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| A lot of Kantele were painted in dark colours or smoked over a fire but little had more painted decoration than this. Instead of it instruments were often excessively decorated with carved patterns. It seems to be that the majority of instruments were painted on purpose and not just to protect the surface of an instrument. A large amount of Kantele was painted with oil colours and the others have some sort of organic colouring. The colour is usually dark tending towards black and never coming out of the limits of dark brown colour. It seems to be significant that with a little exeption no other colours were employed and there is no painted decoration at all. The amount of carved decoration varies from nothing at all to a very exessive decoration covering almost all surface of an instrument. The most widespread technique was of triangular incisions arranged in lines along the major edges of an instrument and sometimes in different other patterns. It was often combined with simple linear design. There are also instruments with circular scratched design and sometimes even a date was carved on a surface of an instrument. Some instruments have strange pentacle like pattern carved once on front or bottom. It is remarkable that if an instrument had a deck it very was rarely decorated with carved patterns. All of the carved decoration was done before an instrument was painted. | |
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