Tuesday 7 August 2012

It's not all about ME!


I was leafing through my 1980s Stone Directory yesterday, sourcing one of three stones for the Salisbury job, when I came across this advert for a mason's company, and took this rather crappy photo of it on my phone.

This picture probably represents the most extreme example of a shortcoming typical of all mediocre  figurative stone sculptors - the inability to produce any representation of the human face without accidentally turning it into a self-portrait.

I say 'mediocre' rather than just plain bad, because you have to have reached quite a high level of skill  to make a convincing self-portrait, but the difference between a technically good carver/modeller and a very good one lies in his/her ability to transcend the natural tendency to copy the face of the one you love the most, once you have mastered the basic techniques of simply knocking away stone.

Of course, it would be foolish not to refer to your own face as a basic reference when you have forgotten if the mouth is above or below the nose, etc.  (believe me, this is not so ridiculous as it sounds - I once carved a figure with six fingers on one hand), but slavishly sticking to every personal detail shows a lack of confidence, or - more accurately - laziness when it comes to actually 'seeing' rather than simply looking at someone else's physical characteristics.

When in the closing stages of carving a massive, stone, bearded head a couple of years ago, I went for lunch, leaving my glamourous assistant with strict instructions to concentrate on the hair and beard parts of it, and nothing else.

This is going to sound very arrogant and vain, but it is a simple statement of fact:  I have quite a classical nose, and I have used it as a straight model for some figurative carving a few times in the past. That is the only part of my body that can be used for traditionally classical figures so directly (apart from my penis in certain weather conditions and in states of irrational terror), so don't get the idea that I think I am some sort of Apollo - I would not copy the bags under my eyes, for instance.

My glamorous assistant has a much nicer body than me (well, he is almost 20 years younger) but his nose - though perfectly nice - is shortish and somewhat squat.

When I got back from lunch, I saw with horror that he was in the process of altering the nose I had carved - using his own for reference - and would have completely changed the whole thing from a river-god with fearful and primitive authority, to a Socrates type persona with a cheeky look about him.  This was when I first realised that - though a brilliant modeller - he had his weak areas and had to be held in check at certain times.

The other major, utterly self-centred and unforgivable sin with restoration is to leave your signature all over it.  This can be in the form of actually signing your work (idiotic) but is usually about leaving traces of your style when restoring the work of someone else who not only died hundreds of years ago, but left without telling us his name.

I once restored a very badly damaged stone item for an antique dealer, and this took so long that he had forgotten how badly damaged it was.  When he came to collect it, he said it looked good and asked how much he owed me.  When I told him, he said in horror,  "But I can't see what you have done to it! How can it be so much money?"  I said that if he could see what I had done to it, then the price would be much lower.

The picture below is of an early statue of King Bladud, the semi-mythical figure credited with discovering the curative properties if Bath's hot waters.  It's restoration and conservation fell to a good stone-carver friend of mine who is also also a bit of a dab-hand in the use of natural pigments.  He is also renowned for turning almost every figurative carving into something of a self-portrait.

How ironic that this figure - carved about 400 years before he was born - could easily be a portrait of him as he looked when he did the work.  Maybe that's how he got the job.




19 comments:

  1. Most figurative painters manage to slip-in the occasional self-portrait here and there. I've done it myself many times.

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    1. I've seen a few of your deliberate ones, Cro. It's worse with sculpture for some reason, unless you have been commissioned to make a portrait of someone else.

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  2. Not an Apollo, eh?
    I have to say that first image made me laugh and the description of your assistant 'improving' your carved nose was excellent. xx

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    1. It's always made women laugh, Bris - especially when I am in a state of irrational terror, which I always am when confronted with women.

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  3. The nose knows, as they say in Britain... Fascinating post especially the descriptions of 'self'!

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    1. You just couldn't get past it, could you, Broad? Well don't believe everything you read in the Court Reports.

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  4. the one on the right is a bit of a dish

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    1. He was quite good at writing poems too - never mind the wimple.

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  5. I have trouble drawing stick people, so to carve anything that resembles anything is well beyond my skill.

    I shall now have to look more critically at carvings and see what portraits i see in them.

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    1. I have trouble drawing stick-people too - look at the money that Lowry made from it.

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  6. At my school, a huge ancient tithe barn was converted to become our 'new' dining hall. As the stone masons were obliged to replace several stone corbels, they made portraits of the senior mason, our headmaster, Edward the Confessor (an old boy), and several other notables. Frankly they weren't very good.

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    1. They never are. I have a golden rule - anyone who shows a 'Green Man' roof-boss carving in their portfolio will never get a job from me. I know a theatrical director who applies the same thing to any applicant who has ever been a child actor in 'Oliver!'. Every applicant in the know lies, and quite often gets work.

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  7. If I remember rightly, many of the stone figures high on the walls of Lincoln cathedral have the faces of some of the masons. Do I take it that your face graces some areas (we'll forget the other part you mentioned) of the country incognito, so to speak?

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    1. No, Weaver - sadly my face is far from immortal, although the 'Gherkin' building in London is said to have been based on a scaled-up version of the other bit, and my arse has been used for a bike-rack in some futuristic designs in the Communist Block as well.

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    2. ........and your wit has been used to split the atom!

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  8. You remind me of my last trip to Litchfield Cathedral. I'm no expert, so am happy to be corrected, but it struck me that some of the latest "renovations" of the stone carving have been done in the style of Dungeons and Dragons. I can't say I liked it much.

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    1. All those figures on the West Front of Salisbury (almost) were done by the Victorians. They knew a thing or two about fantasy.

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  9. And how do people use their own noses when they can't see them?

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    1. Well, you may be unaware of the latest technology, but there are these things called 'mirrors'. I try to avoid them myself.

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