Vasari on technique

by Giorgio Vasari

NOTES ON ‘INTRODUCTION’ TO SCULPTURE

THE NATURE OF SCULPTURE.

[§ 36, The Nature of Sculpture, ante, p. [143].]

The remark with which Vasari opens his ‘Introduction’ to Sculpture, though it sounds rather trite, involves a point of some interest. Vasari says that the sculptor removes all that is superfluous from the material under treatment, and reduces it to the form designed for it in his mind. This is true of the technique of sculpture proper, that is stone or marble carving, but there are processes in the art other than that of cutting away a block of hard material. Michelangelo, in a letter he wrote in 1549 to Benedetto Varchi, on the ever-recurring theme of the relative dignity of painting and sculpture, notices the fact that the sculptor proceeds in two ways, by the progressive reduction of a mass, as is the case with the marble carver, or in his own words, ‘per forza di levare’; and also by successive additions, as in modelling in clay or wax, which he calls ‘per via di porre,’ ‘by the method of putting on.’ The distinction is one of fundamental importance for a right understanding of the art, and upon it depends the characteristic difference between Greek reliefs, which are almost all carved in marble, and if not are beaten up on metal plates by the repoussé process, and Italian reliefs that are very often in cast bronze, the models for which have been prepared by modelling, ‘per via di porre,’ in wax. On this point something will be found in the Note on ‘Italian and Greek Reliefs,’ postea, p. 196 f.

With regard to sculpture effected ‘by taking away,’ ‘per forza di levare,’ Michelangelo has left a famous utterance in one of his sonnets, No. XV in the edition of Guasti, which opens as follows:—

‘Non ha l’ ottimo artista alcun concetto,

Ch’ un marmo solo in sè non circonscriva

Col suo soverchio; e solo a quello arriva

La man che ubbidisce all’ intelletto,’

and is thus translated by J. A. Symonds:—

‘The best of artists hath no thought to show

Which the rough stone in its superfluous shell

Doth not include. To break the marble spell

Is all the hand that serves the brain can do.’

The conceit is really a classical one, and is probably due to some Greek writer used by Cicero in his tract De Divinatione. Some one had testified to the fact that, in a certain marble quarry on Chios, a block, casually split open, had disclosed a head of Pan; and Cicero, or the writer he had before him, remarks that such a chance might occur, though the similitude would only be a rude one. In any case however, he goes on, it must be conceded that even the very finest heads imaginable are really in existence throughout all time in every block of stone of sufficient size. All that even a Praxiteles could do would be to bring them into view by taking off all that was superfluous in the marble. He would add nothing to what was there already. The whole process would be the removal of what was superfluous and bringing to light what was concealed within.

SCULPTURE TREATED FOR POSITION.

[§ 38, Works of Sculpture should be treated with a view to their destined Position, ante, p. [145].]

Vasari is dealing with sculpturesque treatment as conditioned by the position and lighting for which works of statuary are destined, and a somewhat interesting question in the aesthetics of the plastic art is opened up.

There are here two matters to be distinguished; one is the general treatment of a figure or relief in relation to position, and the other is the deliberate alteration in the proportions of it, with a view to the same consideration. It is almost a matter of course that an artist, in preparing his model, will keep in view the aspect under which the finished work will be presented to the spectator, but the definite change in proportions is another matter. Vasari is clear in his own mind that Donatello and other sculptors did make changes of proportions as well as of general treatment on the grounds indicated, but in alleging this he is not drawing on his own expert knowledge as an artist, so much as echoing a judgement of literary critics often expressed in both ancient and modern times. There is a passage in Plato’s Sophist which shows that in Greek aesthetics this question was discussed, and a distinction is there drawn, pp. 235–6, between exact imitation of nature, and an imitation that modifies the forms of nature for artistic effect. In large works, Plato points out, if the true proportions were given ‘the upper part which is further off from the eye would appear to be out of proportion in comparison with the lower, which is nearer; and so our artists give up the truth in their images and make only the proportions which appear to be beautiful disregarding the true ones.’ The same idea connected with a concrete instance is embodied in a legend preserved in some verses by the Byzantine writer Tzetzes, to the effect that Pheidias and Alcamenes competed on one occasion with rival figures of the goddess Athene. Alcamenes finished his with great delicacy, and on a near view it was preferred to that by Pheidias. The latter sculptor, ‘being versed in optics and geometry,’ had allowed for distance and exaggerated certain details. When both figures were put into position the superiority of that by Pheidias was at once apparent. It has been argued from a passage in Eustatius that Pheidias fashioned his Zeus at Olympia with the head slightly inclined forwards, so as to bring it more directly into view from the floor of the temple below.

In modern times Donatello’s works have been specially singled out as illustrating this same principle, and not by Vasari alone. The following, for instance, is an obiter dictum of the Florentine writer Davanzati in a letter affixed to his translation of Tacitus published first in 1596, (see Opere di Tacito, Bern. Davanzati, Padova, 1755, p. 656), where he says, ‘You must look at the way an effect is introduced, as in the case of Donatello and his famous Zuccone (Bald Head) on our Campanile of the Duomo. The eyes of this statue as one looks at it on high seem as if dug out with the spade, but if he had worked it on the ground (for a near view) the figure would appear to be blind. The reason is that distance swallows up all refinement of work (la lontananza si mangia la diligenzia).... In the same way the rudeness of rustic work on great palace walls does not take away from but rather adds to the effect of majesty.’ Modern critics have agreed in commending Donatello for his judicious treatment, with a view to situation, of works like the statues on the Campanile, which are more than fifty feet above the ground. Hans Semper praises specially from this standpoint the ‘Abraham and Isaac’ on the Campanile, and remarks that if this group were taken down and seen on the ground there would be a great outcry about faults of proportion in the legs, (Donatello, Wien, 1875, p. 122.) In Lord Balcarres’s recent book on Donatello there is a discussion of the Campanile statues, and other works by the master, in relation to the same aesthetic principle, (Donatello, London, 1903, p. 17 ff.)

There is no question that the boldness and vigour which were characteristic of Donatello were well suited to give his works a telling effect at a distance, and this may be noticed in the case of his ‘Cantoria’ with the dancing children in the Opera del Duomo at Florence. We are reminded here of the Pheidias and Alcamenes story. On a near view Donatello’s Cantoria suffers in a comparison with the more delicate work on the same theme of Luca della Robbia, but when both galleries were ‘in position,’ high up, and in the semi-darkness of the Duomo, the effect of Donatello’s relief must have been far finer. This bold and sketchy treatment was not due to the fact that the master could work in no other way, for Donatello treated very low relief, spoken of later on by Vasari as ‘stiacciato,’ with remarkable delicacy and finish. Hence we may fairly credit him with intention in the strong effects of some of his monumental works.

This is however quite a different matter from deliberate alteration of the proportions of a figure in view of the position it is to occupy. In spite of what Vasari and some modern writers have said, it must be doubted whether Donatello or any other responsible sculptor has done anything of the kind. Vasari speaks of figures ‘made a head or two taller’ when they have to be seen in a near view from below, but he does not refer to any examples. Decorative figures of elongated proportions may be instanced, but it does not follow that these proportions were intended to correct perspective foreshortening. The twelfth century statues in the western portals at Chartres are curiously elongated, and so too are the stucco nymphs of Primaticcio in the Escalier du Roi at Fontainebleau, but in both cases the figures are but little above the level of the eye, and their shape is certainly not due to any such consideration as was in the mind of Vasari. The actual proportions of Donatello’s Campanile statues seem perfectly normal, though the works may have been deliberately treated with a view to position.

It is worth notice that, proportions apart, the principle of ‘treatment for position’ has by no means been generally observed. In the greatest and most prolific periods of sculpture indeed, there seems to have been little consistency of practice in this regard, while some of the finest decorative works in the world appear to have been very little affected by any considerations of the kind. As in duty bound, Vasari appeals to the antique, but as a matter of fact, classical decorative sculpture exhibits only in a very minor degree these studied modifications of treatment in relation to position. In the frieze of the Parthenon the background is cut back a little deeper above than below, so as to increase the apparent salience of the parts farthest from the eye, and on the column of Marcus Aurelius at Rome, which may have been in Vasari’s mind when he mentions reliefs on columns, the salience of the relief is much bolder above than below. The well-known band of ornament on the framing of Ghiberti’s ‘Old Testament’ gates shows similar variety in treatment. On the earlier column of Trajan, on the other hand, the eye can detect no variation in treatment of the kind. The groups from the pediments of the Parthenon give little indication that they were designed to be looked at sixty feet above the eye, while the heads by Scopas from the pediments at Tegea are finished with the utmost delicacy, as if for the closest inspection.

In the matter of the choice of low or high relief according to the distance from the eye, the frieze of the Parthenon is often adduced as canonical, because, being only visible from near, it is in very low relief. It is forgotten however that the nearly contemporary friezes on the Theseum and from the interior of the temple at Bassae, though they were correspondingly placed and actually nearer to the eye, are both in high relief. On the Roman triumphal arches, of which Vasari writes, there are similar anomalies. Thus the well-known panels within the passage way of the Arch of Titus, that must have been calculated for very near stand-points, are in boldest projection.

The magnificent decorative sculpture on the French Gothic cathedrals shows little trace of the sort of calculation here spoken of. It is true that the figures of Kings in the ‘Galeries des Rois’ across the west fronts are as a rule rudely carved, but this is because they are so purely formal and give the artist little opportunity. At Reims some of the finest and most finished work is to be found in the effigies of Kings, the Angels, and other figures, on the upper stages of the building, while the ‘Church Triumphant’ up above on the southern transept façade is every whit as delicately beautiful as the ‘Mary of the Visitation,’ in the western porch.

Enough has been said to show that on this subject literary statements are not to be trusted and practice is very uncertain. It remains to be seen what light can be thrown upon it, first, from the side of aesthetic principle; and, second, from that of the actual procedure and expert judgement of sculptors of to-day.

The principle will hardly be controverted that anything abnormal, either in the proportions of a figure or even in its treatment, will tend to defeat its own object by confusing our regular and highly effective visual process. The organs which co-operate in this are so educated that we interpret by an unconscious act of intelligence what we actually see, and make due allowance for distance and position. It is often said that objects look larger through a mist. This is not the case. They do not look larger but they look further off, and the equation between apparent size and apparent distance which we unconsciously establish is vitiated, so that the impression is produced that the particular object is abnormally large. Now in the same way we allow for the distance and the perspective angle at which a work of sculpture is seen and interpret accurately the actual forms and effects of texture and light and shade the image of which falls on the retina. If the sculptor have altered his proportions there is a danger that we shall derive the impression of a distorted figure, because we have made our allowances on the supposition that the proportions are normal. If he have forced the effect by emphasizing the modelling, he will make the parts where this is done appear too near the eye, and this will involve a false impression of the height and dimensions of the structure on which the sculpture is displayed. There is this forcing of effect in the case of the column of Marcus Aurelius, but it is of no artistic advantage, and would tend to make the column itself look lower than it really is. In the column of Trajan the spiral lines have a certain artistic waviness, so that the band of sculpture varies in width in different parts, but the treatment is the same throughout, and as the reliefs were not only to be seen from below but also from the lofty neighbouring structures of the Trajanic Forum, this was not only in accordance with principle but with common sense. It is obvious indeed that works of monumental sculpture are practically always visible from other points than the one for which their effect is chiefly calculated; and hence if proportions be modified so as to suit one special standpoint, the work may look right in this one aspect, but in all others may appear painfully distorted.

As regards the second point, we have asked Mr Pittendrigh Macgillivray, R.S.A., a question on this subject, and he has kindly given us his opinion in the following note.

‘The question as to whether or not sculptors deliberately alter the normal proportions of the human figure in order to adapt their works to special circumstances is one which is frequently asked, and which I have never found reason to answer otherwise than in the negative. The rule in the classic examples of all periods, as far as I have observed, is normal proportion and execution, irrespective of site and circumstances, and, to anyone familiar with the art and practice of sculpture, the difficulties and uncertainties consequent upon a lawless method of dealing with the normal quantities of the figure, are a sufficient deterrent against vagaries in scale and proportion. To change the proportions of the figure in order to meet the peculiarities and limitations of some special site, seems on the surface so reasonable that one is not greatly surprised at the persistence of the idea in literary circles, where it has not been possible to balance it against that technical knowledge which is the outcome of actual practice and experience in handling the métier of the art. To adapt statuary by fanciful proportions to unfortunate conditions and circumstances, for which truer artistic taste and understanding, on the part of architects, would never propose it, seems such a ’cute notion that it has occasionally attracted the clever ones of the profession as a way out of the difficulty, but one which has led only to ultimate discomfiture.

‘The fact is, I imagine, that the normal proportions of the human figure are so deeply printed on the inherited memory of the race that, except within very narrow limitations, they cannot be modified and yet at the same time convey lastingly any high order of serious emotion or effect. The great men doing serious work in sculpture will never find it necessary to go beyond the law of nature for the architectonic basis of their expression. Faulty or arbitrary proportion in handling the human figure is unnecessary; it is of no real help to the artist, and no more desired by him than is the liberty of 16 lines and ballad measure, by the sonneteer expert in the Petrarchan form and rhyme of 14 pentameter verses. The real matter to be dealt with in respect of peculiarities of site and circumstances lies within the sphere of the artistic capacity, and is at once more easy and more difficult than any wooden process of mis-handling the proportions of the figure. It is at issue in the legend of the Byzantine writer, Tzetzes, to which reference is made, wherein it is said that Pheidias and Alcamenes competed on one occasion with rival figures of Athene, but the explanation given of the reason why the work of Pheidias was admired and preferred at the site, is, I venture to say, the wrong one, in as far as it presupposes abnormal proportions in the successful statue. To the author’s mind, no doubt, something profound and abstruse was necessary in order to explain such a triumph, and the idea that Pheidias was deeply versed in what must then have been the occult mysteries of optics and geometry, fitted the need and was pleasant to the love of the marvellous.

‘In such a case, Pheidias would certainly, with the intuitive artistic sense and experience of a master, handle the style, composition, lights and shadows, mass, line and silhouette of his work in relation to its size, and the average height and distance from which it was to be viewed. It might be finished highly in respect of surface, or left moderately rough, a condition of little consequence compared with the factors enumerated above. It would be made readable and expressive, but there would be no modification of the sacred proportions of the figure; no trace of allowance in order that “the upper part which is further off from the eye should appear to be in proportion when compared with the lower, which is nearer.” That artists should appear to give up natural truth in their images for considerations of abstract beauty, was grateful to the mind of Plato, but is only another proof of the soaring qualities of the White Horse in the Human Chariot!

‘Outside of a somewhat conscious effort towards the decorative in form and towards the effective articulation of parts, I find little in the work of Donatello to justify his being specially singled out as illustrating those principles of the modification of true proportions for sculpture in relation to the exigencies of site. The statues on the Campanile need not, I imagine, be taken too seriously as exhibitions of Donatello’s most careful judgement. Compared with such works of his as we may feel at liberty to believe personal, they are rude and ill-considered in design and execution. There is in the bones, mass, and arrangement of the work very probably something of Donatello, but in the detail and execution there is little or nothing of the hand that did the Christ of S. Antonio of Padua, the bronze David of the Bargello, or the bust of Niccolo da Uzzano.’

WAXEN EFFIGIES AND MEDALLIONS.

[§ 43, Polychrome Wax Effigies, ante, p. [149].]

Wax has been used from the time of the ancients as a modelling material, both in connection with casting in bronze, and with the making of small studies for reproduction in more permanent materials. The production of a plastic work in wax intended to remain as the finished expression of the artist’s idea is of course a different matter. Among the Greeks, Lysistratos, the brother of Lysippos, about the time of Alexander the Great, introduced the practice of taking plaster moulds from the life, and then making casts from them in wax. These he may have coloured, for the use of colour, at any rate on terra cotta, was at the time universal, and in this way have produced waxen effigies. (Hominis autem imaginem gypso e facie ipsa primus omnium expressit ceraque in eam formam gypsi infusa emendare instituit Lysistratus Sicyonius frater Lysippi. Plin. Hist. Nat., XXXV, 153). Busts in coloured wax of departed ancestors were kept by the Romans of position in the atria of their houses, and the funereal use of the wax effigy can be followed from classical times to those comparatively modern, for in Westminster Abbey can still be seen the waxen effigies of Queen Elizabeth, Charles II, and other sovereigns and nobles of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. These, like the modern wax-works of popular exhibitions, are hardly productions of art. What Vasari writes of is a highly refined and artistic kind of work, that was practised in Italy from the early part of the sixteenth century, and spread to France, Germany, and England in each of which countries there were well-known executants in the seventeenth or eighteenth centuries. The Connoisseur of March, 1904, contained an article on the chief of these.

Though modelled effigies in wax of a thoroughly artistic kind were executed of or near the size of life and in the round, as may be seen in the Italian waxen bust of a girl in the Musée Wicar at Lille, that has been ascribed to Raphael, yet as a rule the execution was in miniature and in relief. Specimens of this form of the work are to be seen in the British Museum, in the Wallace Collection, and at South Kensington.

In the Proceedings of the Huguenot Society of London, III, 4, there is an article on the Gossets, a Huguenot family, some members of which practised the art in England from the early part of the eighteenth century, and a recipe for colouring the wax is there quoted which it may be interesting to compare with that given by Vasari. ‘To two ounces of flake white (the biacca of Vasari) add three of Venice turpentine, if it be in summer, and four in winter, with sufficient vermilion (cinabrio) to give it a pinkish tint. Grind these together on a stone with a muller; then put them into a pound of fine white wax, such as is used for making candles: this is molten ready in an earthen pipkin. Turn them round over the fire for some time. When thoroughly mixed the composition should be immediately removed and poured into dishes previously wetted to prevent the wax from sticking to them.’

This refers to the preparation of a self-coloured wax which may be prepared of a flesh tint, or of a creamy white, or of any other desired hue like those Vasari enumerates. The portraits in wax referred to in our museums are sometimes in self-coloured material of this kind, but at other times are coloured polychromatically in all their details. This is the technique referred to by Vasari in § 43 as having been introduced by certain ‘modern masters.’ In Opere, IV, 436 he refers to one Pastorino of Siena as having acquired great celebrity for wax portraits, and as having ‘invented a composition which is capable of reproducing the hair, beard and skin, in the most natural manner. It would take me too long’ he continues ‘to enumerate all the artists who model wax portraits, for now-a-days there is scarcely a jeweller who does not occupy himself with such work.’ This last remark is significant, for one feature of these polychrome medallions is the introduction of real stones, seed pearls, gold rings, and the like, in connection with the modelled wax, so that collectors used to style the works ‘Italian sixteenth century jewelled waxes.’ A portrait bust in the Salting collection, shown on loan at South Kensington, representing Elizabeth of France, wife of Philip II, is a good specimen of the technique. The lady wears a jewelled hair net set with real red and green stones, and a necklet of seed pearls. In her ear is a ring of thin gold wire. The flesh parts are naturally coloured, the hair is auburn, the bodice black, and there are two white feathers in the headdress. We should gather from Vasari’s words in § 43 that works of the kind were built up of waxes variously coloured in the mass, and a close examination of extant specimens clearly shows that this was the case. Local tints such as the red of the lips, etc., were added with pigment.

The best modern notice of wax modelling in these forms is that contained in Propert’s History of Miniature Art, Lond. 1887, chapter xii, but little is said there of the technique. It should be noticed that the medallion in coloured wax as a form of art has been revived with considerable success in our own time and country by the Misses Casella and others. The artists just named consider that it would be impossible to finish work on the usual small scale in coloured waxes alone, without touches of pigment added with the brush. It would be interesting in this connection to know what were the exact processes of painting in wax used by the ancients. Paintings, which must have been on a small scale because they were on a ground of ivory, were executed in coloured waxes laid on by the ‘cestrum’ (Pliny, Hist. Nat., XXXV, 147), which is usually described as a sort of spatula, something like one of the steel tools used by artists for finishing figures in plaster. However the substance was applied, the whole process was apparently carried out in the coloured waxes. There must have been some similarity between this technique and that of the wax medallions of Renaissance and modern times.

PROPORTIONATE ENLARGEMENT.

[§ 48, Transference of the full-sized Model to the Marble Block, ante, p. [151].]

‘To enlarge the figure proportionately in the marble.’ Vasari has said, ante, p. [150], that the model is to be the full size of the marble so that there would be no question of enlargement but only of accurately copying the form of the model in the new material. For this mechanical aids are invoked, the latest and most elaborate of which is the ‘pointing machine’ now in common use. The appliances in Vasari’s time were much simpler. Cellini, in his Trattato sopra la Scultura, describes the mechanical arrangements he made for enlarging a model to the size of a proposed colossal effigy, and the principle is the same whether there is to be enlargement or exact reproduction.

The model, and a block roughly trimmed by rule of thumb to the size and shape required, but of course somewhat larger than will ultimately be needed, are placed side by side on tables of exactly the same form and dimensions. About the model is set up a sort of framework simple or elaborate, according to the character of the piece, and a framework precisely similar in all respects is disposed about the block. A measurement is then taken from one or more points on the framework to a point on the model, and from a point or points similarly situated on the other framework, and in the same relative direction, a similar measurement is led towards the block. As this is ex hypothesi a little larger than the model, the full measurement cannot be taken until some of the superfluous marble has been removed by suitable tools. When this is done a point can be established on the block exactly corresponding to the point already fixed on the model. This process can be repeated as often as is necessary until all the important or salient points on the model have been successively established on the marble block, which will ultimately have approached so nearly to the exact similitude of the model, that the artist can finish it by the eye.

The nature of what has been termed the framework, from which all the measurements are taken, may vary. Cellini, on the occasion referred to, surrounded his model with a sort of skeleton of a cubical box, from the sides and corners of which he measured. In the Encyclopédie of Diderot and d’Alembert, of the middle of the eighteenth century, similar square frames, like those used as stretchers for canvases, are suspended horizontally over model and block, and plumb lines are hung from the corners, so that skeleton cubes are established, which would answer the same purpose as Cellini’s box. See Plate X, A. The arrangement contemplated by Vasari was somewhat simpler. He does not establish a complete hollow cube about his model and his block, but is apparently satisfied with erecting perpendiculars beside each, from which the measures would be led. The carpenter’s square (squadra) he has in mind consists of two straight legs joined together at right angles. If one leg be laid horizontally along the table the one at right angles to it will be vertical, and from this the measurements are taken. In the treatise on Sculpture by Leon Battista Alberti there is an elaborate description of a device he invented for the purpose in view, and one of his editors has illustrated this by a drawing reproduced here in Plate X, B. The device explains itself, and any number of similar contrivances could be employed.

THE USE OF FULL-SIZED MODELS.

[§ 49, Danger of Dispensing with the Full-sized Model, ante, p. [151].]

The question here is of the possibility of dispensing altogether with a full-sized clay model, and proceeding at once to attack the marble with the guidance only of the small original sketch. In modern times this is practically never done, but it was the universal practice of the Greek sculptors at any rate down to the later periods of Hellenic art. These remarks of Vasari come just at the time of the change from the ancient to the modern technique, for we shall see that Donatello in the fifteenth century worked according to the simpler ancient method, while Michelangelo in the sixteenth after beginning in the same fashion finally settled down to the use of the full model, which has ever since remained de rigeur.

Plate X
B
DIAGRAM to illustrate Alberti’s method of measurement
A
INTERIOR OF A SCULPTOR’S STUDIO IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY
With illustrations of methods of measurement

Fig. 11.—Two views of unfinished Greek marble statue blocked out on the ancient system. In quarries on Mount Pentelicus, Athens.

The technique of the Greeks furnished the subject for an article by Professor Ernest Gardner in the 14th volume of the Journal of Hellenic Studies. He shows there by a comparison of unfinished works that the Greek sculptors attacked the marble directly, and proceeded apparently on the following method. Having obtained a block about the size and shape required they set it up before them as if in a front view, and then hewed away at the two sides till they had brought the contour of these to the exact lines required for the finished work. They then passed round through a right angle to the side, and treated in a similar fashion the front and back of the block, bringing these to the shape of the front and back of the desired figure. The block would then, when looked at from the front or back or from the sides, present the required outlines, but the section of it would still be square in every part—there would be no rounding off. The sketches, Fig. 11, show two views of a figure blocked out in this fashion by an ancient Attic sculptor. It was found in old marble workings on Mount Pentelicus, and is preserved at the modern marble quarry at the back of that mountain. We owe the use of the photographs employed to the courtesy of M. Georges Nicole, of Geneva. They were published in the volume entitled Mélanges Nicole, Geneva, 1905, in connection with an article on the figure by the archaeologist just named. The next process was to cut away these corners and with the guidance of the already established contours gradually bring the whole into the required shape. A small model may in every case be presupposed and there must have been some system of measurement. Indeed on some antiques, as on a crouching Venus in the gallery leading to the Venus of Milo in the Louvre, there are still to be seen the knobs (puntelli) to which measurements were taken during the progress of the work. Of the use of full-sized clay models there is in Greece no evidence at all, until the late period of the first century B.C., when we are told of Pasiteles, a very painstaking sculptor of a decadent epoch, that he never executed a work without first modelling it (nihil unquam fecit antequam finxit). This no doubt implies a full-sized model in clay, for a small sketch would not be mentioned as it is a matter of course.

The practice of the Italians is described by Cellini in words which are important enough to quote. They are from the fourth chapter of his treatise on Sculpture. ‘Now although many excellent masters of assured technique have boldly attacked the marble with their tools, as soon as they had carved the little model to completion, yet at the end they have found themselves but little satisfied with their work. For, to speak only of the best of the moderns, Donatello adopted this method in his works; and another example is Michelangelo, who had experience of both the methods, that is to say, of carving statues alike from the small model and the big, and at the end, convinced of their respective advantages and disadvantages, adopted the second method (of the full-sized model). And this I saw myself at Florence when he was working in the sacristy of S. Lorenzo (on the Medici tombs).’ As regards Michelangelo’s early practice, Vasari records in his Life that he carved the colossal marble ‘David’ with the sole aid of a small wax model, according to Vasari one of those now preserved in the Casa Buonarroti at Florence. This was in 1504. The Medici tombs date twenty years later.

In connection with the direct practice of Donatello, it is worth while referring to some words of Francesco Bocchi, a rhetorical eulogist of the arts and artists of his native Florence, who wrote in 1571 a literary effusion on the sculptor’s St. George. He notes in his introduction that Donatello was accustomed to compose his marble figures compactly and to avoid projecting hands and arms, while for his effigies in bronze he used much greater freedom in action. The difference is really one of material, and Donatello’s practice of working directly on the marble would necessarily involve this restraint in composition. Anyone accustomed to deal with marble blocks as vehicles of artistic expression, would avoid unnecessary projections as these cause great waste of material and expenditure of time. When plastering clay or wax on a flexible armature this consideration is not present, and modelled figures will naturally be freer in action than carved ones. As will presently be seen, certain marked differences in the treatment of relief sculpture depend on these same considerations of material and technique.

In direct work on the marble there is of course always the danger of the sort of miscalculation that Vasari goes on to notice. Greek figures sometimes show variations from correct proportions, for example, the left thigh of the Venus of Milo is too short, but the errors are not such as to destroy the effect of the works. Greek work in marble shows a marvellously intimate knowledge on the part of the carver of his material as well as a clear conception of what he was aiming at. Even Michelangelo yields in this respect to the ancients, for though no one was ever more thoroughly a master of the carver’s technique, he made serious mistakes in calculating proportions, as in the ‘Slave’ of the Louvre, where he has not left enough marble for the leg of the figure. Moderns generally have not the ease which tradition and practice gave to the Greek sculptors, and the full-sized model is now a necessary precaution.

ITALIAN AND GREEK RELIEFS.

[§ 52, Pictorial or Perspective Reliefs, ante, p. [154].]

Vasari ascribes comprehensively to the ‘ancients’ the invention of the pictorial or perspectively treated relief, which was not in use in mediaeval times, but came into vogue in the early years of the fifteenth century. The first conspicuous instance of its employment was in the models by Ghiberti for the second set of gates for the Baptistry at Florence begun in 1425, but as these gates were not finally completed till 1452, other artists had in the meantime produced works in the same style. Donatello’s bronze relief of the beheading of John the Baptist, on the font at Sienna, was completed in 1427 and shows the same treatment in a modified form. It is a treatment often called pictorial as it aims at effects of distance, with receding planes and objects made smaller according to their supposed distance from the foreground. The style has been sufficiently criticized, and it is generally agreed that it represents a defiance of the barriers fixed by the nature of things between painting and sculpture. It depended mainly however not on the influence of painting but on the study of perspective, which Brunelleschi brought into vogue somewhere about the year 1420. Brunelleschi’s perspectives, or those which he inspired, were worked out in inlaid woods, or tarsia work, see postea, p. 303 f., and exhibited elaborate architectural compositions crowded with receding lines. These compositions were adopted by Donatello and others for the backgrounds of their figure reliefs, and Ghiberti filled his nearer planes with a crowd of figures represented as Vasari describes according to the laws of linear, and so far as the material permitted, of aerial perspective.

The question of the amount of warrant for this in antique practice as a whole calls attention to an interesting moment in the general history of relief sculpture. This has been dealt with recently by Franz Wickhoff, in the Essay contributed by him to the publication of the Vienna ‘Genesis,’ and issued in an English translation by Mrs Strong under the title Roman Art (London, 1900), and also in Mrs Strong’s own Roman Sculpture (London, Duckworth, 1907). The tendency to multiply planes in relief, and to introduce the perspective effects and the backgrounds of a picture, shows itself in some of the late Greek or ‘Hellenistic’ reliefs, published by Schreiber under the title Die Hellenistischen Reliefbilder (Wien, 1889 etc.), and more especially in the smaller frieze from the altar base at Pergamon. Etruscan relief sculpture is also affected by it. It is however in Roman work of the early imperial period that we actually find the antique prototypes for the kind of work that Vasari has in his mind. The reliefs on the tomb of the Julii at St Rémy, of the age of Augustus, those on the Arch of Titus, and most conspicuously the decorative sculpture connected with the name of Trajan, are instances in point. They show differences in plane, and occasionally a distinct effort after perspective effects, and it is possible that the study of some of these Roman examples by Brunelleschi and Donatello at the opening of the fifteenth century may have contributed to the formation of the picturesque tradition in Florentine relief sculpture of the period. This style was however by no means universal in Roman work. The carved sarcophagi are not much influenced by it, and these sarcophagi are of special importance in the later history of sculpture, in that they were the models used by Nicola Pisano and the other French and Italian sculptors of the so-called ‘proto-Renaissance’ of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. In relation to antique sculpture as a whole the pictorial style is quite abnormal. The genius of the classical Greek relief is indeed totally opposed to that of the Italian reliefs represented centrally by those of Ghiberti. The difference is fundamentally one of material and technique. It is the same distinction that was drawn by Michelangelo in his letter to Benedetto Varchi, and noticed already in the Note on ‘The Nature of Sculpture,’ ante, p. [179], the distinction, that is, between sculpture that proceeds by additions, ‘per via di porre,’ and that which advances by taking material away, ‘per forza di levare.’ The normal Italian relief was in cast bronze and was necessarily modelled work. The classical relief was in marble and was essentially carved work, for the diversifying of a flat surface. When the Greek relief was in baked clay it was generally stamped from moulds and not modelled up by hand. The cast bronze relief in classical Greece may be said only to have existed in the form of small plaques for the decoration of vases or other objects in metal. The normal bronze relief in the ancient world was beaten up in sheet metal by the repoussé process.

In the case alike of the relief carved on the marble slab, or stamped in clay from moulds, or beaten up in the sheet of metal, the nature of the technique renders flatness of effect almost obligatory. The Greek decorative relief cut ‘per forza di levare’ in a smooth marble slab, that is most often one of the constructive stones of an edifice, naturally sacrifices as little of the material as is possible, and in all Greek reliefs, whether low or high, as much as possible of the work is kept to the foremost plane, the original surface of the stone. Again, a mould that is undercut, or at all deeply recessed, cannot be used for stamping clay, while the difficulty of relief work in sheet metal is greatly increased in proportion to the amount of salience of the forms. Hence the general flatness of the antique relief, observable even on the late Roman sarcophagi which served as models at the first revival of Italian sculpture. Whether the field of the relief is open or crowded, the objects all come together to the front.

How different are the conditions when the relief is modelled up by hand in clay or wax! Here the starting point is the background, not as in the carved relief the foreground, and the forms, worked ‘per via di porre,’ can be made to stand out against this with an ease and effectiveness which tempt the modeller to try all sorts of varieties of relief in the same composition or the same figure, and to multiply planes of distance till the objects on the foremost plane are starting out clear of the ground. There is direct evidence (see ante, p. [194]) that in the first century B.C. the use of clay modelling as a preliminary process in sculpture was greatly extended, and Roman pictorial reliefs may themselves have been influenced from this side. There is no question at any rate that the Italians of the Renaissance surrendered themselves without hesitation to the fascination of this kind of work, and the style of it dominates their later reliefs. The contrast in this respect between Ghiberti’s second, or Old Testament, Gates, and his earlier ones which adhered to the simpler style of Andrea Pisano’s reliefs on the first of the three Baptistry Gates, is most instructive. Andrea’s reliefs are in character mediaeval, and the nearest parallel to them are the storied quatrefoils on the basement of the western portals at Amiens. It is worthy of notice how classical these are in style, and this is due to the fact that like Greek reliefs, such as the frieze of the Parthenon, they were cut in the constructive stones of the edifice in situ, and are in true stone technique.

This contrast of Greek and Italian reliefs furnishes a most conspicuous object lesson on the importance of material and technique in conditioning artistic practice. As was pointed out in the Introductory Essay, these considerations have not in the past been sufficiently emphasized in the scheme of education in design recognized in our Schools of Art, though in several quarters now there is a promise of better things.

THE PROCESSES OF THE BRONZE FOUNDER.

[§§ 55–69, ante, p. [158] ff.]

Vasari’s account of the processes attendant on casting in bronze is intelligible and interesting, though he had himself little practical acquaintance with the craft. Benvenuto Cellini on the other hand was an expert bronze founder and the account he gives of the necessary operations in the first three chapters of his treatise on Sculpture is extremely graphic and detailed, and may be usefully employed to amplify and explain Vasari’s notice. An expert knowledge of the founder’s craft was not by any means universal among the Italian sculptors of the Renaissance. Donatello did not possess it, nor did Michelangelo. In the case of the former this is somewhat remarkable, for Donatello was such a vigorous craftsman that we should have expected to find him revelling in all the technical minutiae of the foundry. We are expressly told however by Pomponius Gauricus that Donatello lacked this knowledge, and never cast his own works but always relied on the help of bell founders (Hans Semper, Donatello, Wien, 1875, p. 317). Michelozzo on the other hand, who worked with Donatello, could cast, and so could Ghiberti, A. Pollaiuolo, and Verrocchio, while Alessandro Leopardi of Venice, who cast Verrocchio’s Colleoni statue, was famed for his practical skill in this department. It was customary, when expert help in casting was required, to enlist the services of bell founders and makers of cannon, but Cellini warns sculptors against trusting too much to these mere mechanicians who lacked ingenuity and resource.

The following general sketch of the processes of casting will render Vasari’s account more easy to follow. A successful cast in bronze consists in a thin shell of the metal, representing on the exterior the exact form of the model, or the complete design in the artist’s mind. The best way to procure this is to provide first a similar shell, perfect on its exterior surface, of wax, and then to melt away the wax and replace it by molten bronze. For this to be possible the shell of wax must be closely sealed between an outer envelope and an inner packing or core. It can then be got rid of by melting, but care must have been taken lest the core when it loses the support of the wax should shift its position in relation to the envelope. To prevent this, metal rods are run, skewer-fashion, through core and envelope to retain them firmly in their relative positions. Molten bronze may then be introduced into the space formerly occupied by the wax, and this, when it is cold, and the envelope and core are both removed, will be the cast required.

Attention has to be paid to secure that there shall be no moisture and no remnant of wax in the parts where the molten bronze is to come, otherwise steam may be generated and a dangerous explosion follow. Similarly, air holes or vents must be provided, so that the air may escape before the flowing metal. The cast when cold should, theoretically, give a perfect result, but as a matter of fact, unless very accomplished skill or great good fortune have presided over the operations, the metal will be blistered or seamed or flawed in parts, and these imperfections will have to be remedied by processes which come under the head of chasing, and are described by Vasari at the close of the chapter.

A direct and ingenious method of procuring the needful shell of wax is that described by Vasari in § 67 as suitable for small figures and reliefs. Over the model for such a small figure an envelope is formed, in the shape of a hollow mould of fire-resisting material, so constructed that it can be taken to pieces, the model extracted, and the mould closed up again. The mould must now be cooled with cold water and it is then filled with melted wax. Contact with the cold sides of the mould chills the wax, which hardens all over in a sort of crust or skin. The rest of the wax, still liquid, is then poured out and the skin or crust suffered to harden. The interior is then filled with clay of a kind that will stand heat. Rods or skewers are passed through this and the envelope, the wax is melted out and its place taken by the molten bronze.

This process, one of course only suitable for small objects, presupposes the existence of a completely finished model to be exactly reproduced in the metal. The simplest of all processes of bronze casting dispenses with this model. Vasari does not describe this simplest method but Cellini, who employed it both for his ‘Nymph of Fontainebleau’ and his ‘Perseus,’ gives an account of it which is worth summarizing because the process is probably the one adopted in most cases by the old Greek masters.

Cellini tells us that in making his large lunette-shaped relief of the ‘Nymph of Fontainebleau,’ now in the Louvre, he began by modelling up the piece in fire-resisting clay, of course over a proper armature or skeleton. He worked it out to full size and then let it dry till it had shrunk about a finger’s breadth. He then covered it with a coating of wax of rather less than this thickness, which he modelled with the utmost care, finishing it in every detail so that it expressed to the full his own idea for the finished work. This was then carefully covered in successive layers with an envelope of fire-resisting material, which would be properly tied by transverse rods to the core, and braced on the exterior by an armature. The wax was then melted out, and the core and envelope thoroughly dried, when the molten bronze was poured in so as to reproduce the wax in every detail.

It is obvious that this is not only the most direct but the most artistic method of work. The wax forms a complete unbroken surface and receives and retains the exact impression in every detail of the master’s hand. If the cast be thoroughly successful, the bronze will reproduce the surface of the wax so perfectly that no further work upon it will be needed, and an ‘untouched cast’ will be the result. This method would suit the genius of the Greeks, and was no doubt commonly employed by them, but it has the practical drawback that if anything go wrong, and the bronze do not flow properly, the whole work is spoilt, and will have to be built up again de novo from the small study. Cellini tells us that his ‘Perseus,’ which he was casting in this fashion, nearly came to grief from the cause just indicated, and he accordingly recommends what he calls the second method, a longer and less direct process, which has however the advantage that a full-sized completed model is all the time preserved.

This process is the one described by Vasari. A full-sized clay model is prepared and finished, and this is then covered with a plaster envelope made in numerous sections, so that it can be taken to pieces and put together again without the model, which may be preserved for further use. The next step is to line the inside of the empty envelope, or piece-mould, as it is called, with wax, and to fill up all the rest of the interior with a core. The piece-mould is then removed, and the surface of the wax is carefully gone over to secure that it shall be perfect in every part. Over it is then laid in successive coats a fire-resisting envelope between which and the core the wax is hermetically sealed. The wax can then be melted out and replaced with bronze. The piece-mould, which has been detached section by section from the wax, will serve again for other reproductions. The processes in which wax is employed are called cire perdue processes, because the wax is got rid of in order to be replaced by the metal. The usual process in vogue at the present day dispenses with any employment of wax. The figure to be cast is piece-moulded and reproduced in a suitable material, a certain thickness of which is in every part pared away according to the thickness required for the bronze. This core is then replaced with proper adjustments within a fireproof mould, and the bronze is poured into the space prepared for it.