DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.42779#0300
FOR WORKS IN HARD AND SOFT STONE 217
a last dressing with a small punch and an extensive rubbing
with abrasives. About 550 or perhaps a little earlier, the
claw-chisel is used to assist in the last stages before the
abrasives are employed. The rasp and file thus do not
appear to have been used for primary work. The second
half of the century sees the use of new tools for secondary
work and detail, but no trace is seen of the use of the rasp
and file for primary work. On the other hand, they begin
to be used to a certain extent for working on grooves, and
rasped surfaces can be detected in a good many cases in the
Korai series, mainly on drapery. But they never play a very
important part and are never used for primary work.
A filed surface is not so much rough as dull. Actually it is
more attractive to the eye than a highly polished surface.
This, however, applies only to a surface done with a fine
file or rasp. Coarse rasped surfaces or a groove whose sides
are filed with a heavy file have little attraction. A very
characteristic coarsely rasped surface is seen on the male
torso in the Berlin Museum figured by Blumel1 and on a
later nude figure.2 These are surfaces which have been pre-
pared with a rasp for subsequent smoothing and polishing.
There is another kind of rasped surface, such as is found
on archaic sculpture, which was left unsmoothed for the
reception of paint, so that it might hold the paint firmly.
Such also seems to be the explanation of the rasped surfaces
of so many of the sculptures of the Temple of Zeus at
Olympia.3 It is also seen in the case of No. 140, the Athena
in the Acropolis Museum. One rasp only was used and the
surface is uniformly dull. The lovely head No. 699 in the
Acropolis Museum, in the early Pheidian manner, is rasped
over the top and back of the skull. The lines of the taenia are
filed. The remaining surfaces are, however, smoothed by
abrasion to a dull polish.
1 No. 31, pi. 35 b. 2 No. 22, pi. 28.
3 See Blumel, p. 9, for a list of the clearest examples. The fifth century
torso of Athena here shown as Fig. 87 is a good instance.
3904 p f
a last dressing with a small punch and an extensive rubbing
with abrasives. About 550 or perhaps a little earlier, the
claw-chisel is used to assist in the last stages before the
abrasives are employed. The rasp and file thus do not
appear to have been used for primary work. The second
half of the century sees the use of new tools for secondary
work and detail, but no trace is seen of the use of the rasp
and file for primary work. On the other hand, they begin
to be used to a certain extent for working on grooves, and
rasped surfaces can be detected in a good many cases in the
Korai series, mainly on drapery. But they never play a very
important part and are never used for primary work.
A filed surface is not so much rough as dull. Actually it is
more attractive to the eye than a highly polished surface.
This, however, applies only to a surface done with a fine
file or rasp. Coarse rasped surfaces or a groove whose sides
are filed with a heavy file have little attraction. A very
characteristic coarsely rasped surface is seen on the male
torso in the Berlin Museum figured by Blumel1 and on a
later nude figure.2 These are surfaces which have been pre-
pared with a rasp for subsequent smoothing and polishing.
There is another kind of rasped surface, such as is found
on archaic sculpture, which was left unsmoothed for the
reception of paint, so that it might hold the paint firmly.
Such also seems to be the explanation of the rasped surfaces
of so many of the sculptures of the Temple of Zeus at
Olympia.3 It is also seen in the case of No. 140, the Athena
in the Acropolis Museum. One rasp only was used and the
surface is uniformly dull. The lovely head No. 699 in the
Acropolis Museum, in the early Pheidian manner, is rasped
over the top and back of the skull. The lines of the taenia are
filed. The remaining surfaces are, however, smoothed by
abrasion to a dull polish.
1 No. 31, pi. 35 b. 2 No. 22, pi. 28.
3 See Blumel, p. 9, for a list of the clearest examples. The fifth century
torso of Athena here shown as Fig. 87 is a good instance.
3904 p f