To some people a wristwatch is just a tool, a time-teller or even just an accessory. For me it is besides it being an expression of my personality also a piece of art. That ticking little thing on your wrist, there is a big possibility that you can consider that a piece of art, and here is way:
First of all there should be made the distinction between different types of watches, you have the quartz watch which is powered by a battery and the mechanical watch, which is powered by movement or you can power it up by manual winding it. These last two can fall in the category ''fine art''.
1. Craftsmanship
Like in fine art, craftsmanship please a big roll in watchmaking. At the high-end segment of watchmaking all parts are hand made and all movements are assembled by hand. All this while making the watch as precise as humanly is possible.
All this makes a watch a insanely high-end piece of engineering. I want to give you three examples of so called complications a watch can have:
- The Chronograph, this one should be the most familiar for most of you: The Chronograph was invested by a man called Louis Moinet in 1815, this was done for working with astronomical equipment. This complication is showing seconds, minutes and hours in the form of a timer. You activated and stop it with a pusher on the side of the watch. Here an example of a modern day Louis Moinet Chronograph
- The tourbillon watch: this stuff even blows my mind every time I see it, it's a complication that counters the influence gravity has on the watch, and therefor makes is even more precise. How it works, like I once said before, magic! There are different types of tourbillon watches, if you want me to cover that, let me know in the comments.
- The minute repeater, if something it's a minute repeater, you better get a second mortgage to buy one. This does exactly what the names says. First it shows the hours, then the quarters and after the minutes.
2. Designs are sometimes just little paintings
(Voutilainen)
(MB&F)
(A. Lange & Schone)
and this is not even showing the details of the movements, I picked a few of my favorites:
(A. Lange & Schone)
(Gronefeld)
(Romain Gauthier)
3. The enjoyment
A watch can really tell a story, no matter how expensive it might have been. A gift for your graduation or getting it from your grandpa. All these emotions are probably the biggest factor in making watches art. I could stare at a fine piece for hours upon hours. It's a little creation of a vision one man had and wanted to share that with the world. When I'm with friends we could talk watches for hours and hours. Having very different opinions about it and discuss (mostly in a polite way before the booze kicks in) why some are better than others. They are truly conversation pieces, that's why I love them so much.
A watch is made for it functionality and aesthetics
Me being a snob I only see the higher-end watches as true art, but lesser expensive ones can be called art as well, but that wouldn't been fun covering right now haha!
Follow me for more watch posts, every day a single watch get discussed, in a good or bad way! I also will always try to use photos then that I have taken.
Kind regards,
Ron