White Copper Mountain Texture Square Pendant

A mountain on a scholar's desk is an old subject. Inkstone peaks and brush rests were cut from stone into a few summits and set on the desk, to be looked at for the way the ground rose and fell. Painters said the same thing: a distant mountain is drawn without detail, only the turns of its outline, one fold to a slope. Carrying those folds onto a copper plaque works the same way, and it relies on height rather than line. A stone mountain on a desk is meant to be looked at, walked and wandered through; a copper plaque cannot offer the last two, only the looking.

The face is not flat. A ridge line crosses it on the diagonal, falling away to either side, and the fall is not straight — it steps down fold after fold like the outline of a mountain. The ridge stands up and the slopes sink, and light coming from the side leaves a faint shadow along them. The plaque itself is square, and only the mountain in it is alive. The two sides of the ridge are not the same width: one is steep and one is easy, and the eye slides down the easy side.

The name of the style includes the words raw stone, which refers to the unfinished feel of the surface and not to actual stone. Copper worked to a stone grain feels granular under the hand rather than slick like polished copper. Such a face does not hold fingerprints and does not show scratches, and as it ages the dust settles into the low ground and the mountain reads more clearly than before. The grain was struck in point by point with a chisel, not eaten with acid: acid gives a more even grain, and a falser one.

Pendant and necklace are each offered in white and in brass, four pieces in all. The white one looks like a mountain after snow, cold, and sits well against dark clothing; the brass one looks like evening light on a slope, warm, and goes with cotton and linen. The necklace comes with a chain and hangs the plaque at the chest; the ridge runs diagonally, so it does not look stiff when worn. The edges of the plaque are thin, so hold it by the edge and not by the ridge.

The texture has very little height to it, so do not clean it with a brush: the bristles carry away the dark in the low ground and the mountain goes flat. Press it with a dry cloth and blow the dust out of the crevices. The four edges are thin and will roll if they catch a table corner, and a rolled edge cannot be put right. The white copper darkens the longer it is worn, and as it does the mountain looks more like stone. Store it flat, face up, with nothing heavy on top.