DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.42779#0242
FOR WORKS IN HARD AND SOFT STONE 175
original heads of the Olympian sculptures with those later
restorations to the pediments, done in a period when the
flat chisel had replaced the punch for all essential work.
But the punch, so used, is the more laborious as well as the
more difficult tool. To-day only a very few eminent sculptors
use the punch right down to the antepenultimate stages,
before the final smoothing and polishing is given. In Greece,
on the other hand, the punch was in use for round sculpture
until the mid-fifth century and by some sculptors to the
beginning of the fourth century. Its precise limits at the
lower date are, however, a matter of some dispute.
Traces of the punch are unmistakable and vary from the
heavy hard-driven holes made by a heavy instrument to the
faint and almost imperceptible holes made by a gentle tapping
of a very small tool. The heavier marks can always be seen
round the sides of unfinished parts of the basis of a statue
or on the main body of a wholly unfinished sculpture. Heavy
tooling with a large punch can be observed on most of the
unfinished backs of the pedimental sculptures of Olympia,
and the very fine almost microscopic tool-marks of the
smallest type of punch can be seen on those Olympian heads
whose hair is not treated with the flat chisel, and equally
on the features of the original Olympian pedimental and
metopal heads. Other good examples of heavy punch work
can be seen on the unfinished backs of the pedimental figures
of Athena and the Giants from the Peisistratid pediments
of the Hekatompedon. The marks of a medium-sized
punch—the tool which achieved the bulk of the work on a
statue in early Greek times from the beginning down to the
middle of the fifth century—can be seen most clearly on the
back of the torso of Athena from the Temple of Apollo
Daphnephoros at Eretria (Fig. 37), where also can be seen
the claw-marks made by the next process of the period (see
below, p. 185). Numerous other examples of partly finished
or unfinished sculpture show clearly these marks.1 A close
1 See Bliimel, pis. 5, 6, 8, xi, 12.
original heads of the Olympian sculptures with those later
restorations to the pediments, done in a period when the
flat chisel had replaced the punch for all essential work.
But the punch, so used, is the more laborious as well as the
more difficult tool. To-day only a very few eminent sculptors
use the punch right down to the antepenultimate stages,
before the final smoothing and polishing is given. In Greece,
on the other hand, the punch was in use for round sculpture
until the mid-fifth century and by some sculptors to the
beginning of the fourth century. Its precise limits at the
lower date are, however, a matter of some dispute.
Traces of the punch are unmistakable and vary from the
heavy hard-driven holes made by a heavy instrument to the
faint and almost imperceptible holes made by a gentle tapping
of a very small tool. The heavier marks can always be seen
round the sides of unfinished parts of the basis of a statue
or on the main body of a wholly unfinished sculpture. Heavy
tooling with a large punch can be observed on most of the
unfinished backs of the pedimental sculptures of Olympia,
and the very fine almost microscopic tool-marks of the
smallest type of punch can be seen on those Olympian heads
whose hair is not treated with the flat chisel, and equally
on the features of the original Olympian pedimental and
metopal heads. Other good examples of heavy punch work
can be seen on the unfinished backs of the pedimental figures
of Athena and the Giants from the Peisistratid pediments
of the Hekatompedon. The marks of a medium-sized
punch—the tool which achieved the bulk of the work on a
statue in early Greek times from the beginning down to the
middle of the fifth century—can be seen most clearly on the
back of the torso of Athena from the Temple of Apollo
Daphnephoros at Eretria (Fig. 37), where also can be seen
the claw-marks made by the next process of the period (see
below, p. 185). Numerous other examples of partly finished
or unfinished sculpture show clearly these marks.1 A close
1 See Bliimel, pis. 5, 6, 8, xi, 12.