Carving

Art of cutting bone, ivory, horn, wood, or stone; but the latter is usually calle usually called SCULPTURE (q.v.). Its extreme antiquity is proved by the implements of the Cave-men, and the whole history of buried Oriental monarchies is recovered by its means. Egyptian carved wood statues exist dating from 4500 B.C., and our museums are full of delicate ivories and elaborate furniture and arms of all ages from Egypt, As syria, Greece, Etruria, and Rome. In Byzantium ivory-carving was brought to a high state of excellence, chiefly in the service of the Church, and beautiful examples exist of Italian and Spanish workmanship of the 13th and 14th centuries. Germany, Italy, Holland, Spain and Flanders were specially famous during the 16th century; and great artists, like Raphael and Benvenuto Cell in i, carved in ivory. In intricate dexterity, however, the ivories of India, China, and especially Japan, surpa those of European workmanship. Wood-carving was used from the earliest times for the adornment of temple and palace. In Gothic buildings, rood-screens, pulpits, stalls, misereres, shrines, roofs, brackets and gables still show the taste and skill of the Mediæval carvers. At the Renai ance profuse domestic ornamentation was introduced, and the museums are full of furniture lavishly carved from the days of Leonardo, Michelangelo and Raphael, down to the work of Grinling Gibbons.