Descrepency between "museum" guns & enthusiasts' guns

[Black Jaque Janaviac]

I belong of a Facebook group dedicated to the Flintlock Era.  I regularly see photos of guns that people post and I notice they tend to be museum pieces (or private collections) that are UUUGGGLY!  I have to stay my hand from typing my opinions (my apologies if you've posted your favorite gun there). 

It seems that they are all over-decorated.  They are so filled with ornate inlays, carving and such that from a distance, the gun looks like it has some sort of pox or is otherwise covered with scabs.

Then when I look at guns done by folks here, or for sale on Track of the Wolf, the ornamentation seems to follow Wallace Gusler's philosophy; "the scrollwork should carry your eyes along the lines of the gun".  It seems that contemporary flintlocks are the only place where this is practiced.  Even ornamented modern guns can't seem to get this concept.  It's like the carver says, "Oh look!  Here's some open space!  I fill it up with teensy-weensy drawings of deer, pheasant, or something". 

Am I the only one to notice this?

[Cory Joe Stewart]

There are several original guns in the literature that do not follow the "rules" or architecture that most contemporary makers follow. 

Cory Joe Stewart

[axelp]

American folk art is a mish-mash--and often does not conform to classical rules. It is crude whimsical and makes no sense--but makes sense all at the same time. It is an acquired taste. The refinement of top-end european design might be hard to duplicate due to skill level and ability, but American Folk art reproduction is arguably harder to duplicate well due to its primitive, whimsical nature.

Counter to what one might think, Its very hard to copy a four year old's drawing style. I think that is why most contemporary gun builders don't reproduce the odd examples--- they are ugly and awkward, and if done right, they are quite wonderful. but if done wrong, it just looks funky and weird. Its hard to do it right.

[Black Jaque Janaviac]

"American folk art is a mish-mash--and often does not conform to classical rules."

Hmm.  Perhaps I didn't write my original post well.  The ones that I would deem ugly are the ones of supposed "Royal quality".  I'm not sure what is meant by folk art though. 

The ones that I think are most beautiful are done by today's makers of longrifles.  I trust that they are keeping faithful to a tradition of some sort, but the guns that show up in these FB posts are over-ornate.  It almost seems that the Ultra-fine European versions (the ones likely to end up in collections and museums) are the ugly ones. 

[Elnathan]

Many years ago I noted during a series of discussions on another forum about what constituted "good architecture" that the architectural errors found in ugly old guns were different from those typically found in poorly made modern repros, and attributed that to the fact that an amateur gunsmith in the old days was used to seeing and handling guns in person and working with wood that came more or less straight from the tree, whereas we mostly get our ideas about what guns should look like from 2 dimensional pictures and get our wood pre-dimensioned and squared from lumberyards. I think now that it goes a little bit deeper - we live in a culture that has easy access to cheap and easily reproduced images (particularly now with the internet) and for whom straight and square is the default, and we are trying to reproduce the artifacts of a culture for whom good images were rare and difficult to produce (particularly outside of major urban centers and particularly in America) and for whom straight and square was the product of hard labor. There is some evidence from modern studies that primitive cultures, such as the Kalahari Bushmen, "see" lines on paper differently than do westerners - they eyes work the same, but a mind used to tracking animals and looking at irregular shapes at varying distances doesn't interpret a series of converging lines drawn on paper the same way a mind used to looking at pictures that use converging lines to mimic depth (artistic perspective) interprets them. I think that there is a similar, if lesser and ore subtle, gap between how we see the world and how our ancestors did, and it makes it difficult to get the look right. I think that the complaint that guns look "too precise" is a reflection of that difference.

Folk art is really hard to mimic - when I try I usually fail. One gunsmith who really can pull off the look is Eric Kettenburg.

Seems like folk art wasn't what the original poster had in mind, but since I typed all this up I'll post it anyway. Shame to waste all those bytes. 

[Black Jaque Janaviac]

This would be an example of what I mean by ugly.  It may be that the gunsmith was incredibly skilled with inlaying and such, but he seems to have lacked some artistic judgment (or I do and I just don't grasp the beauty of something like this).

[rich pierce]

That appears to be a middle eastern gun, and likely has artistic features that are familiar to a very different culture.

[Daryl]

The gun depicted in this photo, is an American gun, quite ornate and likely made for someone VERY wealthy about 1800.

[smallpatch]

Jack,
That is neither an American, or European gun. 
Not really a good comparison, and yes...... to my eye, that is UUUUGGLY!  But, to each his own.