Coffer 1873

Curator: First glance—it feels like someone locked away secrets in their most precious wooden toy chest! Editor: Indeed. What we have here is a coffer, a decorative-art object created around 1873. Giovanni Battista Gatti is the artist behind it, and the work can be seen here at the Minneapolis Institute of Art. Predominately fashioned from wood, with intricate carving. Curator: That carving is so wild, like a forest grew right out of the wood! The white designs against that deep, dark wood… it almost vibrates with a quiet intensity, and punctuated with these colored gem details…like staring into a fancy void, if that's even a thing! Editor: Formally, it displays a meticulous execution of decorative art principles prevalent during the late Renaissance revival. We could say Gatti engaged in a profound structural play between the solid, dark wood and the filigree of lighter carvings. Curator: You're right. It's this battle of dark and light that sucks me in. Then all those scenes. All the little folks in a world all their own! It really pulls at something… some sense of being shrunk and dropped into a storybook world, hidden. Editor: Think of it as more than simple ornamentation, though that aspect is undeniable. I mean, if you were to examine its compositional elements according to, say, semiotic structures… these swirling, foliated forms act as visual signifiers of vitality. Then, the figures you described, possibly allegorical references? I sense narrative, like coded content meant to be extracted. Curator: "Coded" sounds cold, don’t you think? For me it feels much more alive. This kind of intricacy, so ornate but precise… it can't come only from mind and method, but it's made from something that really makes your hand shake. Editor: All the better if the final construction can hold some enigma, the formal precision allowing viewers to construct narratives in the space in which the artist intended it to live. Curator: What's great is, it gives back something different to everyone who finds a connection to it. Isn't that what this Renaissance is all about? Editor: Yes, quite! Well put—to make a mark and have those impressions left over.