"Artists have been raiding the toolkits of the Old Masters with new urgency of late, borrowing and reworking Renaissance and Baroque compositional drama, symbolism, and increasingly, their labor-intensive methods. While much of that renewed interest has centered on oil painting, this May three artists—Alison Elizabeth Taylor, Michael Bühler-Rose, and Nick Doyle—are pointing to another Renaissance inheritance: the decorative woodworking traditions of intarsia and marquetry."
"Intarsia is an ancient decorative woodworking process embraced in early Islamic art, refined in Renaissance Italy, and still practiced by artisans today. The term has since been adopted for related inlay techniques. Traditional intarsia is made from interlocking pieces of wood cut into different shapes (think: a neatly fitted mosaic), while marquetry usually refers to images made from assembled veneers—thin slices of wood-laid onto a solid backing (think: a completed puzzle mounted on board)."
"One enduring achievement of intarsia is now housed at the Met: in Gubbio, a Medieval Italian city. Described by the scholar and former Met director—century trompe l'œil room features emblems of the erudition of its patron—the Studiolo from the Ducal Palace Philippe de Montebello as "an astounding masterpiece of Italian Renaissance woodwork," the 15 th Federico da Montefeltro, the Duke of Urbino—including books, musical instruments, and even armor."
"In their hands, these old-world techniques signal less of a market mood than a way of piecing together the authority of images in a world saturated by throwaway content. The Gubbio Studiolo is central to both Taylor and Bühler-Rose's turn to inlay. "I saw the [Studiolo] when I first came to New York in 2003, and I thought, I need to do that," said Taylor, who is showing her marquetry hybrid paintings in at San Francisco's "I'll Be Your Mirror" Jessica Silverman Galler"
Artists are increasingly borrowing Renaissance and Baroque compositional drama, symbolism, and labor-intensive methods, with renewed attention beyond oil painting. Three artists are turning to Renaissance decorative woodworking traditions of intarsia and marquetry. Intarsia uses interlocking, shape-cut pieces of wood to form fitted mosaics, while marquetry builds images from assembled veneers mounted on a backing. The Gubbio Studiolo, a trompe l'œil room from the Ducal Palace of Federico da Montefeltro, provides a model through its emblematic display of books, musical instruments, and armor. The artists use these techniques to piece together the authority of images in a world dominated by disposable content.
Read at Artnet News
Unable to calculate read time
Collection
[
|
...
]