A Guide to Modelling in Clay and Wax: And for Terra Cotta, Bronze and Silver Chasing and Embossing, Carving in Marble and Alabaster, Moulding and Casting in Plaster-Of-Paris or Sculptural Art Made Easy for Beginners

GUIDE

TO

MODELLING IN CLAY AND WAX

ETC.

CHAPTER I.

SCULPTURE may be defined as the art of either modelling or carving a representation of any given object in a pliable or hard substance.

The list of materials the sculptor has employed in various ages is almost endless; I shall, however, give the principal, and refer to some originals that have been preserved. The art from the earliest times has had admirers, and its highest claims to attention are—

From its antiquity and the purposes for which it has been employed.

For the evidence recorded by its instrumentality of the civilisation and refinement of nations, and their rise, progress, and decline.

The facility with which the Beautiful could be rendered comparatively indestructible and remain to show what the genius of the age could do in pleasing the eye and gratifying the taste by executing facsimiles of the most graceful forms, of which Nature in all ages has been so bountiful.

The antiquity is undoubted. It is sufficient, without other authority even, to refer to the mention of the art in the Books of Moses.

The Israelites, after the Exodus, were warned to ‘put away the false gods,’ and again, Rachel ‘stole the images that were her father’s.’

There is no mention as to what they were like, but they must have been small, as they were concealed with facility, when Laban ‘searched the tent, and found them not.’

The earliest names of sculptors on record are in the thirty-fifth chapter of Exodus, where we are told that ‘the Lord called by name Bezaleel the son of Uri, and filled him with the spirit of God to devise curious works in gold, and silver, and brass, and the cutting of stones.’ With his name is associated that of the son of Ahisamach. The date of this would be about B.C. 1500.

The precursor of sculpture in its earlier stage was nothing more than the application of a rude unformed block of stone, or, in some instances, heaps of stones, to serve as an altar, record, landmark, or to perpetuate the memory of the deceased, and to hand it down to posterity.

As examples it will be sufficient to refer to the eighth chapter of Genesis, where Noah ‘builded an altar to the Lord’; the heap of stones set up by Jacob at Bethel; those to commemorate the covenant between Jacob and Laban; the grave of Rachel; and the stone set up by Joshua as a witness. As late as the time of Pausanius, A.D. 170, some structures of this kind were in existence, but commemorating idolatrous worship, such as that of Juno at Thespis, Jupiter and Diana at Sicyon, and the Venus of Paphos.

That the first efforts of the statuary were extremely rude may be gathered from the fact that they were little more than quadrangular blocks of stone.

The supposition is, that the addition of heads, arms close to the sides, and legs not even attempted to be separated, were the earliest endeavours to produce a likeness of the human form.

Homer mentions the Phoenicians as skilful artists or workmen, and when Solomon built the Temple (about B.C. 1000) he sent and fetched Hiram out of Tyre, and his workmen; ‘and his father was a worker in brass, and cunning to work all works in brass, and he came to King Solomon and wrought all his work.’

The record goes on to say that he cast two pillars of brass of eighteen cubits high apiece, and he made two chapiters of molten brass, to set on the tops of the pillars—these chapiters being decorated with lily work and pomegranates. The doors were of olive tree, and carved with carving of cherubim, and palm trees, and open flowers, and were overlaid with gold. He made also a molten sea of brass with twelve oxen, and on the borders were lions, and oxen, and cherubim.

This proves the knowledge of casting in metal and carving in wood at this date, and indeed, probably, far before, because these works must, from