See and fall in love: the many-sided dial

Wrist Watch

If there really is love at first sight, then love for watches flares up when you look at the dial.

The word "dial" comes from the German "Zifferblatt" - a board with numbers to indicate time. Of course, in ancient times, when people did not yet know the numbers, the dial was replaced by the sky: they learned about the time of day by the location of the Sun, Moon and stars. Then they decided to determine the time by looking not at the sky, but at the earth - at the shadow from the shaft of the sundial, which marked the path of the daylight.

It is interesting that the first mechanical watches did not have a dial and hands either: many indicated the time by striking, but soon the watch - first large, and then pocket - acquired dials. The first pocket watch dials were simply metal discs with a single hand. The numbers were engraved on them, and to make them clearer, the grooves were filled with black wax.

With the development of watchmaking, the dials became more and more bizarre, base metal discs were covered with silver, even dials were made of pure silver and gold. By the middle of the 18th century, enamel was the classic dial material, but with the advent of wristwatches, interest in metal dials was revived.

Of course, painted enamel, jewels that adorned the dials and cases - all this has not gone anywhere. And yet, the metal dial, which was tarnished, shone with renewed vigor after it was rediscovered. Abraham-Louis Breguet, whose guilloché gold dial has become a hallmark of his pieces.

Today, in the creative pursuits of watchmakers, such audacity is noticeable, which, perhaps, the entire history of watchmaking has not known. This seething of inventive energy not only leads to the emergence of ever more complex and extravagant clock faces - the evolution of the species, so to speak - but also helps to preserve and improve techniques that were on the verge of extinction.

Watchface designers and makers draw inspiration from the centuries-old history of watch design to create their first-class products. This work is carried out either by special workshops at large watch companies, or by specialized firms, whose names will not tell anything to a person who is far from watchmaking. Although the names of the companies they serve are rattling around the world. But often these firms themselves provide their clients with "the strictest confidentiality."

However, we will see that it is important not "where", but "how". And it is not for nothing that the ancient art of guilloche, ingenious enamelling techniques, labor-intensive technologies of incrustation, engraving, embellishment with gems, and skeletonization are now experiencing a rebirth. Thanks to modern manufacturing methods that make it possible to achieve what was previously considered impossible, the dial is today the most striking and open to new trends in watch design.

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Metal work

Even ordinary methods of working with metal make it possible to turn the dial into the creation of an outstanding artist. But after guilloche, engraving or skeletonization, from which the dial and the movement become one whole, a work of art is obtained from a metal mug, painstaking work and skill are required.

Guilloche is the application of a carved geometric ornament on a lathe. The first lathes appeared in the 16th century. At first, soft materials like wood were processed on them, but by the end of the 18th century, the technique had improved so much that the ornament was also applied to metal surfaces. In the manufacture of watches, guilloche is particularly difficult, so guilloche watches are usually produced in small print runs. The workpiece has to be guided manually, accurately calculating the pressing force so that the depth of cut remains the same everywhere.

To prevent burrs from appearing on the surface, the location of each stroke individually and all together has to be well thought out. The complexity of the work is such that today stereoscopic microscopes are used to guilloche dials. Nowadays, when many traditional processing methods are carried out with the help of modern technology, guilloche can be done on CNC machines or imitated by stamping. But, although both of these methods give good results, the surface texture after traditional processing is still distinguished by a rare originality: the structure of the metal in the cut grooves becomes, as it were, part of the ornament.

An additional charm is given to this method by the fact that the work is done on special guilloche machines, which have already become a rarity (they have not been produced since the 40s of the last century). Even caring for them is a real art.

Another notable technique, skeletonization, produces the effect that the dial is an extension of the movement. Like the buttresses of Gothic buildings, which lend stability to a building without weighing it down or blocking light from entering, skeletonized dials create a delicate balance of strength and lightness. The most important and most difficult thing in this operation is to remove the required amount of metal in order to open the winning parts of the mechanism for review. As with guilloche, the dial can be skeletonized on CNC machines, but the usual tools for this procedure are tiny drills and files that are inserted through drilled holes into the movement.

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Skeletoning gives manufacturers extra work at the stage of hand finishing the movement: each slot is another corner or edge that must be turned, sanded, polished with the same care as other corners and edges in the movement. The resulting openwork design is then decorated with a variety of engraved ornaments - and the mechanism from the apparatus that sets the clock in action also turns into a work of the artist's creative imagination.

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And yet the oldest way to decorate the dial is engraving. By the middle of the 17th century, unpretentious metal mugs were replaced by exquisite dials with engraved or carved designs. (Even today, engraving is often done with tools that 17th-century engravers would have easily recognized as their familiar assistants.)

These two methods of processing - engraving and carving - are directly opposite: if the engraver creates an image by cutting into the surface and leaving grooves in it, then the carver removes excess material from the surface, turning it into a bas-relief or high relief of rare expressiveness. However, watchmaking is not only an art, but also a science, and the creators of dials, as well as the creators of mechanisms, work wonders with the help of the most modern technologies.

Experiments with fire

When making dials using the above methods, you can hardly worry about a successful result. Enameling is another matter. Firing a vitreous melt in the fierce fire of a furnace is a risky operation: all efforts can go to waste. But, if you're lucky, a miracle is born into the world, with which little can be compared. This technique arose at the dawn of civilization, but even today the creators of timeless enamels are unable to predict how their work will be crowned.

The enamelling technique consists in crushing pieces of a vitreous melt, diluting it with a liquid (usually water), and then applying the resulting substance to a metal surface. During firing, the applied layer melts, forming a new surface. Since the source material usually changes color after firing (metal oxides are added to it for color), the master must imagine the result in advance. But only the simplest enamels are produced this way.

There are even more complicated works, when new layers are applied to the burnt enamel or new areas of the surface of the product are covered and it goes back into the furnace. Sometimes this cycle is repeated dozens of times. Dangers await the master at every stage. Any impurities in the water, a speck of dust that has imperceptibly sat down, small, at first glance, violations of the order of firing and cooling - and the enamel discolors, cracks, bubbles. Long hours of painstaking work (it is often done under a binocular microscope) - and as a result, a hopeless marriage.

Professionals in this business can be counted on the fingers. In art schools, this art is almost not taught, and if they are taught, then somehow. Many of today's recognized enamel masters have been looking all their lives not only for someone to learn the secrets of the craft, but also how to solve the mysteries of the preparation of materials: after all, some colors, for example, have not been made for decades.

Traditional types of enameling are very diverse. The most uncomplicated is when the dial is simply covered with one-color enamel. White enamel dials, well known to our ancestors, are now a rarity. A more difficult technique is cloisonne enamel: a contour drawing of gold or silver wire is soldered onto a metal surface, the resulting cells are filled with powdered enamel and fired. The difficulty in creating cloisonne enamel is not only the filling of wire cells (traditionally, this operation is performed with a sharpened goose feather), but also the creation of a wire contour, which is made by hand. It turns out that every watch made in this technique, even if it is a watch from the same collection, is a work of art in the original.

Translucent enamel, another type of enamel, is applied to a guilloché surface or sometimes engraved. This technique is even more complex, and the outcome of the case is even less predictable. It is clear that the quality of the guilloche must be impeccable, and if the enamel is not fixed during firing, then both the enamel and the guilloche are ruined. The refined pattern of cloisonne enamel is opposed by the simplicity and clarity of the geometric shapes of chanleve enamel, prompted by the very nature of enamel.

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The rarest of the traditional decorations on enamel dials is without a doubt “glitters”. This is the name of figures made of gold foil, which are superimposed on the enamel dial and covered with layers of transparent enamel. It’s easy in words, but in reality… First, the base is made with engraving or guilloche, then it is covered with blue enamel, then each element of the golden ornament is laid out on it one by one, then a layer of transparent bluish enamel is applied on top and fired, covered again and fired again, and so several times. The result is such that, at the sight of this splendor, those distant times are recalled, when art and mechanics had not yet diverged apart, but, having entered into a friendly alliance, worked wonders.

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And yet, no other type of enamel requires such hard work as painted enamel. Not without reason, in the old days, masters in this art received orders from the most noble and even crowned persons, who favored them with their favors.

The two main difficulties in painting with vitreous enamel are the need to fire several times and the impossibility of mixing the material in order to obtain the desired color. Firing, of course, is required for any enamelling, but in this case, repeated firing is necessary: ​​thanks to it, the depth and variety of shades are enhanced. As for the second difficulty, because of it, one has to achieve a richness of colors and a fine gradation of shades either by prudent firing of each layer, or by a thoughtful distribution of grains of material (as on pointillist canvases).

Recently, there has been a marked increase in interest in epoxy resins - "cold enamel", as they are often called. Hot molding of resins is widely used in the production of polychrome dials. They are also made in several stages: resins are applied layer by layer, and each layer is dried in an oven at a low temperature. The material is relatively new, but enhancing the clarity and depth of color with a transparent coating is not such an innovation: as art critics know, in oil paintings by the old masters, the colors seem to glow thanks to several layers of varnish.

Constructing a drawing, taking into account the shape of the dial and the indicators available on it, is not an easy task. Corum on their watch The Golden Bridge Adam and Eve solved it in the most ingenious way. The progenitors of mankind stand on either side of the clock mechanism, dividing the dial in half and depicting the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil - an elegant hint at the connection between time and the frailty of human life (as we will see later, Corum has this penchant for all watch memento mori). It is difficult to name other modern clocks where the pictorial and design principles would complement each other so successfully. Of course, the postures, gestures, facial expressions of the antediluvian couple clearly show that they have already tasted the forbidden fruit, and the balance is located on the tree trunk where the tempting snake is supposed to be.

Sometimes vitreous enamel dials are incorrectly referred to as porcelain dials. Porcelain dials exist, but they are much rarer. Porcelain is a type of ceramic that, like vitreous enamel, is fired at a much higher temperature than other types of ceramic: 1 degrees Celsius. During the sintering of the porcelain mass, the glass-forming elements in it are fused, which is why it acquires the ability to transmit light. The birthplace of porcelain is China, but in the 400th century the secret of its manufacture became known in Europe, and its production was established in the Saxon city of Meissen in the Albrechtsburg Castle.

Corum Golden Bridge Adam & Eve

Skillful hands

Marquetry and gemstones are brought together in the first place by the fact that in both cases the dial is decorated with skillfully executed decorative miniatures, the creation of which requires almost the same skills as the production of the watch itself.

The best examples of dials with precious stones are the fruit of painstaking work. The cost of this work and the qualifications required for it are so high that only the rarest and most exquisite watches adorn it. An unpolished diamond is really a stone with a stone: plain, almost opaque - you will never guess what kind of fire lurks inside. For thousands of years, people were not even aware of its ability to refract rays, which makes light play with all the colors of the rainbow.

In the Middle Ages, diamond processing was reduced to the fact that a natural octahedral crystal was simply polished, which is why it, although it acquired brilliance and some transparency, remained a cloudy black or white stone. Diamond was valued primarily for its strength, but as for its decorative properties, here they preferred more catchy and malleable gems. The full ability of a diamond to refract and reflect light, which we see in diamonds today, was discovered as a result of centuries of improvement in cutting technology.

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This ability was discovered with the development of optics - thanks to the contributions of eminent physicists such as Newton, whose great treatise "Optics" had the same significance for gemology (the science of precious stones) that his works on mechanics for watchmaking. Today, a perfectly cut diamond - that is, a cut that directs the beam in such a way that the play of light comes out with full force - is considered a round diamond with 57 facets (or 58, if you count the platform). These parameters were calculated in 1919 by the mathematician Marcel Tolkovsky, and since then this form (with minor changes) has been recognized as a classic.

Of course, if diamonds are intended for a dial, especially a dial with unusual outlines, with complex-shaped elements or appliqué, stones of this cut alone are indispensable. In this case, diamonds with a rarer cut are used: “pear”, “marquise”, “heart”. Used to decorate watches and so-called step-cut diamonds, which have several varieties. The most common of them is the baguette, so named because the cut stone resembles a French loaf. Step cut does not produce such a play of light, but emphasizes the purity of the stone - if the stone is really clean; if not, the slightest flaw becomes visible with it.

Clarity, color, weight and cut - four diamond quality index. It is easy to list, but it is almost impossible to ensure that the stone is perfect in everything. Moreover, even a timid step towards perfection - and the price skyrockets. And for other gems - rubies, sapphires, emeralds - the cost is commensurate with rarity and quality (which gives rise to the temptation to resort to countless unseemly tricks to "improve" them, so when buying gems you need to keep your eyes open more than ever). Gems of impeccable saturation, ideal color (say, the reddest of rubies) and with slight dimming (areas that do not reflect light) are a rarity among rarities.

Hermes Arceau The Three Graces is an example of the skillful use of marquetry and miniature painting

Marquetry is a type of ancient mosaic art. Unlike mosaics, the material for marquetry is pieces of plywood, from which an image is folded that completely covers the surface. With the skillful selection of wood species, colors and shapes, works of high artistic merit are obtained from them. The technique of marquetry became widespread in the 16th and 17th centuries, first in Italy, then in Holland and France. The furniture of that time, trimmed with marquetry, flaunts in the halls of ancient castles and mansions to this day. They also made marquetry from stone: the great artists of the Renaissance willingly created works on a variety of subjects in this way (they were called pietre dure, “strong stones”).

To make a dial in this technique, it is necessary to saw out small pieces of wood of different species and fit them to each other in the most meticulous way - a job that requires skill and microscopic precision. The occupation itself is exhausting, and if marquetry is intended for watches, its difficulty still increases, not to mention the sometimes unforeseen obstacles that arise. But if the miniature still succeeds, the charm of this tiny picture can hardly be compared with anything.

Good old finishes are fine, but sometimes a little shake won't hurt either. If we abandon the traditional notion that a watch is simply a tool for measuring time, such possibilities open up that the eyes run wide. The current wrist-sized kinetic sculpture, no matter how you treat it, breaks all the canons of watchmaking to smithereens. Today, when we are surrounded by machines whose only moving part is a button or switch (and with the advent of touchscreen monitors, these are also disappearing), designers and collectors are rediscovering the charm of pristine mechanical aesthetics, and this passion produces bold, daring, even extravagant results. .

These revolutionary fermentations also affected the appearance of the dial. If earlier it didn’t differ much from any manometer in terms of color, today, when the rapture of mechanical forms and kinetic designs in watchmaking knows no restraint, watches are turned inside out, turned upside down, turned up and down. Find among the great variety that "image" that you like at first sight - to love or not, decide for yourself.

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