Everything about Lapidary totally explained
A
lapidary (the word means "concerned with stones") is an
artisan who practices the craft of working, forming and finishing
stone,
mineral,
gemstones, and other suitably durable materials (
amber,
shell,
jet,
pearl,
copal,
coral,
horn and
bone,
glass and other synthetics) into functional and/or decorative, even wearable, items (for example
cameos,
cabochons, and more complex
faceted designs). The adjectival term is also extended to refer to such arts.
Diamond cutters are generally
not referred to as lapidaries, due to their highly specialized techniques which are required to work
diamond successfully.
The term Lapidist is used to describe the person who practices the art of lapidary, which may include cutting, carving,faceting or polishing rocks or gemstones.
The arts of a
sculptor or
stonemason are generally too broad in scale to fall within the definition, though chiseling inscriptions in stone, and preparing laboratory 'thin sections' may be considered lapidary arts. The term is most commonly associated with
jewelry and decorative household items (for example bookends, clock faces, ornaments, etc.) A specialized form of lapidary work is the inlaying of
marble and gemstones into a marble matrix, known in English as "pietra dura" for the hard stones like
onyx,
jasper and
carnelian that are used, but called in
Florence and
Naples, where the technique was developed in the
16th century,
opere di commessi. The
Medici Chapel at San Lorenzo in
Florence is completely veneered with inlaid hard stones. A lapidary specialty developed from the late 18th century in Naples and Rome are the "micro-mosaics" assembled out of many minute slivers of stone to create still life, cityscape views and the like.
In China, lapidary work specializing in
jade carving has been continuous since the
Shang dynasty.
Categories
There exist three broad categories of lapidary arts. These are the procedures of
tumbling,
cabochon cutting, and
faceting. The distinction is somewhat loose, and leaves a broad range within the term cabochon.
At present, most lapidary work is accomplished using motorized equipment and resin or metal bonded diamond tooling in successively decreasing particle sizes until a polish is achieved. Often, the final polish will use a different medium, such as
tin oxide, glasitite or
cerium(IV) oxide. Older techniques, still popular with hobbyists, used bonded grinding wheels of
silicon carbide, with only using a diamond tipped saw. Diamond cutting, because of the extreme
hardness of diamonds, can't be done with silicon carbide, and requires the use of diamond tools.
There are also many other forms of lapidary, not just cutting and polishing stones and gemstones. These include: casting, faceting, carving, jewelery, mosaics (eg. little slices of opal on potch, obsidian or another black stone and with a clear dome (glass or crystal quartz) on top. There are
lapidary clubs through-out the world and in Australia there are numerous gemshows
(External Link
) including an annual gemshow, the Gemborree which is a nation-wide lapidary competition. There is a collection of gem and mineral shows held in Tucson, Arizona at the beginning of February each year. This group of shows constitutes the largest gem and mineral event in the world. The event was originally started with the Tucson Gem and Mineral Society Show and has now grown to include dozens of other independent shows.
Secondary meaning
The secondary meaning of
lapidary is pertaining to, about, "of inscriptions." Since
inscriptions were laboriously chiselled to stone, a "lapidary" writing style is crisp, accurate, formal, and condensed. Only the most accomplished can express themselves verbally in a lapidary style: "Brevity is the soul of wit," as
Polonius told
Claudius.
Further Information
Get more info on 'Lapidary'.
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