6 BCD SPECIAL REPORT ON HISTORIC CHURCHES 31st ANNUAL EDITION GRINLING GIBBONS and COLOUR Lee Prosser WOODWORK IS an integral part of the church interior. We have become used to the rich, dark colour of oak on pews, doors, screens and pulpits, now much varnished and waxed to within an inch of their lives. In the past however, colour was king, as we know from the polychrome traces on the stonework of great cathedrals. A sense of this survives on painted church screens and roof timbers. If we add to this the lost stained-glass windows and wall paintings, then colour must have permeated our churches. It is difficult to determine when the fashion for plain wood originated, but the picture is probably not straightforward. Even by the early 17th century some houses enriched their panelling and staircases with paint, while others did not. It was clearly a matter of personal taste. From the end of the 17th century, however, elaborate carving in wood became extremely fashionable, and its main proponent was Grinling Gibbons, the acknowledged master-carver of his age. His death in 1721 was celebrated in a lavish 300th anniversary exhibition and fresh perspective curated by Hannah Philip at Bonham’s in London and later at Compton Verney. Gibbons’s work is almost a talisman in some churches; he remains the only carver of any period whom ordinary people have ever heard of. Yet he is also surrounded by myth and misattribution. It used to be said with great certainty that Gibbons only ever carved in lime, and the wood was always meant to be seen. This somewhat threadbare statement is still occasionally trotted out, but we now benefit from much detailed scholarship, a rigorous approach and forensic science, which shines new light on his work and reveals a picture that is much more complicated. Instead, it seems that there was a more sophisticated approach to the aesthetics of his compositions and their setting. Recent inspection of Gibbons’s magnificent reredos in the chapel royal at Hampton Court Palace is reinforcing this view as conservators have been able to look closely at the carvings for the first time in 20 years. Gibbons has rarely been out of public consciousness. In 1914 his genius was brought to wider attention with the publication of a sumptuous volume of his works by Henry Avray Tipping, sometime architectural editor of Country Life, which marked the culmination of a great revival of wood carving from the Victorian period. In the early 20th century, with the stripping and demolition of great country houses, Gibbons’s work was 17th century panel from Trinity College Chapel, showing the removal of later varnishes to expose the original finish. (Photo: Alan Lamb)
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