EXTREMELY fine woodworking

[Russell Hudson]

At the Metropolitan Museum of Art (NYC), they have a display, (a small room, actually / maybe 10'x10'?) inside of which are the reconstructed walls and ceiling treatments of a highly-figured room that must originally have come from a palace, castle, royal estate, whatever... (15th, 16th century?)
As you can see I'm guessing here... because I have these shots I took when I was there but I'm not remembering the description written on the placard sitting adjacent to the 'rooms' entrance. (I'll get this info when I re-visit and edit the post.)
Anyway...
If you're not a woodworker, you can't possibly understand what this kind of work must have entailed.
So I wanted you guys to see (what must have been) a monstrous amount of work AND a great deal of time from planning through finish.
I can't imagine what it was like to dedicate yourself to such a project nor how satisfying it must have been when it came together. I'd like to hear what any of you guys think. I'm assuming their are a number of experienced carvers here who might appreciate this better than I.
I'm not an art historian so I'll make no attempt to describe what your seeing here. The pictures speak for themselves...

http://i931.photobucket.com/albums/ad158/rehuds/ceilingwide.jpg

http://i931.photobucket.com/albums/ad158/rehuds/corner.jpg

Russell Hudson / link to profile... to website's home page
(http://www.sawmillcreek.org/member.php?66309-Russell-Hudson)

[Dan Hintz]

Meh.... it was probably done by CNC...










:D :p

[Bruce Page]

Stunning! I would love to see more!
No doubt a number of artisans were working on it in unison. That in itself was probably a challenge.

[John Shuk]

Amazing work. Welcome to the Creek as well. I'm just down the road in Cold Spring from Carmel.

[Thomas Bank]

Meh.... it was probably done by CNC...

The shame of it is that with all of the technology we possess, we tend to just mass produce everything out of plastic... ("we" being the "we" of society at large, not the "we" of SMC)

Churches build pole barns to house their congregations instead of building cathedrals... Row upon row of beige houses with vinyl siding and interior white painted trim - if they have trim at all...

[Derek Gilmer]

Churches build pole barns to house their congregations instead of building cathedrals..

I agree with the sentiment of being sad that the artistry of buildings have been lost lately. But am happy for it in churches for the most part. Imho there are a lot better ways to use my contribution that ornate buildings.

[Kent A Bathurst]

Here's a fascinating article about the Met in Sunday's NYT. Craftsmen brought in from Morocco to build a new gallery. Keep reading till you get to this..."forms so tiny and complex that each man can sometimes complete only a four-inch square over the course of a day".

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/20/arts/design/metropolitan-museums-moroccan-courtyard-takes-shape.html?pagewanted=1&sq=metropolitan museum&st=cse&scp=2

[Alexander Valle]

Amazing work. Although I'm not an art historian scholar, it seems Renaissance to me. Of course not one man work...on those days this kind of work was done by guild artisans...a lot of them...no electric hand tools and the lords wanted the work finished ASAP....not so different today :D. Thanks Russell for sharing this fascinating pictures.

[Michelle Rich]

thanks for sharing such beauty & craftpersonship with us all

[Joseph D'Orazio]

I can not see the pictures

[Neal Clayton]

The shame of it is that with all of the technology we possess, we tend to just mass produce everything out of plastic... ("we" being the "we" of society at large, not the "we" of SMC)

Churches build pole barns to house their congregations instead of building cathedrals... Row upon row of beige houses with vinyl siding and interior white painted trim - if they have trim at all...

i was just talking about that exact point with someone the other day. i agree completely.

there are a few shops that use CNC to recreate such old stuff. one here locally even that i bought an old RAS from, that i spent a good afternoon shooting the breeze with, they specialize in trophy/gun rooms...

http://www.julianandsons.com/

but for the most part, yeah, we don't use our modern engineering to build a better mousetrap, we use it to build a worse one and spend the money saved on marketing to convince people to buy the worse one anyway...

[Russell Hudson]

Here's another shot I took at the museum that day. About 5" in diameter.
189804

[Chris Fournier]

Imagine the wealth that was required to have that kind of palace commisioned and built. It staggers the mind!

I was lucky enough to see a German castle this past winter and I was ashamed at my modern efforts with wood. Frankly I was ashamed at my efforts period. 1000 years ago the level of craftsmanship with precious metals and gems was ridiculously fine. I would have been lucky to start a fire...

You can be that the nobles owned the best craftsmen and guilds indoctrinated youngsters as soon as they could walk.

[Russell Hudson]

[QUOTE=Kent A Bathurst;1665704]Here's a fascinating article about the Met in Sunday's NYT. Craftsmen brought in from Morocco to build a new gallery. Keep reading till you get to this..."forms so tiny and complex that each man can sometimes complete only a four-inch square over the course of a day".

Beautiful tile work. I like this type of craftsmanship. For a number of years, I worked with ceramics and also stained glass. I like mosaics (and well done stone work) so much, I've often wondered if I was one of those of artisans in a previous life. There is something about the permanence of this work that pleases me as well.