Consider Its Excessiveness to Be Merely

42 LIVING WITH EARLY OAK Figure 3.3: A late Elizabethan coffer, c. 1590. The architectural roots of the design are still apparent: the four caryatids appear to support a pediment that is suggested by the visual separation of the top rail from the stiles. The molded design on the panels echoes that of many Elizabethan gardens (which were also designed by architects.) The deep molding is applied to the flat, sunk panels, and lies below the level of the frame. Edwards illustrates a chest by the same hand, and suggests that the dragons on the rail-pediment indicate a Welsh origin (Edwards, 1964:190-1). Courtesy Fiske & Freeman. consider its excessiveness to be merely that was rooted in the medieval gothic decoration for decoration’s sake, and was strong enough to absorb the charging the carvers with horror vacui foreign influence without being over- — the fear of an empty space. But its whelmed by it. This resulted in man- fans think that its vigorous profusion nerism with a strongly English accent. reflects a vibrant society luxuriating in To many furniture historians, the man- growth, prosperity and freedom. nerism of Jacobethan furniture is the English mannerism was the sig- most English of all furniture styles. nature style of Jacobethan England. The decoration was necessar- Timothy Mowl encapsulates it beau- ily shaped by the structural forms tifully: “…it is a prelapserian world, of joined furniture. The rails and uninhibited and joyous because noth- stiles were carved with bands of run- ing is forbidden. The style of Elizabeth ning motifs. The panels within them and James was only elegant by acci- allowed the carver greater scope, and dent: it was magnificent by design…” he filled every corner of them with (1993:13). designs ranging from architectural arches, through stylized flowers and ENGLISH CARVING foliage, to abstract, geometric patterns. Though there are some straight lines The English carvers were closer to folk and angular patterns: the overall look artists than to the studio painters and of the style is profusely curvilinear. Its architects of Italy. They learned their curves are of varying radii, sometimes skills within a vernacular tradition traced by a compass, sometimes free- DECORATION AND STYLE 43 A LATE SEVENTEENTH-CENTURY MANNERIST CUPBOARD This cupboard is interesting as an example of regional anachronism. It was made of oak late in the seventeenth century in rural Yorkshire, where the Elizabethan taste stubbornly survived. Structurally, an Elizabethan cupboard would not have had these long, low proportions, nor the drop finials, and it would not have been fully enclosed. Decoratively, however, the cupboard offers a fine repertoire of Elizabethan mannerist motifs. These include floral spray inlay in the door panels and houndstooth inlay around them; running guilloches along the top rail; applied caryatid and atlas on the outer stiles, both with Ionic capitols above them. The capitols support a flower that has nothing to do with architecture, but that possibly derives from the roseace. Ionic capitols are also inverted at their feet in a way that is architecturally inappropriate but is quite typical of the way that mannerism adopted a form but discarded its original function. The central muntin demonstrates conclusively, if we ever had any doubt, that mannerist decoration is not meant to make sense: it is, as Mowl says, “not of the mind, but of the senses” (1993:22). This muntin is decorated with a pile of motifs that bear no rational relationship to one another. Visually, however, they are interesting and attention-grabbing. Reading from the top, they are: an unrecognizable flower, a lion’s head, an angel or cherub with crossed wings, an inverted Ionic capitol, and an acanthus leaf. You can either try to make sense of them or you can enjoy them, but you can’t do both. 44 LIVING WITH EARLY OAK PANELS Fragments such as these can pack a lot of early England into a small space. They offer the collector the chance to go backward in time: sixteenth-century furniture is rare, but fragments are readily available and affordable, and even earlier ones can be found with some persistence and luck. These panels show the diversity of sources that English carvers drew upon before developing the distinctive style that we now call English mannerism. Hanging them together on a wall is both decorative and historically interesting. On the left is a pair of “Romayne” panels that is as pure an example of Italian Renaissance style as you will find in English carving. The profiled faces are individualized, recognizable portraits probably of the owner and his wife and the surrounding motifs of birds, foliage and plinths are as Italianate as the name Romayne suggests. This is Italian mannerism before its anglicization. In the center is an example of gothic tracery whose origins pre-date the Renaissance. Gothic carving derives from the stone masonry of medieval English (and northern European) churches and is of the period when the decorative arts were ecclesiastical, not secular. On the right above is a Parchemin panel, thought to be a stylized representation of parchment with a fold and curling corners. This example has been so decoratively elaborated that its presumed origin is barely discernible. Linenfold panels such as the one on the right usually retain clearer signs of their presumed origin which lies in the folds of wall hangings. The latter two panels are neither ecclesiastical nor Italianate in origin, but are secular and northern European. Photos courtesy of Day Antiques, Victor Chinnery, and Fiske & Freeman. DECORATION AND STYLE 45 hand, and often, for the tighter curves, determined by the radius of the gouge. This curvilinear exuberance was all fitted into the straight-edged, squared- off shapes of the panels, rails and stiles of joined construction. Scratch Carving. The simplest decoration was by scratch- and chip- carving. Scratch-carving is not, strictly Figure 3.4: Panel in joined frame. The speaking, carving: the linear designs panel carved with foliated scrolls and were merely scratched into the surface floral spandrels, the frame with planed with a sharp-pointed tool or a small channel-and-groove moldings, and V-shaped gouge. Scratch carving, like chiseled grooves immediately above the panel. Courtesy Fiske & Freeman. sunk carving (see below), is often combined with punched decoration, usually of small circles. A scratched zig- zag line, for example, may well have a punched circle in each of its angles. Chip and Gouge Carving. In chip- carving a more elaborate design was scratched onto the surface, often using a compass, and then pieces of it, or chips, were removed with the Figure 3.5: Inlaid panel. The inlay of point of a knife. Typically, three cuts a floral spray and a houndstooth or sawtooth border. Courtesy Fiske & were needed for each of the chips, Freeman so that the pattern is composed of an arrangement of shallow, concave with the smoothness of the surface – a pyramids and scratched lines. Closely contrast that is beautifully heightened related to it is gouge-carving, where by a century or four of waxing. The the chips were removed with one long typical matting punch was about an stroke and one vertical stroke of a U- inch long and half as wide, and carried shaped gouge, giving a more rounded two rows of five or six pins each. indentation. Relief Carving. Sometimes, particu- Sunk or Flat Carving. The most typical larly with the more realistic depictions carving of the Jacobethan period is of vines and flowers, the surface was “sunk” or “flat”: the background was not left flat, but was carved to round carved out with a chisel, leaving the off the stems, leaves and grapes. This design on the flat surface. The sunk produced a shallow low relief that is background was also flat and was considered a mark of quality. A high often matted with a punch to contrast relief was often employed to depict 46 LIVING WITH EARLY OAK human or grotesque figures (known as terms, caryatids or atlantes, see side- bar p.xxx) and sometimes this was deep enough to have been undercut in places, thus becoming partially three- dimensional. Fully three-dimensional figural carving, usually on the sup- ports of court cupboards or on table legs, is comparatively rare and tends to Figure 3.6a: Scratch- and gouge- be found on important pieces made carved lozenge with lunettes. earlier in the period. Carving was expensive, and pro- fuse carving usually indicates a top-of- the-line piece. On more modest pieces, the carving was limited, sometimes to the rails and stiles, sometimes to the Figure 3.6b: Flat or sunk carving in the panels. Uncarved rails and stiles were lower band, the initials and date in usually decorated with channel-and- low relief, the ground matted with a groove molding produced by a plane, punch. not a chisel. Inlay. Some pieces, particularly in the earlier part of the period, were decorated with inlay. Black bog oak and the lighter colored holly or sycamore were the inlayer’s woods of choice. Holly was often stained green or red to enlarge the palette. On panels, the designs were either architectural, often of arched doorways following the newly discovered principle of perspective, or were floral. On the rails and stiles, inlaid decoration was geometric — typically strips of checkerboard, houndstooth, or rope-twist patterns. THE VISUAL VOCABULARY OF ENGLISH CARVERS Figure 3.6c: Arcade enclosing floral design. The decorative luxuriance of Jacobe- than carving grew from a surprisingly small number of motifs. But each motif was interpreted differently each .

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