Wood Working

Woodworking has been around for millennia or more. People have used wood for building shelter, tools, and other useful things. There are many different kinds of woodworking. The most common today are marquetry and parquetry, which are both forms of veneering and caring. There are many different styles of woodworking all of which are a very impressive art form.

Wood working has been used by man since the beginning of time. Adam was the first known wood worker. Some of the oldest examples of wood working date back to the ancient Egyptian and ancient Chinese civilizations. Wood working is depicted in many ancient Egyptian drawings, and in recent years many examples of Egyptian furniture have been found preserved in tombs. These include stools, chairs, tables, beds, and chests (“Wood Carving”, NP).

One of the oldest forms of woodworking is called veneering. Veneer is a thin surface layer of fine wood, glued to a base of less attractive or inexpensive material. Veneer is used when decorating furniture, floors, walls and even paintings or pictures. This can be broken down into two different categories; these are parquetry and marquetry.

Marquetry is the art of inlaying different woods, and other natural materials to create a picture. To inlay is to set a material onto another surface, but still level with the surface. In most cases the inlayed material is wood but it could be ivory, tortoise shells, bark, straw, stone, metal, gems, or any other attractive material to the artists liking. All the defects are used in the overall effect of the picture. Marquetry is often found on the finest furniture. It has been around for thousands of years, and today is considered something of a dying art.

Marquetry was practiced in a...

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