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A brief description of
marquetry as an art form in it's own right rather than just the general
perception of it as nothing more than a commercial level of furniture
decoration. Is it perhaps, the new oil paint? |
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Marquetry,
as most of the population perceives it, is flowery and neo classical designs
affixed to rather old furniture as no more than decoration, it is used to
enhance the appearance of the furniture in a rather uniform manner, it by
it's own standards, follows the shape and design arrangements of the
furniture, it has never been seen as an entity in it's own right. I think it
would be correct to say that until the formation of the Marquetry Society,
marquetry was perceived as a quaint and twee past time on a par with doing jig saw puzzles, but over the last few
years marquetry has started to be taken seriously by the art world and will
in time be able to rank itself along with painting and sculpture as an art
form of choice.
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Can marquetry rival paint? |
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I'll say it can!
Marquetry has the unique asset
of using the very nature of the materials of the art as an extra enhancement
to illustrate the finished work.
The explanation of that statement being
that nearly everyone appreciates polished wood, and marquetry being a "wood
based" art already has that advantage built in so to speak.
The newer
methods employed in marquetry, and the even newer ones being discovered, are
bringing marquetry into the realms of descriptive art so often seen in oil
paintings and the like.
Some of these methods I refer to are such as
fragmentation, sliverisation, spear cutting etc etc. These methods allow us
to do blending and gradual colour merges which would not be available to us
in normal circumstances, so as you will appreciate, marquetry is still
basically a relatively young art discipline in it's present form.
Marquetry
has indeed been around since the ancient Egyptians but that form of
marquetry is a very flat looking style, today's interpretation of the
art is, however a very different animal, we now have form and shading of subtle
degrees that we can incorporate into our pictures and thus we are at last able
to equal, and in many cases surpass, conventional artistic practices.
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As with the "Glasses" picture in our
Gallery, this picture has been made with veneers instead of paint.
As you see, marquetry can indeed rival paint and sometimes can
even surpass it! |
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The future for marquetry as a main stream art
form |
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The Marquetry Society has over the years done
magnificent work in promoting the causes of the art. The Society itself has
only been in formation for the last 50 years and therefore because of this
fact, when compared to the centuries
of existence for the established forms of art, marquetry when viewed as an
artistic discipline, is still very much
in it's infancy. In it's early days the Society membership was more wood
worker orientated than it is today, today it has broadened its horizons and
now incorporates an artistic base rather than it's furniture decorators
origins that hampered it's aspirations of it's earliest years. Once the
established art galleries catch on to the art works being produced by the
growing marquetry movement I believe we will find that marquetry will be
entering the mainstream art world as a discipline on a par with the
established medias.
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How marquetry can benefit your well being
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An added bonus of participating in the world of
marquetry is that marquetry is very good for your health, relaxation and
general well being. It is a fact that a far larger percentage of
marquetarians, as compared to the general populace, make it to a very active
old age. And in happy addition to good physical health, because of the
cerebral application required of the discipline, they all keep remarkably
good mental health in addition to incredible hand to eye dexterity well into
their eighties and nineties. So I would say that if you require a good
palliative to get you into a happy and active old age without having to
resort to the arts of the medical professions, why not give marquetry a try
it really is a marvellous "hands on tonic".
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