The Cristallo Vision

The lexicon of the lapidary was one of my go-to resources of imagery in the blissed-out daze. 

Just about every variant on the word "crystalline", just about every type of precious stone, was deployed in an attempt to evoke the post-Cocteaus sound palette. 

Along with related adjectives and nouns: iridescence, coruscation, opalescent, lustrous, vitrified, prismatic, scintillating, etc. 

Such that Saint Etienne amiably took the piss in the advert for Foxbase Alpha:

"embellished with delicate spirals of cristallo" - touché, you cheeky monkeys, touché! 

Now I'm quite inventive and I came up with countless permutations. Sometimes I'd spy an arcane or esoteric technical term and save it for deployment ("halation" was one discovery I wove into a review of, I think, Bark Psychosis).

However the shtick was getting labored by a certain point - the metaphors overly encrusted.  I was running out of steam. 

So one time, doing the singles, having shot my cristallo wad with Single of the Week #1 by Papa Sprain, when it came to Single of the Week #3  by Butterfly Child  (like Sprain, acolytes of A.R. Kane and debuting for H.ark!) I had to resort to borrowing a chunk from J.G. Ballard's The Crystal World:

The onset of self-parody and predictability is acknowledged: "Frost-whorls, chandelier shrapnel, you know, the usual". I suppose there is also an implication that A.R. Kane have spawned a genre in their own image with these acolyte bands.  

Actually "snowing in colour"' is quite a decent late-phase effort. Snowflakes being a subset of the poetics of crystal, or at least adjacent (along with icicles, frost, etc).  

(Another subset would be stalagmites, stalactites, the grotto - the glistening underworld).

But yeah I had to ride out the review with a chunk from "The Illuminated Man", the precursor story that then got expanded into The Crystal World. 

This is all just a build-up to pointing you towards this excellent in-depth blogpost at {feuilleton} on The Crystal World -  a somewhat neglected effort from J.G. Ballard's phase of brilliant catastrophe novels like The Drowned World and The Drought. John Coulthart examines the novel's affinities with psychedelia (even though JG's dabble with LSD was an unpleasant experience) and the connection between gemstones and psychedelic visions.  Then he looks at links to J.G.'s beloved surrealist painters. And being a designer himself,  John appraises some of the different covers to editions of The Crystal World from over the decades and all across the world. 

I think the one I have is the ugly American edition.  I really covet this Max Ernst "gatefold" 

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A musician called Locrian did an album based around The Crystal World about 15 years ago: 

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Talking of the poetics of the crystal, I wonder if Gaston Bachelard wrote anything about this area, to go with his delves into the imagination of fire, air, space, water, et al. 

Possibly for Bachelard, the gemstone would be where several of these poetic registers converge, the qualities of the four elements distilled and fused - since the precious stone is from the earth but has qualities of light, fire, and liquid all at once, in varying measures,

Perhaps it was in Bachelard that I read about Roger Callois's The Writing of Stones, a mystical appreciation of minerals, crystals and dendrites. In their dispassionate perfection, Caillois glimpsed Eternity, "the motionless matter of the longest quietude". 

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Talking of the Crystal Vision, or even the Cristallo Vision

Feels like a Stevie song even though it's Lindsey singing lead. 

Well, that's because she wrote it.

I bracket it with "Silver Springs" which has its own iridescence factor 

Stevie and Lindsey originally did "Crystal" on their pre-Fleetwood album 

And then Nicks did it again solo, finally singing lead

 

Stevie seems to have a poetics of the lapidary thing going on judging by "the crystal vision" appearing in "Dreams". 

Crystals are big in New Age culture, and Stevie is from Arizona,  a hotbed of that kind of thing: power spots and springs.  Sedona. However I shouldn't imagine that was the case when she was growing up there. New Age  in the South West came out of a post-hippie drift of Californian-ness into the state. 

(Or did it? D.H. Lawrence lived there, right? Perhaps it was a bohemian destination from earlier)

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"Crystal vision" or "crystalline knowledge" suggests both purity of perception and imperishability of perception. 

The death-defying epiphany, stepping outside Time.  

Walter Pater's moments... 

Precious memory as precious stone

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Pater addendum: can't believe I missed this, since it's a  favorite quote, but Pater explicitly defines success in life (as an aesthete) as "to burn always with this hard, gem-like flame" 

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Andrew Parker points to this dreamy, eerie beauty by The Doors

Apparently inspired by William Blake's "The Crystal Cabinet", which according to the internet, describes "a dreamlike encounter in which the speaker is captured by a Maiden and imprisoned in a crystalline realm. Within this cabinet, the speaker witnesses an alternate England, complete with a new maiden and a sense of ethereal beauty. The poem explores themes of desire, longing, and the pursuit of the unattainable."

And here's the poem itself: 

The Maiden caught me in the wild,

Where I was dancing merrily;

She put me into her Cabinet,

And lock'd me up with a golden key.

This cabinet is form'd of gold

And pearl and crystal shining bright,

And within it opens into a world

And a little lovely moony night.

Another England there I saw

Another London with its Tower,

Another Thames and other hills,

And another pleasant Surrey bower.

Another Maiden like herself,

Translucent, lovely, shining clear,

Threefold each in the other clos'd

O, what a pleasant trembling fear!

O, what a smile! a threefold smile

Fill'd me, that like a flame I burn'd;

I bent to kiss the lovely Maid,

And found a threefold kiss return'd.

I strove to seize the inmost form

With ardor fierce and hands of flame,

But burst the Crystal Cabinet,

And like a weeping Babe became—

A weeping Babe upon the wild,

And weeping Woman pale reclin'd,

And in the outward air again,

I fill'd with woes the passing wind.

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Extending into the imaginary of precious and semi-precious stones, which could be too extensive really, but I think this song (which I've belatedly become obsessed with - better belated than never) fits as it is implicitly about imperishability - a day so perfect it steps outside Time

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"It just fell out of my guitar like a diamond" - Marty Willson-Piper on coming up with the riff for "Reptile"

Oh and the lyric contains the line "how I loved your diamond eyes"

Perhaps that's one of the sources for the attraction and fascination of precious stones - they are like eyes.

(Do yourself a favor and don't look up the bathetic inspiration of  the lyric and title for "Reptile"...   one of those minor examples of Wiki's spoilage effect.)

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Wasn't Baudelaire obsessed with bijoux - gems and jewels and precious stones? 

Why yes.... 

The Jewels

My darling was naked, and knowing my heart well,
She was wearing only her sonorous jewels,
Whose opulent display made her look triumphant
Like Moorish concubines on their fortunate days.

When it dances and flings its lively, mocking sound,
This radiant world of metal and of gems
Transports me with delight; I passionately love
All things in which sound is mingled with light.

She had lain down; and let herself be loved
From the top of the couch she smiled contentedly
Upon my love, deep and gentle as the sea,
Which rose toward her as toward a cliff.

Her eyes fixed upon me, like a tamed tigress,
With a vague, dreamy air she was trying poses,
And by blending candor with lechery,
Her metamorphoses took on a novel charm;

And her arm and her leg, and her thigh and her loins,
Shiny as oil, sinuous as a swan,
Passed in front of my eyes, clear-sighted and serene;
And her belly, her breasts, grapes of my vine,

Advanced, more cajoling than angels of evil,
To trouble the quiet that had possessed my soul,
To dislodge her from the crag of crystal,
Where calm and alone she had taken her seat.

I thought I saw blended in a novel design
Antiope's haunches and the breast of a boy,
Her waist set off so well the fullness of her hips.
On that tawny brown skin the rouge stood out superb!

— And when at last the lamp allowed itself to die,
Since the fire alone lighted the room,
Each time that it uttered a flaming sigh,
It drenched with blood that amber colored skin!

Baudelaire Necklace!

"Baudelaire-inspired literary steampunk long necklace grasshopper insect "The clock""

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Well, talking of jewelry, of course there is an entire slanguage in trap to do with precious stones and precious metals.

Going back at least as far as bling at the end of '90s

And a fetish for those objects that display them, like the Patek. 

 

"The diamonds are yellow the day"

A sort of profane sublime

I just spent a cool half a ticket on my jewelry

Clear white diamonds make your eyesight blurry

So much ice, young nigga, he delirious

Never too much jewelry, I'm serious

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Reviewing early Lil Wayne and Cash Money (propagators if not inventors of "bling"), I managed to squeeze the Pater quote about a hard, gem-like flame in there. 

Here's a bit from Pater disciple Oscar Wilde, in The Picture of Dorian Gray: 

On one occasion he took up the study of jewels, and appeared at a costume ball as Anne de Joyeuse, Admiral of France, in a dress covered with five hundred and sixty pearls. This taste enthralled him for years, and, indeed, may be said never to have left him. He would often spend a whole day settling and resettling in their cases the various stones that he had collected, such as the olive-green chrysoberyl that turns red by lamplight, the cymophane with its wirelike line of silver, the pistachio-coloured peridot, rose-pink and wine-yellow topazes, carbuncles of fiery scarlet with tremulous, four-rayed stars, flame-red cinnamon-stones, orange and violet spinels, and amethysts with their alternate layers of ruby and sapphire. He loved the red gold of the sunstone, and the moonstone's pearly whiteness, and the broken rainbow of the milky opal. He procured from Amsterdam three emeralds of extraordinary size and richness of colour, and had a turquoise de la vieille roche that was the envy of all the connoisseurs.

He discovered wonderful stories, also, about jewels. In Alphonso's Clericalis Disciplina a serpent was mentioned with eyes of real jacinth, and in the romantic history of Alexander, the Conqueror of Emathia was said to have found in the vale of Jordan snakes "with collars of real emeralds growing on their backs." There was a gem in the brain of the dragon, Philostratus told us, and "by the exhibition of golden letters and a scarlet robe" the monster could be thrown into a magical sleep and slain. According to the great alchemist, Pierre de Boniface, the diamond rendered a man invisible, and the agate of India made him eloquent. The cornelian appeased anger, and the hyacinth provoked sleep, and the amethyst drove away the fumes of wine. The garnet cast out demons, and the hydropicus deprived the moon of her colour. The selenite waxed and waned with the moon, and the meloceus, that discovers thieves, could be affected only by the blood of kids. Leonardus Camillus had seen a white stone taken from the brain of a newly killed toad, that was a certain antidote against poison. The bezoar, that was found in the heart of the Arabian deer, was a charm that could cure the plague. In the nests of Arabian birds was the aspilates, that, according to Democritus, kept the wearer from any danger by fire.

The King of Ceilan rode through his city with a large ruby in his hand, as the ceremony of his coronation. The gates of the palace of John the Priest were "made of sardius, with the horn of the horned snake inwrought, so that no man might bring poison within." Over the gable were "two golden apples, in which were two carbuncles," so that the gold might shine by day and the carbuncles by night. In Lodge's strange romance A Margarite of America, it was stated that in the chamber of the queen one could behold "all the chaste ladies of the world, inchased out of silver, looking through fair mirrours of chrysolites, carbuncles, sapphires, and greene emeraults." Marco Polo had seen the inhabitants of Zipangu place rose-coloured pearls in the mouths of the dead. A sea-monster had been enamoured of the pearl that the diver brought to King Perozes, and had slain the thief, and mourned for seven moons over its loss. When the Huns lured the king into the great pit, he flung it away-- Procopius tells the story--nor was it ever found again, though the Emperor Anastasius offered five hundred-weight of gold pieces for it. The King of Malabar had shown to a certain Venetian a rosary of three hundred and four pearls, one for every god that he worshipped.

When the Duke de Valentinois, son of Alexander VI, visited Louis XII of France, his horse was loaded with gold leaves, according to Brantome, and his cap had double rows of rubies that threw out a great light. Charles of England had ridden in stirrups hung with four hundred and twenty-one diamonds. Richard II had a coat, valued at thirty thousand marks, which was covered with balas rubies. Hall described Henry VIII, on his way to the Tower previous to his coronation, as wearing "a jacket of raised gold, the placard embroidered with diamonds and other rich stones, and a great bauderike about his neck of large balasses." The favourites of James I wore ear-rings of emeralds set in gold filigrane. Edward II gave to Piers Gaveston a suit of red-gold armour studded with jacinths, a collar of gold roses set with turquoise-stones, and a skull-cap parseme with pearls. Henry II wore jewelled gloves reaching to the elbow, and had a hawk-glove sewn with twelve rubies and fifty-two great orients. The ducal hat of Charles the Rash, the last Duke of Burgundy of his race, was hung with pear-shaped pearls and studded with sapphires.

How exquisite life had once been! How gorgeous in its pomp and decoration! Even to read of the luxury of the dead was wonderful.

A scene from one of Oscar Wilde's favorite books, A Rebours, by J.K, Huysmans, in which the aesthete aristocrat Des Esseintes has a tortoise encrusted with gems delivered : 

"Ask him in," he said, for he recalled having given his address to a lapidary for the delivery of a purchase.

The man bowed and deposited the buckler on the pinewood floor of the dining room. It oscillated and wavered, revealing the serpentine head of a tortoise which, suddenly terrified, retreated into its shell.

This tortoise was a fancy which had seized Des Esseintes some time before his departure from Paris. Examining an Oriental rug, one day, in reflected light, and following the silver gleams which fell on its web of plum violet and alladin yellow, it suddenly occurred to him how much it would be improved if he could place on it some object whose deep color might enhance the vividness of its tints.

Possessed by this idea, he had been strolling aimlessly along the streets, when suddenly he found himself gazing at the very object of his wishes. There, in a shop window on the Palais Royal, lay a huge tortoise in a large basin. He had purchased it. Then he had sat a long time, with eyes half-shut, studying the effect.

Decidedly, the Ethiopic black, the harsh Sienna tone of this shell dulled the rug's reflections without adding to it. The dominant silver gleams in it barely sparkled, crawling with lack-lustre tones of dead zinc against the edges of the hard, tarnished shell.

He bit his nails while he studied a method of removing these discords and reconciling the determined opposition of the tones. He finally discovered that his first inspiration, which was to animate the fire of the weave by setting it off against some dark object, was erroneous. In fact, this rug was too new, too petulant and gaudy. The colors were not sufficiently subdued. He must reverse the process, dull the tones, and extinguish them by the contrast of a striking object, which would eclipse all else and cast a golden light on the pale silver. Thus stated, the problem was easier to solve. He therefore decided to glaze the shell of the tortoise with gold.

The tortoise, just returned by the lapidary, shone brilliantly, softening the tones of the rug and casting on it a gorgeous reflection which resembled the irradiations from the scales of a barbaric Visigoth shield.

At first Des Esseintes was enchanted with this effect. Then he reflected that this gigantic jewel was only in outline, that it would not really be complete until it had been incrusted with rare stones.

From a Japanese collection he chose a design representing a cluster of flowers emanating spindle-like, from a slender stalk. Taking it to a jeweler, he sketched a border to enclose this bouquet in an oval frame, and informed the amazed lapidary that every petal and every leaf was to be designed with jewels and mounted on the scales of the tortoise.

The choice of stones made him pause. The diamond has become notoriously common since every tradesman has taken to wearing it on his little finger. The oriental emeralds and rubies are less vulgarized and cast brilliant, rutilant flames, but they remind one of the green and red antennae of certain omnibuses which carry signal lights of these colors. As for topazes, whether sparkling or dim, they are cheap stones, precious only to women of the middle class who like to have jewel cases on their dressing-tables. And then, although the Church has preserved for the amethyst a sacerdotal character which is at once unctuous and solemn, this stone, too, is abused on the blood-red ears and veined hands of butchers' wives who love to adorn themselves inexpensively with real and heavy jewels. Only the sapphire, among all these stones, has kept its fires undefiled by any taint of commercialism. Its sparks, crackling in its limpid, cold depths have in some way protected its shy and proud nobility from pollution. Unfortunately, its fresh fire does not sparkle in artificial light: the blue retreats and seems to fall asleep, only awakening to shine at daybreak.

None of these satisfied Des Esseintes at all. They were too civilized and familiar. He let trickle through his fingers still more astonishing and bizarre stones, and finally selected a number of real and artificial ones which, used together, should produce a fascinating and disconcerting harmony.

This is how he composed his bouquet of flowers: the leaves were set with jewels of a pronounced, distinct green; the chrysoberyls of asparagus green; the chrysolites of leek green; the olivines of olive green. They hung from branches of almandine and ouwarovite of a violet red, darting spangles of a hard brilliance like tartar micas gleaming through forest depths.

chrysoberyl uvarovite

Left: Yellow Chrysoberyl. Right: Uuvarovite, a form of garnet.

For the flowers, separated from the stalk and removed from the bottom of the sheaf, he used blue cinder. But he formally waived that oriental turquoise used for brooches and rings which, like the banal pearl and the odious coral, serves to delight people of no importance. He chose occidental turquoises exclusively, stones which, properly speaking, are only a fossil ivory impregnated with coppery substances whose sea blue is choked, opaque, sulphurous, as though yellowed by bile.

This done, he could now set the petals of his flowers with transparent stones which had morbid and vitreous sparks, feverish and sharp lights.

He composed them entirely with Ceylon snap-dragons, cymophanes and blue chalcedony.

These three stones darted mysterious and perverse scintillations, painfully torn from the frozen depths of their troubled waters.

The snap-dragon of a greenish grey, streaked with concentric veins which seem to stir and change constantly, according to the dispositions of light.

The cymophane, whose azure waves float over the milky tint swimming in its depths.

The blue chalcedony which kindles with bluish phosphorescent fires against a dead brown, chocolate background.

The lapidary made a note of the places where the stones were to be inlaid. "And the border of the shell?" he asked Des Esseintes.

At first he had thought of some opals and hydrophanes; but these stones, interesting for their hesitating colors, for the evasions of their flames, are too refractory and faithless; the opal has a quite rheumatic sensitiveness; the play of its rays alters according to the humidity, the warmth or cold; as for the hydrophane, it only burns in water and only consents to kindle its embers when moistened.

He finally decided on minerals whose reflections vary; for the Compostelle hyacinth, mahogany red; the beryl, glaucous green; the balas ruby, vinegar rose; the Sudermanian ruby, pale slate. Their feeble sparklings sufficed to light the darkness of the shell and preserved the values of the flowering stones which they encircled with a slender garland of vague fires.

Des Esseintes now watched the tortoise squatting in a corner of the dining room, shining in the shadow.

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