Grinling Gibbons

Grinling Gibbons ( born April 4, 1648 Rotterdam, † August 3, 1721 in London) was an English sculptor, born and educated in Holland. Gibbons spent his childhood and youth in Holland, where his parents lived originating from England. Around 1667, returning to England, he was appointed the mid 1670s to London to the court of Charles II and dedicated to him and his successors, James II, William III. and George I. his work as a wood carver and sculptor. Its usually executed in lime wood carvings can be found in Windsor, Saint Paul 's Cathedral, Chatsworth, Petworth, Burleigh and at Trinity College, Oxford. Later he worked with the sculptor Artus Quellinus III. and with the Brussels sculptor Peter van Dievoet also in marble and bronze, as in the marble statue of Charles II in Charing Cross, the bronze statue of James II at the back of Whitehall Chapel, the monument of the Viscounts Baptist Noel Camden in the church in Exton, several statues in the courtyard of the London Stock Exchange and Isaac Newton's monument in Westminster Abbey.

Gibbons is generally regarded as the most eminent woodcarver who has ever worked in the UK and as the only one who is known by name to a wider audience in the UK. He is best known for its baroque garlands, in which he portrayed fruit and leaves in life size and typically framed mirror and Turstürze. He is rumored that his carvings are so fragile that the carved flowers from him trembled when a carriage drove past nearby. After it was Gibbons managed to establish themselves as an artist, he headed a large workshop. Later works are, therefore, run at a different extent, the staff of his Werkstätt.

Life

Youth and Education

Very little is known about the early life of Gibbons. His unusual first name is composed of two family names.

Gibbons was born in Rotterdam, Netherlands. His father was a cloth merchant, and his mother the daughter of a tobacconist. He completed his training on the European continent and acquired this skill in drawing and carving techniques that gave him the Gibbons specialists David Esterly believes it is a distinct advantage over his English colleagues. Gibbons also had better and finer tools acquired on the European mainland as they were available at that time in England. While his English colleagues still working in oak and pine, he had learned to primarily concentrate with basswood. As is common in mainland Europe, he worked very fragmented. One of his earliest surviving works is a small, crafted in boxwood relief, King David shows how he plays the harp. A second, only the description according to traditional work, which was only about 15 inches high, Elijah showed under the juniper tree. It is possible that he had worked both Schnitzereien.auf continental Europe and to take that as evidence of his skills with him to England. The American sculptor David Esterly writes about this work that can so much come from the typical English carvings that they were also from Mars.

Discovery by Evelyn Jones

The talent Gibbons was discovered by accident in 1671 by the author and architect John Evelyn. Gibbons worked at this time as a carver for shipbuilders in Deptford. In his spare time, however, he worked to rework a crucifixion paintings of Tintoretto as a wooden relief. Evelyn looked at him and his work when he accidentally walked on his workshop window. Evelyn was impressed by the young talented man so that he two other well-known men made ​​known within a month with Gibbons: The architect Christopher Wren and Samuel Pepys, Secretary of State in the British navy official and Member of Parliament. Pepys led to this time, no diary, so the encounter is not recorded between him and Gibbons. Even Evelyn, who, like Pepys wrote diaries regularly, is silent about the encounter. The fact that Gibbons but only ten years later worked for Christopher Wren, is an indication that even Wren was initially reluctant.

A short time later he was presented and its relief on the basis of relations of Evelyn King Charles II. However, this first encounter with Charles II did not lead that Gibbons orders received by the royal court. The theme of his wood reliefs was considered inappropriate Catholic. David Esterly, however, argued that it was the subject not only that prevented Gibbons reüssierte immediately at the English court. John Evelyn was widely traveled on the Continent, and had extensively dealt with the local art scene. He was therefore in a position to assess the unusual workmanship Gibbons and correctly. In England it was different than on the mainland of Europe no art market for such works. It is significant that Gibbons comparable relief work only executed again after the encounter with Charles II. Approx. 1680 he worked for a large wooden relief that the stoning of St. Stephen is. This relief was the end of Gibbons lives in his private property up.

Assignment by Thomas Betterton and Hughes May

Esterly is of the view that Gibbons after the experience at the English court took a very pragmatic decision. He focused on the production of purely decorative carvings. The London Theaterimpressario Thomas Betterton was in 1671 the first customer for Gibbons. Gibbons should carve for the new Dorset Gardens Theatre decorative ornaments that adorned cornices and capitals. It was also not practiced particularly in decorative ornamentation is a purely artisanal order and Gibbons according to estimates by Esterly. However, Gibbons work must still be been so conspicuous in the sum that they noticed the court painter Peter Lely. Lely's closest friend was the courtier and architect Hugh May and it was finally May, who decisively influenced the professional development of Gibbons.

May Gibbons commissioned with works for two country houses that were rebuilt. The mid- 1670s arranged Lely and May that Charles II were presented again Gibbon and his works. Charles II had May tasked to rebuild the royal apartments and the St. George's Hall from Windsor Castle. In the further presentation it was whether Gibbons should receive the order to execute carvings for these rooms. As a specimen Gibbons brought no relief this time working with a religious theme with but a Supraporte with a garland of fish, mussels and other ornaments. Gibbons was commissioned to work for Windsor Castle and became the leading carvers in England.

During the reconstruction of Windsor Castle May replaced the original quarters from the time of the Plantagenets on the north terrace by the cube-shaped building Star ( Star Building ). These chambers were decorated with ceiling paintings by Antonio Verrio and carvings by Grinling Gibbons. The king also acquired tapestries and paintings to furnish the rooms. These works formed the basis for today's royal collection, the Royal Collection. Three of the rooms have remained largely unchanged: the common room and the audience chamber of the queen, both of which were designed for the wife of Charles II, Catherine of Braganza, and the dining room of the King. In these chambers, both the ceiling painting by Verrio and the paneling of gibbons are obtained. Originally there were twenty rooms in these facilities. Some of Gibbons works have been saved if changes were made as a result of alterations or restorations. In the 19th century these carvings were then integrated into the new interior of the throne room of the Garter, and in the Waterloo Chamber.

Reconstruction of the lost in the fire of 1986 at Hampton Court Palace carvings

1986 a fire damaged parts of Hampton Court Palace. The fire broke out above the parade rooms of the king. The elected by Christopher Wren ceiling construction in this part of the palace prevented a rapid spreading of the fire to the rooms below. The fire was discovered early enough to save the portable works of art in this part of the palace. However, the high up nailed to the wall panels decorative carvings Grinling Gibbons were damaged by fire and fire water. A more than two meters long carving that adorned the side of a door, was completely burned. The American sculptor David Esterly was commissioned to create a reproduction of this lost carving and worked for a year at Hampton Court Palace. The experience Esterly collected during this time, he described in the non-fiction book The Lost Carving: A Journey to the Heart of Making, published in the USA and 2013 in the UK, 2012. He describes it including the resistance within the palace administration to appoint a U.S. citizen with the restoration of a British heritage, its cooperation with other wood sculptors who worked on the restoration of the damaged from the fire and extinguishing water Gibbons carvings, their common effort to to capture specific technique Gibbons and discussions, to what extent should be restored to a state in the carvings, which they had at the time Gibbons or whether the wax layers obtained in this original untreated carvings over the centuries and therefore the state should be prepared they had immediately before the fire.

Esterly was the use of sandpaper in the final polishing of wooden surfaces critically. Sandpaper is an invention of the 19th century. Influenced by the art historian John Ruskin, who had argued that surfaces by treatment with sandpaper a dull diffuse rest ( in the original text says Ruskin of smooth, diffused tranquility ) developed, it was assumed that Baroque wood carver as Gibbons their shimmering surfaces by particularly would achieve careful work with the carving. The careful investigation of the fire spared the remaining carvings but fell on regular serrations, which made clear that Gibbons had Horsetail used as a natural abrasive for smoothing the surfaces. The use of this abrasive is occupied for Michel Erhart, Veit Stoss and Tilman Riemenschneider.