I enjoyed learning about the metalwork of pre-historic and ancient times. The level of detail they attained with rudimentary technology and tools is pretty amazing to me. As a metalsmith, I cannot imagine working without pressurized gas, electricity or magnification.
When I speak of metal working, I'm not talking about bronze sculptures, though the level of detail the Greeks, Etruscans, and Romans attained is quite astonishing, as in the "Equestrian Statue of Marcus Aurelius" (pg. 201). The folds of skin under the neck of the horse and the folds of cloth on Marcus Aurelius' robe are beautiful.
I am fascinated by the hollowcore casting methods used by Greek goldsmiths, as seen on page 147 in the textbook. These small earrings have so much detail and workmanship packed into each surface. Even though the casting process is largely the same as it was thousands of years ago, metalsmiths these days have the luxuries of pressurized gasses, running water, and safety equipment. Goldsmiths in the days of the Greeks were master craftsmen and worked very hard to attain quality work.
The goldsmithing of Aegean craftspeople is also quite interesting to me because of their use of filigree and granulation. Filigree and granulation were largely forgotten until recently simply because they are difficult and tedious processes to learn. The bee pendant on page 87 is a beautiful example of ancient granulation, and has survived the tests of time. Try burying a painting now and seeing if it's still intact 3-4,000 years later.
The amount of resources available at this time astonishes me and I am always in awe of how much gold ancient peoples used. The textbook did not talk about a lot of Egyptian metalwork, although they did make many things out of metal; gold was used extensively as was silver. The Egyptians used the technique of inlay to work gold and silver, and precious and semi-precious stones into their sculptures and sarcophagi. The bust on page 72 called "Queen Tiy" was inlayed with gold, silver, ebony, glass, and lapis lazuli. The use of gold was to symbolize wealth and also Ra because gold is often seen as being the color of the sun.
Although I have no knowledge about metalwork or other works of its kind, I really enjoyed reading your post. I also noticed how interesting the little metal art pieces look, with all the detail showing clearly and beautifully, during the ancient and medieval times. It looks very hard to me to make such artworks from heavy materials such as metals and gold, unlike other art that involves softer material, such as clay.
ReplyDeleteI'm glad that you enjoyed learning about early examples of metal work, and that you found particular relevance between our course topic and your own interests as an artist. I also like the "Head of an Akkadian King," (p. 33) which is one of the earliest known works of hollow-cast sculpture that we have studied. The details in the beard and hair are very stunning!
ReplyDeleteI enjoyed having you in my class!
-Prof. Bowen
Just mentioning bronze work, I've done some bronze work for one of my sculpture classes. We used the lost wax technique, which involved making a cast of the wax in plaster and then letting the wax burn off. You had to make sure to attach wax rods to the piece of sculpture that reached to the surface of the plaster, so when you poured the liquid bronze into the mold, it would fill in all parts of your piece. They would not have had electric grinders and other power tools to help remove the rods and smooth down the metal after it was removed from the plaster mold. The artisans would have had to do it all by hand during ancient Greek and Roman times, which shows you how labor intensive and skilled the artist had to be to make them look as finely detailed as the bronze "Warrior" ( found in Stokstad p. 126). I too am impressed by the high level of skill of the artists.
ReplyDeleteIt is pretty crazy the stuff they accomplished back then, between the amazing detail in stone work to the details in the jewlery. It's kind of sad that the amount of dedication and detail has kind of been lost over the years, since practically everything these days is automatic or machine made.
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