• Flying buttress figurine: Caritas, love

    Eusebius, Restoration, video
    copying the flying buttress statue Caritas for the Eusebius Church in Arnhem
    the figurine Caritas during copying

    Caritas under pressure

    Gloomy clouds gather around Arnhem's Eusebius Church. After years of smooth and energetic restoration, the first restoration budget has come to its end. In a previous message from 2016 I could report that money had finally been released, and although the subsidies have been handled very efficiently, at that time it was already known that it would not be enough to complete the entire project. There is a lot of fuss in the media about it, and immediately there are also people who claim that the entire project would be a bottomless pit, but they talk like a headless chicken.

    A top-class restoration

    For this budget, the Eusebius Church, at less than one-third of the amount previously estimated, is being thoroughly restored and also adapted to contemporary requirements. The time of mass church attendance is simply behind us, and the church is now mainly used for other purposes. In addition, this is a top-class restoration, which can be seen by everyone who gets the chance to wander through the building and over the scaffolding. Certainly not a bottomless pit, butan examplary project. It would be foolish to stop now, just when we are nearing the finish line and have stayed within budget despite extensions to the original restoration approach. So I look forward with confidence to the next round of investment in this important building.

    In the Gelderlander of 6 October 2020 the following article could be read:

    Restoration Eusebiuskerk stopped again; shortage of 3 million euros

    scaffolding visit Eusebius flying buttresses
    The scaffolding around the tower of the Eusebius Church in 2016

    ARNHEM – The restoration of the Eusebius Church in Arnhem has been halted again due to lack of money. In 2016 the work has also been stopped once, because there were no subsidies from the various governments.

    There is still approximately missing 3 million euros for the completion of the last phase of the large-scale restoration project on this national monument. The hope is that the province of Gelderland will help financially in the short term.

    This provincial support had already been counted on, but due to various circumstances it has not yet been granted.

    Within the budget

    The money is needed for the repairs to the choir part of the building. That is the part on the east side of the church, opposite the 'Duivelshuis' the Devil's House. The total restoration project for the Eusebius Church in 2013 was budgeted at approx 32,5 million euros. The total project remains within budget.

    The Provincial Executive of Gelderland recently proposed to the Provincial Council to make a maximum subsidy available of 2,5 million euros to the Eusebius Arnhem Foundation, which is responsible for the preservation and operation of this house of God.

    But it is not until November that the Provincial Council will decide whether to agree to this during the discussion of the budget for next year.

    -Read the entire article here ā†‘

    Two more articles: the first about the mystery of the budget deficit ā†‘ and the second on the period of waiting for more moneyā†‘.

    The tenor of these two articles is the same: lots of alarm and drama, while there is actually not much going on. An awful lot has been done with the available money and the restoration will also be completed with the same care.

    Consequences for the sculptors?

    Copy flying buttress figurine de Hoop (Spes)
    copying flying buttress statue The Hope at 35 degrees Celsius

    Actually, this does and doesn't have consequences for us. On the one hand, we just keep doing our thing and we still squeeze out one flying buttress figurine after another. On the other hand, the budget has also been temporarily suspended for us. Why then do we just continue with those statues, you may ask?  This has everything to do with a period of relative calm before a great hustle and bustle.

    Lots of work to come

    The old flying buttress statue The Hope made of tuff stone
    The old flying buttress statue of The Hope, out of tuff stone

    I can't say everything about it yet, but in spite of the apparent calm on this blog, Jelle and I in particular have been extremely busy recently. That is the reason that I couldn't keep up with writing blog articles. Indeed, I recently completed a flying buttress sculpture that depicted The Hope, from the series of the Seven Virtues, and I simply forgot to take pictures of it! Well, then it is therefore not possible to write an article about it anymore. But it is not forgotten, I will take pictures of it later at the Eusebius Church, where the figurine is stored.

    A very busy autumn and winter

    Things will get even crazier in the coming months, because we are currently already working on large finials for the Utrecht Dom Tower, and another major project is coming up in Veghel, I still have to tackle a number of smaller projects, my mother eagerly awaits my father's tombstone, and there are still a great number of ornaments and sculptures coming which I cannot name yet.

    Seven Virtues

    sculptor Stide Vos with tattered old flying buttress figurine Fides
    Stide at the old flying buttress statue of Fides. This statue clearly shows why we cut these copies: they are completely full of cracks.

    But around the summer period we had a somewhat quiet time. But we have not been idle! Like with the flying buttress of the Seven Sins that we had last year, there was now the flying buttress next to it, with the Seven Virtues. Jelle and I have almost finished all of them, except for the statue of Faith, that Stide is now working on.

    We thought it would be smart to tackle the next flying buttress now, because we already knew there was so much work to be done later. However, they were not waiting for that at the Eusebius Church. This flying buttress is actually part of the next restoration phase and they hadn't even started on that yet. Plus that the budget was starting to run out. But with some deliberation we could move forward. If we had postponed it, it would have become much, much busier next spring!

    Two griffins

    modeling in clay of griffin shield
    Modeling the shield for the two griffins

    When some space came up this summer, Jelle and I immediately seized the opportunity to finally decisively to continue with the modeling work on this blog the two mirrored griffins, on which I already started in 2017 with a scale model. The work is in no hurry because the castle is not ready yet, but now we have been hard at work. Soon I'll post an extensive report. In any case, we made full-size clay models and cast them in plaster. On Instagram you get to see something of these activities.

    Caritas, love

    copy of Caritas flying buttress statue

    One of the figurines I copied for arch no. 23 is Caritas, the symbol of Love. Quite appropriate for this time in the restoration of the Eusebius Church, Caritas also means Charity and Generosity.

    Sculptor Eduard van Kuilenburg has carved Caritas from tuff as a young woman in a thick dress, holding a somewhat listless child in strange proportions on her lap. It has a rather small head and very broad shoulders.

    completed Caritas figurine

    In the copy I made a few minor adjustments to Caritas, so that the child has a bit more of a child's head. I also made the heart that was on the right side, from a flat object into a rounded shaped, pumped up heart, because luckily I had more mass in the stone at that point. It is characteristic of our approach: we largely stick to the original sculpture, in finish, dimensions and details, but we try to give some points a little more tension, which makes the figurinea bit more expressive. We also carve, just as we did with the Seven Sins, the Latin name of each virtue in the side profile. See more about this in the post about the previous flying buttress statue from this series: Temperantia.

    Gallery

    To the next flying buttress image ā†’

  • 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.

    list of all flying buttresses and their themes
    -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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