After being cheated, it became a priceless treasure

Today's protagonist is not an ordinary wardrobe, but a wardrobe with the amazing craft of intarsia , which originated in Europe and has been passed down for thousands of years.

Details of wood inlay works with contrasting colors: (a~c) are from the National Museum of Decorative Arts in Madrid, Spain; (d) is from our protagonist today, collected by the Bilbao Museum of Fine Arts, Spain | National Museum of Decorative Arts; Bilbao Museum of Fine Arts

The creation of this inlaid wardrobe is not only the work of skilled craftsmen during the Renaissance , but also of a little-known but amazing mushroom, Chlorociboria aeruginascens . How did they come together to create such an exquisite work of art for us?

Chlorociboria aeruginascens | Sava Krstic / Wikimedia Commons

Dark mushrooms

As people know, mushrooms don't have many positive images, except that they are delicious in vegetable markets and on dining tables.

In summer and autumn, poisoning incidents caused by eating wild mushrooms appear in the news from time to time. Historically, many indigenous tribes have used the hallucinogenic effects of some poisonous mushrooms to carry out witchcraft rituals . Even in Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, Alice became larger and smaller after eating mushrooms, which was believed to be the author’s description of the hallucinations caused by taking drugs... All these, to varying degrees, have linked mushrooms to darkness, decay , and death .

Poisonous fly amanita (Amanita muscaria), which contains neurotoxins | Wikimedia Commons

It is true that mushrooms are "dark". Most of them grow in the " low places " of the ecosystem, such as the ground cover of forest grasslands, fallen tree trunks and branches, and even on animal feces. Except for some mushrooms that coexist with other life forms such as plants, the rest of them are saprophytic or even parasitic .

But fungi, represented by mushrooms, are also decomposers of the ecosystem. They have an extremely strong ability to degrade lignin and cellulose, and are an indispensable part of the earth's ecological cycle. The "decay" of mushrooms also has a bright and artistic side! This has to mention the "marquetry" craft.

Pokémon, blue-green wood

Intarsia originated in the Coptic period in the late ancient Egypt in the seventh century A.D. Initially, craftsmen cut and polished the wood into different sizes and shapes according to its color and texture, and then inlaid and spliced ​​it on wooden boards to create exquisite pictures, which were eventually used to decorate wooden furniture such as wardrobes, cabinets, and desks.

Different shades of wood for marquetry | Pinterest

As early as a thousand years ago, craftsmen could create a naked-eye 3D visual sense of mosaics based on the convex and concave arrangement of wood pieces in different parts, and sometimes added tortoise shells, shells, and even ivory to enhance the color and level of the fine wood mosaics. The fine wood mosaic artworks created in this way are already rare masterpieces, but it still lacks a "finishing touch" to become a magical treasure in Western history.

After being introduced to Europe via Sicily, Italy and Andalusia, Spain, the craft of wood marquetry was further perfected in Europe during the Renaissance .

In the 14th century, Italian craftsmen began to introduce animal and plant motifs into wood marquetry. The more complex the image, the more color the wood material required. Early wood marquetry could only rely on the natural tones of the wood, and the natural blue-green tones in animal and plant motifs could only be achieved through artificial dyeing . This is why people are surprised by the natural blue-green wood that appears in the Augsburg region in southern Germany.

Green Rot Wood | Bob McIntosh

Marquetry really took off in the early 16th century, when it spread to southern Germany, centered around Augsburg. Augsburg marquetry furniture has a striking blue-green tint that never fades. It’s not known where this special wood came from, it was just called “green oak.”

Detail of a blue-green marquetry work | National Museum of Decorative Arts; Bilbao Museum of Fine Arts

Augsburg's wood inlay artworks spread to Spain and other places through trade. The wood inlay works that were "certified of origin" and finished with "green oak" were luxury goods as valuable as gold at that time, and also symbols of wealth, status and honor. They were collected by people as the most precious treasures, and reached the peak of art in the Holy Roman Empire under the rule of Charles V. Charles V was amazed that such exquisite works of art were made only of natural wood!

Renaissance wall decorated with wood mosaics | Francesco di Giorgio Martini and Giuliano da Majano / Metropolitan Museum of Art

A marquetry cabinet that is a work of art | Auktionshaus im Kinsky / Wikimedia Commons

The mystery is finally solved

In 16th century Europe, it seemed that only the craftsmen in Augsburg knew how to obtain this mysterious green wood. The German craftsmanship and their stubbornness in keeping the secrets of the industry made it difficult for the outside world to know the origin of this wood for a long time, and it was impossible to imitate the same exquisite wood inlay artwork.

It was not until later research that the secret of the "palette" of wood marquetry was finally revealed. It turns out that the natural blue-green color of green oak comes from the quinone derivative pigment xylindein released when the mycelium of Chlorocapsid microsporum infects and degrades the wood.

The ascocarp of Microsporum Chlorophyllum looks like a crystal clear luminous cup | Crazy Mushroom / flickr

It is not easy to get this kind of green wood. As an ascomycete , Chlorophyllum microsporum is not the main force of decomposition. It needs to wait until the basidiomycetes degrade and consume lignin and cellulose to a certain extent, causing the wood to "white rot" . Chlorophyllum microsporum will start to perform. Its decomposition of wood is called "green rot".

Colonies of Chlorocapsid microsporum are able to produce blue-green mycolignin on artificial culture media, but their growth is slow. The colonies in the picture have been cultured for half a year. Adding sterilized wood can accelerate growth. | Seri C. Robinson

The saprophytic microsporous green cup fungus was originally an accomplice and destroyer of wood decay, but it was given a gorgeous new life by the craftsmen of the Renaissance. Who would have thought that this seemingly useless "little transparent" mushroom world would present a delicate work of art to later generations and fascinate Europeans.

There are two other inconspicuous fungi that can also secrete secondary metabolites to dye wood. These are Scytalidium fungi, S. cuboideum, which can dye wood pink , and S. ganodermophthorum, which can bring yellow . Together with Microsporum Chlorodisiac, they are collectively known as the "spalting triumvirate" in the field of wood dyeing.

Pigments extracted from the "Big Three" fungi | Patricia T. Vega Gutierrez; Seri C. Robinson

Wooden bowl dyed with three fungal pigments | Sara C. Robinson

Modern researchers have studied and analyzed the wood inlay artworks in several museums in Spain and found that the wood inlay artworks produced in the Augsburg area in the 16th century all contain evidence of natural fungal dyeing, but the collections produced in Spain, Italy and other places in the 18th century are only artificially dyed wood. The secret of this identification is that when the green cup fungus hyphae infect the wood, they first invade the ray parenchyma cells , and the blue-green mycotrienin is deposited more and unevenly in the ray cells; artificial dyeing will make the pigment evenly distributed in various tissues of the wood, including vessels and fibers .

Pigments of Chlorophyllum microsporum in the parenchyma cells of wood rays | Patricia T. Vega Gutierrez / Seri C. Robinson

As science developed, a variety of artificial dyes came to market. Chlorophyllum microsporum and the Renaissance beauty that marquetry brought us gradually disappeared into history. Although the heyday of marquetry has long passed, some people have inherited it. Tunbridge Wells in Kent, England, produces similar artworks called "green oak products" (Tunbridge ware), and insists on using only natural wood dyed by fungi such as Chlorophyllum microsporum.

It is worth mentioning that the mycotrienol of Microsporum chloroplastosum is light-stable and antioxidant. It is still difficult to fade after hundreds of years of wind and sun. Because of this, we can appreciate the amazing wood inlay artworks from hundreds of years ago today.

Author: Silkworm Boy

Source: Species Calendar