The craft of bringing wood to life
Marionetes.com.br is an independent site devoted to string puppets: the thousands of years behind them, the techniques used by those who build and perform with them, what contemporary research explores about puppetry in education and health, and the pieces that leave my workbench, carved one at a time.
Who this site is for
A marionette is a simple object: wood, joints, strings and a control bar. Yet the moment someone lifts it, an audience — child or adult — agrees that this piece of wood is breathing. That transfer of life is what interests me, and it is the subject of this site.
You will find material organised for four kinds of visitor: curious readers, who arrived with a single question and want to know where this art comes from; students and teachers, who need reliable references on puppetry and animated forms; makers and beginners, who want to know how a marionette is built and performed; and collectors looking for handmade pieces.
Nothing here is recycled filler. The historical texts rest on the bibliography declared in the Library; the technical pages come from bench practice; and every photograph of a piece is my own.
Where to start
History
From Palaeolithic mammoth ivory to Japanese bunraku and Brazilian mamulengo: the schools that shaped the art.
Read the history →Technique
Woods, tools, joints, stringing and the principles of manipulation that make a puppet look alive.
See the craft →Science
What research in education, psychology and health investigates about working with puppets.
Read the articles →Glossary
Control bar, rod, bunraku, mamulengo, shadow theatre: the vocabulary of the trade, term by term.
Look it up →Curiosities
Short pieces on episodes, characters and frequently asked questions from the world of puppetry.
Read the blog →Showroom
Original pieces carved by knife, with photographs, measurements and a description of each model.
See the pieces →
The craft in three sentences
A well-built string puppet obeys a strict economy: every joint exists because it produces a movement an audience reads as human, and every string exists because a finger needs to command it. More strings do not mean more realism — they mean more confusion. The hardest part of the craft is not carving the head; it is deciding what not to articulate.
If you want to see that logic in practice, start with the technique page. If you prefer the long road, start with history — it explains why almost every culture on earth independently invented a way of making figures move.