In Italy around the 13th century, this “kind of mosaic made of wood” began to be used more widely, and in the 1500s many artists made extensive use of marquetry as a creative technique. Painters, at the request of patrons, would provide marquetry artists with a painted cartoon to reproduce using the carving technique; other times, the patrons of the painters were the marquetry artists themselves, who asked for designs on which to base their creations.
In the 16th century, art writers imposed a sharp distinction between “major arts” and “minor arts.” In that hierarchy among the arts, wooden marquetry, like ceramics, tapestries, and glass, was relegated to the “minor arts,” so much so that painter-architect Giorgio Vasari in 1568 defined marquetry as a “mediocre surrogate for painting.” Even Galileo Galilei considered it a “hodgepodge of little sticks of different colors.”
However, even if viewed critically, in the 16th century marquetry was one of the occasions to experiment with the newly discovered perspective. In marquetry, the illusion of fullness and emptiness and the proximity and distance of objects were nothing more than the elaboration and development of perspective drawings created with painting techniques.
Artists, placing pieces of wood with different tones and shades side by side, created false cabinets containing still lifes, illusory windows giving glimpses of framed and perspective views, fake niches housing saints, religious figures, and allegorical characters; trompe l’oeil, to a lesser extent, also completed the range of marquetry produced.
Certainly, this art had its charm, and even today, after 4 centuries, marquetry is a widely used technique, especially in Sorrento. In the homeland of Torquato Tasso, artist-craftsmen continue to produce these unique and precious objects, destined primarily for foreign markets, using ancient methods. The Sorrentine carvers, with patience, passion, and inventiveness, using different types of wood, manage to create figurative panels and furniture objects with absolutely unexpected chromatic and perspective effects.
The marquetry produced today in Sorrento, however, is not the same as that of centuries past: artisans, very attentive to market demands, have shifted their production towards design and pure object manufacturing. Although the patterns and fantasies marquetry features remain the same: classic “floral ornaments,” Sorrento landscapes, and typical local figures. Jewelry boxes and chests, coffers and frames, lamps, wardrobes, and small tables are all handcrafted objects, following two different production lines: one that prioritizes preserving the wood in its natural, matte state, as requested by the European market; another that involves finishing the objects with polyester to make the products shiny, as preferred by American buyers. These latter are particularly fond of Sorrento marquetry. The music boxes, the famous jewelry boxes with carillons produced in Switzerland or Japan, are simply called “Sorrento” by Americans, and the most requested music is naturally “Torna a Surriento.”
The woods used for these works are still the same as in the past: Beech and Rosewood, Horse Chestnut and Orange, Tulipwood, Maple, Pear, Ebony, and Paduka; and the shades and shadow effects are obtained, as before, by dipping each small piece of wood in boiling sand; the thousand shades of color are obtained with industrial methods to ensure a high-quality standard and reduce production times. But there are still some “purists” who, despite the time, prefer boiling the strips in mixtures of herbs and essences, following a traditional practice that today is certainly uneconomical. The fiber and texture of the wood have a marked graphic component, while the type of cut made by the artisan—parallel, transverse, or normal—together with the plant-based compounds used for coloring, produce an almost infinite number of nuances.
The carving artists are always on the lookout for woods with particular grains and “unusual” tones. For example, the sudden leakage of dioxin from the Icmesa plants, which caused an environmental disaster years ago in the Seveso area, altered the color of tree trunks throughout that territory, making the wood take on tones impossible to reproduce naturally with absolutely extraordinary nuances. A Sorrento artist managed to obtain some of those woods and today uses them to produce truly unique pieces.
For almost two centuries, marquetry has been one of the main economic activities of the Sorrento Peninsula. Master carvers pass down their art from father to son, and to protect a product that involves around 100 artisan workshops and over 600 people, the Sorrentine Marquetry Artisans Union was founded; among the initiatives of the Association is the creation of the Permanent Marquetry Exhibition, organized in the workshops of the “Francesco Grandi” Art Institute, located inside the Cloister of San Francesco. At the school, it is possible to take courses to learn the art of marquetry, although working in a workshop remains the best method to grasp all the “secrets” of the craft. In any case, the “marquetry technique” course is the oldest and most prestigious at the school: the Furniture and Marquetry section already existed at the end of the 19th century.
In Sorrento, many famous marquetry artists exist, and almost all are also cabinetmakers and restorers. However, each has a specific production field: some specialize in creating game tables and frames, others in mosaics or boxes. Portraits and reproductions of famous paintings are also highly requested subjects, especially by the Japanese market. Only a handful of artisans still produce the famous “secret” boxes, olive wood jewelry boxes with a traditional and intricate system that hides the small lock.
