Les gemmail

"Gemmail" comes from the contraction of two words "gem" gemstone and "email", the binder used for the assembly of pieces of glass. That word is already giving the essential characteristic of this art with infinite resources, "A new face of beauty." *

Crimped, bonded and stacked, the Gemmaux are enclosed in a frame just like the bottom of a case are the precious stones. They catch the light and transform it. The amount of layers of glass determines the intensity of the desired color, and this overlay provides such a wide range and rich as that of the painter's palette.
Authentic work of art as fluid and changing material as the light it is dialed, the gemmail opened a new era in the mind of the artist **.

In fact, Gemmaux are translucent paintings that live in the light.

The artist draws a sketch on a large illuminated glass plate, on which are placed colored glass plots whose sizes and overlay it possible to obtain the most subtle color palette.

When the work is completed at the discretion of the artist, the whole piece is embedded in a completely colorless enamel and where he spent the oven reaches temperatures that may be adjacent to the degree of glass softening, unless factors of binding elements provided to chemically compensate for a certain amount of cooking will allow, under these circumstances, working at much lower temperatures. When the desired temperature was reached very slowly and that the various reactions are made, the furnace is reduced to a predetermined temperature and cooling of the workpiece is then carried out gradually and slowly.

Thus Picasso captured that elusive element: light, pure and complete at its source, modeled and refracted through thousands of gems each constituting works made Gemmail.

* Jean Cocteau
** text appeared in "The French Letters" 1957

Self Portrait Pablo Picasso