The timelessness of today's George Jensen pays tribute to the iconoclastic Danish silversmith-sculptor who turned silver into gold nearly a century ago.

"Silver is the best material we have; gold is precious in value but not in effect", said Georg Jensen, acclaimed as the greatest silversmith of his time, on the occasion of his sixtieth birthday. "The character of silver is satisfactorily lustre - something of the light of a Danish summer night. Silver can seem like twilight, or when it dews over, like ground mist rising..."

In the half century that has spaced since Georg Jensen's death, his silver-smithery has not lost the romanticism of his masterful touch, nor has it lost its highly Danish character. Today, in the most exclusive streets of Berlin, Paris, London, New York, and Sydney, the Georg Jensen shops continue their tradition as purveyors of exquisite jewellery and tableware. Superbly designed in the medium that has been treasured for its beauty since the time of the ancient Egyptians.

Andreas, who started his apprenticeship under the master himself and is now Head Designer at the Georg Jensen silversmithy in Copenhagen, is one of those who ensure that the contemporary designs live up to the traditional standards. "My responsibility is to ensure that the new things we make are just as good; as fine and artistic as the old ones because it is one long line of continuation. You can build up a reputation over 40 years and ruin it in three".

The man who transformed bowls and spoons into lustrous pieces of art was born in 1866 in a small village north of Copenhagen. As a boy he had to help in the factory were his father worked as a blacksmith and there was neither the time nor money to allow for any regular schooling.

As if to compensate for his lack of book learning, the creative impulses manifested themselves early and, surrounded by the idyllic Danish countryside and guided by his father, Georg Jensen took his first steps along the path of functional art.

"There were sparks, sparks of art inside my father". Georg Jensen recalled.

"He was able to look at Nature and to understand it, and taught me to do so. In the large marsh of Ellemose one could find an unusual blue clay; I made many strange and unique things with the clay, and through it my first sense of form found primitive expression".

The Jensen family moved to Copenhagen when Georg was fourteen, and the young 'smithy' was subsequently apprenticed to a goldsmith. The work failed, however, to satisfy him, he continued to model clay in his spare time, dreaming of becoming a sculptor. Jensen, alter achieved some success as a sculptor and although he was never able to make a living from the craft, the desire to be a great sculptor never left him. For many years he was unable to reconcile that dream with the practicality of the skills he learned as a goldsmith. Ironically, it is this duality of artist/craftsman that Andreas perceives as having set Georg Jensen apart from the rest.

"I believe he had a very high degree of artistic feeling, but then he was also trained as a craftsman and this is unusual", says Andreas. "It is extremely rare to find an artist and a silversmith faced with an artist's design will often say to himself. 'Oh no, that is much too difficult'. He will find an easier solution when he makes a pitcher or a bracelet because he understand all the technical difficulties.

"Georg Jensen was different - you can see in his things that he was a sculptor at heart. You can see how powerful they are, and its because he was a sculptor who brought this high artistic value to silver".

In 1900, Jensen won an award from the Danish Royal Academy of Art acclaiming some works he had created in ceramics, which enabled him to travel to Paris, Rome and Florence. He left Denmark insisting that his true vocation lay in the art of sculpture but it was during this trip that a turning point was reached; a point where Georg Jensen discovered that "a piece of jewellery or a bowl may be just as much sculpture as an Aphrodite or a bust".

The 1900's were something of a traumatic time for artists. With the advent of industrialisation the manufacturer found it more profitable to sell goods because of their cheap cost rather than because of their design and quality. There was little scope for artistic considerations in the brave, new world of industrialisation.

Jensen was lucky enough to meet some of the talented artists who took up the fight against this deluge of badly designed, poor quality merchandise. These were people who still believed that a thing of beauty is a joy forever. Two of the artists involved in this battle were the Englishman, William Morris, and the Belgian, Henri van de Velde. Both had a profound influence on Jensen: Morris had founded his own studio where everything was made exclusively by hand, and van de Velde's aim was to make reason the basis of all handicraft, a doctrine which held that "a thing is beautiful when it is functional".

These were the ideas Jensen took back with him to Denmark and even today they remain the basic philosophy of the silversmithy. Leonard Schroeder, Managing Director of Royal Copenhagen, believes that Jensen achieved his lasting fame because he was so unique in his creativity at that time. "What was special about him was, at that time, when it was the pride of every manufacturer to depict their factory on their stationery with the big smoking chimneys, and be proud of the industrial side, Georg Jensen went back to the actual craft of designing and hand-beating the silver. I think that people admired him very much for that special feature".

While Jensen achieved almost instant recognition for his beautiful quality pieces of art which scorned the rising tide of industrialisation, he was less successful in his personal life. The bourgeoisie may have appreciated his innovative designs but they were less sympathetic towards his won eccentricism. As Andreas recalls, "In the first few years I believe he was not admired - he was much too strange. He was a character, he went around in a big hat with a curly mane of hair and flowing ties. Of course the bourgeoisie was against anything different like that". His personal life was marked by considerable trauma; he was married four times (his first three wives died) and, he suffered financial hardship at many stages throughout his career.

Still, is it not for Georg Jensen's personal life that we remember him today. It is for his artistic vision and determination to create objects in which utility and beauty would combine to give pleasure to their owners. There is no doubt that the feeling for heavy grey silver as a malleable material shaped under the hammer, is essentially the discovery of Georg Jensen. He explored its ability to reflect light by covering the surfaces with almost invisible hammer marks and used the silver's softness to advantage in both restrained and swelling forms. The beauty and elegance of even the smallest sugar spoon has caused connoisseurs to remark, "Even if Georg Jensen had only created this little spoon he would have become world famous".

Today the traditions are carried on by the young designers of Denmark and Leonard Schroeder points out that the Georg Jensen silversmithy is somewhat remarkable in its approach to training the new artists. "Very often, if you want to become an electrician or a member of another trade in Denmark, you would have more theory, you would go to school. But here you have the master-apprenticeship set-up which is so important, because so many of the traditions you have in silversmithing you cannot read, you cannot learn, you have to actually see them in practical application in the workshops.

"We have in Denmark today about 8 registered chasers and we keep four of them busy here at Georg Jensen. (Chasing is the method of hammering a decoration into the silver with a hammer or chisel). Chasers are almost a protected species. Usually today you find decoration either in molds or in the presses - most people do it that way but we still have the traditional Jensen designs made by hand-chasing".

Andreas was once one of those young designers under the tutelage of a master, in this case, Georg Jensen himself. Like Jensen, he came from a small village and moved to Copenhagen to seek his fortune in the capital. He was studying at a commercial high school when he was asked if he would like a job as a "young fellow" at the Jensen workshop.

"I had seen some spoons in my family's collection, but I didn't know much about it, I must admit", he recalls. "What amazed me however, was that although Jensen only opened his first workshop in Copenhagen in 1904, the Jensen silversmithy in Berlin was opened just five years later, and it wasn't Georg who decided to expand, it was his customers. People who admired silverware, who admired beautiful designs, were travelling to Denmark and buying his things - that was the start really, and I believe that at first, he was more admired abroad than in his home country". Andreas has been with Georg Jensen three times; having left variously to start his own workshops and create his own designs, but always returning to the Jensen workshops.

The Georg Jensen silverworks are now part of Royal Copenhagen, Scandinavia's largest decorative art company, which was formed through mergers between Royal Copenhagen Porcelain, Holmegaard Glassworks, Bing and Grondahl Porcelain and Georg Jensen. Of these four distinguished names, all of which now come under the umbrella of Royal Copenhagen, it is significant that the mother company still retains the name, Georg Jensen. Leonard Schroeder sees the Georg Jensen range as the signature of Royal Copenhagen and believes it will continue to be one of the very top international names in silver.

The enduring success of the silversmithy is no doubt due in part to the fact that the silver pieces being created today are safely anchored in the visions and incumbent demands of their originator. Even in the days of exorbitant silver prices, the silversmithy stood firm in its convictions and did not compromise on quality and design like so many of their competitors. Today, Andreas is conscious of the need to strive for consistently high standards.

"Our things are not "good enough" they are the best possible", he declares simply. "I don't understand the concept of "good enough". Good enough for what? To be sold? To be used for six months? All our things show the best possible craftsmanship, the best possible materials - everything that has gone into their creation is of the best quality.

"Old Jensen and new Jensen: they are all contemporary and they have a consistently high degree of artistic value. This is what we stand behind. What we fight for every day. When we make a pen and pencil set, one day in the future, we hope that when in place on the desk you will recognise it as Jensen".

Simply, it is the timelessness of Georg Jensen silver-art - the aesthetic vision and the quality of its realisation that has spanned nearly nine decades of turbulent change in the arts and crafts and methods of their production. The name Georg Jensen has become synonymous with everything that the man himself wanted to achieve when he first experimented with the strange blue clay as a fledgling sculptor last century. The zenith of art and craftsmanship from a natural substance.

"The design is the most fantastic thing about Jensen", exclaims Andreas. "A piece of Jensen silverware will be a classic in design whether it is an old piece or a new piece. Jensen in a Style".