A hand pushes a wooden plane along a board, the shaving curling from its mouth, chisels and a mallet laid out alongside.

Wood

Artistic Woodworking

Wood is a material that remembers. It grows for years beside a hillside, gathering seasons, wind and drought, and when the woodworker opens it with the saw it lets that time be read in its rings and in its grain. Working it means a dialogue with what it already contains. The artistic woodworker is an artisan who has learnt to stay inside that dialogue: he designs knowing that the chosen wood will demand respect, that every species has its own hardness, its own scent, its own character, and that the flaws are often the most precious thing of all.

A sloping village street with a joinery's door open onto stacked timber and wooded hills rising behind.

Where

Where it is practised in Tuscany

In Tuscany artistic woodworking has traditions spread across the region. Firenze has its historic school of art cabinetmakers — reproductions of period furniture, high-end restoration, bespoke interiors — concentrated in the Oltrarno and in the Santa Croce district, where very old workshops sit alongside contemporary studios. The Arezzo Casentino has a forestry vocation and works local timber (chestnut, silver fir, beech), with a tradition of rustic furniture and rural carving. The Florentine Mugello had a historic production of wooden furniture and household objects for farming families. High-end workshops also exist in Lucca, Pisa, Pistoia, where academically trained woodworkers make bespoke furnishings for architects and private clients.

A plane, chisels on a leather roll, a backsaw, brass square and marking gauge and a level on a bench strewn with shavings.

How

The techniques of the craft

The techniques of the craft are many and some are extremely refined. The dovetail joint, the mortise and tenon joint and close jointing are unions that a true woodworker makes without screws or structural glue, because only wood held by wood guarantees a life of centuries. The wood lathe turns legs, spindles and cylindrical decoration with a gesture close to the potter's. Veneering covers rough surfaces with thin sheets of fine woods (walnut burr, rosewood, ebony), cut into geometric patterns known as alla francese or alla romana. The finish includes waxes, oils, shellac and French polish — every piece of furniture asks for its own final skin. Replica antique furniture is a refined sub-sector that demands a historical knowledge of styles (Renaissance, the seventeenth century, Louis XV, Empire, Liberty).

A hand pushes a wooden plane along a board, the shaving curling from its mouth, chisels and a mallet laid out alongside.

Now

The craft today

Doing it today means moving between very different markets. On one side there is the informed client — interior architects, prestigious villas, the restoration of historic palaces — who looks for woodworking of the highest school and pays what it is worth. On the other there is the pressure of large-scale furniture retail (IKEA, industrial furniture e-commerce), which has all but wiped out the village carpenter. The real workshops hold on by going for excellence: unique projects, work that no machine replaces, pieces built to last a century. Many contemporary woodworkers have brought CNC and digital technologies into their production chain, but the finishing stays in the hand and the finished piece keeps its artisan identity.

The producers of this craft

L'ARTES Since 1968Sambuca, Firenze