Workbenches in art (i) – Millais

Workbenches and wooden tools rarely persist over hundreds of years. Wooden components tend to disintegrate, or perhaps morph into other things. When wooden planes wore out, new ones were built. So sometimes the only record we have of historic workbenches exists in the form of artwork, be it fresco’s paintings, woodcuts etc. Artwork is suppose to imitate life, but does it? How realistic are the workbenches that exist in works of art such as Millais’s Christ in the House of His Parents (1849-50)?

From the dark ages to the end of the 17th century, the vast majority of art painted in Europe was of a religious nature. It is not surprising then that St.Joseph and his workshop featured prominently in paintings of the period. It is unlikely that any of these artists had knowledge of what workbenches looked like 100 years before them, let alone when Jesus was a child. In any case, many of these benches do not necessarily imitate those existing at the time the works were painted. One could therefore suggest that it is artistic license at play, or that the artist appropriated ideas from some existing work.

John Everett Millais, Christ in the House of His Parents (1850)

We know from the historical record (and Christopher Schwarz’s book Ingenious Mechanicks.) that Roman workbenches around 79AD, when Pompeii was destroyed by the eruption of Mount Vesuvius, were of the low-staked kind of bench. So it is unlikely St.Joseph would have had a workbench of the timber-frame type more common in the closing centuries of the second millennium. Not for the want of suitable lumber, as unlike today there was likely quite a good source of lumber in ancient Palestine with the highlands consisting of forests of Aleppo pine (Pinus halepensis), evergreen oak (Quercus calliprinos), and terebinth (Pistacia palaestina).

English painter John Everett Millais (1829-96) was a pre-Raphaelite – a brotherhood of artists that were rebelling against the style of art which was being taught in schools which they considered artificial in subject, and style, and muddy dark in colour. They looked back at the artists of the 15th century before Raphael. They painted their subjects as truthfully and accurately as possible. Christ in the House of His Parents, or as is was known by some “The Carpenter’s Shop”, was considered extremely controversial at the time as it “flaunted the conventional ideal of the Holy Family” [1]. Some of the harshest statements actually had to do with the realistic depiction of a carpentry workshop, especially the dirt and wood shavings on the floor.

Carracci: Rough pencil sketch

Carracci: Pen-and-ink study

The bench in Millais’s work is more likely a contemporary affliction, somehow mimicking the form of Nicholson’s bench. This is not really surprising considering that Millais based the setting on a real carpenter’s shop in Oxford Street (London). A greater story is told by Millais’s preliminary sketches done in 1849-1850. The first is a rough pencil sketch which clearly shows the Nicholson-form bench. In the graphite on paper work of the second study the sawhorse legs of the bench canter from the centre, however it suggests the Nicholson type changes shown in light pencil. This shows that Millais was at one point considering the use of bench legs similar to those of Carracci’s Le Raboteur.

Of course for the artist the message embodied by the work is more important than the accuracy of historic artifacts.

Further reading:

1. Albert Boime, “Sources for Sir John Everett Millais’s ‘Christ in the House of His Parents’”

Why I love old-growth lumber

I really love old growth lumber, especially the sort found in cheap old doors from 100 years ago. I have a bunch of it in the shed… mostly from old interior doors. In the door I made for the mini shed the left and right edges are banded with pieces from old interior door stiles (glued together with ca. 22 dowels a piece, which some may consider a slight overkill, but hey in for a penny, in for a pound). The interior doors were made of Douglas Fir, with each piece comprised of four separate pieces, with intricate sliding dovetails (see pic). The central piece below has 38 growth rings over a 2-inch span. The wide radius of the growth rings which is straight in places, suggests an old tree, with the thinner rings towards the bottom right suggesting a number of years of drought or something. Who knows how old the tree was that produced this piece of wood – 200, 500, or perhaps 1000 years old?

It’s just a piece of beauty, especially for a simple door inside a simple workers house from 1926. It always amazes me how much more care people took with building things 100 years ago, even if it was only a simple door. It is also sad that so many of these ancient trees were felled in the past 150 years, and they still continue to cut down these behemoths. In British Columbia the Ancient Forest Alliance, is helping to save the ancient forests.

Why reusing building materials is good for the planet

When I was growing up we use to do all the outdoor projects, like building fences, and I was stuck as labourer, and clean-up detail. We use to buy lumber from a second-hand yard that sold what I guess was recycled lumber from old buildings, a lot of which was likely old-growth hardwoods. It seemed like a good idea at the time, I never really gave much thought to the reuse aspect, I mean you don’t when you’re 12. These places still exist but usually in the guise of architectural antiques or reclaimed lumber. They are often outside urban areas and sometimes carry more value-added than raw “reused” products. It’s kind of tragic, because every week in our neighbourhood I see bins full of old-growth lumber, real 2×4″s gutted to make open-concept floors. I’m sure a small amount gets recycled, but most is likely dumped.

How many used building products could find a new life, either reused, or repurposed? Old lumber could somehow be reformulated into new lumber, to keep them out of the landfill. I recently built my shed a shed… a small 30×40″ lean-to to store the garden gear. I did it mainly because I bought too much siding when I re-sided the shed. So I decided to make as much of it out of lumber from around the house, and other stuff. The only thing I really bought was some 2×4″s for the frame, and some PVC trim for water-proofing the base. The base and roof sheathing I built from 3/4″ forming ply from a neighbour, the 1/2″ sheathing ply left-over in my father-in-law’s shed. The roof, spare aluminum shingles.

The door is the most interesting thing. I spent a lot of time pondering how to build a door from reclaimed stuff I had lying around. Then it dawned on me, I already had a door in the shed that I could reuse, literally. When we replaced our front door, a huge wooden beast, I cut it up and put it in the shed. Then I did the same with one of the neighbours doors… and it was a part of this door that I could easily turn into a shed door. The door is 1-3/4″ thick, made of long strips of glued pine, covered with two layers of (oak) veneer. Full disclosure, the front door was replaced because it was drafty, and not so well looked after. First I built a door frame out of old select pine, with the threshold and upper casing constructed of laminated plywood. The door I cut out of the base of the old door, and on the left and right edges I glued 1-3/8″×1-7/8″ wood pieces cut from the stiles of old interior doors – constructed from old-growth Douglas Fir. Add a continuous hinge, and hey presto a solid door which cost next to nothing.

I don’t really understand why we send good lumber to landfill. Even if it does contain nails, old lumber can be reclaimed, or used to make some form of structural wood. Yes, it would add a cost to renovation projects, but what is the cost to the planet of not reusing this lumber,… especially old-growth lumber.

Man is a tool-using animal

Man is a tool-using animal. He can use tools, can devise tools ;
with these, granite mountains melt into light dust before him ;
he kneads iron as if it were soft paste; seas are his smooth highway, winds and fire his unwearying steeds. Nowhere do you find him without tools; without tools he is nothing, with tools he is all.

Carlyle