BRONZE. — Employed for the most diversified uses since antiquity, bronze played a preponderant role in Greek statuary beginning with the archaic period (6th century B.C.). Ancient sources cite its use on many occasions, and many of the original objects constructed with it survive, providing notable testimony.
Before being used in casting for sculptures or reliefs, bronze was employed in numerous sheet-metal applications, for domestic utensils, personal ornaments, weapons, chariots, and even architectural decorations. Pliny, in his *Naturalis Historia* (XXXIV, chaps. 1–93), provides a detailed account of such uses, commenting on and describing many of the most celebrated bronze sculptures of antiquity. The greatest artisans of ancient Greece widely employed bronze in their most celebrated works, from Myron to Polyclitus, from Phidias to Scopas, Praxiteles, and Lysippus; and although only a few survive in their original form, many small votive and ornamental bronzes are preserved in museums throughout the world.
The techniques used in antiquity for casting and pouring bronze reveal a marvelous perfection that well accords with the high artistic quality. The figurative elements (plastic evidence, the function of line and planes, coloristic sonority) found an elevated coefficient in the ductility of the material.
The Egyptians, the Etruscans, and later the Romans were also skilled in the art of bronze, which they employed extensively following the example of Greece. Among the most celebrated Etruscan and Roman bronzes are the Mars of Todi, the Capitoline Wolf, the equestrian statue of Marcus Aurelius, the herms and the decoration of the ships of Nemi, the Victory of Brescia, and certain busts of emperors.
Bronze was also used in the East from the most ancient times: in China for vases, weapons, ornaments, sacred statuary (Buddha statues), and all cult accessories. Japan, a tributary of China, gave bronze use a distinctive character of its own. In India, many sacred sculptures, even of large dimensions, were cast in bronze (among them, for example, the dancing Shiva within the circle of fire in the museum of Madras and in the collection of the Banca d’Italia). Braziers, bells, censers, and other objects were also produced, often adorned with silver and gold and enriched with precious stones and enamels.
From the earliest Christian period, small objects such as lamps, medals, liturgical furnishings, liturgical accessories, screens, candelabra, and door leaves (such as those in the Lateran Baptistery from the 5th century) were made of bronze. The technique continued to improve with contributions from Byzantine art in many objects adorned with reliefs or inlays. A remarkable example is the great doors of Hagia Sophia in Constantinople from the 9th century. The tradition imported from the East, which had independently maintained its vitality in other European centers, was especially fostered by monastic communities and Florentine monasteries during the revival around the year 1000. They continued the use of artistic casting, which had been resumed in the Carolingian age, during which a great number of interesting sculptures were produced (among them, the statuette of Charlemagne from Metz, now in the Louvre). The school of the monastery of Hildesheim in Germany played a notable role in spreading this tradition throughout Germany, producing works that still astonish for their technical perfection, such as the bronze doors and column preserved in that cathedral.
With the Romanesque period, there was a more intense revival of the use of bronze in Italy for some of the noblest works of art of those centuries. The great Romanesque sculptors—Bonanno Pisano for the doors of the cathedrals of Pisa and Monreale, Barisano for those of Trani and for the others in Ravello and Monreale, Oderisio for that of Troia, along with the anonymous artist of the door of the cathedral of Benevento, much damaged in the last war—all engaged in bronze works. In other European countries, ecclesiastical furnishings, bells, and other objects were produced with a vigorous plastic sense. The great candelabrum of Milan Cathedral, attributed to Nicholas of Verdun, is among the most notable northern examples of this period. Even in the Romanesque age, important works were imported from the East, including the silver-gilt bronze doors for the basilica of St. Paul Outside the Walls, for Monte Cassino, and for St. Michael at Gargano.
Among the earliest 14th-century documents are the doors that Andrea da Pontedera carved in 1332 for the Florentine Baptistery, cast by specialists brought in from Venice. Seventy years later, victory in the competition announced by the Opera del Duomo enabled Lorenzo Ghiberti to sculpt in gilded bronze, first the northern door and then the eastern door of the same Baptistery. The first, commissioned in 1403, was completed in 1424; the second, commissioned in 1425, was finished in 1452. Alongside him, the greatest sculptors of the Renaissance widely used bronze for their most successful works: Brunelleschi, Donatello, Verrocchio, and Pollaiuolo left peerless testimonies in Florence and elsewhere. Even lesser artists engaged in metalwork. The Paduan Bartolomeo Bellano collaborated at the highest level with Donatello’s assistants in S. Lorenzo in Florence for the last Stories of Christ and left his masterpiece in the reliquary cabinet in the church of the Santo in Padua; the Sienese Vecchietta sculpted in 1467 the tomb figure of M. Sozzini the Elder, now in the Bargello Museum in Florence. Other works by him include the ciborium of Siena Cathedral and the Risen Christ of 1476 in the church of the Hospital of Siena. Francesco di Giorgio Martini, in his multifaceted activity, also left many bronze works. Among those unanimously recognized by critics are the two reliefs with the Flagellation, one in the Pinacoteca of Perugia and the other of the Deposition in the church of the Carmine in Venice, and the angels of Siena Cathedral, datable to about 1497–99. A vigor never before seen was imparted to their castings by Sansovino in Venice, Giambologna in Pisa, and later by Benvenuto Cellini, whose famous description of the labor involved in casting his *Perseus* survives.
During the Renaissance, many ecclesiastical accessories were also produced in bronze that were true works of art, whether they were screens (the Chapel of the Girdle in Prato Cathedral), pulpits, or smaller objects such as candelabra, bells, basins, and washbasins. The medal (v.), of which Pisanello was the most celebrated artisan, deserves particular mention for its flourishing development in 15th-century Italy.
In the 16th century in Germany, decorative statues were produced, and among the greatest artists, Peter Vischer and Hans Leigenberger achieved great renown, though they never attained a high artistic level.
Throughout the 17th century, kept alive by great sculptors such as Bernini and Algardi, the tradition of bronze continued to have an important life, especially in the great funerary monuments of Roman basilicas and in the decoration of Baroque architecture. Outside Italy in the 18th century, the use began of adorning furniture and domestic furnishings with bronze, especially in France, where, during and toward the end
Brosses, Charles de - Portrait. Engraving by Coupé.
At the beginning of the Empire, furniture of various styles was crafted, but often decorated with bronze. The French example was soon followed in England and Germany, though the productions of these countries could not match the refined elegance of Parisian metalworkers. The primacy was maintained throughout the 19th century, and among the greatest French artists must be recalled Auguste Rodin, author of celebratory sculptures and portraits (*Les Bourgeois de Calais*, *La Porte de l'Enfer*, the busts of Clemenceau, Victor Hugo, and Benedict XV, all in the Rodin Museum in Paris) but also of some religious sculptures, including a *St Jean-Baptiste prêchant* from 1879.
Rodin’s art inspired numerous sculptors who, at the end of the century and in the early 1900s, produced many bronze works in the then-dominant academic taste. The decoration of grand honorary architectures was widespread (quadrigas on the triumphal arches in Paris, Berlin, etc., sculptures on the monuments to Victor Emmanuel II and Garibaldi in Rome).
In more recent times, the use of bronze in art has declined, except for some successful works by contemporary artists (among them Arturo Martini is worth mentioning), who often also treated religious subjects. It has rather passed into industrial use, where it has been combined with many other metals equally employed. - See Pl. X.