The English Catholic artist Martin Earle has just sent to me some examples of recently completed work which included a statue commissioned by Benedictines in Italy.
It is a cast statue of the Mother of God in an early Gothic style (74 x 22 x 15cm).
It was inspired, Martin told me, by a beautiful 14th-century Umbrian work in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City:
Mary's expression [in the original] is humble and direct and yet she wears a golden robe. Christ sits like a Lord. And yet his nakedness points both to the incarnation and crucifixion. The budget would stretch to carving this in stone or wood so I modeled it in clay and then cast it into a type of resinous plaster. This made the polychroming more tricky.
I have no idea how multiple colors would be applied to the resin that was used, but I think you'll agree that he has done well. Here is a picture of the 14th-century original.
This is from the gothic period, usually considered from around 1130 until the High Renaissance, but it still owes much to the iconographic Romanesque style that preceded it historically. The iconographic style is characterized in paintings by its lack of depth which is intended to reveal the heavenly dimension (considered outside time and space). It is for this reason that statues are rare in Eastern Rite churches, which insist upon iconographic art for their liturgies. it is no mean feat, therefore, for the artists, both Martin and the sculptor of the 14th-century Umbrian statue, to communicate a strong sense of iconographic art in what is, essentially, a three-dimensional art form. Having said that things aren't quite as they appear from the front in the original. Here is a side view:
And a reverse view:
Martin adopted the same approach, you'll notice that although I only have this photo, the depth is just 15cm - about six inches - which is narrow for a 30 inch tall statue.
He is also a skilled relief carver and he will have drawn on his expertise in this even flatter form of sculpted art, I am thinking, in order to be able to create the commission for Norcia. Here is a recently completed relief carving by him in polychromed oak. It is the Adoration of the Magi.
It is a large altar frontal (65cm x 55cm) completed for St John the Forerunner Orthodox Church in Austin, Texas. He also carved a crucifixion and the altar itself in stone. I will feature this in a separate posting later in the year.
http://martinearle.com/
