A Message from the Editor: The Connoisseurs
These days we speak of design DNA and the democratization of information, but these catch phrases and the ability to look anything up in seconds did not exist just twenty years ago. Now, anyone can research a topic and can be an expert in a field and, through the filter of technology, appear to have credibility equal to that of any other expert. This reminds me of what the eminent professor, Allan Bloom, wrote in his 1987 book, The Closing of the American Mind:
"Imagine such a young person walking through the Louvre or the Uffzi, and you can immediately grasp the condition of his soul. In his innocence of the stories of Biblical and Greek or Roman antiquity, Raphael, Leonardo, Michelangelo, Rembrandt and all the others can say nothing to him. All he sees are colors and forms — modern art. In short, like almost everything else in his spiritual life, the paintings and statues are abstract. No matter what much of modern wisdom asserts, these artists counted on immediate recognition of their subjects and, what is more, on their having a powerful meaning for their viewers... without those meanings, and without there being something essential to the viewer as a moral, political, and religious being, the works lose their essence. It is not merely the tradition that is lost when the voice of a civilization elaborated over millennia has been stilled in this way. It is being itself that vanishes beyond the dissolving horizon" (Bloom, 1987, p. 63). Bloom went on to write: "...Aristotle's great-souled man who loves beauty and useless things, is not a democratic type" (Bloom, 1987, p. 250).There was a time when human contact formed a type of oral tradition which was, then, the only means of obtaining information about the objects, time pieces or writing instruments which we loved and collected. Along with physical books and magazines, people like Gisela at Brinkaus were our link to the worlds of haute horlogerie and fine writing instruments, and through them we gained insights into these worlds, ourselves. Those were not the days of men in T-shirts and shorts walking into a boutique to buy a Rolex. Those who loved the beautiful things, the best things, found them because they sought them out, knew where to find them and knew what they were looking at. Those were the connoisseurs.
Now we talk about accessibility, in an age when everyone knows what a Patek Philippe 5711 is, and yet, no one can find one in a boutique because everyone wants one. Moreover, the same people who want a stainless steel Patek Philippe today had probably not heard of Patek Philippe ten years ago, and may not care about Patek ten years from now. They will have changed their smart phones, as well as their tastes, several times by then. They do not seek the beautiful things because they long for them, they want what others have because they want to belong with them. And when the economy shifts and times become more difficult, they will most likely withdraw and no longer pursue what they sometimes admirably and sometimes contemptuously call luxury.
And yet, there are those who hold on to an ideal, that there is true beauty, and that beauty show us something about ourselves and our reality. Sometimes trends align with beauty and sometimes they do not, but there are those who do not lose there authentic way because the crowd moves on.
I remember, as a young man, looking at the time pieces in Brinkhaus, then in the Hotel Vancouver. There was rarely anyone there when I was there. In the 1990's Breguet had a model called the Marine, different from the current model, which I first discovered in Robb Report, and which I loved. It was in the same period that I also discovered a Swiss designer named Jorg Hysek, whose innovative work produced what seemed to me to be the most beautiful mechanical pencil in the world. I reached out to Mr. Hysek, himself, and told him of my love for design. He offered me the chance to do some design work for him, in exchange for one of his pencils. I did, designing a time piece with two rotating barrels which gave the hour and minutes along a stationary marker, integrated into one of his pens. His silver mechanical pencil is still sitting on my desk today, as a testament to the timelessness of his design, and his thoughtfulness toward me as a young lover of his beautiful writing instruments.
What I did not know then, was that Jorg Hysek had also designed the Breguet Marine. Without the internet, information was not as easy to obtain. And yet, the unique touch of one man, his taste and vision of what was beautiful, resonated with me even without being told about his design portfolio. It is this resonance which is the hallmark of the authentic, it marks the path along which we journey toward something which we sometimes cannot describe, but which is somehow familiar to us. We may look back at fashions and trends with embarrassment and horror, but beauty is eternal. And those who know, those who seek beauty — like priests of some ancient flame — may collect or innovate, admire or design, but their work is nevertheless sacred. They are the torch bearers of something ancient, the preservers of artifacts which may one day be excavated to reveal what our civilization was like. In democratic society, the connoisseurs now practice what was once reserved for royalty and nobility; these are the practitioners of the eternal, and THE CIRCLE | VANCOUVER is dedicated to them.
Joel Derksen Banck
Editor, THE CIRCLE | VANCOUVER
Bloom, Allan. The Closing of the American Mind. (1987). New York: Touchstone, Simon & Schuster.