Page:All the Year Round - Series 2 - Volume 1.djvu/286

276[February 20, 1869] than by reason of the natural desire which every artist has, to terminate in person, the work he has conceived and begun. The statue is usually returned to the sculptor in a half-finished state, the fine touches which will constitute the special beauty of the work yet remaining to be done. The most delicate of tools are then employed; slender chisels with the finest points; toy hammers with scarcely a weight to them, little graters that fit on, something like thimbles, to the top of the forefinger. And to polish the marble and smooth it, tripoli, lead, chamois-leather, sand-paper, sponges steeped in oil, and the palm of the hand are used. When the work represents a naked figure, the amount of care needed for the correct modelling of the limbs and muscles is inconceivable. Works like the Laocoon, the Dying Gladiator, the Venus of Medici, the Apollo Belvedere, must have cost the makers more trouble and anxiety than any sum of money could repay. And it is but common generosity on the part of the critic, even when he pauses before what he considers a faulty statue, to be very lenient in his judgment of it.

We pass to statues in bronze.

In this case, as in that of marble sculpturing, the preliminaries, in so far as regards the sketching on paper and the modelling in clay, are identical. But there are two ways of casting in bronze: piece by piece or all at once. We will deal with the latter method first.

When the clay model is finished, it is not cast in plaster, but is covered with a coating of wax, of the intended thickness of the metal. A preparation composed of a peculiar sort of clay, which has been mixed with horse-dung and reduced to powder, after having been allowed to ferment and then to dry, is taken and wetted so as to form a paste. To give a certain degree of consistency to it, there is added a small proportion of calf's dung, the cohesive properties of which answer better, for this purpose, than any other matter known. The mixture thus obtained is capable of resisting the most intense heat, and is therefore superior to plaster, which cannot support more than a certain temperature. The clay model coated with wax is thickly covered with this substance, and set in a warm place to dry. When the drying is completed, the wax between the interior of the mould and the outside of the model is slowly melted by fire; the mould is then strengthened by being tightly bound round with broad iron bands, chains, and three or four layers of wet plaster and earth. The whole is well heaped over with clay: a sort of chimney hole and a few ventilators being contrived to allow free passage to the air and smoke. A monster fire is next lighted, and seven days and seven nights of burning are required to bake the mould. After this, a pit is dug, the mould is lowered into it, and once more covered up with earth; a few ventilators are made as before, and an orifice is perforated by which the molten metal may flow in a large jet, through the opening at the bottom of the mould. The orifice is connected with a huge caldron, over which, or attached to which, is the furnace where the brass is being melted in a raging fire.

It is then that the exciting part of the work begins; for, however carefully all the precautions may have been taken to this point, there is nothing as yet to guarantee success. The blunder of a workman, the imprudence of an apprentice, may undo everything, and may cause the making of a new model, and the baking of a new mould (another month's work), to be necessary.

When the masses of brass in the furnace are nearly melted, the caldron is carefully swept, that there be neither straw nor pebble left in it. The master founder then inspects the six or eight plugs which stop the vent-holes of the caldron, and, after seeing that they are properly closed, commits the keeping of each of them to a separate workman, whose duty it will be to pull quickly out at the word of command.

The operation of casting an important statue requires brave and intelligent men, who will not lose their presence of mind at sight of the sudden rush of flaming metal, nor faint under the stifling heat of fire and smoke. To protect their faces and necks from sparks of molten bronze, they wear masks; their arms and hands are covered by canvas gauntlets, previously steeped in water, and daubed over with wet earth. When the brass has at last been liquefied, the final charges of pewter and zinc are cast into the furnace. These last two metals melt immediately, and the mixture which makes up bronze is then completed. Everything is then ready for the casting. The workmen take their posts. A deep silence reigns. The master founder, armed with a strong bar of iron, steps forward, and, with a vigorous blow, knocks in the iron plate which stops the reservoir of the furnace. The white-hot metal gushes out with a hissing sound, like a torrent of burning lava, and fills the caldron. The workmen pull out the plugs, the molten bronze flows gurgling through the orifices into the mould; whiffs of blue flame and steam dart out from the ventilators; the caldron is empty, and the statue is cast.

The cooling process occupies several days. The next thing to do is to break the nucleus model in clay, and to empty the statue. This, although a tedious work, is a safe one, and after it is accomplished the bronze figure is well washed, furbished with dry brushes, packed up in cocoa-nut matting, and ready to be sent to its destination.

The casting piece by piece is attended with more trouble but with fewer risks than the casting in a single jet. It would be tedious to give a detailed description of the process employed, for words would scarcely render the thing intelligible without the aid of diagrams. The advantages of the piece by piece system lie in the fact that the spoiling of a part does not mar the whole, as is the case when the statue is cast after the fashion we have just