essent�rving�76

Fig 6.6 Baroąue acanthus leaf originally carved in oak in 1685for Tunbridge Wells parish church. Copied in Quebec yellow pine by Norman Barback. This ornament has the same mooement as a Roman scroll without the floiuer in the centre of the spiral.

mid-sixteenth century and madc many carvęrs redundanc. The taste of the timcs changcd, too, influenced from the Protestant Low Countries whcre the fiat bands known as strap work and carrouchcs wirh scroll-likc endings wcrc popular. The Puricans from the lasr years of Elizabeth Is reign to the Restoracion in 1660 discouragcd ornament, and carvings became very simple. The Roman Catholic countries kept the

momentum going, but when the exiled court of Charles II returned in 1660 it brought not only a taste for the baroque style which had developcd abroad but also an awareness of morę tractable timbers such as pine, limę and walnut which thcrcafrer became chosen above oak. Baroąue foliage used many of the forms of the Renaissancc but was morę florid (Fig 6.6). The Roman scroll and the acanthus continued, but forms were hcavier and ieaves were inclined to begin from unleaflike scrolls. Because so much. skill had been lost many of the carvings were done by foreigners. The carvings of Grinling Gibbons, himself half-Dutch, fali into the baroąue style but also contain naturalistic or apparently naturalistic forms (Fig 6.7). The rococo style as seen in Chippendale frames and furniture took the scroll forms to an extremc. Asy m metry, arbitrary and irrational leaf forms, and slendcrncss arc evident (Fig 6.8). The camngs by Lukę Lightfoot at Claydon House in Buckinghamshire show this taken to extremes of ąuaintness.

Fig 6.7 Part offrame carved in oak in Grinling Gibbonss style by Keith Ferdinand Notę the acanthus leaf used to make sense of the corner.

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