“Watches, for me, represent anti-freedom! I am an artist, a painter; I hate having to deal with the constraint of time. It irritates me.” – Gérald Genta
Gérald Genta’s famous phrase, the creator of the Patek Philippe Nautilus design, perfectly illustrates the reason for its success over the years.
There is a big difference between a work of art and mere material. Each day, the watchmaking industry produces dozens of new models. Some are just material, simple objects, timepieces among many others, while others make history and are instantly elevated to icon status. Why?
Art has the primary capacity to evoke emotion in the public. And when a work is perfectly executed, this emotion endures generation after generation. This is observable among the greatest artists like Picasso (a fan of Patek Philippe, not without reason), Matisse, Michelangelo, and Francis Bacon, to name just a few.
What happens when an accomplished artist works on the design of a car, a building, or a watch? The emotion is present, and it endures. The Patek Philippe Nautilus is part of the world of artworks. Indeed, it is also one of the timepieces whose value rises impressively, but this is merely a result of its true status; it creates emotion, just like any great piece of art.
Although Gérald Genta was “irritated” by the “anti-freedom” that watches represent, that didn’t stop him from injecting an aesthetic and artistic wave that made the Patek Philippe Nautilus what it is today.
There’s no need to describe the watch here; it speaks for itself, and lowering it to the level of “art critic” with personal “evaluative” comments is irrelevant. Each person should be able to merge their universe with that of Gérald Genta and find something for themselves in it. Here, I preferred to show you a very interesting model, rare, and above all, defying trends while keeping its original DNA: the Nautilus 3700 in yellow gold. Some say, “Yellow gold on a watch is hard to pull off,” but I believe there is no easier watch to wear than this reference, and it remains one of the watches where telling the time is genuinely difficult. Before even reading it, the eye is immediately drawn to an impressive number of details to appreciate, and just like a work of art, it’s very easy to lose oneself in what Gerald Genta sought to convey when creating this watch.
I leave you to appreciate it for yourself...
