Art & Craft in Venice

God has gifted Venice with beauty of nature and the art & craftwork of this town has added stars to beauty. The art & craft of Venice is considered to be the most valuable property of the town giving uniqueness to the city.

While moving in streets and roads of the town, one can find various shop windows of antique dealers containing wonderful items as fabrics of unexpected colors, furniture showing superb craftsmanship and many unknown objects.

The churches, palaces and museums of the town are full of mind-blowing paintings and architect that grips the human emotions. Along with this simply walking through the magic of the “Calli” one can have a sight of hop window of an antique dealer. These shop window could also be seen simply walking-over the Academia bridge, Dorsoduo district and then into S.Polo. Thus Venice proved to be a master in every field of art & craft.

One could easily be attracted towards glass craftsmanship of Venice that has a unique place all over the world. The island of Murano is well known for this. This art is very much important in Venice although its origin was a matter of chance. Glass here is the result of rivers and plant ashes melted together. It is said that to protect the fire on the sand that some Phoenician seamen (who landed there) had lit, some blocks of soda were kept but due to the high temperature a small part of it melted and changed to glass. The main production of glass used to be there on a Venetian island Murano. After this Government has also shown interest in the same and special attention had been given on the raw material used in glass production especially for transparent glass i.e. crystal. Murano became the center of the establishment for its furnace. The master of glass converted the incandescent and shapeless vitreous mass to a desired beautiful shape. As a precaution against fire installation of furnace in town were prohibited. In present days Murano became a focus to glass production. Attractive display of glass beads, color object and artistic creations in form of vases, trays and lamps along with tiny animals, rings, murrine, trinkets, brooches and glass beads with mosaic patterns can be found here.

In the early century of serenissima the devotional books used to be covered with gold, which gave, rise to the gold art .The finishing touch to these masterpieces could consume years. From that time this art became an inseparable part of Venice and today also a lot of goldsmith having mastery over the work is engaged in both classical and modern motifs. Pala d’Oro alter screen in San Marco Basilica is the attractive feature of the same. At Rialto, under Le Procuratie in Piazza Sen Marco and other places goldsmith shops could be seen. Wooden work in Venice also captures its own place. This art is considered to be the traditional in Venice that is gifted forward generation after generation. Previously the Serenissima imported timber from the forest of Cadore & Dalmatia, which was used to make typical ‘braise’ lagoon boats, and the most important the ‘gondolas’ that shows the traditional art of Venice. Still amongst the narrow lane and small squares the workshop of carpenters who are enshrining their art as mending of antique furniture, carving forcole (rowlocks), wooden animals models of lagoon boats, jigsaw puzzles could be found.

Textile of Venice is maintained at Burano and has kept the manual art alive. In this mechanical world also Venice is the place where work done by hand is enjoyed in textile whether it is in the field of damasks, Shimmering silks or embroidery. Carpets, shawls & laces also explore the beauty of textile work. Along with this paper world of Venice has a different position which could be seen everywhere in the city. The paper of bygone, which are still made by hand is the main attraction. Other than this the leather bounded books, the sealing wax marbled and decorated wrapping papers gives a different look as they are reflecting the color of Byzantine mosaic & the shapes of tiles in the Gothaic palazzi gives a traditional feeling to the art. The admiring feature of Venice is ‘Venice of Carnival’ in which various kinds of artistic masks could be viewed. Among these masks the commedia dell’arte or the bizarre figures of Arcinboldo are the attractive one.

Thus a variety of art and craftsmanship could be seen in Venice containing a different pattern and uniqueness in each and every field, which gives a new glimpse of artistic feature to the world.