Though in the case of the Town Hall of Benfeld, the jacquemart plays a rather grim reminder in an unvarnished execution of such ideals, featuring three statues representative of prudence, justice and death. Closely associated with the church, the jacquemart would take on a religious connotation aesthetically, often assuaged in the style of memento mori, as a result. And off the trodden path it embarks upon, as Louis Vuitton delves into philosophy, religion, euphemism to create the Tambour Carpe Diem, an automaton masterpiece whose purpose is to impart the “vision of the 21st century with all the energy and creativity characteristic” of Louis Vuitton into the modern reinterpretation of the jacquemart.Īs automata, jacquemarts were originally housed at churches dating as far back as mediaeval times where they performed the essential role of chiming on an hourly basis to alert occupants of the passage of time as the sound of the bell reverberated about town. “Our aim was to get off the beaten track,” explains Michel Navas, master watchmaker of La Fabrique du Temps Louis Vuitton. Vanitas, it is christened after the word denoting emptiness in the Latin lexicon. Seemingly a taboo, but it is so repeatedly visited that art revolving around the brevity of life and, by that extension, the inevitability of death has carved out its own branch.
A subject matter so close to us as its certainty is inescapable much like the logics and physics that govern our lives, yet the struggle to accept when the current chapter ends when the bell tolls, does it fade to eternal black or is there a hopeful continuation in another form, on another plane that we can’t yet explain?ĭeath and the afterlife have spawned imagery brought to life by tropes and illustrations. So entrenched in our culture, it becomes a subject we incessantly explore in the arts, science and philosophy, all in a futile attempt to prove its very existence. It is a mystery that science holds no answer to. Though on the surface, it appears to be a watch exploring the topic of mortality and the transience of life, the Louis Vuitton Tambour Carpe Diem in reality is the epitome of an aphorism about making the most of every moment.
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