Home Encyclopedia Summa Fathers ... W > Wood-Carving Wood-Carving In general, the production from wood of objects of trade or art by means of sharp instruments, as a knife, chisel, file, or drill. Here only that branch of wood-carving is dealt with which produces artistic objects, belonging either to plastic (as statues crucifixes , and similar carvings), or to industrial art (as arabesques and rosettes), and which serve mainly for the ornamentation of cabinet work. Carvings of the first class belong specifically to wood-sculpture; those of the second class to wood-carving proper; both are treated in this article. It is indeed not easy to maintain a sharp distinction between these two classes in a sketch dealing with the historical development of wood-carving, particularly as they were frequently combined in the production of artistic objects. Moreover, the lack of objects of industrial art among the remains of the first thousand years makes it necessary, in the following summary, to include also examples of wood-sculpture. Objects carved from wood were frequently used for religious purposes in antiquity, especially by the | |
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