CHAPTER III.—OF THE INFLUENCE OF MATERIAL AND METHOD
WE have seen (1) that architectural considerations lie at the basis of design and control its general character, its scale, and relationships; and (2) that utility determines and specializes its particular forms and functions; now, as our third proposition, we may say that, in addition to these in limitation of material and methods of workmanship, we shall find the influences which determine primarily the purely artistic question of treatment in design, and which differentiate its classes and varieties.
If we look at a piece of stone-carving and compare it with a piece of wood-carving, for instance,—or, still better, take mallet and chisel in hand and experiment upon a piece of stone or marble, and try to evolve or to express a form by these means, and with a chisel, or knife, work upon wood—we shall soon find that the differences of the quality of the two substances upon which we work—the differences of density, toughness, resistance to the tool—at once demand different methods of handling each. Short, quick following strokes in the case of chiselling stone, and a longer, steady sort of pushing or driving movement, the chisel being held in both hands, in the case of wood-carving. From such necessary and fundamental differences the artist would soon develop a distinct style in the treatment of each kind of work. He would not attempt to make the stone look like wood, or persuade the wood to look like stone; but he would rather rejoice in their fundamental differences of quality, and make his work in each emphasize their essential and distinctive characteristics. These different characteristics are shown in the design and treatment of the carved stone corbel given, as compared with the misereres in wood; the stone-work being also controlled by the necessity of the jointing in the masonry.
CORBEL, 14th Cent, DENNINGTON CHURCH, SUFFOLK.
WOOD CARVING. MISERERE, ST. DAVID'S CATHEDRAL.
In handling soft materials, like modelling clay, for instance, we encounter quite a different set of conditions. There is much less restriction of material and method, although the plasticity of the clay brings its own difficulties of manipulation with it. Modelling, indeed, it is soon perceived, is the reverse of carving, since in carving form is produced by cutting away, in modelling form is produced by building up (or adding to); surface being gained in the first case by delicate chiselling of sharp tools upon a close-grained, tough material, and in modelling by a delicate pressure of the fingers, or tools, upon a soft and sensitive clay.
Clay modelling, again, not being a final form, but rather a preparatory stage in design, bears to bronze, or plaster, much the same relationship as a design or drawing on paper for reproduction by a particular process bears to its finished form in the material for which it is intended. Clay has, it is true, after firing, a permanent form in terra-cotta, which of course thoroughly illustrates the freedom and naturalism of treatment of which it is capable; on the one hand associating itself with domestic use and adornment, kindred with the work of the painter, and on the other uniting itself with architecture, and being adaptable to all kinds of enrichment upon brick buildings.