Bust (sculpture)

“ The pure white marble bust looks ill at ease in the warm precincts of the modern home; it is a thing of the past. We can but wonder that our elders bore it so long, even when it was in a measure suppressed by placing it looking streetward, between the parted lace curtains. ”

“ The bust is believed to have been commissioned by the poet’s son-in-law, Dr John Hall, and, like the Droeshout print, must have been seen by and likely enough had the approval of Mrs Shakespeare, who did not die until August 1623. It is thought to have been modelled from either a life or death mask, and inartistic as it is has the marks of facial individuality; that is to say, it is a portrait and not a generalization such as was common in funereal sculpture. According to the practice of the day, especially at the hands of Flemish sculptors of memorial figures, the bust was coloured ”

“ As the different processes of sculpture are but little known, it may not be out of place here to throw some light upon them. The artist himself models the figure, bust, or group, whatever it may be, in clay, spending all his skill, time, and labor on this first stage. When complete—and many months, sometimes even years of unwearied study are given to the task—a plaster cast is taken from the clay figure, from which cast the workmen put the subject into marble, the artist superintending it, and reserving to himself the more delicate [Pg 352] task of finishing. ”

“ The single relief, or statue, or bust, or simple urn, introduced appropriately in the smallest apartment we inhabit, charms us infinitely more than those gigantic museums, crowded into rooms never entered but for show, and without a chill, uncomfortable shiver. Besides, this practice of galleries, which the herd consider orthodox, places sculpture out of the patronage of the public. There are not a dozen people who can afford galleries. But very moderately affluent gentlemen can afford a statue or a bust. ”

“ As regards the photographs of the bust, more explanation is requisite. They do not represent the making of a sketch-model, but a life-size bust. The method is the same in both cases, however; while in the case of the bust the manner of working with the clay is better exemplified than in that of the horse. Moreover, this series of photographs enables the reader to understand another important department of the sculptor's art. The scaffolding, so to speak, is simpler than in the case of the horse. ”

“ A finely-rounded shoulder and exactly-developed bust is set off with a light satin bodice or corsage, cut low, opening shawl-fashion at the breast, and relieved with a stomacher of fine Brussels lace. Down the edges are rows of small, unpolished pearls, running into points. ”

“ Sculptors take a bolder step, and, with a taste that does credit to their sagacity, give the bust, without hesitation, a slovenly dignity,—simply throw an old huckaback towel round the chest and over the shoulder, and trust to the features of the man and the material of the marble to add weight and consequence. ”

“ From extreme realism on one side, with portrait statues in the last detail of modern costume, silk hats, kid gloves, and in one case holding a cigar, to the vague suggestions of a shapeless mass of marble, out of which protrude unfinished limbs and half-developed heads, sculpture has been pushed from side to side, but is settling into a vigorous, steady, onward movement, in which the best men of all nations stride along together. ”

“ Sir David Brewster has shown how the rigid features of a white bust may be made to move and vary their expression, sometimes smiling and sometimes frowning, by moving rapidly in front of the bust a bright light, so as to make the lights and shadows take every possible direction and various degrees of intensity; and if the bust be placed before a concave mirror, its image may be made to do still more when it is cast upon wreaths of smoke. ”

“ The bust cannot be said to represent a beautiful face or an eminently noble head; but it clutches firmly hold of one's sense of reality and insists upon your accepting it, if not as Shakspeare the poet, yet as the wealthy burgher of Stratford, the friend of John a' Combe, who lies yonder in the corner. I know not what the phrenologists say to the bust. The forehead is but moderately developed, and retreats somewhat, the upper part of the skull rising pyramidally; the eyes are prominent almost beyond the penthouse of the brow ”

“ If the bust is only a little full, the alteration can be made on the underarm seam when you try on the lining and waist. For an unusually large bust the alteration must be made before you cut your good lining and outside material. ”

“ The original clay bust on which the sculptor worked is now so damaged that it is destroyed, the clay often being used again for a fresh subject, and the bundles of wood being utilised for lighting the fire.
A young Frenchman once begged me to let him cast a hand and foot for some work he was doing, explaining that, though amongst the artists’ models there were exquisite heads and forms, that class of woman seldom had good hands, and a good foot never. ”

“ And if you will kneel down and look long at the tassels of the cushion under the head, and the way they fill the angles of the stone, you will,—or may—know, from this example alone, what noble decorative sculpture is, and was, and must be, from the days of earliest Greece to those of latest Italy.
"Exquisitely sculptured fringe!" and you have just been abusing sculptors who play tricks with marble! Yes, and you cannot find a better example, in all the museums of Europe, of the work of a man who does not play tricks with it—than this tomb. ”

“ He founded it with pathetic faith and care and amazing punctiliousness on the so-called “Death Mask,” which it little resembles; as he was no sculptor the bust is no more successful than the picture. The bust by R. S. Greenough, already mentioned as based in part on the “Boston Zuccaro” portrait, must be included here, as well as the romantic, dreamy, marble bust by Augusto Possaglio of Florence (presented to the Garrick Club by Salvini in 1876) ”

“ A number of statues, busts, gems and coins represented Antinoüs as the ideal type of youthful beauty, often with the attributes of some special god. We still possess a colossal bust in the Vatican, a bust in the Louvre, a bas-relief from the Villa Albani, a statue in the Capitoline museum, another in Berlin, another in the Lateran, and many more. ”

“ Sculpture (from sculpo, to carve) includes all carved work, in wood, ivory, stone, marble, metal, or other material; and also those works formed in a softer material not requiring carving, such as wax or clay. It includes Statuary, carved ornament, and Glyptics or incised gems and cameos. From the practice of preparing the model in clay, sculpture is also called the plastic art. A most remarkable incident in the history of sculpture, is the fact that the most ancient specimens are carved of the hardest stones, such as basalt, granite, and porphyry ”

“ Such buildings as Santa Sophia in the Eastern Empire and the basilicas of Ravenna in the Western, stand to witness that the artistic sense itself was still alive. But no great political or social force called forth the craftsmanship of the sculptor. As the Dark Ages drew to a close, however, a change came about. Mankind once more sought to find expression for its deepest imaginations and beliefs through sculptured marble and bronze.
We may roughly fix the date of the rebirth of sculpture at 1000 a.d. ”

“ These bas-reliefs, statues, the columns, the cornices and other ornaments which belong to another epoch only serve to expose the defects in those parts of the work which are entirely due to the sculptors of the day and which are most rude. Very rude also are some scenes of small figures in marble under the circles and the pediment, representing victories, while between the side arches there are some rivers also very crude and so poor that they leave one firmly under the impression that the art of sculpture had been in a state of decadence for a long while. ”

“ I feel that our fetish is safe for three centuries yet. The bust, too—there in the Stratford Church. The precious bust, the priceless bust, the calm bust, the serene bust, the emotionless bust, with the dandy moustache, and the putty face, unseamed of care—that face which has looked passionlessly down upon the awed pilgrim for a hundred and fifty years and will still look down upon the awed pilgrim three hundred more, with the deep, deep, deep, subtle, subtle, subtle, expression of a bladder. ”

“ This method has been applied to the imitation of Renaissance terra-cotta busts. A bust bought at a high figure from a Venetian antiquary many years ago and believed to be genuine Quattrocento work was afterwards discovered to have been made from the cast taken from the face of a recumbent figure on a tomb in the church of San Pietro e Paolo, to which had been added the back part of another bust, the whole finally set upon a pair of shoulders cast from another original of the period. ”

“ A bust of white marble may give an excellent idea of a blooming face. Colour the lips and cheeks of the bust, leaving the hair and eyes unaltered, and the similarity, instead of being more striking, will be less so. ”

“ IN THIS MANNER MAKE THE ARMLESS BUST. stockings, or long, narrow bags. In this tableau the side-lights must be used to prevent any shadow from being cast upon the background; the lights must shine behind the statue, not on it.
The pedestal is made of a packing box, with the top cut out to admit the figure, as shown in the diagram (Fig. 579) . A fine color effect is produced when this pedestal is covered with dark red material, upon which rests, to all appearances, the pure white marble bust. ”

“ ALTERING PATTERNS FOR A FIGURE WITH AN UNUSUALLY SMALL BUST. For the woman with an unusually small bust it is wiser to make up the lining first in unbleached muslin before cutting into the regular lining. Where the bust is just a little under the average the alteration can be made at the underarm seam. ”

“ The costume of the time, too, was so ugly that it served to give a grotesque air to many figures, and thus added to the general appearance of decline which marked the English tomb-sculpture of the fourteenth century. It compares unfavorably with the German monuments of the same period, and the realistic portrait element which ruled it makes it [Pg 126] seem like a monotonous and feeble system of mechanics rather than a style of art. ”

“ Thus, great slenderness, lightness, or intricacy of structure,—as in ramifications of trees, detached folds of drapery, or wreaths of hair,—is easily and perfectly expressible in metal-work or in painting, but only with great difficulty and imperfectly expressible in sculpture. All sculpture, therefore, which professes as its chief end the expression of such characters, is debased ”

“ Again following the example of the ancients, the sculptor has delicately touched with gold her tiara, her sandals, and her ornaments, and has carried a graceful coloured border round the edges of her robe. The whole of the statue is in ivory, the throne, embossed with figures, in bronze, and the base of marble—a combination harmonious to the eye and well suited to the subject. The execution is most careful and delicate. It is impossible to imagine anything more true to nature than the bosom—which seems almost to heave with the last struggling breath—or the arm falling at her side. ”

“ Every limb must be in perfect proportion, every feature in exquisite harmony. Any deformity, any weakness of outline, any mere ungracefulness, you see, militates against that perfection of shape to which sculpture entirely devotes itself. The coldness, hardness, and whiteness of marble make it appeal only to the highest taste; its rigorous self-abnegation in refusing the aid of colour gives it a special claim in the eyes of the purest and truest judges.'
'Then you don't like tinted statues?' the colonel put it. (He knew his ground here, for had he not seen Gibson's Venus?) ”

“ The face, heavy and disagreeable in its features, is made monstrous by its semi-sculpture. One side of the forehead is wrinkled elaborately, the other left smooth; one side only of the doge's cap is chased ”

“ Newton next fell in with a mass of ruins lying just below the surface, one column, indeed, standing nearly upright but inverted, and 10 feet below, a little further on, with the edge of a pavement or step, about 6 inches below which the native rock had been levelled for a floor. In the earth on this floor was found the body of a colossal statue from the waist to the ankle, and another mass of sculpture—a warrior on horseback in a Persian or Oriental costume, in itself a most remarkable specimen of ancient sculpture. ”

“ Thus in the major crafts of bronze casting and of marble-cutting, American sculpture is fairly fortunate today. In the one, we have come a long way from that first attempt in 1847; in the other, we have craftsmen who for large work to be seen at a distance can sufficiently well translate into stone the188 sculptor’s finished models. We have also for our salvation a few sculptors, who, like Chester Beach, are peculiarly gifted in wresting from the marble, and with their own hands, their own visions. ”

“ Try the lining on again to be sure that it is comfortable and then stitch the shoulder seams.
Diagonal wrinkles in the back of the lining may be handled in the same way. The same alteration that is made in the lining should be made in the outside waist.
ADAPTING PATTERNS TO A FIGURE WITH AN UNUSUALLY LARGE BUST. This is the case, not necessarily of a large figure, but of a figure in which the bust is large in proportion to the bust measure. A woman might measure 36 inches at the bust and yet have a narrow back and a very full bust. ”