Studio: international art (10.1897)

Early Scandinavian PVood-Carvings

gradually by the aid of those mental and physical an opportunity of showing the part played by the
qualities which are peculiar to ourselves. Saxon and the Celt in forming a national style of

The question of race has therefore a very im- decorative art, but in the present article we pro-
portant bearing on art. The chief race elements of pose to direct attention to works either executed in
the inhabitants of Great Britain are the Celtic, the Denmark, Sweden, and Norway, or if found in
Saxon, the Scandinavian, and perhaps a quantite England, only those exhibiting strong Scandinavian
n'egligable of the Iberian. The distribution of these influence.

elements is very clearly indicated by the place The causes which have from a very early period
names, as any one contributed to make

can see who will sr-~- ______ the inhabitants of

take the trouble to tt vO. • , ' :"7rrwr=?v^;' ~\ Norway expert wood

look at the instruc- \', .', carvers are not far

tive map given in ^7?-. p'^ ' .r --1—TI _ v t0 see^ > tne prin-

Canon Isaac Tay- i Vy j y^j- cipal ones being,

lor's Words and , <S^T^~S H't^ (I) tnat timber was

Places. It will 1 always the most

there be seen that ; j. ^v -^ "V. | • V"J easily obtainable

whilst Wales, Corn- j \'~ y ^. -4 ) j,y viSfe&C* j ;J building material;

wall, and the north- ir.l3^^y^j^^^fiy*V^^(2) that the physi-

•eastern parts of Scot- mjcJ) %h Vi^jijj^/ """vyl fey,, cal nature of the

land are intensely -•'- >. >*' country, intersected

Celtic, and southern
and central England
equally strongly
Saxon, in the re-
maining portions of
Great Britain the
Scandinavian ele-
ment is predomin-
ant : Shetland, Ork-
ney, Sutherland,
Caithness, parts of
the Hebrides, the
West Coast of Scot-
land, half of the Isle
•of Man, Cumber-
land, Westmoreland,

as it is in all direc-
tions by fjords ex-
tending far inland,
made boat building
a necessity both for
purposes of trans-
port and for fishing ;
and (3) that the
long winter even-
ings of northern
latitudes afforded
ample leisure dur-
ing which the skill
of eye and hand
acquired laboriously
in the every - day

Eancashire, Ches- [j !: 3 occupations of con-
hire, Pembrokeshire, structing houses,

•Gower and the Vale fig. i.-carved wooden chair from tyldalens carts> and boats,

•of Glamorgan being church, Norway, front could be turned to

Norse ; and York- account as a relaxa-

.shire, Lincolnshire, tion from toil in

Leicestershire and Norfolk principally Danish. The producing objects of beauty as well as utility,

art of the early Christian monuments of this country It must not be forgotten either that the first

fully bears out the evidence derived from the place carpenters were carvers rather than experts in

names, and we hope to be able to show how great the use of the saw and plane, because in the

an affinity there is between the ornamental patterns earlier stages of culture we always find that hollow

and figure subjects occurring on the sculptured objects, such as canoes, boxes, drinking vessels,

crosses in the portions of Great Britain which have drums, &c, are dug out of one solid log of wood

been specified as being Scandinavian and the de- instead of being put together in several pieces,

signs carved upon the doorways and other details Even in the Early Iron Age in Scandinavia, the

•of the old wooden churches still existing in Norway, primitive method of shaping wood out of the solid

On some future occasion, perhaps, we may have survived partially, as appears from the boats belong-