A Desperate Monk, Reading (flying buttress figurine)

Weather-beaten

The next flying buttress statue in the series for St. Eusebius's Church was a man in a monk's habit, reading a book and desperately grasping his forehead. The old tuffstone sculpture was pretty heavily weathered at the surface, but the stone underneath was still fairly sound. However, no warranty can be given that this is about 20 more years and that before that time no parts will come tumbling down. That's why all these sculptures are being replaced now. They all sit on the flying buttresses of the church, with most of them looking upwards, and under strong influence of all weathers.

What on earth is a monk doing on Noah's Ark?

I was wondering what a monk would be doing among all those animal figures, because in all likelihood monks didn't exist yet in the days of Noah.

Speculating, I think there are two reasons for including this character in the series: either it represents the priests of those days who foresaw the disaster in their prophecies but saw no way out, or it stands for all those people, mainly priests and monks, who read the Bible in the past centuries and pondered about the reason for this disaster, the nature of man and the reason why God intervened.

Finishing

As you can read in in a previous message I had presawn all the figurines of flying buttress no. 4 in the cold and snow, so I could quickly proceed with the next one.

This figure is due to its shape a bit more work than for instance a Razorbill, a Capercaillie or an Elephant, but the details make it a nice topic to carve. I finished the habit with a toothed chisel stroke, and the hands, feet and head with a flat chisel.

I tried to retrieve as many details as possible and copy them exactly, except that I've added some lines for pages in the book and carved a hint of nails on fingers and toes. Because of the lighter stone it's now much clearer what it represents.

Nasty the following flying buttress image.