From reinterpreting Monet’s impressionism in jewellery to reflecting on Carravagio’s play on light and shadow using different shades of gemstones, Fine Art has remained a constant source of inspiration for jewellery designers finds out, Vijetha Rangabashyam.

From impressionist details to abstract elements or just a simple brush stroke, jewellery designers have often looked up to fine art, paintings in particular, for inspiration for many years now. And as I delved deeper into some iconic moments in the history of art, I realized that artists have themselves dabbled in the realm of jewellery design at some point in their lives – we have the likes of Dali, P.Klee, Picasso, Kandinsky and so many other artists who have used their artistic predisposition to create jewellery too.

Both disciplines are connected to each other, in that they have borrowed ideas from each other through time. A conceived idea for a piece of jewellery is always first sketched on paper before it comes alive with the use of materials. If that isn’t art, then what is?

The Italian jewellery house Buccellati launched the ‘Art Collection’ a few years ago, paying homage to paintings of Claude Monet, Odilon Redon, Winslow Homer, Pierre Bonnard and Mikhail Larionov. The collection, with its curious pieces, reinterpreted the works of these legendary artists in its own way. Homer’s ‘Light Blue Sea at Prout’s Neck’ was re-imagined as a cuff where the detailing of the waves came alive with 663 round brilliant-cut diamonds.

Jewellery designer Carlo Palmiero is yet another fine art enthusiast who espouses his love for paintings through his jewellery creations – from Edvard Munch’s ‘Scream’ to Mondrian’s Tableau, his interpretations of the iconic paintings are ethereal. Palmiero effortlessly uses coloured sapphires to recreate the artists’ colour palette with a smattering of diamonds in his ‘Art Collection’.

Laurence Graff, the keeper of some of the world’s most famous diamonds is also an avid art collector and that shouldn’t come by as a surprise. His art collection is a mélange of 20th century fine art, a few of which are by the American artist Cy Twombly. The verve of Twombly’s scribble is expressed in this collection with unparalleled artistry and of course the use of exceptional gemstones,both of which are not uncommon at the house of Graff. An elegant squiggle earring twirls down gracefully with a combination of diamonds and rubies, ending with beautiful pear shaped rubies – a fitting understanding of Twombly’s celebrated fiery red scribble from the Bacchus series.

Russian based Jewellery Theatre is known for its dramatic jewels and the Caravaggio collection re-imagines the artists’ still life paintings of fruits in an effervescent manner – the different contours of a strawberry for instance, is depicted using red sapphires and tsavorites, while a slice of an orange bursts with energy with a combination of orange sapphires as well as yellow gold. Known for his dramatic and almost theatrical representation of light, Caravaggio had a profound effect on artists in the following years, even today. The ripeness of the fruits and the surreal play on light and shadow has been captured in the Caravaggio Collection by Jewellery Theater rather astonishingly.

Larkspur & Hawk’s Emily Satloff merged her penchant for art and jewellery in her limited edition collection Cora. The pieces reflect the works of Paul Klee and Gustav Klimt; Klee’s surreal approach to colours and shapes, his mystical hieroglyphs, and otherworldly creatures are expressed quite eloquently in Satloff’s jewels using enamel, gold, and palladium leaf.

The practice of borrowing ideas from the ‘wall’ to create jewellery is not something new – in their quest of artistic fulfillment, a handful of designers continue to take cues from their favourite painting and they do it so well. Both disciplines are infinitely bound and with more jewellery creations inspired from the realm of fine art, we would only witness more creative excellence in the field of jewellery design.