December, 1st 2015 – Miami, USA
Through its new creative collaboration with Ritsue Mishima, Maison Perrier-Jouët is resuming its longstanding conversation with the world of creation, as well as highlighting its historic ties with the Art Nouveau movement.
Perrier Jouet’s creative conversation has given rise to an array of original works and installations by renowned artists and designers, who have drawn on the House’s rich history, its exceptional vineyards, the miracle of champagne and, of course, the celebrated anemones that are the emblem of Perrier-Jouët and its Belle Epoque Cuvée. Infused with poetry or a sense of spectacle, all the works spring from two closely related sources of inspiration: nature and the Art Nouveau movement.
A love of nature runs deep through the history and philosophy of Perrier-Jouët: its founders and their descendants not only had a detailed knowledge of viticulture, but were also eminent botanists and connoisseurs of art. This sensibility led them, in 1902, to ask Émile Gallé, the master glassmaker who was one the Art Nouveau movement pioneers, to create a decorative motif for a series of jeroboams. He chose a graceful spray of white Japanese anemones, a delicate flower that, as a passionate botanist, he cultivated in his own garden. The composition is emblematic of the Art Nouveau style, and also illustrates another influence, Japonism, which emerged in the late 19th century with an influx of artefacts from Japan as thecountry opened up to the West.
FROM EMILE GALLE TO RITSUE MISHIMA
Ritsue Mishima has obvious creative affinities with Émile Gallé.
Fusing a Japanese-influenced aesthetic with the Venetian glassmaking tradition, the artist has lived and worked in the Italian city since 1989. In her studio, Ritsue Mishima calls upon the savoir-faire of four Murano artisans to execute her designs: objects in clear blown glass which play with light, seemingly capturing it within organic forms. At once powerful and ethereal, her works celebrate the strength, purity and luminosity of glass.
Between grace and gravity, they are an ode to light, to the rays of the sun, and to their reflections on their surroundings, in particular water.
“When I visited the Maison Belle Epoque in Epernay,” says Ritsue Mishima, “I remember being struck by the delicate light in which the garden was bathed.”
And while the artist was “very impressed by the House’s extraordinary collection of Art Nouveau”, she explains that the Cuvée Belle Epoque was also an important source of inspiration: “The subtle shade of the wine, the elegant bubbles catching the light, and the delicate anemones winding around the bottle influenced the creative process.” Indeed, Ritsue Mishima draws a parallel between the crafting of champagne and that of glass – two forms of craftsmanship requiring exceptional skill and knowledge of ancestral traditions.
AN EXPERIENTAL INSTALLATION
All’ombra della luce (In the shadow of light) is the title given by Ritsue Mishima to her installation, which will be presented for the first time at Design Miami/ 2015.
Light and shadow are indeed the two protagonists: the former because it evokes the rhythm of the seasons in the vineyards, as well as the first stirrings of spring and the splendour of high summer in the garden of the Maison Belle Epoque; the latter because it suggests the silence of the cellars and the half-light in which the miracle of champagne takes place. If the art of blending echoes the art of glassblowing, so do grapes sparkling in the sun or streams of bubbles rising through golden wine recall its plays on light.
At the centre of a vast space, a parallelepiped partially covered with mirrors is an invitation to contemplation.
The walls are revealed, decorated with a stylized pattern of the Perrier-Jouët anemones – a poetic and enigmatic metaphor, a silent evocation of a garden, regarded by Émile Gallé as a limitless source of inspiration.
Above, the ceiling is as if dematerialized, with its surface disappearing behind a myriad disks of clear blown glass. Halos of pure light infused with bubbles and imperceptible ripples, fragments of day reverberating through space,
reinterpretations of the anemone motif – each one is unique. Suspended at different heights, these glass disks create an inverted vision of nature, where shadow and reflection interact with space in a luminous choreography.
Last but not least, Perrier-Jouët is unveiling a second original work by Ritsue Mishima dedicated to the ritual of serving champagne: a spectacular blown glass bowl. Combining avantgarde design with artisan execution, its organic substance evoke the terroir of Perrier-Jouët and its curves the bubbles of champagne, while the simultaneous strength and fragility of the material create an astonishing harmony.
Enhancing the elegance of the champagne ritual, the bowl playfully adds its transparency to that of the ice and water it is destined to contain.
A CELEBRATION OF NATURE
By highlighting the artistic heritage of the House around enchanting nature, and by restating its historic ties with art and artisanship, this new collaboration with Ritsue Mishima assumes a natural place within the world of Perrier-Jouët and its creative commitment. While Émile Gallé explored new glassmaking techniques in order to express his realistic vision of nature, Ritsue Mishima transforms the same material into her profoundly poetic interpretation. The purity and luminosity of her designs draws them into a perfect harmony with their environment. “My glass is transparent and colourless,” she explains. “It is lit by the rays of the sun, by reflections on water, and by the emotions of those who observe it. It captures light and surrounding colour, then liberates them once more.”
With grace and potency, the Japanese maker thus successfully blends her own origins with the Italian glassmaking tradition, and pays tribute to the heritage of Art Nouveau. One century on, Ritsue Mishima is following in the footsteps of Émile Gallé and continuing Perrier-Jouët’s celebration of creativity and nature.
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About Perrier-Jouët
Perrier-Jouët is an iconic champagne house with an exceptional vineyard. It is known for the finesse, floral and elegant notes of its wines, fashioned with the expertise of only seven Cellar Masters since its foundation in 1811. Since its 1902 collaboration with Art Nouveau pioneer Emile Gallé, creator of the anemone design for the house’s Belle Epoque prestige cuvée, Perrier-Jouët has commissioned work from established and emerging artists including Daniel Arsham, Noé Duchaufour-Lawrance, Miguel Chevalier, Makoto Azuma, Tord Boontje, Studio Glithero and Simon Heijdens and more recently Tord Boontje, Vik Muniz and mischer’traxler.
For more information, please visit: www.perrier-jouët.com
