into the countryside together to paint in the open air, but not for the purpose of making sketches to be developed into carefully finished works in the studio, as was the usual custom.

By painting in sunlight directly from nature, and making bold use of the vivid synthetic pigments that had become available since the beginning of the century, they began to develop a lighter and brighter manner of painting that extended further the Realism of Gustave Courbet and the Barbizon school.

During the 1860s, the Salon jury routinely rejected about half of the works submitted by Monet and his friends in favour of works by artists faithful to the approved style.

they condemned Manet for placing a realistic nude in a contemporary setting.

The jury's severely worded rejection of Manet's painting appalled his admirers, and the unusually large number of rejected works that year perturbed many French artists.

After Emperor Napoleon III saw the rejected works of 1863, he decreed that the public be allowed to judge the work themselves.

The Salon des Refusés (Salon of the Refused) was organized. While many viewers came only to laugh!!!! Imagine. Paintings were "skied", hung so high, you can't admire them.

The Salon des Refusés drew attention to the existence of a new tendency in art and attracted more visitors than the regular Salon.

And so...is history reinventing itself? Not repeating...but reinventing, learning...and so...improving.

The Greubel Forsey 30 mop I can bet will, and did fetch 2.2 million sgd in a recent deal by new auction house named A...... .

The Ultranero is almost sold out.

All of Max Busser's Machine 1 has doubled well in price since I paid 50% less in day 1.

Vianney's Antiqua, the 300% rise in interest?

These are small volumes. Rolex and Patek will be kings.

Canon, Nikon, and cameras are the big timers of billions. All of the art, they are old second hand used work. Life is funny.

I hope I did not cause trouble. Just to share a thought...I may be wrong. I must be wrong. I don't care....but I care that people think for themselves.

Remember, more doctors smoke Camel than any other brand!!!! True advert.