Wooden Statue Research Articles

Medieval Wood Sculpture and Its Setting in Architecture: Studies in Some Churches in and around Pisa

The last two decades have seen important scholarly research published on medieval wood sculpture. The exhibitions held in Siena (1987), Lucca (1995–96) and Pisa (2000–01) allowed the status of these studies to be examined and permitted investigation into crucial aspects of style and attribution. Furthermore, all these contributions note the liturgical role and function of these works of art. Nevertheless, they only suggest the issue of the relationship between wood sculpture and architecture, which is the topic of the present article. If stone sculpture is often conceived with specific settings inside churches in mind — like lunettes or pillars — being strongly connected with architecture, the same cannot be said for sculpture in wood. In fact, function and practical usage have always been recognized as the main characteristics of wooden statues, and these qualities make it much more difficult to ascertain their original setting.

Religious Festivities, Communal Rivalry, and Restructuring of Authority Relations in Rural Chaozhou, Southeast China

The fifth day of the Lunar New Year marks the beginning of six weeks of religious festivities in the rural area of Chaozhou, a distinct dialect region in Southeast China. Scheduled on separate dates, processions of local deities are staged by different villages. On the morning of the chosen day, villagers flock to the main village temple, where wooden statues of the divine occupants are congregated with those from other local temples. Each family sets up a table in the courtyard, lights incense and candles, and presents its offerings (of chicken, duck, goose, fish, rice, wine, fruits, cakes, and candies) to the statues. With paper money set on fire, worship and prayers begin.

Art and Ritual in Golden-Age Spain: Sevillian Confraternities and the Processional Sculpture of Holy Week by Susan Verdi Webster

Reviews525 ness of the study. Riley includes it to illustrate the existence of a 3-2-1 formulaic pattern in the Dejiang version of the Luo matrix as seen and heard in Dejiang nuo theater. According to Riley, the 3-2-1 pattern is recreated by the large gong of the percussion section. Unfortunately, none of the three musical lines in Diagram 54 are labeled with instrument names. In other words, the reader does not know which part is that of the large gong. Assuming that the bottom line belongs to the large gong (since the lowest pitched instrument would normally occupy the lowest staff), there is still not compelling evidence to support that the line is heard as a 3-2-1 pattern. For such a pattern to be established, we would need more than one repetition—thus pointing to the occurrence of a pattern. As is so often the case in this book, we are presented with very compelling material, but Riley falls short of tying it altogether into a convincing and tightly- constructed argument. Chinese Theatre and the Actor in Performance is an extremely ambitious work that reaches across great expanses of time, physical distance, and performance genre (including varieties of ritual activity) in presenting its "deep" reading of Chinese theatrical performance. There is no other work ofwhich I am aware that attempts to make such direct connections between the highly refined Peking opera and both ancient and modern ritual knowledge and practice. Riley's insights and theories are intriguing and hopefully will serve as a launching point for further study. NANCY GUY University ofCalifornia, San Diego Susan Verdi Webster. Art and Ritual in Golden-Age Spain: Sevillian Confraternities and the Processional Sculpture of Holy Week. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1998. Pp. xxii + 298 + 12 plates; 55 illus. $55.00. "For nearly five centuries in towns all across Spain and Latin America, penitential confraternities—groups of laity devoted to particular aspects or moments of the Passion—have commemorated the Passion of Christ by staging elaborate public processions during Holy Week. Day and night, from Palm Sunday to Easter Sunday, files of hooded penitents carrying life-size sculptural tableaux wend through city streets, re-enacting the Passion as a public, ritual expiation ofsins" (4). In this carefully argued and lavishly illustrated book, art historian Susan Verdi Webster examines the history and current status of the 526Comparative Drama best-known ofthese Easter processions, that of Seville. Her starting point is the conviction that "processional sculpture exhibits] physical and formal characteristics that identifTy] it as a distinct sculptural genre, differentiable from all other types of sculpture." Scholarly failure to take into account the "distinctive ritual function" of these images, Webster believes, has meant that they have been largely misunderstood by scholars and that "as aesthetic objects they have frequently been denigrated" (6-7). As a particularly graphic example of such misunderstanding, Webster cites the British scholar Albert Calvert, who wrote of one of the Sevillian sculptures, "The face has splendid dignity. But the statue has been disfigured by the barbarous custom of dressing the figure in elaborate robes entirely out of harmony with the subject. Nobody sees the figure as it originally was, vigorously carved, and wearing nothing but a loin-cloth." Unlike Calvert, Webster has seen the statue of Jesus del Gran Poder unclothed. She points out that only the head, feet, and hands ofthe image are fully rendered and that "the summarily carved torso and tubular, articulated arms were never intended to be visible" (9). To assume that the popular custom of dressing the processional sculpture concealed the sculptor's nobler vision of a classically carved near-nude is to miss the point entirely . The statue was intended, from the outset, to be as lightweight as possible, to be clothed, and to be viewed in procession. In five chapters, Webster examines the confraternities that commissioned the life-size wooden statues and still carry them in procession ; the sculptures themselves; the costumes in which the images are dressed and the "elaborate stage-sets" (129) on which they are carried; the ritual context of the Holy Week processions; and the public response of Holy Week audiences. Sometimes the main argument...

Are Japanese wooden statues of the Ancient Period made of Torreya nucifera (L.) Sieb. et Zucc?

Are Japanese wooden statues of the Ancient Period made of Torreya nucifera (L.) Sieb. et Zucc?

A Problematic Wooden Statue in the Ashmolean Museum

Publication of a problematic wooden statue in the Ashmolean Museum, with the unusual feature of a head apparently made as a piece separate from the body. Does it belong? The implications of this are discussed, and stylistic parallels adduced for an early Twelfth Dynasty date for the statue.

A Problematic Wooden Statue in the Ashmolean Museum

A Problematic Wooden Statue in the Ashmolean Museum

Protein determination in polychromed stone sculptures, stuccoes and gesso grounds

Abstract Various procedures were used to extract and determine proteinaceous material from artificial specimens and samples taken from works of art. Polychromed stone sculptures (twelfth-thirteenth century), the gesso ground from a wooden statue (fifteenth century), fresco plasters (sixteenth century) and stuccoes of various ages were examined. The best results were obtained by extracting protein with 1N NaOH at 80°C for 180 minutes and determination by a modified Folin phenol assay. The amino acid composition of proteins was determined by direct hydrolysis of the samples and desalting on a sulphonic resin. High performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) using phenyl isothiocyanate (PITC) derivatization permitted the identification of some of the proteins used in the works of art and demonstrated the presence of amino acids deriving from microorganism activity and environmental contamination. The extraction method used here and direct hydrolysis appeared to be complementary: the colorimetric procedure permi...

古代メソポタミアの神像とその素材

A divine statue played a very important role in the religion of the ancient Mesopotamia. It was considered to be a vividly realistic sacred being, god of a very real sense. It was actually fed and clothed. In the first millenia B. C., the statue was made with wooden materials, I believe, according to some evidences. Then, what were the materials of the divine statues in both the second and the third millenium? Some certain year names of the period of the 3rd dynastie of Ur, Isin, Larsa and the Ist dynasty of Babylon suggest that small copper or bronze made divine statues were dedicated by the kings of those days in the temples there. Certain texts of economic concern of the Ur III period also tell us about the manufacture of the statues with copper or bronze materials. Though the numbers have still been few, lists of divine clothings and jewelries of the Ur III period, mainly of the old Babylonian period and thereafter, have also revealed to us. As I think that a large and wodden-made statue should also have required to wear clothings and jewelries, I am inclined to assume that wooden statues came to apear about this period.

Aeschylus' ὓμνος δέσμιος (Eum. 306) and Attic judicial curse tablets

When the Erinyes catch up with Orestes in Athens they find him clutching the archaic wooden statue of Athena and invoking her aid along with that of Apollo (Eum. 235 ff.). The Erinyes scorn his prayers and bid him hear their ‘binding song’: ὕμνον δ’ ἀκούσῃ τόνδε δέσμιον (306). Wecklein in his 1888 edition of the play remarked ‘erinnert an magische Künste’ and quoted Laws 933a, where Plato, discussing murder by poison, makes brief mention of the popular belief in sorcerers, incantations and binding spells (καταδέσεις). Subsequent commentators repeat Wecklein's brief note nearly verbatim and then elaborate it along two different lines, either claiming some vague Orphic source (Thomson 1938) or citing Wuensch's Defixionum Tabellae Atticae (Blass 1907; Groeneboom 1952). More recently, Lebeck argued that the ostensible title (‘binding song’) is incompatible with the actual content of the stasimon (Apollo's encroachment on the Erinyes’ power); she concluded that the title is irrelevant or at best only of secondary importance.’ Thus on the whole, this ὕμνος δέσμιος has been treated as a remnant of magical or chthonic lore too obscure to have any real bearing on our understanding of the immediate dramatic situation in Eumenides. I shall argue to the contrary that the song is closely related to a specific kind of curse tablet used to affect the outcome of law cases in Athens as early as the 5th century bc, and as such it is important to the dramatic context of a tragedy which depicts the mythical foundation of Athens’ first homicide court.

Single-two hologram interferometry: a combined method for dynamic tests on painted wooden statues

It is shown that a combined system, utilizing sandwich real time holography with a CW laser can be used in artwork diagnostics to yield information about the state of conservation and the kinetic behaviour of a painted gesso wood statue, in response to ambient parameter variations (ambient drift). Such testing is an interesting and convenient engineering application of HNDT to artworks.

Computed tomography for measuring annual rings of a live tree

A portable X-ray computed-tomography (CT) scanner has been developed for the nondestructive measurement of cross sections of live trees, wooden utility poles, wooden building columns, wooden statues, etc., in the field environment. Temporal resolution of CT reconstruction is good enough for observing details of annual rings of trees. The scanner shah be useful in plant physiology, environment assessment, safety assurance of poles, archeology, and dendrochronology.

Two Wooden Statues From Lisht: Do They Represent Sesostris I?

Deux statuettes (56 et 58 cm de haut) en bois, non inscrites, representant deux rois divinises, trouvees en 1914 par l'expedition du MMA a Lisht. L'une portant la couronne de Haute Egypte, l'autre celle de Basse Egypte, toutes deux sans l'urae. L'A., sur la base d'un examen du contexte archeologique de ces deux pieces (Le Caire JE44951 et MMA 14.3.17) et d'une analyse du style, estime qu'elles ne representent pas Sesostris I et ne faisaient pas partie de sa tombe. Elles proviennent d'un tombeau prive, introduit dans l'enceinte du complexe funeraire de Sesostris, vers la fin de la XII dynastie ou au debut de la XIII. Ces deux statuettes temoignent de la democratisation du culte d'Osiris a cette epoque.

Chromatic versus Polychrome Sculpture

quently filled in with colors: brown, red ochre and black oxide of manganese [1]. In the bronze age of early Mesopotamia, the sculptor satisfied his appetite for color by inlaying his bronze statues with shells and lapis lazuli. From the Amarnian period in Egypt, some sensitively carved heads in wood have come down to us that were painted to imitate the color of the skin with a contrasting color for the hair. Minoan, Mycaenean and archaic Greek sculpture were also generally ornamented with color [2]. The great sculptors of the classical period in Greece, in love with the natural colors and texture of marble, were reluctant to bow to the prevailing fashion of that time (which was to superimpose colors on sculpture) but sometimes did compromise by allowing some delicate flesh tones to be sparingly applied [3]. Furthermore, the sculptors of the Renaissance, from Donatello to Michelangelo, and right into the twentieth century such sculptors as, for example, Auguste Rodin, were unequivocally opposed to the addition of paint to their sculptures. They looked upon such practice as a vulgarism that did violence to their work. In the Baroque and Rococco periods, the practice of polychromy (the painting of sculpture) reached its highest development. Especially those sculptures, destined to be placed in richly ornamented churches, were colored, ostensibly to harmonize with their surroundings. The demand for lavish ornamentation created a cadre of specialists whose work consisted exclusively in painting these sculptures. The entire wooden statue was covered with linens, then covered with a layer of gesso that was then painted in colors and overlaid with gold leaf. Polychromy was also resorted to by sculptors in recent times and is still practiced today, whether in figurative or non-figurative sculpture. Where the work is carried out in wood it is then painted over with some color or gold leaf to hide the imperfections of the underlying material or to augment its attractiveness.

Bukenqu Guanyin at Mount Putuo, China and the Avalokiteśvara Statues from Mid-Goryeo - Tracing the Origin of the Wooden Avalokiteśvara Statues at Bongjeong and Bogwang Temples -

This paper examines the legend of so-called “Bukenqu Guanyin” (不肯去觀音, Guanyin who does not want to leave) at Mount Putuo (普陀山) in China and proposes it as the source of origin of the two Avalokiteśvara statues enshrined at Bongjeongsa (鳳停寺) and Bogwangsa (普光寺) at Andong in Korea. A miraculous statue which was allegedly expressed its will to stay at Mount Putuo in the mid-ninth century, Bukenqu Guanyin has been related to a Japanese Buddhist monk Egaku (慧顎), who is described in a series of literary sources written after the 13th century, such as Baoqing Siming zhi (寶慶四明志, 1227) and Putuo luojia shanzhuan (普陀洛伽山傳, 1361), as the person who founded Mount Putuo as the sacred place of the bodhisattva Avalokiteśvara. In addition, a wooden statue now enshrined at Sennyuji 泉涌寺 in Kyoto (made in Southern Song China and brought to Kamakura Japan in ca. 1230) has been regarded as the oldest extant example which was made after the Bukenqu Guanyin. This paper, however, illuminates the role of Silla and Goryeo in establishing the cult of Bukenqu Guanyin at Mount Putuo, based on the 12thcentury records, such as Xuanhe fengshi Gaoli tujing (宣和奉使高麗圖經, 1124) and Mozhuang manlu (墨莊漫錄, first-half of the 12th century). The literary sources inform us that the Bukenqui Guanyin served as the focus of prayer to the Northern Song envoys and Goryeo merchants who travelled between China and Korean peninsula via sea. Based on the evidence, I argue that the Bukenqu Guanyin was already known in Goryeo as late as the 12th century and that the statues at Bongjeongsa and Bogwangsa, which were made in 1199 and late 12th century respectively, are likely to have been made based on the knowledge and the cult of the Bukenqu Guanyin at Mount Putuo.

St. Andrew in the Work of Tilmann Riemenschneider

THREE statues of St. Andrew by Tilmann Riemenschneider have hitherto been known: the stone statue in the Wurzburg Cathedral from Riemenschneider's workshop (Figs. 1–2); the lindenwood statue in the altarpiece of the Twelve Apostles in the Kurpfalzische Museum, Heidelberg, which after removal of its coat of paint proved to be a work by the master (Figs. 5–7); and the painted wooden statue that disappeared from the chapel of the Ehehaltenhaus in Wurzburg. The last can be evaluated from the photograph with some probability as also a work of the master (Fig. 3). A fourth statue of St. Andrew by Riemenschneider's hand, an unpainted lindenwood sculpture in the collection of the Samuel H. Kress Foundation, so far unpublished, will be introduced here (Figs. 8–10). Yet before we discuss this statue, we will have to study the other three, since that has never been done with any degree of thoroughness. Through such a comparative study a new insight into Riemenschneider's development during the first decade of the si...

Udgravninger på Bahrain. Dansk Arkæologisk Bahrain-Ekspeditions 2. udgravningskampagne

Udgravninger på Bahrain. Dansk Arkæologisk Bahrain-Ekspeditions 2. udgravningskampagne

Undeciphered Scripts

ACCORDING to a letter from Sir Denison Ross in the Times of Sept. 21, M. Guillaume Hevesy, a Hungarian resident in Paris, has discovered that a number of the signs of the prehistoric Indian script on seals from Mohenjo-daro also appear in the script of the Easter Island inscribed wooden tablets, while some of the Easter Island signs, not present on the Indian seals, are to be found in the proto-Elamic of Susa. It would now be interesting to hear whether there is any coincidence in the interpretation of the prehistoric Indian signs suggested by Sir Flinders Petrie (see NATURE, Sept. 17, p. 429) and those suggested for the Easter Island script in the Report of the Committee of the Royal Anthropological Institute of which Mr. Sidney Ray was chairman. The suggestion of a connexion between the two scripts is not the only attempt to find an affinity between Easter Island and this part of Asia. M. J. Hackin, of the Musée Guimet, has recently directed attention to the resemblance which has been noted between the wooden statues, probably ancestral, which were objects of reverence among the Kafirs of Afghanistan before they were overwhelmed by Islam, of which examples are now preserved in the Kabul Museum, and the well-known statues of Easter Island. The resemblances certainly are strong, although it might be argued that they do not go beyond what may be due to the limitations of an undeveloped technique. It must also be admitted that when the material which it is sought to bring into relation is so widely separated in date as in these instances, the comparison, in default of intervening links, carries more interest than conviction.

Primitive Wooden Statues Which Pausanias Saw in Greece

Primitive Wooden Statues Which Pausanias Saw in Greece

2. On the Origin and Progress of Grecian Sculpture. Part I

“The author adduced arguments to prove, that the Egyptians were the real masters of the Greeks in the arts of Design. The Greek writers admit that, when their ancestors were barbarous, the Egyptian colonists of Argos and Athens imported with them the arts of a more polished people; that they brought into Greece images of the Gods; and that the most ancient sculptures mentioned by Pausanias and Pliny bore the impress of an Egyptian character; especially the wooden statues ascribed by Pausanias to the elder Dædalus and to Attalus, the celebrated colossal statue of the Amyclæan Apollo, and the lions still existing over the gate of Mycenæ.