Nature ⸰ Transcendence ⸰ Wisdom
⦁ Handcrafted in England
⦁ Naturally dyed Tuscan leather
⦁ Swiss-made Riri zipper
In Winter Gold we celebrate the wisdom of exploring the beauty of winter, embracing clouds and darkness...for we know they bring gold.
Comes with an exquisite Exploration Card in a reusable luxury box tied with ART WRD cotton ribbon.
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Léon Spilliaert "Trees In A Winter Landscape" 1929
Through insomniac moonlit walks of his hometown of Ostend, Spilliaert’s philosophical preoccupations would be transformed into ghostly visions. Scenes of an enigmatic, twilight netherworld dramatically depicted Spilliaert’s psyche. His inner world is revealed via landscapes, objects and figures, compellingly sculpted towards abstraction.
In this period Spilliaert’s palette ranged from silver to grey to the inkiest, blackest of blacks. His paintings are haunting, lonely - sometimes terrifying - but they also exude something else; a quiet, sublime power, a transcendence. His isolated female figures achieve a nobility. His empty vistas an elegiac beauty. The layer after layer of India ink he uses to create the deepest darkness means that the spare, otherworldly light has a profound effect. The pitch black is pierced by distant glows or thin shafts of light. His paintings shine, becoming meditative and strangely uplifting. They are not paintings of a defeated mind, but of one embracing the challenge of finding beauty and light.
In Spilliaert’s later tree paintings, including this Winter Gold image, we still see the outer world sculpted to express the inner world, but the effect is more subtle and naturalistic. Spilliaert has perhaps found more beauty and more wisdom. The scenes are less distorted by the ferocious emotions, preoccupations and psychological currents of his early work. The dark and light are more balanced, as in Winter Gold's writer's words, the clouds may float into his his life 'no longer to carry rain or usher storm, but to add colour to my sunset sky'.
These more subtle, naturalistic paintings retain the peculiar power that defines Spilliaert’s work. Their moods are complex and quietly gripping. They are subtly stylised slipping into your mind and lodging there with steady silent glow. In Winter Gold’s painting the sky and the ground become one in a peach luminescence. Delicate, intensely intricate, silhouetted branches reach from swathes of receded snow. They look like the circulatory system, or neural pathways and the finest branches meld with the clouds, connecting the earthly with that transcendent cloud-created sky again.
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Rabindranath Tagore "Stray Birds" 1916
“Clouds come floating into my life, no longer to carry rain or usher storm, but to add colour to my sunset sky.”
STRAY BIRDS is a book of poetry by Rabindranath Tagore's. It comprises three hundred and twenty six short verses or aphorisms of which Winter Gold’s words are one. With elegance and wisdom these poetic-philosophical snippets - stray birds - embody Tragore’s love of nature and simplicity, resonating deeply on truths of being, love and the marvels of the universe.
Rabindranath Tagore was a Bengali Indian writer, poet, playwright, philosopher, composer, social reformer and painter. He transformed Bengali art by rejecting rigid traditional forms and linguistic structures. He is regarded as a towering figure in Bengali culture described as a ‘deeply relevant and many-sided contemporary thinker’ and ‘the greatest poet India has produced’.
Tagore's was the first non-European to receive a Nobel Prize in Literature and second non-European to receive a Nobel Prize after Theodore Roosevelt. He was awarded it in 1913 largely for the English translatino of his best-known collection of poetry, Gitanjali. With this he became increasingly known in the West, his fame reaching great heights. He crossed continents on lecture tours and tours of friendship, becoming the voice of India’s spiritual heritage; and for India and especially Bengal, he became a living institution.
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People & planet positive
We only want to make products that are positive for people and our planet.
Our traditional methods give the leather an unmistakable warm and brilliant shade that becomes more intense with daily use and the passing of time.
Our pioneering printing lasts a lifetime
In Nottingham, England we work with leather printing pioneers. Utilizing their specialist procedures, artworks are re-created like a tattoo, with ink absorbing deeper into the leather, resulting in unparalleled colour vibrancy, image quality and colour durability.
Our pouches are crafted by highly-skilled, passionate people
Just across the Nottinghamshire Wolds in Melton Mowbray our pouches are handcrafted in small batches using traditional methods. This, along with the natural variation in these artisan products, means each one is unique. Expertly made to the very highest quality they are double-stitched at pressure points and lined with the finest cotton twill.
In short, ART WRD pouches are made to inspire you and be loved for a lifetime.
Pouch size
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