THE ART OF CASTING IN PLASTER AMONG THE ANCIENT GREEKS AND ROMANS. (continued 2)

But Mr. Perkins does not seem to reason beyond his texts. He does not discuss the probabilities of the case; he does not undertake to account for, or to harmonize with his view, the great fact that nothing has been found of ancient art cast in plaster. Outside of what is written in books he does not venture. He does not even seem to have a clear opinion of his own. He says, “Sur ce point [casting in plaster] les textes nous laissent dans les ténèbres. Faut-il s’en étonner? Non! Les auteurs classiques trompent notre curiosité sur des choses d’un bien autre intent. Que nous disent-ils des vases peints, dont les musées de l’Europe regorgent? Rien,” etc. Well, if the texts leave us in darkness, are we then to know nothing and to think nothing? Are we not to exercise our minds, and if a doubtful text seems to indicate a fact utterly at variance with our reason and with the facts we know, are we to treat that text as a fetich, and bow down and worship it, because it is written in a book? Are we to endeavor to wrench everything into harmony with it? Or, if it will not agree with facts of which there is no doubt, are we not rather to sacrifice the text than our own reason? And especially, are we to pay such reverence to a doubtful text of Pliny, the most careless of writers, the least accurate of archæologists? As to the painted vases, no argument or ancient texts are needed; there is no question in respect to them; they existed in great numbers; but in respect to casting in plaster there is nothing but texts to depend upon. Nay more, there is only one passage in any ancient author, so far as I am aware, that seems to assert the existence of this process; and the question is as to the meaning of this very ambiguous passage. If it means what Mr. Perkins supposes, where are the moulds; where are the casts; where are the finished likenesses; where is there anything, in a word, to support the statements of Pliny, as thus interpreted? Does it not seem amazing that they should all have totally disappeared?

That the text of Pliny, on which all rests, does not mean what it is supposed to mean by Mr. Perkins, we have endeavored to show; but at all events, since it is admitted to be most obscure and scarcely intelligible, it would be better to throw the text overboard, if it is in conflict with all we know and is improbable in itself, particularly when we take into consideration the corrupt condition of the entire text of Pliny. Dr. Brunn, who is certainly an able and learned archæologist, does not hesitate to reject a portion of this very text, from the words “idem et de signis effigiem exprimere,” as an interpolation; and there can be no doubt in the mind of any one who carefully examines it that this entire passage is full of confusion of ideas and statements.

Mr. Perkins endeavors to strengthen his position, and also the text of Pliny as he understands it, by a citation from the “Tragic Jupiter” of Lucian, in which the statue of Hermes complains that he is spotted by the pitch with which the sculptors cover his limbs every day, “afin de les reproduire,” he gratuitously adds, with no authority in the text for such a statement; and apropos of this he tells us that one may “model with pitch mixed with marble dust or brick.” He adds: “It is what the Italians call ‘ciment,’ and they employ it for the most delicate parts of the mould. It is sufficient in order to keep it in a malleable state to set the piece on which one is working near the fire, or to soften it from time to time in a bath of hot water.” “Now this information,” he continues, “which we owe to one of the most eminent and learned artists of our age, is very precious, since it gives us the real meaning of the passage in Lucian.” This taken in connection with a passage in Apollodorus representing Dædalus making a statue to Hercules ἐν πίσσῃ or ἐν πίσῃ—the word is doubtful—induces Mr. Perkins “to conclude, first, that two centuries before the Christian era, pitch was used, mixed without doubt with other substances, to cast statues [mouler les statues]; second, that the passage in Lucian not only contains one of those railleries of which the Voltaire of antiquity was so prodigal, but leads us to suspect that it veils the indication of one of the processes of casting.” That is, first he inclines to the opinion that πίσσῃ (pitch) is a misprint for πίτυς (pine wood), and that the statue made by Dædalus was in wood; and then he immediately turns around, and thinks that it proves the existence of casting in plaster. It cannot mean both; and the probability would seem to be that he is wrong in both suppositions, and that Dædalus was only employed in painting his statue in resin or wax.

The seriousness of this passage is more remarkable than its accuracy. Who can the eminent and learned artist be who has given us this so precious information?—“ce renseignement tres-précieux,”—which is known to every humble caster in Europe,—though he is not quite correct in the composition of what he says the Italians call “ciment.” He must be a French artist who scorns the Italian language as being, in the words of another of his countrymen, “rien que de mauvais Français.” “Ciment” is not an Italian word, and “cimento” has a quite different significance,—that of attempt or essay. The Italian casters call this material “cera,” though it is not wax. But aside from this, let us consider this passage from Lucian to which Mr. Perkins, following other writers, refers us as showing that the process of casting in plaster was known to the ancient Greeks.

The Ζεὺς Τραγῳδός of Lucian is a satire on the divinities of Greece, and a council of them is called to deliberate on what should be done in consequence of an assault upon their nature and power by Damis. The gods are called upon, and a question arises as to the precedence they should have, whether it should be according to the material of which they are made,—of ivory, gold, bronze, stone, or clay,—or according to the excellence of their workmanship and the skill of the artist; but such confusion of claims is made that no precedence is finally allowed to any one, and the question as to the reasons and arguments of Damis and his opponent Timocles is discussed. While this is going on, a figure is seen approaching which is thus described:—

“But who is this who comes in such haste [ὁ χαλκοῦς, ὁ εὔγραμμος, ὁ εὐπερίγραφος, ὁ ἀρχαῖος τὴν ἀνάδεσιν τῆς κόμης], this bronze, this beautifully chased or engraved, beautifully outlined, the archaic in the arrangement of his hair [πίττης γοῦν ἀναπέπλησαι, ὁσημέραι ἐκματτόμενος ὑπὸ τῶν ἀνδριαντοποιῶν]; he is clogged with pitch from seals or impressions being daily taken from it by the sculptors.”

Hermes, the bronze, then answers:—

“It happened lately that my breast and back were covered with pitch by the sculptors in bronze, and a ridiculous cuirass was thus formed on my body, and by imitative art received a complete seal from the brass.”24

This passage is supposed to indicate the process of casting in plaster. It is possible that it may indicate a preparation in pitch to cast in bronze, but certainly not in plaster, which is the sole question. It is not workers in plaster who are engaged on it, but workers in bronze; and what they were doing was plainly to take impressions of the intaglio chasing or engraving on the body of the figure. The description of the bronze is that it was archaic, and beautifully traced and engraved. It may have been a term engraved with verses, or figures, or inscriptions; and this is by no means improbable, as it represented Hermes, and as nothing but the breast and back was covered with pitch. At all events, the process was one which seems to have been carried on, not for once, but daily. It may have been the famous Hermes ἀγοραῖος, which was cast in the 34th Olympiad, and was a study for brass casters. Again, it may not have been a figure in the round, but merely a bas-relief, or intaglio; and this supposition would be entirely in accordance with the hieratic and archaic sculpture in brass, marble, and terra cotta. Many were executed thus in intaglio and engraved,—some of which still remain,—and others in relief. A list of such may be found in Müller’s “Ancient Art” (pp. 61–65). If the passage refers to making a mould for casting, it was for casting in bronze and not in plaster, though nothing is said about casting, but merely of taking impressions or seals. The words ἐκτυπούμενος and ἐκματτόμενος mean ex-pressions from a seal or stamp. Exactly what the sculptors were doing, however, to this statue covers the process of brass casters. Thus Lucian, speaking of a certain brass statue in the Agora, says: οἶσθα τὸν χαλκοῦν τὸν ἑσῶτα ἐν τῇ ἀγορᾷ, καὶ τὰ μὲν πιττῶν τὰ δὲ εὔων διετέλεσα,—“You know the brass statue standing in the forum, on which I was occupied pitching and drying,” or burning.

But there is nothing new in all this, and nothing which throws any light upon the subject in question. It was, as we well know, a common practice of the Greeks, in making their large statues, to build up a core of wood, brickwork, plaster, and other materials as a foundation or rough sketch. On the surface of this in their chryselephantine statues they veneered sheets of gold and ivory, sometimes covering the entire surface with these precious materials, and sometimes finishing portions of them with an exterior of plaster or clay, which was painted in imitation of life. This for instance was the case with the Dionysos in Kreusis, described by Pausanias, of which the whole figure was modeled in plaster and afterwards colored. It would also seem to have been a practice with the Greek artists to cover these roughly executed cores with a composition of resin and pitch which they indurated by fire; and afterwards to finish the surface in the same material. Such at least appears to be the process indicated by Lucian in the passage just quoted, in which he speaks of the statue he was engaged in pitching and drying; as well as by Apollodorus in a passage in which Dædalus is described as making a statue of Hercules in pitch (πίσσα). The term “pissa” in this last passage has by some translators been supposed to be a misprint for ἐν πίση, meaning that this statue was a ζόανον executed in pine wood like other Dædalian figures. As it stands in the original, certainly, it is πίσσα, and means pitch; and it is quite as probable that it is correct and means a sort of encaustic finish with resin and gum. However this may be, there is little doubt that in making their bronze statues the Greeks used a surface of wax and pitch, or some such material, which was plastic and would melt; and it is well known that they spread wax over their statues to give them a polished surface, and also finished their plaster walls with a covering of wax.

In making large statues, a skeleton framework of wood was often employed, called κίνναβος, or κάναβος, which was covered with solid material,—clay, plaster, brick, pitch, etc., all welded together to form a solid core over which the surface was finished in clay, plaster, pitch, ivory, or gold. In the “Somnium, seu Gallus” of Lucian, Gallus says, speaking of himself, “If he were king, he should be like one of the colossi of Phidias, Praxiteles, or Myron, which though externally like Neptune or Jupiter,—splendid with ivory and gold, bearing the trident or the thunderbolt,—yet if you look inside you will find them composed of beams and bolts and nails traversing them everywhere, and braces and ridges, and pitch and clay, and other ugly and misshapen things.”

It is a curious fact bearing generally on this subject that no allusion is ever made to such a person as a caster in plaster. Plutarch, enumerating the various trades and occupations to which the great public works of his time gave employment, speaks of operatives, modelers, brass-workers, stone-workers, gold and ivory workers, weavers, and engravers, but never mentions a caster. Philostratus also, enumerating the different classes of workmen in the plastic art, makes no mention of casters. Pliny never speaks of them. Indeed, their existence is never mentioned by any ancient writer.

All things considered, then, in conclusion, it seems impossible to believe that Pliny intended, in the passage relating to Lysistratus, to declare that he invented any method of casting in plaster, but rather that he intended to say that Lysistratus either modeled likenesses in wax over a core of gypsum, or, what is much more probable, that he colored his likenesses in imitation of life; and that his specialty was making accurate and literal likenesses in the round with color, thus uniting the two arts of the painter and the sculptor.

The process of casting in plaster, in our acceptation of the phrase, is of modern origin, and so far as we know was invented in the fifteenth century, a little before the time of Verrocchio (1432–1488), the master of Leonardo da Vinci. He was among the first who employed it, and may fairly be said to have introduced it. At all events, the first clear mention of this process of which we are aware is by Vasari in his life of Verrocchio; and he states that this sculptor and painter “cast hands, knees, feet, legs, even torsi, in order to copy them at his leisure; and that soon after casts began to be made from the faces of persons after death, so that one sees in every house in Florence, on mantel-pieces, doors, windows, and cornices, a great number of these portraits, which seem alive.” For some time after it seems to have been used chiefly for taking casts from dead faces,—or hands and feet,—and not to have been applied to casting from models of clay. The general practice of that period was to make a small model in clay, then to bake it, and from this model by proportional compasses to enlarge it and point it upon the marble. The process of casting from clay models seems not to have been practiced then, and so far as we know models of full size in clay were rarely if ever made, until rather a comparatively recent period.