In Relief ornament, design and character should be the result of technical expression. If considered from an economic point of view, the tendency would naturally be to obtain the maximum effect with the minimum of labour; and this would invariably result, when the decoration is built up or applied to an existing ground as in modelled work, in slight occupation, with comparatively large intervals.
In carving, where the original surface forms the highest relief, and has to be cut back to form the ground, the result would be reversed, the individual worker being more attracted to the treatment of detail than to clearing away uninteresting spaces. Carving, whether in wood or stone, is employed in various decorative positions, and except in the enrichment of friezes or mouldings—when the repeating unit is desirable—the design should be complete in itself.
Desirable Treatment in Carving
The treatment should evidence the direct employment of the tool, any attempt to efface or soften will result in loss of character and suggest the plastic effect incidental to modelling.
For convenience, and possibly in the absence of more desirable examples, students are often allowed in their early attempts at carving to reproduce casts of plastic origin. This is undoubtedly pernicious, as the model is probably unsuitable, and the student is thereby biassed. Examples should be selected in which the characteristic treatment is sufficiently evident if a true and thorough appreciation of the craft is to be instilled.
No. 276. Simple Jacobean Wood Carving. Direct gouge work.
In the design—which may occupy or fill the shape and can be symmetrically arranged on a central axis, or balanced—the effect is due mainly to Light and Shade. Further interest may be imparted by the sectional form or modelling of the details, groovings, striations or other textural suggestions.