• Four grotesques in Amsterdam-1

    background, Restoration

    Reconstructing and copying

    Four grotesques in Amsterdam, lion's head 1, weather-beaten

    For a building in Amsterdam, I am currently carving four grotesques: ferocious sandstone heads. All four are severely damaged, which was the reason for choosing to replace them.

    The idea behind this is that at this moment enough remains to make a reconstruction of the original, and that the remains still can be preserved. With the new heads mounted into the façade something will remain for posterity to see. This is typically a job for which a restoration sculptor really is the best choice. Alternatives, such as, for example, impregnated with acrylic resin, making a cast , or creating a 3D-print from the original, will still provide an incomplete picture of a damaged original. Reconstructing is therefore an essential part of the copying process.

    Archive of images

    Four grotesques in Amsterdam, grotesque 2, weather-beaten

    In these cases, I will first have to find out what has been there in the past and put this back into the copy. With a permanently soft artificial clay that I can easily remove again I start remodelling the missing parts. For this, I will need reference material, and the main one is of course the parts that are still in good condition on the old heads themselves. For example, one of those is a totally weathered lion, but because what is weathered on the left is still intact on the right and vice versa, I hardly need to remodel anything on it. I will simply copy the first half, and then mirror that on the other side; that way, I can carve a complete copy. The first head unfortunately missed its entire lower jaw. It was already badly damaged, but it was so brittle that the lower half totally crumbled during disassembly. In reconstructing I therefore made use of image archives of similar heads: one inside my head, and one on photos. I have previously written a blog post about how these picture archives in your head work, which you can read here: "The statue is already in there, you just need to remove the rest ... " From heads that I've copied before, I recognized the way to carve the eyebrows, or the cheeks.

    My method of working

    Four grotesques in Amsterdam, grotesque 3, weather-beaten

    Once I've found the overall right shapes, I'll follow my usual method of copying. This can be done, for example, with a pointing machine, but in this case I found the right shape quickly with a template and a few compasses. Because ultimately it is often a matter of costs: with a pointing machine I will certainly be more accurate, but it all takes a lot longer. I will have to make suspension points, make a wooden cross for it, fine-tune all of it… by that time I will already have finished half of the precarving, if I take a different approach. That's why I transferred the outlines onto a piece of cardboard, wich I traced onto the new stone, and by placing the pieces side by side I could quickly reference its main dimensions. Read here a post about copying techniques. The heads had to be copied into the same stone: Udelfanger sandstone. The stonemason provided me with four new blocks, exactly cut to size.

    Finishing

    Four grotesques in Amsterdam, original grotesque 1, weather-beaten

    These heads may looke like they were finished with sharp details, but at the time, they were carved quite quickly with a toothed chisel. The tooth chisel marks can still be clearly seen on the original. That means that this should also return in the copy. If I had designed them myself, I probably would have finished everything completely with a grater. However, the chisel marks do give the whole a lively character, which doesn't dominate at all when seen from the street: After all, they are about twelve meters high up.

    Why these grotesques?

    Mother Kali, removing evil inside us, standing on the body of Shiva

    I was already wondering myself, and it's exactly the question I keep getting from visitors: "Why would anyone want to install such horrible heads on their house?’ As I went searching on the internet for the significance of these grotesques I couldn't find much at first; the German Wikipedia does mention the ‘Neidkopf‘, and describes that it is intended to keep off envy. 'Grotesque’ by the way refers to the Itailaanse word 'grotta', which means cave. It refers to a period in which it was fashionable to have a cave in your garden with all kinds of fantastic and terrifying sculptures in it.

    We also know the devil on churches and fearsome temple guards of Hindu and Buddhist temples. Apparently they have a function to keep envy and the evil eye outside the building, but intuitively I would think very differently about that myself. I'd rather just decorate my building with very positive and auspicious symbols and figures, that benefit not only its residents but also the environment. putting devils on it seems like asking for trouble; it seems to me that they rather attract more turmoil than scare it off.

    On the other hand, there was the Indian saint Sri Ramakrishna Paramahamsa. He had a great affection for one of the most horrible forms of the Divine Mother: of the Godess Kali. For him she, with her belt of human arms and a necklace of human skulls, was the one who on the one hand ruthlessly exterminated all the negativity inside of him, and on the other the most tender mother he could wish for. So again it appears that all depends on our own understanding and perception.

    Restoration architect: Bureau Delfgou
    Restoration Stonemason: Slotboom Stonemasons
    Read more…

  • Three sandstone lions for three herrings

    Restoration

    For a property in Deventer I was asked to carve a set of lions in Bentheimer sandstone.

    sculptor Leo sandstone Deventer The Three Herrings
    new sandstone lion
    sandstone lion copy
    side view
    Head lion sandstone Deventer old and new
    two small relief stones with lion's head, old and new

    Two old lions were still present, but they were strongly weathered down. One of the lions was missing a paw and just as with the sandstone falcon a lot of weathering damage on top of what I suspect was bird droppings. The top lion was only half present. Someone had already repaired it with cement somewhere in the past, but that too had now largely disappeared. Therefore this lion had to be reconstructed, in this case by Jan Tolboom, and then I was asked to carve a copy in new stone.

    Lions Deventer old-new
    The left hand lion will be put back, the right hand one is a reconstructed copy, carved in mirror image. On the shield the house sign is depicted

    Mirroring

    The original lions are probably very old, given their strange anatomy. In those days there was no internet yet, no library with books for reference nor even a zoo with a lion’s den where the sculptor could study the animals. The sculptor would have had to make do with descriptions and traditional depictions in trying to make a lion. So in the end, they have become somewhat endearing creatures.

    I had to carve a mirrored copy, which is always a bit trickier than just carving a copy, for then I have to think in reverse. Finally, there was also a small relief stone with a lion's head to be copied.

    Herrings and house sign

    The lion with the three herrings on its shield comes on top of the facade, and the other two to the left and right; the old weathered lion will be placed back just as it is now, as I understand. The topmost lion will also get a copper banner between its paws.

    The top lion carries on its shield the three herrings after which the property was named, and the right hand lion got the house sign that was found on one of the old lions. The house sign is a mark made up of simple lines, as a personal mark of the owner, that was later passed from father to son.

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