DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.42779#0010
VI
PREFACE
themselves out in the cold; it still makes it difficult for the
observer to grasp the intentions of the maker. By a close
study of the methods used by the maker from start to finish
the observer can in the end learn to appreciate more deeply
the aims of the sculptor himself.
There is no work in English of any kind on the subject of
Greek technique and, apart from the excellent study by Carl
Blumel in German, no book in any other European language.
Much good work is being done on technical lines by many
learned students, but, as yet, their research has not resulted
in any comprehensive publication. It is with the intention of
suggesting the outlines of such a study that this book was
undertaken. I have limited the period to that covered by the
finest products of Greek sculpture in any age. I have
attempted to deal with the prehistoric periods and the
archaic Greek periods in full detail in order to show what
connexion there is between the prehistoric and the historic.
I have closed the period with which I have dealt at approxi-
mately 450 B.c., since that date marks a turning-point in
Greek methods that was more important than any which
preceded it or which came after. Naturally I have had to
discuss methods and instances of dates as late as the fourth
century, but substantially the middle of the fifth century is
the limit of my inquiries. Subsequent technical methods are
of great variety and interest and deserve a separate volume:
but they do not change so rapidly or lead to such drastic
modification of style as do the methods of the archaic period
and of the early fifth century.
The neglect of excavators, or museum authorities, in the
past to search for or to preserve the various tools and im-
plements of metal or stone used by sculptors has not made it
easier to reconstruct the technical processes. But the number
of tools which might be expected to survive would not in any
case be large and, in fact, surviving examples are of extreme
rarity.1 The only archaeologist who has recorded every
1 Petrie remarks of saws and tubular drills in Egypt (The Temples and
PREFACE
themselves out in the cold; it still makes it difficult for the
observer to grasp the intentions of the maker. By a close
study of the methods used by the maker from start to finish
the observer can in the end learn to appreciate more deeply
the aims of the sculptor himself.
There is no work in English of any kind on the subject of
Greek technique and, apart from the excellent study by Carl
Blumel in German, no book in any other European language.
Much good work is being done on technical lines by many
learned students, but, as yet, their research has not resulted
in any comprehensive publication. It is with the intention of
suggesting the outlines of such a study that this book was
undertaken. I have limited the period to that covered by the
finest products of Greek sculpture in any age. I have
attempted to deal with the prehistoric periods and the
archaic Greek periods in full detail in order to show what
connexion there is between the prehistoric and the historic.
I have closed the period with which I have dealt at approxi-
mately 450 B.c., since that date marks a turning-point in
Greek methods that was more important than any which
preceded it or which came after. Naturally I have had to
discuss methods and instances of dates as late as the fourth
century, but substantially the middle of the fifth century is
the limit of my inquiries. Subsequent technical methods are
of great variety and interest and deserve a separate volume:
but they do not change so rapidly or lead to such drastic
modification of style as do the methods of the archaic period
and of the early fifth century.
The neglect of excavators, or museum authorities, in the
past to search for or to preserve the various tools and im-
plements of metal or stone used by sculptors has not made it
easier to reconstruct the technical processes. But the number
of tools which might be expected to survive would not in any
case be large and, in fact, surviving examples are of extreme
rarity.1 The only archaeologist who has recorded every
1 Petrie remarks of saws and tubular drills in Egypt (The Temples and