The Use of Full-Sized Models
[§ 49, Danger of Dispensing with the Full-sized Model, ante, p. 151.]
The question here is of the possibility of dispensing altogether with a full-sized clay model, and proceeding at once to attack the marble with the guidance only of the small original sketch. In modern times this is practically never done, but it was the universal practice of the Greek sculptors at any rate down to the later periods of Hellenic art. These remarks of Vasari come just at the time of the change from the ancient to the modern technique, for we shall see that Donatello in the fifteenth century worked according to the simpler ancient method, while Michelangelo in the sixteenth after beginning in the same fashion finally settled down to the use of the full model, which has ever since remained de rigeur.
The technique of the Greeks furnished the subject for an article by Professor Ernest Gardner in the 14th volume of the Journal of Hellenic Studies. He shows there by a comparison of unfinished works that the Greek sculptors attacked the marble directly, and proceeded apparently on the following method. Having obtained a block about the size and shape required they set it up before them as if in a front view, and then hewed away at the two sides till they had brought the contour of these to the exact lines required for the finished work. They then passed round through a right angle to the side, and treated in a similar fashion the front and back of the block, bringing these to the shape of the front and back of the desired figure. The block would then, when looked at from the front or back or from the sides, present the required outlines, but the section of it would still be square in every part—there would be no rounding off. The sketches, Fig. 11, show two views of a figure blocked out in this fashion by an ancient Attic sculptor. It was found in old marble workings on Mount Pentelicus, and is preserved at the modern marble quarry at the back of that mountain. We owe the use of the photographs employed to the courtesy of M. Georges Nicole, of Geneva. They were published in the volume entitled Mélanges Nicole, Geneva, 1905, in connection with an article on the figure by the archaeologist just named. The next process was to cut away these corners and with the guidance of the already established contours gradually bring the whole into the required shape. A small model may in every case be presupposed and there must have been some system of measurement. Indeed on some antiques, as on a crouching Venus in the gallery leading to the Venus of Milo in the Louvre, there are still to be seen the knobs (puntelli) to which measurements were taken during the progress of the work. Of the use of full-sized clay models there is in Greece no evidence at all, until the late period of the first century B.C., when we are told of Pasiteles, a very painstaking sculptor of a decadent epoch, that he never executed a work without first modelling it (nihil unquam fecit antequam finxit). This no doubt implies a full-sized model in clay, for a small sketch would not be mentioned as it is a matter of course.
The practice of the Italians is described by Cellini in words which are important enough to quote. They are from the fourth chapter of his treatise on Sculpture. ‘Now although many excellent masters of assured technique have boldly attacked the marble with their tools, as soon as they had carved the little model to completion, yet at the end they have found themselves but little satisfied with their work. For, to speak only of the best of the moderns, Donatello adopted this method in his works; and another example is Michelangelo, who had experience of both the methods, that is to say, of carving statues alike from the small model and the big, and at the end, convinced of their respective advantages and disadvantages, adopted the second method (of the full-sized model). And this I saw myself at Florence when he was working in the sacristy of S. Lorenzo (on the Medici tombs).’ As regards Michelangelo’s early practice, Vasari records in his Life that he carved the colossal marble ‘David’ with the sole aid of a small wax model, according to Vasari one of those now preserved in the Casa Buonarroti at Florence. This was in 1504. The Medici tombs date twenty years later.
In connection with the direct practice of Donatello, it is worth while referring to some words of Francesco Bocchi, a rhetorical eulogist of the arts and artists of his native Florence, who wrote in 1571 a literary effusion on the sculptor’s St. George. He notes in his introduction that Donatello was accustomed to compose his marble figures compactly and to avoid projecting hands and arms, while for his effigies in bronze he used much greater freedom in action. The difference is really one of material, and Donatello’s practice of working directly on the marble would necessarily involve this restraint in composition. Anyone accustomed to deal with marble blocks as vehicles of artistic expression, would avoid unnecessary projections as these cause great waste of material and expenditure of time. When plastering clay or wax on a flexible armature this consideration is not present, and modelled figures will naturally be freer in action than carved ones. As will presently be seen, certain marked differences in the treatment of relief sculpture depend on these same considerations of material and technique.
In direct work on the marble there is of course always the danger of the sort of miscalculation that Vasari goes on to notice. Greek figures sometimes show variations from correct proportions, for example, the left thigh of the Venus of Milo is too short, but the errors are not such as to destroy the effect of the works. Greek work in marble shows a marvellously intimate knowledge on the part of the carver of his material as well as a clear conception of what he was aiming at. Even Michelangelo yields in this respect to the ancients, for though no one was ever more thoroughly a master of the carver’s technique, he made serious mistakes in calculating proportions, as in the ‘Slave’ of the Louvre, where he has not left enough marble for the leg of the figure. Moderns generally have not the ease which tradition and practice gave to the Greek sculptors, and the full-sized model is now a necessary precaution.