Kerbschnitzen in Graubünden

Notch carving in Graubünden - motifs from individual valleys and their decorationThe still least densely populated canton in Switzerland - Graubünden - offers not only extremely rich landscape aspects from the high altitude of the eternal snow to the sweet chestnuts and palms of the southern valleys, but also an astonishing wealth in folk art that has been handed down and cultivated over the centuries. A special cultural feature, which appeared between the 16th and 19th centuries in some of the valleys of Bünden and was cultivated for a long time, is the craft of notch carving, with styles that are still little known in the valley.Beat Fischer (1925-2017) has spent many years collecting motifs of utilitarian and furnishing objects from private households or from local and valley museums in the Avers, Upper and Lower Engadin, Rheinwald, Safiental, Schams and Schanfigg. These not only reveal to the folkloristic researcher the uniqueness of rich notch carving, but the author, who was himself highly talented in notch carving, illustrates in this work that even today sober objects made of lime or Swiss stone pine can be embellished by hand with this treasure of decorative ribbons, rosettes and floral motifs, thus breathing "fresh life" into a centuries-old folk art.