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1400s. (See Picture #4). This was not my first wood project, but it was the first one I ever tried to carve using an actual period carving tool as the basis for the figure. |
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I. Materials/methods used (the process by which this
statue was made).
II. Historical documentation (the historical authenticity of a project such as this) III. A bit about the life of Saint George IV. A Bibliography |
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I. Methods/Materials |
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* Basswood * Pencils * Radial Arm Saw * Large Chisels (4 different sizes) * Small chisels (various) * Wood Gouges (several sizes) * Mallet |
* 4" whittling knife * Sandpaper * A sanding block * A wood vise * Minwax brand wood stain, color #214 ("special walnut") |
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I began my Saint George project by researching Saints on the web and in books and picking one that I thought appropriate (more on the life of Saint George will appear later in this paper). I found a picture of an actual wood carving from the 1400s that I wanted to replicate. (See Picture #4). Once I realized what I wanted to carve, I went to a woodworking shop in Raleigh and I bought a very large chunk of basswood. This I cut into the approximate sizes that I would need, using a radial arm saw. The largest piece I chose to use for Saint George. (See picture #1) My carving techniques were simple ones. I first sketched out the main body of George along two faces of the wood using a pencil. Then I began to cut away excess wood using chisels, wood gouges and a mallet. I would chip away wood until my drawings on one side were gone, and then I would redraw them in pencil and begin to chip away again. This was a several step process which took many hours to complete. As I grew closer to what I considered a finished state I would sand around the flat areas, avoiding the detail work areas such as the face and hands. Then, if necessary, I would chisel again and sand again. Once I had finished this cycle, I began to complete the smaller details of the fingers on the hand and the main facial features. This I did using a variety of small wood chisels and shaping blades. Picture #2 is a good example of an intermediate stage of the carving. Towards the end of the detail work I primarily used a regularly sharpened whittling knife. Once the smaller detail work was completed I once again sanded the entire statue, first with medium (100 grain) sandpaper and then with fine (220) grain sandpaper. Once the sanding was completed, I immediately used an oil based wood stain (Minwax #214 special walnut) to coat the statue. I did this strictly to preserve and protect the work I had done so far. My attempts to recreate the statue fell far short. I found that basswood, while easy to shape, splinters easily and marks unforgivably when sanded. Getting all of the scratches and nicks out of the wood that were caused by poor shaping and overly aggressive sanding proved impossible, and in the end the dark stain only brought out the imperfections even more. In the future, I shall work with a harder wood and avoid the use of sandpaper altogether. |
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II. Historical Documentation |
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The choice of Basswood for a carving medium was one of convenience and finances. American Basswood is only found on the North American continent. In period England, the most likely choices for this project would have been yew or oak. I found it impossible to find yew at all in this area, and I could not find oak in the appropriate sizes. While I could have ordered either of these woods from distributors, the price of doing so made that option impossible for me. Once I had the proper piece of wood, the next twenty hours or so of work was all done exclusively with a mallet and metal chisels and gouges. Chisels and Gouges of one type or another have been around since the early stone age. A set of viking shipbuilder tools from 950-1050 included with them a metal chisel (see picture #4). Chisels were also found in the ruins of Coppergate, York (dated 1120-1135). It seems that chisels during this time were likely to have short turned handles and a cutting edge flared out to twice the width of the stem. It's other end was pointed to be stuck into a wooden butt. My chisels were not flared, nor were they made of iron or inferior grade steel, but they were basically used in the same way. I sharpened them frequently with a whetstone. I used a graphite pencil to constantly draw and redraw the lines I was chiseling to. In period, this would have been charcoal, which was used to mark carpenters lines since carpentry has been historically documented. Sandpaper, which was an important part of this project, was not found per se in the fifteenth century. According to Salzman, (see bibliography) it COULD have been smoothed during that time using rottenstone (a kind of decomposed limestone), cat-tails, or possibly even the rough skin of a dog-fish, which was called in the 13-14 centuries hundysfishskyn. None of these were easily accessible for me, so I used sandpaper. Salzman does agree, as do most others, that it was most likely that statues in this period were smoothed simply by being scraped smooth with sharp, flat headed wood scrapers. In the future, I will attempt to use this method. The sandpaper that I used proved to leave more marks than it removed. Wood working projects were sealed in the twelfth-fifteenth century, sometimes using a varnish made of Copal and Oil. I used contemporary polyurethane because it was available and cheap. In the future, to be more period, I shall use a boiled linseed oil. There are a few examples of the carving of Saints, Jesus Christ and the Madonna out of wood in the middle ages. Most of these carvings were relief carvings found on coffers or carved into supports on pews or altars. Several examples of 'Saintly' high relief carving from 14th century England of Saint George's battle with the Dragon are in existence today.This statue's pose I copied directly from a 15th century statue. It is approximately 28 inches tall, but I had neither the time nor the space to get a piece of wood that large, so I cut the dimensions approximately in half. Although it is true that most of the surviving works seem to be carved in relief, (meaning carved on a two dimensional surface), there are a few examples of figures carved purely 'in the round' as three dimensional, stand alone objects. Such examples as the 'Volto santo di Lucca" a crucified Christ in tunic that dates back to eighth century Italy, and a similar carving out of wood dating back to the Prussia and the year 1000. Standing much taller than this Saint George, the sepulchral figure of Archbishop Peckham of Canterbury is an excellent example of English wood working from the early 14th century. In the thirteenth century city of Cork, a several inch high animal head carved out of wood was among the artifacts found. With regards specifically to the thirteenth-fifteenth centuries, there are several sample works to show that wood carving, especially that of religious figures, did take place. The twelfth and thirteenth centuries are sometimes referred to as the 'early renaissance'. One of the reasons for this was that secular art was beginning to flourish in small ways. Prior to the twelfth century it was difficult to find any religious carvings carved 'in the round' (three dimensional), as it was considered by many to be idolatry. During the twelfth century this began to change, first in the form of figures attached to columns. The figures of Saint Denis attached to portal columns at the St. Denis church and at Chartres are two examples of these. In both of these locations, free standing figures in stone and wood of Saints such as Saint John, Saint Michael, Saint George, and some other biblical personas began to appear as early as the late 1100s. An 18 inch tall wooden statuette of the Madonna and Child from Essex dates back to the year 1200 (see picture 6). Another taller Statue of Saint John from Vestfold dates back to the mid thirteenth century (see picture 7) Until around 1350 wood carving borrowed much of its rules and carving schemes from stone cutting. Lines were simple, and figures were often painted with a variety of colors. Details in the figure would often be provided via the paint on it. Typical wooden carved figures in churches were plated in gold or silver or painted with bright metallic colors. That 'real wood' look which we value so much in contemporary times was commonplace and possibly considered boring in the Middle Ages. Duller colors or simple varnishing were used more often in personal woodcarvings. I tried to reflect this in Saint George, whom I would place as a statue within a home, not a church, around the year 1400. He would most likely have been bought by a person who had a reason to pray to Saint George. |
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III. A brief story of the life of Saint George |
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Saint George was a soldier and a martyr, and there is little else that can be said about him with certainty. Many legends are attached to his name. It is known that he was martyred in the year 304 AD in Palestine by being tortured and beheaded. The oldest and perhaps the best known story of St. George is the 'Golden Legend'. In it a fierce dragon near
Silena, Libya was destroying whole armies. It required of the locals two sheep a day to eat, and when sheep got scarce it started eating maidens instead. Into the country came George, who heard about the dragon and immediately rode after it. George killed the horrible monster with a single blow. He then gave the locals a sermon and converted them all to Catholicism. He became especially popular as a Saint in England around the 10th century. By the fifteenth century (the time of this carving), his feast day (typically April 23rd) was almost as popular in England as Christmas was. The celebrated Knights of the Garter are actually another name for the Knights of Saint George.
Saint George was also known as the patron Saint of, among other things,
archers, armorers, Boy Scouts, cavalry, chivalry, England, Istanbul, knights, lepers, saddle-makers, soldiers, syphilis, and Venice. |
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IV. Bibliography |
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1) Goodman, W.L. The History of Woodworking Tools, David McKay Company Incorporated, New York, NY, 1964 2) Hall, R.A. 10th Century Woodworking in Coppergate, York. From Woodworking Techniques before AD 1500, a series of papers put out by the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, Archeological series No. 7, 1980. 3) Salzman, L.F. Building in England down to 1540, 1952 4) Sandoval, Annette, The Directory of Saints, Signet Printing, New York, 1991. 5) Stone, Lawrence, Sculpture in Britain in the Middle Ages, Penguin Books, 1955 6) Swanson, R.N. The Twelfth Century Renaissance, Manchester University Press, Manchester, UK, 1999. 7) Walker, Phillip, The Tools Available to the Medieval Woodworker. From Woodworking Techniques before AD 1500, a series of papers put out by the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, Archeological series No. 7, 1980. 8) Wood Carving. from the Catholic Encyclopedia, 1913, Encyclopedia Press, Inc., New York, NY. |
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