Gyulai Éva - Viga Gyula (szerk.): Történet - muzeológia : Tanulmányok a múzeumi tudományok köréből a 60 éves Veres László tiszteletére (Miskolc, 2010)

GYŰJTEMÉNYEK - IPARMÜVÉSZET-TÖRTÉNET - Vadászi Erzsébet: Reneszánsz bútordíszítő eljárások

in woodcarving and marquetry in the town in 1474. Customers could choose between ready-made bridal chests (cassone) and coffers with inlaid decoration, but they could also place custom orders after browsing through the designs of a particular workshop. Marquetry combines various elements of three art genres - architecture, painting and sculpture - the link between them being the application of the freshly discovered laws of perspective. It is not mere chance that marquetry makers styled themselves masters of perspective rather than intarsiatori, masters of marquetry. They fitted the scene they wished to portray into a logical structure for which they came up with a practical solution by creating a geometric network from the vertical lines and the straight lines receding into the vanishing point; the network, in turn, divided the image into easily cuttable elements: the square panels of the paving were transformed into trapezes according to the intricacy of perspective, creating the illusion of a third dimension. The first impacts of the Italian Renaissance on Hungarian furniture art are reflected by the appearance and spread of Italian marquetry techniques. The earliest and simplest form was geometric marquetry (tarsia a toppo) or block inlay, the first application of a design technique. The intarsiatori created the repeated motifs of geometric inlay using an eastern technique still employed in Persia today: they assembled the decorative motifs such as squares, stars, herringbone patterns or even gate towers from "pre-made" elements. The desired form was created from colourful strips of wood glued together and arranged into bundles which were then sliced up cross-wise into thin plaques. A ribbon-like pattern or a wooden mosaic adorning a larger surface could be quickly and easily made from these units of identical pattern and size. The door and the small chest bench of the Sigerus Collection in the Museum of Applied Arts, as well as the Diósgyőr choir stall (now in the Avas Church in Miskolc), decorated with geometric forms of ultimately Florentine origin, were made using this technique. The next innovation was perspective marquetry (tarsia in prospetto). The two-seat choir stall from Bártfa (Bardejov, Slovakia) in the Hungarian National Museum combines both Florentine techniques: the framing of the bench and the balustrade, the side-walls, the edges of the arm-rests and the canopy are decorated with geometric wood inlay combining squares, lozenges and stars, while the balustrade, the sides and the back of the seats bear an image of the ideal city: a multi-storey tower with wooden-railed balcony and a cupola steeple with a flag, a gate with a drawbridge and embrasured walls. In contrast to Italy, these vedutas were modelled on engravings, rather than painting in Hungary. Choir stalls bearing town views have survived in Lőcse (Levoca, Slovakia) and Késmárk (Kezmarok, Slovakia). The furniture exhibition in the Nagytétény Manor House Museum features a chest bearing an imaginary town scene, once owned by the Count Apponyi of Pálfa family living in County Tolna. An image of ideal architecture depicted in perspective appears on the lower part of a two-part, four-door cupboard. In the German lands, the publication of the engravings of Dürer and the smaller masters, and of Peter Flötner's Kunstbuch in 1549, was followed by Lorenz Stör's Geometria et Perspective (Augsburg, 1567), a pattern book for marquetries portraying antique ruins: various geometric forms and figures set in swampy landscapes depicted according to the rules of projective geometry to create the illusion of transience. Jacques-Androuet Ducerceau's Livre de grotesque (Paris, 1566) is a rich repository of animals and whimsical creatures set amidst exuberant foliage. These engravings were known and used throughout Europe during the 16th century. The other major decorative technique beside marquetry for decorating furniture was carving. Marquetry and painting both cover the surfaces, while carving highlights it. Walnut is best suited to carving, having the most elegant grain, structure and the richest sheen. In contrast to oak used during the reign of Francis 1 in the early 16th century, "old" walnut was preferred under the reign of Henry II, Henry III and Henry IV in France in the later 16th century. The two gossip chairs (caquetoire) in the Museum of Applied Arts were carved from oak, while the dressoir and a hanging cradle bearing the date of 1584, inspired by Ducerceau's furniture engravings, were made from walnut. In his book Maison rustique (c. 1589), Charles Etienne emphasized that the best pieces of furniture are made from walnut. Bernard Palissy's Recepte veritable recommended the use of old, mature walnut for making beautiful furniture because the interplay of the veins of adequately dried 211