Toreutics

TOREUTICS. - It is the art of working metals through casting, hammering, engraving, chasing, etc.

Especially for antiquity the term is used to indicate the activity and the work of artists who modeled, cast and chased objects in bronze, but generally also to indicate the working, with artistic intent, of any other metal from iron to the noblest and most precious (v. SCULPTURE). Thus for ancient Egypt, the Cretan-Mycenaean civilization, the Villanovan civilization itself, the Etruscan, the Greek, etc. Works of t. in early Greek art are also considered to be sculptures in wood with applications of metal sheets, while for later periods the term is limited to indicating the activity of the repoussé workers, the engravers, the agemina workers, the goldsmiths who have always worked with artistic intent on household furnishings and those destined for worship. Thus in the Middle Ages (v.) as in later ages (v. BAROQUE, ART; RENAISSANCE), when the evolution of taste has left testimonies of the highest value both in bronze sculpture and in works of goldsmithing (v.).

Emilio Lavagnino