| Description:
This book is considered an
encyclopedia of historic wood carvings found in churches all
over England. They give you a history of each piece along
with photographs. Great for inspiration or educational
research on European wood carvings.
The subject dealt with in this volume,
so far as the writer knows, is virgin soil ; no book has
appeared, here or abroad, on the subject of stallwork. Abroad,
the great mass of stallwork has perished ; sometimes at the
hands of pious vandals, often through neglect, more often still
through indifference to or active dislike of mediaeval art. In
the stallwork of Belgium not a single tabernacled canopy remains
; in France and Italy the great majority of the Gothic stalls
have been replaced by woodwork of the Classical design that was
dear to the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries ; only in Spain
can the wealth and splendor of English stallwork be rivaled. In
England a great amount of magnificent stallwork still remains ;
on the stallwork indeed and the concomitant screens time and
labor and money were lavished without stint in the last two
centuries of Gothic art. Hitherto, however, this important
department of English medieval design has almost wholly lacked
recognition and appreciation ; attention had not been called to
its value in the study of artistic woodwork, and even the most
splendid examples of this branch of English art have been passed
over with uncomprehending indifference. Vet it is no
overstatement to say that there is nothing in this country more
consummate in design or execution than the stallwork of
Lancaster, Chester, Ripon, and Manchester. To most of the
readers of this volume the illustrations which have been here
gathered together will come as a revelation of beauty and
interest. It is to be hoped that the book will help to inform
those who are heritors of a great artistic past, will make them
proud of their heritage as Englishmen, and faithful to preserve
it and hand it on in turn unimpaired to their successors. The
art is in the main English art, as English as the timber
in which it is wrought, and deserves the attention of all
English-speaking people the world over, who inherit equally with
ourselves the good things that remain from the England of old.
Part of the classicarchives.com vintage wood working book
collection. All of our vintage woodworking books are
available for immediate download after checkout. All of
our woodworking books come in .pdf format for easy viewing and
reading. |
