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CHAPTER6

CARVING

TRADITIONAL

FOLIAGE

The essence of art is to express what is intended as economically and clearly as possible. The essence of technique is to enable this to be performed. Somecimes, however, technique is wielded for its own sake and economy of form is sacrificed co a display of virtuosity. In this chapter I show how carved foliagc may contain both economy of form and exuberant display. By copying from early examples the carver can learn from che discoveries of our ancestors about the design of ornament and many useful techniques.

A SUMMARY OF HlSTORICAL British Foliage Styles

It is evident that although sconccarvings have survived better than wood, down the centurics styles wcrc the same in both matcrials. A vi$it to Southwell Minster in Nottinghamshire will show that the thirteenth-century craftsman was master of both naturalistic and stylized leaves. The natural leaf forms, however, have been organized into bosses and spandrcls to create artificial patterns. In the same series of carvings are contemporary stifflcaf’ forms where the leaf is a very stylized trefoil of debatable origin. Its predecessor in Norman/Romancsque ornament was often a trefoil. In stiff leaf the vcry formalized ribs may unexpeccedly dive into a groove in the leaf and disappear. When treated in wood the forms can be scen to be the product of various shapes of chisel (Fig 6.1). What it does have in common with naturÄ™ is the flow, the tapering in of the lobes back to a central stem.

Fourteenth- AND Fifteenth-Century Gothic Styles

Through the iMiddle Ages various recognizable and abstract leaf forms were used, somecimes with the veins as the dominant feature: ribs for the underneach of leaves and grooves for the top. Someiimes che main feature was che leaf edge

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