In Search Of Grinling Gibbons

October 21, 2024

by the gentle author

At St Mary Abchurch, Hugh climbs up to take a closer look

Master wood carver Hugh Wedderburn took me on a quest in search of Grinling Gibbons in the City of London. Gibbons was born in Rotterdam in 1648, where he trained as wood carver and was exposed to the art of Dutch still life painting before he came to Britain in 1667.

John Evelyn wrote in his diary in 1671, ‘I this day first acquainted with a young man Gibson [sic] whom I had lately found in an obscure place & that by mere accident, as I was walking neere a poor solitary thatched house in a field in our parish neere Says Court. I found him shut in but looking through the window I perceiv’d him carving that large cartoone or Crucifix of Tintoretto.’

John Evelyn arranged introductions for Grinling Gibbons to King Charles II and Christopher Wren, enabling him to set up his workshop on Ludgate Hill – an auspicious and opportune location for a wood carver, beside the ruins of Old St Paul’s.

It is significant that Evelyn described Gibbons carving from a two-dimensional image, transforming it into physical form. Today Gibbons is recognised for his extraordinarily lifelike carvings of flowers, fruit and foliage, which bear a relationship to still life painting yet upon close examination are less naturalistic than they may at first appear.

From Hugh Wedderburn’s workshop in Southwark, we undertook our quest westward across the City, commencing at the Tower of London to visit the Parade of Kings – a sequence of monarchs in armour on horseback – where a wooden horse is attributed to Gibbons and a portrait head of Charles I is by the same hand. While the other horses are lifeless merry-go-round figures, more mounts for armour than sculptures in their own right, it is easy to appreciate why this one particular horse might earn its attribution, with its lifelike flared nostrils and bulging veins visible through the skin. The accompanying head of Charles I possesses a soulful melancholy and presence, in stark contrast to the workmanlike nature of the others.

Just up the hill at All Hallows By The Tower, we admired the elaborate font lid of foliage with two putti gesturing to the large bird atop the construction. When the lid is suspended up above the font for ceremonies and seen from below, it has proportion and balance with everything in place. Yet when it is lowered, the sculpture appears distorted and the putti’s anatomy bulges curiously. This is an example of carving in perspective and evidence of Gibbons’ sense of theatre, creating a visual effect that works from a single view point and is deliberately non-naturalistic.

Just five minutes walk away at St Mary Abchurch, Hugh and I climbed up ladders to admire the swags on the reredos closely. When these swags were first installed the pale lime wood stood in contrast to the dark oak background, throwing them into even more dramatic relief. This is what we imagine when we think of Grinling Gibbons – lush garlands of fruit, flowers and foliage that he carved in a manner which appeared more lifelike than had been seen before.Yet on close examination, it became evident that the definition of the leaves and fruit was only carved where it was visible, with the forms merging into abstraction away from view.

At St Paul’s, we admired Grinling Gibbons majestic quire stalls and epic organ case before climbing up into the roof where trays of bits and pieces that have fallen off over the centuries are preserved. Like the most fascinating jigsaw in the world, here are thousands of fragments that all belong somewhere. Examining them closely revealed the breathtaking detail of the carving by Gibbons and his studio who were responsible for all the architectural decoration in the cathedral. Even the wings on the angels can be identified as derived from different species of birds, revealing the minute observation of the natural world that informs these bravura carvings.

As we left the cathedral, Hugh and I paused to look back at the west front and admire Gibbons’ lavish foliate adornments that provide such a successful counterpoint to the austerity of Wren’s geometry. Somehow the palm leaves on the Corinthian columns are more luxuriant that you might expect. Garlands of leaves and fruit have been hung directly across structural elements of the design, disrupting its formality.

The legend that Gibbons and Wren had a tense working relationship comes as no surprise because the conflict is evident in the dynamic between the two visual languages at play. Yet it is this dynamic between the classical geometry and the presence of organic forms that makes this architecture so compelling and alive. This is Gibbons’ contribution and one of many reasons why we should celebrate his genius.