• Flying buttress figurine: The Idleness

    Eusebius, Restoration

    Acedia

    first stage of rough carving The Idleness

    The next flying buttress figurine from arc no. 24 of St. Eusebius's Church in Arnhem wasn't entirely clear to me. We've seen all seven sins pass by, except Sloth, sometimes called idleness, laziness or inertia, so this one had to be it.

    To the first message about this flying buttress.

    Idleness

    next stage in carving flying buttress figurine The Idleness

    I just don't know how the sculptor had originally intended this. I also thought at first that this one was Pride, or Hubris, a lady with voluptuous bosom that sits high on horseback. Or maybe it should depict a donkey?

    Dolce Far Niente

    flying buttress figurine Idleness completed

    Maybe this lady portrays the lack of direction of a bored rich lady, spending her days with useless things and letting the workhorses do the work? "Idleness is the devil's earcushion,’ as an old saying goes, though I always thought they meant you really had to be flexible if you wanted to give the devil a kiss on his ear. This lady is in any case sufficiently limber!

    However it may be, I just copied the sculpture as it was. While working I noticed that not only the breasts threatened to fall overboardfrom her gown, but even the nipples are in focus. "It's must be feeding time again', commented my mate Stide. 'How so??’ I asked.
    ‘Well,’ he said, 'The piglets are already looking over the trough!’

    Structure

    flying buttress figurine Idleness completed

    The old sculpture had a heavily weathered surface, but I noticed something that hinted the sculptor had carved something of a structure and had made the suggestion of a thick woolen dress. I tried to imitate that by first bush hammering, horse and dress and carving short, shallow lines into the dress with a pointed chisel, resulting in a lively surface.

    Dog-Latin

    sculpture The Envy -presawing
    presawing Envy, step 2

    In a previous post on this flying buttressI told you about the theme that these sculptures convey: the seven deadly sins. Each figurine we have carved so far (and Jelle has made three out of these seven) has been given a Latin name in the profile on the side: Superbia for Vanity, Gula for Gluttony, Ira for Rage, Avaritia for Greed, This Laziness or Idleness is called Acedia, and then later Stide will be adding Luxuria for Lust and Invidia for Envy. Which are both on their way as well.

    A mysogynous sculptor?

    sculpture The Envy -presawing
    presawing Envy- step 3

    Some ladies noted that women come down quite badly in this series, because actually only the Fury is a male. This went against their sense of justice and some of them therefore ascribed a very negative view of women to the original sculptor.

    But even in the next series, which should represent the seven Virtues, the majority is shown as female as well. The conclusion is clear: Eduard van Kuilenburg, who carved almost all of the flying buttress figurines in the 1950s , had no trouble with women. On the contrary: he would rather carve images of women than men. That would explain why there are so many women among these sculptures.

    Measuring up

    carving the profiles on Idleness
    The profile leans 5 degrees to the left with respect to the wall face, and 61 degrees downwards

    Because with the previous flying buttresses often the topmost sculpture didn't fit quite right inside the surrounding wall surface, I especially went to St. Eusebius's church along with Remon Theissen from Slotboom Stonemasons to measure the position of the arch in relation to the church. Such a visit to the church is always a wonderful opportunity to consider the work of recent times. And again it was clear to me how much skill is invested in this restoration. The finished part looks awesome, and our previous flying buttress figurines with the trumpet angels, wise maidens, foolish maidens and crippleds from the Beatitudes fit right in.

    flying buttresses Eusebius's church, south side
    flying buttresses Eusebius's church, south side
    flying buttresses Eusebius's church, south side
    flying buttresses Eusebius's church, south side
    flying buttresses Eusebius's church, south side

    to the next flying buttress statue

  • The flying buttress with the seven sins-2: carving!

    background, Eusebius, Restoration
    Copy air arch image the anger. Photo during the carving of the details

    As you may perhaps remember: at 9 March 2019 I posted a blogpost about our next series of flying buttress figurines to be carved for St. Eusebius' church, which arrived in pieces in our yard.

    These images were impregnated with acrylic resin, to the core, but something went wrong and they burst at the seams. Literally. On an old photo you can see how the sculptures sat there under tension, arcing above the flying buttress itself, because they expanded so much.

    flying buttress no. 24, expanded and broken

     Jelle then spent a long time gathering all the loose parts and bonding them into recognizable sculptures again. These were the seven sculptures from flying buttress no. 24, on the subject of The Seven Sins. The first sculptures are finished now.

    I haven't even done that much work on this arc myself, mainly because I was busy with other projects: Thomas Aquinas, large crockets for The Utrecht Dom Cathedral, and family crests (I've been busy with the next one already, in Belgian bluestone).

    Naughty ladies for Jelle

    Jelle Steendam busy carving a copy of the flying buttress statuette of Gluttony
    Jelle Steendam with Gluttony

    Stide has also been busy with other projects, so Jelle was the one who had the most momentum. He had presawn a number of sculptures and subsequently been carving away on Vanity and Gluttony. He is now working on Greed. I've only made Rage so far, and Stide is now working on Lust.

    Flying Buttress Figurine Vanity, copy by Jelle Steendam
    Vanity is very pleased with her own beauty

    Vanity is a lady with long hair and a mirror, Gluttony is a fat lady stuffing something in her mouth, and Lust is a naked lady with toads to her chest. I'll keep it short about these sculptures here, the gentlemen can explain that on their own websites.

    The Anger

    One of the seven deadly sins is the rage, or anger. This was the statue that I got to carve myself. It represents a man pulling a knife and with a face distorted from rage and hair pulled back, frightening everyone else.

    copying flying buttress statue Rage
    Carving a copy of flying buttresses figurine Rage

    The original image had sharp teeth, but the eyes were closed, so that the expression was a bit half-hearted. So I took some pictures to find out how the eyes are in such a face.

    expression study of flying buttress figurine The Rage

    Latin terminology

    carving flying buttress statue Rage (close-up)

    Each of these seven vices has a latin term to it, and Ithought it would be nice to carve that word in the side of the profile for each of the sculptures. This would be Ira, the Latin word for rage, Gluttony becomes Gula, Vanity would be Superbia and Lust becomes Luxuria . Then there are Avaritia (greed/avarice), Acedia (laziness/sloth) and Invidia (envy/slander). And each virtue has its own term as well, but those will be coming up much later on, because after this, we first get to carve the Musicians and the Apostles from flying buttress no. 14 and 16.

    Crates full of debris: old photos wanted!

    crates with flying buttress figurines that are yet to be copied.
    some of the crates with the old flying buttress figurines
    a crate with a flying buttress figurine in ruins
    if you have any old photos, that would help me a lot in their reconstruction

    We had a few weeks of good weather, so I took the opportunity to measure up all of the remaining flying buttress sculptures, so we'd -in due course- be able to order the new stone in advance. But I didn't find all the figurines in good condition in their crates! There were a few crates among them with only a thick layer of debris at the bottom. I have no doubt that if necessary we could also reconstruct these sculptures properly, but seven of these figurines will not return to the church. People are thinking hard about a modern interpretation to fill the holes they leave behind.

    weathered tuff sculptures in storage in the sculptor's yard
    a small part of the old sculptures in the yard

    But for the rest of them, we'll have to restore everything and let our creativity fill in the missing parts. If anyone has any old pictures of the flying buttresses on which the sculptures still shine in full regalia, I can use those very well. My email address can be found on the contact page.

    Almost 60 finished, some 38 more to go?

    weathered figurines of the musicians in storage
    a few of the seven musicians and seven apostles from buttresses 14 and 16

    We're coming along nicely, carving all those new figurines: with these three we've landed at 56 , and number 57 and 58 are already in progress. It is hard to imagine that we've made so many already and it still is fun to do! I must admit that the Foolish Maidens and especially the Crippled were not as interesting, but these are definitely worth it because they are so expressive and clearly tell a story. And then you have to remember that we also did a lot of work for the tower of St. Eusebius's Church. Especially Stide spent months of carving in the workshop in Arnhem and made a lot of corbels into new stone.

    lijst met alle luchtbogen en hun thema's
    -click on the image for a larger view-

    There are still a lot of figurines to go, but not all of the sculptures can be saved. We do not know how many we'll still get to carve exactly, but for the curious among us, here's a list of all the flying buttress numbers and the themes for each arch (sorry, it's in Dutch only!).

    To the next flying buttress image and on YouTube

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