CATALOGUE OF THE EXHIBITION

BEN DHALIWAL

The impact of the multiple on the history of art has been enormous. Throughout the Renaissance, Antique sculpture was excavated in Italy and around the Mediterranean and as this happened theories developed which were intended to provide a chronology and authorship for some of the finds. Many of these theories formed the bases, methods and language of art history and archaeology as it is studied today. One problem which scholars in the Renaissance encountered, and which repeatedly obstructed the writing of an accurate history of Antique sculpture, was their failure to appreciate that the sculptures which they were studying were often Roman copies of Greek originals. Nevertheless this archaeological activity helped to spread the cult of the Antique further a field and as more sculpture was excavated and major collections began to be established, guide-books were introduced. An example of this is, Sculpturae Veteris Admiranda 1680 by Joachim von Sandrart (1606-1688) which lists the main Antique sculptures and their precise locations in Rome.

From the Renaissance onwards, both Antique and contemporary sculpture began to be reproduced, sometimes in plaster, sometimes in stone by pointing, and also by lost-wax casting in bronze.

THE TECHNOLOGY OF REPRODUCTION

Historically, most sculpture has been reproduced either by pointing in stone or by casting in bronze; occasionally both methods were used on the same piece of sculpture. It is hard to know which of the two processes developed first. The Ancient Greeks acquired the technique of lost-wax bronze casting from the Egyptians in the 7th century BC and it seems likely that pointing was employed from at least the 4th century BC. The Greeks from that period onwards regarded works by previous generations as Classical and therefore worthy of reproduction. Although bronze was the preferred material for making sculpture because of its plastic flexibility and its portability, marble was far cheaper and more readily available. Technical problems arising from reproducing the balance of the free standing hollow bronzes were circumvented by introducing transversal props. Many statues originally conceived in bronze were reproduced in marble in the workshops of Ephesus, Smyrna, Paros, Thasos, Pergamum and Magna Graecia.

POINTING

The technique of reproducing a sculpture by pointing is an arduous one requiring lengthy preparation and considerable skill. The sculpture to be reproduced is placed in a frame commensurate with the size of the block of stone which will be used to make the copy. The pointing device is fixed to this block of stone. The end of the pointing machine arm with the calibrated point is then used to measure distances from the outer edge of the frame to strategic points on the sculpture’s surface. The arm is then fixed in position and the block of stone is drilled to the equivalent distance. The whole process is repeated at strategic points all over the surface of the sculpture, drilling into the block from which the copy is to be made. Often, when enough drill marks have been made, the surface of the block of stone takes on the ‘porous’ appearance of coral or sponge. The sculptor or studio technician then chips away the outer layer to reveal the rough outline of the sculpture copy beneath. This is then worked over and finished as appropriate to the subject matter.

Although very time consuming pointing is largely mechanical and for many years it was the work of the sculptor’s assistant and formed part of the artist’s apprenticeship. Thus the subject is often covered in sculptor’s studio manual Istruzione Elementare Per gli Studiosi della Scultura 1802 laboriously explains for the student the process by which sculpture is reproduced, enlarged and reduced.

Because of the rhetoric of spontaneity promoted by the early British Modernist cult of direct carving, the process of pointing has almost fallen into disuse. However Pointing Machines are still manufactured in this country by Tiranti and Sons. The use of the machine is demonstrated in their publication, Alex Miller’s Stone and Marble Carving, 1948 and is illustrated in Charles Sargeant Jagger’s book, Modelling and Sculpture in the Making, 1933.