February 25, 20224 yr Here is a link to The History Blog which was posted today. It is not iron or a weapon but I am sharing it because it depicts Vulcan working on a helmet. Note that while Mars and Venus are au naturale, Vulcan is wearing at least a rudimentary apron over his nether regions. Also, note the little cupid in the lower right working a double bellows. http://www.thehistoryblog.com/archives/63433#comments This may be an ongoing thread because I periodically see and am intrigued by blacksmiths and anvils shown in paintings, sculpture, coins, vignettes, etc.. Lots of times they are stylized but they can also be an interesting primary/secondary resource. Add your own favorite artistic blacksmith or anvil. "By hammer and hand all arts do stand."
February 25, 20224 yr If you do a search on: Venus at the forge of Vulcan you can probably turn up a dozen paintings on that theme some of them showing a lot of blacksmithing tools of that period. Valezquez's Apollo in the forge of Vulcan And a bit later there is Goya's "The Forge". A fairly common topic for art.
February 28, 20224 yr Hey, George. Did I start your thread off on the wrong foot with my image? Can we just post images or do think a description or discussion of them would help? I don't have a desktop so it's hard to type from this phone. I can sure add a link though. Here's one I like of smelting.
February 28, 20224 yr Foundry work as they were not teeming steel until the 1700's in Europe, (Benjamin Huntsman) and I don't think they were copper casting from the smelt in Bronze age. My guess would be a bronze pour with the person on the left holding back the dross. Now they were make crucible steel in Central Asia pre 1000 CE; but were letting the pucks solidify in the crucibles and then breaking them out. "Crucible Steel in Central Asia" Dr A. Feuerbach's PhD thesis. They then would be forged by techniques we would recognize---remember not all Crucible Steel was Wootz; but all Wootz was Crucible steel! I was thinking about the many Venus at the Forge of Vulcan pictures done in the renaissance and decided that the theme of Beauty contrasted with the strength and vigor of the smith(s) was considered a popular one.
February 28, 20224 yr Good heavens, you are right. Would you believe me if I told you I know the difference? I suffer a disconnect between my eye's and my brain from time to time!
February 28, 20224 yr Not a problem; I'm just being picky about using smelting for foundry work lately...or "I zinc they are doing it wrong;" Tom said brazenly while upset by his tinnitus.
March 1, 20224 yr St, Dunstan Patron Saint of blacksmiths. Born in England in the 900's. The Devil was annoyed at the healing properties of a spring, at Tunbridge Wells in Kent, and poked his nose right below the surface causing it to go red and taste of sulphur. St Dunstan pulled him out by the nose using a set of blacksmiths tongs. Those tongs can be seen at Mayfield Convent, a Roman Catholic boarding school in the village of Mayfield in Sussex. he repeated the same trick at a forge when the devil disguised himself as a beautiful young lady to tempt him. However he would not look up from his work and then noticed the hooves beneath the dress. St Dunstan then grabbed the Devil by the nose with tongs again which caused the Devil to unfurl his wings in order to fly away in pain. St Dunstan is reputed to have nailed horseshoes to the Devils hooves and refused to remove them until Old Nick promised to stay away from Blacksmiths. It is also said that the legend of a horseshoe being lucky comes from this tale as the devil also promised not to enter a building with a horseshoe nailed above the door.
March 1, 20224 yr "In the Forge" by Francisco Goya, ca. 1817 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Forge_(Goya) -- "Patrick Lyon in the Forge" by John Nagle, ca. 1826 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patrick_Lyon_(blacksmith) (Make sure to read the whole story; Lyon sounds like a real character.) -- "Apollo in the Forge of Vulcan" by Diego de Velázquez ca. 1630 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_in_the_Forge_of_Vulcan
March 1, 20224 yr https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hephaestus "The Greek god of blacksmiths, metalworking, carpenters, craftsmen, artisans, sculptors, metallurgy, fire and volcanoes."
March 1, 20224 yr Clearly a modern work, although I haven't been able to figure out who the original artist might be. Plenty of websites selling "cast alabaster" replicas, though. If we want to do sculpture, here's one from the French sculptor Guillaume Coustou the Younger, which he submitted to the Académie Royale de Peinture et de Sculpture in 1742, as part of his application for membership. So far as I know, there aren't many ancient sculptures of Hephaestus/Vulcan that have survived to the present day, and I don't know of any that present him standing at the anvil (not least because ancient Greek smiths squatted on the floor).
March 1, 20224 yr However, there are lots of vase paintings, such as this one showing Hephaestus presenting the shield of Achilles to Thetis.
March 1, 20224 yr BTW: notice those Spanish smiths using "Japanese hammers" in Velasquez's painting back in the 1600's!
March 2, 20224 yr A couple more Hephaestus statues. This is a modern one (1996) entitled "Pathos Hephaestus Eros" by John Whitcomb Robinson, on the campus of Florida State University: (Couldn't find a photo showing the full height including the base, alas.) And then we have this excrescence, from the approach to the main entrance of the Chimei Museum in Taiwan. I have no clue what's supposed to be happening here, apart from demonstrating the patron's excess of money and absence of taste and the sculptor's total ignorance of blacksmithing.
March 2, 20224 yr You mean we are not supposed to forge with our buts resting on the anvil? Looks like he is trying to forge a new loin cloth, or what ever that skirt looking thing is supposed to be.
March 2, 20224 yr Perhaps it was to indicate his lameness; of which John, at least, should be familiar with. Would have done better with a ragged tree branch crutch propped under his armpit in my opinion.
March 2, 20224 yr Far be it for me to criticize, but that sculpture by our friend Robinson makes my eyes hurt to look at it... Maybe it's different up close and in person. Almost kooks more like one of his automatons.
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