Should he wish to make his model in clay, he works exactly as with wax, but without the armature of wood or iron underneath, because that would cause the clay to crack open or break up;[[157]] and that it may not crack while it is being worked he keeps it covered with a wet cloth till it is completed.
§ 46. The Full-sized Model in Clay.
When these small models or figures of wax or clay are finished, the artist sets himself to make another model as large as the actual figure intended to be executed in marble. In fashioning this he must use deliberation, because the clay which is worked in a damp state shrinks in drying; he therefore, as he works, adds more bit by bit and at the very last mixes some baked flour with the clay to keep it soft and remove the dryness.[[158]] This trouble is taken that the model shall not shrink but remain accurate and similar to the figure to be carved in marble. To ensure that the large clay model shall support itself and the clay not crack, the artist must take some soft cuttings of cloth or some horse hair, and mix this with the clay to render it tenacious and not liable to split. The figure is supported by wood underneath with pressed tow or hay fastened to it with string.[[159]] The bones of the figure are made and placed in the necessary pose after the pattern of the small model, whether erect or seated; and from the beginning to the end of the process of covering it with clay the figure is formed in the nude.
§ 47. Drapery on the Clay Model.
This completed, if the artist desire afterwards to clothe it with thin drapery, he takes fine cloth, if with heavy, he takes coarse, and wets it and then covers it over with clay, not liquid but of the consistency of rather thick mud, and arranges it around the figure in such folds and creases as the mind suggests; this when dry, becomes hardened and continues to keep the folds.[[160]]
§ 48. Transference of the Full-sized Model to the Marble Block.
Models, whether of wax or of clay, are formed in the same manner. To enlarge the figure proportionately in the marble[[161]] it is necessary that against this same block, whence the figure has to be carved, there shall be placed a carpenter’s square, one leg of which shall be horizontal at the foot of the figure while the other is vertical and is always at right angles with the horizontal, and so too with the straight piece above; and similarly let another square of wood or other material be adjusted to the model, by means of which the measures may be taken from the model, for instance how much the legs project forward and how much the arms. Let the artist proceed to carve out the figure from these measurements, transferring them to the marble from the model, so that measuring the marble and the model in proportion he gradually chisels away the stone till the figure thus measured time after time, issues forth from the marble, in the same manner that one would lift a wax figure out of a pail of water, evenly and in a horizontal position. First would appear the body, the head, and the knees, the figure gradually revealing itself as it is raised upwards, till there would come to view the relief more than half completed and finally the roundness of the whole.
§ 49. Danger of dispensing with the Full-sized Model.
Those artificers who are in a hurry to get on, and who hew into the stone at the first and rashly cut away the marble in front and at the back have no means afterwards of drawing back in case of need.[[162]] Many errors in statues spring from this impatience of the artist to see the round figure out of the block at once, so that often an error is revealed that can only be remedied by joining on pieces, as we have seen to be the habit of many modern artists. This patching is after the fashion of cobblers and not of competent men or rare masters, and is ugly and despicable and worthy of the greatest blame.