When a leaf is in its ordinary natural condition it is generally flat, but while growing or fading it often curls and twists into remarkable and graceful shapes, which are extensively employed in decoration. Before going further I would impress it on the intelligent student that the mere literal imitation of any kind of leaf, so that it would look exactly like a real leaf if it were only coloured, should seldom or never enter within the province of wood-carving as a general decorative art.

What the pupil should do in copying leaves and flowers, etc., or in modelling them for carving, is to observe their characteristic shape and contour, to follow all their graceful lines and bends, depressions and swellings, and give the general expression and spirit of these without striving too accurately to make a mere leaf. He should not make it so thin that it would break with a slight blow. A great deal of the most admired work of the present day is of this kind, which will hardly bear dusting. A leaf may always be cut, as we see it done in classical and in ancient work, so solidly and firmly as to resist the wear and tear of centuries. As nobody is expected to believe that it is a real leaf when it is palpably cut out of wood or stone, we may as well conventionalize it (that is, keep only a general likeness to a leaf), and make it attractive by grace and skilful combination. And this can be done if we only cut out the leaf in its general form and leave a strong base for it to rest on, so that it may be safely dusted or rubbed against. The student should try to understand this, for it will enable him to make all effects necessary in decorative work, and save him much needless petty labour.

If the pupil has practised the sweep-cut, and can with confidence work in any direction, with both hands, he may now attempt oak-leaves in which there are varied slopes, cavities, and swellings, Figs. 44 and 45. These seem to have been the favourite subjects of the old modellers and carvers. Perhaps the best designing of the kind in existence is that by Adam Kraft, in Nuremberg. I repeat here, that the more difficult and varied a leaf is the more necessity is there for the pupil to model it in clay, or at least to draw and shade it carefully, before beginning. The reason is this, that, having its principal points in the memory, it is much easier to reproduce them when cutting in wood; we know then when and where to turn the hand or the tool. And it is well to bear in mind that this practical and necessarily accurate, though often hasty, sketching and shading of the workshop grows very rapidly on the pupil, so that, being driven to it, he learns to do such drawing more promptly and vigorously than he would in a school or class.

In making the sweep-cut it is necessary to get the bend or movement, which is directing the gouge in the proper route. In ordinary cutting we only push the blade forward; in the sweep-cut there is a “draw” or side movement as well as a push. But the bend or direction constitutes, so to speak, a third movement, and this is the most difficult to determine. To get a certain symmetrical turn or curve we cut without seeing, whereas in ordinary cutting or “wasting” we see clearly just what we are going to slice off, and take it away with confidence. But with a little practice on waste wood, the sweep or draw-cut will become so familiar that one can execute the most difficult curves, not by chipping away, but by a bold sweep. Amateurs who have taught themselves can generally cut or chip only straightforwards; they cannot turn or curve a leaf with a sweep. The combined movement given to the tool in making the sweep-cut may be thus analyzed, and if the three distinct forces applied to the tool be first understood and then kept in mind in making such cuts, success will soon and easily result. Suppose we are engaged upon the surface of a leaf which slopes generally downwards and off to one side, but also has a rise or mound somewhere in the course of the slope, and most leaves have one or more such undulations. With the gouge, straight or bent, grasped firmly in the right hand, and the two fingers of the left hand pressed on the surface and side of the blade about an inch from the cutting edge—the position already described: the tool is pushed straight forward for the entire length of the cut by the right hand; at the same time the blade is pushed to the right or pulled to the left by the two fingers of the left hand to the extent, and as the slope may travel to the right or the left; and thirdly, the right wrist is raised or lowered to cause the tool to travel over the intended mounds or undulations on the leaf. Now these three distinct movements or forces exerted on the tool merge into one another, and may be said to be used simultaneously, and are really one continuous movement, which gives the sweep-cut; but the extent to which any one preponderates of course depends upon the particular shape of the leaf or scroll being carved, and is soon found out by but little practice upon different forms.

In commencing or bosting out this pattern, Fig. 44, and all others in high relief, the pupil will do well to observe that he should select a gouge whose sweep will fit the curve of the leaf in the part it is intended to begin upon, and placing the edge of the gouge outside, but quite close to the line, and holding the tool at a slope so as to cut away from it outwards, give it a moderate blow with the mallet. Take care not to drive the gouge in too deeply. This is the blocking out of the leaf, or outlining in the solid. And in doing this, begin by making or cutting the general outline only. Leave the second-sized interstices or hollows for a second cutting, and the smaller notches of the leaves and fine corners for a final finishing. In this pattern, Fig. 44, also Figs. 42 and 45, the leaves should be of the natural size, or from three to five inches in length.

Most beginners cut too closely under the leaf, so as to get at once to relief, which looks like finish. As a rule it is better, whatever the pattern be, in flat ribbon-work or high relief, to always rather slant outwards. For in the first place, when we come to finish in ribbon-work, the pupil may find it necessary to cut so much away to bevel or round or undercut the pattern, that (especially when it is in narrow lines) the thinning away will quite destroy their proportions. But it is well on yet another account to be very sparing of this paring away and undercutting. There are far too many wood-carvers who cut away under in order to make leaves thin and natural, till they are like paper, and much more fragile. This is greatly admired as indicating “skill,” and it certainly demands skill of a common order to effect. But it requires a much higher and nobler kind of art and will to make the leaves strong and firm, even if we conventionalize them—so that their curves are really beautiful. And this may be done, and at the same time all the most beautiful and characteristic features of leaves be preserved.

In ribbon or flat carving, a strong shadow or relief may be got as follows. In cutting, slant the chisel or gouge outwards at an angle of 45°, thus /. When the grounding is finished, cut under the slope, half way up. The outline will then be like a <. This sharp edge may be cut away a very little, such as ﹝, or even into a rounded ﹙, in which case there will be a marked line of shadow all round the edge.

Having blocked out the whole quasi-perpendicularly, that is, in one direction or on one side, proceed to cut away the most apparent hollows or depressions. With care and measurement even the beginner will soon find his leaves beginning to assume shape. If he has not learned as yet to cut and sweep boldly, he may finish the whole by simply wasting the wood away with straight cutting, aided by the file, riffler, or rasp. In fact, for many beginners, and especially for those who are slow to learn, this straight cutting and rasping is really advisable, because it at least makes them familiar with handling tools, and teaches them how to model and hollow out. Beginners always experience great dread or hesitation as regards hollowing and curving “in the round,” but when they perceive that an object is beginning to assume shape they take heart, and when they have succeeded with one or two by easy, certain work, even with the help of rasps, they will carve with more confidence.

NINTH LESSON.

CARVING SIMPLE FIGURES OR ANIMAL FORMS—FIGURINI FOR CABINETS—SIMPLE ROUNDED EDGES AND APPROACH TO MODELLING.

When the pupil has had some practice in carving leaves and similar ornaments in relief, he soon learns to deepen or to cut them higher and higher, and then to model them into form. He may now, if he chooses, attempt some simple animal forms. A bird, a duck, or a hare hanging up, will present no special difficulty to him, firstly, if he will obtain one of Swiss work, already carved in wood, and imitate it. There are few towns where he cannot obtain something of the kind. It is true that much Swiss wood-carving is not at all to be recommended as regards style or finish, but it will do very well for a beginning. The best method would of course be to model a hare in clay after a dead one. In any case he can make a beginning by buying some toy animals, carved in wood and not painted. These are made by being sawn or turned out of wood into the profile section. This is then sliced into many pieces and each of these carved, sometimes fairly well, into an animal. The wool or hair is imitated in the very small gouges or V tools, and sometimes scraped with a rasp, comb, or other tool. After the blocking out such work presents no peculiar difficulty.

The process is quite as easy as regards the ordinary or grotesque animals in Gothic carving. Draw such an animal, Fig. 46 or 48 a or b, and having fairly bosted it out, proceed to very gradually round away the edges. If it be, for instance, a serpent, which is everywhere round, this process is very simple, especially if after the cutting we smooth it with files and glass-paper. It will shape itself. Now the limbs of animals, and even of human beings in low relief, may be rounded in this manner to approximate correctness; or to correctness enough for initial ornamental processes. As the pupil proceeds, and improves in modelling and advances to copying—let us say excellent patterns of Renaissance and classic work—he will go far beyond such beginning. But there is in itself absolutely no reason why, if he only draws his outlines correctly, he should not begin by this simple Gothic work.

Having learned to sketch out, bost, and round simple figures, I advise the pupil to execute a number of them, with or without leaves and ornaments. He may thus sketch and cut fishes, animals of all kinds, human figures in outline, until he feels a certain confidence and ease as regards their execution.

What the pupil must do, therefore, in this lesson, is to draw, bost out, and round easy animal forms. At this stage let him pay more attention to the few points which constitute general correctness in a sketch than to minor details. I refer to the general distances of the eyes, joints, outlines of legs and back in a horse, deer, hog, etc.

The Italian carvers, for cabinet making, in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, made great use of figurini, Fig. 49, also the ornament on page 60. These were little statues, generally of human beings, from three to five inches in length. They were, in ordinary work, rather sketched out than elaborately carved, but the effect was good; sometimes a hundred of them would be worked into a single cabinet. These figurini were also very freely used in later Roman and Roman Byzantine stone and ivory work, generally as rows of saints or scriptural personages, every one filling a niche under a round arch. These latter were often as rudely and simply shaped as it is possible to conceive, yet, owing to their “making up” or disposition, as subordinate parts they were in good taste. Any carver with a little practice can produce them. Rows of figurini in niches were frequently used for borders, or to surround caskets.

TENTH LESSON.

FINISHING OFF—IMITATION OF OLD AND WORN WORK—WHERE POLISHING IS REQUIRED.

The finishing off of wood-carving depends on what the work in hand may be. If it is a piece of carefully executed foliage, or leaves (and leaves, like crochets in decorative art, is a term widely applied to all shooting out or growing ornaments), it is of course the best plan to finish only with the gouge or chisel, so that the skill of the artist in clean cutting may be evident. But it has become the fashion for writers on wood-carving to insist on it, as a law without exception, that all wood-carving must be finished by cutting; that glass-paper and files should on no account be used, and that a carver should not seek to smooth over the surface of his carving, as if to conceal how his work has been executed. In wood-carving, as in everything else, a true artist does not go by mere rule. He uses what tools he pleases, and finishes as he pleases. He does not confine his work to a single kind, and declare that everything should be limited to that in which he or certain experts excel. An examination of the beautiful and curious wood-carving in the great hall in Venice will convince any one that other things as well as leaves may be carved in wood; and that when these represent, for instance, old books with metal clasps, or household utensils, or arms, imitation may be legitimately carried so far as to polish the surface. Again, it may very often occur to the artist to imitate old and worn objects, such as a pilgrim’s bottle, a casket or horn, for age in this way often gives very beautiful and curious effects of light and shadow, polish or roughness, differing very much and very advantageously from the stereotyped uniformity of style of too many schools. All of this requires a wide departure from the no-polish theory.

Draw on a panel half an inch thick, more or less, Fig. 49. Having bosted it out, very slightly undercut the figure, not completely, but by rounding the edge a little. Do this firstly with the chisel, as neatly as possible; then take files. For many places in your work, especially for smoothing grounds where the work is difficult and the curved tool not available, a bent file is most useful, and these may be had of every shape and curve. For rough finishing you may use rasps and large rifflers, for finer work small files. Having brought your work into shape, you may scrape the ground flat with pieces of broken glass or a tool made for the purpose, or a chisel. Then take glass or glass-paper, the former being greatly preferable, and with care finish still more. It may now be advisable to oil all the carving, if oil is to be applied. Lay the oil on with a broad flat brush, but if there are any places which it will not reach, use a smaller paint or camel’s hair pencil. Let the oil soak in for a few days in a warm room. Then with a piece of very soft pine wood, rub with great care. The harder you rub the better the polish will be, but also the greater the risk of bending or indenting the surface of the carving; therefore great care is necessary. The longer this polishing is continued the better the effect will be. Workmen often spend as much time in polishing a piece of work intended to be handled as it took to carve it.

It may be observed that in using the glass-paper it is often very difficult to get into certain holes or cavities. These are reached either by making a bit of the paper into a roll, or by folding or rolling it around the end of a stick cut for the purpose. But the most effective way of all is to take a stick, say of the size of a lead pencil, or according to the cavity, round the end with a gouge and glass-paper, dip the end into glue, and, while it is moist, into powdered glass. When dry these make admirable finishers, and they can be again dipped when the glass begins to wear off. Glass may in this manner be put on the ends of old bent files.

When there are figures of animals, or leaves, or bands intended to be thus finished and polished all’antico, or to resemble worn work, it is not advisable to put in them too much inside work or in-lines. Inside work is, for instance, the feathers on a bird, the hair on an animal, the scales on a fish, the middle lines and veins of leaves. A very few lines to serve as indications must suffice. But the student of old and time-worn carving cannot fail to draw all these conclusions for himself.

The last finish to be given to such work may be executed by rubbing with the hand. This communicates to certain kinds of wood and other substances a peculiar polish, which nothing else can really give.

In a very large proportion of simple flat or ribbon-work the effect is very much increased or improved by polishing the pattern, and leaving the ground rough or indenting it. This is not only perfectly legitimate, but commonly done in marble or metal repoussé of every kind, as well as leather-work, and yet every writer on wood-carving repeats as a duty the injunction that there must be “no polishing,” and nothing but cutting. This is, indeed, equivalent to prohibiting the application of wood-carving to furniture, objects to be handled, house and many other kinds of decoration. But, in fact, there are instances in decoration in which paint or dyes, French polish, nails or other metal work, may be most artistically and beautifully combined with wood-carving, as many thousands of relics of the Middle Ages and Renaissance prove.

Polishing a pattern makes it shine, while roughing or dotting a surface darkens it. Therefore, when we want in decoration bold effects of light and shade, we may legitimately polish the parts which are in relief. Elaborately cut work which is to be studied by itself in detail, and not simply as a part of a whole, need not be polished or rough; its finish will depend on the conditions of its design.

ELEVENTH LESSON.

DIAPER-WORK—STAMPED DIAPER-PATTERNS—CUTTING DIAPERS.

That which is called diaper-work is where the ground consists of one generally small pattern frequently repeated at regular intervals. It is so called from the well-known diaper or figured linen cloth, from the Old French diapré, meaning the same, from the verb diapréz, to diaper, or “diversifie with flourishings” (Cotgrave). The verb, according to Skeat, is from the Old French diaspre, later jasper, a stone much used for ornamental jewellery. Italian, diaspro, a jasper. “Diaper, to decorate with a variety of colours, or to embroider on a rich ground” (Anglo-Norman). “There was a rich figured cloth so called” (Strutt, ii. 6), as “also a kind of printed linen” (Halliwell). The latter are still common. It is, however, most probable that the word really comes, as Fairholt asserts, from Ypres, i.e., d’Ypres, which was famous for such work. Some writers apply the term to merely dotting, indenting, or roughening a ground, but it is properly applicable to small figures.

Stamped Diaper Patterns. These may be produced firstly and most readily by means of wood, stamped or punched, Fig. 23 and 27, and a hammer or mallet. Practise with these first on waste wood. It is not at first easy to repeat them at perfectly regular intervals, making one the same as the other. The work is greatly facilitated by drawing lines like a chequer or chess-board on the ground, and making a stamp or diaper in every dot, or all along the lines. Punches for this purpose may be had in great variety. This class of stamped work is very effective for narrow edgings and borders, and on fillets, which would otherwise be tedious and difficult to carve. With but little practice this work can be executed with great rapidity.

Cutting Diapers. There are some patterns which are very easily cut with a single tool, as, for instance, squares, diamonds, and triangles. For these a firmer or chisel is sufficient. The reader will observe that one square, etc., is removed alternately, and another left. In designing or selecting these, or any diapers, care must be taken to choose such as fit together exactly. But any figures of this kind, whatever they are, are well adapted for grounds.

A more advanced style of diaper-work is made by cutting lines with the parting-tool or smallest gouge, unless, indeed, you are expert enough to do it with a chisel or firmer.

This was the commonest kind of diapering on caskets in the Middle Ages. A very pretty effect was often produced by filling these lines with dark brown or black paint. In any case, when oiled, or as they grew old, and dust and oil or moisture worked into them, they became dark. It has already been said that any kind of mere line-work can be executed on a smooth wooden surface by means of a V tool, or generally by a small gouge. It may also be effected with a tracing-wheel, or with a tracer, or with any rather dull-pointed instrument. In hard wood of a light colour very beautiful effects may thus be produced.

The next step is to cut lines, and combine with these cutting out and excavating spaces, as in ordinary carving. Nevertheless, it is not, as a rule, a good plan to make diapers too ornamental or elaborate; for this will lead to making them large, and then they will draw attention from the pattern, if there is one, or the main figures. When the whole surface is all diaper, as in a carpet, the diapers may be as large and as elaborate as one chooses to make them.

There is but one general rule for designing the diaper. Draw a chess-board, and then by diagonals convert these into “points up and down,” squares, or triangles; or fill the equal spaces with equilateral triangles, hexagons, circles, or pentagons, etc.[1] These may be filled in with any suitable decoration. In Fig. 50 portions of the original surface of the panel have been left as ridges to separate the diapers, and then every one of the latter has been carved with the same ornament; a rather advanced example, but cut only in moderate relief. Another plate, Fig. 52, gives a variety of suitable figures in low relief; some two or three of these should be chosen and repeated in regular order in neighbouring spaces.

Where the main object is simple decoration of surfaces, plain diaper-cutting is an important industry, and one by means of which, with no very great degree of skill, beautiful results may be obtained. Thus, large pieces of furniture, chests, and especially walls or wainscoats, may be expeditiously adorned by means of it, even by one who is far from being able to carve in the round or cut leaves. It may be very much facilitated in many ways. One of these is to cut out the patterns in duplicate, many at once in paper, paste them on the wood, and carve round them. Then wet the paper, and thoroughly remove it with a stiff brush. Another plan is to cut out the pattern in card-board, thin brass, or wood, and stencil it with a lead pencil or colour which will wash off. Then cut away as before. It is extremely easy, when we have once cut a certain figure a few times, to go on repeating it, and beginners can, therefore, with great advantage, be set at diaper-cutting, since they thereby acquire not only a familiarity with the use of the tools, but by dint of repetition familiarize themselves perfectly with at least one process; for the greatest trouble in all arts and studies is, that they do not, at any early step, sufficiently master any one thing.

TWELFTH LESSON.

BUILDING-UP, OR APPLIQUÉ WORK.

It will often happen that in carving, while most of the work is on a level, some portion, generally the centre, will rise above the rest, or project beyond it, illustrated by Fig. 52. It would often be a waste of wood and time to cut this out of a single piece. In such cases we merely glue an extra piece of wood on, and carve it into shape. Sometimes in carving a face, only the nose, and perhaps the chin, require to be added. It is said that this method of gluing wood on to wood to obtain additional relief was first extensively practised by Grinling Gibbons.

In Germany this addition of a central “boss” is so well understood, that in many shops they sell heads or faces of men, women, or animals, wreaths, and similar centres or bosses for carvers who can execute flat or ribbon-work, but not high relief. In this way very ornamental or showy pieces of work may be executed with the least possible pains and expense. In the same manner a piece of old carving, or, it may be, several pieces, are taken or saved from some half-ruined ancient specimen, and well glued on a sound piece of old wood exactly like them in colour and texture. This is then carved in the same style. In this way really valuable work may be easily made, for such half-decayed pieces of old carving are too often thrown away, and may often be purchased for a trifle.

Still, this method of appliqué, or applied wood on wood, though it may be resorted to in certain cases to save a great deal of cutting and material, may be carried too far, when it degenerates into mere manufacture.

Appliqué work of this kind falls still further into manufacture when it consists of thin boards, cut into patterns with a fret or scroll-saw, worked up with gouges, and then glued on wood. This is plain imitation. Yet it may be borne in mind, though most writers on the subject deny it, that while it is absolutely not high or legitimate art, there is no law and no reason against it; and if a man can contrive no better way to ornament his house, he is perfectly in the right in doing so, if he thinks fit. And if he can afford the time, skill, and materials, he will probably advance from appliqué work to something better. In any case he will have learned something by it, and it is worth learning. It is too often the case with high art critics, that they exact that everybody must have finished taste and high perceptions all at once, with no regard to expense.

The pupil may now attempt an easy piece of appliqué work. Take a panel, Fig. 52, and trace on it the pattern. Leave a blank flat space of the original surface, called the “seat,” for the figures, of their precise size, and then work out the ground. Where this consists of a diaper, it may be made either by carving or by stamping. Having finished the diapered ground, saw or cut out the figures, glue them into their places, and carve them; or the carving may be executed before the application.

Appliqué work is liable to the objection, especially where large surfaces are laid on, that two pieces of wood are seldom of precisely the same quality and texture, and that, therefore, they may sometimes afterwards shrink or swell in different directions, with the natural result of warping and splitting. This is sometimes remedied by using screws as well as glue; but the best preventive of such accidents is to cut both the ground and the piece glued on to it from the same piece of wood, of course perfectly seasoned.

In many cases frames or borders may be appliqué or glued on. If the work be intended for an album or book-cover, the frame may be made a trifle higher than the central ornament, to protect it from being scratched when lying with the face on any surface. This will not be necessary if it be used for a panel in the side of a box or in a wall.

THIRTEENTH LESSON.

CARVING IN THE ROUND.

Carving in the round will be least difficult to the one who can model his work in clay or modelling-wax. This is especially easy if he alternates carving with designing and modelling; it is, in fact, so great an aid to carving, that there should be little of the latter without it. He who has modelled anything in clay or wax has, in a way, carved it in a soft material, while true carving is only modelling with gouges and chisels.

There is no difficulty for one who has mastered the first six lessons of this book, in carving half a duck or fish in relief. If he could carve the other side and join them he would have the animal complete. From blocking out simple forms, such as ducks, fish, hares, or game, in high relief, the carver soon learns how to “rough” almost anything. Having made a bust in clay, he knows where a bit is to be removed or cut away here or there. He studies it as he proceeds, alternately in profile or full-face, and continually measures with callipers and compasses to see that he is preserving all the proportions. The practice which he has had in delicately carving, grooving, sweeping, and modelling leaves, in cutting the hair of game, imitating basket-work, etc., will all now come into play. As regards fitting certain tools to form the eye-balls, eye-lids, etc., if the pupil does not as yet know the measure and capacity of his tools, he has worked to little purpose. If he should be in doubt from time to time, let him just carve an eye, or a lip, or mouth, on a piece of waste wood, and he will have no difficulty in repeating it; and he who grudges the time for such practice will never make an artist, Fig. 53.

The great difficulty in carving in deep relief and in the round, is to get the general sweep and contour and proportions of the whole, and this is difficult for a pupil who does not design, and shade, and model, while it is a mere trifle to one who does. The cutting and blocking out, which seems to be the great difficulty, is a merely mechanical process, performed with compasses, carving tools, and rasps, and sometimes with a steel bow-saw, here and there. And it presents no difficulties to any intelligent person who has carefully executed all that is described in the previous lessons, especially to one who has carved animals and simple figures, or faces, in high relief.

It is true that in shops where much large and coarse work is executed, as, for instance, great pieces for ceilings, figures for façades, and the like, the sculptor, trained from the beginning to the sweep-cut and to bold chipping, makes little account of any difficulty, and proceeds to carve with great confidence. Now what the student must endeavour to attain is some of the confidence of the mere workman with the culture and knowledge of the artist. And he should, whenever an opportunity presents itself, try to see practical carvers of all kinds at work, for in this way he will learn much which no books give.

It is to be recommended that the first attempts at carving in the round be made in soft pine wood, as it is of course most easily modelled. No one should be discouraged because a first or second effort has turned out a failure.

I have observed that many writers on the art treat carving in high relief, or in the round, as if the first effect in it must necessarily be a human head or figure, that is to say, the most difficult of all objects. But he who can cut out a wooden shoe, or a rabbit, or a fish, or the simplest object, on a large scale, on all its sides, will, if he repeats this till he can do it easily, have mastered the greatest difficulty which alarms beginners, that of blocking out from all sides.

In the head by Civitale, full half-round, which may easily be made full round, the carver may begin by modelling the whole. If this is not convenient, let him mark out with the compasses the different dimensions, and carefully bring the whole into form by first rounding all into a rude shape, and then very gradually cut away the hollows. No detailed descriptions of exactly what tools to choose for certain places, or how to work, would be of any real use to the pupil who has carefully executed the previous lessons, as he will not have a single cut which he has not made before, and in this instance a little voluntary ingenuity and reflection will do more good than any instruction.

APPENDIX TO LESSON XIII.

ON THE USE OF THE SAW.

(By John J. Holtzapffel.)