Openwork

Openwork or open-work is a term in art history, architecture and related fields for any technique that produces decoration by creating holes, piercings, or gaps that go right through a solid material such as metal, wood, stone, pottery, cloth, leather, or ivory.

The term is rather flexible, and used both for additive techniques that build up the design, as for example most large features in architecture, and those that take a plain material and make cuts or holes in it.

For example, opus interrasile is a type of decoration used in Ancient Roman and Byzantine jewellery, piercing thin strips of gold with punches.

Essentially flat objects are straightforward to cast using moulds of clay or other materials, and this technique was known in ancient China since before the Shang dynasty of c. 1600 to 1046 BC.

Openwork sections can be made either by cutting into a conventional solid body before firing, or by building up using strips of clay, the latter often used when loose wickerwork is being imitated.

Some types of objects naturally suit or even require openwork, which allows a flow of air through screens, censers or incense burners, pomanders,[8] sprinklers, ventilation grilles and panels, and various parts of heating systems.

Belfries and bell towers normally include open or semi-open elements to allow the sound to be heard at distance, and these are often turned to decorative use.