DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.42779#0220
158 BRONZEWORK
But it is not my intention here to describe the cire-perdue
process in detail. The topic as such is alien to the purposes
of this book and in any case full and adequate descriptions
are accessible elsewhere.1 To repeat them would be super-
fluous. The technical processes of sculpture as such are my
main consideration and Greek bronze statues must rank as
sculpture if only because they were never allowed to leave
the artist’s studio before they had been dealt with as intract-
able material with tools designed to cut, to chisel and to
gouge. In this respect bronzes can no longer be considered
as ‘plastic’ even though, when done by the cire-perdue pro-
cess, they are based on an original of soft and plastic material.
The problems here discussed concern rather the final
processes on the cast bronze and the ways in which the rough-
cast figure was finished.
To-day a bronze can be repeated, almost ad infinitum.
The original model is made in clay or plaster or wax and a
mould is taken from that original model. From that mould
the wax version which is to be used in the cire-perdue process
is made and the original work of the artist never enters the
furnace. The process of casting, however, has not changed
from the process used in early Greek times. There has been
no simplification of the cire-perdue process as such, for the
simple reason that no simplification is possible. But there is
reason for supposing that the Greeks of Hellenistic times did
indeed discover the method in use to-day of making a mould
from the original work and then making the wax version
from that mould. The original work could thus be in clay,
if desired.2
In this connexion it is not easy to explain the scene shown
on the Berlin vase3 where Athena appears in the guise of a
bronzeworker, modelling a horse in clay. She is adding a
lump of clay to the muzzle which, like the off hind leg, is un-
finished. At her feet is a mass of clay for use. But the horse
1 Richter, op. cit., p. xix; Pernice, Jahreshefte, vii, pp. 154 ff.
2 Pernice, loc. cit. 3 F. and R., Gr. Vasen., pi. 162. 3.
But it is not my intention here to describe the cire-perdue
process in detail. The topic as such is alien to the purposes
of this book and in any case full and adequate descriptions
are accessible elsewhere.1 To repeat them would be super-
fluous. The technical processes of sculpture as such are my
main consideration and Greek bronze statues must rank as
sculpture if only because they were never allowed to leave
the artist’s studio before they had been dealt with as intract-
able material with tools designed to cut, to chisel and to
gouge. In this respect bronzes can no longer be considered
as ‘plastic’ even though, when done by the cire-perdue pro-
cess, they are based on an original of soft and plastic material.
The problems here discussed concern rather the final
processes on the cast bronze and the ways in which the rough-
cast figure was finished.
To-day a bronze can be repeated, almost ad infinitum.
The original model is made in clay or plaster or wax and a
mould is taken from that original model. From that mould
the wax version which is to be used in the cire-perdue process
is made and the original work of the artist never enters the
furnace. The process of casting, however, has not changed
from the process used in early Greek times. There has been
no simplification of the cire-perdue process as such, for the
simple reason that no simplification is possible. But there is
reason for supposing that the Greeks of Hellenistic times did
indeed discover the method in use to-day of making a mould
from the original work and then making the wax version
from that mould. The original work could thus be in clay,
if desired.2
In this connexion it is not easy to explain the scene shown
on the Berlin vase3 where Athena appears in the guise of a
bronzeworker, modelling a horse in clay. She is adding a
lump of clay to the muzzle which, like the off hind leg, is un-
finished. At her feet is a mass of clay for use. But the horse
1 Richter, op. cit., p. xix; Pernice, Jahreshefte, vii, pp. 154 ff.
2 Pernice, loc. cit. 3 F. and R., Gr. Vasen., pi. 162. 3.