This process is well illustrated by Jacob Epstein’s sculpture ‘Baby Asleep’ of 1904, in which all three stages of the casting are shown. The first model is made in wax, an extremely pliable material which can be worked quickly. From this wax the plaster would have been made and from this plaster, the final bronze would have been cast.

The technique of casting, this time in iron, has been exploited by Edward Allington in his ‘Brackets for the River Exe Project’. Working from the artist’s drawings, the brackets were carefully measured by the founders, Down and Sons, and then constructed as patterns in wood from which moulds were taken. The use of casting is ironic here because the object cast, the bracket, is normally a carved ornamental feature on the façade of a building. The bracket recalls historical misinterpretations of Vitruvius from Philibert deLorme to Abbé Laugier which have suggested that classical orders were derived from nature – that columns are a survival of trees which supported the very first buildings – and therefore that the carved acanthus leaf capital is descended from tree foliage. Here Allington uses a wooden mould to create a metal object which imitates a carved stone object, which itself imitates a natural organic object.

THE REPRODUCTION OF ANTIQUITY

Greek sculptors of antiquity were, broadly speaking, anonymous craftsmen whose reputations have reached us through the writings of others and they conceived much of their work with the expectation that it would be reproduced in one of the above mentioned ways. Among the specific names of sculptors whose work and reputation has survived that of Polykletios ranks high.

Polykletios of Argos was active between the 450 and 500 BC when because of the desirability of commemorating Olympic athletic performances in provinces beyond Athens, the marketplace for sculpture was at its most buoyant and increasingly high standards were being set by sculptors and workshops working in competition with one another. No known sculptures by Polykletios survive, but many exist as copies.

The name and reputation of Polykletios survive largely because of a text or ‘Kannon’ in which he attempted to set down the fundamental relationship of anatomical proportions within the human figure. Only fragments of the text survive, but Polykletios’ theories were enshrined in his most famous sculpture the ‘Doryphoros’ or ‘Spear bearer’ which was thought by the ancients to represent the male nude at its most harmonious; between youth and manhood, activity and response. Polykletios also made a companion figure, the ‘Diadumenous’ or ‘Soft/supple youth’, for which he is known to have received the unusually high fee of 100 talents. It must be remembered that both Polykletios’ statues and his Kannon emerge from a culture obsessed with physical prowess and athletic performance and that a theory of proportion had its implications outside the arena of sculpture.

Like the ‘Doryphoros’, the ‘Diadumenous’ was extensively copied in various versions, the most complete of which is at Delos. It is hard to pinpoint the precise identity of the figure but the attribute of the quiver in the Delos version has led some scholars to believe that Apollo is the subject. For a while, Polykletios’ Kannon set a standard for the appearance of sculpture and his figures were highly influential. The Diadumenos was not discovered until the 18th century, and then not identified until the middle of the 19th century, at which point his impact on western art through the countless related Antique copies which were already known was first appreciated.