Stone Carvers Research Articles

MEDIUM SHIFT AND EXISTENCE OF ORNAMENTS ON PELINGGIH OF SACRED BUILDINGS (TEMPLES) DUE TO THE VOLCANIC IMPACT OF MOUNT AGUNG

The study of the existence of ornaments on the pelinggih (temple) buildings that utilise the black stone material of Mount Agung is considered to be only a tiny part of the ornamental manifestations applied to the black stone pelinggih building of Mount Agung when compared to the application of pelinggih ornaments using solid stone materials in general. It is done as an economic production that needs to be sold to the public, especially for Hindus in Bali. To explore this, the researcher uses socio-cultural and aesthetic approaches. The presentation of this article aims to describe (1) The form of the pelinggih temple building that has been used in the community as a place of worship. (2) The existence of ornaments, which are applied to the parts of the pelinggih building, according to the existing parts, such as the feet, the body and the top. (3) Factors influencing the creation of pelinggih with black stone material of Mount Agung, featuring ornaments with minimalist patterns. It is hoped that this research can also be used as a basis for future research to find solutions in developing techniques for sculpting or carving ornaments that utilise the black stone material of Mount Agung, using modern tools. The research approach used was descriptive qualitative. Data were collected through field surveys, literature studies, observations and interviews. Data can be collected, processed, classified and reduced, then analysed using textual and contextual analysis and interpretation. Descriptive qualitative research method that describes situations or events to make a description systematically, factually, and accurately about the facts and the characteristics of the population or sample of a particular area (Suryabrata, 2005: 76). Data in verbal form is often contained in different words with the same meaning and long and wide sentences. In conclusion, the description of ornaments on pelinggih (temple) buildings that use the black stone material of Mount Agung is related to the dominant factors that influence the embodiment of decorations. Although the structure and form of the pelinggih in the preparation have followed the ethics or the existing rules, the application of ornaments in detail is minimal, only in the form of basic patterns, both at the bottom feet, body or middle and head or top. There is still a lack of reliable and professional Gunung Agung black stone carvers

Application of Multiple Occupational Health Risk Assessment Models for Crystalline Silica Dust among Stone Carvers.

Silica is the most abundant substance on the Earth's crust and is a proven carcinogen. The aim of this study was to measure the occupational exposure of stone carvers to crystalline silica and to evaluate the health risks. Methods: This descriptive and analytical cross-sectional study was performed on 79 stone carvers. Inhalation air sampling was performed by the NIOSH7500 method and the amount of silica was determined by X-ray diffraction (XRD). Semi-quantitative and quantitative risk assessments were performed using the methods of the Singapore Department and the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), respectively. Mortality due to silicosis and lung cancer were estimated using the Manettej and Rice models. Data were analyzed using SPSS23 software. The mean exposure to total inhalable dust and crystalline silica among the stone carvers was 1.44 and 0.5 mg/m3, respectively. Exposure to total dust and silica was significantly higher than the occupational standard (P <0.0001). Stone carvers' exposure to silica was at very high-risk level, and the carcinogenicity of silica considering two cancer slopes was 7.40 × 10-6 and 3.12 × 10-7 and the risk of non-carcinogenicity was unacceptable. The mortality rate due to silicosis was between 3 and 12 people per thousand, and due to lung cancer was 150.24 people per thousand. Based on the results of risk assessment, serious control measures should be implemented in order to reduce workers' exposure to silica.

Assessment of Respiratory Health Issues Among Stone Carvers of Rajasthan, India

Assessment of Respiratory Health Issues Among Stone Carvers of Rajasthan, India

How Does a Stone Carver Create? A Participatory Case Study

ABSTRACTArt and design involve divergent creative processes. Design is a more constrained domain than art. While creativity in some specific domains, such as painting, sculpture, and music, has been widely studied, some have as yet been little explored. One example is stone carving. What characterizes stone carving, as a creative occupation? What is a stone carver's creative process? We set out to answer these questions by interviewing a stone carver about his profession, his process, his productions, and his place in society. In this case study, we examined the stone carver's discourse using a combination of three content analysis software tools. Taken together, the results highlight and detail 3 of the 7 Cs of creativity: the stone carver as creator, his creating (creative process), and his creations (productions) on which the interview focuses. The results of this participatory case study were validated by the stone carver himself. They reveal that stone carving sits at the intersection between handicraft, design, and art.

Neue Forschungen zu den Florentiner Künstlern in Ungarn: Buda, Esztergom und die Bakócz-Kapelle

Neue Forschungen zu den Florentiner Künstlern in Ungarn: Buda, Esztergom und die Bakócz-Kapelle

The Artistic Exploration of Balbir Singh Katt: An Introduction

Balbir Singh Katt, an eminent Indian stone carver of the modern era has always been credited for enrichment of the institutionalized ethos of monumental sculptures with a purified connotation tuned to post-colonial eclecticism. More than three decades (1970’s to 2000) during his career spanning, it was indeed amazing to see that how he continued his ‘sustained interest in handling large blocks’ invariably big boulders while many of his contemporaries preferred to do small or portable pieces for practical exigencies. This study investigates his artistic works and life in the domain of contemporary Indian Art. Through adopting qualitative research tools this paper explores in his artistic output in the context of monumental sculpture in public space in India.

Zois Mansion in Ljubljana. A fresh look at the portals on the main façade

The article discusses the portals on the main façade of Zois Mansion on Breg 22 in Ljubljana. The building, characterized by an extensive architectural history and now combining six houses, was given its current appearance around 1805. The main portal, originating from the first Zois corner house, was transferred to the current location about 1765, when the house was merged with the next-door Erberg Mansion. Probably built in the workshop of the master stone carver Luka Mislej between 1710 and 1727, the portal represents a high-quality and original work that stands out from the rest of Ljubljana’s contemporary production. Other portals use the same form. The first, the fourth, and the sixth from the left were built about 1805, during the last expansion of the mansion, probably forming part of the opus of the architect Ignac Prager. The second, the third, and the seventh portals date to 1832, formally imitating the former three.

SILENCE IN JANE URQUHART’S THE STONE CARVERS

Silence is traditionally recognized as a space of time in which words are not articulated and meaning is not convened. But, silence emerges to have a variety of meanings in literary texts, and that meaning is determined by the context within which silence is placed. The treatment of the theme of silence in 19th century fiction is associated with social injustice and war violence. As shown in the writings of that century, silence replaces feelings and ideas that the authors and/or their characters cannot find the words which can express the victims’ profound pain. In The Stone Carvers (2001), Canadian novelist Jane Urquhart introduces silence as moments of unspoken language, each moment produces two, or more, oppositional meanings, which may affect the characters differently. This research sheds light on the moments of silence that are shown in Urquhart’s novel.

A NEW INTERPRETATION OF A BUDDHIST IMAGE FROM AMARKUNDU, MURSHIDABAD

The purpose of this article is to identify a sculptural specimen of Khasarpana Avalokitesvara which has been incorrectly identified as Buddha by Sudhir Ranjan Das and the specimen is popularly known as Raghunath or Vishnu. While assigning a date to this specimen on stylistic ground, this Khasarpana Avalokitesvara appears to be similar with the Mahakali specimen of Khasarpana Avalokisvara kept in the National Museum of Bangladesh in Dhaka. Claudine Bautze Picron compared the stylistic features of various images and enabled grouping them within a specific chronological bracket through which the direction of the movement of stone carvers from Bihar to Bengal can be assumed between ninth to twelfth century CE. The Khasarpana Avalokitesvara of Amarkundu helps us bridge the temporal and spatial gap of transmission of stylistic features and understand their variations.

La partecipazione degli architetti, scultori e impresari italiani alla costruzione dei monumenti ai caduti della Grande Guerra nella Romania interbellica

"The Participation of Italian Arhitects, Sculptors and Entrepreneurs in the Construction of the Heroes’ Monuments Fallen in the First World War in Interwar Romania. Seasonal or permanent migration from Italian regions to Romania in the 19th and 20th centuries involved a variable number of unskilled workers but also personalities (artists and sculptors), many Venetians and Friulians, who left clear, tangible evidence, of their stay and the results of their work on the Romanian territory. With the end of the First World War and with the outbreak of Greater Romania, the need to build memorials dedicated to those who fell in the struggles for the unification of the nation was felt throughout the country. Sculptors and entrepreneurs from Veneto and Friuli were among the protagonists of this process of institutionalizing memory. It is worth mentioning, regarding the sculpture, the presence in Romania of the artists Ettore Ferrari and Raffaello Romanelli; the Italian entrepreneurs and stonemasons, Giovanni Battista De Nicolò, Victor and Giovanni Mezzarobba, made a significant contribution to the materialization of the projects to honor the memory of the heroes of the First World War. The artistic and urban involvement of the Italians settled in Romania proved to be important in the construction of public monuments in many cities in Romania. Vincenzo Puschiasis (1874–1941), a sculptor established in Piatra Neamț in 1899, played a special role among the stone carvers of Friulian origin living in Romania. Puschias is established himself in Romania not only locally, but also nationally, through the large number and quality of monuments erected for the Romanian heroes who fell in the First World War. His works are characterized by strength, finesse, elegance, combination of styles and aesthetic harmony. After 1919, Vincenzo Puschias is founded the Construction Company in the County of Neamț, specializing in the construction of memorials dedicated to those who fell in the First World War. Among his most remarkable works in this field are: the funeral complex from the “Eternitatea” Cemetery of Piatra Neamț, made in collaboration with Gheorghe Iconaru; monuments of the heroes erected in Bistricioara, Căciulești, Verșești, Roznov, Bahna, Văleni, Zănești; obelisks in Gârcina, Oanțu, Roznov, Piatra Șoimului, Podoleni; the statue of the hero soldier from Viișoara. Keywords: Italian emigrants; First World War; sculptors and entrepreneurs; Ettore Ferrari; Raffaello Romanelli; The Mausoleum of the Heroes of Mateiaș; Vincenzo Puschiasis. "

Artworks of Russian Stone Carvers in the Diplomatic Service

This review examines recently published works by Russian scholars in the field of artistic stone carving, namely, the reference book by N. M. Mavrodina, Works of Russian Stone-Carving Art in Collections outside Russia (2019), and the monograph by L. A. Budrina, Malachite Diplomacy (2020). Both works study objects created by Russian stone carving artists through the 18th – early twentieth century and which left the country as a result of various diplomatic occasions. The authors have adopted different research approaches. N. M. Mavrodina, preparing a catalogue of works exported from Russia, focuses mainly on the activities of Imperial stone-carving factories. The monograph by L. A. Budrina, on the other hand, focuses on the identification and study of carvings and their history; it also offers insights into the role of stone-carved objects in the formation of the image of the Russian state, and describes the main mechanisms that contributed to the formation of a fashion for Russian stone carving abroad. The two reviewed works offer a significant contribution to the historiography of stone carving art, as well as the role of works of art in creating the image of a country or region and their place in the formation of a single European art market.

Review: Michelangelo, God's Architect: The Story of His Final Years and Greatest Masterpiece

Review: <i>Michelangelo, God's Architect: The Story of His Final Years and Greatest Masterpiece</i>

Lung Function Impairment and Workplace Control Measures among Marble Stone Carvers in Sa-Kyin Village, Madayar Township, Myanmar

Introduction: Marble rocks, composed of dust containing calcium carbonate and silica particles, predispose to a higher prevalence of occupational lung diseases. This study aimed to assess workplace control measures and lung function impairment among marble stone carvers.&#x0D; Methods: A cross-sectional descriptive study was conducted among 120 marble stone carvers in Sa-Kyin Village, Madayar Township in May 2019. Information about existing control measures in the workplace was assessed using a pre-tested structured questionnaire and participants’ lung function using spirometry. Respirable dust measurements in twelve randomly selected workers were performed by personal air sampling pumps.&#x0D; Results: It was found that 9.2% of marble stone carvers used disposable or cloth masks throughout the working time, but no one was found using appropriate devices like respirators. No one reported about regular medical checkup and provision of health education at the workplaces. Spirometry testing showed 55.8% had lung function impairment. Concentrations of respirable dust ranged from 7.19 to 10.13 mg/m3, significantly higher than the recommended Threshold Limit Value (3 mg/m3). In multivariable logistic regression analysis, development of lung function impairment was associated with age [adjusted Odds Ratio (aOR) = 2.84; 95% CI = 1.02,7.91] and use of face mask (aOR = 0.11; 95% CI = 0.01,0.91).&#x0D; Conclusion: The working environment was found dusty, and a significant proportion of workers had lung function impairment. It is essential to adopt proper dust control measures in stone carving workplaces. Preventive measures like medical surveillance and health education program are vital to reduce the burdens from occupational lung diseases.

Bruder und Schwester wie Wort und Bild?1

Throughout my writing life, I have collaborated with many visual artists − painters, etchers, wood-engravers, lino-cutters, watercolourists, photographers, even a stone carver; 37, I believe, not including occasional exchanges with illustrators of foreign editions of my books. For this article, I’ve chosen six artists to represent very different ways of working together. It hasn’t been easy to set aside such superb and eminent artists as Brian Wildsmith, who illustrated my first novel, Havelok the Dane (1964) and whose spirited, meticulous line drawings, with their replacement characters and glue and whiteout still hang on my walls at home. It was difficult, too, to omit Margaret Gordon: she and I made three picture books together, one of which, The Green Children, won the Arts Council Award for the Best Book for Young Children 1966–68. And John Hedgecoe – cussed, determined, imaginative, immensely talented, generous and a great photographer, with whom I worked on my Norfolk Poems (1970) – who persuaded me to wade fully clothed up and down muddy back-creeks, with strings of seaweed around my neck. But after some deliberation, the six visual artists I’ve chosen to write about are: Charles Keeping, John Lawrence, Andrew Rafferty, Norman Ackroyd, Jane Ray and Jeffrey Alan Love.

Vimy, Gallipoli, trauma, and the poetics of grief : re-reading the myths of the First World War in Jane Urquhart's The Stone Carvers and Brenda Walker's The Wing of Night

Vimy, Gallipoli, trauma, and the poetics of grief : re-reading the myths of the First World War in Jane Urquhart's The Stone Carvers and Brenda Walker's The Wing of Night

A rock and an art place: the Inkas’ Collaconcho in context

Collaconcho, a large rocky outcropping located at the edge of the Inka archaeological site of Saqsaywaman, was – from an Andean perspective – both sentient and agentic. Oral histories accuse this stone of resisting Inka construction efforts and also of homicide. Over time, Inka stone carvers blanketed its surface with mostly abstract forms; of them, step motifs (siqana) predominate. Here we consider the significance of Collaconcho's ‘steps’ and what this outcropping meant to the Inkas who made it and to the indigenous Andeans who viewed it. Bearing in mind Collaconcho's location and the legend surrounding it, I suggest that its carvings may be dialogic in nature, that the Inkas sculpted the rock as a means of communicating with this venerable, powerful, and – at times – hostile being. Collaconcho, in its storied defiance and heavily carved superficies, embodied the ways the Inkas engaged oppositional forces.

A Roman cathedra episcopalis from the Era of Pope Hadrian I

Among the liturgical furnishings that have survived from the early medieval period, a complete episcopal throne is a true rarity. This article examines a marble papal throne that appeared on the antiquities market in Rome in the late 1930s and is now in private hands. This cathedra is remarkable not only for its excellent state of preservation, but also for the refined sculptural decoration on its back and arms. Considering the decorative scheme as a whole, and the sculptural techniques in particular, it is likely that the throne was produced during the papacy of Hadrian I (772–95) by a stone carvers’ workshop in Rome, based at the church of Sta. Maria in Cosmedin, which had been rebuilt in those years at the order of the pope himself. A comparison of archaeological data with church documents from the second half of the eighth century provides an idea of the role played by such thrones as a focal element in the program of stational liturgy observed by the popes of that era. It is entirely plausible that this rare piece of furniture came from such an important church as Sta. Maria in Cosmedin, which was annexed to one of the city’s most important deaconries. Its artistic merits open new perspectives on the state of the sculptural arts in Rome during the early phases of the so-called Carolingian Renaissance, while its great symbolic value justifies a reconsideration of the role of papal and imperial thrones in the early Middle Ages, starting with the “Cathedra of Saint Peter,” which dates from the late Carolingian era.

Monsieur Göthé: Goethes unbekannter Großvater by Heiner Boehncke, Hans Sarkowicz, and Joachim Seng

Reviewed by: Monsieur Göthé: Goethes unbekannter Großvater by Heiner Boehncke, Hans Sarkowicz, and Joachim Seng Elizabeth Powers Heiner Boehncke, Hans Sarkowicz, and Joachim Seng. Monsieur Göthé: Goethes unbekannter Großvater. Berlin: Die Andere Bibliothek, 2017. 478 pp. Monsieur Göthé makes evident the aptness of the phrase "born with a silver spoon in his mouth" in the case of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. In view of the interest in recent years in the poet's financial affairs and his knowledge of economic matters, it is not surprising that the authors would wish to throw light on the source of Goethe's wealth and on his own acknowledgment to Eckermann of the great sums of money that had been spent, "um das zu lernen, was ich weiß." The inheritance of Johann Caspar, Goethe's father, in 1730 from his father, Friedrich Georg, victualer at the "Weidenhof" on the Zeil in Frankfurt, is concretely enumerated (sacks and sacks full of louis d'ors, ducats, "Vikariatstaler," and other gold coins, but also approximately 12,000 liters of wine). Goethe came into the world with an immense "Weinvorrat, . . . der gepflegt, umgefüllt, mit Kennerschaft und in ziemlich großen Mengen getrunken wurde," especially of the premier Mosel wines of the years 1706, 1719, and 1726, which his mother affectionately referred to as "die alten Herren" (31). The title of this text alludes to the four years Friedrich Georg (b. 1657) spent as a tailor apprentice in the "silk city" of Lyon, France, from 1681 to 1685, when the accent was apparently added to prevent shortening of the family name. (A second alteration occurred when Johann Caspar matriculated at the Casimirianum in Coburg in 1725; the Latin document did not recognize an umlaut.) Lyon was part of the twelve-year "Wanderschaft" of the Thuringia-born apprentice tailor, who left France after the revocation of the Edict of Nantes and moved to Frankfurt, married a tailor's daughter, and became a sought-after dressmaker ("eine Art Karl Lagerfeld von Frankfurt. . . . Unter den Damenschneidern der Stadt war er einer der ersten," 264). Between 1686 and 1704 this self-made man (259) went from the lowest tax category to the highest. In 1705, as a widower, he married [End Page 306] the widow of the proprietor of the Weidenhof and ran that business until his death in 1730. One indication of his wealth can be seen in the 2,700 guilders that Johann Caspar earned in interest income in 1770, the year he married Catharina Elisabeth Textor. In contrast, his new father-in-law, Johann Wolfgang Textor, the highest city official, earned 1,700 guilders a year. Friedrich Georg and the Thuringian Göthes are not exactly unknown. Biographical research in the late nineteenth century produced several studies of the family tree. The earliest documented Göthe was Hans, born about 1500 in Sonderhausen, who, it is reckoned (from a variety of contemporary sources), was a stone carver. It is with his grandson Hans Christian Göthe the Younger (b. 1604), a blacksmith, that a genealogical record begins to emerge. Unfortunately, the documentary record for Friedrich Georg is scant. The archives in Artern, where he lived from the age of two, were destroyed in a great fire in 1683. There is no record of his apprenticeship in Germany, only a later account of his having spent eight years of it in Saxon lands and in the Reich. There is not a single scrap of paper of his residence in Lyon; like most Protestants working in France, he kept his head down: "Er blieb unsichtbar, hinterliess keine Spuren" (145). The first documented piece of his existence in Frankfurt was his citizenship petition (signed as "Fredericus Georg Göthé") in 1687. The authors have been assiduous in their "Spurensuche." For those like myself who love reading the results of archival research, Monsieur Göthé has many delights, and the introduction, discussing the surviving original sources, presents a good picture of what archivists do. In the end, however, this study is perforce about the changing world in which an ambitious individual could rise from lowly origins to wealth and reputation. Alongside surveying late seventeenth-century apprenticeship customs and...

Conjuring Ghosts of the Past: Landscapes and Hauntings in Jane Urquhart’s The Stone Carvers

Jane Urquhart’s novel The Stone Carvers (2001) portrays the struggles of a community of German immigrants in the nineteenth century, as they attempt to settle in Western Ontario; it also includes a fictionalized account of the construction of the Canadian National Vimy Memorial 1 (for First World War Canadian dead, and missing, presumed dead, in France). The article explores the issues of dealing with loss, and re-living the past, which are interwoven by Urquhart into a larger narrative, forming an ongoing meditation on the experience of ‘in-betweenness’— transgressing not only spatial, but also temporal boundaries— and incorporating individual and communal histories as they are passed on through generations. The lives of Urquhart’s characters are marked by the ambivalence of belonging— the experience of having more than one homeland, in more than one landscape. They are haunted by lost places, and by the memory of people who perished as a result of war, or who they left behind in the course of their own personal journey. The article explores the issue of ‘landscape biography’, and also examines Urquhart’s employment of the literary topoi of nekuia/katabasis (i.e., encounters with the dead). It demonstrates how the confrontation with the past becomes, in the novel, a prerequisite for regeneration of the present, and the establishment of the future.

The Unfinished: Stone Carvers at Work in the Indian Subcontinent. By Vidya Dehejia and Peter Rockwell. New Delhi: Roli Books, 2016. 274 pp. ISBN: 9789351941149 (cloth).

The Unfinished: Stone Carvers at Work in the Indian Subcontinent. By Vidya Dehejia and Peter Rockwell. New Delhi: Roli Books, 2016. 274 pp. ISBN: 9789351941149 (cloth).