Epochs and Styles

Since it first emerged, jew­elry it­self hasn’t changed fun­da­ment­ally through the ages. Beads, brace­lets, pendants, and brooches ap­peared in pre­his­tor­ic times and are still in fash­ion today. Dec­or­a­tion style, however, has been con­stantly chan­ging. Be­sides that, each epoch has its own un­der­stand­ing and meas­ure­ment of beauty. This art­icle provides de­tailed in­form­a­tion about the evol­u­tion of or­na­ments and the ways jew­elry has been dec­or­ated throughout vari­ous epochs.

THE MIDDLE AGES

The art of the jew­elry mak­ing pro­gressed sig­ni­fic­antly dur­ing the me­di­ev­al times. The most prom­in­ent jew­elry makers of the time came from the two eth­nic groups - the Frank and the Gaul­ish (rep­res­en­ted by vari­ous Celt­ic tribes). The Celts were par­tic­u­larly suc­cess­ful in pro­du­cing rings, brooches, pendants, and ear­rings. While the Celts mastered the cre­ation of ex­quis­ite and com­plic­ated or­na­ments, the Franks greatly ad­mired pre­cious stones. However, that does not mean that Gaul­ish and oth­er Celts did not ap­pre­ci­ate gems. They eagerly dec­or­ated their rings and brooches with a vari­ety of stones. It is note­worthy that usu­ally only noble and rich wo­men wore a lot of jew­elry. Men from the early me­di­ev­al peri­od wore only rings and seal rings.

RENAISSANCE

At the be­gin­ning of the 14th cen­tury, in­ter­na­tion­al trade in Europe was flour­ish­ing. Jew­elry makers were giv­en ac­cess to the many pre­vi­ously un­known ma­ter­i­als and min­er­als. This caused a fairly rap­id evol­u­tion in jew­elry mak­ing. By the 16th cen­tury, European jew­el­ers already were us­ing Columbi­an em­er­alds, Brazili­an to­pazes, In­di­an ru­bies, Afghan lapis lazuli, and oth­er beau­ti­ful min­er­als. This on­go­ing cul­tur­al ex­change pro­moted new meth­ods and tech­niques, widen­ing the range of jeweled goods. Jew­elry sets came in­to fash­ion, in which a dia­dem, a neck­lace, ear­rings, and a ring were en­graved in the same style.

Since that time peri­od, the jew­elry mak­ing trade has di­vided in­to two branches – the mak­ing of genu­ine jew­elry and the mak­ing of cos­tume jew­elry, which uses cheap but at­tract­ive ma­ter­i­als. Today, many mu­seums dis­play ex­quis­ite dia­dems, pen­dants, and brace­lets from the Renais­sance. This his­tor­ic­al peri­od is noted for splendor and wealth; both men and wo­men wore nu­mer­ous dec­or­a­tions to demon­strate their prosper­ity.

AGE OF THE ENLIGHTENMENT

Be­gin­ning in the second half of the 18th cen­tury, dur­ing the Age of the En­light­en­ment, Ro­man­ti­cism was one of the most sig­ni­fic­ant art move­ments. The evol­u­tion of jew­elry mak­ing was in­flu­enced by sev­er­al so­cial and his­tor­ic­al phe­nom­ena of the time. The first was the be­gin­ning of ar­che­ology both as a study and as a prac­tice. Many artists, jew­el­ers in par­tic­u­lar, were greatly in­flu­enced by me­di­ev­al and an­cient pieces of jew­elry. A second factor of in­flu­ence was the In­dus­tri­al Re­volu­tion, which led to the ap­pear­ance of the middle class. Since then, jew­elry has been a priv­ilege not only of no­bil­ity and the gov­ern­ing class but also of com­mon people with wealth. Vari­ous kinds of bi­jouter­ie ap­peared dur­ing this time, made of cheap­er ma­ter­i­als, al­loys, and gem­stone sub­sti­tutes.

Wealthy people of this time val­ued jew­elry that looked re­fined and in­tric­ate. Of less im­port­ance were the spe­cif­ic ma­ter­i­als, metals, and gems from which the jew­elry was made. The cost of pro­duc­tion re­flec­ted the price of the raw ma­ter­i­als as well as the cost of labor. To jus­ti­fy the high price and cost of pro­duc­tion, buy­ers wanted the piece it­self to look unique and at­tract­ive, re­gard­less of the ma­ter­i­als used. Jew­el­ers were mo­tiv­ated to cre­ate elab­or­ate and del­ic­ate items, and this pushed the de­vel­op­ment of pre­cise and fine jew­elry tech­niques. Items known as mourn­ing jew­elry also be­came ex­tremely pop­u­lar dur­ing the Ro­mantic era.

ART NOUVEAU

In the 1890s, jew­el­ers all over the world began to ex­per­i­ment with the Art Nou­veau concept. This move­ment be­came in­creas­ingly pop­u­lar in vari­ous genres of art. Body jew­elry be­came more fem­in­ine, with gentler shapes. Col­or was more im­port­ant then ever, and col­or­ful enamels were of­ten used. Typ­ic­al or­na­ments de­pic­ted flor­al and ro­mantic themes, as well as myth­o­lo­gic­al sub­jects and fe­male sil­hou­ettes.

In fact, the Art Nou­veau peri­od wit­nessed a great shift in jew­elry mak­ing from gem dec­or­a­tion to­ward more el­eg­ant and soph­ist­ic­ated design. Pre­vi­ous to this time, jew­elry was con­sidered rich­er and more beau­ti­ful if it was dec­or­ated with more gems. In con­trast to earli­er epochs, when showy, os­ten­ta­tious items were con­sidered beau­ti­ful, the Art Nou­veau era was char­ac­ter­ized by more soph­ist­ic­ated taste. Jew­el­ers were re­quired to meet the high re­quire­ments of pro­fes­sion­al­ism and skill de­man­ded of them.

ART DECO

At the end of the World War I, sim­pli­city and min­im­al­ism came in­to fash­ion. Ma­ter­i­als that were nev­er used by jew­elry makers pre­vi­ously, like plastic and alu­min­um, be­came widely used. This fol­lowed nat­ur­ally from the poor state of the world's eco­nomy and con­stant polit­ic­al ten­sion. People were un­able to in­dulge in lav­ish, lux­uri­ous items. Re­gard­less, people still wanted to buy jew­elry even if they could not af­ford something ex­pens­ive and ori­gin­al. This was the time for jew­elry mak­ing to be­come an in­dustry of mass rep­lic­a­tion.