CHAPTER VII

. (XIV.)

How Figures in Wood are executed and of what sort of Wood is best for the purpose.

§ 73. _Wood Carving._

He who wishes figures of wood to be executed in a perfect manner, must first make for them a model of wax or clay, as we have said. This sort of figure is much used in the Christian religion, seeing that numberless masters have produced many crucifixes and other objects. But in truth, one never gives that flesh-like appearance and softness to wood that can be given to metal and to marble and to the sculptured objects that we see in stucco, wax, or clay. The best however of all the woods used for sculpture is that of the lime, because it is equally porous on every side, and it more readily obeys the rasp and chisel. But when the artificer wishes to make a large figure, since he cannot make it all of one single piece, he must join other pieces to it and add to its height and enlarge it according to the form that he wishes to make. And to stick it together in such a way that it may hold he must not take cheese mucilage, because that would not hold, but parchment glue;[183] with this melted and the said pieces warmed at the fire let him join and press them together, not with iron nails but with pegs of the wood itself; which done, let him work it and carve it according to the form of his model. There are also most praiseworthy works in boxwood to be seen done by workmen in this trade, and very beautiful ornaments in walnut, which when they are of good black walnut almost appear to be of bronze. We have also seen carvings on fruit stones, such as those of the cherry and apricot executed by the hand of skilful Germans[184] with a patience and delicacy which are great indeed. And although foreigners do not achieve that perfect design which the Italians exhibit in their productions, they have nevertheless wrought, and still continue to work, in such a manner that they bring their art to a point of refinement that makes the world wonder: as can be seen in a work, or to speak more correctly, in a miracle of wood carving by the hand of the Frenchman, Maestro Janni, who living in the city of Florence which he had chosen for his country, adopted, for his designs, in which he always delighted, the Italian style. This, with the practice he had in working in wood, enabled him to make a figure in limewood of San Rocco as large as life. With exquisite carving he fashioned the soft and undercut draperies that clothe it, cut almost to the thinness of paper and with a beautiful flow in the order of the folds, so that one cannot see anything more marvellous. In like manner, he has carried out the head, beard, hands and feet of that Saint with such perfection that it has deserved, and always will deserve infinite praise from every man; and what is more, in order that the excellence of the artist may be seen in all its parts, the figure has been preserved to our days in the church of the Annunziata at Florence beneath the pulpit, free from any covering of colour or painting, in its own natural colour of wood and with only the finish and perfection that Maestro Janni gave it, beautiful beyond all other figures that can be seen carved in wood.[185] And this suffices for a brief notice of all the things relating to sculpture. Let us now pass on to painting.

[Illustration:

PLATE IX

STATUE OF S. ROCCO CARVED IN LIMEWOOD, by a French Artist ‘Maestro Janni,’ in the Church of the Annunziata, Florence ]

NOTES ON ‘INTRODUCTION’ TO SCULPTURE

THE NATURE OF SCULPTURE.

[§ 36, _The Nature of Sculpture_, ante, p. 143.]

The remark with which Vasari opens his ‘Introduction’ to Sculpture, though it sounds rather trite, involves a point of some interest. Vasari says that the sculptor removes all that is superfluous from the material under treatment, and reduces it to the form designed for it in his mind. This is true of the technique of sculpture proper, that is stone or marble carving, but there are processes in the art other than that of cutting away a block of hard material. Michelangelo, in a letter he wrote in 1549 to Benedetto Varchi, on the ever-recurring theme of the relative dignity of painting and sculpture, notices the fact that the sculptor proceeds in two ways, by the progressive reduction of a mass, as is the case with the marble carver, or in his own words, ‘per forza di levare’; and also by successive additions, as in modelling in clay or wax, which he calls ‘per via di porre,’ ‘by the method of putting on.’ The distinction is one of fundamental importance for a right understanding of the art, and upon it depends the characteristic difference between Greek reliefs, which are almost all carved in marble, and if not are beaten up on metal plates by the repoussé process, and Italian reliefs that are very often in cast bronze, the models for which have been prepared by modelling, ‘per via di porre,’ in wax. On this point something will be found in the Note on ‘Italian and Greek Reliefs,’ postea, p. 196 f.

With regard to sculpture effected ‘by taking away,’ ‘per forza di levare,’ Michelangelo has left a famous utterance in one of his sonnets, No. XV in the edition of Guasti, which opens as follows:—

‘Non ha l’ ottimo artista alcun concetto, Ch’ un marmo solo in sè non circonscriva Col suo soverchio; e solo a quello arriva La man che ubbidisce all’ intelletto,’

and is thus translated by J. A. Symonds:—

‘The best of artists hath no thought to show Which the rough stone in its superfluous shell Doth not include. To break the marble spell Is all the hand that serves the brain can do.’

The conceit is really a classical one, and is probably due to some Greek writer used by Cicero in his tract _De Divinatione_. Some one had testified to the fact that, in a certain marble quarry on Chios, a block, casually split open, had disclosed a head of Pan; and Cicero, or the writer he had before him, remarks that such a chance might occur, though the similitude would only be a rude one. In any case however, he goes on, it must be conceded that even the very finest heads imaginable are really in existence throughout all time in every block of stone of sufficient size. All that even a Praxiteles could do would be to bring them into view by taking off all that was superfluous in the marble. He would add nothing to what was there already. The whole process would be the removal of what was superfluous and bringing to light what was concealed within.

SCULPTURE TREATED FOR POSITION.

[§ 38, _Works of Sculpture should be treated with a view to their destined Position_, ante, p. 145.]

Vasari is dealing with sculpturesque treatment as conditioned by the position and lighting for which works of statuary are destined, and a somewhat interesting question in the aesthetics of the plastic art is opened up.

There are here two matters to be distinguished; one is the general treatment of a figure or relief in relation to position, and the other is the deliberate alteration in the proportions of it, with a view to the same consideration. It is almost a matter of course that an artist, in preparing his model, will keep in view the aspect under which the finished work will be presented to the spectator, but the definite change in proportions is another matter. Vasari is clear in his own mind that Donatello and other sculptors did make changes of proportions as well as of general treatment on the grounds indicated, but in alleging this he is not drawing on his own expert knowledge as an artist, so much as echoing a judgement of literary critics often expressed in both ancient and modern times. There is a passage in Plato’s _Sophist_ which shows that in Greek aesthetics this question was discussed, and a distinction is there drawn, pp. 235–6, between exact imitation of nature, and an imitation that modifies the forms of nature for artistic effect. In large works, Plato points out, if the true proportions were given ‘the upper part which is further off from the eye would appear to be out of proportion in comparison with the lower, which is nearer; and so our artists give up the truth in their images and make only the proportions which appear to be beautiful disregarding the true ones.’ The same idea connected with a concrete instance is embodied in a legend preserved in some verses by the Byzantine writer Tzetzes, to the effect that Pheidias and Alcamenes competed on one occasion with rival figures of the goddess Athene. Alcamenes finished his with great delicacy, and on a near view it was preferred to that by Pheidias. The latter sculptor, ‘being versed in optics and geometry,’ had allowed for distance and exaggerated certain details. When both figures were put into position the superiority of that by Pheidias was at once apparent. It has been argued from a passage in Eustatius that Pheidias fashioned his Zeus at Olympia with the head slightly inclined forwards, so as to bring it more directly into view from the floor of the temple below.

In modern times Donatello’s works have been specially singled out as illustrating this same principle, and not by Vasari alone. The following, for instance, is an _obiter dictum_ of the Florentine writer Davanzati in a letter affixed to his translation of Tacitus published first in 1596, (see _Opere di Tacito_, Bern. Davanzati, Padova, 1755, p. 656), where he says, ‘You must look at the way an effect is introduced, as in the case of Donatello and his famous Zuccone (Bald Head) on our Campanile of the Duomo. The eyes of this statue as one looks at it on high seem as if dug out with the spade, but if he had worked it on the ground (for a near view) the figure would appear to be blind. The reason is that distance swallows up all refinement of work (la lontananza si mangia la diligenzia).... In the same way the rudeness of rustic work on great palace walls does not take away from but rather adds to the effect of majesty.’ Modern critics have agreed in commending Donatello for his judicious treatment, with a view to situation, of works like the statues on the Campanile, which are more than fifty feet above the ground. Hans Semper praises specially from this standpoint the ‘Abraham and Isaac’ on the Campanile, and remarks that if this group were taken down and seen on the ground there would be a great outcry about faults of proportion in the legs, (_Donatello_, Wien, 1875, p. 122.) In Lord Balcarres’s recent book on Donatello there is a discussion of the Campanile statues, and other works by the master, in relation to the same aesthetic principle, (_Donatello_, London, 1903, p. 17 ff.)

There is no question that the boldness and vigour which were characteristic of Donatello were well suited to give his works a telling effect at a distance, and this may be noticed in the case of his ‘Cantoria’ with the dancing children in the Opera del Duomo at Florence. We are reminded here of the Pheidias and Alcamenes story. On a near view Donatello’s Cantoria suffers in a comparison with the more delicate work on the same theme of Luca della Robbia, but when both galleries were ‘in position,’ high up, and in the semi-darkness of the Duomo, the effect of Donatello’s relief must have been far finer. This bold and sketchy treatment was not due to the fact that the master could work in no other way, for Donatello treated very low relief, spoken of later on by Vasari as ‘stiacciato,’ with remarkable delicacy and finish. Hence we may fairly credit him with intention in the strong effects of some of his monumental works.

This is however quite a different matter from deliberate alteration of the proportions of a figure in view of the position it is to occupy. In spite of what Vasari and some modern writers have said, it must be doubted whether Donatello or any other responsible sculptor has done anything of the kind. Vasari speaks of figures ‘made a head or two taller’ when they have to be seen in a near view from below, but he does not refer to any examples. Decorative figures of elongated proportions may be instanced, but it does not follow that these proportions were intended to correct perspective foreshortening. The twelfth century statues in the western portals at Chartres are curiously elongated, and so too are the stucco nymphs of Primaticcio in the Escalier du Roi at Fontainebleau, but in both cases the figures are but little above the level of the eye, and their shape is certainly not due to any such consideration as was in the mind of Vasari. The actual proportions of Donatello’s Campanile statues seem perfectly normal, though the works may have been deliberately treated with a view to position.

It is worth notice that, proportions apart, the principle of ‘treatment for position’ has by no means been generally observed. In the greatest and most prolific periods of sculpture indeed, there seems to have been little consistency of practice in this regard, while some of the finest decorative works in the world appear to have been very little affected by any considerations of the kind. As in duty bound, Vasari appeals to the antique, but as a matter of fact, classical decorative sculpture exhibits only in a very minor degree these studied modifications of treatment in relation to position. In the frieze of the Parthenon the background is cut back a little deeper above than below, so as to increase the apparent salience of the parts farthest from the eye, and on the column of Marcus Aurelius at Rome, which may have been in Vasari’s mind when he mentions reliefs on columns, the salience of the relief is much bolder above than below. The well-known band of ornament on the framing of Ghiberti’s ‘Old Testament’ gates shows similar variety in treatment. On the earlier column of Trajan, on the other hand, the eye can detect no variation in treatment of the kind. The groups from the pediments of the Parthenon give little indication that they were designed to be looked at sixty feet above the eye, while the heads by Scopas from the pediments at Tegea are finished with the utmost delicacy, as if for the closest inspection.

In the matter of the choice of low or high relief according to the distance from the eye, the frieze of the Parthenon is often adduced as canonical, because, being only visible from near, it is in very low relief. It is forgotten however that the nearly contemporary friezes on the Theseum and from the interior of the temple at Bassae, though they were correspondingly placed and actually nearer to the eye, are both in high relief. On the Roman triumphal arches, of which Vasari writes, there are similar anomalies. Thus the well-known panels within the passage way of the Arch of Titus, that must have been calculated for very near stand-points, are in boldest projection.

The magnificent decorative sculpture on the French Gothic cathedrals shows little trace of the sort of calculation here spoken of. It is true that the figures of Kings in the ‘Galeries des Rois’ across the west fronts are as a rule rudely carved, but this is because they are so purely formal and give the artist little opportunity. At Reims some of the finest and most finished work is to be found in the effigies of Kings, the Angels, and other figures, on the upper stages of the building, while the ‘Church Triumphant’ up above on the southern transept façade is every whit as delicately beautiful as the ‘Mary of the Visitation,’ in the western porch.

Enough has been said to show that on this subject literary statements are not to be trusted and practice is very uncertain. It remains to be seen what light can be thrown upon it, first, from the side of aesthetic principle; and, second, from that of the actual procedure and expert judgement of sculptors of to-day.

The principle will hardly be controverted that anything abnormal, either in the proportions of a figure or even in its treatment, will tend to defeat its own object by confusing our regular and highly effective visual process. The organs which co-operate in this are so educated that we interpret by an unconscious act of intelligence what we actually see, and make due allowance for distance and position. It is often said that objects look larger through a mist. This is not the case. They do not look larger but they look further off, and the equation between apparent size and apparent distance which we unconsciously establish is vitiated, so that the impression is produced that the particular object is abnormally large. Now in the same way we allow for the distance and the perspective angle at which a work of sculpture is seen and interpret accurately the actual forms and effects of texture and light and shade the image of which falls on the retina. If the sculptor have altered his proportions there is a danger that we shall derive the impression of a distorted figure, because we have made our allowances on the supposition that the proportions are normal. If he have forced the effect by emphasizing the modelling, he will make the parts where this is done appear too near the eye, and this will involve a false impression of the height and dimensions of the structure on which the sculpture is displayed. There is this forcing of effect in the case of the column of Marcus Aurelius, but it is of no artistic advantage, and would tend to make the column itself look lower than it really is. In the column of Trajan the spiral lines have a certain artistic waviness, so that the band of sculpture varies in width in different parts, but the treatment is the same throughout, and as the reliefs were not only to be seen from below but also from the lofty neighbouring structures of the Trajanic Forum, this was not only in accordance with principle but with common sense. It is obvious indeed that works of monumental sculpture are practically always visible from other points than the one for which their effect is chiefly calculated; and hence if proportions be modified so as to suit one special standpoint, the work may look right in this one aspect, but in all others may appear painfully distorted.

As regards the second point, we have asked Mr Pittendrigh Macgillivray, R.S.A., a question on this subject, and he has kindly given us his opinion in the following note.

‘The question as to whether or not sculptors deliberately alter the normal proportions of the human figure in order to adapt their works to special circumstances is one which is frequently asked, and which I have never found reason to answer otherwise than in the negative. The rule in the classic examples of all periods, as far as I have observed, is normal proportion and execution, irrespective of site and circumstances, and, to anyone familiar with the art and practice of sculpture, the difficulties and uncertainties consequent upon a lawless method of dealing with the normal quantities of the figure, are a sufficient deterrent against vagaries in scale and proportion. To change the proportions of the figure in order to meet the peculiarities and limitations of some special site, seems on the surface so reasonable that one is not greatly surprised at the persistence of the idea in literary circles, where it has not been possible to balance it against that technical knowledge which is the outcome of actual practice and experience in handling the _métier_ of the art. To adapt statuary by fanciful proportions to unfortunate conditions and circumstances, for which truer artistic taste and understanding, on the part of architects, would never propose it, seems such a ’cute notion that it has occasionally attracted the clever ones of the profession as a way out of the difficulty, but one which has led only to ultimate discomfiture.

‘The fact is, I imagine, that the normal proportions of the human figure are so deeply printed on the inherited memory of the race that, except within very narrow limitations, they cannot be modified and yet at the same time convey lastingly any high order of serious emotion or effect. The great men doing serious work in sculpture will never find it necessary to go beyond the law of nature for the architectonic basis of their expression. Faulty or arbitrary proportion in handling the human figure is unnecessary; it is of no real help to the artist, and no more desired by him than is the liberty of 16 lines and ballad measure, by the sonneteer expert in the Petrarchan form and rhyme of 14 pentameter verses. The real matter to be dealt with in respect of peculiarities of site and circumstances lies within the sphere of the artistic capacity, and is at once more easy and more difficult than any wooden process of mis-handling the proportions of the figure. It is at issue in the legend of the Byzantine writer, Tzetzes, to which reference is made, wherein it is said that Pheidias and Alcamenes competed on one occasion with rival figures of Athene, but the explanation given of the reason why the work of Pheidias was admired and preferred at the site, is, I venture to say, the wrong one, in as far as it presupposes abnormal proportions in the successful statue. To the author’s mind, no doubt, something profound and abstruse was necessary in order to explain such a triumph, and the idea that Pheidias was deeply versed in what must then have been the occult mysteries of optics and geometry, fitted the need and was pleasant to the love of the marvellous.

‘In such a case, Pheidias would certainly, with the intuitive artistic sense and experience of a master, handle the style, composition, lights and shadows, mass, line and silhouette of his work in relation to its size, and the average height and distance from which it was to be viewed. It might be finished highly in respect of surface, or left moderately rough, a condition of little consequence compared with the factors enumerated above. It would be made readable and expressive, but there would be no modification of the sacred proportions of the figure; no trace of allowance in order that “the upper part which is further off from the eye should appear to be in proportion when compared with the lower, which is nearer.” That artists should appear to give up natural truth in their images for considerations of abstract beauty, was grateful to the mind of Plato, but is only another proof of the soaring qualities of the White Horse in the Human Chariot!

‘Outside of a somewhat conscious effort towards the decorative in form and towards the effective articulation of parts, I find little in the work of Donatello to justify his being specially singled out as illustrating those principles of the modification of true proportions for sculpture in relation to the exigencies of site. The statues on the Campanile need not, I imagine, be taken too seriously as exhibitions of Donatello’s most careful judgement. Compared with such works of his as we may feel at liberty to believe personal, they are rude and ill-considered in design and execution. There is in the bones, mass, and arrangement of the work very probably something of Donatello, but in the detail and execution there is little or nothing of the hand that did the Christ of S. Antonio of Padua, the bronze David of the Bargello, or the bust of Niccolo da Uzzano.’

WAXEN EFFIGIES AND MEDALLIONS.

[§ 43, _Polychrome Wax Effigies_, ante, p. 149.]

Wax has been used from the time of the ancients as a modelling material, both in connection with casting in bronze, and with the making of small studies for reproduction in more permanent materials. The production of a plastic work in wax intended to remain as the finished expression of the artist’s idea is of course a different matter. Among the Greeks, Lysistratos, the brother of Lysippos, about the time of Alexander the Great, introduced the practice of taking plaster moulds from the life, and then making casts from them in wax. These he may have coloured, for the use of colour, at any rate on terra cotta, was at the time universal, and in this way have produced waxen effigies. (Hominis autem imaginem gypso e facie ipsa primus omnium expressit ceraque in eam formam gypsi infusa emendare instituit Lysistratus Sicyonius frater Lysippi. Plin. _Hist. Nat._, XXXV, 153). Busts in coloured wax of departed ancestors were kept by the Romans of position in the atria of their houses, and the funereal use of the wax effigy can be followed from classical times to those comparatively modern, for in Westminster Abbey can still be seen the waxen effigies of Queen Elizabeth, Charles II, and other sovereigns and nobles of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. These, like the modern wax-works of popular exhibitions, are hardly productions of art. What Vasari writes of is a highly refined and artistic kind of work, that was practised in Italy from the early part of the sixteenth century, and spread to France, Germany, and England in each of which countries there were well-known executants in the seventeenth or eighteenth centuries. _The Connoisseur_ of March, 1904, contained an article on the chief of these.

Though modelled effigies in wax of a thoroughly artistic kind were executed of or near the size of life and in the round, as may be seen in the Italian waxen bust of a girl in the Musée Wicar at Lille, that has been ascribed to Raphael, yet as a rule the execution was in miniature and in relief. Specimens of this form of the work are to be seen in the British Museum, in the Wallace Collection, and at South Kensington.

In the _Proceedings_ of the Huguenot Society of London, III, 4, there is an article on the Gossets, a Huguenot family, some members of which practised the art in England from the early part of the eighteenth century, and a recipe for colouring the wax is there quoted which it may be interesting to compare with that given by Vasari. ‘To two ounces of flake white (the biacca of Vasari) add three of Venice turpentine, if it be in summer, and four in winter, with sufficient vermilion (cinabrio) to give it a pinkish tint. Grind these together on a stone with a muller; then put them into a pound of fine white wax, such as is used for making candles: this is molten ready in an earthen pipkin. Turn them round over the fire for some time. When thoroughly mixed the composition should be immediately removed and poured into dishes previously wetted to prevent the wax from sticking to them.’

This refers to the preparation of a self-coloured wax which may be prepared of a flesh tint, or of a creamy white, or of any other desired hue like those Vasari enumerates. The portraits in wax referred to in our museums are sometimes in self-coloured material of this kind, but at other times are coloured polychromatically in all their details. This is the technique referred to by Vasari in § 43 as having been introduced by certain ‘modern masters.’ In _Opere_, IV, 436 he refers to one Pastorino of Siena as having acquired great celebrity for wax portraits, and as having ‘invented a composition which is capable of reproducing the hair, beard and skin, in the most natural manner. It would take me too long’ he continues ‘to enumerate all the artists who model wax portraits, for now-a-days there is scarcely a jeweller who does not occupy himself with such work.’ This last remark is significant, for one feature of these polychrome medallions is the introduction of real stones, seed pearls, gold rings, and the like, in connection with the modelled wax, so that collectors used to style the works ‘Italian sixteenth century jewelled waxes.’ A portrait bust in the Salting collection, shown on loan at South Kensington, representing Elizabeth of France, wife of Philip II, is a good specimen of the technique. The lady wears a jewelled hair net set with real red and green stones, and a necklet of seed pearls. In her ear is a ring of thin gold wire. The flesh parts are naturally coloured, the hair is auburn, the bodice black, and there are two white feathers in the headdress. We should gather from Vasari’s words in § 43 that works of the kind were built up of waxes variously coloured in the mass, and a close examination of extant specimens clearly shows that this was the case. Local tints such as the red of the lips, etc., were added with pigment.

The best modern notice of wax modelling in these forms is that contained in Propert’s _History of Miniature Art_, Lond. 1887,