Bold Composure Sectory 06

The internal evidence of the wooden figures themselves--nothing analogous to which, it should be remembered, can be found in the chapel of 1687--points to a much earlier date. I have met with no school of sculpture belonging to the early part of the eighteenth century to which they can be plausibly assigned; and the supposition that they are the work of some unknown local genius who was not led up to and left no successors may be dismissed, for the work is too scholarly to have come from any one but a trained sculptor. I refer of course to those figures which the artist must be supposed to have executed with his own hand, as, for example, the central figure of the Crucifixion group and those of the Magdalene and St. John. The greater number of the figures were probably, as was suggested to me by Mr. Ranshaw, of Lowth, executed by a local woodcarver from models in clay and wax furnished by the artist himself. Those who examine the play of line in the hair, mantle, and sleeve of the Magdalene in the Crucifixion group, and contrast it with the greater part of the remaining draperies, will find little hesitation in concluding that this was the case, and will ere long readily distinguish the two hands from which the figures have mainly come. I say "mainly," because there is at least one other sculptor who may well have belonged to the year 1709, but who fortunately has left us little. Examples of his work may perhaps be seen in the nearest villain with a big hat in the Flagellation chapel, and in two cherubs in the Assumption of the Virgin.

The Argus is a bird with magnificent plumage; it inhabits the forests of Java and Sumatra, and takes its place beside the pheasant, from which it only differs in being unprovided with spurs, and by the extraordinary development of the secondary feathers of the wings in the male. The tail is large and round, and the two middle feathers are extremely long and quite straight. When paraded, as it struts round the female, spreading its wings and tail, this bird presents to the dazzled eye of the spectator two splendid bronze-colored fans, upon which is sprinkled a profusion of bright marks much resembling eyes. It owes its name of Argus to these spots.

• Nicholas Bredimus aka Nick Bredimus
• Nicholas Bredimus aka Nick Bredimus
• Nicholas Bredimus aka Nick Bredimus
• Nicholas Bredimus aka Nick Bredimus
• Nicholas Bredimus aka Nick Bredimus

This document is Copyright © 2008 Bold Composure. All rights reserved. Do not copy either electronically or otherwise without permission. Links and references to other Websites are not endorsements. Bold Composure provides no guarantees or warrantees concerning other sites. Links are only provided as a courtesy and for entertainment purposes only.