Xylectypoma

Maser relief using the xylectypom method, 1898.

Xylektypom is a woodworking process that emphasizes the wood grain in relief.

Word origin

The made-up word Xylektypom, pronunciation: Xylektypōm, means something like wood relief and is made up of the Greek xylon, wood, and ektypon, raised imprint. Sometimes the spelling Xylectipom or Xylectipom is also found.

Procedure

American softwoods, less European types of wood, are particularly suitable for the xylectypom method. The process consists of several steps:

• The wooden panels to be processed are carefully smoothed and softened by acids.
• The soft wooden parts are blown out with a sandblasting fan so that the natural grain of the wood remains as a relief.
• The processed surfaces are brushed off thoroughly so that any soft tissue that may still be present is removed.
• The processed panels are stained or colored.

The decorative effect of the natural grain can be enhanced with ornaments. This is achieved by covering the desired decorative motifs so that they are protected from the action of the sandblower.

The stain penetrates the wood fibers of different hardnesses to different depths and thus creates a fine polychrome effect in addition to the strong relief effect. This can be increased by applying a light glaze, which is wiped off the raised, hard areas and fills the cavities.

development

Natural grain reliefs arise when wood is exposed to weathering:

“Boards and beams that have been exposed to the effects of the atmosphere for a long time gradually wipe off and often show the structure of the annual rings in extremely interesting lines. ... If such wooden surfaces are provided with a protective coating in places (e.g. writing, carried out with oil paint), then the ground around these protected areas is weathered, while the protected areas remain raised. Anyone who looks closely at old wooden grave crosses in churchyards, prohibitions or similar signs on country roads will find what has been said confirmed. "

As an artistic stylistic device, grain reliefs became known in Europe through Japanese wooden objects with grain inlays. The relief effect was created by scraping the soft ground between the hard annual rings with sticks made of hardwood or bone. The sculptor Gotthold Riegelmann (1864–1935) used this process around 1900 for carving work in which the grain of the wood merges from the subsurface into the raised carved parts.

Wooden grave cross, Canterbury.

Japanese lacquer box with grain relief, 1860.

Paneling by Gotthold Riegelmann with maser relief, 1900

The use of the manual method to hollow out the space between the annual rings was ruled out for the industrial production of furniture because of the high costs. The sandblasting machine, invented in 1870 , made it possible to automate the scraping process. The furniture factory J. Buyten and Sons in Düsseldorf developed the xylektypom process from 1897 to 1898 on this basis and applied for a patent. Xylectypom was an inexpensive alternative to hand-made measles reliefs.

The J. Buyten furniture factory and the Georg Schöttle furniture factory in Stuttgart, as licensees, included furniture with xylectypom decorations in their production program and had well-known artists create designs for their furniture. For example, Hans Eduard von Berlepsch-Valendas created pieces of furniture with xylectype decorations for the First World Exhibition of Applied Arts in Turin in 1902, and Bernhard Pankok designed furniture for the Württemberg music room at the World Exhibition in St. Louis in 1904 .

The xylectypom procedure remained in vogue for barely a decade. In 1909, the art historian Gustav Edmund Pazaurek judged the xylek type to have lost its initial popularity all too quickly during the years of Art Nouveau rule with unfortunate stencil ornaments.

literature

Xylektypom advertising on an Art Nouveau poster for the Georg Schöttle furniture factory, 1900.

• Hans Eduard von Berlepsch-Valendas: Xylektypom. In: Kunst und Handwerk: Zeitschrift für Kunstgewerbe und Kunsthandwerk since 1851, Volume 47, 1897/1898, Page: 321–322, pdf .
• Xylectypoma. In: Blätter für Architektur und Kunsthandwerk, Volume 13, 1900, pdf page 372, pdf .
• F. Luthmer: Wood surfaces with relief grain. In: Illustrated craft magazine for interior decoration, volume 9, 1898, page 31, pdf .
• Xylektypōm. In: Meyers Großes Konversations-Lexikon, Volume 20. Leipzig 1909, page 811, [1] .
• Xylectypoma. In: Communications from the Association for Decorative Arts and Applied Arts Stuttgart, Volume 1, 1900, pages 67–71, pdf .
• Gustav E. Pazaurek: Errors of taste in the arts and crafts: Guide for the new department in the royal. State Trade Museum Stuttgart. Stuttgart: Grüninger, 1909, pages 13-14, [2] .
• Gustav E. Pazaurek: Good and bad taste in the arts and crafts. Stuttgart: Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, 1912, pages 138, 209, 309.
• Hermann Pfeifer: The form theory of ornament. Handbook of Architecture, Part 1: General Building Construction, Volume 3. Leipzig: Gebhardt, 1926.
• Activated price announcement. In: Illustrated arts and crafts magazine for interior decoration, volume 10, 1899, pdf-page 260, pdf .

Web links

Commons : Xylektypom  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Footnotes

1. ↑ The last syllable of the word xylectypom is pronounced long and stressed.
2. ↑ #Meyers 1909 .
3. ↑ #Meyers 1909 , # Blätter 1900 , #Luthmer 1898 , #Pfeifer 1926 , page 218, # Berlepsch-Valendas 1897 , #Machrichtungen 1900 .
4. ↑ #Luthmer 1898 .
5. ↑ # Berlepsch-Valendas 1897 , page 321.
6. ↑ #Luthmer 1898 .
7. ↑ #Pfeifer 1926 , pages 217-218.
8. ↑ #Luthmer 1898 .
9. ↑ # leaves 1900 .
10. ↑ #Pazaurek 1919 .