After these remarks on the Nature, the Contour, the Drapery, the
simplicity and grandeur of Expression in the performances of the Greek
artists, we shall proceed to some inquiries into their method of working.
Their models were generally made of wax; instead of which the moderns
used clay, or such like unctuous stuff, as seeming fitter for expressing
flesh, than the more gluey and tenacious wax.
A method however not new, though more frequent in our times: for we know
even the name of that ancient who first attempted modelling in wet clay;
’twas _Dibutades_ of Sicyon; and _Arcesilaus_, the friend of _Lucullus_,
grew more famous by his models of clay than his other performances.
He made for _Lucullus_ a figure of clay representing _Happiness_, and
received 60,000 sesterces: and _Octavius_, a Roman Knight, paid him a
talent for the model only of a large dish, in plaister, which he designed
to have finished in gold.
Of all materials, clay might be allowed to be the fittest for shaping
figures, could it preserve its moistness; but losing that by time or
fire, its solider parts, contracting by degrees, lessen the bulk of the
mass; and that which is formed, being of different diameters, grows
sooner dry in some parts than in others, and the dry ones being shrunk to
a smaller size, there will be no proportion kept in the whole.
From this inconvenience wax is always free: it loses nothing of its bulk;
and there are also means to give it the smoothness of flesh, which is
refused to modelling; viz. you make your model of clay, mould it with
plaister, and cast the wax over it.
But for transferring their models to the marble, the Greeks seem to
have possessed some peculiar advantages, which are now lost: for you
discover, every where in their works, the traces of a confident hand; and
even in those of inferior rank, it would be no easy matter to prove a
wrong cut. Surely hands so steady, so secure, must of necessity have been
guided by rules more determinate and less arbitrary than we can boast of.
The usual method of our sculptors is, to quarter the well-prepared model
with horizontals and perpendiculars, and, as is common in copying a
picture, to draw a relative number of squares on the marble.
Thus, regular gradations of a scale being supposed, every small square
of the model has its corresponding one on the marble. But the contents
of the relative masses not being determinable by a measured surface, the
artist, though he gives to his stone the resemblance of the model, yet,
as he only depends on the precarious aid of his eye, he shall never cease
wavering, as to his doing right or wrong, cutting too flat or too deep.
Nor can he find lines to determine precisely the outlines, or the Contour
of the inward parts, and the centre of his model, in so fixed and
unchangeable a manner, as to enable him, exactly, to transfer the same
Contours upon his stone.
To all this add, that, if his work happens to be too voluminous for one
single hand, he must trust to those of his journeymen and disciples,
who, too often, are neither skilful nor cautious enough to follow their
master’s design; and if once the smallest trifle be cut wrong, for it is
impossible to fix, by this method, the limits of the cuts, all is lost.
It is to be remarked in general, that every sculptor, who carries on his
chisselings their whole length, on first fashioning his marble, and does
not prepare them by gradual cuts for the last final strokes; it is to be
remarked, I say, that he never can keep his work free from faults.
Another chief defect in that method is this: the artist cannot help
cutting off, every moment, the lines on his block; and though he restore
them, cannot possibly be sure of avoiding mistakes.
On account of this unavoidable uncertainty, the artists found themselves
obliged to contrive another method, and that which the French academy at
Rome first made use of for copying antiques, was applied by many even to
modelled performances.
Over the statue which you want to copy, you fix a well-proportioned
square, dividing it into equally distant degrees, by plummets: by these
the outlines of the figure are more distinctly marked than they could
possibly be by means of the former method: they moreover afford the
artist an exact measure of the more prominent or lower parts, by the
degrees in which these parts are near them, and in short, allow him to go
on with more confidence.
But the undulations of a curve being not determinable by a single
perpendicular, the Contours of the figure are but indifferently indicated
to the artist; and among their many declinations from a straight surface,
his tenour is every moment lost.
The difficulty of discovering the real proportions of the figures, may
also be easily imagined: they seek them by horizontals placed across the
plummets. But the rays reflected from the figure through the squares,
will strike the eye in enlarged angles, and consequently appear bigger,
in proportion as they are high or low to the point of view.
Nevertheless, as the ancient monuments must be most cautiously dealt
with, plummets are still of use in copying them, as no surer or easier
method has been discovered: but for performances to be done from models
they are unfit for want of precision.
_Michael Angelo_ went alone a way unknown before him, and (strange to
tell!) untrod since the time of that genius of modern sculpture.
This Phidias of latter times, and next to the Greeks, hath, in all
probability, hit the very mark of his great masters. We know at least no
method so eminently proper for expressing on the block every, even the
minutest, beauty of the model.
_Vasari_[13] seems to give but a defective description of this method,
viz. _Michael Angelo_ took a vessel filled with water, in which he
placed his model of wax, or some such indissoluble matter: then, by
degrees, raised it to the surface of the water. In this manner the
prominent parts were unwet, the lower covered, ’till the whole at length
appeared. Thus says _Vasari_, he cut his marble, proceeding from the more
prominent parts to the lower ones.
_Vasari_, it seems, either mistook something in the management of his
friend, or by the negligence of his account gives us room to imagine it
somewhat different from what he relates.
The form of the vessel is not determined; to raise the figure from
below would prove too troublesome, and presupposes much more than this
historian had a mind to inform us of.
_Michael Angelo_, no doubt, thoroughly examined his invention, its
conveniencies and inconveniencies, and in all probability observed the
following method.
He took a vessel proportioned to his model; for instance, an oblong
square: he marked the surface of its sides with certain dimensions, and
these he transferred afterwards, with regular gradations, on the marble.
The inside of the vessel he marked to the bottom with degrees. Then he
laid, or, if of wax, fastened his model in it; he drew, perhaps, a bar
over the vessel suitable to its dimensions, according to whose number he
drew, first, lines on his marble, and immediately after, the figure; he
poured water on the model till it reached its outmost points, and after
having fixed upon a prominent part, he drew off as much water as hindered
him from seeing it, and then went to work with his chissel, the degrees
shewing him how to go on; if, at the same time, some other part of the
model appeared, it was copied too, as far as seen.
Water was again carried off, in order to let the lower parts appear; by
the degrees he saw to what pitch it was reduced, and by its smoothness
he discovered the exact surfaces of the lower parts; nor could he go
wrong, having the same number of degrees to guide him, upon his marble.
The water not only pointed him out the heights or depths, but also the
Contour of his model; and the space left free on the insides to the
surface of the water, whose largeness was determined by the degrees of
the two other sides, was the exact measure of what might safely be cut
down from the block.
His work had now got the first form, and a correct one: the levelness of
the water had drawn a line, of which every prominence of the mass was
a point; according to the diminution of the water the line sunk in a
horizontal direction, and was followed by the artist ’till he discovered
the declinations of the prominences, and their mingling with the lower
parts. Proceeding thus with every degree, as it appeared, he finished the
Contour, and took his model out of the water.
His figure wanted beauty: he again poured water to a proper height over
his model, and then numbering the degrees to the line described by the
water, he descried the exact height of the protuberant parts; on these he
levelled his rule, and took the measure of the distance, from its verge
to the bottom; and then comparing all he had done with his marble, and
finding the same number of degrees, he was geometrically sure of success.
Repeating his task, he attempted to express the motion and re-action of
nerves and muscles, the soft undulations of the smaller parts, and every
imitable beauty of his model. The water insinuating itself, even into
the most inaccessible parts, traced their Contour with the correctest
sharpness and precision.
This method admits of every possible posture. In profile especially, it
discovers every inadvertency; shews the Contour of the prominent and
lower parts, and the whole diameter.
All this, and the hope of success, presupposes a model formed by skilful
hands, in the true taste of antiquity.
This is the way by which _Michael Angelo_ arrived at immortality.
Fame and rewards conspired to procure him what leisure he wanted, for
performances which required so much care.
But the artist of our days, however endowed by nature and industry with
talents to raise himself, and even though he perceive precision and truth
in this method, is forced to exert his abilities for getting bread rather
than honour: he of course rests in his usual sphere, and continues to
trust in an eye directed by years and practice.
Now this eye, by the observations of which he is chiefly ruled, being
at last, though by a great deal of uncertain practice, become almost
decisive: how refined, how exact might it not have been, if, from early
youth, acquainted with never-changing rules!
And were young artists, at their first beginning to shape the clay
or form the wax, so happy as to be instructed in this sure method of
_Michael Angelo_, which was the fruit of long researches, they might with
reason hope to come as near the Greeks as he did.