• Seven trumpet angels for Eusebius's Church in Arnhem

    background, Eusebius, Restoration

    Good news

    Two weathered Tuff trumpet angels of Eusebius' Church in Arnhem
    Two weathered Tuff Angels with trumpet

    As you may perhaps remember… There was good news for the Eusebius Church in Arnhem. The Church was allocated by the Dutch National Service for Cultural Heritage 1,9 million for restoration.

    It is not enough for the whole Church to be restored, but we can go ahead a whole lot anyway. For me and my colleague Stide that means green light for carving another seven flying buttress statuettes.

    Read the first message about this restoration here.

    Trumpeting angels

    the old Tuff trumpet angels must first be repaired
    The sculptures have to be repaired first

    I started with the first one of this series. This group of flying buttress no. 32 depicts seven trumpet angels. I don't know for sure, but I suspect this theme was derived from the book of Revelation, the last book of the Bible , in which John the Evangelist describes an overwhelming vision he had. Among other things he describes seven angels with a trumpet, and every time one starts to sound the trumpet another incredible disaster starts to unfold over the Earth and its inhabitants. It didn't make me any happier, but if you desparately need to read it, you can do so here.

    Impregnation

    These seven little angels with their horns have been depicted on flying buttress number 32 together and were carved, around the years 1950-1960 from Ettringer tuff stone. They deteriorated so fast that these figurines were impregnated in the 90s using a special acrylic resin procedure, which should have kept them for eternity. Or at least a long way in that direction. But strangely enough the decay turned out to be going on after that time as well, and loose parts were falling down, after which it was decided to disassemble the statuettes as a precaution and store them. Even in their crates they kept falling apart. Which is why I was asked to copy them in German Muschelkalk limestone.

    Repairs

    Trumpet angels precut from a block of limestone
    Precutting out of a block of limestone

    Various loose parts of the trumpet angels were already fixed with glue by the contractor. But each figurine missed some pieces and also the washed out soft parts or 'bims’ resulted in large gaps. Because I'm using my copying saw to speed up the process I need to first fill up the holes. In doing so, I noticed that the figurines won't absorb any water on their outside, but at their core, however, they do. That's why I suspect that the so-called 'Full Core Acrylic Resin Impregnation’ did not work as intended in this case, or on this material.

    Cutting and copying

    Trumpet angel for St. Eusebius' Church in Arnhem. The original was quite simple and roughly worked. The copy is sharper, but the same
    The original was quite simple and roughly worked. The copy is sharper, but with the same surface working, with chisel strokes clearly visible.

    After repairs I cut a little angel out of a block of new Muschelkalk limestone, and then I started carving. As with the previous sculptures, it is intended that the coarse character of the reconstruction statuettes is reflected in the copy, with the chisel strokes and traces of tooth chisel.

    Ten virgins

    By now I found out that the two girls that Stide and I carved last time refer to the Bible as well: they are a few of the five foolish and five wise maidens. Jesus liked to tell his teachings to the disciples in parables, and one day he told them about the coming of the Kingdom of the Heavens. 'If you wait for that and forget to maintain your energy levels, then you're not ready when the bridegroom comes', he told them. In his parabel he told them about ten waiting girls, and all ten were carrying a lamp, but only five of them had extra oil as well. You can read the whole story, including the (I think later added) catastrophic end of grinding teeth and wailing here in Dutch.

    Nasty the next article about these flying buttress statues.

  • Flying Buttress figurines for St. Eusebius' Church Arnhem

    background, Eusebius, Restoration
    2 comments

    Restoration St. Eusebius' Church gets going again

    Good news! There is a budget again for the restoration of the St. Eusebius's Church in Arnhem (the Netherlands). Today a press release came out that the municipality and province have provided funding for a transitional period of a few months, and the expectation is that the rest of the restoration project will in time be provided for as well. As a result, I can now report that the next few months I will be busy carving a whole batch of new statuettes for the flying buttresses of this church. Below is an account of the first two that Stide and I made.

    Read the first message about this restoration here.

    Flying buttress sculptures for St. Eusebius's

    precutting flying buttres figurine1
    the precutting of a flying buttress statuette

    The St. John's Cathedral in 's-Hertogenbosch is known to many people in the Netherlands. Quite recently, that church has also received a lot of attention flying buttress figurines as well: on account of the Jerome Bosch year, a scaffolding was built into the roof gutter, providing access so that everyone can view the famous flying buttress figurines with their own eyes, under the title ‘a Wonderful Climb‘.

    Flying buttres figurine ES1

    However, less known is that there is another church in the Netherlands whose flying buttresses used to be covered in flying buttress figurines: the St. Eusebius's Church in Arnhem (the Netherlands). This church currently is mainly in the news because its restoration has met with financial difficulties. But I am hopeful of a positive course of the further restoration.

    Much of the church and tower was heavily damaged by bombing and shelling in World War II, so after the war an enormous amount of new work had to be carved.

    copying flying buttress figurine1
    Stide Vos copying a flying buttress statuette

    There have always been figurines on the flying buttresses of Eusebius, but after the war there was so little left to be found and so much had to be made in a short time, that the sculptors were given a lot of freedom to invent and carve new figures in their own style. So now the spirit of the fifties and sixties can easily be read from the figurines.

    Weathered tuff replaced by Muschelkalk

    stonemasonry Eusebius Church
    the work also includes the stonemasonry work on the profiles

    As I already explained in described previously in this article on my blog, Ettringer tuff was the material of choice in the after-war reconstruction period . Regrettably, this proved to be an unfortunate choice over the years: the Ettringer tuff responds poorly to changes in humidity and temperature and begins to fall apart a few decades.

    To preserve the unique character of the Church it was decided to copy the figurines in new stone. In the past it was tried to preserve the sculptures by means of conservation, but that too has unfortunately not worked out well: the tuff continued to disintegrate. That would endanger bystanders. So they'd rather replace them altogether.

    Copying

    precut flying buttress figurine2

    Now my colleague Stide Vos and I started carving the first figurines in Muschelkalksteen, a coarse limestone that matches the design and finish of the old sculptures. The figurines we started with were still in fairly good condition; only the big yellow sandy spots had washed out. Should funding for more statues arrive in the future, then there will also be some among these that will need complete repairs and reconstructing before we can copy them, and there are even a few that have disappeared altogether.

    flying buttress figurine 2
    the flying buttresses extend at an angle towards the church, hence the sculptures are portrayed leaning forward a bit

    With the copying saw machine I own we can precut the figurines and then carve them, detailing and adding toolmarks after that. On the pictures the original in Tuff can be seen, next to the emerging copy in the new Muschelkalk limestone. By adressing it this way, we can work quickly and efficiently, and even a lot cheaper than a computer scan in conjunction with a CNC milling cutter.

    I've already had the opportunity to make some sculptural works in connection with the restoration of this church: Read here the archives of articles about this on this blog.

    To the next one 7 flying buttress figurines as well.

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