Escolar Documentos
Profissional Documentos
Cultura Documentos
EARLY GREEK
SCULPTURE
THE TECHNIQUE OF
EARLY GREEK
SCULPTURE
By
STANLEY CASSON
FELLOW OF NEW COLLEGE READER IN CLASSICAL
ARCHAEOLOGY IN THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD
MEMBER OF THE GERMAN ARCHAEO;
LOGICAL INSTITUTE
OXFORD
AT THE CLARENDON PRESS
HUMPHREY MILFORD
PUBLISHER TO THE
UNIVERSITY
PREFACE
though
come
too fertile
style,
if that
invention be-
may lead the artist to prefer technical perfection to everything else. And this has, in fact, happened in
it
may be
established
make it
those
clear
who behold
it.
past has
PREFACE
vi
finest
the limit of
is
my inquiries.
fifth
century.
neglect of excavators, or museum authorities, in the
past to search for or to preserve the various tools and implements of metal or stone used by sculptors has not made it
The
and tubular
drills in
PREFACE
vii
work 1
records in a recent
to the British
Museum
at the
how many
excavation reports.
Readers will notice that
some
some years
later, I
was
told that
PREFACE
viii
indebted to
many
and help.
To
Professor
and
a whole, an
own
tools,
for his
me
me
tions.
to reproduce a figure
proofs.
made
of exceptional
clarity.
CONTENTS
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
II.
III.
IV.
PAGE
x
I.
I.
....
IX.
VIII.
II.
169
.223
.......
........
.......
.......
APPENDIXES
I.
II.
EMERY
THE FITZWILLIAM STATUETTE
III.
INDEXES
I.
II.
3904
235
.236
236
MUSEUMS
239
GENERAL
242
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
...
FIG.
1.
2.
Page
8
......
on a wooden
By permission
figure
of Sir Arthur Evans
Museum, Athens
3.
4.
Museum, Athens
5.
Museum, Athens
Facing
15
16
16
,,
7.
18
8.
24
9.
6.
Lower
Relief at
Mycenae
.........
of the lion
10.
17
at
fore-feet
25
26
Mycenae
11. Spirals
30
.........
...
.......
.........
Museum
13.
14.
Low
relief,
stele,
National
Museum, Athens
Facing
15.
16.
From The
Society of Antiquaries of
London
19.
Ashmolean
22. Frieze of
35
38
45
...
35
by permission of the
1 8.
21.
31
31
Museum
47
Facing
58
59
62
66
23.
Engraved
stele
from Prinias
,,67
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
FIG.
26.
on engraved
Engraved
69
70
........
.........
........
legs of a
Facing
stele
warrior
28.
.....
27.
stele
The Cretan
erre' figure.
70
known
71
as the 'Aux-
72
Head
30.
Head of
31.
Head
33.
34.
35.
73
Museum
74
Museum.
75
Museum
78
Museum
79
86
87
88
36. Belt
Studies
37.
38.
Samian
figure,
No. 619,
94
100
in the Acropolis
Museum
101
42.
Lower
107
no
in
,,112
Modern
single-handed
120
drill
46.
47.
48.
The head
45.
Facing 122
123
126
127
49. Detail
at
Olympia
134
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
xii
Page
FIG.
50. Stele
51.
52.
The
Berlin
Foundry Kylix
53.
The
Berlin
Foundry Kylix
,,158
159
.......,,
showing bronze-workers,
54. Vase-painting
painter of pots
and a
statues,
160
55. Relief
56.
The hammer
57. Mallet
of Archedemos
from the
relief in
New York
....
...
....
,,170
172
173
173
174
The
so-called
Thasos
'Tte Rampin'
in the
Louvre
Facing 174
176
ThehairdownthebackofNo.6i3intheAcropolisMuseum
63.
Bouchards
....
180
Facing 182
,,183
at
OJympia
Seminar, Marburg
184
68. Claw-chisel
185
177
178
65.
,,
and Hen'
frieze
from Xanthos
187
189
'bull-nosed*
Facing
186
and 'gouge*
chisels
Facing 192
Museum
192
....
....
from the
from the
......
196
197
on
Facing 198
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
xiii
FIG.
Page
.......
81. Italian
82.
86.
87.
88.
89.
90.
91.
92.
93
209
Museum
.......
.......
punches and
chisels
214
in the Acro-
Facing 214
216
figure of
....
....
Facing 216
...
230
from Galjub
227
227
228
231
232
Facing 232
96.
made by
203
D. Beazley
Double-ended rasp
Marks of rasps on the surface of the colossal
Athena, No. 1362, in the Acropolis Museum
94. Goldsmith's
95.
J.
203
coffer
drill
85.
using
........,,
Danae
Tubular
202
83.
artist
Modern
........
......
233
233
BIBLIOGRAPHY
ASHMOLE,
B.
Studies,
1930, p. 99.
BLUMEL, CARL. Griechische Bildhauerarbeit. Berlin and Leipzig, 1927.
(Erganzungsheft des Deutschen Archaologischen Institute.)
1,
xlii,
ff.
Hellenic Studies,
KLUGE, K.
Jahrbuch, 1929, p. i.
Die Gestaltung des Erzes und ihre technischen Grundlagen.
Berlin and Leipzig, 1928.
Griechische Marmorstudien. Berlin, 1890.
LEPSIUS, G. R.
LUCAS, A. Ancient Egyptian Materials. London, 1926.
PETRIE, SIR F. The Arts and Crafts of Ancient Egypt. London, 1909.
The Pyramids and Temples of Gizeh, 1883, Chapter VIIL
Tools and Weapons. 1917.
Anthropological Journal, 1883. 'Mechanical Methods of the
Egyptians/
RICHTER, G. M. A. The Sculpture and Sculptors of the Greeks". Yale
University Press, 1930 (2nd edition).
PART I
THE DEVELOPMENT OF TECHNIQUE
HISTORICALLY CONSIDERED
PREHISTORIC PERIODS
I. CRETE
The Minoans were not sculptors in the full
i. Hard Stones.
sense of the term. But they made occasionally small figures
in hard stone which must serve as the basis of any consideration of their technique in the manipulation of stone. This
discussion of Minoan technique must not be taken to pre-
sume
No
the continuity of
Minoan with
that.
Hellenic civilization.
is such a
thing
But there
technical
tricks,
an innovating aesthetic.
How
PREHISTORIC PERIODS
times from the purely technical point of view. On examination it will be seen that, in effect, there is no method of
carving used in Minoan stone figures which is not also used
by the gem-cutters. At the same time that does not mean
that all the tools used for gem-cutting are used in Minoan
stonework, but rather that some only are used and none that
are not the tools of gem-cutters.
There are only two representations in stone of the
human
is
is
the
on a small
pedestal.
It is, in fact, a
an abrasive. The
lines of
left
arm and
The
two
instru-
ments are
The
Porti
and
is
the figure of a
man
It
comes from
1
No. 219 in the Museum at Candia. It has not been published. It has
been suggested that this figure is a forgery, but I see no reason to accept this
suggestion.
2
3
W. Lamb,
PREHISTORIC PERIODS
3
for
the
left
The
little
stands
cm.
except
leg.
5-5
high
figure
and shows a rigid human figure with the hands clasped on
known types
to
have
been derived
appears rather
from the rigidly conventional 'Cycladic Idols' of the islands
which were widely imported into Crete and seem to have
has no obvious connexion with
the breast.
It
in bronze.
In fact
become
it
objects of considerable
figure this is
From
made by nibbing.
The
human
statuette of a lady
bridge.
Since
it
whose pedigree
now in the
Fitzwilliam
Museum
at
Cam-
Delphi.
The head
is
executed in a
is
made.
Minoan
date, probably
PREHISTORIC PERIODS
L.M.
the others, and the fact that the Delphian example has been
that it was not possible for it to be replaced
mended shows
by mainland
artists.
The primary
We
The eyes and the groove of the mouth, on the other hand,
indicate the use of a cutting instrument, while the fringe
of hair round the jowls was incised with a pointed burin.
A drill was probably used for the two small holes above the
eyes at the end of each brow as well as for the structural holes
round the neck and through the muzzle.
The
mode of sculpture.
The Delphian fragment
inferences, but there
clusions here
is
made.
PREHISTORIC PERIODS
brows or the
They
are in the
Museum
at
Cambridge
is
in a class
by
itself.
It is
the only
of evidence to the
Minoan
period.
detailed
soft steatite
technique in particular
stone, that
is
blade, as if
it
to say
it is
were wood.
The
lines
carefully
As they
is
nothing
PREHISTORIC PERIODS
The
lowest zone.
The
is
zones or
(c)
grooves so
to say, they
The
lie
in relation to them.
The hem-pattern
of the apron
blunt-headed
drill.
The hem
lines,
(d) Fingers
chisel
instrument.
The
(e)
the figure to
I cannot,
flat chisel
From this
detailed examination
it
will
be
clear at
once that
the main tools used are, with one exception, tools that were
known in the Minoan periods as far as our present knowledge
PREHISTORIC PERIODS
The
abrasive
use
by a
gouge is certain. They are not the kind of grooves which an
abrasive can make, for their surfaces are striated by the
gouge-blade in many instances and their outlines have the
its
is
Lines
made
by the
flat chisel
by the gouge.
(see below, p. 140 and Fig. 66). These vertical grooves show
the starting-point and the end of each stroke. They are not
steady and even but shaky and narrow at top and bottom.
Such would be true of any gouge mark of an inch in length
Minoan
not
known
in
first
came
into use
may, of course,
be argued that its use here is the only evidence for its
existence as a Minoan tool, and this is a possible line of
in
defence.
thetical
It
But against this it must be urged that this hypoMinoan gouge would, of necessity, have been
Petrie in Tools and Weapons (1917), p. 2z, states : *It (the gouge) is almost
entirely a northern tool, there being only three (Bologna, Vetulonia, Athens)
There are hardly enough examples to
from all the Mediterranean area. .
1
PREHISTORIC PERIODS
made
me
marks seems
to
to
Scale
FIG.
It
i.
may be added
that
the
pedigree
of
the figure
is
steel or iron
makes the
PREHISTORIC PERIODS
-the
The
charcoal deposit
indicated the material to which
bronzes.
jr^j
and
hands and
j
t_
feet,
Scale
Suggested restoration
statue, with bronze
jf head of
presumed ^^ on
a
wooden
figure
perished.
This evidence for the existence of large wooden statues
at Knossos at once throws back the history of the Hellenic
cated at Delphi
3904
by Cretans.
C
PREHISTORIC PERIODS
not necessarily to be included. The remarkable painted head
io
made
The
figure.
care with
intended to stand by
itself.
Mycenaean
iii.
it
but
period.
all
periods
The knowledge of
periods.
when used
is
means of a
driven to assume some tool of the knife type. For there are
neither chisel-marks nor file-marks, nor would it have been
possible for the intricate designs of steatite reliefs to be cut
abrasive process. The softness of steatite, together
with the compact nature of the stone and its absence of
by an
makes it an ideal material for handcertainly more tractable than ebony but harder
cleavage or lamination
carving. It
1
is
Evans, op.
cit., iii,
p. 522;
ii,
p.
490 and
n. 6.
are bored and uncoloured. Bosanquet thought that it was the head of a sphinx,
the head free and the body in relief. But the head in such a case would
certainly
2
show an attachment
Ridgeway,
loc. cit.
at the back.
No
such attachment
is visible.
PREHISTORIC PERIODS
it
were encased
statuette we have in this material 1 was covered with a thin
coating of stucco and then painted. The authenticity of this
statuette
is,
known
it
a black colour.
made they
vessels in soft
bull-reliefs
Knossian quarries. 3
1
The one
iii.
relief
427.
ad esculentorum
Theophrastus.
3
Palace of Minos,
A. 56 and 37.
iii,
usus.'
pp. 192
ff.;
Brit.
I. i,
Nos.
PREHISTORIC PERIODS
iz
is
too
much
The Charging
weathered.
Bull
and a knife,
on the bull's neck were
seem
carving where the
we have
reliefs
to
have
detail, as
which
scene.
Its
is
flat slab
show the
been
filed
away
that
it is,
in a sense,
of gypsum.
The
in-
characteristic rocky
existed in
Minoan
times.
<
iii,
PREHISTORIC PERIODS
for the insertion of wire tresses
detailed
ornament. Similar
drills
13
works in hard or
soft stone.
now
in the
all
alike
One thing
is
certain
that the
hollow
2
employing beaten sheets and filling them with bitumen in
the case of large statues, while in the case of small statuettes
,the surface of solid figures was often meticulously finished.
The Minoans quite definitely followed a technique and a
tradition entirely, their own. But it was a short-lived tradition, for the earliest datable bronze statuette belongs to the
1
PREHISTORIC PERIODS
period 1700-1580
(M.M.
III),
while the
latest, still
of the
flat
figure stands,
which
and parcel
technically formed
itself is
is
part
from the crude bronze which was left in the orifice down
which it was, when liquid, poured by the caster. This is
most clearly seen in the case of an interesting statuette
found in the Harbour Town of Knossos. 1 Here the pedestal
consists of a solid button-shaped mass of bronze formed by
the last drops that were poured into the mouth of the mould
it is joined to the feet by two separate pipes of bronze which
were formed by the two separate holes that led the liquid
:
down
metal
conceivable after-treatment,
of a male from the Harbour
where
is
it
Town
of Cnossos.
The
casting,
most of these
as in
still
adhering to the surface. The
of
final
surface
simplest process
polishing would have re-
moved them.
1
ol.
via
b.
i,
and
fig.
Lamb,
op.
p. 234
2
132. Also
cit., pi.
Lamb,
op.
v and vni, a
cit.,
b.
FIG
No
Museum, Athens,
cm Depth
6 cm.
PREHISTORIC PERIODS
15
The bronze of the bull and the acrobat, unique in our
knowledge of Minoan bronzework, is a small masterpiece of
must have been extremely difficult.
not complete enough to show what sort
Its casting
ingenuity.
Its preservation is
of pedestal it had, but the forelegs of the bull have a protuberant boss of bronze. Yet we cannot guess how it stood
or upon what kind of basis.
Here, too, there is a surprising lack of final finish. Nothing
at all seems to have been done to it after the casting.
2.
i.
Hard
Stones.
The
CYCLADES
diminished force of
artistic
invention
Where
they
of size than
by any
complexity.
PREHISTORIC PERIODS
i6
objects far
more
artistic
islands.
The
Thus we have
from
2
3 inches in height to nearly 5 feet with little or no variation
in appearance or method of manufacture.
With so
The head was erect and given, as a rule, a slight tilt backwards. The division between the legs gives the clue to the
process of manufacture of the whole. It is effected by
abrasion with a wedge-shaped tool which cuts a simple groove
into the marble surface. Sometimes the pressure of the tool
1
FIG, 4.
CYCLADIC FIGURE, No
in the National
3911,
Museum, Athens
Depth
2 5
cm
cm.
FIG
5.
in the National
3919,
Museum, Athens.
i8
are
PREHISTORIC PERIODS
shown clearly. The figure is conceived
exactly in the
The
flute-player,
is
manufacture
is
more conventional
statuettes.
is
seated on a stool.
They correspond
in all essential
details
It
remembered
idols
bronze figures.
a
FIG
7,
a and
b.
Height 20 5
cm
Athens,
No
Breadth 5
3910
cm Depth
of bodj. 2 8 cm.
PREHISTORIC PERIODS
copper saw would have served
its
19
is
antiquity
it
types.
It is in
tools
A wedge-shaped
there
is
no evidence that
it
antiquity.
PREHISTORIC PERIODS
20
would
smooth
surfaces. It
it
We
Naiav
15 otioiou
r\
K ToOrov EOTIV
ofrrrsp
cxl
&KOVCCI,
TOUTGX
Hspl TCOV MOcov, 77. The stone here referred to is not the Naxian but the
Armenian, which, according to Pliny (N.H. 36. 22. 4), superseded the Naxian.
Of the Armenian stone Stephanus of Byzantium (s.v. 'Apusvioc) says, Trc
TCCI
3
av
S.v. Nd^os-
TOU
0:9* otf
KCCI
Na^fa M0o$,
f|
KpTi*nKf) &K6vri
fj
8i
6idc
PREHISTORIC PERIODS
21
Crete. Both these authors are our only record for the Oaxian
stone, if indeed that can be taken as the explanation of their
found
the site of the ancient Oaxos, though it may well be the source
of the whetstones exported by that city. Stephanus, not
realizing that there
i.
127.
in praetenui
PREHISTORIC PERIODS
22
Naxium
among
oil
From
that the
maxuma
fuit,
mox Armeniacae,
kind.
LXX
N.H.
PREHISTORIC PERIODS
23
two
distinct ways.
not
Sir Flinders Petrie 1 explains how emery was used not only
as sand for working saws, but also in fragments large and
out with a single cut of a fixed point only one hundred and
of an inch wide'. Larger hieroglyphs on hard stones
fiftieth
were 'cut by copper blades fed with emery and sawn along
the outline by hand the block between the cuts was broken
out and the floor of the sign was hammer-dressed and
:
finally
3.
Hard
MYCENAE.
At Mycenae
Stones.
Arts and Crafts of Ancient Egypt, 1909, pp. 73 ff. He also observes that
back as prehistoric times blocks of emery were used for grinding beads,
and even a plummet and a vase (now at University College) were cut out of
1
as far
emery rock. The knowledge of and import to Egypt of Aegean emery must
thus in Egypt go back to a very remote period. See also Tools and Weapons,
P- 45*
PREHISTORIC PERIODS
24
we
lines
between the
marked out by
lions' forelegs
lines
honeycomb.'
This account
remarkable fact that the drill-holes are not mere holes, like
the ordinary hole made by a solid drill, but are circles
was revolved rapidly on a bow and used with the aid of emerysand. This type of drill goes back to Neolithic days and was
used almost universally in Europe for the drilling of holes
through axes or other hard-stone artefacts
for the
the points
made
FIG.
8.
FIG.
9.
on the
right.
From a
cast
PREHISTORIC PERIODS
25
When
mer
or
it
its
1-6
left lion:
(b)
Above the
above the
(c)
(d)
left paw.
Between the fore legs of the right
Behind the right hind leg of the
8 well-preserved holes.
marked
(e) In the hollow oval beneath the column, 4 clearly
holes at the back of this oval on the left prove conclusively
that it was hollowed solely by drilling. (See Fig. 10).
That some form of saw was used on the Lion Gate relief
1
Petrie, Tools
borings in various stages of incompletion of this type see Schmidt, Schliemann's Sammlung, Nos. 7182, 7201, 7219, 7227, 7^33> *&& 72463 In these axes the surface decoration of knobs was done with the same
type of drill.
3904
PREHISTORIC PERIODS
26
certain.
It
its
use
is
Stone
and
is
oil,
as a
we can now
FIG. 10.
Detail to
show
The vertical
upper cutting
use of the saw
marble
vertical cuts
'idols*.
is
cast
PREHISTORIC PERIODS
groove on the base of the column shows most
a cutting which, from its position if not from
27
distinctly
its
shape,
2.
3.
4.
used in
From the
PREHISTORIC PERIODS
28
holes
it is
Knossos.
Minoan
It is also
or
Mycenaean saws
wood
(see above,
'teeth' of
2
Ibid.
Evans, Palace of Minos n. ii, p. 671.
3
Diod. Sic. iv. 76. 5; Tsetees, i. 494 ff.; A. B. Cook, Zeus, i. 724 ff,;
Frazer, note to Apollodorus, iii. 15. 8.
4 Arts
andCrafts of Ancient Egypt,v *J3. See also Tools and Weapons, p. 45.
1
>
PREHISTORIC PERIODS
29
power.
reality
tomb
of Atreus
The superb
at Mycenae shows the same technique (Fig.
fragment (A. 53) in red porphyry of the type now worked
at Tenos, is of particular and remarkable interest. The
3
1 1).
PREHISTORIC PERIODS
30
at
each stroke
very small. The wear and tear to the tools must equally
have involved considerable wastage and replacement.
The central row of spirals differs from the others in having
spirals
speed.
The
is
clearly visible in
is identical in type
with that used for the hollows of the Lion Gate Relief2
This inference is, in fact, drawn by the author of the Brit. Mus. catalogue
referred to, p. 25.
2
The use of the tubular drill has been noted in the case of this facade
slab by Wace (B.S.A. xxv, p. 344), but ignored in the case of the Lion Gate
Relief.
3
Naturally
it
No
legitimate con-
drawn as to the date of the gate itself, for the relief may have
come from some other source and may not necessarily have been made originally for the gateway. It seems highly probable that it was originally designed
for insertion above a tholos tomb which was never built.
4 Brit. Mus.
Cat., pi. in; and also on the fragments at Athens in the
clusion can be
National
Museum.
FIG 12
The
is
a circle
made with
the tubular
drill
PREHISTORIC PERIODS
31
Lion Gate
Relief,
and
to
The method
The saw-
Stage I
Outlines
cut.
Stage II
Stage III
Corners
blocked out
separately.
in
Stage
remain
visible.
FIG. 13.
may be
strable
i.
The
pillars
B.S.A.
viii,
p. 29,
fig.
14.
PREHISTORIC PERIODS
32
Museum.
limestone.
ii.
iii.
(Fig. 12).
The
Hard grey
iv.
limestone.
v.
vi.
p. 16.
fig.
53.
A small fragment of a
spiral fa?ade
centre of each of
tubular
stone.
Tombs of
Mycenae, p. 72,
fig. 48.
following fragments of the Grave Stelai exhibit
circular centres to spirals that measure 4-7 cm. in diameter
The
and may
also
drill.
But the
B.S.A. xxv,
limestone'.
ii.
iii.
Tubular
Circle. Ibid.
PREHISTORIC PERIODS
from the Bath
Room at
33
by
circle filled
Mycenae shows
circles
on the
leg
is
The
spirals, unlike
Orchomenos
circles
measure from
1-5
cm.
to 2-3
cm.
a large
from
that in
list it
will
be seen
at
Minoan
3
period, the technical characteristics
B.S.A. xxv,
Evans, Palace of Minos, iii, p. 383, fig. 254Evans, Shaft-Graves and Beehive Tombs of Knossos, pp. 71 ff.
3904
pi.
XXV
PREHISTORIC PERIODS
34
has long been thought that the relief on the Lion Gate is
derivative from some other source; its style suggests an
it
earlier period
than 1400.
The
use in
its
construction of the
tubular
drill
when
for, as
we have
The
drill.
1600 or at
latest
1550
technical discoveries
of 1200-1000 to the
B.C. explains
why
it
new
about
way comparable
to those
done in
FIG 14
LOW
GRAVE STELE
From Mycenae
National
Museum, Athens.
Scale i/3
Museum)
Scale
/i.
PREHISTORIC PERIODS
35
The most
complete
show
before in Middle
it
was
still
cut with a
were wood.
W. A.
emerged resplendent. The reverse was the case, for the Mycenaeans had
learned their first lessons from Cretans when the latter were at the height of
their artistic skill.
3
Dickins, Acropolis
Museum
Catalogue, p. 72.
PREHISTORIC PERIODS
36
Summary.
A clear contrast has been observed in Cretan and Mycenaean times between the treatment of hard and soft stones.
The hard stones are worked with abrasive rubbers for the
general surfaces and outlines, with sharp pointed stone
burins for detail, and here and there with the ordinary
which drills holes vertically to the surface. The
and
its associated group show the use of the
Lion Gate
tubular drill used for cutting hollows and depressions. The
toothless saw or a sawing process was used for cutting proboring
drill,
in
used by the gem-cutter for incising detail freehand, in the same way as an engraver cuts the lines of a steel
to the burin
or copper plate.
The manes
of lions on
Minoan gems
are
Mycenaean
periods.
Mycenaean
PREHISTORIC PERIODS
cutter.
Whether
37
tool
blade. The drill is used here and there, but rarely, and the
incised outlines so frequently seen round the human and
animal figures depicted on steatite vases are carefully cut
with a knife-point.
The processes used for cutting hard stones seem to have
PREHISTORIC PERIODS
38
The
The
survival of tools
used in stone-craft
is
dubious.
Chisels, awls,
but
all
may
fabric to have
iii.
427.
FIG 16
'10.
PREHISTORIC PERIODS
39
No
was required. And the example of the Cycladic marblecutters was always before the eyes of Minoans and Mycenaeans, to reinforce the knowledge acquired from technicians
of the Neolithic period in the Aegean.
Lapidaries* work.
The
But
separate instruments.
These
seem
to
be the
PREHISTORIC PERIODS
40
clearly
a stone tool.
Harbour
In
it
striations horizontally
file.
The
Ibid,
iii,
p. 269.
PREHISTORIC PERIODS
41
this
connexion
steatite
The
'trial' itself
consists of a
the other. All three designs are cut in the soft stone with a
knife blade and all three are animal figures of the types
usually seen
3904
i,
fig.
134.
II
THE
making of works of
art of a sculptural
The instability
famous
cities
military architect
was more
in
demand than
had declined.
1
an
all
43
remains to see
that
art.
tendency in art, liable to reappear in periods either of decadence or of infancy, which is usually described, rightly enough,
by the terms 'formal', 'geometric', or 'abstract'.
ship which
type. It
B.C.
culture.
new
ff.
44
eighth centuries.
of craftsmen
who had
little
we
one technique
cut with a knife,
find follow
first
to last
even when they are of hard stones, though in those cases the
cuts become mere scratchings. 'Geometric' seals or gems
are common enough. For the use of seals had not been
forgotten, and the new invaders
1
V. G. Childe, The Aryans, pp. 50 ff.
2
3
At
iv. 2, p.
34.
M.
Quarterly,
Scale
/i
Scale 2/3
45
seals
at 'geometric' seals, 1
mostly of soft steatite and show the knifecuts with unusual precision (Fig. 17 A). The later groups
earliest seals are
(Fig. IJB)
is
slowly
the
all
it
familiarity with
site for
46
minor Egyptian ornaments 1 must have made the importation of ivory an easy matter. Scarabs are common on
geometric sites from Pherae in Thessaly to Sparta and the
Argive Heraeum. At Sparta the earliest ivories of all are
small decorated instruments which are identified as kohl-
needles. 2
bronze figures, childlike, bizarre, and crude, representing as they do simple human and animal figures, are
almost invariably made from bars and strands of bronze
earliest
47
FIG.
1 8.
Sparta and Olympia. But whereas the latter are beaten and
smithed, the former are cast in one process. Cretan moulds
were clay-moulds or sand-moulds, the model being of clay or,
i. xlii.
JJK.S.
xll (1921), P.
249*
48
The
of
art.
solid.
Miss
were copies
of terra-cottas, perhaps 'cast from the same moulds as the
terra-cotta figures themselves'. 2 This casting process, like
interesting suggestion that the solid cast figures
making metal
figures.
The
earliest
W. Lamb,
Greek and
Ibid., p. 41.
Geometric
Roman
Bronzes, p. 39,
fig. i.
Or agree with Miss Lamb (p. 44) that 'one can find practically no points
of contact with Minoan art*.
49
intercourse with
Greek
sites
travellers
had seen
was an increasing
intercourse.
With the
experiences
of men like Solon to aid them, Greeks of the later times were
soon fully versed in everything Egyptian. Naukratis alone
human
which was
seen in the ivory figures of the Dipylon cemetery needed the
Asiatic and the Egyptian stimuli to make it bud and blossom
And once in bud the harvest was soon reached.
3904
H
The
figure
So
wooden
statues.
Mycenaean wooden
or
period
is
to
some
changed and the old styles of art forgotten, yet in the figures
Minoan gods we may well expect to find the most
persistent of all survivals. Their survival would have been
aided by the care which could have been bestowed upon
of old
them by those
of
themselves to the
still
contrived to adapt
Minoan
cult-figures.
The
group of
first
facts
Homeric
Homeric
The
Minoan people
in
times.
Evans, Palace of Minos, iii, p. 524: 'That actual Minoan works of this
(i.e. like the conjectured colossal statue of a goddess from Knossos
discussed in pp. 522-3) may have survived in ancient centres of cult in comparatively late classical times is quite possible.* Nillson,
History of Greek
class
ff.
51
6ccvoc.
On
these coins
is
We
to the first
pear-tree
mythical
by the Argives to the sanctuary of the Heraeum. Not only
the site of the shrine where the statue originally stood but
the name of its dedicator strongly indicate a non-Hellenic
a survival
shrine
development of the Heraeum as a new shrine of the mothergoddess, whose name became Hera, left Tiryns virtually
abandoned, except for the bare minimum of service which
an older shrine demanded from those who had superseded
The pear-wood image may well have been one of the
it.
1
ii.
17- 5-
See Tiryns (1912), i, pp. 2-46, and Blegen, Korakou, 1921, pp. 130 ff.
The hypothesis of Frickenhaus is that a Mycenaean palace continued to exist
down to about 700 B.C. It was then replaced by a Greek shrine, the builders
of which were familiar with the appearance and architecture of the earlier
building. But against this Blegen brings an array of stratigraphical and other
arguments which suggest that the building identified as Hellenic by Frickenhaus is in fact a very late Mycenaean reconstruction of the larger and earlier
Megaron. Against Blegen's view must be placed the solid fact of the discovery of a heavy deposit of sixth and fifth-century votive objects connected
with a Hera cult. It may perhaps be wiser to reject the Frickenhaus-Blegen
building altogether as a claimant and assume that the shrine of Hera was elsewhere on the citadel, Blegen admits that room must be found for it *it is
clear', he says, 'that a sanctuary stood somewhere on the site'. Where it
stood is of purely academic interest for the purposes of the matter in hand :
its existence is sufficient to make it possible that Mycenaean objects were
taken over into Hellenic cult.
52
Minoan
is
intensified
tells
He
We
Malea4 which had stood there since the great invasion by the
Amazons. This invasion was dated by the Parian Chronicle 5
to the thirteenth century. At Troezen also were statues of
Artemis which belonged to the time of Theseus 6 and of
another figure which was set up at the time of the sailing of
the Argo 7 near Korone in Messenia.
At Thebes in Boeotia was a statue erected by Cadmus 8 and
another said to have been made from the wood of his ships. 9
Of the Minoan associations of Cadmus we need have no
Homer, made
Crete,
1
12
Brit.
7 Id. iv.
34. 7.
10
11
12
*
6
ii.
19. 3.
3.
i.
Ibid. 16. 3.
53
tis is
He
1
Monogissa in Caria, though the precise meaning of this
attribution must remain obscure.
On the borders of Messenia and Arcadia were small
2
^occva of Despoina and Demeter, two deities whose pre-
the Geometric age. All alike suggest not only that preHellenic cults are in question but that the actual cult-images
are pre-Hellenic. It is astonishing that so many should have
survived down to the time of Pausanias, when we consider
the material of which most of them were made. Yet Roman
woodwork such as the carved doorways of the fifth-century
the incredible.
references in
still
is
epoch and
We
This
ritual act
presupposes a seated
Homeric
Wooden
Horse. 8 There
is
Steph. Byz.,
Made
whose
no reason
9
non-Hellene, for Plato calls
1
statue. 7
There was a
chef-d'ceuvre was the
of Panopeus
2
s.v.
him
to identify
Paus.
viii.
as a
and
35. 2.
Homer
8
was the
first
p. 121.
Od.
viii.
492.
Ion 533.
54
crrsupccT EXCOV sv
Fillets
may
ytpvw
&<r|(36Aou 'AiroAAcovos.
taken.
The
to
dedicate 3
have
up
his wide
2
if 6yocXucc
ii.
19.6.
this
meaning.
4
iii.
i a.
4.
Paus.
viii.
14. 5.
Id.
iii.
17. 5.
at
55
valleys.
We
Paus.
Id.
32. i.
22. 2.
ii.
iii.
Shewan, op.
cit.,
4 Id.
p. 344.
iii.
Id.
16. 7.
ii.
24. 3.
5
Id.
viii.
17. 2.
7 viii.
17. i.
56
known
as the
Celtis Australis.
made
There
is
It
is
the
i.
9. 3.
4 Id. iii.
Paus. x. 19. 2.
19. i.
5
Gardner and Imhoof-Blurner, Numismatic Commentary on Pausanias,
6
Ibid. n. xvii.
p. 59, n. xvi.
Strabo,
iv. 6. 2.
57
virtually told
From
by
Pausanias. 2
we
can be certain
at least that
the right
arm held
bow
out-
stretched, and that the head was helmeted. Both coins show
that the face had features. It must not be forgotten that the
accessories like the helmet, spear, and bow might well have
been restored by Bathykles on the occasion of so important
a reconstruction of a shrine as this. Conceivably also he
covered the wooden core with bronze. We cannot assume
from the words of Pausanias that the core was in fact of wood,
but it is highly improbable that a bronze cover would have
been fitted to stone. It is unnecessary to assume that the
body was made either of cast or beaten bronze alone.
Bronze castings were a local Spartan technique of which the
Brazen House of Athena, made by Gitiadas, an artist con-
iii.
18. 9.
cit., fig.
293.
Paus.
iii.
17. 2.
58
Minoan
first
many ways,
then,
it is
the bronze curls was found with the remains of the burnt
made
being
may be
to a
is
FIG. 19.
SCENE FROM THE HAGHIA TRIADHA SARCOPHAGUS; statue of deity or of defunct person receding offerings at
an
altar.
FIG
20
PROTOCORINTHIAN ARYBALLOS,
in the
Museum.
Athena, Aphrodite
( ?)
\ otary,
Scale 4/5
Ashmolean
59
is
a simple shaft of
wood
or metal or both.
term. There
no
is
earliest
statuettes
Paus. x. 19; Zeitschrift far Numismatik, xx. 285 ; Brit. Mus. Cat. Coins,
2
Head, Hist. Num., p. 562.
Troas, p. Ixxvi.
1
See
W. Lamb,
op.
characteristic examples.
4
cit.,
made with
60
made
quite cylindrical.
The
figure follows
Minoan
knowledge of
between
them can
(Fig. 20)
Thebes
in 1896, 1
Next
left to right) is a
the arms are in some cases in the same attitude as those of the Amyklaean
Apollo, while the body remains tubular. These figures belong to the seventh
century. Jahrbuch, 1930, p. 141, figs. 17 and 18.
1
J.H.S. xxiv. p. 295, No. 504. Johansen, Vases Sicyoniens, pi. xx. i a and b.
H. Payne, Necrocorinthia (1931), p. 8, n. i. Mr. Payne hazards the guess that
the principal scene may be a copy of a geometric wall-painting in a temple.
There is, of course, nothing to support this conjecture and there is no evidence to suggest that wall paintings existed in temples of the 'geometric*
period.
The head
61
Next to this is
hand
what looks like a pomegranate. On the head is
ight
and
the garment is a close-fitting chiton, full in the
polos
kirt and narrowed at the waist. Johansen sees in this
pair
tie two main Corinthian deities
Athena and Aphrodite
nd he identifies the figures as those of xoana of those
air.
eities
The
stiff
tie
coins
ommon
is at
stiffness are
to both.
^oins of
on other grounds.
But of statues of a more advanced type there
>lained
are clearer
Most interesting of all, perhaps, is a voluterater of the fifth century, 4 found in excavations on the
one part of the vase
upposed site of Spina in the Po valley.
of a type which
statues
nine
small
before
s a
votary standing
xamples.
On
ii.
As
12. i.
6z
1
suggests the end of the seventh century. These nine dolllike figures must be the nine Muses of Helicon. They suggest
volute-crater
taminated.
is
1
A. Colasanti, La Necropoli di Spina,
Nov. 1928.
2
Lindas, Fotdlles de VAcropole, 1931, vol.
Lindia (Copenhagen, 1917), p. 7.
3
07.7.90.
i,
p. 10,
FIG
OF
21.
SPINA, showing
These
statues are
shown
as small either
because the\
\\
ere, in fact,
63
way
as to
character
when
it and the
assume that the preHellenic statue was either destroyed or superseded, and of
this there is no scrap of evidence.
The question arises therefore whether the statue that
lasted until the fire was the pre-Hellenic statue or not. We
it
fire
destroyed both
essential to
it
was a
Arrov
Rome,
considered as a
attributions of this
some kind
of pre-Hellenic
context. In any case there is no scrap of evidence to show
that the oldest Lindian image of all was replaced by an early
Hellenic version made not later that 690 B.C. There is,
1
to give
it
xiii. i .
41 .
64
which remained
in a
new
It
temple.
we can
found
at
been
B.C.,
The Lindian
seated goddess
amply
attested.
2
The
Id., p. 14.
4 loc. cit.
65
evidence from
scale statues.
3904
Ill
SOFT STONES
nr'HE name
word only
we have no
We
ix.
The
3.2.
best authorities
born.
iii.
is
3. 5.
See Topffer,
to be found in
y***
W^
"
ii
>v,..
.^-^
Pf'lPP^
-ii^
^* =^,
5
j*W"(W****"
X
2
FIG. 23.
ENGRAVED STELE
Museum Woman
Limestone
Scale 1/3.
distaff.
67
The
name
unknown, are of
soft limestone. In shape they resemble in some degree what
we have seen to be the simple schematic shape of the wooden
6ovov, as far as that shape can be reconstructed. That is to
say, the upper part of the body is done in some detail and
the lower part left in the main as a columnar shape. The
Prinias figures have detail of dress and the feet made clear,
but the substantial work is done on the upper part of the
body from the waist upwards.
The Prinias sculptures, 2 derived from the lintel, doorway,
and walls of a temple of very archaic type, consist of the
remains of two seated figures of a goddess, two panels
is
on the
The seated
figures
and
It is
i,
pp. 19
ff.
68
nique in fact
carving in
differs in
is
of interest since
which a dark
appears in
process, a simple engrav-
it
With
this
engraved
relief
must be
warrior
by
A knife may have been used for some of this work, but the
use of a chisel
is
more
likely in
6g
FIG. 24.
What
is
(From the
quite certain
is
that
The horsemen
this process of
by
and
clear
chisel also.
are particularly
left.
The
Nor,
of
70
way
in
FIG. 25.
frieze.
detailed information
and
have
all
1
Collignon in Mow. Plot xx, pp. 6
a complete and absolute mystery!
down
the front
rT.
How
is
FIG 26
ENGRAVED STELE
Museum.
from Pnmas,
in the Candia
Limestone
Scale
left.
FIG 27
ENGRAVED STELE
Lower
from
Prinias, in the
Limestone
Candia
left
Museum
71
the roughing-out.
pattern above the
fall
The lower
But
its
skill.
legs
The
and
and
xoanon
Auxerre statue,
is
It
first
Nor
work.
to
Mon.
72
pumice or emery,
general smoothing
for detail
on occasions and
though
for
It is also
this there is
no
direct evidence:
it is
inferential
from the
The
technique in general
is
that of
woodwork.
The Attic limestone series.
The term 'poros', or in its usual Greek form mfapivos A(6o$,
was and remains an evasion of scientific accuracy of descripconnotation, in so far as it has any connotation at
all, is simply 'limestone* or any soft easily tractable stone
which has no particular merit of surface or capacity for
tion.
Its
5. 62.
FIG. 28.
(Louvre.)
FIG 29
Museum.
i
/i
55,
in the
73
that 6 mopo$ 6{ioio$ TCO xpcb^crri Kai T^J TTUKVOTTJTI TCO TTapfcp,
which suggests that the general change in the appearance of
the temple was not so profound after the renovation. But
Pausanias uses
of which the
it
mxcbpios mopes.
was of this stone. 2
mean any
comes
to
might
We
soft or
statues
V. 10. 2.
3904
74
The
more
The
The
shells.
fifth is
of a finer grain.
As with almost
all
the
No
Zeus
is
and
flat chisel.
hair of the
in cutting width.
Marks of other tools cannot be clearly distinguished, and
it can at least be safely said that the bulk of the cutting and
1
Museum,
vol.
i,
FIG 30
The
HEAD OF
'PROTEUS', No.
35,
is
done
the Acropolis
\\ith knife
and
Museum,
chisel
HEAD OF SERPENT
IN LIMESTONE,
in the Acropolis
Museum.
?yes
Height 35 cm.
75
detail in the final stages was done with the same tools as
those used in the Cretan limestone figures, with the exception
work of importance.
The pedimental
sculpture known as the 'Troilos Pediment' shows clear marks of the chisel in the cutting of the
1
1
It was previously known by the name of the *Erechtheium pediment',
an erroneous and misleading title. Dickins calls it more simply Tedimental
relief representing a building with olive trees*. Its present title is due to
Buschor (Ath. Mitth. xlvii, p. 80), who seems to have identified its subject
correctly.
2
Dickins, p. 78.
Id., p. 74.
76
the chisel.
chisel cannot
length of its stroke it may go too far or not far enough after
the first drive.
knife would, in fact, be both safer and
:
quicker on soft and easily handled material like Attic limestone than a chisel. To cut it with a knife would be even
Their sole value is that they show clearly the marks of the
tool with which they were cut. And that tool is a knife.
reliefs.
Of
They have a particular importance partly because they can be dated on archaeological
evidence that has an absolute validity and partly because,
though small-scale objects, they appear to have a direct
connexion both with the technique and with the composition
of large-scale sculpture.
Dickins, p. 82.
ff.
Id,, p. 72.
77
The
(e.g.
tions are
their eyes.
works of art.
The bulk of the remainder are reliefs. Of these some, like
Nos. 1 2-1 6, are in the manner of the Spartan ivory plaques,
and show figures which have been achieved simply by a
process of cutting away a background round a line-drawing
which was the first step taken by the sculptor with his plain
stone slab.
The
78
figure of a
(see
same
in each
show
But
this outlining
more
clearly than
many.
round and
No. 17 shows
a horse"(Fig. 32), partly damaged, which is unfinished. Its process of manufacture is described. 1 The carver
first
to
make
by the
British
FIG. 32.
at Sparta.
FIG 33
SERPENT IN LIMESTONE,
in the Acropolis
Museum
Missing portion near head restored in plaster The eye is compass-cut and the
remaining surface carving is done with a knife The jaws are painted red and
the body is painted with vertical stripes
indigo and red
Height 23 cm.
79
type.
The
virtually finished.
detail.
sculpture.
An exact parallel for the way in which the head of this
Sphinx is forced back into the single plane of the relief is to
The methods
reliefs.
Modern
Gill.
See
J.
Thorp,
n.
Op.
cit.,
p. 23.
8o
reliefs
made
0-145 mm.
the eyes, ears, diadem, and parts of the head being incomplete in detail. It is of course possible that it is in fact
The
was
Other Sculptures.
There remain to be considered those figures in hard
limestone which are our chief record of large-scale sculpture
of the close of the seventh century. All alike seem ultimately
to be derived from the Cretan style seen in the Prinias
1
Brit.
Mus. Cat.
of Sculpture.
81
Summary,
The
which
and negative.
3904
Beazley, C.AJf.
iv, p.
filled
593
up
82
stices.
The
series,
made
would
many
series.
was the
detail required
on
faces
The
more intricate
and sometimes in
is
is
certain
Dickins, op.
cit.,
p. 76.
Op.
cit.,
pis. xxii-xxiv.
83
must be
on the vase and the other was a pen or brush which described
its arcs and circles. The early origin for the
compass in
ceramic before
assured and
it
is
it
into
that
it
is
it
craft of the
wood-carver and
84
adapted with the aid of a knife and nothing else to the simple
requirements of the xoanon type. They illustrate the process
of wood-carving being translated into a much harder material.
From ivory-carving it was a logical advance to stone. But
the material advanced in quality and the technique remained
static.
II.
There
is
no hard and
HARD STONES
fast
ial
derivative
style,
and crystalline, almost certainly that of Naxos. This strange and hieratic figure, resembling the Prinias figures but differing from
them in its more primitive or provincial character, does not
yet introduce us to the full methods of hard stone technique.
The figure must almost certainly have been sawn from a
in Greece,
and
its
marble
is
hammer, or
else the
rough surface
at the
back
may be
the
if
stone tools.
The
inscription
on the
side
is clearly
cut
on a rough
sur-
85
We
the
final processes.
Eleutherna bust
There
is
is
no
still
The
not so soft
tool.
It
thus
falls into
It will
earliest
There is, of course, an exception in the shape of the Cretan head closely
resembling the Prinias and Auxerre heads, which comes from Selinus. It is
in white marble, and is on a marble lamp. See E. Gabrici: Daedalica
1
Selinuntia^ II. i.
86
is, indeed,
the
known
Attic
that
think
earliest
to
reason
sculptures
every
were cut in marble. Certainly there are no works in poros
from Attica which belong indisputably to the seventh
34-5).
is
It
is
of a scale
figure.
The head
is
Pentelic marble.
The
frontal
view
is
A glance at the outline of the jaw against the neck will show
1
Diddns, Acrop.
Mm.
Cat.
No. 50 and
p. 88.
FIG. 34.
Seventh century
hollovis
Museum, Athens
The facial
Island marble
i .3
curves and
FIG 35
m the National
Athens.
The
hair-globes are done with a punch only The ear-grooves and the
The line of the jaw is also
e\e-groo\es are hollowed with abrasne
abraded The fillet and necklace are done with a fiat chisel
From a
cast.
87
it
Is
in the
Sunium Apollo, 4
in the
Moschophoros, and, in
reliefs,
The Attic
artists, in fact,
is
extremely rare.
this
by which
3
5
* No.
308, Aites Museum.
No. 2720, Nat. Mus., Athens.
88
downwards
The
to the nostrils.
flat
chiselling.
There is no sign
The
final dull
'
'
last
process.
The
which
With
first
of the sixth.
They
are
Nos. 582, 583, 586, 589, and 593, in the Acropolis Museum.
All alike are versions of a primitive and simple type of statue,
xoanon-like in its simplicity and in its absence of detail from
the waist down. Dickins dates them all to what he calls *the
earliest period of Attic art' in sculpture, and this, as we have
the Attic series are small statues, mostly about half natural
scale, with the notable exception of No. 593, which is full
From a
much can
and what is so learnt
is more or less confirmed
by the other examples, even though
others, is missing.
be learned from
i.
593.
may
be
rightly
material for
89
No. 589
many
is
the work
is
The
entirely
cuts
on
similar processes of abrasion. Even the crossthe locks of hair are so done, and not with either file
by
or chisel.
How the
main
these last
assumptions^
partly by abrasion. But in any case
are mainly hypothetical, in the sense that they are not capable
1
3904
90
whole.
come from
Attica.
edge, the rubbed surface being pressed far into the cheek
The vertical grooves of
in an almost disconcerting way.
rubbing.
Itis,infact,evident that in Attica, perhaps
other place, this technique was used to its full extent in the
seventh and early sixth centuries. Unfortunately the gaps
in our knowledge of the history of Greek sculpture are so
serious that we are unable to explain how such mature and
relatively sophisticated masterpieces as the Dipylon head
have no antecedents in stone that are as yet known. For they
have no parallel except the figures in ivory (see above, p. 46),
also from the Dipylon. The latter are earlier in date, but they
throw no sort or kind of light upon stone technique, since the
yi
Summary.
While the earliest Greek statues are in soft stone there is
no certain reason for thinking that there may not be works
in marble which have yet to be found which are as early.
For there is no hard and fast chronology of material, and
soft stone continued in use when marble technique was fully
perfected.
this laborious
and
exhausting process of abrasion, partly because greater certainty was attained by means of rubbing at right angles to the
stone and partly because longer sweep of line can thus be
more adequately achieved. Detail of hair, on the other hand,
92
was almost always done with the punch, and the flat chisel
was only used for the most superficial occasional detail, and
even such detail was not well executed. The earliest marble
statues thus show no trace of claw-chisel, drill, or gouge, and
only a minimal use of the
flat chisel.
IV
SOME
chapter certainly belong to the
century.
But
from
They were
as follows
(2)
94
placed them.
(3)
minus only
the detailed carving and the smooth final surfaces which
should be devoid of tool-marks. ,This final surface was
in
like
emery.
is
and
first
stages
be convenient
will
cussion.
The process throughout historyseems to have been always the same. The cipollino quarries
of green marble at Karystos in Euboea, 2 the verde antico
3
quarries on Mount Mopsion near Larissa in Thessaly, and
various places in Greece.
in the quarry
itself.
FROM
600
B.C.
TO ABOUT
540
B.C.
95
how
The
for a limited
How
tool-marks.
with the
'inferential'
evidence of
fifth century,
at the north
and
Bliimel, op.
tit., pis. i
and
2.
be a chisel.
A.J.A., 1903, pp. 263 fT. At first the 'square' was thought to
This identification failed to detect the lower limb of the square. The hammer
is a typical trimrning-harnrner of the type used at all periods by stonemasons
3
and
sculptors.
96
From
this as well as
The
frontal
and
by the
on the
tury
is
sixth century speak for themselves, needing only the explanatory annotations given by Bliimel.
remains to consider the main groups of three-dimensional sculpture from different parts of the Greek-inhabited
It
the ultimate detail was achieved, that is to say Stage (3) of the
three stages referred to above (p. 94). The exposition given
was
to
FROM
6co
B.C.
TO ABOUT
540
B,C.
97
attitudes,
are introduced.
The
IN THE ROUND
The Sculpture of the East Greek Mainland and of the Islands of
Naxos and Samos.
MARBLE SCULPTURE
98
The
earliest
this
at
Miletus one
to about 570
about 550
is
B.C.
B.C.,
at Istanbul
the series.
It will
be obvious
no way so advanced or developed as was contemporary sculpture in the mainland of Greece or in Attica.
This is, of course, primarily a question to be discussed by
the stylistic experts. But it has some bearing on the technical
problems, since it shows that the sculptors of the East were
out of touch with the new developments of the West and
more hide-bound by Assyrian, Hittite, and Babylonian
figures are in
hieratic influences,
It is not, therefore, surprising to find that
technical devices
is
a bare minimum.
they show no
of their
The scope
Their construction
FROM
600
B.C.
TO ABOUT
540
B.C.
99
Unfortunately
all
are weathered
But
and
it is
it is
clear
of
difficult to detect
enough
that the
square block of stone has kept its squareness. The arms and
frames of the chairs or thrones on which these ceremonious
is definitely
indicated
by the
rubbing with stone. Nor was the claw used even in the
of the series, No. B. 280. Here the statue remains
definitely unfinished and without any final stage of rubbing.
latest
Herodotus,
vi.
n,
12.
MARBLE SCULPTURE
loo
The marks
IN
THE ROUND
of a small
flat chisel,
punch, the
final detail
with
a rubber of stone.
The
implications of this
flat
chisel
work
throw a considerable
light
this
1928-30),
7=1 and
1.
Heraeum
in
Heraeum
at
2.
similar figure to
chiton in the same
3.
left
foot slightly
forward.
4.
figure similar to
weathered.
From
6.
A bust in Naxian
FIG. 38.
FIG 39
This
is
Museum.
Scale
i /i
by abrasion
No. 619,
FROM
7.
8.
600
B.C,
TO ABOUT
540
B.C.
101
of the tripod
was supported by
close one.
The
statues have a
As
an artistic point of view. The general effect is one of swiftlycut sweeping lines of drapery of very great elegance. These
are undoubtedly all works of art of a distinguished type,
bearing the imprint of a kind of clear-cut abstract treatment
of line and mass that is quite unusual. It is important to see
exactly
how this
effect
was arrived
at.
In this group one is struck at once by the fact that here the
style is largely controlled by, if not indeed created by, the
technique. An artist or a group of artists of great inventive
ability discovered that the cutting of bold striations in
The
Naxos, as
we have
MARBLE SCULPTURE
102
IN
THE ROUND
trade
in
emery-stone for
all
purposes.
Naxos
we
Now
means of a
will suffer
FROM
600
B.C.
TO ABOUT
540
B.C.
103
deepen the
which
would
line or
his native
iron.
Nor can
style.
Its
importance
is
is
nearly
at-
tractive. Peloponnesians,
athletics,
make
MARBLE SCULPTURE
io4
IN
THE ROUND
Consequently, in contradistinction to the work of the NaxianSamian group, it will be a priori likely that form will control
technique rather than technique form.
And this, in fact, proves to be the case.
A representative group
Heraeum
Olympia.
The
The
It is
Corfiote pediment.
twin statues of Kleobis and Biton from Delphi.
not possible to add to the number, since relief
work is derived.
It
a background.
The head of
Hera
is
century, but even though this may be so, it has the qualities
of the advanced style of the early sixth century and is not
retrospective in character. Most recent views, indeed, tend
to place it at the turn of the century, almost at 600. 1
early
H. Payne,
Necrocorinthia, p. 235.
FROM
600
B.C.
TO ABOUT
540
B.C.
105
show the
This head, with its wide staring eyes and flat facial surface,
falls into line with the Chrysaor and the Kleobis heads. The
mouths are straight and insensible, the eyebrows uninteresting and scamped in comparison with the finely grooved
Attic brows. But it is of no little interest to find that the
eyeball is cut with a cutting-compass. This tends at once to
place the conception of the face, as these Peloponnesian
sculptors saw it, more on a level with pattern-making than on
that of a realistic conception. For the Attic poros faces are
in some small degree quite definitely representational. In
contrast the Peloponnesian artist is not interested in faces as
is perceptible for a
long period in
the development of Greek sculpture as a whole. And, in the
same way, the hair is patiternized and there is no attempt in
the
mouth
earliest Attic
Peloponnesian style.
The cutting-compass
work from
B.CJH. 1907, pi. 21. This small and lovely Attic head is now in the
at Thebes. Its eyes are compass-cut, but the face is so individual
Museum
that the tendency to pattern-making does not destroy its charm. In all probability this head is a dedication by one of the Alkmaeonidae or Peisistratidae,
io6
MARBLE SCULPTURE
IN
THE ROUND
In the Hera head the eyes are large and staring and exwith a compass, in the
pressionless. They recur, cut again
Chrysaor of the Corfiote pediment. Here, too, is the same
mouth and the same eyebrows, rapidly cut and without much
care. The mouth is heavy and expressionless and ends
abruptly against the cheeks at each corner.
we have
Hera
But western
Olympian
with such
fatal facility.
Eleian or Corfiote
The
Peloponnesian, Corinthian,
FIG. 40.
KORE, No.
Museum.
FROM
600
B.C.
TO ABOUT
540
B.C.
107
these works, used the greatest of all the sculptor's tools the
punch to the greatest possible effect, and cut the detail,
such as
it
the west.
sculptures that
detail
it
way, and, more strikingly still, the groove that divides the
thighs beneath the genitals is as clearly abraded as is the
groove between the legs of a Cycladic idol. In clear contradistinction the mouth, formalized to a geometric pattern, is
cut only with a flat chisel. This can be seen in the accompanying diagram, where the corners are seen to be simple triangles
and the lips themselves flat surfaces. So, too, with the mouth
MouM"> of Hera
Mout-h oF Kfeobis
mouth of
Kleobis.
The mouth
of Chry-
is less lively
heavy
style of
mouth
in Peloponnesian sculpture
cit.,
pp.
4 ff.
is
seen at
MARBLE SCULPTURE
io8
IN
THE ROUND
found
Of
forehead curls of Kleobis. But the thin lines on the hair seem
to have
Hera
are likewise
The
vertical lines
on the polos
In the Corfu pediment there is no consistent use of abrasive, and it seems to alternate with the ordinary flat chisel for
detailed work without any clear preference. The sandal
The
artist clearly
The
is
dull
life
an
This contrast shows in brief the precise difference between the two main groups. It was a difference which was
brought about mainly by the different importance attached
by the
artists to
And
so ultimately the
Sculpture in Attica.
B.S.A. xxvi,
pis. 1 8-20.
FROM
600
B.C.
TO ABOUT
540
B.C.
109
methods and
New
change.
among
the
sixth-century korai,
break with the seventh-century traditions that controlled the
figures that
An
earliest
marble
all
is
in grey
Hymettan
The
is
Attic, in so far as
we are able to
More clearly,
we might
No.
50, p. 88.
MARBLE SCULPTURE
no
IN
THE ROUND
what might almost be called mint condition. Probably it stood under cover after its dedication, and the eighty
years or so during which it was seen and admired before it
from the Acropolis
finally was buried in the rubbish cleared
after the Persian catastrophe, seem to have done it no harm.
It has hardly any traces of weathering, and its lines and details are as fresh as when they were first cut. I know of no
wise
is
in
more
The flat
chisel.
facial detail,
as far as can
used.
ABC
and
Gouges
the surface.
and used
Gouge
boldly.)
FIG 41.
The
arch-shaped locks of hair on the right of the photograph were cut ^\ith a
gouge This tool was used to cut the hollows of the arches, more or less at right
angles to the marble.
Scale 1/1.
FIG. 42.
plain
Museum, with
of No. 679
i /i
This
FROM
600
B.C.
TO ABOUT
540
in
B.C.
The
'bull
The simple
drill.
Its
dimensions
is
is
no drill-work at
which
as yet a tool
Abrasive
are done by a
at the sides of the strip
rubbing away
which was to stand out as the girdle end (Fig. 43). It is
thus thrown into false relief by paring away the true surface
on each side. This process we have already seen in the case
of certain knife-cut primitive reliefs in soft stone (pp .35 and
68 above) at Prinias and Mycenae, and again at Sparta. It
is a method which any artist may invent at any period, but
it is not a widely-used method at any time.
Among the
korai
it is
rare.
These are the places where the certain use of these tools
No doubt they were used in other places as
well, but it would be wiser to limit ourselves to the known
can be inferred.
areas.
Dickins
Dickins, op.
cit.,
p. 159.
ii2
Moschophoros
The
marks. But nowhere, even on the basis, are there any traces
of a claw-chisel.
The
that
is
structure
Dickins to belong
'to
He
also
drill is
is
not
so.
FIG. 43.
The
BELT-ENDS
from
No
Museum.
belt
FROM
600
B.C.
TO ABOUT
540
B.C.
113
in the presence of a
position to establish
is
And
in
flat
it
fifth
drill
drill
still
MARBLE SCULPTURE
n4
IN
THE ROUND
the sculptor.
A second group
of this
common
consists of
This group
material,
and no
is
abrasives.
The justifiable
come
inference
from
when
did not
would,
I think,
much later
FROM
600
B.C.
TO ABOUT
540
B.C.
115
used together with their other tools, until after 520 B.C. And
an important conclusion.
But before we can ascertain the place and time of the
origin of the use of this instrument, it is essential to look at
this is
relief
no
relatively flat.
is
which
is
no trace of the
is
drill.
no scope
at all
The
1
frieze of the
Pelekides,
Opened, 1928;
at
Siphnian Treasury
Mv^Ta
No.
TTJS 6pqcKT|$,
Delphi
is
in such
pp. 5
ff.,
sMJahrb.
xxiii,
MARBLE SCULPTURE
ii6
high
relief that
IN
THE ROUND
very rarely.
It is
the
it is
reasonable to
more
intricate uses.
ideas
from the
It is seen in a
The approach
of influences and
new
them.
FROM
600
B.C.
TO ABOUT
540
B.C.
117
The
4.
minor
The chronology
detail of drapery.
of technique over this period
must of
necessity be without exact precision. But it seems that somewhere about 530-525 the drill began to be used. During
the ensuing quarter of a century its use increases, as will be
seen later. The claw-chisel remains a difficult tool to date.
Its traces are not seen on unfinished areas of works of the
first half of the century and, while instances to the contrary
may be discoverable, it seems likely that it was not much
it
at all.
effect,
century.
7.
No. 679
is
n8
effective
demand
new
attitudes
after
550
we
technique. But at first the older methods were still used and
the higher relief was achieved merely by an elaboration of
the old technical processes. The last group dealt with above
was achieved without recourse to any new tools.
But now the new demands for higher relief and new effects
at last introduced a new tool
the simple drill. This instru-
as
all
of
period at
The
(1)
auger-drill, used like a bradawl by hand-pressure
and hand-revolution. Small shallow holes could be rapidly
cut by
it.
The carpenter's
(2)
at
any pace
FROM
600
B.C.
TO ABOUT
540
B.C.
119
and propeller.
(3) The bow-drill. There might be several variants of this,
but the principle is that which revolves the 'propeller
shaft' of the drill not with a crank, but by means of a wheel
or its equivalent which was structurally part of the main
shaft itself. Round this wheel, which was grooved, there
was run a string or strand of gut attached to a bow. By
holding the bow in the hand and pulling it backwards and
forwards, the gut would revolve the wheel of the 'propeller'
and so the drilling end would turn backwards and forwards
at a very great speed, so giving an enormous penetrative
shaft
power.
A competent artist could either use the bow in one hand
and hold the drilling point on to its objective with the
working the bow at will, or else he could concentrate all his energy on directing the drilling point and
other, so
leave the manipulation of the bow to his assistant. Gemcutters, since they used relatively small bow-drills, could
gem
(Fig. 81).
As
in Brit.
New
120
MARBLE SCULPTURE
IN
THE ROUND
no
difficulty to
FIG. 44.
is
obtained by a vertical
drill
shaft.
This
drill
FROM
was known
600
B.C.
TO ABOUT
as a sculptors
tool
in
540
B.C.
Italy in the
121
i3th
century.
It
3904
V
MARBLE SCULPTURE IN THE ROUND FROM
ABOUT 540 B.C. TO ABOUT 475 B.C.
of the
Early use of drill. A large and interesting group
korai of Attica can be assembled in which the use of the
drill can be seen, not merely for occasional undercuts or
incidental detail, but for the
detail
of drapery. Nos. 615, 680, 681, 682, 684, and 694 are the
best examples, though by no means the only korai to exhibit
the use of this tool.
Of these No* 682 is certainly the earliest. It is in the full
It is also one of the largest of
style of the island sculpture.
the korai.
drill
drapery and sparingly even for that. Possibly more than one
drill was used, but the only drill that can be safely reconstructed from the extant drill-holes measures in diameter
'Attic-Ionic', that
As such
period 525-
500.
No. 681
in Athens under the regime of their enemies the Peisistratidae. Nor is it likely that Antenor would have carved a group
if he had been a protege of the tyrants. The
must be remembered that the drill-hole is inevitably larger than the
drill in diameter, and further allowance must be made for the axial swing of
the drill, used by hand, which tends to make the drill-hole conical in shape.
The diameter of the end of the hole is alone a criterion by which to estimate
of Tyrannicides
1
It
drill.
FIG. 45.
KORE BY ANTENOR, m
Museum.
the Acropohs
FIG. 46.
The
Scale
Ak
and numerous.
FROM ABOUT
in
diameter thus
it is
no
^B.
drill is
same time
used by the sculptor as these two. No. 684 can hardly date
much before 510 and may indeed be as late as 500.
In No. 694, a torso of Nike, which can be considered as
124
of
drill
1
smaller drills as well.
notable example from outside Attica of sculpture in which the same type of heavy drill is used as that seen
The most
Temple
neath folds.
The mouth
on the Gor-
cleared
and
also generally
on the drapery.
The
very large
meter
^B.
The holes
1
The central
fold at the back of the Antenor kore has been hollowed
out with a smaller drill measuring 5 mm. in diameter. Three holes made by
it are clearly seen inside the fold.
2
Hinted but not stated by Poulsen, Delphi, p. 154.
pi.
La
xiv
FROM ABOUT
540
B.C.
TO ABOUT
475
B.C.
125
The
The
The
The
same way
The
as the
rest is abraded.
towards a
flatter style in
it
the style.
from
Ibid. (left).
all alike
Ibid, (centre).
126
drill.
1
in the Barracco Collection, also falls into this group.
But if the drill was definitely abandoned for a time, as a
now
where
it is
so used
Olym-
on the head
is
also
On
the
hair of the Seer (Fig. 48).
think that this usage of the drill
is more
frequent with
with
is no trace
than
for
there
Attic,
Peloponnesian sculptors
of such drill-work in head No. 698, which is contemporary
is
a question which
demands a
No.
show
its
use.
Thus
his
2,
Bliimel,
fig.
16.
and
feel
con
it is
seen
FIG 47.
The
has been extensively used for undercutting the drapery. The vertical
lines of drapery, on the other hand, are rendered by simple abrasion, the
'fading-off of the lines at the top is characteristic of this technique.
drill
Scale 1/5.
FIG. 48.
'SEER'
AT OLYMPIA
FROM ABOUT
540
B.C.
TO ABOUT
475
B.C.
127
Its characteristic
now
It is also clear
enough
Ottoman Museum
3, a
at Istan-
Branchidae figures.
tool of east
Greek
It
may
At Athens the
128
MARBLE SCULPTURE
IN
THE ROUND
by Michelangelo
have been not unlike b above, but not quite so fine. Still it
is of no little interest that Michelangelo employed, unknowclaw-chisels.
ingly, the Greek method of using two
So far as any generalization is safe in the matter of the
claw-chisel, I should feel inclined to say that it did not come
into use until shortly after 550 B.C., but that, once in use,
it
only.
An
typical chisel-work.
FROM ABOUT
540
B.C.
TO ABOUT
475
B.C.
129
is
The hair of
masterpieces of the Olympian pediments.
the 'Strangford Apollo' and similar figures suggests the
influence of the bronzeworker's burin and solid gouge
(see below, pp.
230
ff.).
common
may
3904
i3
MARBLE SCULPTURE
IN
THE ROUND
in bronze.
manner. Nor
is
That it
could be independently devised at a time when there was no
bronzework at all in large sculpture is clear enough from the
instance of the angel at Rheims whose forehead is fringed
and so
derivative
original.
and so belonging
moulding.
Greeks were too good
it is
the
artists to
more
carving is
those things in which the moulder was for the
moment
turned carver,
The
At this point
it is
important to realize
the part which abrasion and the flat chisel
respectively take
in the cutting of deep grooves of
drapery, such as are particularly evident in the larger korai that fall into the beginning
of this period.
cutting of grooves.
FROM ABOUT
540
B.C.
TO ABOUT
475
B.C.
131
itself,
clearly those
on the
by Schrader
in 1907, The part that concerns us, the lower left leg, is in
excellent surface condition. The drapery over the leg, which
by Dickins
to the
Tull
We must
(a)
(&)
By
using the
flat chisel
main hollow of
1
Archaische
Schrader.
Mannarskulpturen,
fig.
x 32
This method
instrument.
is
best understood
from the
following diagram:
of-
SECT'ON
Stage
I.
Stage
fffffffjrffff
qroove robec
fffffjriffffil fffejrffirfff ,
,
II.
chisel.
when
method. After
over the
time. It
at
almost
all
periods
down
to
would be
it
would
Schrader
FROM ABOUT
as Schrader suggests,
it is difficult to
corner where
to see here a
statues
up
all
could penetrate easily into the top corner without any risk
of overrunning the mark. And its cutting power, assuming
it to have been made of emery, would have been far greater
We have thus
abrasive
latter
method seems
to have
come
Use of drill in the early fifth century. As time went on, however, and, in the early years of the fifth century, as sculptors
began to experiment with the new tools which had been
fifth
work
from
(as in the
mouth
flat chisel
for
134
MARBLE SCULPTURE
THE ROUND
IN
The use
much
can be
quate or slow.
flat chisel.
series of drill-holes
before
its
is
is
illustrates
how
a groove can be
- Ar ea
qroove
Sraqe
^
rr-
--
TJT
~i,\,
^rr-
~ ...,1
._
*-
mad/by drill
"
e
sa affer he holes msde
?L
by drill have been pned up
l
Ashmole, J
18-20.
FROM ABOUT
540
B.C.
TO ABOUT
475
B.C.
135
The
seen in
and seems
in the early
fifth century, in lighter drapery the older and, to some
methods and
those in vogue when the flat chisel was the primary tool is
best seen by comparing the drapery of the latter and restored
clarity of the
drapery
VI
SCULPTURE IN RELIEF
Greek sculpture
make. Nor should I pretend
that any which I have made hitherto in this book will stand
the strain of too close an application. Yet some kind of
classification must be essential to serve as a basis for research, and I shall at no time demand from any which may
be made here a greater certainty than can be claimed for any
working scientific hypothesis, for in the long run that is all
that a classification can be.
distinctions
RGID
are notoriously
and
classifications in
difficult to
distinction
By
its
of perhaps
the
manner of a
has a height
while retaining the
relief that
fact,
two
artist
the
same
cases.
SCULPTURE IN RELIEF
137
The former
will of necessity
produce an
effect of strictly
Contrast
them with
the proud horses, heads raised and tails waving, of the west
frieze and the difference is clear. Here the wings of the
horses are deliberately used to flatten out the whole scene,
by stating explicitly a front and a back plane, whereas the
lion
realistic.
Formal
artists, I
'flat'
style: realists
SCULPTURE IN RELIEF
i 38
rounded.
Now
which,
merely in
detail
is
this true
only of
mere coincidence
it
Nike Temple,
of the sculptor.
The
the following
list
known works
Maximum
Lamptrai Basis (Nat. Mus. Athens)
Athletes Basis (Nat. Mus. Athens)
depth of relief.
.0-2 cm.
.0-6 cm.
cm.
Hermes and Nymphs relief (No. 702, Acrop. Mus.) 2-5 cm.
Aristion Stele (Nat. Mus. Athens)
cm.
from
Tomb
Xanthos
2-8
cm.
(Brit. Mus.)
Sphinx
Hydra Pediment (Acrop. Mus. Athens)
.3*0 cm.
Laconian Stele (Berlin)
-3*5 cm.
Sunium Athlete (Nat. Mus. Athens)
3-5 cm.
Spartan four-sided stele (Sparta)
4/0 cm.
Harpy Tomb (Brit. Mus. London)
.4-0 cm.
Runner
stele
Mus.
Hoplite
(Nat.
Athens)
4-2 cm.
Cattle
Raiders
Sikyonian Treasury,
(Delphi)
7-0 cm.
Argo (Delphi)
19-5 cm.
Siphnian Treasury frieze (Delphi)
7-2 cm.
12-0 cm.
Treasury of Athens metopes (Delphi)
.
1-3
.27
It will
series a definite
when
edges of low
relief.
The
Sikyonian
reliefs
SCULPTURE IN RELIEF
139
The
emerged
into a
wholly
is
left
the tradition of
flat relief.
The
artist in
a sense
transition.
is
The
relief
the more he
must carve with the full series of the sculptors' tools, since
he is approaching nearer to sculpture in the round. A relief
as low as that of the Athletes Basis could not be achieved
with a point, however fine, since the depth accessible is less
than the depth given by the moderate stroke of a mallet on
the butt of a pointed punch. And it must be remembered
that the depth of the carvings on the three sides of this relief
is mostly below the figure given in the above list. The use
of a flat chisel seems to have been compulsory in this kind
of work, on purely technical grounds. On rare occasions the
sculptors 'love of the punch persisted even in low relief. Thus
the warrior's hair
on the Aristion
relief is
pointed with a
punch.
These conclusions are based on inferences from the existing facts, not on hypotheses as to the nature of relief. They
SCULPTURE IN RELIEF
I 4o
except for detail. For here we find whole reliefs cut with
no other tool but the flat chisel at a time when sculpture in
the round avoided the flat chisel as far as it was possible to
The
main
thesis is perfectly
correct if applied only to sculpture in the round. It fails in
avoid
it.
the matter of
relief.
referred to.
The Hydra
with
its
group shows
marble at the end of its run. A chiselsmoothed plane surface therefore is bound to show a series
of these 'digs', unless, of course, it has been subsequently
smoothed with a stone. The plane surfaces of the Athletes
Basis have never been smoothed with a stone and their
carved surfaces likewise are unrubbed. Almost any square
inch of the plane surface of the background shows these
chisel digs into the
Op.
cit.,
pp.
1 2 if.
began and its traces can be seen on the upper framework of the reliefs.
This is true of all low relief of the second half of the 6th
century. The claw
chisel was used for preparing the ground, but not for
any part of the actual
sculpture. The Aristion Relief shows this very clearly.
SCULPTURE IN RELIEF
141
use and structure, does not dig into the marble at the end
The dimensions of the flat chisel used on the
of a stroke.
The
only in diameter.
On a priori grounds
made
at a
1
The 'Hockey Basis' is also chisel-cut throughout, but the whole surface
has been finished by careful and subtle abrasion with a stone.
SCULPTURE IN RELIEF
4a
was
used, should still have adhered to the mannerism of woodwork. It is a masterpiece of an artist who knew both the
was the dominant
art
trick of abrasion
stone
is
out by
is not so clearly observed to-day, but it is worth remark that
Eric Gill, whose work in wood is of a high order, works in
soft stones
flat chisel
whose
marbles
stones.
exceeds 6 cm* in depth, there is not much scope for the use
The drill cannot be used for any artistic
of other tools.
No
trace of
it
figures, it
The
claw-chisel,
used for
SCULPTURE IN RELIEF
143
fifth
not therefore
from time
The
common, though
to time.
low
relief
was to
manner of a
work
stele
is,
like
the others of
its
thus
more formal
detail
its
of its use
SCULPTURE IN RELIEF
I44
remember more
You
will
I think, in the
style.
it
how
his
drawing
FIG. 50.
The whole
figure has
in the
Ottoman
Istanbul.
Early
fifth century.
SCULPTURE
IN RELIEF
145
sometimes with
have in
is
low
Museum
relief of
rise
relief the
merge
into
To
lost.
round the
right shoulder and neck, the left leg (which is the inner leg,
and so only just in relief), and the left arm all show this
groove more clearly than in the rest of the figure. The same
desire to emphasize what might be otherwise lost in the
background leads many centuries later to a violent abuse of
the same process with the aid of the running-drill. In late
Roman sarcophagi, where the design is in moderately low
or very low relief, the running-drill is used, like a stylus, and
traced round every important element and sometimes quite
unimportant details of the design. The result from close at
Halil
Edhem and M.
pi. vi.
2
For very
3904
clear
SCULPTURE IN RELIEF
i 46
and the
relief
The clawed
The depth
surface
of the relief
relief,
is
everywhere
is
technical diagnosis.
Hitherto the distinction
never been
clear
sarkophag von S. Lorenzo, Jahrbuch, 1930, fig. 31 (a flat design) and other
instances in figs. 33, 34, 35. It is not used in high relief of the period: see
fig1
55-
SCULPTURE IN RELIEF
147
it
is
doubtful
and technique
if artists
in the
maintained the
two types of
relief.
VII
BRONZEWORK
SHALL
deal here mainly with full-scale bronzes. Consequently this chapterwill be a short one,sincethe number
small.
unsolved..
headings
BRONZEWORK
alike,
however
149
obscure
it,
the
that
monument was
it
might be
for
erected to
artificial.
The
contrast between
irfvos
or
16$ and the lovely blue patina was merely a contrast between
a newly tarnished surface of bronze, such as the speakers had
seen on the surfaces of their domestic bronze furniture and
objects of use, and a surface which had undergone a chemical
change during several centuries. The former would be black
or dull, the latter coloured and bright. But the discussion,
pointless though it may be to us, led to the further inquiry
dppo-
i5
BRONZEWORK
whether ancient masters deliberately used any preparation as a patina for their bronzes. The argument in the end
as to
From this most interesting passage we are entitled to conclude that artificial patination in the centuries before Plutarch
was not a practice sufficiently widespread to be known to the
appears as a mere conjecture, an hypothesis in an argument. On the whole we should be justified
ancients.
For here
it
all.
a definite
simple.
Richter, loc.
dyopccv6jiou$.
cit. oircos
6fc
xcxOapos lou
EGTTCCI
<3cv5pi&$
BRONZEWORK
artificial patination.
artists
have their
This
own
is
151
Many
interested, leave
and, fine
artist
But bronze
still
sister of the
metal-workers.
The
BRONZEWORK
i S2
have been kept clean. Probably this was in fact done, for,
if the statue of Zeus at Olympia was handed over to the
charge of the descendants of Pheidias who were named the
'Burnishers of the Statue', 1 it is highly improbable that the
statues in the rest of the sanctuary
The
fullest patination
may be
as
It is
we have
we
that
the
The
have
the
artist.
lain at the
athlete,
and a surpris-
Pans. v. 15.5. They were known as the OcnSpuvrcrf. The name of 'one
of Imperial Roman times is preserved at Olympia. See N. Gardiner,
Olympia,
p, 109.
2
Richter, op.
cit.,
p. xxxi, gives
some
BRONZEWORK
number of
153
ingly large
their resting-place with their bronze but slightly altered and
without that great depth of fine malachite patination which
bronze.
original artist.
Oxidization
is
enemy of
made was
that
known
No
known
is
1
Cf.Anth.Pal.idv.z.
BRONZEWORK
i S4
Egyptians had
little
Samian
artists
We
men
mind
ventive turn of
Whichever of the three made the invention of bronze casting for large bronzes is of no material importance. But that
it began in Samos there seems little reason to doubt, and that
it began in the middle or soon after the second half of the
Nor
is certain.
viii.
14. 8.
Op.
cit.
i.
BRONZEWORK
155
Diod.
i.
98.
Paus.
ix. 10. 2.
BRONZEWORK
56
words
seems
Apollo to the minor temple at Thebes, while the more expensive bronze was sent to Miletus. Wooden original models
would in any case be sought for and so have a market value.
was
istic
of Greeks.
'
bronzes must be from clay originals or from waxen surfaces. The word 'plastic', which is so freely thrown about
all
whenever a bronze is under discussion, must now be abandoned if Kluge's views on sixth-century bronzes are
acceptable. For such bronzes are hardly 'plastic' at all.
They are reproductions of carved originals in which all the
qualities of wood-carving are visible. I must confess that it
would be impossible to say at a glance whether the surfaces
of the Piombino youth or the Acropolis bronze head 2 would
preclude them from being cast from wooden models On the
.
on the scalp on the left side of the head as cuts made on the
wooden model which have been reproduced in the casting.
1
As
p. 37
in the
and PL
Rekhmere
xviii.
pictures.
2
De
BRONZEWORK
157
BRONZEWORK
Z5 8
But
it is
not
my intention here
main
The
fluous.
my
gouge. In
this respect
and to
as 'plastic' even though, when done by the dre-perdue process, they are based on an original of soft and plastic material.
The problems here discussed concern rather the final
processes on the cast bronze and the ways in which the roughcast figure
was
finished.
The
no
original
in clay,
if desired. 2
In this connexion
it is
Richter, op.
Pernice, loc.
cit.,
cit.
jff.
BRONZEWORK
159
is
On
Two
workers, one of whom, by the distinctive sign of his Hephaestean hat, may be the artist himself, are scraping the bronze
surfaces of the legs with strigil-shaped rasps. The statue
itself is
bears to the
it
men.
On the other half of the vase is seen a studio and furnaceroom combined. Here the artist himself is watching the
furnace while two assistants are near him, one also watching
the furnace and holding a hammer while the other is working
Dn a male figure whose arms have just been attached and
whose head lies on the floor ready for fixture. Kluge 3 suggests that he is actually about to release the molten metal
rom the oven into the mould the most exciting moment of
iie whole process. The third assistant behind is working the
:
jarts
if.,
3
BRONZEWORK
160
bellows and looking anxiously round the oven to see how the
metal flows. The statue in this case is of normal size and is
held against a block or support of wood or rough material.
The hands
of the figure seem to have been attached separof feet or models for
ately, and on the wall hang a spare pair
this
a
of
them, presumably for statue
type. It seems possible
man. 1
On the walls
will
be
discussed below.
The fragment
of the Athena
artist.
is
is
seated
It is true that
recorded at this
fifth
is
we
cannot dogmatize as to
my attention
Ss
"
CO
2
Q
CU
O |
* a
CD
"g
<!
-^
1 1
BRONZEWORK
the Artemisium Zeus no figure of
161
is
it
To
her right is apparently the master of the bronzeworkers, with his Hephaestean cap hung on the wall behind
him, together with his tools.
What we know for certain, even if questions of patina and
structure and casting are not settled beyond dispute, is that
foe surface of a
left
in
the condition in
surface, as
lid.
bronze head of a
work.
'Hellenistic
3904
Richter, Sculpture
and
BRONZEWORK
!62
is
patched
at
The
Florentine 'archaic'
the back. 2
without them, and they do not seem to occur after the fifth
century. Unlike silver lips they can be looked on as realistic.
is
as is generally
BRONZEWORK
163
believed, always
may equally have been a reddish
copper. Eyebrows, as in the case of the Artemisium Zeus,
where they are preserved intact, could certainly be in silver,
and it can be argued from examples such as this that silver
was used for the lips, but the argument is not a sure one. The
horse found in the sea near Artemisium has a mouth and
tongue, separately cast in copper, to contrast with the colour
silver.
It
of the bronze.
The most important process to which a bronze was submitted after coming from the foundry was the detailed engraving of facial hair and of the hair on the head. Quite as
much
skill
as the
artist put into the original wax. But with the cast bronze the
work was of a totally different character. The artist had to
work on the cold metal with tools, gravers, and burins, which
ploughed grooves and furrows. This required a steady
hand and a detailed knowledge of caelatura. Whether it was
done by the sculptor of the statue itself is uncertain.
employed for painting statues made by
1
sculptors, and it is equally possible that metal-workers of
eminence were called in to work on bronzes. Engravers and
sculptors in any case worked together. Often a sculptor was
also an engraver. 2 Certainly workers in gold and silver of the
eminence of those who made the superb silver-gilt kylix and
3
omphalos cup found at Bashova Mogila or the silver-gilt
horns from Trebenishte 4 might have helped in any of the
work in which the knowledge of a metal-worker was specifically required. At the same time, the fashioning of the hair
of a bronze may be the particular detail in which the statue
all
Painters were
achieves
1
its
Richter, Metropolitan
Museum
Studies, I.
i.
major
p. 25.
Kalamis had repute as a metal-chaser (Pliny 34. 47), Boethos also worked
in silver (ibid. 34. 84), while Skymnos, a silver-engraver, was a pupil of
Kritios the sculptor.
3
Filow and Welkow, Jahrb., 1930, Pis. 8 and 9, and p. 281 ff.
Filow and Shkorpil, Die archaische Nekropole von Trebenischte
Ochndasee, 192,7.
4
am
BRONZEWORK
164
it seems probable
part of his energy to hair. Consequently
that the main working of the already moulded outlines of the
hair
artist
The main
structure
afterwards.
The
eighth of an inch or about 0-3 cm. The finer lines, less than
this relatively great depth, are done mainly by hand-pressure,
worn away
by hammer
former are continuously smooth along the cut faces and need
no subsequent clearing, while the latter show at regular
BRONZEWORK
165
who
by bronzeworkers
The
is
so small
BRONZEWORK
i66
Greek love of
artists
K1V5UVV|JLOC.
PART
II
PART II
THE TOOLS AND METHODS USED IN ANTIQUITY
VIII
T)ARADOXICALLY
any
it
No reader of
faults in the
marble
(op.
cit.,
p. 52).
i7o
summarize
all
and finishing
wood. The
The
is
above down into the cave. It is extremely difficult to photograph, but the illustration here given, though taken from an
angle (Fig. 55), is as accurate a version of it as it is possible
to get. Here a sculptor, probably Archedemos himself, is
and
waist,
consequently
See
A .J.A,
ff.
FIG. 55.
Hymettus.
say which
is
171
spectator's right
is
what
a.
1
'Apx5cc|Jio$
ho
first
tool to
be used in
9pot5ocTcn
i 72
it
flake
is
thus
FIG. S 6.
Traces of
gradual slowing-down process is necessary.
pointed hammer work are to be seen on most unfinished
statues.
in the Thasian Kriophoros (see Fig. 60) and on the unfinished colossi in the quarries at Naxos. 2 Sometimes the long
common
may
The
o-<pupoc
Blumel,
pis. 3
and 4 and
fig. 14.
173
To judge from
hammer
in his
_r\
relief bears to
some 20 cm.
in length.
the Metropolitan Museum at New York, 3 a dedication of a sculptor, and another of the same type is seen on
relief in
Hdt.
i.
68.
Bliimel, p. 48,
Unpublished.
vi.
205
Anth. Pal.
fig. 12.
174
flat chisel
appear side by
sid(
the
chiselling the
to
be an urn.
is
in supposing
sculptors' instruments which may justify us
that throughout the Greek period the mallet was of this
wood
more
rarely
call
detail of
design or
decoration,
this is
To
He
punch.
chisel.
punch
rounded
a
1
effect.
He
FIG. 60.
Thasian crystalline marble. The front is unfinished and shows the marks of the
punch and hammer over the face, neck, and breast, and on the ram. There is
no chisel-work.
175
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
below, p. 185).
or unfinished sculpture show clearly these marks. 1
1
See Blumel,
pis. 5, 6, 8,
n,
12.
A close
176
medium and
certain
(see below, p. 236).
of
the
stone
crystalline structure
undamaged.
The
was the
of the Parthenon
How
owe to the
to say, since there are so few unor unweathered surfaces to examine. But it is
smoothed
if
the
flat chisel
2 I
statement.
FIG. 61.
(Louvre)
FIG. 62.
This
is
Museum
Acropolis
solely
by means of a punch,
/i.
177
mode
down
between the
much
the
the
flat chisel.
Nor
is it likely
o^iAti
that
can be
3904
Aa
i 78
word
is
evidently used to
is
no name
interesting tool.
Since the
rectangular squares.
individing lines are
V-shaped
c
c
cisions filed into the surface of the
each come to a
sharp head. The flat surface is therefore transformed into a
surface which consists of a series of small pyramids each of
which ends in a point. The flat surface when struck on the
plane surface of stone or marble thus makes a series of sharp
indentations corresponding with the points of metal. In
effect the boucharde is a multiple punch, and must therefore
be classed with punches both on account of its structure and
on account of the resulting marks made on the stone. .But,
unlike the simple punch, the multiple points cannot penetrate
deep into the stone hardly more than half their actual depth
metal,
the
it
maximum
Op.
cit.,
p. 5.
179
The marks of this tool can be detected only from very close
inspection. Where a series of parallel marks are seen to
form a patch composed of
dots, as
opposed to the
parallel
common, and
it
tool in
Greek times. Egyptians, on the other hand, used it extensively for working over and wearing down the surface of
granite. It is essentially a tool for use on hard stones only.
As such, a
coarser version of
it is
stonemasons in their treatment of granite surfaces. Sculptors to-day value this tool for the control it gives, especially
in the final stages of shaping a surface. If a surface is
thought by the sculptor to be in need of reduction he will
The
tapping
the
reduces
stone
surface
to
which
dust,
gradually
process
fills up the interstices of the boucharde, making it necessary
periodically to clean it. It stuns the surface of marble to an
certainty.
brief
appreciable extent, but far less than a punch.
smoothing with stone will remove the stunned area and get
down
See Bltunel, p. 5
i8o
The
reason
is,
simply enough,
[L
is
that
flat chisel
in prehistoric times
there
is
clear,
the
flat chisel
tools with discretion (see Sculpture and Sculptors, ist ed., Figs. 440 and 441).
The so-called chisel in Fig. 440 is an unusual type of punch; the four tools on
left in Fig.
What
181
work
all
stone with
flat
chisel
was used
to
in all
>
chisel.
But the chisel, like all tools that strike an oblique stroke,
works more rapidly than an instrument such as a punch.
Ten strokes of a flat chisel will remove as much material as
a hundred from a small punch. It is only natural therefore
to expect that the flat chisel will increase in use as the
demand for sculpture increases. The tremendous output
The domination
The
is
most marked.
demand
The
i8a
show
that,
with the
drill, it
if it is
it
ever achieve an
also
'<
other works.
FIG. 65.
lines of the drapery are done solely with the flat chisel. The
uncertainty of line of the lowest fold on the right is characteristic chisel-work
and every plane surface shows chisel marks No abrasive has been employed
The
surfaces
and
at
Scale
any point.
From a
i /i.
cast.
FIG. 66.
flat chisel
The
outlining also of the figure is clearly seen. The width of the chisel can be
accurately determined from the marks behind the head and shoulders of the
athlete.
Scale
i /i.
From a
cast.
flat chisel
183
As has
had been
it
largely
owing
to the
The
hair
it is
Artemisium.
1
184
known
breadth.
The
lines or furrows
in
which
it appears.
of
the o^iAtis oAKoi the chiselled
speaks
cut into a wooden surface. In the Palatine
2
Anthology Alcaeus of Mytilene in his epigram on the tomb of
the enigmatic Chilias (alias Phidis) commences with the lines
:
Ai3TiiJicci
Kara
QUJJIOV
SiaaocKi 9! {louvov
AAoyxe 7rrpo$
An
the addition of
atxiArj
as above
it
can be interpreted as
cruiATi.
A decree could not be cut with a punch, still less with a gouge
or a knife. Consequently
the meaning of
we
flat chisel
and make
it
an equivalent term
with
1
Thesmophoriazousaej 779.
429. Another form of this
knife; cf. Anth. Pal. vi. 62 and 295.
2
vii.
word
o-jjtfAcc
FIG. 67
The
hair
is
been
drilled
with a simple
The
drill.
185
question the oblique strokes are clearly seen over the entire
But a tool with so small a blade is hard
surface.
to differentiate
from a punch in
achievements.
its
7.
methods and
and
feature.
The claw-chisel.
is
came
into use
At present no evidence
century.
use
is
available.
Nor
for
its earlier
found on
stones, although in hard limeare
its
traces
sculpture in soft
stone of the Attic or Anatolian type
it
is
FIG. 68.
Claw-chisel.
usually
em-
ployed.
It is in fact a tool
3904
B b
i86
its
But
it
could
form to the
it
is
in the
Romanesque and
of a thick pasty consistency. But the claw remained throughout the Middle Ages as one of the technical tools employed.
Renaissance
chisel,
preceded the
be
filing
a V-shaped
is
used.
FIG. 69.
The upper part of the photograph shows ordinary claw-work. The lower part
shows finer claw-work done with a spike- toothed claw-chisel. From the Xanthos
Sepulchral Frieze B. 310, in the British
Scale 1/1
Museum.
187
between
fine claws
involved
much
An
enormous
much
unfinished work, as
tools. 1
In
relief
the claw
is,
relief. 2
'
1
The use of a moderately fine claw can be seen on the head of the Lapith
woman (Olympia).
2
The rule is not adhered to consistently. The Aristion Stele has a back-
ground prepared with a claw, and there are other early exceptions.
88
Monument
National
Museum
at
Huntsman
Athens.
of Thespiae, in the
But the combination of
or 'curved chisel
since
it
5
,
is
name
as unsuitable as
it is
chisel' 1
misleading,
Richter, Sculpture
and
Sculptors, p. 144.
189
At
no
all
essential reason
why
it
should be used at
all
except for
FIG. 71.
A. Gouge.
B. Bull-nosed chisel.
it
cuts.
why in the
it
sculptor's
The
the side.
flat chisel
used from
i9o
gouges designed for hard stones are of this type and Greek
gouges were no exception. Every gouge-mark I have
examined has been made by a gouge which had a very flat
curve.
am inclined to
and that
it
down one
am
me that for working on marble the V-shaped gouge proves
tell
be almost impracticable.
to
own corners.
Work done with
its
flat, is
Nike;
of the
it is
last
It is clear that in
ripples
191
by grooves.
Almost every kore of the island type (Dickins's 'Chiot'
the use either of the gouge or of the 'bullstyle) exhibits
nosed chisel' (see p. 192 below) in some part. The most
extensive use of a gouge
is
cut.
\U
times
V-bladed tool
used on the very fresh surface of the miniature head No. 641 in the Acropolis Museum, where each
stroke of the tool has carried it about 0-8 cm. But, as explained
above, a very narrow flat chisel may equally have been used.
On the front hair of the same head the gouge (or small flat
chisel) has been used at right-angles to the stone, producing
this is possibly
These ripples on soft drapery are probably intended to suggest the close
folds caused by washing and drying. See Dickins, p. 44.
92
Very heavy gouges are sometimes used to make the transverse hollows of waving locks these are sometimes ordinary
;
The Bull-nosed
Chisel.
The
is
FIG. 72.
(i)
(z)
by:
on the left),
Both
FIG. 73.
tools
at the
BRONZE-WORKER'S TOOLS,
at the top.
from a Kylix
in the
Ashmolean Museum.
In order from left to right they are3. Small straight rasp 4. Small
i.
Strigil rasp.
strigil
rasp. 5.
2.
Long
193
made by both
gouge.
The
is
strokes of the
striations
One important
guishes
it
peculiarity of the
cc
194
it
sharpenings.
It is
very
difficult to distinguish
of metal
and action
is
the same in
both
Stone abrasives can be used for several separate processes.
They can be used to cut, to hollow, to smooth, to polish, and
The high
as
shiny polish so
is
obtained
from Egypt.
195
was known
What is important
i 96
Ikaria as well as
on the mainland
Emery
FIG. 74.
Sculptors finishing a colossal seated statue from the
frescoes of the tomb of Rekhmere of the ith century B.C. The
:
man in front
brief
distinguish it at once from the inferior mineral.
search in an emery quarry would provide a sculptor with
hammer, could
197
or butt-ends
kind.
in
employ tools of emery for many purposes. They are used for
engraving detail, for rubbing grooves, and for final smoothing. The Dipylon head in the National Museum at Athens
is a perfect example of marble sculpture which has been
achieved more
p. 86).
by
abrasive than
by metal
The furrowed ridges over and under the eyes, the jaw
i 98
all
abraded.
The
hair
seems as
times.
and one feature of the Lion Gate (the division between the
supports of the Lions; see above p. 27) owes its technique
to the Cyclades.
Earlier still, Cretan stonework was worked in the
same way.
In the sixth century abrasion did not actually decline as a
method, but, on the other hand, much new detail that
abrasion could not easily accomplish could be achieved by
and the gouge, which increase in popularity
about 550 B.C. That helps to explain why statues like
those of the kore series at Athens increase in complexity of
the
flat chisel
after
How
in fact, cut
broad general
effects
were aimed
can be under-
The same
at, is
type, where
by the
illustrated
FIG 76.
Pentehc marble.
The
incision
on the
left is
Scale
/i
groove
is,
Nos.
relief.
200
mark on
visible.
show
that abrasion
no doubt
to indicate embroidery,
deeper.
The
instrument which
made
these lines
line.
A file
was a
would
But these
lines
FIG. 79.
fold*?
on the
201
Traces
Abrasion
a
smooth
surface.
of the teeth are always
gives
Abrasives used for the purpose of hollowing grooves,
smoothing ridges, deepening hollows or rounding surfaces
must have lasted a very long time in Greek sculpture. To
faceproduced.
left.
work stone with stone was a tradition which did not easily
die. It was ultimately killed by the increased demand for
sculpture, which in turn led to a speedy output. That it
lasted as late as the Parthenon sculptures is perfectly clear.
The bulk
frieze, is stoneworked.
'It is
no
it is
3904
differently finished
Dd
upon
from the
it; it is
first-rate
finished
by
'
202
From
this
it is
man, even
if
designate a stone used as an abrasive is not certain. Conceivably they used the term ^uorrjp which was also applicable
to files. Pollux in the Onomasticon, in his list of words used
1
working of statues, mentions Stcceacci, Since
it is a general term ranking with KoiAdvoct AiOov, ccvccyAvycci
and Sioronrcocrai to indicate the main processes, we can reason-
to indicate the
and 8iccuco seem to have had distinct usages and the distinction
is not quite clear. The latter is used by Aristotle in reference
to facial wrinkles, 2 which suggests that Siauco is concerned
column or of
Sic^Oo-piaTa for
word used
to describe
an abrasive
tool.
TO
The word
Acco-nfrros
used adjectively
may
also
have been
employed
10. The Simple Drill,
1
1.1.15.
the
Physiogn.3.ioan.d2.i>7.
xi.
360.
Cyr.
vi. 2. 32.
8o
FRAGMENTARY FIGURE, No
Acropohs
147 (1360),
m the
Museum
/i.
FIG. 81.
ITALIAN
GEM
TURY,
showing an
artist
THE FOURTH
CENof
using the simple bow-drill.
The
FIG. 82.
HYDRIA
in
The
carpenter
is
using a bow-drill.
203
Drill.
This
is
is
covered
The
simple
drill
move
The way
in
which the
bow
drill is
revolved
is
as follows.
The
is
cut in
Two
seen.
early
gems
are
But in neither
is it
One, recently acquired for the British Museum from the Warren Collection2 (Fig. 81), is Italian, and shows an artist or
craftsman holding the shaft of the drill with his right hand
by the top and working the bow horizontally with his left.
1
xviii.
204
His
left leg is
outstretched to hold
is
drill.
It is not clear
be seen.
The
It is
the
a sculptor.
carpenter
vase (Fig. 8a). 2
is
drill
were
drill-cut in
Mycenaean times
sixth century.
It has also been
made
clear
how the
earliest drill in
use in
sculpture was the smallest and how towards the close of the
1
fig.
a; A.
H. Smith, Cat.
p.m.
of
205
The
in diameter.
drills
common
tool
is
It
revolved
by hand.
turned with the right hand while the left holds the
on the principle of the domestic egg-beater.
shaft
The ancient equivalent of this had far less power and speed
which
is
rather
We
objects
was
when he
de-
stroyed the eye of the Cyclops! The substitute for the bow
and its action was provided by his crew hauling on a stout
assistants
206
bow-drill could be
work.
The
obliquely in motion.
Guided
it
carefully,
work of Michelangelo 4
by
holes can
make the
row of a dozen
much more easy.
2
3
of the legs.
Rhys Carpenter,
op.
cit., pi.
xxxiv. 2.
207
of the
first
time
3
2
Athena Nike'. Professor Rhys Carpenter, on the other
believes that 'the transition from the stationary to the
hand,
running-drill
of the Parapet'.
superseded
am
and
one cannot say that
master
whom
erpOTrncre,
when
Sculptors,
2nd
full use.
Richter, Sculpture
<
Op.
L *6 6
cit, p. 9-
'
'
And
208
the
drill
used
is
not the
of a restorer or toucher-up. In
Ward Head in the Louvre furrows
drill
Humphrey
made by
The marks
Ludovisi Throne.
of the running-drill
on the
public collection.
If,
more
&$ OT8
Tl$ TpUTTCp
S6pU
VTjtOV CCVTjp
TpUTTOCVCO.
It is
name
of so complicated
209
Anthology we hear
1
two
tools
were
common
both to sculptor
and to carpenter.
In gem-cutting the bow-drill and not the auger would
have been used. It must also have been used with emery
--r^
's
3904
vi.
103
cf. also
210
was
it
also
Tiryns. It
left
classic description.
When
moved about by
remained standing. When the hole reached the required depth this
cylinder was removed by some instrument, and the dowel-hole was
complete.
this
to 45
varies
from 28
mm. and
would be hard
same tubular
drill
auger
is
we
some confusion.
are dealing with hollow drills.
The
211
Deep
212
on the
The
tubular
drill
long period.
wood it is difficult to
drill
say.
is
fully
it
was used.
The
steel.
Moreover,
it is
used with a
hammer
Actually
it
lineal
descendant of the
obtained by the
hammer and
jumper
power comes from percussion and not from
Note on 'Egyptian tubular
drills.
Thanks
213
the cutting
revolution,
to Professor Sir
documented
any other
detail
were probably of 'tough uncrystallized corundum'. Diamonds were perhaps used, but their extreme rarity and their
natural absence from Egypt makes this improbable. Simple
burins with a corundum point are inferred from the cutting
of inscriptions on diorite bowls. Tubular drills with such
points
as
it
dimensions of the
drills
if
a small one, was rotated against the tools. This gives the
drill-hole a slightly conical shape. The pressure required
on a tubular drill was considerable. He calculates that a
1
The Pyramids and Temples of Gizeh, 1883, chapter vii, and Anthropo'Mechanical Methods of the Egyptians'.
2i 4
core.
From
Alreus Facade
bowl
(unfinished)
drill
No. 7 the
in
all.
to a degree far
The
a).
difference
is
that caused
drill
by a
drill
whose blade
is
FIG. 85.
No. 554,
Museum, made
of Hymettan marble'
The
i /i
215
How
it
file
1
Ashmolean Museum, No. M.
Throne-room at Knossos.
may be
^v
A
;
file is
an instrument that
one which prepares
a rasp is
a working definition only for
a surface.
J>^v
i^l\.
This
is
|>V$
none of sculptor's
files.
to
no reason
essentially from
But there
is
files.
The same must be said of rasps.
There is no evidence to show that files and
rasps were ever used in Minoan and Mycenaean
None have survived, although bronze
times.
modern
chisels,
carpenters'
tools,
are
common enough.
made
of
bronze or copper could have lasted for any appreciable length of time or for such length of
time as to achieve any work of importance. 1
The body of the file or rasp would no doubt
Nor
is
To what
the
first
to say.
Modem
3
Ended"
RES P-
deal of
1
Even
file
is
FIG. 87.
Acropolis
Two
Museum.
No final polishing
Scale i/i
217
is
used to
assist in
the
last stages
before the
appear to
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
On
many cases
in the
series,
left
unsmoothed
for the
Olympia.
It is also
Museum,
Acropolis
over the top and
filed.
The remaining
smoothed by
No.
3x8
figures of the
Erechtheium frieze
most
part, in
an
1
such, No. 284, shows a smoothed surface similar to surfaces
on the Parthenon pedimental sculptures and to much of the
frieze surface.
2
Carpenter infers a rasp with ridges or teeth spaced
apart, and his comments are of great importance.
mm.
he
and even exploiting the tool-marks rather than of working all the surface to a
monotonously inexpressive lustred finish adds a peculiar charm for an attentive eye.'
219
Suorrip
The
is
The
fish
qualification xapaKTrj
file
rasp.
To-day the rasp differs from the file not only in the uses to
which it is put but also in the great variety of shapes that it
can take. A file is always a straight tool. The rasp, on the
other hand, may be curved and can take as many curves as
there are concavities to be treated.
Its
as follows.
the stone from several succestwo parts half-sawn through were joined
2
ii,
p. 671.
Ibid. 92.
Tiryns, p. 264.
220
The sawn
hammered
and
and is presupposed
principle applied to masons'
is
in
all
221
we
with water.
As we have
it
was
22Z
told us
earlier.
1
The 10u5p6nos
Op.
cit., figs.
vi.
103.
IX
THE
different
tools
dirt,
smoothing or polishing process of which we are largely ignorant. But a very great deal of modification of the cast surface
Was in
main
comple-
cast surfaces
From
the vase-paintings
we
by the
The
is
224
of
list
all
the bronzeworkers
be identified
with certainty.
The Saw. 1
of this
is
furnace),
is
and
it
it is
difficult to
gather the
method
in
which
it
was used.
as a process in the
Sawing
have been needed when
limb had to be fitted to a separately cast torso. The rough
edge of each would have to be sawn off in order to make a
perfect fit. In the process the amount sawn off would hardly
exceed an inch. The size of this saw, however, seems too
it
proportions
must
it
that
is
it
curved end
screwed on.
(b)
It is of a
bow
1
who
much
detailed in-
formation.
2
It
wood
22$
minor process of
had to be welded
its
of these
it is
illustration
on the vase
is
inade-
is so,
then
it is
double handle.
Rasp. By this term I mean a rasp in a wooden
handle with a blade that curves. Two such are seen on the
Ashmolean kylix, two in the Foundry kylix held by bronzeworkers, and one hanging on the wall. The term 'strigil
rasp' seems appropriate, since the mode of use is clearly
seen. The two workers who are coping with the almost
completed warrior statue are using rasps that have sickle3.
The
Strigil
shaped blades and wooden handles, and they are using them
with a sideways action that indicates that the process was one
of scraping the surface of the bronze just as an athlete's skin
is scraped with a strigil. The whole, or at least the greater
3904
Gg
226
is
be the case
if
up by
methods of the
artist
very
closed
figure
The
in a standing
such a tool.
would
work by enabling
it
its
227
to penetrate
where a
facilitate
straight blade
A A
Ashmolean
make
kylix.
a clear distinction
action of both
is
smooth face. The tool seen third from the left in the
Ashmolean kylix corresponds exactly with a common type
of modern burnisher (see Fig. 89).
The Hammer (Fig. 90). Bronzeworkers' hammers differ
radically and, one might say, in every respect from the
hammers used by stonecarvers. In the Foundry vase no less
than six hammers are shown. All alike have long slender
handles and light heads which are not pointed. Whether
either or both ends of the hammers are edged ends or not
cannot be made out, though the fact that in three cases there
5.
228
FIG. 90.
who
sits to
the
end
is
clearly
on the shorter
side of the
The purpose
make
229
is
explain, for his grip of the hammer is not that of a man who
using it to strike with. It has been suggested to me by the
is
sculptor
that this
bronzeworker
is
he holds the hammer high up the haft and not in the normal
way.
The
slender,
and ob-
viously intended for only the very lightest tapping. For the
whole process of bronzeworking admits only of light work
hammer
with the
results.
hammer
are
shown
in the
Foundry
18
Two
230
shows
large
A mysterious instrument
in the scene of
indicate that
we have
here
or
instru-
FIG. 91.
is provided
1
head
from
the
side of the
One
by
Acropolis.
head proved too large for the helmet, which was to be fixed
separately, and the artist planed it down by means of a broad
the
life-size
as important.
But no representations of it
exist
231
9. The Multiple Burin (Fig. 92). In appearance this instrument must have resembled the stone-carver's claw-chisel,
though in structure and use it was very different. In effect it
was a row of small graving tools combined in one blade. If
a blade of hard steel is fashioned into a heavy chisel-edge and
the resulting
FIG. 92.
striations in a
Modern
bronze surface.
A superb
is
is
astonishing. It
is
of course possible that the artist used handpressure alone for his burins, but this, if anything, makes the
feat of long-drawn lines of hair even more remarkable. Gentle
of his tools. It
is
curves only were possible with this burin or indeed with any
Sharp turns of hair-lines are never found on the
burin.
268,
in the
232
(Fig. 93). This was the bronzeengraver's principal tool It was a blade of steel mounted in a
wooden handle, with a cutting-point. The cutting face of the
10.
That is in effect the only difference between the two tools, gouge and burin.
The process by which the bronze is removed and the tool employed is the same
in both cases, though the gouge, having
a less fluent blade, because of the wide
Modern driven by a
FIG. 93.
bronze-worker's simple
hand-burins or 'scorpers ^
it
meets
hammer and
is usually
the burin by
,
hand-pressure.
-p.
i
rni
Burins can vary enormously. They
can be of minute size, like copper-plate
Heavy and
by
The
door-handle.
ball of the
by
its
of the
direction
palm
and give
it
leverage.
after casting.
when
from the
earliest
left
times
down
to the
The
is
no
wooden
il
FIG. 94.
In order from
left to right: I, a,
Scale i/i.
punches;
3, 4, chisels.
233
FIG. 95.
FIG. 96.
of
with a hammer.
n. Punches and
Chisels.
We know very
little
indeed of the
of the stock-in-trade
The complete
stock-
value. 1
and
several
3904
Hh
234
of small works.
Among
these tools
Such
tools for
work on a smaller
and
APPENDIXES
I.
EMERY
emery and
artificial abrasive.
in the
it is
its
Commercial corundum
corundum,
crystal
enters into the composition of fire clay and, under the influence of
was
first
The
when he
silicon.
in 1891
is
an abrasive,
artificially
made, used
APPENDIXES
236
tools.
It is a
from a clay
I
It
am also
called bauxite
is
otherwise no evidence of
its
occurrence in Egypt.
What Pliny's 'Coptic or Ethiopian sand was is not known. For imparting the final polish to stone the Romans used an Egyptian com5
II.
at
at
To make
my
evidence, I
which
series of grooves
make
subsequent strokes, achieved by one sharp tap of the mallet, did not,
naturally, leave the series of horizontal lines which are left by a large
gouge across the groove in large-scale sculpture, since each of such
lines (which can be seen on Fig. 72 above) are the result of a separate
blow with the mallet for each line. Instead, the inside surface of the
groove showed vertical striations, only detectable with a good glass,
which were caused by the various unevennesses of the blade of the
gouge, which had, in each stroke, not stopped at any point. I found
that on the Fitzwilliam statuette there were precisely the same minute
vertical striations. This made it plain that I had employed the gouge
in exactly the same way as had the sculptor of the statuette and that
we had both probably employed the same type of gouge. Such
gouges can be bought at any tool-maker's for about a shilling. The
type used in each case seems to have been a standard type and size
and is almost the smallest sculptor's gouge obtainable.
Ill
APPENDIXES
Greeks and which
237
This method, in
brief, is that the point was held as much at right angles to the plane
surface of the marble as was possible. Mr. Gill maintained that to
strike the stone at such an angle would hopelessly stun it, and not
remove it in adequate quantities. I pointed out to him that the stone
would no doubt be stunned by such a procedure but that, provided
that the blows were not too hard and that the punch did not penetrate
too deeply into the stone, the stunned surface so produced could easily
be removed by abrasive or chisel. I maintained that such was indeed
Mr.
Company
in
London
and that the effect of this way of using the punch is certainly to stun
the stone. But he finds that the forms so produced by this method
are more solid and sculptural than those produced by oblique use of
the punch. The stunned surface is removed by the chisel or abrasive
down to the unaffected surface of the stone a few millimetres deeper
and the result is definitely more satisfactory from an aesthetic point
of view.
Mr.
have always (ever since I began carving, long before our discussion) used the "vertical stroke" for parts of a carving when it was
'I
use of a certain method may help, but it won't ensure the sense of mass.
The
if
may
'
is
stroke"
put
it
23 8
APPENDIXES
it
(i)
<---
VerHcal stroke*
Result
Mason's
sfroke'
ResuII-
(3)
'Carving stroke
Result-
INDEX OF MUSEUMS
ATHENS Acropolis Museum
Mus. Nos.
i
Hydra Pediment, 74,
4. Lion and Bull, 82.
:
11.
1 38.
12.
76-
35-6. Earlier
Hekatompedon
40.
50.
75-
Head,
from
617.
125.
122.
and
138, 141.
1332. Relief of a potter, 144.
SB No.
1360.
147, 26 n.
Erechtheium
ATHENS
frieze, 218.
National Museum:
Cycladic Sculptures
No. 6195, 16.
18.
Kore head,
39io, 17.
109.
Hekatompedon
641.
125.
3908, 17.
631. Later
114.
109,
615.
687.
688.
Nymphs,
88-9.
112, 177122.
114, 190.
613.
122, 190.
685.
686.
group, 200.
582. Kore fragment, 88-9.
88-958388-9.
586.
112.
114, 191.
684.
694.
594.
611.
683.
86, 109.
589.
Kore head
(small scale),
Fragments of Grave
Stelai
from
191.
Dipylon
671.
114.
672.
114.
673.
190.
674.
675.
114.
112.
676.
114.
677.
6?9-
93,
105-6,
Samo-Naxian Kore,
109,
85.
112,
Winged
xio-n,
INDEX OF MUSEUMS
MUNICH
Kouros
relief,
Museum:
173.
OLYMPIA Museum
Head of Hera, 107.
Sculptures of Temple
Humphrey Ward
Venus de Milo,
of Zeus, 73,
Ashmolean Museum
Block of worked emery, 23
OXFORD
ROME
head, 208.
179.
Terms Museum:
207, 208.
'Demetrius', 162.
SPARTA
Museum
Four-sided
Limestone
VIENNA
relief, 138.
reliefs,
76-80.
Kunsthtstorische
lung:
3904
156,
217.
Museum
129,
PALERMO
NEW YORK
241
Louvre
Auxerre figure, 62, 70, 71, 74.
Hera of Cheramyes, 100, 182.
PARIS
Glyptothek
Unfinished statue, 127.
:
Golbashi
reliefs, 146.
Samm-
INDEX
Abrasive
tools,
194-202.
Achaeans, 44.
129, 130.
Aloxite, 235-6.
Amorgos, i6n.
2, 19.
Antenor (Kore
School
of),
122-5,
3 I > 2OI
Boethos, 163 n. 2.
Bosnia, 43.
of, 205.
Boston ('throne'
143,
at),
Amyklae).
Britomartis, 52.
Philesios, 156.
of Ismenian, 156.
Archedemos of Thera, 95-6,
Temple
170,
172, 173.
'Bull-nosed chisel',
in,
117,
188;
192-4.
Monogissa, 53.
Orthia, 55, 62, 76.
(architectural fragments
shrine), 82.
from
Burnishers, 226-7.
(multiple), 231.
(stoneworker's), 3 n. 2, 4, 5, 6.
Buschor, 75.
from),
162.
Cadmus,
52.
Callipers, 230.
Assos, 109.
Cairo, 233.
3, 5-8.
Carborundum, 235-6.
Lindia, 62.
Onke, 61.
Athenaeus, 65,
Cellini,
museum
of),
flat,
237-8.
(Egyptian), 184.
Chisel-marks, 182.
140-2.
INDEX
Chisels (metal-workers'), 233.
Chronicle, Parian, 52.
Giro, 9.
Claw-chisel,
127-8,
140-1,
146;
185-8; 231.
Clytemnestra, Tomb of 3 1 .
Coins, 56, 59.
,
Corfu (pediment
Corundum,
at),
Cyclades, 198.
Cycladic sculpture,
3,
243
Drilling-methods, 206.
Duccio, Agostino di, 186.
235-6
107.
Emery,
i.,
37, 102,
Ephesus
154,
155.
Bull, 79.
Eurylochus, 54.
Euthydikos (Kore of), 125.
Evans, Sir Arthur, 4, 9, n, 28, 32,
38, 219.
Experiments, 176 n.
Dobson,
Doerpfeld, 211.
Donatello, 186.
Dorians, 48, 55, 62, 63, 64, 65.
in, 117, 118-19, 122-5,
Drill,
126-7, 131, 133-5, 203-9Tubular, 3 n. 2, 24, 30, 32, 33,
36, 209-15.
Eyelashes, 161.
Files (sculptors'), 215-19.
'Fire-skin', 226.
of), 162.
Formalism, 144.
Fresco-painting (Minoan), 151.
Galjub, 233.
Gaudier, 144.
Gems,
Gem-cutting,
2,
36,
45,
Geometric Period, 35
(carving),
49.
pottery, 83.
Jumper', 212.
Pneumatic, 212 n.
Gitiadas, 57.
used on
GSlbashi
reliefs, 142.
120, 209,
220.
reliefs, 146.
43-
INDEX
344
Glaze-paint, i, 44.
Gorgon (of Corfu), 108.
Kanachos, 156.
Kerameikos (see Dipylon),
Gouge,
Keros, 18.
Klearchos, 153.
Kleobis, 104-5, 106, 107, 108.
Kluge, K., 153, 154, 156, 157, 159,
(abraded), 193.
Grotesques, 76.
Gypsum, 61.
(Harbour
KoXccrrrrip,
Haghios Onuphrios, 15 n.
i.
Hammer (bronzeworkers'),
Town
of), 14.
184.
Korone, 52.
R., 58.
Koumasa,
160, 227.
Kritios,
15 n. i.
126,
Aristogeiton).
AaoT\>rros, 202.
48.
Lemnos,
59.
Lindos, 62 n.
Lion Gate
3, 64, 65.
Hypeimnestra, 54.
London
(University
(emery).
Lucas, Mr. A., 236.
mines
29
at),
57-8.
H.
i.
Hall,
224 n.
169,
College),
23
of), 195.
43.
'Indian sand', 21.
Illyria,
16?,
Macedonia, 43.
Maillol, A., 144.
149.
Ithaca, 55.
Melos,
Jackson, Mr. Pilkington, 229.
Job, Book of, 22.
Johansen, 61.
Methymna,
/
Kalamis, 163 n.
2.
Kalathiana, 3.
19.
Menodotus, 65.
59.
Mochlos, 40.
Modelling (on a vase-painting), 158.
Montesupis, 13 n. 2.
Mopsion, Mt., 94.
Muses, 62.
INDEX
Mycenae, 23-35, in, 135.
(drilled holes in gates), 210.
(Grave Circle
30-4,
Nikandra, dedication
of,
79, 84-5,
9i-
149.
Platanos, 15
i.
Plutarch, 149.
'Pointing'
(modem
process
of),
206.
Polykleitos, 163.
mopivos Xidos (or Toros'), 72, 73, 86.
'Poros', 72, 73, 86.
218.
Nisyros, 145.
Porti, a.
Potters' tools, 215.
Praxiteles, 151.
in,
146, 215.
TTpfcOV lAOXOCtpCOTOS,
217-
Orchomenos, 'Treasury'
at,
33-4.
Oxah,
QcuSpuvTcd, 153.
Pheneos, 54.
Pherae, 46.
Phylakopi, 48.
(emery mines),
Naxos (sculpture
(see Peirasos).
Peirasos, 51.
(gypsum reliefs), n.
(Lion Gate relief), 24-9,
Naxian marble,
245
Peiranthos
21.
222.
222.
Protocorinthian vase, 60-2.
Ptoios (Sanctuary of Apollo), 105.
Pumice, 28.
TTptcOV 660VT<OT6$,
Punch
(metal-workers'), 233.
(sculptors'), 174-8, 237-8.
Pyrgos, 15.
Palladia, 60.
Pamphaios, 144, n.
i.
Rasp, 215-19.
(bronzeworkers'), 226, 233.
Rekhmere (Tomb
Rheims
219.
Rhodes, 62.
(Mvr),
Rhoikos, 154.
Richter,
INDEX
246
Romanesque
sculpture, 186.
Talos, 28,
Running
drill,
Tenos, 29 (marble
St.
St.
Mauro
Remy,
Thasos (Kriophoros
154, 192.
Sarcophagi, 145-6.
Saw, 18 (copper), 23, 24, 26, 28, 38,
131, 219-22.
(bronzeworkers'), 224.
Scheria, 55.
reliefs,
(Attic
head
at),
105.
n,
Trebenishte, 163.
Troezen, 52, 54.
Troilos pediment, 75, 142.
Troy, 16, 25 (axes from), 53, 64.
Trypete, 15 n. i.
Tufa, 26 n. 3, 28, 73.
of), 95.
177, 184.
22.
Spartan
156.
Tpifrrovov, 208.
(engraver), 163.
at),
52,60.
177, 180.
Serpents, 75-6.
Shaft Grave Stelae, 78.
i,
Titane, 61.
Transylvania, 43.
Treasury of Atreus,
Skyros (marble
Theano, 53.
65.
Skymnos
stone, 236.
Sand-casting, 155.
crocvfs,
at),
172.
Samos
of).
T^pETpOV, 208.
Tylissos, 2, 3, 5, 6, 15 n.
in,
134.
Underwood,
76.
Vari,
Cave
L., 151.
'Spectacle-fibulae', 82.
Spedos, 16 n. 2., 17.
Sphinx, 79.
i6on., 223.
Vitruvius, 26.
oxpupcc, 172.
Square
Warren
Wimble, 203.
Wood,
'Stunning', 176.
Suidas, 20, 22.
8 (for
Minoan
statues), 55,
62 (for xoana).
Woodcarving,
8, 84.