📬 La newsletter del divendres #20 — The Friday's newsletter #20
Edició especial: una restauradora convidada. Ksenija Škarić i un Crist croata negre que sagnava — Special edition: a guest conservator. Ksenija Škarić and a Croatian black bleeding Christ🩸
Una oda a la conservació i l’estudi de l’escultura policromada sobre fusta i tots aquells recursos xulos que trobem per internet. És un projecte anual on es publicarà una newsletter quinzenal, feta únicament per diversió. També no és perfecta i no té cap intenció de ser-ho, però sí de compartir. Editada en català i anglès. Llegir aquí antigues newsletters.
A love letter to the conservation and study of Polychromed Wooden Sculpture and all the cool resources about it around the net. It’s a one-year bi-monthly newsletter project done just for fun. It’s also not perfect and doesn’t intend to, but rather a space to share. Edited in Catalan and English. Read here past newsletters.
📣 Special newsletter edition: a guess author and conservator (Croatia)
After the success of the special newsletter n.10, we are back with a new edition. This week joins us Ksenija Škarić. Ksenija is an enthusiast and talented senior sculpture conservator from the Croatian Conservation Institute (CCI). Deeply interested in the wooden sculpture polychromy, she focused her PhD on “Polychromy and Polychromers of 17th and 18th Century Altars in Northwest Croatia”1 (!). We met years ago when I had the chance to work for a bit at the CCI and discover first-hand the wonderful cultural heritage of this country and the work of the Institute, while also taking the opportunity to teach and share some methodologies.
She mentioned a recent article that she published in the magazine Portal, around the conservation and study of a baroque Christ. Today she kindly give us in English a glimpse of this project, which turns out to have a lot to say regarding the polychromy 🌈. And now without further ado, I give the word to Ksenija. Enjoy!
While doing a technical study of polychromed wooden sculptures, we are often unaware if somebody has published or encountered a similar thing. I leave the door open for any colleague that would like to share some element of a study that did but perhaps could not be shared fully in an article or maybe was not published at all, but still find it interesting to let know the community that exists, and with it, help other colleagues.
🏚 A small introduction
The parish church of the Visitation of the Blessed Virgin Mary in Čučerje near the Croatian capital Zagreb sustained serious damage during the earthquake on 22 March 2020. The large crucifix (limewood) dating from early 18th century fell off the wall and broke into many pieces.
Čučerje is placed in a seismic active area, so the church had been damaged in earthquakes in 1822, 1837, 1880 and 1905/1906, while the crucifix also shows mechanical damages and repairs from earlier times.
.
🔬🩸Some discoveries
The conservation research that followed within the Croatian Conservation Institute revealed that the sculpture was repolychromed four times. The most recent, fifth intervention, made it a central object of a contemporary triptych by artist Josip Restek. The skin of Christ was originally painted dark brown (glaze directly on wood) while his loincloth was water-gilded on traditional primer. (Fig 1 also see article in Croatian).
Figure 1: the front of the Christ before treatment (detail) showing a wound hole on the chest and a dark skin colour on damaged parts (Croatian Conservation Institute Photo Archive, G. Tomljenović, 2021)
Water could be fed through a pipe to the chest to simulate bleeding (Fig. 1 and Fig 2). This was, nevertheless, probably done only on special occasions, otherwise the wood around the wound would be far more degraded (it belongs to the so-called bleeding Crucifixes2).
Figure 2: the back of the Christ showing the hole drilled into the chest (Croatian Conservation Institute Photo Archive, G. Tomljenović, 2021)
The sculpture in Čučerje is the first black Crucifix discovered in northern Croatia, but there are several in the coastal area (Split, Krk). Black Madonnas and Crucifixes were especially venerated objects during the Baroque era. Stories about their oldness, eastern origin and miraculous discovery are often connected with these objects. The Croatian national saint is a black Madonna from Marija Bistrica. It dates from the 15th or 16th century, but it became dark-skinned only recently, in modern transformation of the cult. (For more information check the notes3).
This is a small extract of the technical research carried out, see the link to the full article below. If you’re more interested in the subject, here is some bibliography on black Crucifixes and Madonnas 📚
Ksenija Škarić, "Miraculous crucifix in Čučerje." Portal 13, br. 13 (2022.), 59-60.
Monique Scheer, From Majesty to Mystery: Change in the Meanings of Black Madonna from the Sixteenth to Nineteenth Centuries, The American Historical Review, 107/5 (2002.), 1412–1440, 1413–1416
Manfred Koller, „Schwarze“ Kruzifixe und Madonnen in Österreich und das Problem „modernen“ Freilegungen, Österreichische Zeitschrift für Kunst und Denkmalpflege, 62/1 (2008.), 119–132
.
Fins aquí l’entreteniment setmanal, ens veiem el divendres? — That’s a wrap for this week's entertainment, see you on Friday?
Ksenija Škarić, Polikromija i polikromatori oltara 17. i 18. stoljeća u sjeverozapadnoj Hrvatskoj: doktorska disertacija, Filozofskom fakultetu Sveučilišta u Zagrebu, Zagreb (2014.) (for more info, email her).
Marina Vicelja - Matijašić, Petra Predoević Zadković, "A new expression of pathos and the paradigm of Salvation. The miraculous Crucifix in St. Vitus Cathedral in Rijeka" Riječki teološki časopis 52, br. 2 (2018): 221-221. https://hrcak.srce.hr/clanak/319883
Ksenija Škarić, "Hands off! Croatian Madonnas between Cult and Science", Restauratorenblätter / Papers in Conservation, 32 (2014), 175–198.
 | A guest post by
|