Life is a story made of encounters and emotions... Artistic crafts are once again put back at the centre of XRby's watchmaking work, having this time as a heritage the incredibly deep emotion that can be felt by looking at a fine, infinitely small reproduction.
Dial : Parasol Pine (Pinus pinea)
Collection : 36 examples of tree.
Dimensions : Ø 41mm
Materials : Canson paper 410 g/m2. Schmincke and Rowney watercolor paint. Raphaël Kolinsky brushes.
Miniature painting
There is no “small” Art … but an Art of the small!
The desire to perceive the world in miniature has undoubtedly influenced his career path and the symbol is there: for 20 years he designed and painted artificial irises adapted to the needs of patients in an ocularist’s laboratory, before becoming an art craftsman to reproduce the fruit of his own gaze caressing the world through the prism of the infinitely small.
MANUFACTO
In 2018, he created his company named Manufacto and succeeded in the challenge of meeting the requirements of the Luxury industry by making watch dials for Haute Horlogerie.
He wields the binocular and the finest brushes in the world to transcribe what cannot be seen with the naked eye and uses oil paint, watercolor and a paint with a glazing technique specially developed for watchmaking, on mother-of-pearl, glass, precious metals, metallic surfaces or even grand feu enamel.
Childhood memories
Fascinated by this discipline, and anxious to give it back its letters of nobility in our modern world, he went so far as to reproduce a series of childhood memories from slides found in the family archives… and the audience was won over. Who does not have the nostalgia of these evenings of projection on a white linen sheet, improvised screen for this parade of images, so many intimate memories!
We can only underline this astonishing mutation realized in a little more than a generation: at the time these small rectangles of film were enlarged to be viewed in private sessions. Today, selfies and other emotions frozen in the snapshot of shots relayed on Instagram are viewed in “smartphone screen” format as soon as the opportunity arises in our hectic daily lives.
The ancestor of photo booth
As he himself points out, “miniature art appeared during the medieval era, as miniature illustrations were used in illuminated manuscripts. It was used for portraiture in the sixteenth century, which makes it the ancestor of the photo booth.“
Indeed, it was at that time the only way for people to carry with them an object that would rekindle the emotion felt when seing the features of a loved one, or a familiar landscape.
EXPLORING THE MICRO AND MACRO
“Transcribing what is not visible to the human eye with unparalleled quality of detail”, this artistic feat has (re)gained great interest among people looking for an “alternative format” to convey emotion.
History (especially that of arts) is an everlasting renewal…
The torch is taken up again and the art of miniature seems to have a bright future ahead.
