Sculpture

SCULPTURE. - It is properly the art tending to bring out the forms of figures and things in any material, either fully in the round, or in relation to a background plane (low relief, high relief, etc.). It is therefore the figurative art par excellence, and its origin is certainly among the most remote of all the arts.

The most ancient modellers left testimonies of their activity in clay figurines, which, precisely because of the ductility of the material they used, are far removed from that rigidity which one is accustomed to think of in connection with the later sculpture in wood, the prelude to sculpture in stone.

The discovery of the ability to cast images in bronze gave, from the most ancient times, new possibilities to the art of sculpture, determined also by the particular strength of the metal, which makes it possible to avoid the points of support required for isolated parts (for example, arms and legs) carved in marble.

As for technique, in order to realize his work the sculptor starts from a clay model, from which the plaster cast is then taken, which will be translated into marble, beginning by referring to the most projecting points (reference points).

After the preliminary work of rough-hewing (carried out today, in general, by professional rough-hewers), the artist proceeds to the definitive and personal work of finishing.

For bronze, on the other hand, the work is realized by means of casting, which may be solid casting (that is, in massive sculpture obtained by pouring the metal into an empty mould), sand casting, and lost-wax casting (the latter being similar processes that allow a hollow sculpture and therefore a less costly one). After casting, one proceeds to chasing and patination. A process analogous to that of sculpture in bronze is that of sculpture in terracotta, which likewise uses moulds.

Gilberto Ronci

I. ANCIENT CHRISTIAN SCULPTURE

The richest collection of monuments illustrating the plastic activity of the first centuries of Christianity consists of the sarcophagi (v.).

More scarce, on the other hand, must have been statuary sculpture in the round, of which some statuettes of the Good Shepherd survive (the most illustrious being that of the Museo Lateranense), the young Christ teaching of the Museo nazionale romano, the statue of St. Hippolytus (only partly ancient) and, perhaps, the marble one of St. Peter in the Vatican Grottoes, likewise partly remade. For the first three centuries, therefore, a prudent reserve is presumed with regard to such plastic works. Nevertheless, literary notices are not lacking that attest the existence, after the peace of the Church, of statues both in places of worship (Lateran Baptistery; testimonies of John Chrysostom and Gregory of Nazianzus) and in public squares (statue of Paneas; Good Shepherd and Daniel among the lions at Constantinople; Caesarea). It is certain that the first Christian emperors did not abandon the custom of their predecessors of having themselves portrayed even in colossal statues (Constantine, the colossus of Barletta, etc.).

Placed at the service of architecture, early Christian sculpture could thus be applied both to the exterior of the sacred building, especially if built of stone, and to the decoration and furnishing of the interior. If, at the beginning, the Hellenistic motif still predominates everywhere in the ornament, a progressive interpenetration with local elements is noted thereafter, especially in Syro-Palestinian architecture, and the increasingly frequent insertion of Christian signs and symbols: crosses, monograms, symbolic plants and birds. This holds not only for the frames of doors and windows, but also and above all for the capitals.

While in the West the capital remains for a long time reused spolia or perpetuates the classical forms predominantly of the Corinthian or composite type, the Eastern and Byzantine one, on the other hand, departs from them more and more, creating new forms for the core, also with the insertion of the pulvinus, and resorting to a new ornament, sometimes figured, ever more explicitly Christian, in which the decorative and chiaroscuro tendency, not infrequently expressed in openwork, prevails over the plastic element. The shaft of the column may be twisted or decorated with vine tendrils; rarely (for example, in the cemetery basilica of Sts. Nereus and Achilleus) did it receive a figured ornament; the columns of the ciborium of S. Marco in Venice can no longer be considered as certainly ancient.

A further ornament of the inner wall were the stucco reliefs, decorative or figured or polychrome, of which remains survive in S. Lorenzo in Milan, in S. Maria Maggiore in Rome, in the Baptistery of the Orthodox and in S. Vitale in Ravenna, at Parenzo and elsewhere.

Precious remains of sculpture in wood are found in the original parts of the doors of S. Sabina on the Aventine, of S. Ambrogio in Milan, of the monastery of St. Catherine on Sinai, of S. Barbara in Old Cairo, important for the biblical scenes as well as for the ornamental motifs that accompany them.

Among the carved liturgical furniture, one must count first of all the altars, often decorated on the front, on the uprights or on the vertical faces of the table with motifs of a symbolic order (Baccano, Nola, Pomposa, St-Germain in Switzerland, Marseilles, Aix-en-Provence) and, perhaps, also with figures (S. Agnese fuori le mura); the very upper surface of the table could be decorated with reliefs.

In the ambos the relief remained for the most part low and of a decorative order, although the example of Salonico at Constantinople with the scene of the Magistrates bears witness that a very rich decoration was also known how to be used. The chancel screens and the plutei of the presbyterial enclosures, where they are not of a purely architectural type derived from classical art, are adorned with the usual symbolic or allegorical ornament, following the well-known evolution and transformation of forms. A singular treasure is the marble krater with the scene of the Epiphany in the Museo nazionale romano, formerly in the Museo Kircheriano.

The vicissitudes of early Christian sculpture could not be outlined if one neglected ivory carvings, at least those of a certain size, even if for theoretical convenience they are usually classified under the conventional heading of "minor arts." In part they allow us to complete the vision of sacred furnishing, in part they reveal a new aspect of official sculpture, especially in the consular diptychs; in any case they are most precious for the study of post-Constantinian Christian iconography. The chair of Maximian in Ravenna (6th century), of probable Alexandrian origin, entirely composed of tablets adorned with biblical scenes framed by decorative bands, is a rare testimony to the richness that this part of the liturgical furniture could assume. Among the reliquaries, the most famous are in the Lipsanotheca of Brescia and in that of Samagher (Pola). A fine example of an ivory pyx is that of Berlin, with the sacrifice of Isaac and Christ teaching among the Apostles. Another more recent and more Eastern one in the same city presents the Annunciation and the Nativity. Among the Christian diptychs with biblical scenes may be worth citing are those of the Louvre with healings and of the British Museum with scenes of the Passion, the panels with the Ascension in Munich and with the Resurrection in the Castello Sforzesco in Milan. More recent or of Eastern origin are the diptych of Murano preserved in Ravenna and that of the National Library of Paris (6th century). Very beautiful is the Byzantine leaf with an archangel in the British Museum. Finally, mention must be made of the rich series of consular diptychs.

A particular case is constituted by Coptic art, which both in the funerary field, with its numerous stelae, and in the architectural field and that of furnishings offers a very rich collection of symbolic and figured motifs (triumphal crosses supported by the eagle, ornaments, etc.) but above all ornamental ones, clothed in a special form of stylization in which the fusion of Hellenistic and Syrian art received a very strong local imprint.

d'arte, 34 (1949), pp. 253-61; R. Delbrueck, Probleme der Lipsanothek in Brescia, Bonn 1952; J. Strzygowski, Koptische Kunst, Cairo 1904; G. Duthuit, La sculpture copte, Paris 1931.

Luciano De Bruyne

II. MEDIEVAL, RENAISSANCE AND MODERN SCULPTURE

In early Christian sculpture the stylistic modes that appear in it are closely linked to those of the preceding and contemporary pagan sculpture. But very soon the new order of ideas that characterizes the evolution of thought between the 1st and 5th centuries, both in the East and in the West, inevitably leads sculptors as well toward new forms of expression. Indeed, whereas during the period of classical art the reproduction of the perfect harmony of the human limbs was considered the highest goal of aesthetic perfection, now other concepts replace that one, and sculpted images, like painted ones, tend rather to express the movements of the soul with forms that gradually become more and more emphatically anti-academic and anti-classical. This continued until, around the 7th and 8th centuries, sculptors came to abandon even the practice of depicting human likenesses, and the art of sculpture was reduced to the practice of incising or piercing marbles in order to represent therein the elements of a limited decorative repertoire (v. BARBARICA ARTE; BIZANTINA, ARTE; ITALIA, VI. L'arte in I).

It was only during the Romanesque period (v. ROMANICA, ARTE) between the 11th and 13th centuries that the plastic faculties of the Italians and of the other peoples sharing in the culture of the Christian world manifested themselves with new exceptional vitality, and from the crowd of stonecutters engaged in the construction and decoration of the new churches there emerged the first great personalities of sculptor-artists such as Wiligelmo (v.), the Antelami (v.), Nicola Pisano (v.), who expressed with perfect harmony of forms the new fervor of life characteristic of that time.

In the subsequent Gothic period (v. GOTICA, ARTE) the perfecting of technical means contributed, especially in central and northern Europe, but by reflection also in Italy, to accentuating on the part of the artists the modes of expression in an individual sense, modes that during the Renaissance (v. RINASCIMENTO, ARTE del) had the possibility of manifesting themselves with even greater independence. This even though a deliberate return to classical models was often evident, while from the point of view of the true and proper evolution of technique one witnessed a decided progress especially as regards the method of casting in bronze and in the other metals, the making of polychrome terracotta, of glazed ware, and the subtle carving and smoothness of marble.

Such technical progress continues also during the Baroque age (v. BAROCCA, ARTE) when marble succeeded in rendering with extreme lightness almost the rustle of silken fabrics and the delicate soft transitions of planes in modelling flesh. It was then that polychrome wax sculptures also spread, which, reviving a very ancient technique, were successful especially for the execution of portraits and sacred images. Wax, moreover, even in the modern age is widely used by sculptors, and almost exclusively in wax worked during the last century with surprising impressionistic effects one of the most significant sculptors of his time, Medardo Rosso. - See t.v. VII-IX.

Gilberto Ronci