POLYCHROMATIC WORK cases, and worked on two or three sheets of paper each. The art of chromolithography was introduced about the middle of the nineteenth century. It will not be practicable to describe the process here. Its complexity may be illustrated in this way; water-color drawings of minute accuracy, intended to preserve a record of beautiful ancient polychromy could not be reproduced adequately in chromolithography except by the use of eighteen The single matter of registry in such a case, that is to say, the exact fitting of each block of stone or plate exactly to its place, will readily be seen to be of great delicacy and difficulty. stones. Chapter Twenty-Four REPRESENTATIVE SCULPTURE AND ITS KINDRED ARTS T HE workroom of the modern sculptor is mainly a place where modelling is practised (see Chapters III and IV). Casts are made from the clay model, and these casts, usually of white plaster, a material which can be trusted to keep its shape, represent the full intention of the artist. It is in the plaster that the most important pieces of sculpture are exhibited in the great centres of comparative study — at the annual Salons of Paris, as at the universal exhibitions. For the final embodying of the work in more permanent material, the marble is carved by others than the sculptor himself or his own regular assistants; the bronze is cast and finished in a foundry specially organized for that purpose. The professional sculptor's occupation includes the preparation for and the supervision of these secondary processes, but his art is, in modern times at least, almost wholly the art of modelling. This is not necessarily an evil to the sculptor as workman or as artist. The copy carved in stone or cast in bronze will be of exactly the same size as CONDITIONS OF STUDIO WORK is his own model, from which, or from its cast the copy is made; and, therefore, every artistic thought embodied in the rounding of the surfaces, or the sharp edge given to a fold of drapery can be reproduced without modification. The process of using a mechanical appliance to enlarge or diminish in size the work of sculpture as originally designed has nothing to do with this form of mechanical copying. That process is much used by sculptors, even the best and most careful; and as a preparation it is altogether good. The first model of a group may be of figures a foot high; the second of four-foot figures; the marble group may be designed for heroic or colossal size; and the mechanical enlargement merely puts before the sculptor his original work under changed conditions. It is for him to modify it, then, because the enlargement will show at once that it needs modification. The little figure made very large will never do, without change. Moreover, the artist will, almost of necessity, give his own personal attention to the last touches upon the work in marble or bronze, as he has done to the plaster cast from the clay model. This This personal supervision becomes especially important when the marble or bronze is to be set up in a light and an exposure very different from that of the studio and the gallery of exhibition. Suppose that the work is set up in the open air; the artist will examine each part of it, each figure and each a detail, from near at hand and from far away; he will direct and oversee changes of every sort, slightly deeper shade to be got by cutting deeper in a fold of drapery, a slightly softer gradation to be got by a diminished convexity. In this way the finished marble or bronze may grow into something different from the plaster as exhibited; but this is not the rule, nor are the changes here suggested such as would reveal themselves commonly to the spectator. The danger is rather in diminution, in reducing the size, than in enlarging; for the practice of modelling a medal in a plaster disk, two feet across, diminishing it mechanically to four inches, and then leaving to a die-sinker who is not a wholly sympathetic artist the task of producing the intaglio demanded, is a most dangerous practice. For that work, see Chapter XXI: the sculptor of life-size and larger figures has little to fear from the machine. What is against the sculptor's peace and satisfaction in his art is mainly the Studio Light; the strong pure north light which falls directly from the sky upon his work as it approaches completion. It cannot be dispensed with; for it alone is a continuous and unchanging light, the same all day long and every day, except in mere brightness; while the walls around are dusky, and but little reflected light from any quarter comes to interfere with this strong bath of colorless illumination. Those will not be the conditions in the drawing CONDITIONS OF STUDIO WORK room, in the park, in the street, in the niche by the doorway, on the pedestal in the carrefour with trees around and with the houses well away; nor will they be the conditions even in the museum, though the ordinary sculpture-gallery imitates the studio light but too well in its provisions for illuminating the exhibited works of art. At least one living American sculptor has arranged in his country studio a short railway, upon which even his heaviest figures and groups can be run out into the open air. Another has huge doors which can be opened to let the strong beams of sunlight into the room. Other such devices, even to the use of large mirrors, are known; and all illustrate the subtile feeling of the artistic spirit, and the sculptor's sense that something must be done to check the too concentrated attention, given by himself and his aids, perhaps through many days and weeks, to the modelling as seen in the studio light. The artist in pure form has need of abundant space, not only for the occasional working of very large pieces of sculpture, but also because of the necessity of storing ready at hand casts of what he has already done, or of parts of what he is engaged upon; and because he must be able to modify his too concentrated north light by having the opening for its admission at a certain considerable distance from his work. The farther the window is from the model upon which he is working, the |
