About Enamel Miniature

Enamel, the Combination of Elements

Enamel appears in fire. The material is fluid and soft. Like a drop of water, it refracts light and reflects the sky. It is like sky, the blue, light blue and violet colours suit it, although it can also be grey or purple.

Enamel is luminous. Small spots or minute strokes, which create an image, vibrate like air, they fill in the space of a little plate with air. You look at a miniature and you see the entire world, something that a glancing eye is unable to grasp.

I used to work with a temperature self-adjusting oven, later with a computerized one. And now I use the simplest of them all, without any temperature control. There is a certain contact with the oven; the contact gives a precise signal, which is like a click. The click means that the time has come.

Enamel cools down so beautifully, fresh from the oven... At first, the image is pale, but later the colours develop and become brighter.

You have a feeling that this colour will never change, it will be the same tomorrow and a century later. Enamels appeared in the XVIIth century as well as those in the Xth century, didn't change at all.

Alexei Maximov