Faceting to Make a Gemstone Sparkle

BY MARK OROS

What makes a beautiful colored gemstone and why are some of them more inviting and fascinating than others? The short answer is the beauty of light. Most of us are familiar with the phrase, “Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.” There is also a less famous quote by Franz Kafka, “Anyone who keeps the ability to see beauty never grows old.” These two statements put forth the idea that beauty is both personal and timeless.

THE IMPACT OF LIGHT

Light is a major component of art and craft. Light is what reflects and allows us to see shape, color and the subtleties that the hand and eye created. However, the lapidary who facets (the process of turning the rough gem crystal material into a decorative gemstone) a stone has to consider light in another dimension. Light is an essential part of the medium and process, just like paint is essential to painting a portrait.

Artist: Mark Oros

Photographer: Mark Oros

Material: Citrine

Design: Starman

Size: Unknown

Weight: Unknown

Artist: BD Drummond

Photographer: Jeff Mason

Material: Optical Quartz (Colombia)

Design: Transition Grid Size: 24mm x 24mm x 17mm Weight: 79 cts

Light and the gemstone’s material are married in the creation of a jewel. Light reflects off the gemstone surface and returns to your eye like any craft or art. However, when properly cut, light also enters the gemstone and bounces around and returns from inside the gemstone. The greater quantity of light that can be captured and moved within the gemstone, the more exciting the jewel becomes. Poorly cut facet angles will allow the light to simply pass through the gemstone making a window. Correct angle facets can also be cut to break up the returning light, creating scintillation. Now, the gem sparkles! The attention given to light is a major difference between massproduced faceted colored gemstones and performance-faceted colored gemstones cut by lapidary artists.