We can speak of Art and of the Arts. Art as a concept exists only in the realm of the mind. When it enters the world of the senses a ‘work of art’ results. It can be three-dimensional, as in sculpture and architecture, or two-dimensional, as in painting and drawing. Additionally, there are music and poetry, whose ‘dimension’ is time. The arts can further be divided into those that appeal to the eye and the sense of touch, and those that appeal to the ear. Only the former concern us here.
Sculpture, painting and the crafts have existed since the earliest days of mankind; architecture as such dates back to the ancient civilisations, such as that of Egypt. The term ‘mother of the arts’, though often applied to architecture, is therefore not accurate in the sense that architecture gave birth to sculpture and painting; it is only justified to the extent that architecture, when it did finally come upon the scene, took sculpture and painting under its wing and nursed them as a mother nurses her children. Then it was that the sculptural treatment of buildings and wall painting became art forms in their own right.
In its simplest form, sculpture requires nothing other than clay. It can most readily be ‘grasped’, in the literal as well as the metaphorical sense. Sculpture is the art of the sense of touch. When Michelangelo was nearly blind, it is said, he asked to be led to the statue of the Apollo of Belvedere so that he could feel the form with his hands. Sightless Helen Keller frequented the workshops of sculptors to enable her to ‘grasp’ art in this dual sense.
The modern sculptor Brancusi made a statue which he called ‘Sculpture for the Blind’. The sculptor of Classical Antiquity worked in such a way that the eye was always controlled by the sense of touch. Only during periods of decadence was this principle discarded. A blind man would not recognise as an ‘eye’ the jagged socket in a head by Rodin — merely proving that Rodin’s work belongs to a peripheral region of sculpture.
Objects meant to be apprehended by touch must have form. When sculpture is in the round we can not only feel it, but we can walk around it. The eye perceives surfaces only. We receive an impression of space through seeing with both eyes, but not an impression of plasticity. If we imagine that we see something three-dimensional (in a shadow, for example), we are actually doing no more than drawing a logical conclusion. We need to walk round a statue in order to derive the fullest enjoyment from it.
All those who have ever picked up a stone on the beach and have held it lovingly in their hands share this three-dimensional experience. So powerful is it that it has led men to build the pyramids in the desert, the huge funeral mounds of the Bronze Age on the Continent of Europe and Stonehenge on Salisbury Plain.
The ‘abstract’ stone monolith is older than the carved totem pole and proves that monumental sculpture was not inspired by the desire to imitate. The obelisks of Ancient Egypt, the stelae of Peru, the stambhas of India, the Druid stones of Western Europe and even our present-day tombs are all essentially non-representational. When men sought a fuller means of expression, they turned to the human body as the most rewarding motif.
No object, and indeed no animal, offers so great a wealth of detail and so much harmony as the nude human form. The round shape of the head, the curves of the muscles, the finely differentiated areas of the back and the flanks, the long narrow arms and legs and the fine tapering fingers provide the artist with unlimited opportunities. At periods when the emphasis was on the spiritual and abstract, the clothed figure was preferred. Thus, medieval sculpture showed superb mastery in the treatment of draperies, though these bore little relation to natural ones.
Until recently it was considered that the task of the visual arts was to accentuate the threedimensional quality of every object. This can be achieved, for example, by endowing the human figure with even greater rigidity than it normally possesses, whereby it appears stronger and more dignified -as in all Egyptian and archaic sculpture. But the tendency towards greater mobility is ever present. The three-dimensional effect can also be heightened by impelling the beholder to walk round the figure. This the symmetrical Egyptian statues do not do; their very symmetry offers us no encouragement to look from the left when we have already done so from the right.
The Greeks introduced a new feature in Classical times. The legs were made to take up different positions, thereby also causing the shoulders to vary in height. The profile, too, became less rigid. We feel more than ever compelled to walk round a figure if the body is given a bent or twisted posture. Michelangelo’s statues are often unnaturally contorted, but they reveal to us the most extraordinary wealth of forms, providing us again and again with entirely unexpected aspects.
Modern sculpture is no longer concerned with the naturalistic representation of the human form, for similar reasons. We know it so well that we can guess what a figure will look like once we have seen it from the front, and this deters many people from walking round a statue. But this does not apply when naturalism has been discarded — as, for example, in Henry Moore’s ‘Reclining Figure’.
By walking round this statue, we are vouchsafed a series of impressions such as we should never get from a more orthodox piece of sculpture. The versatility, and hence the vitality, of a work of art thus create a tremendous impact. This is increased further by making use of enclosed spaces and hollows.
Thus, the wide realm of sculpture is seen to extend from serene and monumental calm to a dramatic dynamism. It can even achieve a playful elegance, if the right materials are chosen and they are appropriately handled.
There are two basically different methods of producing sculpture — modelling and carving. It is possible to model without any tools by shaping the malleable material, such as clay, wax and so on, with the hands. But a simple clay figure would very soon warp and disintegrate. It is therefore fired, or a casting (q. v.) is made in a tougher material like plaster, cement and above all, metal (bronze).
A large clay figure cannot be fired if it is solid; that is to say, it has to be sectioned, hollowed out and assembled again. Another and better method is that which was used by the potter before the invention of the wheel. Strips of clay are rolled out and then, by placing one coil upon another and working them together with the fingers, a hollow figure is gradually shaped. It is then ready to be fired. Such figures acquire an even, reddish colour. The fired material is called terra-cotta.
The majority of clay figures are, however, made differently. Statues with delicate limbs and flowing outlines need a wire frame. The clay is put on the frame in small lumps and the form grows as material is added. Most of the models for bronze statues are made that way. The malleable metal allows a fluidity that could never be attained in the more brittle stone.
Sculpture is sometimes made by beating the metal instead of casting it. The shape is hammered out of a sheet of metal from the inside. This process was very popular for small figures and reliefs in medieval times. Occasionally it was also used for larger statues.
In contrast to modelling, where the desired shape is achieved by adding material, in stone or wood sculpture, and in ivory or alabaster carving, it is arrived at by removing material. If the artist makes a mistake and takes off very much more than he wanted to, he must change his plan and make his ‘mistake’ the point of departure for a new design.
Carving is therefore more arduous than modelling, but at the same time a greater artistic ‘adventure’. Stone-carving calls for large-scale and ‘four-square’ designs since the material is not conducive to fluid outlines. The wood carver, on his part, has to consider the grain of the wood because he cannot cut against it. Shapes projecting at right-angles from the main line of growth, such as outstretched arms, are not possible — they would break off. But if wood is carved with the grain, forms and designs of great delicacy and variety can be produced, as witness the drapery of Gothic sculptures in this material. Bone and ivory are carved in the same way as wood, but there is no grain to be considered. The limits are set entirely by size — large pieces being obviously not available.
All these materials are suitable not only for sculpture in the round but also for carving in relief. Whereas sculpture in the round makes the very most of three-dimensioned actuality, the relief plays it down. Yet the relief offers special opportunities of its own, for, in that it approaches the realm of painting, it enables the artist to introduce scenic and dramatic elements. Sculpture in the round must of necessity give preference to the single figure. The relief, by contrast, calls for a series of figures since its surface can be brought to life most effectively that way. Of course, individual figures and portrait busts are sometimes carved in relief, but these do not do full justice to the technique. ‘The essence of a relief’, in Rodin’s words, ‘is the procession.’
This applies literally to most historical reliefs, from the Egyptians’ representations of sacrifices, the Babylonian animal reliefs, the battle scenes on the Parthenon and the Roman triumphal columns to the rows of the blessed and the damned in medieval cathedrals. The temptation to work in three dimensions and to tell a story at the same time is so great that most sculpture is virtually relief-carving.
The relief palpably shows how much it owes its origin to the two-dimensional arts. It began as a drawing. If the area within the outlines of a figure is hollowed out, we obtain the incised relief of the Egyptians. If we do this also with the areas between the figures, we get a flat surface from which just the outlines stand out. The relief has gone through various other stages, from bas-relief to high relief. The latter comes close to sculpture in the true sense, even though the figures are still attached to their background.
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