Art Inlay Art

ROSE WOOD INLAY

Introduction:

History and Origin of the Art form:

Jayachamaraja Wodeyar Bahadur was the 25th and the last maharaj of the princely state of My-sore. During his rule and reign artisans mostly practised various crafts which included ivory inlay in rosewood as rosewood was available in abundance locally. An artist called Shokat Ali who was an expert in this craft brought a completely new evolution in the craft by using locally available wood which came in different colours and its impact came out to be very good, wonderful art pieces were seen then. The king well-appreciated these art pieces and it became easy to learn and practise for the other people too. The unique material culture and simple technique brought the revolution

The main framework of the art piece is done using plywood. Colours are obtained mostly from natural dyes, coloured woods like white cedar, rosewood, chill pine, rubber wood, red sandal, jackfruit are used to add multiple colours to the art piece. Wax and charcoal are mixed together and used to fill fine details. Raw materials like the wood, plastic sheets, etc,. are bought from the local market. Most commonly used colours in the work pieces are orange, light blue, medium blue, dark blue, yellow, green (not natural), brown, maroon, etc,.

Process

Mysore Inlay Woodwork is known as the art of engraving Rosewood inlay and other intricate hand cut pieces of wood on it. Basically, these inlays narrate a certain story which takes us through the history and culture of Mysore, The heritage city.

All the work was traditionally practiced in Mysore. Whenever there was a need for creating beautiful ivory motifs into rosewood, the Maharajas gave much more priority to the artisans working on rosewood inlay. Rosewood inlay involves intricate designs and patterns so the artisans had to be very careful with each design and also particular about the tools used. some of the following small tools were used for the

These stencils are made to stick on wood and is chopped by following the outline with the hex saw tool. After the cutting work is finished, various pieces of coloured wood is arranged as per the initial drawing and later is stuck together by PVA glue The process of scratching the work piece is done using a chisel and further rubbed using several grades of flint papers so that the pieces come down to the same level.

Some carpentry jobs of the workpiece are carried out which includes joining different parts together.

Detailed fine grooves are created using a chisel.

Molten wax and charcoal are then mixed together and applied to the surface of the workpiece using a brush made up of cloth and then scrapped by a chisel. By this process the was remains in the groves and rest of the surface remains clean.

Final touch and finishing is given to the art piece to obtain a finished wood inlay painting.

Products:

The most common wood inlay product is a wall hanging art pieces . Also intricate inlay work is done on jewellery boxes. Religious idol figures both small and huge are done from wood inlay. Huge elephants are also observed amongst