Modern Art Objects: In order to understand the range of gold-and silverwork-it extends from works of high art to merely utilitarian objects-it is necessary to examine the uses of gold and silver and the techniques of shaping them.
Uses. Objects of gold and silver can be broadly divided into four classes. The first comprises personal ornaments, ranging from the heavy gold torques of the preclassical age to modern art objects wedding rings.
Because of the intrinsic value of the metals themselves and their use as media of exchange, objects made from them were often regarded as a reserve of capital. As a result, gold and silver objects have been ruthlessly destroyed, either for the sake of converting them into new objects or to stave off some public or private economic crisis. For this reason it is difficult to reconstruct a complete account of them from ancient times.
It is still not absolutely certain whether these objects are the most distant and by far the brightest objects that have so far been seen in the universe, or whether some as yet ill-understood and strange physical situation contrives to produce the unexpected characteristics of their observed spectra. The simple interpretation remained that the spectra are caused by the very high speeds at which these objects are receding from the earth, many in excess of 60% of the speed of light.
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Photography
