United States or Benin ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
In his youth he had carved in wood and worked at the intarsia work so characteristic a craft of the fifteenth century; but on bringing some coffers of this work to the King of Hungary, Vasari relates that he found they had fallen to pieces on the voyage, and ever after he preferred to work in marble.
The children have to cross a wide stretch of intarsia floor, and any natural, normal child is seized with a desire to run. For this reason we have the janitor stationed in the lower hall from twelve to one and three to six each day. When he is there, there is very little difficulty.
In 1478 we have again a most important and in its way complete view of the commerce and trades of this city, some of which may be wholly or partly reckoned among the fine arts such as those which had to do with damasks and gold or silver embroidery, with woodcarving and 'intarsia, with the sculpture of arabesques in marble and sandstone, with portraits in wax, and with jewelry and work in gold.
The glue was applied always when the surfaces were perfectly clean, and the whole was pressed, being screwed down on heated metal plates, that all might dry evenly. In 1478 there were thirty-four workshops of intarsia makers in Florence.
The earliest date of the ornamental work in Siena is 1369. From 1413 to 1423 Domenico del Coro, a famous worker in glass and in intarsia, was superintendent of the works.
Honour where honour is due. We should be singing the praises of Filippo Brunelleschi in every quarter of the city. After Brunelleschi the chief architect of the cathedral was Giuliano da Maiano, the artist of the beautiful intarsia woodwork in the sacristy, and the uncle of Benedetto da Maiano who made the S. Croce pulpit.
Among the instruments mentioned are: "Two screw profiles: one outliner: four one-handed little planes: rods for making cornices: two large squares and one grafonetto: three chisels, one glued and one all of iron: a pair of big pincers: two little axes: and a bench to put the tarsia on." Pyrography has its birth in intarsia, where singeing was sometimes employed as a shading in realistic designs.
It is really more correct to speak of intarsia when we allude to early Italian work, the word being derived from "interserere," the Latin for "insert;" while marquetry originates in France, much later, from "marqueter," to mark. Italian wood inlay began in Siena, where one Manuello is reported to have worked in the Cathedral in 1259. Intarsia was also made in Orvieto at this time.
The steps of the raised temple in which the saint and the basilisk perform have a beautiful intarsia of foliage similar to that on the Giants' Staircase at the Doges' Palace. So much for the ingredients of this bewitching picture; but as to what it is all about I have no knowledge, for I have looked in vain among books for any information.
It crowns the hill, and in the late afternoon the ideal time to visit it is full in the eye of the sun, bathed in whose light the green and white façade, with miracles of delicate intarsia, is balm to the eyes instead of being, as marble so often is, dazzling and cold.
Word Of The Day