5. Jonathan Von Baumann Cabochon Art

Jonathan Von Baumann doesn't make jewellery with his cabochons .. he creates breathtaking artworks.  I asked Jonathan two questions, what or who were his influences and second, why did he use cabochons.  Below are his answers.  If you click on his pictures you will see more of his work. (A new window will open up).  prepare to be amazed ...

 My earliest influence came from my grandmother who used to restore damaged statues from local churches as a hobby. Every time I visited as a young child I was met by life-size statues of saints and sinners in various states of repair. The drapery of the statues were always a rich cobalt blue or crimson with jewel like purples and lots of glistening gold leaf. These vibrant colour mixes highlighted by gold have always stayed with me. Somehow at that early age, they captured my imagination.

The only places I could find that used these colour mixes was in religious art, from the glistening glass windows to the mosaic floors, icons with their pale faces looking outwards, their thick frames, warm gold studded with pearls and gemstones, everything seemed to be over done, every inch encrusted. The weight of the richness sat very comfortably with me. I wanted to create pieces that would capture that style and transport me back to being surrounded by such vivid colour and embellishment. Gustav Klimt captured this idea in his golden painting of Adele Bloch-Bauer, during his sumptuous and eye-assaulting golden style period. this is one of my favourite paintings that manages to recreate the icon style on canvas using gold offset by her pale face, this showed me that the same effect can be recreated on canvas. All of these elements have combined to inspire me to create my own eye catching pieces using the elements of gold leaf, plaster relief work with pearl and gemstone cabochons.


My work would not be if it was not for cabochons, they are my paint, structure and focal point. Just the sheer range of cabochons available means that no matter what I wish to design there are colours, shapes and sizes to suit my piece. I mostly use pearl cabochons with my pieces on a base of vivid blues and reds all highlighted with gold and copper leaf to add a rich depth and a distinctly distressed feeling. I then select a plaster face that I hand cast using individual home-made face moulds so each face is unique to the piece. These are then covered with gold leaf and coloured using glass paints to reflect the colours of the focal cabochons I wish to use. That is when the fun begins, I am constantly on the hunt for rare and unusual vintage and modern cabochon stones, be they plastic, glass,metal or ceramic anything once it has a flatback is used. Semi precious stone cabochons create a wonderful focal point and the beginning of the design which the whole piece grows from. i don't draw ideas or designs down, I simply open my big box of collected cabochons and whatever takes my fancy that day I use, weaving a pattern that grows from the shapes and colours that I have picked and the contours of the faces, the cabochons themselves are accented with a multitude of flat back crystals to add texture and sparkle to the piece each piece takes up to 4 months to complete, no two are alike and thanks to the range of cabochons available there will always be the next cabochon find that will start me off on another piece.