DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.42779#0258
186 FOR WORKS IN HARD AND SOFT STONE
that the claw served its purpose. In wise hands, indeed, the
claw-chisel could express in stone the ultimate surface before
actual abrasion of polishing finished it off. But it could
express rounded surfaces and mouldings only. The claw can
never cut the intricacies of hair or drapery or face. It is
essentially the tool that moulds body curves and, in fact,
gives the final form to the sculptor’s finest conceptions. In
this connexion it is of the greatest interest to see how
practically every work of Michelangelo that is unfinished or
partly finished shows the clearest traces of the claw. Usually
two separate claw-chisels were used by him (see above,
p. 128). For final smoothing Michelangelo seems to have
dispensed altogether with the flat chisel in the last stages.
He went on, in the Greek way, direct from the claw to pumice
and sandstone, or other abrasives.
The claw was also widely used in the Romanesque and
Gothic period in Europe. In many sculptures there is no
final smoothing, but the striated surface made by the claw is
left. Probably this rough surface was more suitable for the
holding of the paint, which in medieval sculpture was often
of a thick pasty consistency. But the claw remained through-
out the Middle Ages as one of the technical tools employed.
Michelangelo unconsciously adopted the technical traditions
not of Donatello, Agostino di Duccio, and the earlier
Renaissance artists, whose technique was that of the flat
chisel, but rather those of the Greek periods which had
preceded the earlier Italian sculptors.
The outlines of the Greek claw of the sixth century can be
reconstructed with certainty from the surviving toolmarks
(Fig. 69). The usual claw had blunted teeth, the separa-
tions between the teeth being made by filing a V-shaped
incision into a straight edge. If the V-shaped incision was
widened the teeth inevitably became pointed. Such a
tool was used on some parts of the sepulchral frieze from
Xanthos, No. B. 310,though elsewhere on the same sculpture
the blunt-toothed claw is used. A claw with very small
that the claw served its purpose. In wise hands, indeed, the
claw-chisel could express in stone the ultimate surface before
actual abrasion of polishing finished it off. But it could
express rounded surfaces and mouldings only. The claw can
never cut the intricacies of hair or drapery or face. It is
essentially the tool that moulds body curves and, in fact,
gives the final form to the sculptor’s finest conceptions. In
this connexion it is of the greatest interest to see how
practically every work of Michelangelo that is unfinished or
partly finished shows the clearest traces of the claw. Usually
two separate claw-chisels were used by him (see above,
p. 128). For final smoothing Michelangelo seems to have
dispensed altogether with the flat chisel in the last stages.
He went on, in the Greek way, direct from the claw to pumice
and sandstone, or other abrasives.
The claw was also widely used in the Romanesque and
Gothic period in Europe. In many sculptures there is no
final smoothing, but the striated surface made by the claw is
left. Probably this rough surface was more suitable for the
holding of the paint, which in medieval sculpture was often
of a thick pasty consistency. But the claw remained through-
out the Middle Ages as one of the technical tools employed.
Michelangelo unconsciously adopted the technical traditions
not of Donatello, Agostino di Duccio, and the earlier
Renaissance artists, whose technique was that of the flat
chisel, but rather those of the Greek periods which had
preceded the earlier Italian sculptors.
The outlines of the Greek claw of the sixth century can be
reconstructed with certainty from the surviving toolmarks
(Fig. 69). The usual claw had blunted teeth, the separa-
tions between the teeth being made by filing a V-shaped
incision into a straight edge. If the V-shaped incision was
widened the teeth inevitably became pointed. Such a
tool was used on some parts of the sepulchral frieze from
Xanthos, No. B. 310,though elsewhere on the same sculpture
the blunt-toothed claw is used. A claw with very small