DOI issue:
No. 370 (January 1924)
DOI article:Parkes, Kineton: Sculpture en taille directe, [1]
DOI Page / Citation link:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.21399#0043
SCULPTURE EN TAILLE DIRECTE
follow that because a sculptor carves direct
he is a good sculptor, or because another
models in clay he is a bad one. There are
masters of either method ; there are mas-
ters of both—Michelangelo was the mag-
nificent exemplar. 0000
The direct carvers claim as a special
quality of their work freshness and spon-
taneity ; a personal touch that is obscured
in its passing to another hand ; a note that
is lost by changing from one medium to
another ; from clay to plaster ; from plaster
to marble. They admit modelling in clay or
wax when a bronze casting is desired ; in
carvable materials from soft steatite or
alabaster to hard marble or granite, they
demand the personal touch. 0 0
Eric Gill, who carved with his own hand
among other things the stations of the
Cross in Westminster Cathedral, insists
that there is a joint responsibility of the
artist and the material in any fine work of
glyptic art; that there is one real kind of
art, that which owes its quality to the
material of which it is made and so in-
spires the artist; that a sculptor must make
his carving according to his stone, “ un-
conditioned,” or condition it to its position,
in his mind, before making it. As a prac-
tical craftsman there is to him no difficulty
in “ conditioned ” work ; as an imaginative
artist, no difficulty in the unconditioned.
Eric Gill further insists that the essential of
true sculpture is the taking away of super-
fluous matter and so revealing the desired
form, whereas the essence of modelling is
the building up bit by bit of a copied form,
a synthetic process, scientific perhaps, as
opposed to the analysis of creation. 0
Frank Dobson, the other consistent up-
holder of the direct method in England
would, I think, be even more inclined than
Eric Gill to follow the analytic method, to
the extent perhaps of allowing an absolute
dictation of form by the mass of his
material; to follow the lines and shapes it
suggests to him ; to be inspired by those
lines and the shapes they engender in his
imagination until the analysis is complete
and The Descent from the Omnibus or a
more or less naturalistic representation as
the case might be, is the result. 0 0
So it comes to this, that a slab of marble
suggests a high or a low relief to the artist
according to its thickness; the shape
“MOTHER AND CHILD.” RELIEF
IN BEER STONE BY ERIC GILL
according to its length and width, with its
consequent suggestions of subject; that a
mass of granite suggests a treatment of
certain simplified elements, with their
intimations of motives, by its intractable
substance; that the yielding rigidity of
ivory offers the opportunity of a display of
minute detail and the hard surface of a
metal sheet give to the ciseleur those im-
plications which every craftsman desires to
feel emanating from his material, and if the
materials are different woods, soft or hard,
loose or close, these implications and inti-
mations will be as well felt by the crafts-
man and received by him, as if they had
been offered in steel, or lead, or gold. 0
The dictation of material is absolutely
allowed by many a fine artist, and who,
seeing only the finished product, shall say
that this method was wrong, if his result
is right i There is a new feeling abroad
that tolerates such an absolute. 0 0
The study of the primitives has led to a
renewal of old forms of expression. The
English and the German pre-Raphaelite
movements had the avowed objects of
seeking afresh the sincerity which alone
makes art alive. More recently, the plein
airists and the impressionist painters and
sculptors tried to get back to the natural
conditions which had been lost in the
studios and their efforts were succeeded by
25
follow that because a sculptor carves direct
he is a good sculptor, or because another
models in clay he is a bad one. There are
masters of either method ; there are mas-
ters of both—Michelangelo was the mag-
nificent exemplar. 0000
The direct carvers claim as a special
quality of their work freshness and spon-
taneity ; a personal touch that is obscured
in its passing to another hand ; a note that
is lost by changing from one medium to
another ; from clay to plaster ; from plaster
to marble. They admit modelling in clay or
wax when a bronze casting is desired ; in
carvable materials from soft steatite or
alabaster to hard marble or granite, they
demand the personal touch. 0 0
Eric Gill, who carved with his own hand
among other things the stations of the
Cross in Westminster Cathedral, insists
that there is a joint responsibility of the
artist and the material in any fine work of
glyptic art; that there is one real kind of
art, that which owes its quality to the
material of which it is made and so in-
spires the artist; that a sculptor must make
his carving according to his stone, “ un-
conditioned,” or condition it to its position,
in his mind, before making it. As a prac-
tical craftsman there is to him no difficulty
in “ conditioned ” work ; as an imaginative
artist, no difficulty in the unconditioned.
Eric Gill further insists that the essential of
true sculpture is the taking away of super-
fluous matter and so revealing the desired
form, whereas the essence of modelling is
the building up bit by bit of a copied form,
a synthetic process, scientific perhaps, as
opposed to the analysis of creation. 0
Frank Dobson, the other consistent up-
holder of the direct method in England
would, I think, be even more inclined than
Eric Gill to follow the analytic method, to
the extent perhaps of allowing an absolute
dictation of form by the mass of his
material; to follow the lines and shapes it
suggests to him ; to be inspired by those
lines and the shapes they engender in his
imagination until the analysis is complete
and The Descent from the Omnibus or a
more or less naturalistic representation as
the case might be, is the result. 0 0
So it comes to this, that a slab of marble
suggests a high or a low relief to the artist
according to its thickness; the shape
“MOTHER AND CHILD.” RELIEF
IN BEER STONE BY ERIC GILL
according to its length and width, with its
consequent suggestions of subject; that a
mass of granite suggests a treatment of
certain simplified elements, with their
intimations of motives, by its intractable
substance; that the yielding rigidity of
ivory offers the opportunity of a display of
minute detail and the hard surface of a
metal sheet give to the ciseleur those im-
plications which every craftsman desires to
feel emanating from his material, and if the
materials are different woods, soft or hard,
loose or close, these implications and inti-
mations will be as well felt by the crafts-
man and received by him, as if they had
been offered in steel, or lead, or gold. 0
The dictation of material is absolutely
allowed by many a fine artist, and who,
seeing only the finished product, shall say
that this method was wrong, if his result
is right i There is a new feeling abroad
that tolerates such an absolute. 0 0
The study of the primitives has led to a
renewal of old forms of expression. The
English and the German pre-Raphaelite
movements had the avowed objects of
seeking afresh the sincerity which alone
makes art alive. More recently, the plein
airists and the impressionist painters and
sculptors tried to get back to the natural
conditions which had been lost in the
studios and their efforts were succeeded by
25