Anyone who has visited those places will undoubtedly be familiar with traditional wood carving, which has its roots in very ancient times: particularly flourishing during the Middle Ages, it then had a further “moment of glory” in the Baroque era.
One of the artistic peculiarities of Ladinia, that is, of that area of the Dolomites that includes the so-called “five valleys” (Gardena, Fassa, Badia, Livinallongo and Ampezzano), is its characteristic art of wood carving. Anyone who has visited those places will undoubtedly be familiar with traditional wood carving, which has its roots in very ancient times: particularly flourishing during the Middle Ages, it then had a further “moment of glory” in the Baroque era. From the workshops of sculptors in Val Gardena (the area in which this tradition is perhaps most deeply rooted) and the surrounding areas came out the most diverse artifacts: objects for everyday use, for the home, for the kitchen and for work, toys for children, votive statues destined for chapels and churches but also demanding apparatuses for the largest buildings of worship, such as those that one of the greatest eighteenth-century interpreters of wooden sculpture, Johann Perger, executed for the churches in the area. A tradition that constitutes an identity trait for the people of these valleys, and which today survives stronger than ever, indeed: there are artists who for several decades have begun to diverge from the most stringent “orthodoxy” in order to develop current research, in line with the challenges posed by contemporary art and today’s society.