Carving from Belgorod

[HAIIAPHNK]

13 hours ago, Beckmann said:

Hi Alexandr,

That was really just a coincidence. I just opened my book Volume 1 Rogers Collection in Annapolis and there it was. Here are two better pictures.

 

Matthias, thank you very much. This will undoubtedly help with my ideas. Right now, my head feels like a big pot of porridge. In some places it is spilling over, and in others it is already starting to burn.

I am thinking about my next works—what projects to take on, and how the entire exhibition should look as a whole. I very much want to manage to do as much as possible by October.

It is difficult to convey exactly what I am thinking about and what kinds of logical chains are forming in my head. Your examples are extremely helpful, although they make the porridge in my head boil even more than it did yesterday. But that is a good thing. When there is more than one idea and more than one option, it is always better. At least there is something to choose from.

P.S. When I saw your other examples with St. Michael and the bulls from the unnamed ship model, I had the strange suspicion that you somehow see the bookmarks I have been saving during my searches. To select the same ships out of so many is astonishing. If you also show Royal Princess or Victory from 1737 next, I will be genuinely frightened and start to think that there are hidden cameras installed somewhere around me. 🙃

 

 

 

[HAIIAPHNK]

Finally, after very long stories about plans, reflections, and all the rest,
I can move on to showing the actual work with wood. The beginning.











Everything is standard and familiar.
Large masses of wood are cut away, and the desired shape is gradually searched for.





Here I need to explain something. In fact, the green color is not just a dirty or stained area. I did this intentionally. At this stage, my whole family and I were leaving for a vacation, and I was afraid that while being absorbed in rest, I might forget exactly where I had stopped in the work. After returning, I could easily make a mistake. So I deliberately marked, with a very visible color, the area where no work should be done in the near future. Why?

The sculpture must sit on the knee of the head, and at the back of the blank there is already a slot made into which the stem will later fit. The figure itself is designed in such a way that from the front I will be working very close to this slot. In some places, I could accidentally cut all the way through. It is therefore necessary to constantly monitor how much thickness remains at the thinnest point.

The small figure is already mounted on a handle with tiny drops of glue. This means that I cannot remove the handle each time to take measurements and check the thickness at the most critical area. For this reason, before gluing the blank onto the handle, I took measurements and wrote the results down. I even tried to leave a written reminder for myself and photographed it. And now, when I am preparing this text, those photographs I once took for myself have become a clear explanation.





Now the main thing is that this base area must remain unchanged, and that I do not cut anything away there and disturb the dimensions. That is exactly why the color marking was made—this area must not be carved.

This base was chosen here because this is where the fabric of the cloak will be. That area can be left untouched for a long time. First, I can work on the body, and later it will be much easier to understand how much material needs to be removed in this place. By that time, all work in the potentially dangerous areas will have long been completed, and the need for a reference platform for measurements and checks will disappear.

Everything is quite simple. I do not think I have revealed any techniques that you did not already know, but it is better to share—perhaps it will be useful to someone. At the very least, you will not look at the strange spot in every subsequent frame and wonder why it was not wiped off—it would look untidy otherwise.











And gradually,
one can begin to indicate where smaller details and nuances will be located.












To be continued…

[druxey]

Enjoy your time off!

[HAIIAPHNK]

19 hours ago, druxey said:

Enjoy your time off!

Thank you, David.
That was back in October, and we had a great time. We met up with relatives we hadn't seen in eight years. It was a truly wonderful vacation.

[HAIIAPHNK]

This frame marks a new stage of the work — I began working on the face. This is always the most difficult part. Faces cause the greatest anxiety, and in this project the face is especially important: I need to achieve a likeness to a specific person. For this reason, I will once again have to step aside briefly from the carving itself and show examples together with my reflections.


I had thought about the portrait earlier as well. While working on a preliminary plaster figure, I even sculpted the head separately, making it larger in scale so that it would be easier to work with and easier to see. But I did not like the result. This meant that the subject had to be thought through more deeply.

Naturally, for this work I collected many visual examples of how Alexander I had been depicted. I also remembered impressions left in my memory from reading War and Peace. There were descriptions of this man.



“…The handsome, young Emperor Alexander, in a Horse Guards uniform and a triangular hat, with his pleasant face and resonant, soft voice, drew the full attention of everyone. Rostov … examined the beautiful, young, and happy face of the emperor…”

“…Alexander’s face was even more beautiful than it had been at the review of the regiments three days earlier. It shone with such cheerfulness and youth, with such innocent youthfulness, that it recalled the playful liveliness of a fourteen-year-old boy, and at the same time it was still the face of a majestic emperor…”

“…He was wearing a blue uniform, open over a white waistcoat that descended over a rounded belly, white breeches tightly fitting the fleshy thighs of his short legs, and riding boots. His short hair had evidently just been combed, but one lock of hair fell down over the middle of his broad forehead. His white, plump neck stood out sharply above the black collar of the uniform; … on his youthful, full face, with a prominent chin, there was an expression of gracious and majestic imperial greeting…”


Thus, in my imagination, an image emerged of a fairly attractive man with soft facial features. His appearance could even be described as childlike or feminine. Leo Tolstoy describes a person with a tendency toward corpulence. This is clearly not a sinewy athlete; he should have rounded features and full cheeks. This is the kind of person I needed to portray in my sculpture. It all seemed quite clear.

But once I immersed myself in portraits and monuments, a whole avalanche of variants came crashing down on me.













The images differed greatly from one another.




















When I began looking at three-dimensional examples — busts and monuments — it became even more difficult. I found myself staring at dozens of figures that were seemingly similar, yet completely different Alexanders. It felt like being at a party of Elvis Presley lookalikes or at a comic convention: everyone looks alike, yet you cannot tell who is real.

I spent an enormous amount of time making a choice. Even before going to sleep, I would mentally return to Tolstoy’s lines and ask myself which of these Alexanders corresponded most closely to the descriptions.

In the end, I left only two or three portraits in front of me.





In this portrait, in my view, there is something very close to my impressions from the book: an image that is at once a defenseless child and a charming woman.





And in this bust I saw exactly the direction I want to embody. An antique image of an emperor — outwardly calm and beautiful, yet capable of being firm and strong. Military attire only reinforces this sense of martial strength.

The decision was made. I kept this image for myself as the main source of inspiration and tried to reproduce these facial features in my sculpture.

 

P.S. So as not to return to the subject of the portrait again, I will say right away: I cannot claim that I managed to realize my idea one hundred percent. My Alexander did not become the ideal image I had hoped to create. Most likely, a viewer who does not know whom I was trying to depict will not immediately say, “That is Alexander I.”
Unfortunately, I am not completely satisfied with the result. But I truly tried.

 

[druxey]

Some of those renderings look to have been  made distinctly 'heroic' rather than a good likeness! I like your analogy of an Elvis convention. Certianly my impression is of a rather round-faced, apple-cheeked and boyish looking man. At this stage, your carving looks to catch these traits nicely.

[HAIIAPHNK]

1 hour ago, druxey said:

Some of those renderings look to have been  made distinctly 'heroic' rather than a good likeness! I like your analogy of an Elvis convention. Certianly my impression is of a rather round-faced, apple-cheeked and boyish looking man. At this stage, your carving looks to catch these traits nicely.

David, thank you for your words of support. 

[HAIIAPHNK]

Now it is possible to continue writing about the carving work. The face will continue to change and transform for a long time. Many of the adjustments are difficult to notice, which is understandable, because these are adjustments rather than radical changes. As a result, the work on the face will stretch almost until the very end of the entire project. It is necessary to take pauses, step away from the portrait, and then return to it after some time. Meanwhile, the epicenter of the work is gradually spreading wider. Already now it can be noted that outlines for future actions are beginning to appear both on the head and on the torso.

















And this is how the figure began to look after the first attempts at depicting Jupiter and the rest of the group. And already I do not like it. Everything is too small and unclear. Jupiter can still be identified in some way, but on the side, where according to my plan the French eagle should be, it turns into a complete mess. I wrote earlier that I planned to place a winged griffin behind the eagle, but only the wings remain. Even in this form it does not work well. For now, I hope that these are only initial outlines and that over time the forms will become clearer.








I shift my attention to the helmet and the lion’s head on it. There is a great deal of work around this area. It is important to make refinements in different places — this reduces the risk of making rash decisions. Right now I really want to cut away the entire chest and start over. I do not like what is happening there. But this would be dangerous, because I am getting closer to the depth limit and could break through into the slot for the stem. That is why switching in time to another front of work is extremely important.








…To be continued.

[druxey]

Ah, those micro-adjustments take a lot of considerations and time! Looks like it's developing nicely, though.

[Beckmann]

Hi Alexandr, 

The face of the emperor has already much resemblance with Alexander. Are you carving in boxwood or limewood?

Matthias 

 

[HAIIAPHNK]

9 hours ago, druxey said:

Ah, those micro-adjustments take a lot of considerations and time! Looks like it's developing nicely, though.

 

Today, I finished the final touches on Alexander and started repainting Mercury. 
And when I have to write about what's in the past at the same time, it creates a bit of a disconnect in my mind. When I write for a long time, I try to remember what exactly happened while I was working. What I was thinking about and what problems I was facing. And then suddenly it's all in the past and I know how it all ended. It's an interesting effect. So yes, there will be a happy ending. Probably...

 

[HAIIAPHNK]

7 hours ago, Beckmann said:

Hi Alexandr, 

The face of the emperor has already much resemblance with Alexander. Are you carving in boxwood or limewood?

Matthias 

 

Similar to Alexander the Great? I don't know how to answer that. While we are familiar with historical figures from the 19th century thanks to portraits, it is difficult to talk about the appearance of figures from antiquity. Alexander the Great was painted and sculpted in many different ways.
I certainly did not set out to look for portraits of him. Therefore, any similarities are purely coincidental.

 

[HAIIAPHNK]

I forgot to answer the question about wood.

I use different types of wood for different projects. This figure is made of pear wood. 

I don't use linden wood; it's too soft for me.
I have only worked with boxwood once in my life. And I didn't like it. It turned out to be too hard. And I ruined my tool on it. Later, I talked to other carvers, and when I shared my impressions of boxwood, I heard that it is not such a hard material. I also heard that very old wood can be hard. Since I don't know where my block came from, I probably just had bad luck with it. And since I didn't like my first experience with it, I haven't even tried using it again for work.  

 

[Beckmann]

8 hours ago, HAIIAPHNK said:

Similar to Alexander the Great?

similar to Czar Alexander, the busts and paintings you showed above depict Czar Alexander, don't they?

[HAIIAPHNK]

4 hours ago, Beckmann said:

similar to Czar Alexander, the busts and paintings you showed above depict Czar Alexander, don't they?

I am confused. Most likely, we have run into subtleties that depend on nuances of translation. Which Alexander are we talking about? The Russian Alexander or the Greek one? I understood your comment as noting a resemblance between my sculpture and the Greek commander. Did I misunderstand you?

I replied that I did not set myself the goal of conveying the features of Alexander the Great. Only those of the Russian Alexander.
I also did not seriously study the question of whether ancient sculptures depicting Alexander the Great are considered accurate in terms of true portrait likeness. I assumed that most of these sculptures date from later periods, and that sculptors created their images without precise knowledge of the appearance of the Greek king. I may be mistaken, of course — I did not research this topic in depth, so I cannot state this with certainty.

 

If you have other information, I would be very interested to learn more details.

At the end of my message I added a conclusion: if my Alexander ended up resembling Alexander the Great, then this happened purely by accident.

And that is actually quite amusing. I made a great effort to achieve likeness to one specific person, spent time and energy, searched for additional information… and in the end I achieved a resemblance to someone I had no intention of depicting at all.

Let us do a comparison at the very end. For the sake of a fair experiment, we could proceed as follows: you choose a portrait of Alexander the Great (Greek) that is considered an authentic likeness. I have already shown the image of the Russian Alexander that I was trying to approach. Then we place the finished result of my work next to them — alongside two portraits: your chosen portrait of Alexander the Great and the portrait of the Russian emperor — and compare them.

By the way, is it possible to create a poll in the chat? It would be interesting to see the results.
What do you think of this idea?

Edited 5 hours ago by HAIIAPHNK

[Beckmann]

 I was talking of a close resemblance to Alexander I. Pawlowitsch Romanow

Matthias

Edited 4 hours ago by Beckmann

[HAIIAPHNK]

36 minutes ago, Beckmann said:

 I was talking of a close resemblance to Alexander I. Pawlowitsch Romanow

Now everything has become clear. Yes, the translator and their involvement in the dialogue do introduce certain adjustments to understanding  .