A New Art

Art galleries are normally at their best when they are flooded with light, but last week a black-walled gallery on Paris' Right Bank was at its best flooded in darkness. Its dazzling show was a Picasso retrospective of 50 characteristic works from 1898 to 1955, plus another 50 works by such masters as Cezanne, Bonnard, Braque,

Gauguin, Dufy, Vlaminck. Their masterpieces split the gloom of the gallery with a luminosity that never glowed from any canvas that had been brushed with paint. They were not paintings, but transcriptions of paintings done in a new technique --and there were signs that they might be here to stay.

Gemmaux. They are called gemmaux, a word coined from gemmes (jewels) and emaux (enamels), and consist of bits of colored glass held together by colorless enamel. A gemmiste works from a painting, transcribing it onto a horizontal plate of glass (lighted from below) by juxtaposing and superimposing pieces of glass which have an incredible variety of colors, shapes and sizes. Virtually any intensity or shade of color can be obtained by superimposing colors in proper combinations.

During composition, the fragments of glass are held together by a transparent glue. When the panel is finished, it gets a coat of liquid, transparent enamel, and is baked and hardened in an oven. With sunlight or artificial light behind it, the panel is incandescent. The process, first developed by Jean Crotti. a Parisian. 30 years ago, was perfected six years ago by Roland Malherbe, another Parisian, and was launched by his father, Roger, on a major scale this month.

It boasts an impressive list of enthusiastic supporters led by Painters Pablo Picasso, Georges Rouault, Georges Braque and the late Henri Matisse. Picasso and Matisse were so enchanted by the process that they hastened to do a few themselves. "Magnifique!" cried Braque. "If I were

30 years younger, I would be a gemmiste myself."

Price: $7,000-$ 10,000. Depending on the tone subtleties to be achieved, it takes from six weeks to three months to do a panel. The price: $7,000 to $10,000, and the market is brisk. In the first two days of the current show, collectors snapped up

31 panels. Among the buyers: Monaco's Prince Rainier. Stanley Marcus of Dallas' Neiman-Marcus (which will put 15 gemmaux on display), and U.S. Designer Raymond Loewy, who says he will open a gemmaux gallery in Manhattan. Gemmaux have also gone commercial. One of the more lurid experiences in the Paris subway these days is the spectacle of Van Gogh's Bridge at Aries touting the virtues of a washing machine, and his Night Cafe exhorting people to drink Perrier water.

The possibilities of gemmaux for decoration are considerable. But glass has too brassy a tone to catch certain delicate color harmonies more suitable to paint on canvas. Aware of the medium's possibilities and limitations, Picasso is already working on several designs specifically intended as gemmaux. If other artists of quality follow his lead and create originals for gemmaux, the medium may well develop into what Picasso has called it: a new art.

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