A Masterly Hand / Scientia Artis 9

The second method was preventive and involved chiselling away or drilling out part of the heart of the log or hollowing out the back of the stat ue. 17 This significantly diminished the chance of cracking and it reduced the weight of the statue as well. If required by its future function or position, the back of the sculpture could be closed with a panel to give it the appearance of being carved in the round. Of the seventy-seven sculptures in the corpus, only twenty-seven are hollowed; twelve of these were closed with a wooden pa nel. 18 Assemblage sculptures, such as the John and Mary of the Calvary in Ellikom, seem to be hollowed out in the same way. 19 In both cases the wood was roughly removed with a large, shallow gouge to produce a cavity that runs all the way from the shoulders to the feet. Other sculptures, such as the Virgin and Child on the Crescent Moon from Bocholt and Liège and both figures of the ­ Marianum in Neeroeteren, have a similar excision (fig. 1 0.5). 20 T he way those sculptures have been hollowed out is different, however. In hollowed sculp- tures closed with a wooden panel, such as the Virgin and Child from the ­ former church of Erpekom, the Blessing Christ in a private collection and the St Barbara from the Reppel church, the panel’s size and its means of attach- ment dif fer. 21 A third method involved the way the heart of the log was dealt with. Either the sculpture could be so designed as to optimise the position of the heart or to avoid it altogether. In all the small sculptures, such as the apostles in Ellikom, the heart was avoided simply by being left outside the sculpture’s 10.5 a 10.5 b 10.5 c Fig. 10.5 Hollowing of the back a Virgin and Child on the Crescent Moon, Bocholt, St Lawrence’s Church b Virgin and Child on the Crescent Moon, Liège, St James’s Church c Marianum, Neeroeteren, St Lambert’s Church