Sculpture and Its Reproductions

SCULPTURE ANDITS REPRODUCTIONS

Edited byAnthony Hughes and Erich Ranfft

SCULPTUREAND ITS

REPRODUCTIONS

Critical Views

In the same series

The New Museologyedited by Peter Vergo

Renaissance Bodiesedited by Luey Gent and

Nigel Llewellyn

Modernism in Designedited by Paul Greenhalgh

Interpreting Contemporary Artedited by Stephen Bann and

William Allen

The Portrait in Photographyedited by Graham Clarke

Utopias and the Millenniumedited by Krishan Kumar and

Stephen Bann

The Cultures of Collectingedited by John EIsner and

Roger Cardinal

Boundaries in Chinaedited by John Hay

Frankenstein,Creation and Monstrosityedited by Stephen Bann

A New Philosophy of Historyedited by Frank Ankersmit

and Hans Kellner

Parisian Fieldsedited by Miehael Sheringham

SCULPTUREAND ITS

REPRODUCTIONS

Edited byAnthony Hughes and

Erich Ranfft

,REAKTION BOOKS

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First published 1997

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British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data:

Sculpture and its reproductions. (Critical views)L Sculpture 2. Sculpture ReproductionI. Ranfft, Erich 11. Hughes, Anthony

73°ISBN 18 6189002 8

Contents

Photographic Acknowledgements VI

Notes on Editors and Contributors vu

Introduction Anthony Hughes and Erich Ranfft I

I Roman Sculptural Reproductions or Polykleitos: The SequelMiranda Marvin 7

2 Authority, Authenticity and Aura: WaIter Benjamin and theCase of Michelangelo Anthony Hughes 29

3 Art for the Masses: Spanish Sculpture in the Sixteenth andSeventeenth Centuries Marjorie Trusted 46

4 The Ivory Multiplied: Small-scale Sculpture and itsReproductions in the Eighteenth Century Malcolm Baker 6I

5 Naked Authority? Reproducing Antique Statuary in theEnglish Academy, from Lely to Haydon Martin Postle 79

6 Craft, Commerce and the Contradictions of Anti-capitalism:Reproducing the Applied Art of Jean Baffler Neil McWilliam 100

7 Reproduced Sculpture of German Expressionism:Living Objects, Theatrics of Display and Practical OptionsErich Ranfft 113

8 Truth to Material: Bronze, on the Reproducibility of TruthAlexandra Parigoris 131

9 Venus a Go Go, To Go Edward Allington

References

Select Bibliography

Index

152

168

197

201

Photographic Acknowledgements

The editors and publishers wish to express their thanks to the following sourcesof illustrative material and/or permission to reproduce it (excluding those namedin the captions, and the individual essayists, who supplied all remaininguncredited material):

© Edward Allington and the Lisson Gallery, London: pp. 153, 167; © 1997 ARS,New York/ADAGP, Paris: pp. 142, 145, IS0; © Alan Bowness/Hepworth Estate(photography): p. 139; Michael Brandon-Jones: p. 107; Harvard University ArtMuseums, Cambridge, MA (Edmee Busch Greenough Fund): p. 120; The ArtInstitutue of Chicago (gift of Margaret Fisher in memory of her parents, Mr andMrs Waiter Fisher): p. 137; Don Hall (courtesy the MacKenzie Art Gallery,Regina, Canada) (photography); © Bertrand Lavier: p. 159; Robert Hashimoto(photography): p. 137; Friedrich Hewicker: p. 124; Bill Jacobson Studio(photography): pp. 153, 167; Michael Le Marchant (Bruton Gallery): p. 134;G.V. Leftwich: pp. 12 (top right), 16; © Les Levine (photography): p. 134;Courtauld Institute of Art, London: p. 85; Royal Academy of Arts, London:p. 88; © The Board of Trustees of the Victoria and Albert Museum, London(photography): pp. 49, 58, 70, 74, 75; Paul Mellon Centre: pp. 82, 87, 96, 97;Museum of Modern Art, New York (acquired through the Lillie P. Bliss Bequest;photo: © 1997 MoMA, NYC): p. 144; Photo: Alexandra Parigoris: p. 145; TheNorton Simon Art Foundation, Pasadena (photography): p. 150; and WellesleyCollege Museum, Jewett Arts Centre, Wellesley (gift of Miss Hannah ParkerKimball, M. Day Kimball Memorial): p. 12 (bottom).

Notes on Editors and Contributors

EDWARD ALLINGTON is a sculptor based in London. His work has beenexhibited in museums and galleries including the Museum Hedendaagse Kunst,Antwerp; the Tate Gallery, London; the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art;and the National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo. He has also shown in publicprojects including Das Kunstprojekt Heizkraftwerk, Romerbriicken, Saarbriick-en (1990) and Quadratura in Cambridge (1995). He was Gregory Fellow inSculpture at the University of Leeds, He currently teaches at the SladeSchool of Art and is Research at the Manchester MetropolitanUniversity, who are publishing a collection of his essays, A Method for SortingCows (forthcoming).

MALCOLM BAKER is Deputy Head of Research at the Victoria and AlbertMuseum, London. He has written widely on eighteenth-century sculpture andvisual culture in many journals. He has co-written (with Anthony Radcliffe andMichael Maek-Gerard) Renaissance and Later Sculpture in the ThyssenBornemisza Collection (1991) and (with David Bindman) Roubiliac and theEighteenth-Century Monument: Sculpture as Theatre (1996), which wasawarded the 1996 Mitchell Prize for the History of Art. He is currently writinga book on Roubiliac and the roles of sculptural portraiture in eighteenth-centuryEngland.

ANTHONY HUGHES is Lecturer in the History of Art at the University ofLeeds. He has published extensively on sixteenth- and seventeenth-century art inArt History, The Burlington Magazine, The Journal of the Warburg andCourtauld Institutes and The Oxford Art Journal, and has written a book onMichelangelo. He is currently writing a book on the theory of sculpture from thefifteenth century to the present day.

MIRANDA MARVIN is Professor of Art and of Greek and Latin at WellesleyCollege. She was educated at Bryn Mawr College, the American School ofClassical Studies in Athens and Harvard University. She has excavated atIsrael and Idalion, Cyprus, and publishes on Roman sculpture.

NEIL McWILLIAM is Senior Lecturer in the History of Art in the School ofWorld Art and Museology, University of East Anglia. He has published widelyon nineteenth-century French visual culture, including A Bibliography of Salon

V111 NOTES ON EDITORS AND CONTRIBUTORS

Criticism in Paris from the July Monarchy to the Second Republic 1831-1850(1991) and Dreams ofHappiness (1993). He is completing a study of Jean Bafflerand nationalist culture in the Third Republic.

ALEXANDRA PARIGORIS, formerly Henry Moore Lecturer in the History ofSculpture Studies at the University of York, recently completed a PhD onConstantin Brancusi for the Courtauld Institute in London. She has published onBrancusi, Pablo Picasso and ]ulio Gonzalez. Currently based in Chicago, she ispreparing a critical edition of Andd: Salmon's La jeune sculpture franr:aise.

MARTIN POSTLE is Associate Professor of Art History and Director of theLondon Centre, University of Delaware. His publications include (with IlariaBignamini) The Artist's Model: It's Role in British Art from Lely to Etty(London and Nottingham, 1991) and Sir Joshua Reynolds: The Subject Pictures(Cambridge, 1995).

ERICH RANFFT is former visiting Henry Moore Scholar in Sculpture Studies atthe University of Leeds. He has published essays in Expressionism Reassessed(1993), Visions of the Neue Frau (1995) and The Dictionary of Women Artists(London and Chicago, 1997). He has been researching modern German arts andcultures and the practices of women sculptors, and has a forthcoming PhD onExpressionist sculpture from the Courtauld Institute in London.

MAR]ORIE TRUSTED is Deputy Curator in the Sculpture Department of theVictoria and Albert Museum, London. She has written a number of articles andbooks on sculpture; her catalogue of Spanish sculpture in the Victoria and AlbertMuseum was published in 1996.

Introduction

ANTHONY HUGHES AND ERICH RANFFT

Often, when the discussion of art turns to reproduction, it seems nearlyexclusively bound by two dimensions. To take only the best-knownexamples, the effects of the hand-made print have been explored inWilliam lvin's Prints and Visual Communication, while WaIterBenjamin's essay on 'The Work of Art in the Age of MechanicalReproduction' (invoked by more than one contributor to this book) hasbecome the single most influential piece of writing on the subject ofreproductive photography. are no corresponding general studiesdealing with sculpture, although, as all practitioners, curators and arthistorians know, facilities for reproducing three-dimensional objectspredate by several millennia any ability to make pictures that were'exactly repeatable' (to quote part of lvins' useful formula). Technologiesassociated with casting in clay and metal have been a traditional resourcefor sculptors for so long that their significance has gone largely un-remarked. By contrast, the relatively abrupt appearance of the firstwoodblock images during the early decades of the fifteenth century inEurope and, still more dramatically, the well-documented invention ofphotography in the nineteenth, assume obvious significance, if onlybecause they mark the kind of sudden discontinuity that seems to cry outfor historical interpretation.There is no doubt that exploitation of these inventions has, as lvins

argued, transformed the dissemination of information (and misinforma-tion) , producing profound repercussions for the perception of art.However, the very continuity of sculptural practice should make us waryof reducing accounts of change to the of technological innovationalone. Very often, reproduction becomes an especially significant issuebecause of transformations in the cultural and social fabric, as the essaysin this book clearly demonstrate. Some examples might illustrate thepoint more graphically.The first concerns the authority of antique sculpture. From the

2 ANTHONY HUGHES AND ERICH RANFFT

Renaissance onwards, ancient sculptural fragments were collected,restored and given currency by means of many reproductive processes.Martin PostIe's account of the debates concerning the role played by thisexemplary art in English eighteenth-century practice marks a change inemphasis from a period in which it was routinely assumed that allancient fragments were 'authentic' to the beginning of an age of finediscrimination between what was properly Greek and what was aRoman copy. Here the question of reproduction became crucial, but theforms of a later archaeological scholarship based on the systematicinterrogation of Roman sculpture for what it could tell us about lostGreek prototypes was not stimulated by any technological change, butwas rather symptomatic of an ideological shift observable in many typesof historical writing and theory from Voltaire to Edward Gibbon. Itsmost influential voice in the field of the visual arts was that of JohannWinckelmann, whose History of Ancient Art provided at once asystematic method for the writing of connoisseurial history and a setof values associated with it.Though Winckelmann's values were not as coherent as they may at

first have seemed and his scholarship was certainly contested, mostmemorably by Gotthold Lessing, the model he constructed in principleprovided the basis for the vast library of studies that imaginativelysought to reconstruct Greek originals from a crowd of Roman copies. Itmay be claimed that the subsequent invention of photography facilitatedthis archaeological project, but it is beyond doubt that the newtechnology was harnessed to an enterprise already under way by thetime that photographs became a standard adjunct to scholarly argument.In such scholarship, the Roman reproduction was simultaneously

exalted and devalued as a glass in which we may catch a glimpse ofvanished glory - more or less darkly according to the evaluation of thecopy's quality. As Edward Allington's contribution to this booksardonically points out, modern commercial reproduction may multiplythe ironies attached to the ambivalent status of the copy, that oddmemorial to loss. It is often the case that in the present-day museumfacsimile the supposedly 'real' object of veneration exists only as aphantom conjured up by means of a substitute for a substitute. Thefacsimile's careful fakery of surface texture simulates the appearance ofthe copy, the cultural value of which is held to reside not in any intrinsicmerit but in the information it supposedly offers about a work nowirretrievably lost. Within this hall of mirrors, it is a further irony that it isprecisely this informational value that can never be substantiated.

Introduction 3

As Postle notes, rediscovery of works that are indubitably Greek, fromthe sculptures of the Parthenon to the Riace Bronzes, fostered the view ofRoman figural sculpture as an industry in large part given over to themanufacture of reproductions. Miranda Marvin's essay forcefully argues,however, that the production of Roman sculpture was infinitely morenuanced than such studies have suggested, and the manufacture offacsimiles of Greek masterworks was merely one device in the repertoryof craftsmen who also employed reproductive practices to producevariants and pastiches. It is the relatively modern preoccupation withauthenticity and genius that has caused a great deal of Roman material tobe misconstrued. Like much art at any time, Roman sculpture may havethrived on subtle adjustments and qualifications to a range ofconventional types: the pleasures it offered a viewer must have beenfairly refined and totally at odds with an aesthetic that prized originalityabove everything else.Twentieth-century anxieties concerning artistic integrity and commer-

cial exploitation provide us with a second example of the importance ofcultural ambience, this time giving a faintly sensational spin to practiceshitherto regarded as unremarkable. The making and marketing ofposthumous Rodins (in marble and in bronze) has occasioned scandaland caused quarrels to break out between normally well-behaved writerson art (for example, the dispute between Albert Elsen and RosalindKrauss on which Alexandra Parigoris comments in her essay). Similarworries have arisen in connection with unauthorized bronzes made fromwaxes by Edgar Degas, the casting of metal sculptures by UmbertoBoccioni, ]ulio Gonzalez, Constantin Brancusi and many others.Informing these debates have been issues of authority and artisticcontrol that have recently issued in the drafting of a code of practiceconcerning the production of posthumous works. Parigoris' essaydemonstrates just how deeply debates on these matters have beenaffected by specifically Modernist aesthetic preferences privilegingconcepts such as 'truth to materials' and form over other considerations,and hardly at all by the technologies involved, which in most cases wouldhave been familiar in principle to the ancient Greeks. Erich Ranfft'sdiscussion of Expressionist sculpture in Germany before and after theFirst World War reveals the extent to which a lingering attachment to thevalues implied by the doctrine of 'truth to materials' has distorted thewriting of history to give a false sense of the priorities and practices thatactually prevailed in artists' studios during this period.Much discussion on Modernism has also tended to pass over in silence


the role reproductive techniques have played in art since the latenineteenth century. In part this relative neglect has been an expression ofembarrassment with processes that seem too obviously commercial toreceive open admittance among writers on art, especially during periodsand in regions in which the promotion of a proper standard of craftpractice was regarded as essential for sculpture if authorial control wasto be maintained. Oddly, these often authoritarian and elitist ideals wenthand in hand with populist ideologies, creating some curious paradoxes.One is studied in Neil McWilliam's essay on the production of JeanBaffier's ornamental tableware. Baffler, committed to a medievalizingartisanal ideal, undertook an enterprise that could only be realized byexploiting the means of industrial reproduction.McWilliam's essay also explores the fuzzy borderline between

'sculpture' and the 'applied' arts where the production of multiples isthe norm rather than the exception. Malcom Baker admirably outlinesthe importance of Kleinplastik and the way in which a sculptural motifcould be comfortably and almost seamlessly transmitted from theexclusivity of the collector's cabinet to, say, Josiah Wedgwood's factory.Indeed, eighteenth- and nineteenth-century statuary must often have beenmore familiar in the form of porcelain, biscuit or Parian ware than it wasin monumental marble or bronze. By the turn of the twentieth century,when sale of reduced replicas of salon pieces or favourite monumentswas commonplace, it might have been difficult to tell precisely by whatcriteria a sculpture and a table ornament were to be distinguished fromone another. It is the only half-acknowledged commercial exploitation ofsculpture that sharpens the sense of ironic absurdity courted by MarcelDuchamp's readymades. His 'originals' - urinal, bicycle wheel, snowshovel and bottle rack - were not only themselves instances ofindustrially manufactured multiples, but also, as Allington reminds us,have subsequently been 'reproduced' in authorized versions whose statusin relation to the parental object is parodically uncertain.These are cases in which reproduction has been made visible within

the relatively closed worlds of scholarship and art. In larger contexts, thereproduction of imagery has been an important resource the veryubiquity of which has caused it to seem unremarkable. Repetition anddissemination of a motif or figure have constituted one of the simplestand most effective means of establishing and reinforcing political orreligious authority. The image of a Roman emperor, whether depicted ona coin or in the form of a cult statue, became an inescapable sign ofpower, though in the twentieth century there is perhaps no need to search

Introduction 5

out historical prototypes for a practice familiar to the recent history ofGermany and Eastern Europe. In many cultures, replication of religiouscult imagery has often been a duty of sculptors and, although this is oftenassociated with Asian practice, it has in fact been firmly embedded withinthe Catholic tradition of Western Europe for centuries. Here, as AnthonyHughes and Marjorie Trusted point out, replication and variation of acult work may entail the assumption that the copy transmits somethingof the talismanic efficacy of the original. Trusted's discussion goesfurther, rightly questioning whether it is proper to assume the existenceof an 'original' at all in the case of some seventeenth-century Spanishreliefs, which have probably been made from a mould in order to marketa popular type of devotional image more effectively. In this instance, theconventional art-historical discrimination between authentic work and(it is usually assumed) second- or even third-rate copy may be not merelybeside the point but positively misleading.Even when identifiable 'originals' exist, reproductive strategies are

rarely merely passive but may have a powerful role in providing a framewithin which the primary objects are seen. Baker argues that variationand reproduction of sculpture have had important repercussions for thetransmission of reputation and the establishment of an oeuvre. Francisvan Bossuit, a figure considered (if at all) today as 'minor', received thesignal recognition of having what must have been one of the firstillustrated monographs dedicated to him. Baker's argument subtlyreveals how the engravings presented these small ivories anew as worksof monumental grandeur, through the kind of dramatic devices whichphotography has now made commonplace.As editors, we are convinced that the replication of sculptural imagery

has played a fundamental rather than a marginal role in the history ofWestern art. Each of the essays brought together here reveals a differentaspect of the way in which the multiplication, placement anddisplacement of that imagery affects a variety of issues that, whenanalysed, importantly alter our conception of how sculptures function.The variety of approach from one contributor to another reveals howacknowledgement of replication, far from diminishing the interestobjects hold for us, as we might perhaps fear, enriches their fascination.We have certainly benefited from the insights our contributors haveoffered. Our thanks go to them and to others who have supported usbefore and during the period in which the book was being produced.They include Ben Read and Adrian Rifkin at the University of Leeds andPenelope Curtis of the Henry Moore Centre for the Study of Sculpture,


who convened a one-day conference at the Centre on this theme inDecember 1994. Finally we would like to record our gratitude to BenDhaliwal who organized an exhibition on the theme of reproduction andsculpture to coincide with that event.

I

Roman Sculptural Reproductionsor Polykleitos: The Sequel

MIRANOA MARVIN

In the collection of the Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek in Copenhagen is anearly life-size Roman marble statue of a youth in the style of the fifth-century BC Greek sculptor Polykleitos (p. 8). I He is identified as a'diskophoros', or 'discus-holder'. His left hand has been restored to holdsomething that looks suspiciously like a hand-grenade, but, less ana-chronistically, seems likely to be a pomegranate (after which, after all,the 'grenade' was named), or a misunderstood aryballos. If he heldsomething in his right hand, it is lost. The label that identifies the work asa discus-holder seems, therefore, eccentric. According to the logic thathas until recently governed the identification of works of classicalsculpture, however, it is perfectly reasonable, indeed correct.The Ny Carlsberg is a major museum with a long tradition of

scholarly curators; its labels reflect the communis opinio of scholarlythinking.2 In the case of the 'discus-holder' the label reads in its entirety(translated from the Danish): 'OISKOPHOROS/ROMAN/COPY AFTER

POLYKLEITOS/STH CENTURY BC'. The work is identified, in otherwords, not as a work of art but as a reproduction of one. A long-standingscholarly consensus considers it to be a copy of a lost bronze byPolykleitos that depicted a victorious athlete holding a discus. That theRoman work holds no discus need not be explained on the label since itsabsence says nothing about the original, and only the original matters.The importance of the Copenhagen marble lies in what it can tell usabout Greek sculpture, not about Roman. The only date on the label isthe date of the sculptor of the presumed original; the only artist's name ishis as well. Who made the Roman replica, when, where and for whatpurpose are not questions that have seemed important to ask. Recently,however, the consensus about this work and others like it has begun tobreak down. The Copenhagen youth now seems more likely to be aRoman creation than a copy of a Greek bronze and worthy of a labeldescribing what the visitor sees, not just its imagined original.

8 MIRANDA MARVIN

Figure in the manner of Polykleiros, second century AD, marble.Ny Carlsberg Glyprotek, Copenhagen.

Much Roman sculpture is Greek in style and subject, and most of theseGreek-seeming works have been assumed for at least a century to becopies of lost works by Greek artists . Some, like the CopenhagenDiskophoros (above), now appear to be Roman originals, and even thosethat are reproductions are today not believed to be mechanical ones. Thetheory that they were made with a pointing machine, similar to the oneinvented in the eighteenth century for making mechanically exact copies,has been discredited. 3Roman replicas were works of judgement and skill, not machine-made

repetition. Many were signed conspicuously with their maker's name,not the name of either the work or the artist replicated." The pride of thecarver was shared by the purchaser who displayed the signed work forvisitors to admire.s The anonymous Carrara craftsmen who todayexecute marbles that will be signed by the artists who modelled thebozzetti are not a modern equivalent to Roman marble-workers.Two anomalies must be admitted before discussing Roman sculpture

and its sources. The first is that the major centre of marble production inthe Roman empire was the eastern Mediterranean. The marble-carvers ofGreece and Asia Minor never ceded dominance to their competitors inItaly, and in their workshops the language spoken was Greek. They areconsidered to be Roman artists in that they and all their patrons were

Roman Sculptural Reproductions 9

subjects of the Roman government and products of its multiculturalempire. In modern terms, however, few had ethnic roots in the city ofRome. The second anomaly is the ugly reality that all the works ofPolykleitos are lost. If one of the surviving Greek bronzes in the museumsof Athens, Reggio di Calabria or Malibu is his, we do not recognize it. Ifany existing Roman marble in Polykleitan style is a perfect copy of one ofhis works, we do not recognize that either. There is no known originalleft with which to compare existing replicas. The argument is not aboutproofs but about more or less persuasive hypotheses. The hypothesisadopted on the Copenhagen label, that the work is a copy, is simply lesspersuasive today than it used to be.The view of Roman sculpture reflected on the Copenhagen label is

usually said to have originated in the circle of Winckelmann in theeighteenth century.6 As fully developed in German universities in thenineteenth century, it holds that Roman sculpture can be divided intotwo sharply distinct categories: historical and 'ideal'. Historical sculpturedepicts historical persons and events? Public and private portraiture andthe narrative reliefs that ornamented arches, columns and buildingsthroughout the Empire are its chief exponents. Historical sculpture isthought of as the place where Roman sculptors demonstrated originalityand creativity, where they made significant contributions to the history ofWestern art.

Roman ideal sculpture, on the other hand (which takes its name fromthe German Idealplastik) , is that which depicts deities, figures from myth,personifications, allegorical figures - creatures of another world, notours. It includes everything from cult statues to lamp-stands, fromfountain figures to wall plaques. The subject, not the function, of thework defines the genre. One of its characteristics is serial production.Very few works in this genre are unique. Most are known in multiplesand belong to what is known as a replica series: a set composed of worksthat may differ in material, size, quality and iconographic minutiae, butthat visibly relate to a common prototype. The prototypes of mostRoman replica series have been thought to be lost works by Classical orHellenistic Greek artists.The Romans are thought to have developed a taste for Greek sculpture

from admiring the hundreds of ancient statues brought home as booty bytheir victorious armies, and to have come to prefer copies of these tooriginals by their own artists. The copies produced ranged from exactreplicas to free variations, but all derived from Greek originals.8 SinceRoman literature constantly proclaims the glory of ancient Greek artists,

10 MIRANDA MARVIN

it seemed only reasonable to believe that most Roman patrons wouldprefer copies of acknowledged ancient masterpieces to inferior moderncreations. As Franz Wickhoff put it at the turn of the century:

The principal occupation of every Greek sculptor in Rome ... was to copyfamous Greek statues in marble ... The exhaustion of the imagination, byimpelling the lover of art who was no longer satisfied with contemporarycreations to seek older works of art, favoured this extensive copying.9

John Boardman at the end of the twentieth century describes theproduction of Roman ideal sculpture thus:

For those who preferred masterpieces, even in copies, a copying industrysoon emerged the result was the legion of marble copies ... which serve as amajor source for our study of lost originals by famous artists ... It was, ofcourse, always open to the copyist to introduce variants or create pastiches ...but obviously no new major art form developed from these classicizing works. IQ

Boardman's more nuanced but still dismissive statement reflectstwentieth-century views. He still believes the Roman replicas' onlyvalue lies in what they can tell us about lost Greek works, but his list ofcopies of ancient masterpieces is substantially smaller than the listimagined by Wickhoff and his contemporaries. Since the 1970S wholeclasses of ideal works once thought to be copies of classical statuary havebeen reinterpreted on formal grounds as classicizing or 'classicistic'creations, conscious reformations of classical prototypes by Romanartists.II Some, for example, have a strong homoerotic and pederasticcontent - 'sexy boys' Elizabeth Bartman calls them. I2. The bronze knownas the Idolino in Florence, for example, was considered by AdolfFurtwangler in the 1890S to be an original of the fifth century. Itslanguorous elegance and youthful androgyny, however, betray its Romanorigin and relate it unmistakably to similar figures of beautiful boys usedto hold oil lamps to light Roman dining rooms. I3 Many more works havebeen recognized as Roman creations, and the category of literal copiesfrom Greek masterpieces has shrunk dramatically.I4This is not to say, of course, that they did not exist. Both literary and

physical evidence demonstrates that the Romans made and displayedcopies of many Greek works. Casts were taken from them and replicasmade. In one instance, an overcast torso in the Metropolitan Museum inNew York retains traces of the repairs made to the original from which itwas taken. I5 At Baiae fragments of actual plaster casts have been found. I6When Roman patrons wanted exact copies, Roman artists could producethem.

Roman Sculptural Reproductions

'ldolino', anonymous Roman artist, first century 8c / AD, brom.e.Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence.

11

The hypothesis being challenged is that such copies were the normalpreference of most purchasers of ideal sculpture. Thave argued elsewherethat such a view imputes to the Romans a post-Enlightenment notion ofgenius and a familiarity with famous works of art made possible only bymodern means of exact reproduction (today, of course, extending beyondthe still camera to virtual reality in three dimensions). X7 The Romans hadneither the ideology of individualism nor the technologies of reproductionthat create the modern taste for replicas of famous works. Moreover, theyhad no academic discipline of art history or professional schools forartists, no encyclopaedic museums and only a rudimentary tourismindustry. The art patron of ancient Rome had little in common with hismodern successors who pile into tour buses in order to see the canonicalworks whose appearance they already know from reproductions, andpurchase other reproductions on the spot to take home for themantelpiece.

Tn discussing Roman sculpture the burden of proof should shift from

I2 MIRANDA MARVIN

(top left) Doryphoros, in the manner of Polykleitos, first century BC, marble.Minneapolis Institute of Arts.

(top right) Diadoumenos , in the manner of Polykleitos, first century BC, marble .National Archaeological Museum, Athens.

(above) Figure in the manner of Polykleitos, first century AD ('), marble.Wellesley College Museum (jcwett Arts Centre), MA.


identifying which ancient work it replicates to establishing whether itcopies any specific Greek work at all. I8 Is it a reproduction of a particularoriginal or simply a repetition of approved forms in a classical manner?In the face of the many Roman variations on Greek styles now recog-nized, what defines a work as a true copy? How safe is it to reconstructGreek sculpture from Roman replicas?The recent acquisition by the Minneapolis Institute of Arts of a

magnificent replica of Polykleitos' Doryphoros and an exhibition inFrankfurt in 1990 devoted to Polykleitos have focused attention on worksin his style. In the publications generated by these events (including a newand lavishly illustrated list of Polykleitan replicas compiled by DetlevKreikenbom), the Diskophoros type to which the Copenhagen youthbelongs is still classed as a copy of one of his lost works and used toreconstruct his career.I9A native of Argos or Sicyon, Polykleitos was one of the leading

bronze sculptors of the fifth century BC.20 He took many pupils, and, aswas not uncommon in Greece where occupations often passed fromfather to son, had more than one artist among his descendants.2I Hiswork is known from signatures on the bases of lost statues and fromlater literary accounts of his life and works.22 The most importantsource is Pliny the Elder who, in the first century AD, credited him withmajor stylistic innovations and listed his best-known bronzes. The mostfamous of these were the Doryphoros, or 'spear-bearer', and theDiadoumenos, or 'youth tying a fillet' (p. 12). These have been reliablyrecognized from copies. Even the name of the Diadoumenos was well-enough known to make a pun on it. A Roman named TiberiusOctavius Diadumenus put a little relief of the Polykleitan statue insteadof a portrait of himself on his tombstone.23 Both these Polykleitanstatues represent nude young men standing with their weight on oneleg. The displacement of weight, thrusting one hip to the side, sets up acharacteristic movement in the torso, usually referred to by the Italianterm contrapposto. Their heads are slightly turned; they share similarfacial features, an almost architectonic musculature and a distinctiverhythm that balances relaxed and contracted muscles in an easy,swinging stance.24 The Doryphoros poses with a spear; the Diadou-menos tightens a long ribbon around his hair.Among the studies in these recent volumes, an important contribution

is that of Gregory Leftwich.25 He analysed the anatomy of the replicas ofthe Doryphoros and Diadoumenos and compared them with ClassicalGreek medical treatises. Both in the details of anatomical knowledge and

MIRANDA MARVIN

in the conceptual framework defining a healthy body, the statues and themedical literature coincide. Leftwich argues that nothing in thesculptures reveals either information or theory foreign to Greekphysicians of Polykleitos' day. An analysis by Leftwich of a Diskophorosin the collection of Wellesley College, Massachusetts (p. 12), concludedthat its anatomy matched the Doryphoros and Diadoumenos, knownPolykleitan works. Every significant feature appeared to him authenti-cally Polykleitan.26 In the most recently published study of Greekmedicine and sculpture, Guy Metraux endorses Leftwich's conclusions.27

The case for identifying the Diskophoros as a copy of a work byPolykleitos has, therefore, grown stronger in recent years, not weaker.The impediments to believing it to be a copy come, not from anyanachronisms in the anatomy, but from the search for the original.Evidence for an original proves to be elusive and suggests that Romansculptors were able to recreate styles from the past with greatersophistication and sensitivity than they are usually deemed to possess.Besides the approximately ten works listed by Pliny, many others by

Polykleitos are mentioned in ancient literature.28 Some may have beenmade by one or more of the later sculptors named after him, but it isclear that he was a prolific artist, with a recognizable style. Plinydescribes his works as all very much alike, paene ad unum exemplum.29

He is also said to have written a treatise on perfect proportions called thecanon, or 'measuring stick', and to have made a statue to exemplify it(usually identified with the Doryphoros).30

Kreikenbom and the organizers of the Frankfurt exhibition believe thatin addition to the Doryphoros and the Diadoumenos, three additionalmature male nudes by Polykleitos can be recognized from Romanreplicas: a victor statue known today as the Diskophoros, a Hermes anda Herakles.The evidence, however, for identifying these lost works varies from one

series to the next. It is strongest for the Diadoumenos, where thesingularity of the pose, tying the fillet around the head, and theconsistency of the replicas, which almost always combine the samehead and body types, combined with Ti. Octavius Diadumenus' punningstela, make the identification certain. 31 The type identified as theDoryphoros also consistently associates the same head and bodytypes. 32 Of the sixty-seven replicas listed by Kreikenbom, only twelveshow any significant variation and several of these do not properly belongin a replica series. 33 The readily identifiable figure so consistentlyreproduced resembles the textual accounts of Polykleitos' work and the

Roman Sculptural Reproductions I5

replicas of the Diadoumenos so closely that it is difficult to imagine notattributing it to the same sculptor.The attributions of the Hermes, Herakles and Diskophoros are less

secure, and trying to find an original for each leads to a dizzying blur ofconfused identities. The work of later restorers, who have sprinkled thesurviving heads on an assortment of ancient and modern bodies, and,with cheerful abandon, given ancient bodies new heads, makes the taskparticularly laborious. Once the Polykleitan replicas are disentangledfrom later additions, however, the grounds for the attributions emerge.More heads than bodies have been recognized, and they are grouped intoseries by hairstyle. In all the hair strongly resembles the Doryphoros.Hard and crisp, it lacks the puffy quality found in the hair of theDiadoumenos replicas. Chiselled locks of neat curls descend in layersfrom the crown of the head to frame the face in symmetrical whorls andtendrils. Each type, however, is identified by a distinctive arrangement ofthe locks around the face, which fall in recognizable patterns over thebrows and in front of the ears.In the portraiture of the royal family at the beginning of the Roman

Empire, such distinctive hair arrangements identify particular indivi-duals. The men in Augustus' family are depicted as strongly resemblingthe emperor but he is distinguished by a formulaic hairstyle, found onheads of very different style and workmanship.34 Modern scholars haveused the technique that court artists devised for identifying ruler portraitsto identify the originals of ideal sculptures. They have classified all theyoung, male Polykleitan heads that share the same arrangements of locksas replicas of a common original. Applying the principles that work forone genre to the other, however, only points out the differences betweenthem.The problem can be illustrated by comparing portraits of Augustus

with copies of the Diadoumenos. Augustus was presented to his subjectsin many guises - seated or standing, wearing a toga or a military cuirass,with or without the attributes of divinity. Even the portrait heads couldlook very different from each other. The heads were of different shapes;sometimes the hair was modelled, sometimes it was flat. Within each typewere differences in the inclination of the head, its angle on the neck andthe direction of the gaze. The formulaic hairstyle made the subjectrecognizable despite differences in presentation.Artists reproducing a work of art faced an altogether different

problem. They needed to capture the distinctive contours, characteristicmodelling and unchanging appearance of a specific image. A representa-

r6 M1RANDA MARVIN

Hermes/Mercury (?) in rhe manner of Polykleiros, second century AD, marble.Sraadiche Museen, Berlin.

tion of a young man who is clothed, not nude, seated, not standing,fastening his shoe, not tying a fillet, is not a copy of the Diadoumenos.The details of the hair contribute only marginally to the identification.The relief on Ti. Octavius Diadumenus' stela, for example, renders thehair only sketchily, but no one is in any doubt about the identity of thefigure. The overall appearance of Polykleitos' original is clearly enoughreproduced to make its identity plain, and so the copy is a success.Among the Roman replicas of mature nude males in a Polykleitan

style, only the series based on the Doryphoros and Diadoumenos seemlikely to reproduce specific works of art. A close examination of the otherthree fails to produce evidence suggesting separate replica series, butindicates a common origin for them all.In the Diskophoros series Kreikenbom lists eighteen heads. Most are

plain but two have wings attached above the brows that should makethem Hermes, the winged messenger god of the Greeks, identified by theRomans with their native Mercury.35 Three heads attached to thestraight pillar bases known as herms, however, wear a celebratorywreath wrapped in a long ribbon, an attribute of Herakles/Hercules. 36

Only three Diskophoros heads were found with bodies, always withthe same one: a youth with musculature and rhythm resembling theDoryphoros and the Diadoumenos, but feet planted firmly on the


ground.37 This body type, however, is also used for other heads. Fourreplicas listed by Kreikenbom have ideal heads of different types, threehave portrait heads and one torso-length herm holds the heavy club thatidentifies him as Herakles.38

The Diskophoros torsos themselves, headless or not, show consider-able variation. The torso occurs nude, with a baldric, with a mantleclasped around the neck, with a mantle bunched on the shoulder, with astraight mantle and baldric, with the left hand holding a discus and withthe stub of a lost attribute attached to the left upper arm.39 Attached tothe tree-trunk support that strengthens the right leg are in theCopenhagen example a sea monster, in another example, a lyre, and ina third, a dog.40 Poulsen noticed that the sea monster attached to theCopenhagen replica also occurs on a statue of Perseus in Ostia andsuggested that the figure in Denmark represented Perseus, who slew a seamonster to rescue Andromeda.41 The lyre support is attached to one ofthe Hermes figures with winged heads, and no one has yet suggested anidentity for the figure with the dog.42

Eighteen heads are also listed for the series called the Hermes. Threehave wings like the two winged examples in the Diskophoros series.43Three others have traces of different headgear.44 One of the wingedheads sits on a not very Polykleitan torso in the Boboli Gardens,Florence, bedecked with a mantle, a caduceus and the infant Dionysos ina pose reminiscent of Praxiteles.45 A little classicistic bronze has analmost intact Polykleitan head and body, but is so idiosyncratic that itcannot be said to copy anything literally.46 Another one of the heads isattached to a youth with a mantle draped across his hips.47 Kreikenbomsuggests that three additional headless torsos of Polykleitan musculatureand rhythm that do not quite fit into any known series might be some ofthe missing bodies for this one.48

The Herakles is Kreikenbom's smallest series. Only fourteen worksmake up the main group, with eight others in a subset of miniatures. Ofthe heads, ten are plain, one has wings in the hair and three herms wearthe ribboned wreath.49 Only three heads are attached to bodies. All threetorsos are the same: solid musculature, a rhythm and contrappostostrongly resembling the Doryphoros and the Diadoumenos, and adistinctive pose in which the left hand is held behind the back.5° No legsand feet are preserved to suggest a stance.Historically, the response to the mutability of these types has been to

comb the lists of Polykleitos' lost works for three possible originals,(required by the three hairstyles), select one replica in each series as an

18 MIRANDA MARVIN

accurate reproduction of it and identify all the others as copyists'variants. The hairstyles determined how many originals were required,while the poses and attributes determined which original each onereproduced.The Diskophoros series was named by Carlo Anti after the example in

the Torlonia collection that has been restored holding a discus. Hehypothesized that the original was one of Polykleitos' many statues ofathletic victors.51 Polykleitos' Hermes (Pliny, Natural History, XXXIV,

55) was identified as the original of the type that included three headswith wings and the Boboli Gardens' Hermes holding the infant Dionysos.In the Frankfurt catalogue, Peter Bol, noting that no work in this serieshas any alternative attributes, accepts Anti's identification.52The series with the hand held behind the back is thought to copy

Polykleitos' Herakles (Pliny, loe. eit.).53 Perhaps the most popular imageof Herakles in the Roman world stood in that pose, the type known asthe Herakles Farnese, believed to copy an original by the great fourth-century BC sculptor Lysippos. Presumably the fourth-century artist isbelieved to have imitated his fifth-century BC predecessor.54The tenuousness of these identifications is readily acknowledged in

recent scholarship, particularly the Diskophoros, whose name occurs inquotation marks in Kreikenbom's replica list. It is not surprising,therefore, that alternatives have been proposed. In addition to Polykleitos'recorded works, there were others of which we are ignorant, and ErnstBerger, observing the downward glance of the Diskophoros, believes thatthe original depicted a Theseus looking at his sword.55 Berger is unable tocite convincing parallels, however, and so the generally acceptedhypothesis remains that the Diskophoros type represents a Polykleitanvictor statue, while the others represent two of his images of gods.56

Unfortunately, of the iconographic markers used to identify thefigures, only one is familiar from the mid-fifth century BC, and that is thediscus, which may be restored. Herakles' gesture, placing his handbehind his back, is not known before the fourth century.57 Wings arecertainly a ubiquitous attribute of Hermes; rapid motion denoted thetraveller-god. 58 In sixth- and fifth-century BC Greek art, however, thewings that suggest his motion appear on Hermes' sandals or his hat; theydo not sprout from his body. The motif of a winged head, not a wingedhat, seems to originate in the Attic pottery workshop of the Talos Painteraround 400 BC, too late for Polykleitos.59 The attributes and poses,therefore, do not point directly to any works of Polykleitos.Other anomalies suggest that these may not be straightforward copies.


The three series are composed of different ingredients. The Diskophorosis made up of a variably decked-out body type used with several differentheads. The Hermes is constructed from eighteen heads, only three ofwhich are attached to bodies, none of which is the same or believed toreproduce Polykleitos' lost statue, and three fragmentary bodies whoseassociation with the heads is only a guess. Within the Herakles group iswhat looks like the remains of a small but traditional replica series(including both miniatures and large-scale works) that depicted aPolykleitan nude holding his hand behind his back. Most of the headsare plain but one has wings in the hair, suggesting an identification asHermes. The series, however, also includes three herms wearingribboned wreaths, which usually indicate Herakles.60

Precisely these variations occur in the heads of the Diskophoros type -plain, winged and ribboned wreaths. In both series herms only arewreathed and all the wreathed herms look very much alike, althoughthey have been so heavily restored that it is unwise to subject them tomuch formal analysis. The Hermes series so far lacks any wreathedherms, but includes the winged heads familiar from the other two, as wellas traces of other headgear, so far not found in the others. The Hermesand Herakles series, moreover, are represented by remarkably few bodiescompared with the surviving heads.The Diskophoros type is distinguished from the other two in being the

most productive, in the linguistic sense. Only two identities, Hermes andHerakles, can be reconstructed for them, while the Diskophoros body isused with many different heads, portrait and ideal. Moreover, apart fromthe marble replicas, the Diskophoros type is ubiquitous in small bronzeswhere it is widely used for images of Mercury holding a money bag.61

Since the Romans identified Mercury with Hermes, the clear favourite forthe original of the series would be Polykleitos' Hermes, were it not thatthe money bag is an attribute specifically of Mercury.62 The attributesignals a notable difference between the cults of the Greek and theRoman gods.63 (It is also hard to understand why Polykleitos, sensitive toimplied movement, would have chosen to depict the rapid Hermes asimmobile, standing with both feet flat on the ground.)Mercury, whose name derives from the Latin merx, or 'goods', was

less a messenger than the god of commerce, profit and wealth. As such hewas widely venerated, and he occurs in small bronzes more often thanany other Roman god.64 Most of these are an appropriate size for animage in a household shrine or modest ex-voto in a sanctuary, and reflectthe piety of commercial households.

20 MIRANDA MARVIN

The usual assumption is that the devotional image of Mercury was areplica of Polykleitos' statue of a victorious athlete given new attributesby Roman artists. So little of Greek sculpture has survived thataccurately tracing the changes between replicas and originals is fruitless,and such a reworking of a Polykleitan work is entirely possible. ErikaSimon has even suggested an environment in which it might have takenplace.65 The island of Delos was home to both Greek and Italian tradersin the second and first centuries BC. The god with the money bag is apopular terracotta figurine there, and on the prosperous island an activegroup of sculptors produced innovative works with mixed Greek andRoman roots. The transformation hypothesis holds that it was in such anenvironment as this, where Romans mingled regularly with Greeks, thatan admired work by Polykleitos was first copied and then given a newidentity.Making this argument, however, requires assuming not only that the

predictable response to admiring a work of art was to make copies of it,but also that form and content were independent variables. To put it indifferent terms, the claim must be made that what the work looked likeand what it signified were separable. In later Western art, classical formscould sometimes be virtually emptied of content and familiar workscould be quoted without necessarily retaining much original meaning.John Singleton Copley, for example, based Watson in his paintingWatson and the Shark on the Borghese Gladiator, without intending areference to the meaning of the original, believed in his day to represent agladiator.66 Only a vague impression of heroic nudity seems to beintended by the reference.It is not likely, however, that Roman art of the Republic and Early

Empire permitted so much attenuation of content. A Roman artistreproducing a Greek work was operating within a living tradition, notrevivifying a dead monument. Adapting Greek images for Roman needswas a familiar pattern in the development of Roman art. When workswere used in this way, however, both subjects were to be recognized atonce and a relationship established between them. Giving Mercury theappearance of Hermes indicated the identification of the Roman with theGreek god. Funerary images of private citizens as gods or heroes hadspiritual significance.67 In the political realm, appropriating Greekimagery was a conscious choice made by rulers.68 To the Romans afamous work of art was more than an admirable formal solution; it was arepresentation of something. Its identity lay in what it signified, not justin the disposition of its limbs.69 The intellectual apparatus that led to a

Roman Sculptural Reproductions 2I

purely formal use of visual quotations was as foreign to the Romans asthe academic art curriculum that trained eighteenth-century artists toproduce them. The necessary conditions, in other words, that permittedWatson and the Shark were absent, and it is as unlikely on conceptualgrounds that anyone of these series literally copies a famous work ofPolykleitos as it is on the evidence of their attributes and poses.There is, of course, the theoretical possibility that the three series

copied not famous works of Polykleitos but obscure ones. The originalswould have been too little known to be recognized and copyists wouldhave been free to give them the identities that suited their needs. Thereasons for making replicas of well-known works of art are many.Copying obscure ones and using them as body types for varying identitiesrequires explanation.The procedure is comprehensible if certain assumptions are made

about both patrons and artists. Patrons who can distinguish a copy of agenuine Polykleitos from a newly created work in his style must beassumed. They must 'prefer masterpieces, even in copies' (to paraphraseBoardman) to originals in the manner of the ancients. Secondly, artistsmust be assumed who know that they cannot reproduce the past withoutdetection and who turn to copying in order to satisfy their patrons'demand for authenticity.All of these assumptions about what Roman patrons wanted and what

they knew are questionable. No testimony has survived from any Romanpatron wishing to purchase a replica, for example, so we do not knowwhat qualities they sought in them. The conspicuous signatures ofreplica-makers, however, suggest that perhaps excellence in the work athand was as highly valued as fidelity to the original. How technical thelanguage of Roman art criticism was, how sensitive Romans were to thenuances of individual artists' styles and how closely certain manners wereassociated with the names of particular artists are all debated. To assumethat they, like moderns, saw certain traits as 'Polykleitan' and others as'Praxitelean' or 'Lysippan', for instance, is speculative.7°The assumptions about artists are equally dubious. Roman artists felt

no timidity about replicating earlier styles. These were thoroughlyknown and intimately familiar to them. Roman workshops, after all,were filled with clay, wax and plaster models of famous statuary used formaking replicas.7 I The serial production that characterized both bronzeand marble sculpture depended on piece moulds made from casts, andateliers possessed collections of heads, limbs and sections of torsos.Unlike their patrons, Roman artists knew from experience what made up

22 MIRANDA MARVIN

Polykleitan anatomy, Polykleitan rhythm and Polykleitan hair. The samephysical evidence that shows that they made exact copies of ancientsculpture shows that they did not need to do so in order to recreateancient styles.When today we find some replicas to be authentically Polykleitan,

moreover, it is not as though we are comparing them with the real thing.The anatomy the Diskophoros series has been shown to reproduce is thatof those Roman marbles that we believe most accurately reflect the lostbronze Doryphoros and Diadoumenos. Our reliance on Roman copiesfor our knowledge of Greek sculptors inevitably colours our under-standing of their works. We are forced to reconstruct Polykleitos' stylefrom the evidence currently available. Were that evidence to include anyof his originals, our reconstruction might be quite different.To call the Diskophoros, Hermes and Herakles types accurate copies

of lost works by Polykleitos is not impossible, but it is unlikely. It entailsaccepting a view of Roman patrons and Roman artists that brings themuncomfortably close to more recent makers and purchasers of sculpture.A product of the nineteenth century, the standard hypothesis perfectlyaccommodates that century's practices and expectations. It is lessconvincing as a reflection of the habits of ancient Romans, and it fits thephysical evidence of the existing statues only awkwardly.There is no reason to assume that three different hairstyles must

indicate derivations from three different works by Polykleitos. It issimpler and more plausible to describe them all as creations of Romanartists based on the Doryphoros, as has been separately suggested for theHermes by Dorothy Kent Hill and the Herakles by Brunilde Ridgway.?2They were designed to remind viewers of Polykleitos but not toreproduce specific works. They were individuated not by the details ofthe hair, but by broad categories of pose and attributes. Many moreheads than bodies survive because they were originally used, not eachwith only one body type but with several, including many of thevariously classified not-quite-Doryphoros or generic-brand Polykleitanbodies known.73 The ready availability of piece moulds maderecombining replicas of separate parts tempting, and the principle wasa familiar one.?4 It was, after all, how terracottas were made, and howthe ideal portrait statue had been conceptualized.

It is interesting that the hair of the newly created works more closelyechoes the Doryphoros than the Diadoumenos, and that his pose is moreoften adapted to new purposes than is the unvarying Diadoumenos. Insmall bronzes, for example, Annalis Leibendgut finds no replicas of the


Doryphoros simply carrying a spear, only many adaptations of pose andanatomy?5 Michael Koortbojian suggests that basing the hairstyles onPolykleitos' best-known work might have been designed to signal to theknowledgeable an unmistakable allusion to the artist's style?6 Whateverthe reason, these new Roman works are variations on the Doryphorostheme??The large marble and small bronze replica series, although illustrating

some common principles of sculptural reproduction, occupied separatesegments of the Roman art market. Most of the large marble statuarymade in the Roman empire was commissioned for architectural settings.Public and private buildings were adorned with statues whose subjectsand styles were suited to the purpose of the building?8 Gymnasia, forinstance, or the exercise areas in a bath were furnished with statues ofclassical athletes, deities and personifications associated with athleticism,health and fortitude?9 The Doryphoros and Diadoumenos were widelyrecognized as prototypical depictions of athletes, exemplars of the manlyvirtues associated with athletic competition.80 Replicas of them werecommon in gymnastic settings around the Empire. Not satisfied simply torepeat over-familiar images, designers complemented them with newlycreated athletes such as the Torlonia discus-holder.The great gods of the gymnasium were Hermes and Herakles, at least

from the fourth century BC on, and to depict them in a style associatedwith well-known images of Greek athletes was singularly apt. 8I

Similarly, a Polykleitan manner was suited to a heroic figure frommyth. The iconography of Perseus, the hero whose attributes includedwinged boots that enabled him to fly, blurs repeatedly with that ofHermes in Roman painting.82 He is, however, a fairly rare subject insculpture. Infrequently called upon to depict him, a workshop needing toproduce a Perseus might choose a more familiar winged figure, Mercury/Hermes, as the base on which to construct the hero, propping himagainst a sea monster to give him individuality.Once the associations with noble figures of athletes, gods and heroes

were made, these Polykleitan types became suitable for portraitsculpture. Should viewers looking at the portraits be reminded of otheruses of similar bodies, the association with figures of heroic athleticismwould only enhance the nobility of the representation.The large-scale marble versions of these types have neither a single

identity like the copies of the Diadoumenos, nor the unlimited range ofidentities of forms emptied of content. They are used principally for thetwo chief gods of the gymnasium and for portraits of men wishing to

MIRANDA MARVIN

associate themselves with them. They are works that suggest how theculture of the Greek palaestra was adapted for the Roman dite. Theircontext is that mass of Roman statues often described as copies of worksby the successors of Polykleitos, or as pastiches in the manner of variousclassical sculptors, which ornamented the porticos and fa<;ades of Romanathletic complexes.83

The context of the small bronzes is quite different. These can bedivided into two classes. The smaller category consists of secularfigurines, many of which were reduced replicas of works of art. Thebronze versions of the Diadoumenos are a good example.84 As with themarble versions of Polykleitos' original, they differ in modelling,anatomy and handling, but pose, contour and gesture are unmistakable.They rarely add new attributes. Had the makers of Roman bronzeswanted to copy a Diskophoros of Polykleitos in the same way as theycopied his Diadoumenos, they could have done so. No evidence existstoday, however, to indicate that they did. Instead, the survivingminiatures classed as replicas of the Diskophoros belong to the muchlarger category of small bronzes the Romans produced as religiousobjects, and demonstrate great varieties of attributes, poses andcontours. Rather than several distinct originals, they seem to echo ageneral Polykleitan manner based on the Doryphoros, with modificationsappropriate for a function in cult.Most of these small creations were made as private devotional images

to be displayed in the family lararium or left as a gift in a sanctuary. Thegod most likely to appear in a Polykleitan style is Mercury. Identifiedwith the Etruscan Turms as well as the Greek Hermes, he had a longiconographic tradition in Rome as a youthful but mature deity, avigorous, masculine presence. The four-square, muscular style ofPolykleitos suited him. It was associated by the Romans with thevalues cherished by serious, responsible, god-fearing citizens and withthe gods they honoured. 85 Hard-working Roman tradesmen veneratedMercury and prized the sober virtues the rhetoricians found inPolykleitos' works. Whether or not most viewers attached the artist'sname to his manner, a Mercury in Polykleitan style evoked all the rightresonances.He was the most popular but not the only deity represented in that

manner. The associations of the style with heroic masculinity are asapparent in devotional figurines as they are in marble statuary. Jupiter,Hercules, Neptune and Mars frequently appear as Polykleitan figures,whereas Bacchus and Apollo are virtually unknown.86


As they never reproduce the spearbearing iconography, so the religiousimages rarely reproduce the exact stance of the Doryphoros - a feature ofthe work notoriously difficult to categorize.87 Neither standing norwalking, the Spear-bearer appears poised on the brink of action,suggesting at once tension and relaxation, movement and rest. Most ofthe bronzes stand quietly with both feet on the ground, while even thosecloser to the Doryphoros pose tend to reduce his movement.88

Considering the function of the works - a display of gods in a shrine -the increased frontality and loss of movement appear reasonablemodifications for Roman artists to have made to a Polykleitan schema.Since the large marbles were principally intended for display in a niche,between columns or against a wall, a similar tendency towards a frontaland stable pose is comprehensible for these toO. 89

The usual explanation, of course, is not a reworking of a Polykleitanpose to suit new circumstances but copying a different model. TheDiskophoros type is thought to keep both feet on the ground because itsoriginal was an early work by Polykleitos (around 460 BC, according toBol), before he had developed the bold, new ponderation of theDoryphoros.90 The evidence of the small bronzes, however, stronglysuggests a model of adaptation from a schema rather than a copying ofseparate originals.9I Every gradation of pose between stiff frontality anda walking figure is found in them.92 The Diskophoros solution of aPolykleitan contrapposto in the torso but both feet on the ground,although very popular, is only one among many. Similarly, the emptyright hand of the Doryphoros is usually given the money bag to hold, anda caduceus often replaces the spear in the left, but there is no rule. Thebronzes differ from both suggested originals in usually having a cloakdraped over the left arm or fastened around the neck. It is a moreconsistent attribute than winged boots, in fact, although not more sothan a winged hat. The picture that emerges is of workshops attemptingto reconcile a cult requirement for a frontal-Mercury-with-money-bagwith a formal requirement that the god look Polykleitan enough tosuggest suitable values.93

The makers of domestic religious images clearly followed rules uniqueto their trade. Recognition of the god was their paramount concern, nota close resemblance to a prototype. Regional styles, period styles, patronchoice, cult practice and workshop habit were significant variables.94

Although many were related to familiar cult statues, the little images didnot have to reproduce them exactly. While many consistently echoed asingle style, therefore, others were boldly eclectic. The artists imaginat-

26 MIRANDA MARVIN

ively combined disparate styles but equipped the god with recognizableattributes and comfortingly familiar poses.95The large-scale marble workshops produced a smaller volume of

works than did the bronze workers, and many fewer designed for cultpurposes. Their versions of Polykleitan youths therefore reflect a creativeprocess that is similar but not identical. They tended to be, for example,formally more conservative but iconographically more innovative thanbronze workshops. Nevertheless, many of the same principles ofcomposition are apparent, and their creations demonstrate a comparablerange of styles and manners. The Diskophoros, Hermes and Heraklestypes represent thoughtful recreations of a single, consistent manner thatbetray their late origin only in subtle touches of pose and attributes.Attributing them to Roman marble-carvers grants those artists moresensitivity to past styles than is usually allowed them.The low regard in which Roman sculptors are held, however, is a

consequence of accepting their works as no more than copies. Theargument is circular: if Roman artists could produce only copies sincethey lacked imagination, they could produce only copies, and so on.What these Polykleitan figures demonstrate is that anything but the'exhaustion of the imagination' regretted by Wickhoff characterizedRoman workshops. Instead they indicate an environment in which styleswere linked to values, and works designed for specific settings had tohave styles deemed appropriate to those settings. Copies of ancient workswere only one possibility. Sculptors could also create works of their ownin a single ancient manner or in an imaginative combination of severaldifferent manners or could create completely original variations on theantique.96 The constraints of decorum or appropriateness may havelimited choices, but they did not forbid creativity.97

It is as examples of Roman creativity that such works as theCopenhagen Diskophoros should be studied and labelled. They areinteresting in themselves, not merely as ghosts of Greek originals. Whenand where they were made, how they were used, what they represented,who carved them, who commissioned them - all these things are worthknowing. A surprising amount of information, moreover, is available formost of the Roman replicas in modern collections. A combination ofarchival research and scientific tests makes it possible to answer many ofthese questions and place the replicas in their Roman context. Theirdates can be established by using the stylistic criteria worked out forother categories of Roman sculpture. Christopher Hallett has pointed outthe dangers of circular reasoning in dating works by style and then using


the same works to define the style of the period, but, used with skill andcaution, stylistic dating can be as effective for Roman ideal statuary asfor any other category of works of art.98 Enough replicas are signed tomake learning to recognize the products of specific workshops a notunreasonable goal.Since most major Roman marble workshops clustered around the

great quarry sites, the source of marble for a statue can indicate where, inall likelihood, it was made. A set of cheap and non-destructive laboratorytests can determine with probability (not yet with certainty) the likelyquarry for most Roman marbles.99 The location where the work wasfound can be compared with the quarry site. Was the work shipped froma distant quarry or does it represent local production? Can regional tastesin styles or subjects be recognized? How structured was the Romanmarble trade? If the precise site where the sculpture was excavated isknown, then the setting in which it was placed can be understood. Didthe work ornament a gymnasium, a garden, a temple, a public bath? Wasit in public or in private hands? Who might have commissioned it and forwhat purpose? Even when no excavation history is available, the city orregion in which it was found can often be deduced from the earliestcollection in which it is recorded.Most of the large-scale Roman marbles exhibited today that do not

come from excavations come from old Italian collections. 100 Many ofthese collections were made locally, of antiquities harvested from nearbysites. Often there are inventories that may record provenances. There arecomplications, of course. As treasured possessions, ancient marbles weretreated lovingly by early collectors. They were carefully cleaned andelaborately restored by first-rate sculptors. Like antique furniture orplate, they were mended and repaired. The consequence is that the detailsof their surface treatment, on which dating and connoisseurship depend,are often those of the restorer, not of the original artist. Many of thesemarbles are the products of two separate workshops, that of their initialmanufacture, and that of their restoration. In the twentieth century, inthe search for 'authenticity', many have been stripped of restored limbsand attributes, but the new surfaces, of course, remain. The work cannever return to a pristine condition.These ancient marbles as we see them today, in fact, are unreliable

guides to lost Greek statues, but extraordinary documents for the historyof Western taste. They are witnesses to the vitality of the classicaltradition that took forms that Greek artists originated, adjusted them inRoman ateliers to express Roman ideas and then remade them for

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European collectors. Rather than having no history, these Romanreplicas are palimpsests recording successive layers of the Westernworld's fascination with the classical past.

2

Authority, Authenticity and Aura:Walter Benjamin and the Case

of MichelangeloANTHONY HUGHES

In our culture, works of visual art are often especially valued as uniqueobjects issuing from the hand of a single, gifted author. In significantpart, this value has been created in interaction with reproduction in all itsforms from at least the sixteenth century onwards. Photography, thepredominant modern form of reproduction, has continued to maintainand even perhaps to reinforce the reverence that we accord to the artist'soriginals.The very opposite of this claim was advanced by WaIter Benjamin in

the celebrated essay 'The Work of Art in the Age of MechanicalReproduction'. I Benjamin argued that photography was a special case,and predicted that this form of 'mechanical reproduction' wouldeventually democratize the work of art, stripping it of 'aura', thatnimbus of admiration and awe that psychologically distanced it from thespectator and made it seem an object of wonder. In this reduced form, histhesis seems simple enough to grasp. It has indeed in many circles beentaken as self-evidently true, but interpretative difficulties lie in wait foranyone who wants to test it seriously. For one thing, the notoriousdensity of Benjamin's prose tends to inhibit reduction of argument tosuch stark declaration. For another, his idiosyncratic terminology makesfor fundamental problems of understanding. What might be meant by'aura' has been debated at length:2 less attention has been given to theconcept of 'mechanical reproduction' itself. Though Benjamin used thephrase throughout chiefly to refer to photographic processes, he did notexplain why photography should be so dramatically separated fromprevious modes of reproductive image-making. At the same time, hebundled together some quite different practices united only by a commontechnology, in a way that quickly leads to confusion.

3° ANTHONY HUGHES

As we shall see, the two points are related, though it is Benjamin's lackof discrimination that is the easier to demonstrate since his confusion wasin some measure abetted, if not generated, by a terminological vaguenessencountered in most of the major European languages. Even whenspeaking only of art, it is oddly difficult to define what is meant by theconcept of reproduction. Is replication, for instance, simply an acceptablesynonym or a more neutral term embracing a number of variedphenomena? By way of anticipating a reply, we may observe that notall replicas are considered to be reproductions: fakes form an interestinglydifferent category, while the concept of the multiple work of art issignificantly at variance with the idea of a facsimile. Eighteenth-centurymezzotints made after paintings, like picture postcards sold in museumshops today, are not replicas at all, though most people would agree tocall them reproductions. Such distinctions emerge from considerations ofusage, intention and context of viewing; in short from reception, ratherthan from differences between manufacturing process.My present purpose is to put Benjamin's thesis to the test by

examining issues raised by two- and three-dimensional versions, variantsand copies of Michelangelo's sculpture. This may enable us, first, to seewhether it is possible to draw some working distinctions between onetype of image and another and, second, to ask questions about thechanges in perception effected by photographic reproduction. Focus onthe pre-modern should allow continuities as well as disjunctions toemerge more clearly than they otherwise would. The reason fordiscussing sculpture rather than painting is that sculpture is sometimestaken to be an art especially resistant to reproduction, an art of whichMichelangelo is often regarded as one of the purest practitioners.With respect to the integrity of the sculptural object, for example, it is

often maintained that Michelangelo's work stands at the opposite pole toAuguste Rodin's. Michelangelo's so-called Atlas Slave3 is without doubtan 'original' whose status is enhanced by the very fact that it remainsunfinished. The figure emerges from a block which itself bears the marksof those processes by which it was brought to this stage of semi-completion. Indeed, those very marks guarantee its authenticity as ahistoric survival. Like the facture of a painting, they are signs that theshaped stone is an issue from Michelangelo's hands. In Benjamin's terms,those traces of the chisel constitute part of its 'aura'. By comparison, aRodin marble such as La Pensee,4 although it displays similar signs ofmanufacture, is a fiction. Far from being unique, it is a version of a workoriginally conceived in a different medium (clay or plaster), translated

Walter Benjamin and Michelangelo

Michelangelo, Atlas Slave, after 1513, marble. Galleria dell'Accademia, Florence.

31

into stone, not by Rodin but by a professional carver.5 In other words, themarks here do not show how excavation of the block was broken off (bychance or because the sculptor was dissatisfied), but deliberately concoctthe unearned appearance of an image half-discovered in the rock.In such judgements, aesthetics seem to become a branch of ethics. It is

a view reinforced by certain modern theories of art, according to whichMichelangelo's statue, unlike Rodin's, may be judged as an autonomousobject conceived from the first to take one form and not another.Repetition or paraphrase can only weaken it, since any repetition,however successfully it may fool the viewer, misses the whole point ofsculpture as art: its unrepeatable presence. To adapt a phrase of PhilipLarkin's, reproduction can only mean dilution, not increase.6

The trouble with the theory is that it has corresponded only rarely towhat has happened from the Renaissance up to the present day. Studio

32 ANTHONY HUGHES

practice routinely embraced procedures of reproduction in the generalsense of the word. Terracottas and small bronzes form a whole class ofartefacts designed to be produced as multiples. While it is true thatMichelangelo on the whole avoided bronze and only ever produced twoworks in the medium, both unique casts, it is often forgotten that theactual process of production by stone-carvers in a workshop hasfrequently run counter to the notion of the autonomous, insular work ofart in any straightforward sense. Even Michelangelo, though his methodswere hardly those of a Rodin, was not in this respect as eccentric as issometimes supposed.Transference of an image from one medium to another is a resource

deeply embedded within the traditions of European sculpture thatMichelangelo inherited. Long before Rodin, delegation of carving wascustomary. Especially during the execution of a large-scale project,sculptors would be employed to realize models of clay, wax or stucco instone. For the Medici Chapel, Montorsoli and Raffaele da Montelupocarved Saints Cosmas and Damien after Michelangelo's design as part ofa programme intended to be completed by a team of sculptors under themaster's control.? Current, certainly commercial, consensus wouldprobably value the models Michelangelo prepared more highly thanthe completed statues and there is reason to believe that sixteenth-century collectors were interested in similar items. A clay head of Damienwas acquired by Aretino within the artist's lifetime. But the point bringsus to one of those essential discriminations. Aretino would not havebelieved himself to be acquiring an 'original' of which Montorsoli'sMedici saint was a 'copy' any more than a modern collector ofmanuscripts would regard a holograph of an Eliot poem as somehowmore authentic than its printed counterpart.Studio replication of certain images has also formed an integral part of

workshop practice certainly since the seventeenth century,8 and there issome indication that the practice may have begun much earlier. Insixteenth-century Italy, it is often difficult to know whether bronze orclay reductions of sculpture were made in the master's studio orrepresent a widespread form of piracy. Whatever the case, there is littledoubt that we can speak quite unambiguously here of reproduction andoriginal. Discussion of this type of small-scale sculpture may bepostponed to the second part of this chapter. At present, it is importantto distinguish it from what we may call the carved multiple. On at leastone occasion, Michelangelo made two versions of the same work. TheRisen Christ set up in the church of Santa Maria sopra Minerva in I52I is

Waiter Benjamin and Michelangelo 33

the second carving of a statue first commissioned in 151+9 The first wasabandoned when the sculptor encountered an unsightly flaw on the faceof the figure, but it was not destroyed. Although it has now disappeared,it once stood as a 'collector's item' in the courtyard of the Roman houseof Metello Vari dei Porcari, who had been one of the commissioners ofthe work. Though there has been a tendency to suppose that MetelloVari's possession must have differed radically from the version thatremains, there is no evidence to support the case beyond the presumptionthat Michelangelo would not willingly have repeated himself.Though these routine cases have presented problems for collectors,

curators and art historians, there has never been any doubt that theimages in question can in some sense or other be regarded as authentic,or at least authorized by the master or the studio. Only when thatauthority is lacking do we enter the troubling realm where 'versions','replicas', 'imitations', 'variants', 'facsimiles', 'copies' - and even fakes -abound. At this point we require a test case.

11

In 1549, a marble version of Michelangelo's Roman Pieta was installed ina chapel of the Florentine church of Santo Spirito. It had been made as afunerary monument by Nanni di Baccio Bigio for one of Michelangelo'sclosest friends, the banker Luigi del Riccio. ID Vasari gave the group anadmiring noticeII and the carver was himself proud enough of hisachievement to inscribe his name across the sash of the Madonna, theplace occupied in the original by Michelangelo's signature. Thesubstitution did not seek to efface all thought of the inventor. Ratherthe contrary: it states that Nanni (designated by his family name of Lippi)made the work 'EX IMITATIONE' (in imitation) of the original group.I2Two more texts record the installation of the work. A poem by Gian

Battista Strozzi payed homage to Nanni's work in the form of an addressto the Virgin:

Bellezza et onestateE doglia e pieta in vivo marmo morte,Deh, come voi pur fate,Non piangete SI forte,Che anzi tempo risveglisi da morte,E pur, mal grado suo,N ostro Signore e tuoSposo, figliolo e padreUnica sposa sua figliuola e madre.

34 ANTHONY HUGHES

MicheJangelo, Pieta , c. 1497-1501, marble. St Peter's, Rome.

Nanni di Baccio Bigio, Pieta, c. 1549, marble. Santo Spirito, Florence.

WaIter Benjamin and Michelangelo 35

Ah you whose beauty, chastity, grief and pity live in the dead marble, do notcontinue to weep as sorely as you do in case you should prematurely andreluctantly rouse from death Our Lord and your bridegroom, son and father, 0singular bride, his daughter and his mother. 13

Less flatteringly, an anonymous Florentine diarist, evidently a savagelypuritan Catholic of the Counter-Reformation, contemporaneously notedthat in March 1549

a Pied was unveiled in Sto Spirito, sent to this church by a Florentine, and theysaid that the original came from Michelangelo Buonarroti, that inventor of filthwho puts his faith in art rather than devotion. All the modern painters andsculptors imitate similar Lutheran fantasies so that now throughout the holychurches are painted and carved nothing but figures to put faith and devotion inthe grave. But one day God I hope will send his saints to throw idolaters likethese to the ground. I4

Taken together, Nanni's inscription, Strozzi's madrigal and thediarist's outburst provide fascinating indicators of intention and responsein connection with recycled sculptural imagery in mid-sixteenth-centuryItaly, but before examining their implications, we should take care onceagain to distinguish this type of image from the current notion ofreproduction. While most of the modern literature refers to Nanni's Pietaas a copy, it would actually be better to call it a variant. Though its formleaves the derivation from the original beyond doubt, its manydivergences from Michelangelo's model are marked and have receivedsome attention in the secondary literature. I5 Here the inscription on theVirgin's sash helps to make an important point. Throughout thesixteenth century, 'imitation', the term used by Nanni and, incidentally,by the diarist, implied not mimicry but emulation, an enterprise whoseaim embraced both humility and ambition. The task of carvingMichelangelo's group over again was the tribute paid by a youngerrival and the changes he introduced would have been judged against thestandard set by the original.From this perspective, we may say that Nanni's variant indicates that

Michelangelo's work had achieved classic status. As A. J. Minnis hasshown, throughout the Middle Ages and beyond, the notions ofauthority and authorship were intertwined and it was a measure of theauthority of a text to be quoted, cited and considered worthy ofimitation.I6 Though at first this signal auctoritas had been confinedchiefly to the authors of sacred scripture, the fathers of the Church andcertain ancient writers, such moderns as Dante and Petrarch hadacquired comparable status long before the beginning of the sixteenth

ANTHONY HUGHES

Gregorio de' Rossi, Pieta flanked by Rachel and Leah, 16x6, bronze. Stroni Chapel,San Andrea della Valle, Rome.

century. It is not difficult to see in Nanni's imitation the acknowl-edgement of Michelangelo's supremacy as a sculptural model.It is for this reason that the diarist's attack has some significance for

any discussion of replication, since the anonymous writer's criticism isframed as though Michelangelo's error could be read through themedium of Nanni's variant. The authority lent to the original by suchallusion is considered a scandal precisely because the process of imitationmimics the authority invested in traditional replication of the divineword. In other terms, an imitation of this kind has something of thetransparency expected from reproduction in our customary sense, a pointreinforced by Vasari's employment of Strozzi's madrigal, a poem he cites,not in connection with the group in the del Riccio Chapel, but in his Lifeof Michelangelo, where it is presented as a tribute to the original Pieta inSt Peter's.17

To a certain extent, these observations may enable us to see how other,similar objects functioned to enhance the prestige of Michelangelo'soriginal image. These certainly include the version of the Pieta made forthe grave of ]ohann Schiitz by Lorenzetto in 153018 and perhaps may even


embrace the bronze placed above the altar of the Strozzi Chapel in SanAndrea della Valle. Here the Pieta was flanked by two more bronzes afterMichelangelo, the figures of Rachel and Leah from the tomb of Julius 11.The altar is inscribed 'GREGORIUS DE RUBEIS [i.e. Gregorio de' Rossi]1616. EX AERE FUDIT'. This functions more as a founder's mark than thedeclaration of an author or disciple, and it is possible that the three figureswere manufactured directly from casts of the marble originals.19

The near-mechanical method of replication seems to indicate that thefigures in the Strozzi Chapel stand in a different relation to Michelangelo'soriginals from the marbles freely carved by Lorenzetti or Nanni, and it istempting to treat them as though they were reproductions of a sort muchdespised by twentieth-century art historians. Criticism of this kind isrelatively easy, almost reflex: Michelangelo's purposes have been at bestmisunderstood if not downright vulgarized. Translation of marble intobronze has profoundly affected the legibility of the figures; thearchitecture is unsympathetic to Michelangelo's inventions; the juxtaposi-tion of motifs from different works is crassly insensitive to their meaning-besides which, the relative positions of Rachel and Leah have becomeunnecessarily reversed. Regarded as reproduction, the common reactionwould be to treat the whole ensemble in terms of travesty or loss.But to regard any of the variants of the Pieta like this would be to miss

an important aspect of the function of replication in such cases, one thatsixteenth- and seventeenth-century observers would have regarded asroutine. In this context, the writings associated with the installation ofNanni's group become crucial. Strozzi's over-elegant compilation ofstandard paradoxes may seem poles apart from the diarist's fundamental-ist rage, but the two texts agree in focusing attention on the overwhelmingimportance of the sculpture as a focus for devotion. For Strozzi, if Nanni'smarble is transparent, it is because it allows access to the mysteries of theVirgin's nature and, as is often the case with such poetry, his verse seemsalmost wilfully inattentive to the actual appearance of the work. TheVirgin weeps neither in Michelangelo's original nor Nanni's variant, adiscrepancy we may choose to explain by appeal to the incorrigiblyconventional nature of this form of verse, or because the icon itself is hereregarded as a trigger for meditation on the Virgin's sorrow, rather than adirect representation of it. Aesthetic squeamishness should not disguisethe fact that, as funerary monuments, the three versions of the Pieta workas well as the original to remind believers of the saving grace of Christ andof the Virgin's role as chief intercessor for the souls of the dead.Replication of holy images preceded by many centuries the very

ANTHONY HUGHES

conception of the work of art. Multiplication of an icon, far from dilutingits cultic power, rather increased its fame, and each image, howeverimperfect, conventionally partook of some portion of the properties of theorigina1.20 The same would be true of the devotional image's diaboliccounterpart. That is why the diarist objected to the replication of anuncanonical or - as he insultingly put it - a 'Lutheran' prototype.2I

His characterization of Michelangelo as one who preferred art to pietyalso reveals a fear that the value of Michelangelo's authorship conferredon a work could encroach detrimentally on its status as a devotionalimage. Mostly, the twofold nature of the work could be held in casualequilibrium. In 1546, the French monarch Fran~ois I wrote to Michel-angelo:

Seigneur Michelangelo, because I would very much like to have some worksmade by you, I have instructed the Abbe of Saint Martin de Troyes [FrancescoPrimaticcio], who is the bearer of this present letter to go abroad to collect them.If, on his arrival, you have some fine pieces you wish to give him, I havecommanded him to pay you well for them. And furthermore, for my sake, I hopethat you are happy for him to take casts from the Christ of the Minerva andfrom Our Lady delta Febbre [the Roman Pieta] so that I may adorn one of mychapels with them, as things which I am assured are the most exquisite andexcellent in your art.22

Emphasis here slides effortlessly from the notion of 'art works'(quelques besognes de vostre ouvrage) to devotional images fit for achapel and back again to 'chose que Pon m'a asseure estre des plusexquises et excellentes en vostre art'. With the casts of the Risen Christand the Pieta, Fran~ois was hoping to get something very like a modernreproduction, tokens of great works that could if required take their partin a collection alongside similar versions of ancient sculpture.More clearly analogous to modern reproductions were the reduced

versions of Michelangelo's figures in three and two dimensions thatbegan to appear during the sixteenth century and to which we havealready made passing reference. These objects and images wereimportantly different from the kind of versions so far discussed sincethey did not aim to be 'imitations' in the emulatory tradition representedby Nanni's variations on the Pieta. Nor were they near-facsimiles orsubstitutes like casts. Rather they can only be understood as tokens, aidememoires, rich in information though not in any sense confusable withthe originals. In three dimensions, they included small replicas ofMichelangelo's work in clay and bronze, which circulated throughout thesecond half of the century and were themselves reproduced in second- or

Walter Benjamin and Michelangefo 39

Bronze copy of Michelangelo's Pieta.sixteenth century.

Antonio Salamanca. Pieta, IH7.engraving. Bibliotheque Narionale, Paris.

third-generation casts. Most were pirated or, like the small Pieta,probably made some time after the artist's death. Others such as thefigurines that Daniele da Volterra made from the allegories in the MediciChapel around about 1557 probably had Michelangelo's approval.2.3

Like modern reproductions these were portable objects, easy tohandle, allowing instant access to Michelangelo's sculptural concepts ona conveniently reduced scale. In this form, the original images weredecontextualized, cut adrift from their function within the institutionaland symbolic world for which they were devised and made available forspecial, aestheticized inspection as representatives of Michelangelo's art.As is the case with modern photographic reproduction, loss - of surfacequality, colour texture and scale - was offset by the gain that intimatehandling could bring. Some were collected by Tintoretto, who, accordingto Ridolfi, drew them from unusual angles, varying the lighting by whichhe viewed them. Although this verbal testimony is relatively late,Tintoretto's practices are amply documented by surviving drawings.2.4 Bythese means, the sculptures could paradoxically become more completelyknown from the copies than they could ever be in the context of thechapel itself, where it is impossible to see them from certain aspects, anenhancement of the experience of art nowadays duplicated inphotographic form by the publishers of art books.

ANTHONY HUGHES

That process of detachment from initial function is even more clearlyobservable in engraved reproductions, more obviously because these carryinscriptions by which we can gain some measure of what aspect of thework was considered to be important. For example, in an engraving of theTomb of]ulius II published by Salamanca it is clear that Michelangelo hasequal billing with Julius himself.25 More strikingly, the patron hasdisappeared entirely from an inscription on the same publisher's image ofthe Roman Pieta.26 Though this may be an effect of the detachment of thework itself from its original location - the Pieta was removed from SanPetronilla and its position altered several times afterwards27 - the printgoes further than might be expected by celebrating the sculptor's technicallegerdemain. It is advertised in the statement that the two figures havebeen carved from a single block of marble. An almost identical formula isto be found in another engraving by Giovanni Battista de' Cavalieri,which was issued in February 1564 as a memorial to Michelangelo shortlyafter his death.28 Such examples represent only a tiny fraction of theprinted imagery offering two-dimensional accounts of statues andmonuments. Two-dimensional reproductions were hardly as versatile astheir three-dimensional counterparts, but they were cheaper and morewidely distributed. Because they were accompanied by explanatoryinscriptions, they were perhaps even more important a means ofadvertising authorship. Already by the mid-sixteenth century, the printtrade existed as one of the essential institutions for the dissemination ofart and the constructions of its canons of excellence.29

III

All this may seem to leave Benjamin's thesis more or less intact.Handmade artefacts can hardly be regarded as equivalents of the modernphotograph. Benjamin's understanding of reproduction is closely boundto a standard of informational accuracy associated with the disinterestedcamera, whereas the 'copies' we have so far considered are, whether bydesign or default, noticeably unsatisfactory in some respect. Indeed, theirreliability may be checked precisely by setting photographs of copy andoriginal side by side. The standard set by this kind of 'mechanical'medium has had an effect on three-dimensional reproduction too.Today's museum facsimile, with its careful simulation of even thesmallest surface accident, aims at a kind of verisimilitude achieved firstby the photographic print. By these rigorous standards, early modernreproductions seem to stand in the same relation to photographs astranslations of a text do to transcriptions. 3°

Walter Benjamin and Michelangelo

But the heart of Benjamin's argument lies in his thesis thatphotographic reproduction removes the 'aura' from a work of art andit is this thesis that must now be addressed. 'Aura' came to signify anumber of things in Benjamin's writing, not all of them compatible withone another, but within the context of his essay on reproduction it hastwo relatively clear and distinct meanings. The first is as an indicator ofthe power an artefact would once have acquired from its function withina cult. The point is quite easily illustrated by the case history examinedhere. Michelangelo's Roman Pieta was made for the funerary chapel ofthe French Cardinal Jean Bilhere de Lagraulas where it could beunderstood in many complementary ways. Most obviously, the Virginoccupies a place in the liturgy for the dead as chief intercessor for souls,and this fact alone would invest her figure with a special importance.'Aura' is thus that nimbus of awe with which the cult surrounds theimage and which establishes a psychological distance between thebelieving spectator and the statue itself.When considering the devotional function of an object within a

religious cult, its appearance is of secondary importance and may in factoften be a matter of indifference.3I However, the second way in whichBenjamin employs the term 'aura' has a more obvious application towhat we normally think of as the work of art. 'Aura' is here that sense ofuniqueness gained from inspection of surface marks left on an object byits manufacture and its subsequent passage through time. Facture anddamage are interpreted as respectively signs of authorship and ofhistorical authenticity. However, while Benjamin seems here directlyconcerned with the detailed appearance of a work, his case is not aformalist one. It is the beholder who must actively interpret these tracesto invest the work with a reverential nimbus. For a formalist, accidentaltraces left by its history would hardly matter at all.Photographic reproduction, according to Benjamin, breaks down the

aura surrounding the object. Partly this is conceived as a process ofradical decontextualization, which brings even the most complexartefacts inside the living room. The ubiquitous, democratizingphotograph furthermore supplies multiple substitutes for an artefact,thus supposedly eroding any sense of its unique presence in space andtime, robbing it, we might say, of its quiddity.The second point is easier to deal with immediately because

Benjamin's argument may be neatly reversed by making the equallyplausible claim that the 'aura' of authority and authenticity envelopingan original is strongly enhanced by the photographic reproduction. This

ANTHONY HUGHES

works in two ways. First, the very intrusive power of the camera, itsability to reveal surface qualities that cannot be detected under normalviewing conditions, tends to endorse the uniqueness of the workrepresented. All the peculiarities revealed in the photographic print helpto fix the exact character of an object with a precision beyond the powerof verbal description or the translation processes involved in handmadereproduction. The power to report on surface accidents in such a way asto enable one version of a work to be unambiguously identified fromanother enables photographs to acquire the status that an expert witnessmight have in court (not infallible, but to be heard with the greatestrespect).Contrary to Benjamin's thesis, then, the photograph tends to empha-

size the particularity of certain objects. Scraps of Benjamin's argumentmight still be salvaged. We could agree, for example that the 'aura' withwhich viewers invest a work sometimes remains strikingly independentof the object itself. However, this recognition hardly entails more thanthe fairly uncontentious observation that our responses are hugelydetermined by cultural make-up.Photographers have been shaped by the same cultural forces too, which

affect the images they make and the way we understand them. Michel-angelo's unfinished Atlas Slave provides a useful example of the fashion inwhich photography has worked to reinforce common assumptions andintensify the auratic effect even against the grain of historical evidence. Allthe details of that unique block from which the figure emerges have beenrecorded with great precision in photographs taken in varying forms ofillumination, but most strikingly by raking light that reveals the slightestmodulation of surface. The result has been a series of pictures designed toheighten the romance of the process whereby the formless takes onMichelangelo's form. But the extent to which the marks of punch andchisel are read as autograph will vary according to the knowledge andsusceptibility of the viewer. Some of these traces of labour will have beenmade by those who shaped the block at the quarry; others by assistants atwork in the studio. For at least a hundred years, scholars have disagreedabout which marks represent Michelangelo's intervention.This argument tends to reinforce Benjamin's contention that photo-

graphy inaugurated a change in the way the work of art was perceived(though he drew the wrong conclusions from the fact). In a differentsense, we ought to insist on the fact to which William Ivins memorablydrew attention: photography is a technology whose history should beregarded as continuous with that of printmaking and some of the points


already made about the handmade reproduction apply equally well to thephotograph. The 'mechanical' part of photography may be exaggerated.However informative, no photograph is ever in practice regarded as asubstitute for the object itself. Like previous forms of reproductiveimagery, it is always, in the final analysis, incomplete (unless the work tobe reproduced is itself a photograph, in which case a print may, onoccasion, function exactly like a substitute or facsimile32). Photographsare traces indices rather than icons, in terms of Peirce's famoustaxonomy and only in exceptional cases do they seek the status offacsimiles. Just as the older forms of handmade reproduction differedfrom the original in colour, scale and texture, so does the photograph,and, like those older forms, it too is a product of a number of interpreta-tive decisions made by photographer and printer. The incompleteness ofthe photographic image is, of course, especially apparent in reproduc-tions of three-dimensional artefacts such as sculptures. But it is preciselybecause it is an indexical sign that the photograph can never be regardedas satisfying in itself. It points beyond itself to the original, advertisesitself as a trace, exhibiting in extreme degree that transparency we notedearlier as a feature of the whole range of 'reproductive' types, but whichis especially true of indices such as casts.Benjamin's arguments concerning the loss of cuitic context seem

equally in need of review. If it were merely a question of making adjust-ments to Benjamin's case, we could argue that an engraving or smallthree-dimensional version of Michelangelo's Pieta already detached thework from its devotional frame sufficiently to transform perception of it.In other words, photography seems irrelevant to Benjamin's point. Allforms of secular reproduction act as a kind of conceptual relocation of anobject, similar in effect to a spatial shift from church to museum. In thelong run, it is not the mechanism of reproduction, but countless historicalprocesses, small and large, that finally effect any real transformation inthe spectator's perception. Even the most devout twentieth-centuryRoman Catholic could hardly claim to have the same experience in theface of the Pieta as a visitor to Cardinal Jean de la Bilhere's chapel hadaround 1500.

To some extent, Benjamin's essay implicitly contains answers to suchobjections. The transformation from cultic object enveloped in its halo ofmystery and power to the democratically reproducible image is notpresented as a sudden outcome of the appearance of the photograph. Anapparently long historical period is interposed between the cultic era andthat of mechanical reproduction, during which the value placed on the

44 ANTHONY HUGHES

object had to do with its status as an 'exhibitable' commodity. This israther fuzzily presented (and Benjamin's major example containsempirically incorrect information33 ), but what he seems to have inmind is an early modern period during which the work is valued first,primarily as a collector's item and ultimately as the museum or gallerypiece: what we would normally think of as a work of art supposedlyadmired for its formal properties or for the author's creative powerrather than for its place within a larger ceremonial context.One problem with Benjamin's argument is that it creates a much

sharper division than can ever be sustained between the cultic object andthat made for exhibition. In addition, Benjamin's idea of the cult is muchtoo exclusively religious. Throughout, his essay tends to set up a linear,'progressive' movement from religion to secularization, from the culticobject to the objet d'art and from there to envisage a further developmenttowards a final and definitive, liberating political apprehension ofimagery. For all Benjamin's subtlety, the armature on which his accountis built is simplistic, strikingly similar to Auguste Comte's positivistichistory of human culture whereby the world is understood by means of aprogressive demystification of nature: religion succeeds magical practiceand in its turn succumbs to the superior explanatory and manipulativepower of the natural sciences.34At a crucial stage of this argument, Benjamin admitted that, towards

the end of the nineteenth century, a 'religion of art' began to invest thework with a kind of substitute aura, but he appeared to believe that thisnotion had already had its day by the time he wrote. In general, he isresistant to any extension of the concept of cult beyond the strictlysacramental. If, however, we were to understand 'cult' as a termanalogous to the anthropologist's 'ritual', then part of Benjamin'sargument still retains a great deal of value, though only at the expense ofhis point about the effect of photography. Indeed, photographicreproduction has intensified the cultic status of art itself by means notdissimilar to those formerly used to promote the devotional icon. I amthinking here of the way in which art figures largely and inescapably inthe rituals of tourism, of art-historical lectures and essays (like this one),and in those involving civic and national self-identification withhistorical figures. The presence of Michelangelo's head on Italianbanknotes is one obvious sign of the fashion in which the Western cultof individual genius meshes with the supra-individual ideal representedby the nation-state. We may also note that Florence, as the birthplace ofMichelangelo, represents another kind of cult, sometimes in harmony

Walter Benjamin and Michelangelo 45

with the national, sometimes chafing against it as the survivor of an olderregional culture. The identification of the city's status as the origin of the'universal' appeal of Michelangelo's art is emphasized by the strategicplacement of reproductions. A marble copy of David stands outside thePalazzo Vecchio (its original location); another David, this one bronze, isaccompanied by bronze versions of the Times of Day on the centralmonument of the Piazza Michelangelo; replicas of the Slaves wereembedded in Buontalenti's grotto in the Boboli Gardens. 35 If visitorsrecognise these images, it is in large part because they have been madefamiliar through the medium of photography itself.The literal replication of figures from one context so that they may

stand in another provides us with a further clue to the unsatisfactorilythin structure of Benjamin's positivistic view of the historical process.Constant reproduction, rather than reducing the work or emptying thesign, generates a multiplicity of readings, which may be carriedbackwards and forwards, from original to reproduction and vice versa.In this way older kinds of cult may subsist with the newer, onereinforcing the authority of the other. The Pieta, advertised throughsixteenth-century engraving as the unique product of Miche1angelo's art,sustains today two distinct forms of devotion, one Catholic the othersecular, and it should go without saying that two forms of reverence mayco-exist now in one person in much the same way as they did forFran~ois I and Metello Vari in the sixteenth century.In other words, replication of Michelangelo's sculpture, far from

diminishing its authority, helps to enhance, even in some cases, to createit. Of course, reproduction does not work alone but as one factor in acomplex of others. The replication of Michelangelo's work during thesixteenth century itself ran in parallel to another enterprise, the cult ofantiquity in all its forms, literary, social and political. The seeminglyinexhaustible process of refashioning ancient statuary in early modernEurope helped to constitute both that sense of the inescapable primacy ofthe antique and of the attachment of the modern to it that has been at thecentre of so much Western art ever since. Both Fran~ois I and Tintorettoadded models and casts of Michelangelo to a store of classical exemplarsand their practice was imitated by the great schools of art up to thenineteenth century and beyond. Our canons have altered and we havelargely exchanged the cast room for the collection of postcards andbooks, but like its earlier counterparts, photographic reproduction nowoccupies a place that is central to promoting and securing that elusivecultic penumbra Benjamin called 'aura'.

3

Art for the Masses: Spanish SculptureIn the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries

MARJORIE TRUSTED

The notion of reproduced images was prominent in Spanish sculpturefrom at least the sixteenth century to the eighteenth. Not only didsculptors produce the same subjects, such as the Virgin of Sorrows or StFrancis of Assisi, but also their interpretations of these subjects fre-quently exhibited the same iconographical formulae, so that they closelyparalleled one another, despite being made at different times, in differentlocations and by different artists. The time of the greatest flowering ofart, particularly sculpture, in Spain (the sixteenth and seventeenthcenturies) coincided with widespread, deeply held religious fervour,creating a tremendous demand for devotional images: sculpture for themasses in every sense. Recognizing how and why devotional sculptureswere made in Spain at this time is paradoxically perhaps the most fruitfulway of understanding them as works of art, for they were not primarilydesigned to be seen as unique or original creations. I (It is no accident thatthey were only exceptionally signed by their creators.2

) Nor were theydesigned to be studied as works of art in a museum, for their originalcontexts usually within a church or convent, or sometimes in a domesticsetting as an object of private devotion, were fundamental to the waythey were perceived. The greatest nineteenth-century commentator onSpain, the English traveller Richard Ford (1796-1858), lamented, 'Can itbe wondered that such works, now torn from their original shrines anddesecrated in lay galleries should loom gloomily and out of place, likemonks thrust from dim cloisters into gay daylight?'3For these reasons many works produced in Spain do not easily accord

with a certain kind of art history, in particular attributions to greatnames and monographic studies of artists. By looking at four groups ofobjects illustrating four types of reproduction, this essay aims to showwhat they reveal about the ways sculptors organized their workshops,how an individual sculptor might influence contemporaries and laterartists, and finally how images functioned within a devotional context.

Spanish Sculpture in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries 47

Spanish sculpture of this period was part of a strong tradition, whichwas both artistic (in that sculptors followed sometimes extremely closelyboth their immediate and more distant predecessors) and theological (inthat the subjects depicted had to conform to what was accepted andapproved by the Church, more especially so after the mid-sixteenth-century Catholic Reformation). Partly because such rich archives survivein Spain, and because of the traditions of art history going backultimately to Vasari (exemplified in Spain by the Dictionary of Artistsproduced in 1800 by J. A. Cean Bermudez),4 most studies of post-Renaissance Spanish sculpture tend to concentrate on named artists andattributions; this essay will aim to approach the subject from a slightlydifferent angle, while nevertheless inevitably building on the largevolume of scholarship that exists to date.5 Broadly, the four types ofrepetition to be discussed here are: first, the same composition (The Pietain terracotta by Juan de Juni) more or less exactly copied by means of amould; second, elements that could be adapted and re-used for differentcompositions within one workshop (that of Luisa Roldan), again usingmoulds; third, one image of great significance for devotional purposes(the Virgin of Sorrows) produced in only slightly different forms by anumber of artists over a century; and fourth, the miraculous image of asaint (St Francis of Assisi) depending from one of two prototypes by theseventeenth-century sculptor Pedro de Mena, repeated in both paintingand sculpture for over two centuries.

TERRACOTTA: THE WORKSHOP OF JUAN DE JUNI IN

THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY

Certain materials lend themselves to reproduction from moulds. In Spainthe most commonly surviving such material is terracotta. A smallpolychromed terracotta relief of the Pieta was acquired in Madrid in 1863by the Victoria and Albert Museum (then the South KensingtonMuseum).6 The relief is mounted in a painted and gilt-wood frame,decorated in gold with a Latin inscription? The original surface wouldhave been somewhat brighter than the present appearance of the reliefsuggests, since the terracotta has been overpainted.8

Three other close variants of this work are known: one in the CathedralMuseum (Museo Diocesano y Catedralicio) in Valladolid, another in theArchaeological Museum (Museo Arqueol6gico Provincial) in Leen and athird in the Camen Aznar Collection (Instituto y Museo) in Zaragoza.9With the exception of the Camen Aznar relief, they are virtually identicalin size. IQ Who originated the design for these four reliefs, and how do they

MAR/ORIE TRUSTED

Juan de Juni, Pieta, c. 1540, painted terracotta in painted and gilt-wood frame.Victoria and Albert Museum, London.

relate to one another? In answer to the first question, the figurative stylepoints to Juan de ]uni (c. 1507(7), one of the leading sculptors active inCastile in the mid-sixteenth century, who probably came originally from]oigny in Burgundy but who apparently spent all his working life inSpain!! The composition is of extraordinarily high quality, its manneristnerviosidad (literally 'nervousness', expressing the energetic movement ofhis compositions) typical of ]uni's work. Comparable pieces associatedwith ]uni include a Pieta group attributed to him in the Museo FedericoMares, Barcelona,12. and a polychromed stone relief of the Pieta in theCathedral at Salamanca forming part of the tomb of Gutierre de Castro,dating from about 1540, and convincingly ascribed to ]uni on bothcircumstantial and stylistic evidence. 13 These pieces display similarfeatures to the Pieta reliefs: elongated, contorted bodies, thick, flowingfolds of drapery and comparable facial types for Christ and the Virgin.The date of the tomb in Salamanca also gives an approximate date of 1540for the conception of the terracotta.


Juan de Juni, Pieta, c. I540, painted stone relief (part of the tomb of Gutierre de Castro).Salamanca Cathedral.

5° MARJORIE TRUSTED

If the conception is Juan de Juni's, the question of the relationshipbetween the four Pieta reliefs (in London, Valladolid, Leon andZaragoza) remains. There are apparently two relatively early verbalallusions to the composition. The first, in the early seventeenth century,dates from just over seventy years after it was probably designed. This isthe 1613 inventory of the possessions of Juana Mardnez, the widow ofJuan de Juni's illegitimate son, Isaac de Juni, himself a sculptor. One ofthe items listed was 'clay image in relief of the Descent from the Cross'. I4Although this is not a certain allusion to the composition, it is likely to beso, being a relief in the same material and of the same subject in thepossession of the next generation of Juan de Juni's family. If it is anallusion to the composition, it remains unclear which (if any) of thesurviving versions this was, as will be discussed below.Almost exactly one hundred years later, the eighteenth-century

Spanish painter and writer Antonio Palomino recorded in 1714: 'In thechurch of St Martin in this city [Valladolid] there is a little scene interracotta of the Descent from the Cross, of which a number of sculptorshave made casts, so that it is a widely travelled image'.I5

It has been noted that the example formerly in the church of St Martinin Valladolid (as seen by Palomino) is the version now in the CathedralMuseum in Valladolid, and that this therefore could be the versionmentioned in the inventory of Juana Martlnez, who lived in Valladolid. I6For this reason it has been suggested that the version in Valladolid wasthe original and the others replicas. On the basis of Palomino'scomments that other sculptors made casts of the Valladolid relief, theother versions have been considered early copies, which should be treatedneither as 'original de Juni' nor as fakes. I7 It is interesting to note thatwhen the London relief was acquired, the curator at the SouthKensington Museum, John Charles Robinson, described it as 'Schoolof Valladolid (?) probably by a pupil of Juan de Juni'. 18 Theseinterpretations of the surviving versions, partly based on Palomino, seemplausible, but it is also possible that Palomino, writing over 130 yearsafter Juni's death, was misinformed, or misinterpreted what he saw. Theimplication of his statement is that there is one original (possibly the onein Valladolid) modelled by Juan de Juni himself. Other versions, whilestill early, dating from the sixteenth century and possibly the seventeenthtoo, were cast from the original by other artists. They were not intendedto deceive but were replicas. However, it seems probable that thecomposition was always intended to be reproduced in multiples. Theappearance of the known surviving pieces suggests they are likely to be

Spanish Sculpture in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries 5I

contemporary with one another, whereas the theory that copies weremade by other artists implies that one is earlier and that the others weremade at a slightly later date, perhaps after Juan de Juni's death in 1577. I9

Yet there is no perceptible difference in the definition of the forms inthese four versions, although the polychromy varies in quality and ismuch damaged in the Valladolid, Lean and Zaragoza examples. TheValladolid, Lean and London pieces are all of the same size; the CamanAznar version in Zaragoza appears to be cut down and is consequently5cm smaller in both height and width.20 It is almost certain that allknown versions are cast and not modelled, although it seems that thecasts were not made identically, which may imply that they were notnecessarily all carried out at the same time.2I The reliefs seem to havebeen made for display, rather than for study. This can be assumed fromthe fact that contemporary polychromy seems to have survived on all ofthem at least in part, and that wood frames are extant on all but theValladolid version. The wood frame of the London relief, with its gold-painted inscription, is analogous to the frame of the version in Lean,which also has an early inscription (although a different one), and to thatof the one in the Caman Aznar Collection, which has a wood framepainted to imitate marble.These features imply that the four surviving versions should be

accorded equal status, no one of them necessarily being closer to orfurther from the work of the sculptor than any of the others. Havingmade an 'original' in clay, which was probably then fired in order toharden it, Juan de Juni could have had made in his workshop a mould ofthis, from which were cast numerous copies. These were then painted,framed and sold. They would have been comparatively small devotionalimages, suitable for a domestic setting. The relief mentioned in the 1613inventory if it is related to the present pieces - may be a fifth versionthat has been subsequently lost, or it may be identical to any of the othersurviving examples. In addition to these four versions, there is a smallervariant of the composition, also probably dating from the sixteenthcentury, although of poor quality, and with the same compositionlaterally inverted; this is in the National Museum of Sculpture inValladoHd.2.2 The reduced size and lateral inversion may imply that itwas taken from an engraved version of the composition, rather thanbeing derived from Juni's original mould, although no such engraving isknown to have survived, and it could have been made from a now lostinferior copy, perhaps even pirated from Juni's workshop by a rival. Assuch, it is evidence of the continuing popularity of the composition, and a

MARJORIE TRUSTED

copy indirectly to be associated with the work of Juni, rather than amultiple produced in his workshop.Unfortunately no other evidence is known regarding how Juan de Juni

sold uncommissioned sculptures, for example whether he retailed themor displayed them in his workshop. But the surviving versions of thiscomposition, roughly all contemporary with one another and emanatingfrom his workshop (with the possible exception of the inferior versionnow in the National Museum of Sculpture), imply that Juni producedmultiples to sell, probably relatively cheaply, to private customers, andthat this made sense economically.

TERRACOTTA: THE WORKSHOP OF LUISA ROLDAN

IN THE LATE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY

Economic reasons also influenced the running of the workshop of aSpanish sculptor working at the end of the seventeenth century. LuisaRoldan (r652-r706), known as La Roldana, was the daughter of theSevillian sculptor Pedro Roldan (r624-99), and trained under him beforesetting up her own workshop as an independent sculptor, her husbandLuis Antonio de los Arcos (d. r702/3) acting as polychromist.23 Therewas a strong tradition of terracotta sculpture in Seville going back to thefifteenth century, and although Luisa Roldan also worked in wood, herterracotta pieces are most characteristic of her style, and prefigure theRococo porcelain groups produced in the eighteenth century. She movedto Madrid in about r688 to petition for the post of court sculptor, whichwas finally granted in r692. Most of her small-scale terracotta groups arethought to date from r688 onwards. One of these, a painted and partiallygilt terracotta figure group of the Virgin and Child Appearing to St Diegoof Alcala, is in the Victoria and Albert Museum.24 The Virgin and Childare shown presenting the cross to a kneeling Franciscan saint,accompanied by two angels, one kneeling, one standing. Six cherubimnestle around the Virgin's feet. All the figures except the saint rest onclouds, indicating that this is an ecstatic vision experienced by the saint.25

St Diego of Alcala stole bread from his monastery to give to the poor, butwas discovered, at which point the bread miraculously turned intoflowers; the petals can be seen in the folds of his habit.26 The group wasacquired for the Museum in Madrid in r863, and was originally simplycalled 'Spanish, seventeenth century';27 the reasons for the subsequentattribution to Luisa Roldan are stylistic.One of her signed groups in the collection of the Hispanic Society of

New York is remarkably close to the present one. This is the Mystical


Luisa Roldan, Virgin and Child Appearing to St Diego of Alcala, c. 16~1700,painted terracotta on a painted and gilt wood base. Vic[Qria and Albert Museum, London.

Luisa Roldan, Mystical Marriage of St Catherine. c. 1690-1700, painted terracotta.Hispanic Society of America, New York.

54 MARJORIE TRUSTED

Marriage of St Catherine, in which the composition and facial features ofthe individual figures, notably the figures of the Virgin and the angel onthe Virgin's right in each group, are extraordinarily close.28 Because ofthese similarities and the nature of the material it is conceivable thatRoldan used moulds to repeat certain figures in her groups. In order totest out this hypothesis, measurements of both groups and separateelements from each (the faces of the Virgin and of the kneeling angel)were taken. Unfortunately the results were inconclusive, as themeasurements, which were anyway done by hand and taken at differenttimes on both sides of the Atlantic, were close but not identica1.29 Inaddition, different rates of shrinkage during firing and the possibility thatthe clay may have been worked up when it was still in a leather-hardstate could also account for slight discrepancies. It is, however, strikingthat closely similar figures of the Virgin and Child and of the kneelingangel recur in other Roldan groups, such as her two versions of the Reston the Flight into Egypt, one dated 1691 in the collection of the Condesade Ruisefiada in San Sebastian, and another in the Hispanic Society inNew York. 30 Even within the present group, the heads of the cherubimare repeated forms. Recent examination of the underside of the NewYork Mystical Marriage of St Catherine revealed that the whole groupconsisted of separate elements (each usually of one figure) fitted together,presumably before firing. Straw was also visible, almost certainly used tobind the clay.31

Although it has not been possible to prove the theory, it seems highlyprobable that Roldan's workshop, organized around the production ofthese closely similar small-scale groups, almost certainly intended fordomestic settings, depended on a high proportion of delegated work:Roldan presumably designed the compositions of the groups and madethe initial figures; she could then multiply the images used by havingmoulds made, so that they could be adapted for various groups, depictingentirely different subjects. Even if certain elements were not actually castfrom moulds, the undeniable repetition of forms in her pieces suggests astreamlined way of organizing her workshop. This may have been partlyfor iconographic or devotional reasons; for example, it might have beenthought desirable that images of the Virgin be similar, if not identical.But perhaps the primary reason was economic: so that she could run anefficient workshop, which produced large numbers of such works; acontemporary letter from the sculptor refers to a list of eighty works shehad produced over the previous ten years.32


IMAGES OF THE VIRGIN OF SORROWS IN THE

SEVENTEENTH CENTURY

There are other repeated images in Spanish sculpture that cannot havebeen made simply because it was cheaper to do so. One of the mostwidely disseminated and popular images of the seventeenth century wasthat of the Virgin of Sorrows, the Virgen Dolorosa or Virgen de laSoledad. In sculpture the subject of the mourning Virgin could be in theform of a bust or a half-length figure, more rarely as a full-length figure,sometimes an imagen de vestir, an image to be dressed. Often a bust or ahalf-length figure of Christ as Man of Sorrows is accompanied by acomparable image of the Virgin, such as Pedro de Mena's pair of busts inthe Convento de las MM. Concepcionistas, Zamora.33 The depiction inthe form of a bust may well partly derive from Netherlandish painting ofthe fifteenth century, exemplified by the work of Dieric Bouts (c. 1420

75) and his son Albert Bouts (c. 1460-1549), perhaps transmitted throughengravings. 34 Towards the end of the fifteenth century Spanish paintingsof the subject appeared, such as the work of Paolo da San Leocadio(1447-1519).35 Another probable source is the reliquary bust, theassociations of which, containing as they did physical relics of thesaints depicted, must have added to the already powerful verisimilitudeto be seen in the painted wood busts of the Virgin and Christ.In the Victoria and Albert Museum there is a particularly fine painted

wood version of the Virgin ofSorrows, acquired in 1871, and at that dateattributed to the Sevillian sculptor Juan Mardnez Montafies (1568-1649).36 This ascription was overthrown in 1950 when Xavier de Salas,then Director of the Spanish Institute in London, claimed that the bustcould not be by him, but was 'possibly by Pedro de Mena who was ... apupil of Alonso Cano. Cano himself was ... a follower of Montafies' .37Many sculpted versions of this subject are known, most of them fromAndalusia, in particular Granada, including works attributed to the twobrothers Jer6nimo Francisco and Miguel Jer6nimo Garda (theHermanos Garda),3 8 and Jose Risuefio (1665-1732).39 The Andalusiansculptor Pedro de Mena (1628-88), mentioned above, who had workedwith the painter and sculptor Alonso Cano (1601-67), was the mosteminent of those artists known to have produced versions. He originatedand refined the type most commonly produced in the seventeenth andearly eighteenth centuries, and at least sixteen versions of the bust of theMourning Virgin attributed to him survive.40 From 1950 until recentlythe London bust was associated with this sculptor. The attribution to

MARJORIE TRUSTED

Jose de Mora (1642-1724), Virgin of Sorrows, painted wood. Victoria and Alben Museum,London.

Mena had been generally agreed, partly because it is understandablyalways tempting to ascribe an outstanding work of art to the mosteminent name associated stylistically. Although there are clearsimilarities with works by Pedro de Mena - the virtuoso carving of thewood, the corkscrew ringlets and the naturalistically crumpled veil - theparallels are iconographic and technical. However, other contemporaryand slightly later works by Andalusian sculptors also have some of thesecharacteristics, such as a bust by Jose Risueno of about 1700--30 in theNational Museum of Sculpture, ValladolidY Despite the high number ofsurviving busts by roughly contemporary sculptors in Andalusia, stylisticdifferences can be discerned. The Dolorosa in the Victoria and AlbertMuseum has some distinctive features : the morose downward glance, theaquiline nose, heavy-lidded eyes and full lips. These all suggest the workis by Jose de Mora (1642.-172.4), Pedro de Mena's younger contemporary,and also active in Granada. An analogous example by Jose de Mora is aVirgin and pendant bust of Christ in a private collection in Salamanca.42

These closely similar versions of busts of the sorrowing Virgin arehighly worked images made by independent sculptors, all successfullyworking in or around Granada at about the same time, the second half ofthe seventeenth century and the early eighteenth century. Admittedly the


subjects were standard icons, but they were codified by the artistsconcerned at the same time and in the same place. They are not identical,but contemporary variants of the same type. Although it is possible todistinguish different pieces stylistically, individual artists were producingrepeated images, such as the sixteen surviving pieces associated withPedro de Mena. Perhaps the considerable craftsmanship that went intothe busts - which was clearly a continuing part of a thriving vernaculartradition of polychromed wood sculpture - was also a way of suggestingthe devotional care taken by the artist, as well as the amount of moneyspent by the individual or institutional patron. The images were rich inspiritual meaning and power. When a full-length Soledad figure by Josede Mora was installed in the Church of St Anne in Granada in 1671, acontemporary chronicler recorded that it was taken there at midnight,accompanied by a congregation of the devout holding torches, and thaton this journey to the church the image performed a miracle, bringingback to health a woman gravely ill, as it passed by her house.43

IMAGES OF THE MIRACULOUSLY PRESERVED

ST FRANCIS OF ASSISI

A fourth type of reproduction can be distinguished in Spanish sculpture:the repetition of a miraculous image of a saint. One of the mostrenowned of such images was the figure of St Francis of Assisi in the formof a resurrected corpse, illustrating the legend of the miraculouspreservation of his body over two centuries after his death. Accordingto the legend, the saint was found standing up with open eyes gazing upto Heaven when his tomb in Assisi was opened by Nicholas V in 1449.44

The event was first depicted in paintings and sculpture in the earlyseventeenth century,45 having been popularized in Spain by a number ofpublications of the late sixteenth century and early seventeenth century,such as Pedro de Ribadeneira's Flos Sanctorum 0 Libro de las Vidas deLos Santos (Flower of Saints or Book of the Lives of the Saints), firstpublished in Madrid in 1599.46 The first sculpted interpretations of thesubject seem to have been produced by Gregorio Fernandez (c. 15761636); one, which had been dated to not later than 1620, is in the RoyalConvent of the Discalced Nuns (Monasterio de las Descalzas Reales) inValladolid.47 This simple image, just over a metre high, is likely to havebeen the first depiction of this subject, the sallow face and uplifted eyesringed in shadow reflecting the legend of the saint's life in death. Thevisible hands just reveal one of the stigmata, a detail that came to betypical of the Castilian interpretations of the subject later on in the

MARJORIE TRUSTED

(left) Pedro de Mena, St Fratlcis, 1663, painted wood. Toledo Cathedral.

(right) Anonymous, after Pedro de Mcna, St Fratlcis, c. 1720-4°, painted wood.Vicroria and Albcrt Museum, London.

century. It is also an early instance of a free-standing statue of a saint as adevotional image, rather than an element in an altarpiece; this type offigure was to become widespread in Spain through the work of AlonsoCano later on in the century. Fernandez's figure almost certainly predatesthe three paintings of the same subject by Francisco de Zurbaran (1598-1664), which have been convincingly dated to about 1640--5.48 The imageof the resurrected St Francis became more widely known following thetwo autograph sculptures of the subject produced by Pedro de Mena, one


a relief for the choir-stalls in Malaga, dating from 1658 to 1662, and theother the figure in Toledo Cathedral, executed in 1663.49 The Toledofigure in particular was widely influential and must itself have been partlybased on Fernandez's figure of over forty years before, although thehands are not visible and the cowl is deeper. Both it and the relief fromMalaga, which also came to be used as a model for free-standing figuresby other sculptors,50 became exceedingly popular sources, and they wereadapted for sculptures all over Castile and Andalusia for the next centuryand more.The many versions of the Toledo figure of St Francis superficially form

a coherent stylistic group and have generally been dated to theseventeenth century, roughly contemporary with the original thatinspired them.SI However, when examined more closely, their stylescan be distinguished one from another, and it is clear that they are notsimply replicas, but must be called variants. While they can virtually allbe traced back to one of the two types created by Pedro de Mena, eachexhibits differences from the others to a greater or lesser extent, in scale,facial expression and the fall of folds of the drapery. Few are eitherinscribed or dated, but they are technically analogous to the figure inToledo by Pedro de Mena. Often only a patient analysis of the stylesuggests a date, although sometimes this can only be approximate, owingto lack of documentary or other evidence. Two exceptions to this are afigure by Fernando Ortiz of Malaga in the National Museum ofSculpture, Valladolid, signed and dated 1738,52 and an anonymous one inthe Convent of St Clare, Medina de Rloseco, Valladolid, dated 1732.53The subject continued to be popular into the nineteenth century; at leasttwo versions are known to date from that time.54One example of an eighteenth-century variant is in the Victoria and

Albert Museum;55 it is close iconographically to the autograph piece inToledo, although it is only half the size. It was acquired for the Museumby the curator, John Charles Robinson, in Madrid in 1865. He believedthe figure in Toledo to be by Cano (as did many of his contemporaries),and called the piece acquired by the Museum a 'contemporary repetitionof a very famous statuette by Alonso Cano, preserved in the sacristy ofthe Cathedral of Toledo'. 56 When first acquired it was dated to theseventeenth century and until recently this date has been accepted.However, the style of the carving, in particular the fall of the drapery,strongly implies it was made in the first half of the eighteenth century,perhaps nearly a hundred years after Pedro de Mena's image in Toledo.That prototype image has been reduced in size to a more portable and

60 MARJORIE TRUSTED

domestic object. The same legend is being told (the miraculousposthumous image of the saint), and the statue created by Pedro deMena is being deliberately evoked, although not directly copied, sinceclearly avoidable changes have been made, as in the fall of the drapery.This suggests a different meaning for the phrase 'stylistic influence' of anartist, and the chosen portrayal of the saint must be seen as bound upwith the religious and miraculous nature of the image.

It is evident that there can be different motives for reproducing an imageand various gradations in the meaning of the word 'reproduction' or'variant'. In the first group of examples, it was argued that the sixteenth-century artist Juan de Juni's workshop (and probably a competitor)reproduced an image using a mould and decorated the finished versionsdifferently, perhaps to suit different clients who had not commissionedthese works but stipulated certain surface decoration after the terracottahad been cast. In Luisa Roldan's work the repeated forms andcompositions seen in different groups imply how she ran her highlyproductive workshop, whether or not moulds were actually used. In thethird group, a number of more or less contemporary artists in Granada allproduced similar, although distinctive, versions of the Virgin (and ofChrist); Pedro de Mena in particular, who seems to have perfected thetype, produced a whose series of closely similar works on this theme. Thisno doubt fulfilled the demand for sacred images in Spain and reflected thepiety prevalent throughout the peninsula at this time. In the last group,two particularly striking and closely related images of the miraculouslypreserved body of St Francis by Pedro de Mena, in Malaga and Toledorespectively, as well as the earlier figure by Gregorio Fernandez, were usedand adapted by large numbers of artists for up to two hundred years aftertheir creation. Like the third group of examples, the nature and intensityof religious devotion must have been one of the main reasons for theserepeated forms.

4

The Ivory Multiplied: Small-scaleSculpture and its Reproductions

in the Eighteenth Century

MALCOLM BAKER

Since the publication of Francis Haskell and Nicholas Penny's Taste andthe Antique, the role played by three-dimensional reproductions of small-scale sculptures in disseminating the antique sculptural canon has becomea commonplace within histories of art. I Various studies of specificsculptors or centres of sculptural production have revealed how suchsculptural reductions or multiple reproductions served to make morewidely known both the works and the names of various Italian sculptors.2

The new attention being given to the sculptural reproduction comes at atime when postmodern questioning of the notion of authorship hasprompted a reconsideration of the relationship between the original, themultiple and the copy, and the very legitimacy of these terms. 3 These twodevelopments provide a framework for the discussion here of thereproduction of small-scale sculpture in the eighteenth century. Byexamining reproductions of northern European sculpture executed on asmall scale in ivory - a class of art production that has been virtuallyignored in the mainstream of art-historical literature - this essay attemptsto investigate ways in which sculptural reproduction could sometimesoperate differently from the practices used for the copying of the antiqueor Italian Renaissance sculptural canon and looks at the implications ofthis for our understanding of originals, copies and authorship.From the sixteenth century onwards the repertory of antique and

modern figure sculpture that comprised the canon for successivegenerations of artists and connoissuers was disseminated not onlythrough prints and plaster casts but also through the small bronze.Forming an essential component of any courtly collection, and by theeighteenth century figuring increasingly frequently as a decorative featureof the bourgeois interior, the bronze statuette after the Apollo Belvedereor Giambologna's Mercury was made widely available in casts by

MALCOLM BAKER

The Firzwilliam Coin Cabiner. Early eighteenth century with late eighteenth century additionsand a bronze Venus after Giambologna. Ashmolean Museum, Oxford.

Soldani around 1700 or Zoffoli some eighty years later:' In some casesthe compositions reproduced originated as small-scale bronzes and werefrom the start intended for multiple reproduction in bronze; this wascertainly the case, for example, with Giambologna's figure ofArchitecture, a version of which (translated into a Venus) is placed onthe top of the Fitzwilliam medal cabinet in the Ashmolean Museum,Oxford. 5 In many instances, however, such bronzes made availablesculptures that were originally executed in marble on a far larger scale; inthese cases, the multiple reproductions served as barh reductions andsubstitutes. The role that such reductions played in both providingmodels for artists in northern Europe and representing a canon ofclassical and ltalianate visual values is a familiar one.The Ashmolean Venus may at first sight seem to carry many of the

associations and ambiguities of the small-scale sculptural reproduction. Aversion of rather later date after a composition by a major figure inEuropean sculpture, it is here used decoratively, though prominently, sothat we are unsure whether to view it as an independent sculpture or an

Sculpture and its Reproductions in the Eighteenth Century 63

ornamental part of a sumptuous but nonetheless functional artefact.Similarly ambiguous is its status in relation to its author, for, while beinghighly finished, this piece is probably an early eighteenth-century cast of aseventeenth-century invention. Nonetheless, like many sculptural repro-ductions in bronze, this is not a reduction of a larger compositionoriginally executed in another material but a replica of an inventionintended from the start to be reproduced on this scale and in this material.While making more widely known the masterpieces of European

sculpture, and celebrating and perpetuating the reputations of those whoinvented them, the small-scale sculptural reproduction also made itpossible for such images to be used decoratively and appropriated inways that diminished the status of both the artist and the original work.An early eighteenth-century cast by Soldani of a Giambologna figurecould be used as an ornamental addition to a piece of furniture, as in the(albeit rather grand) case of the Fitzwilliam cabinet or that of the modelsthat were taken over from the Soldani workshop by the Doccia factoryand used to reproduce the same figures in porcelain in the mid-eighteenthcentury.6 Although the Doccia inventory of the models in many casesrecords the names of the sculptors, these names were associated with theporcelain versions that resulted. A similar sequence of reproduction andadaptation, through which a highly esteemed sculpture becomes adecorative artefact, may be seen in the multiple production, in differentsizes, of Canova's Italian Venus that are to be found in almost everygarden centre, both subject and artist unacknowledged.While this diminution of meaning and status by the appropriation of

sculptural compositions is sometimes discernible in the reproduction ofItalian sculpture, the dissemination of most later reductions of works byMichelangelo or Giambologna served to sustain and reinforce theircanonical status. Unsurprisingly, the majority of studies of this processhas been concerned with the reproduction of antique sculpture or ItalianRenaissance sculpture and focused more on the dissemination andreworking of this canon, rather than its disintegration through decorativereappropriation. Far less well known, however, are either the works ofsmall-scale sculpture produced in materials other than bronze north of theAlps or the ways in which such works were themselves appropriated byreproduction. While perhaps a less central and less significant narrativewithin histories of art, this far less familiar set of interconnections isworth examining, not least because it throws into relief the sequence fromlarge-scale 'masterpiece' to small-scale substitute and provides analternative model for thinking about sculpture and its reproductions.

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During the seventeenth century small-scale sculpture in ivory andboxwood - since then given the generic description of Kleinplastik,unsatisfactorily translated as 'small-scale sculpture' - occupied asignificant place in the Kunstkammer, Wunderkammer, or 'cabinet ofcuriosities'.7 In the collection of the Grand Duke of Tuscany in thePalazzo Pitti, figurative works in ivory by sculptors better known for theirlarger figures in marble or stone, such as Balthasar Permoser, or sculptorsspecializing in ivory-carving, such as Francis van Bossuit, were placedalongside elaborately turned standing cups, one at least turned on thelathe by the Prince Ferdinando himself.8 In the north, female nudes inboxwood by Leonhard Kern, in a distinctively 'northern' style, wereprized at the Habsburg court and were illustrated, along with bronzes byGiambologna and paintings by both Italian and Flemish masters, in Franzvon Stampart and Anton von Prenner's Podromus of 1735.9 The statusaccorded to such works, and to the virtuosity that could be demonstratedin carving ivory, is evident from the lengthy poem written in 1680 by theSilesian poet Daniel Casper von Lohenstein about a single ivory tankard,Matthias Rauchmiller's elaborately carved vessel encircled by a Rape ofthe Sabines, which since 1707 has been in the Liechtenstein collection.10During the eighteenth century, however, attitudes towards ivory-

carving and Kleinplastik in general began to shift, giving them anincreasingly marginal position when academic norms increasinglyfavoured antique and Italianate values and privileged marble as anappropriate medium for sculpture. Although some ivory figures moved tothe gallery, where they were placed in the company of sculpture in thesematerials, most such Kleinplastik lost its prominence with thedismantling of the Wunderkammer. In France such a shift is registeredin the changing position of the ivory-carver in the Academie Royale dePeinture. In the I670S there seems to have been no difficulty in allowingPierre Simon laillot, a sculptor working exclusively in ivory, to be anAcademicien, even though a dispute with Le Brun led to his expulsion inI673.II No such carvers, however, were admitted in the eighteenthcentury and the sculpture to be seen in the Academie's own rooms, asdescribed by Nicolas Guerin in 1715, consisted almost...exclusively oflarger-scale works in terracotta, plaster and marble. I2

In Germany ivory-carvers continued to work for court patrons and inEngland a few carvers at least enjoyed popularity for their portrait reliefsof both noble sitters and an increasing number of bourgeois clients.While some carvers - Antonio Leoni in Diisseldorf, for instance -remained resident at the same court, many others had itinerant careers of


a familiar type. Jacob Dobbermann, for example, was probably trainedin Danzig, then spent some years in England, where he taught in SirGodfrey Kneller's Academy, and eventually moved to the court of theLandgrave Carl von Hessen in Kassel, where he produced reliefs ofmythological subjects, based on mezzotints by the English engraver JohnSmith. I3 A similarly varied itinerary was followed by Joachim Henne,who moved from Amsterdam to the Danish court at Copenhagen, viaGottorf. I4 But this view of ivory-carving as a highly valued court artshould be balanced by consideration of the production of ivories bycarvers working at Dieppe. While some (such as David Le Marchand)pursued itinerant careers of the type just described, most of the carverswere residents, and their main output was of small decorative objects,frequently depicting religious subjects and intended for devotional use.Such works were luxury commodities produced for a growing market.This development of consumerism and the strategies of marketing andproduction that it involved have been much discussed recently, as has theintersection of the history of consumer societies with the history ofculture. I5 Situated in this framework the changing pattern evident in theproduction of small-scale sculpture and the shifting attitudes towardsthis class of sculpture may be viewed rather differently. At this point themultiple and the reproduction become more significant.Although the production of decorative ivory-carving from the Dieppe

workshops may be understood as a continuation of a far earlier traditionof large-scale manufacture of relatively low-priced devotional images, itmay also be seen in terms of a growing demand for luxury objects from awider range of consumers with modest but increasing wealth. In thismarket novelty was used to stimulate consumption. This meant not onlynew designs but also new materials, including porcelain, which was toprove highly attractive to this growing range of consumers. During theperiod when sculpture in marble or bronze was increasingly privileged inthe academy and in public spaces devoted to high art that reflectedacademic ideals, small-scale sculpture in ivory or boxwood was beingsupplanted by the porcelain figure or group. Although not necessarily lessexpensive than the carved ivory, the porcelain compositions were madeby a process that involved moulds and allowed variations to beintroduced in the assembling of the various component parts. Moresignificantly, this process of casting with moulds made the production ofmultiple versions relatively easy. While of course many compositionswere new inventions by specialist modellers working only for theporcelain factories, some at least were cast from existing figures in ivory.

66 MALCOLM BAKER

When Permoser's figures of the Seasons were used in 1778 by theFurstenberg porcelain factory, established in 1753, the ivory originalswere being used as the basis for another form of expensive luxury object,which retained associations with court and aristocratic culture, ratherthan for wares available as multiples in very large numbers to a wideraudience. 16 Nonetheless, this process involved not only the erasure of theartist's name but also the appropriation of the ivory for decorativepurposes. At about the same date ]osiah Wedgwood used wax caststaken from the portrait reliefs by another ivory-carver, David Le

Carl Gottlieb Schubert, Summer, FOrslenberger porcelain figurine of 1778,after an ivory by Balthasar Permoser.

Herzog-Anton-Ulrich·Museum, Braunschweig.

Marchand. 17 While the subjects in most (but not all) cases remainedsignificant, the authorship of the originals was again forgotten. Moreimportantly, despite Wedgwood's strategy of marketing (and pricing) hisproducts so that they would seem superior to other Staffordshireceramics, these reliefs were manufactured as multiples for consumers 'ofthe middling sort', even if these buyers were attracted by the much-vaunted claims that Wedgwood produced works of high quality for thenobility and gentry. In many ways these pieces were intended to makereference to antique objects of the sort that had long been consideredcollectable; the relationship between the white-figure relief and thejasperware ground thus recalls the contrast between figure and groundseen on engraved gems as well as the way in which ivories in England


(according to a French visitor in the 1760s) were set against black velvet.But this relationship between figure and ground also has much incommon with that seen in cheaper, more popular forms of portrait suchas the silhouette. I8

The use of ivory in reproductions during this period suggests thatsmall-scale sculpture suffered a loss of status and significance as itbecame appropriated and adapted in other materials that could bereadily reproduced and marketed to a wider range of potentialconsumers. While cheap, mass-produced replicas of devotional imageshad become commonplace by the late Middle Ages, a distinctive type ofcabinet sculpture, made to be handled and examined closely, was herebeing reproduced as a multiple luxury object for a consumer culture.Implicit in the operation of such processes of reproduction and

translation between media were assumptions about both the associationsand values of particular materials and the procedures of making andreproducing sculpture. While never cheap, ivory could be differentlyvalued and its associations were ambivalent. On the one hand, it mightbe widely used for knife handles, snuff rasps or dials, yet, on the other,both the courtly fashion for ivory-turning and the high esteem in whichsmall-scale carvings had earlier been held in courtly collections still gaveit artistocratic connotations.Porcelain likewise had courtly associations. Already anticipated by the

isolated attempts to imitate Chinese porcelain for the Medici in thesixteenth century, the making of porcelain in the West began with thehighly fired stoneware and soft-paste porcelain pioneered by thealchemist B6ttger for Augustus the Strong of Saxony in the seconddecade of the eighteenth century. Like the Meissen factory that grewfrom this, many of the factories that swiftly followed elsewhere inEurope were established under direct court patronage and control,among them Saint-Cloud in France and Capodimonte in Naples. Thelight-reflecting qualities of porcelain, its aristocratic associations, theclosely protected secret of its manufacture and the sheer novelty of beingable to produce European compositions in a material hitherto onlyimported from the East initially meant that, simply as a medium,porcelain was especially highly regarded, almost regardless of what thefigures represented or how they were composed. Its distinctive qualities-whether the nature of the ceramic 'body' or the enamelled painteddecoration - continued to be admired, but as it became more familiarand more widely available, more attention was paid to the qualities ofcomposition, modelling and decoration.

68 MALCOLM BAKER

The different techniques used in the making of ivories and porcelainfigures also had different, and changing, associations. Underlying theappeal of the ivory figure in the seventeenth century was the way inwhich such carvings illustrated the relationship between the natural andthe man-made, so central a theme in the Wunderkammer. By hisvirtuosity in carving the section from an ivory tusk, the carver wastransforming a natural material into art - a process vividly representedby a carving in Vienna (and illustrated in the Podromus), which consistsof a figure of Abundance carved out of a tusk, the lower part being leftintact.19 Here the virtuosity of the carving was more important than theinvention involved in the composition. During the next century,however, with the reformulation of art theory and a reconfiguration ofthe hierarchies articulated in the 'art cabinet', this relationship was to bereversed and the process of carving ivory became less something to beadmired and wondered at in its own right, just as the process ofmodelling, as was seen in terracotta, for example, became more highlyvalued, the sketch allowing a direct experience of the artist's invention onthe part of the viewer.20

The other principal process involved in the making of sculpture, alongwith modelling and carving, was casting and this was the technique mostcommonly involved in the production of multiples and the reproductionof carved or modelled figures. For early eighteenth-century viewers ofporcelain figures, the intrinsic qualities of the material were emphasized,while the fact that their production involved casting was largely ignored,and the status of the porcelain figures as multiples played down. Onlylater in the eighteenth century was the reproductive nature of these worksmore evident and the potential that casting provided for the large-scaleproduction of the same composition more openly acknowledged. Thisoutline of the changing perceptions of the relationships between thevarious sculptural processes, between different materials and between thesingle work and the multiple provides a framework in which oneparticularly intriguing case of the ivory and its reproductions - that ofFrancis van Bossuit and his ]udith reliefs - may be considered.Unlike sculptors specializing in Kleinplastik, such as Kern, Henne or

Dobbermann, Francis van Bossuit does not seem to have worked for anyparticular court. According to a brief biographical account published inMatthys Pool's Art's Cabinet in 1727, he was born in Brussels and thenspent many years in Italy, returning north to Amsterdam where he died in1692.21 Although he appears to have worked alongside the youngBalthasar Permoser in the circle of artists associated with the Florentine


Academy in Rome in the 1670S, the works thought to have been executedby him during this period have been attributed largely on stylisticgrounds.22 A reasonably coherent and detailed view of his later produc-tion, most of it probably from his Amsterdam period, may be formedfrom both a substantial number of surviving pieces that correspond toivories shown in prints published in Pool's book and others that may beassociated with these through their composition and facture.Although some of the works illustrated by Pool were in terracotta and

boxwood, the majority were executed in ivory, many of them in lowrelief. Some are of biblical or mythological subjects but the largestnumber consists of half-length reliefs of single figures such as David orCleopatra. Images of famous women figure particularly prominently.Drawing on a long-established tradition of series of donne famosi, thesereliefs frequently employ similar formats, based on painted half-lengthsof the types produced by Guido Reni. Whereas the history subjects arealmost always unique, these half-length reliefs, though equally finelycarved, are closely related to each other, so that poses used for Cleopatrareappear in images of, for example, Flora and Judith. Together theysuggest that Bossuit was working and reworking formulae so as toproduce a distinctive class of small-scale sculpture for which there wasapparently a continuing demand.None of Bossuit's female subjects seems to have been more popular

than that of ]udith with the Head of Holofernes and no fewer than fivedifferent variants may be plausibly attributed to him.23 Each is distinct,indicating that, even when there was a demand for a particular subject,Bossuit was not meeting this by producing multiple versions. A range ofreproductions and adaptations in various materials were, however, madeafter one of the ]udith reliefs, apparently in the early eighteenth centuryand so after the sculptor's death. The ivory reproduced in this way, nowin Edinburgh, is characteristic of Bossuit's work not only in itscomposition but also above all in the way in which the figure is carvedin low relief, with the delicately carved, fluttering draperies apparentlymerging with the ground in a series of subtly judged gradations of plane.In marked contrast with the reliefs by most of his contemporaries, withtheir sharply carved edges and deep undercutting, Bossuit's work has asoftness that prompted the author of the biographical sketch in the 1728book to note admiringly that 'he by his Ingenious, & free manner, ofmanageing the Hard Ivory, Could work upon it as if it were wax'.No fewer than five of the copies based on the Edinburgh ]udith are in

ivory, two - in Schwerin and Strasbourg bearing initials probably to be

7° MALCOLM BAKER

(left) Francis van Bossuit, judith with the Head of HoJofernes, c. 1680'-90, ivoty.Royal Museum of Scotland, Edinburgh.

(right) Paul Heermann (after Francis van Bossuit), judith with the Head of HoJofernes, c. 172.0,

ivory. Staatliches Museum, Schwerin.

(left) C.B. Rauschner (after Francis van Bossuit), judith with the Head of HoJofernes, c. 1750,wax. Herzog-Anton-Ulrich-Museum, Braunschweig.

(right) judith with the Head of HoJofernes, c. 1714, Banger stoneware, Kunstgewerbemuseum,Berlin.


identified with the Dresden sculptor Paul Heermann, who may havecarved two of the others.24 Two further versions - in Hanover andBraunschweig - are in wax. But the largest number of replicas - six ofwhich are known - are in Bottger stoneware, the immediate precursor ofthe porcelain produced at Meissen. Together these form an unusuallylarge group of reproductions. What was the relationship between themand what can be said about the circumstances of their production, thestatus of the versions in different materials and the way in which thesewere viewed in the early eighteenth century?Comparison of the Edinburgh ivory with one of the Bottger stoneware

versions establishes that the ceramic versions were produced from amould taken directly from this relief by Bossuit. Since the other sourcesused by Bottger were available locally, it can be assumed' that theEdinburgh ivory too was in Dresden around 1712.25 It may also havebeen accessible there to Paul Heermann, an assistant of Permoser and aprolific ivory-carver in his own right, who probably carved four of theother ivory versions of the ]udith. Here the reproductions were notstrictly speaking multiples for they were not only individually carved,rather than cast, but also show considerable small differences. Whilecopying Bossuit's original and disseminating the image in a way that theearlier carver did not do himself, these carved reliefs remain variantsrather multiple reproductions.By contrast, the ceramic versions were made with moulds,

reproducing, with an overall shrinkage and the loss of subtlety in thedetails, the dimensions of the original. The most prominent part of therelief - the head - had in each case to be reworked a little. Far more of amultiple reproduction than Heermann's ivories, each of the Bottgerreliefs involved a loss of the original's features through the process ofcasting, rather than its alteration because it was being copied by adifferent carver. This may seem unsurprising, given the role of casting inthe reproduction of sculpture, but at this point an ambiguity arises thatchallenges our reading of the sequences outlined here, whether fromivory to ivory, from ivory to ceramic or from carving to casting.As well as varying certain features, such as the set of the head, the

pommel of the sword or the decoration of the diadem, Heermann's ivoryversions also, and perhaps significantly, omit particular details - thelower fold of the wind-blown headdress, for instance - that had been lostin the casting of the Bottger reliefs. Such details are clearly missing fromsome of the apparently later ivory versions, such as that in Vienna, buttheir omission in the Heermann ivories hints at the possibility that all the

MALCOLM BAKER

ivories were based not on Bossuit's original relief but on the ceramicversions or plaster casts after the ivory, rather as paintings drew on printsafter paintings.The same process may have been involved in the production of the two

waxes. Here, however, the technique of casting and moulds could beemployed. This is most evident in the Hanover wax, which reproducesnot only the precise details of the folds on ceramic relief but also the formof the ledge below the figure. The casting process was probably also usedby Rauschner when he made the Braunschweig version. But in this caseBossuit's composition, via the ceramic version, was embellished withmany additional decorative details and set against a painted backgroundand so translated into a far more pictorial composition.Whatever the relationship between Bossuit's reliefs, the Battger

versions, the waxes and the various ivories by Heermann and othersmay be, the process of dissemination of the image seems to have involveda diminution, a loss of significance, at least as far as authorship of theoriginal was concerned. The presence of Heermann's initials on two ofthe ivories of course represent a claim to authorship (if not to invention)and an indication that these reliefs were not intended to be regarded asinferior reproductions because the sculptor (like numerous other artists)had appropriated an earlier composition. (His early eighteenth-centurypatrons may not indeed have been aware of this.) In the case ofRauschner's wax, Bossuit's original composition has likewise beenreworked for the ends of another sculptor and given a distinctive quality.However, despite the claim made by the presence of the artist's initials,Heermann's ivories were closely similar versions based on an originalthat was conceived as a single and unique work. Here, and even more soin the Battger versions, the dissemination of Bossuit's relief requiredabandoning a connection with his name and the use of his compositionfor multiple reproduction, albeit in forms and materials that still enjoyedhigh status as luxury decorative objects.A rather different perspective on the reproduction of Bossuit's

sculptures is, however, offered by the way in which they are weredisseminated not by sculptural but by graphic reproduction. Reproducedin two dimensions in the book of prints by Pool, published in Amsterdamin 1727, Bossuit's reliefs are represented and 'framed' in a way thatencouraged them, as well as Bossuit's standing as an artist, to be read in avery different way.The book was published with two title-pages, one in French and the

other in Dutch and English, the latter reading Statue's or Art's Cabinet,


Containing the Ivory works of that famous Statuary Francis vanBossuitJ and Curiously Ingraven in CopperJ According to the draught ofBarent Graat. By Matthew Pool. Dedicated to the patrician Amsterdamcollector 1erome Tonnemans, it consists of 107 single-sided pages,printed from engraved plates, beginning with the dedication toTonnemans, followed by portraits of Bossuit and Graat and shortaccounts of both of them in the three languages. The rest of the volumeis made up of no fewer than 103 views of Bossuit's sculptures, mainlyivory figures and reliefs but with some terracottas and boxwoods. Manyof these pieces are shown from two or more different viewpoints, someimages being juxtaposed on the same page but many occupying separatesheets. Apparently conceived by the engraver Pool who made use of thedrawings of his father-in-law, Graat, this publication, its origins andintended audience are intriguingly ambiguous. Its production in the late1720S, however, would appear to be linked to the esteem in whichBossuit's work was held in Amsterdam at this date, registered by thedescriptions in a series of auction sale catalogues as well as by the pricesthey fetched. While Pool's publication seems to celebrate Graat almostas much as Bossuit, the reader/viewer is left in no doubt as to Bossuit'sh ' d '26ac Ievement an reputatIon.But although the distinctive qualities of Bossuit's ivories may be

stressed in the text, the engravings prompt a rather different mode ofviewing. Reliefs inevitably lose their sculptural features and seem almostto revert to the types of painting that formed Bossuit's starting point.More tellingly, single figures are placed among clouds and are shownfrom below so that they resemble details of ceiling paintings in themanner of Gerard de Lairesse, on whom Graat based his own style. Thethree-dimensionality of the original is consistently denied. In this way,Bossuit is praised in the text for his skill in modelling and carving but theengravings that follow present his compositions in pictorial, rather thansculptural, terms.The reproduction of the ]udith reliefs in ivory, wax and ceramics

suggests the translation of a type of sculpture that had been prominent inthe Wunderkammer into a decorative luxury commodity that could bemade available in replicas or multiple versions. In Pool's prints, bycontrast, these small-scale reliefs are reproduced in a medium that notonly obscures - even denies - the size of the originals but also by givingthem backgrounds transforms the composition into images that are morepictorial than their reproduction in prints need be. Far from being madeinto decorative objects, they are presented here, as the title page alone

74 MALCOLM BAKER

Engraving of a figure by Francis van Bossuit, from Matthys Pool,Beelsniiders Kunstcabinet (Amsterdam, I7L7).

affirms, as art, with the artist's name emphasized and celebrated. Thissame trajectory may be followed if Bossuit's works are tracked throughsale catalogues of around 1700, a few early references locating themamong rarities of various sorts within the 'cabinet of curiosities',followed by sales of the late 1720S where they are classified along withpainting and sculpture in marble.L7

Perhaps ironically, Pool's book illustrates many reliefs of half-lengthfemale figures, including several ]udiths, bur the relief that was mostoften reproduced in ivory, wax and ceramic forms is not shown, perhapsbecause it was already in Dresden or at least not available in Amsterdamfor Graat to draw. Further evidence about the later reception of Bossuit'swork in the mid-eighteenth century, however, involves once again thisparticular composition, albeit in a modified form. This version wasevidently based ultimately on the Edinburgh relief but lacks the flutteringdrapery to the right of the head and shows Holofernes' head turned in adifferent direction. It is framed, along with other ivory reliefs, and placedin the centre of the left door of a cabinet made for Horace Walpole about1743. The context in which it is placed and Walpole's own description,


The Walpole Cabinet, with an ivory of ]udith after Francis van Bossuit, 1743 .

MALCOLM BAKER

suggest that the reproduction of Bossuit's ]udith now enjoyed a newinterpretation.The cabinet was made to contain Walpole's collection of English

miniatures, including examples by Holbein and Isaac Oliver.28 Placedcentrally in the Tribuna at Strawberry Hill, it housed those works that,for Walpole, formed an important stage in the development of art inEngland, which he was later to document and celebrate in his Anecdotesof Painting in England. The iconography of the exterior was intended tocomplement the contents by representing both the canonical works ofantique sculpture and the figures of Palladio, Duquesnoy and Inigo]ones, whose works were to form a touchstone and inspiration forEnglish artists of his own period. The former were shown by ivory reliefsafter the antique by Pozzo and the latter by reductions by the ivory-carver Verskovis after figures by Michael Rysbrack. In this way theimagery of the exterior established the standards by which theachievements of English art contained within could be judged andwould be seen to equal. But how was the reproduction of Bossuit's ]udithto be accommodated within this narrative of art in England? As far asWalpole was concerned, this was not a work by (or after) Bossuit butrather an image of 'Herodias with the head of the Baptist, by Gibbons',the Anglo-Flemish seventeenth-century sculptor Grinling Gibbons beingincluded in Anecdotes of Painting. It was thus presented here as a workof modern English sculpture, which could be placed alongside thereproduction of a highly esteemed work of antique sculpture, the relieffrom the Capitoline that occupies the centre of the other door.In this case a reproduction has been invested with the authority of an

original, and given an 'author-effect' in the way that happened whencopies were regarded as originals in the early literature of connoisseur-ship.29 Nevertheless, although for Walpole the ]udith relief was not areproduction, it was included as part of a sculptural ensemble thatconsisted otherwise of reproductions of various types. While some of thereliefs after the antique were identified as by Pozzo, most were forWalpole by an unknown sculptor and significant more as reduced copiesof celebrated antique marbles. The originals on which the figures of]ones, Rubens and Palladio were based, on the other hand, were ofcourse familiar to Walpole as being by Rysbrack, who was himselffollowing drawings by William Kent who may indeed have designed thecabinet itself for Walpole. Far from being anonymous reductions ofworks whose significance was lost, these ivory versions, by a carverwhom Walpole included in the Anecdotes, celebrate not only those artists


that they represent but also the sculptor who executed the large-scaleoriginals.The use on the Walpole cabinet of these various types of ivory

reproduction, including a reproduction (albeit unrecognized) of an earlierivory, is quite unlike the way in which not only the bronze Venus butalso ivories were used as an addition to the Fitzwilliam Coin Cabinet.Here, probably at the same time as the bronze was added to the cabinetproper, a stand was made to support it and this was, like the Walpolecabinet, decorated with ivory reliefs, in this case representing heads ofthe Caesars. Here, however, neither the authorship of the ivoriesthemselves nor the sources from which they were derived seems to havebeen of any concern; the images themselves were evidently regarded notas reproductions of antique works but rather as decorative featuresappropriate for such a piece of furniture because of their subjects.Although the sculptural reproduction (and in particular the ivory

reproduction) was being used in rather different ways in these two cases,neither the Walpole cabinet nor the Fitzwilliam cabinet shows the small-scale sculpture and its reproductions employed wholly decoratively orwithout regard to subject or sculptural interest. By the late eighteenthcentury, however, ivory reliefs were being reproduced in forms andmaterials that effaced many, if not most, of the characteristics of theoriginals and obscured rather than celebrated the names and reputationsof the authors of these originals. Here we see what Rosalind Krauss hasdescribed as the 'atomization of the author into a social ... practice inwhich neither authorship nor originality have any function'.3 0 When inthe 1770S James Tassie developed his technique of producing glass pastemedallions, he not only made use of ivory reliefs by Le Marchand, as didhis associate Wedgwood, but also he made reliefs that, while havingmany of the qualities of ivory, could be cast as multiples.3I Althoughthere is no evidence to suggest that the reproductions of Le Marchand'sivories by either Tassie or Wedgwood were produced on any large scale,their other compositions were increasingly being made and used todecorate furniture far less exceptional than either the Walpole or theFitzwilliam cabinets. A century after being a highly valued item in thecourtly Wunderkammer, the ivory had become available in a reproducedform to a far wider audience.The shift in the changing ways of reproducing ivories may also be seen

in the increasing marginalization of small-scale sculpture during this sameperiod. No longer did this class of sculpture merit a significant placewithin the hierarchies or canons of art as these were being formulated to

MALCOLM BAKER

accord with academic norms during the eighteenth century. Since most ofthese works were by northern, rather than Italian, artists, this process ofmarginalization has been further encouraged by the Italianate bias ofmost art historiography and the dependence of connoisseurs andcollectors on this. Despite the publication of Pool's book and, moreimportantly, the efforts of Houbraken and Van Gool Van Mander'ssuccessors as biographers of Dutch artists who discuss Graat andBossuit, sculptors such as Bossuit had become almost completelyforgotten by the end of the eighteenth century.32 Correspondingly,reproductions of ivory carvings by sculptors such as Bossuit, along withthose made after other types of work by northern artists, cameincreasingly to serve a largely decorative function. If the reproductionof works by Italian sculptors often helped to celebrate their names andenhance their reputations by disseminating their inventions, for mostnorthern artists, and particularly those sculptors of Kleinplastik, thereproduction of sculpture had very different consequences.

5

Naked Authority? Reproducing AntiqueStatuary in the English Academy~

from Lely to Haydon

MARTIN POSTLE

The central focus of this essay is the role that the reproduction ofclassical statuary played within the academy from the first studioacademies of the 1670S to the school set up by Benjamin Robert Haydonin 1815 in opposition to the Royal Academy of Arts. During that periodthe reproduction of three-dimensional antique statuary in two-dimensional form was regarded as the bedrock of academic training.However, the authority of antique statuary within the academicframework, and the various processes of reproduction, gave rise to aseries of conflicts. In the first instance, as we shall see most particularlywith the example of William Hogarth, the academic reproduction ofantique statuary resulted in arguments over the relative merits of'original' antique statues and casts made from them. Second, there arosedebates over the value of the inanimate classical statue versus the livingmodel, and the authority of the antique as an embodiment of the 'ideal'as against the empirical testimony offered by anatomists. As the centuryprogressed further, conflicts arose concerning the relative status ofantique statuary, as the authority of more traditional models was chal-lenged by the appearance of new paradigms for academic reproductionnotably the Greek sculptures from the Parthenon. Objections to theveracity of certain antique sculptures, in turn, resulted in the re-evaluation of methods and modes of reproduction, as artists realized thatstatues that they had been taught to reproduce and to revere werethemselves mere reproductions of lost originals.

REPRODUCTION OF THE ANTIQUE IN THE RENAISSANCE

During the Renaissance antique statuary recovered from the classicalruins of Rome, Florence, Naples and elsewhere assumed a central role inthe cultural life of Western Europe. These statues included, notably, the

80 MARTIN POSTLE

Apollo Belvedere, the Venus de' Medici, the Farnese Hercules and theLaocoon. As their fame spread, the demand for their replication andreproduction grew rapidly, and by the end of the sixteenth century copiesproliferated in the form of bronze and lead statuary, plaster casts,cameos and engravings. I However, while they proved immensely popularas decorative features and pointers to fashionable taste, it was the role ofantique sculpture as artistic and philosophical paradigms that under-pinned their value as cultural icons. Indeed, from the foundation of theearliest academies in Rome in the sixteenth century, a nucleus of antiquestatues informed the study of the human figure. These statues wereupheld as moral and philosophical exemplars not only for their intrinsicartistic merits but also because they were perceived as the most absolutephysical manifestation of the abstract concept of ideal beauty.2 As aresult, casts taken from these statues were increasingly made available inacademies, Giovanni Battista Armenini recommending in 1586 that artstudents should draw regularly from a range of casts, including 'theLaocoon, the Hercules, the Apollo, the great Torso, the Venus and theNile'.3 However, statues were principally reproduced via prints anddrawings.

REPRODUCTION AND THE ACADEMIC IDEAL

During the seventeenth century the central role played by reproductionsof antique statues within the academic curriculum was enshrinedincreasingly in theoretical texts, which sought to assert their primacynot merely on generalized aesthetic grounds but in terms of their physicalproperties. In the Conferences held by the Academie Royale de Peintureet de Sculpture in Paris during the 1660s the most famous examples ofclassical statuary were subjected to close analytical scrutiny.4 Here, theemphasis on the guiding spirit of the antique was supplanted by precisedelineation. Classical statues were not simply reproduced in tonaldrawings designed to replicate the three-dimensional form in two-dimensions. Instead they were deliberately reduced to 'flat plans', headsand limbs anatomized and measured in order to produce definitive rulesand regulations.5 In the French academy students were no longer merelyencouraged to study the antique but to defer to its absolute authority.Indeed, as has been observed, 'with the ascendancy of the Frenchacademy, the antique came to be regarded as the definitive measure, inthe literal sense of the word, of beauty and perfection'.6

It was in some measure because of the reverence reserved for antiquestatuary that the transition from three-dimensional object to two-

Antique Statuary in the English Academy~ from Lely to Haydon 81

dimensional representation within the academy became shrouded in anincreasingly elaborate procedure and a certain degree of mystique.Indeed, from the sixteenth century onwards academic practice centrednot only upon the copying of three-dimensional statuary but also ondrawings and engravings made from them. There were two principalreasons for copying from two-dimensional reproductions of antiquestatuary: the first and most obvious was that the copying of printsallowed artists who did not have access to statues or casts to study them;second - and more significant in terms of the academic curriculum -copying taught students the 'correct' way in which to interpret theantique, in terms of the viewpoint, the treatment of line, tonal values andthe figure's structure. In the sixteenth century engravings after antiquestatuary, such as Antonio Lafreri's Speculum Romanae Magnificentiaeand Giovanni Battista de' Cavalieri's Antiquae Statuae Urbis Romaewere intended primarily as anthologies of the most important classicalworks? Increasingly, however, they were also incorporated into drawingmanuals, where they served as an essential component in a course ofstudy.8

REPRODUCTION OF ANTIQUE STATUARY IN THE ENGLISH ACADEMY

Some of the earliest English academic drawings of the type promoted incontinental academies are to be found in an album of drawings belongingto Dulwich College, which contains drawings made from living modelsand antique statuary in the studio of Sir Peter Lely.9 Among drawingsafter the antique are copies of the Farnese Hercules and the ApolloBelvedere. Although it was made in the 1670S, the drawing of the ApolloBelvedere shows the figure as it appeared before the restoration of itshands by Giovanni Montorsoli in the early 1530S - indicating that it wasnot made from the statue or a cast but from an early engraving.10

Similarly, the crude hatching technique employed in the Farnese Herculessuggests that it replicates a two-dimensional engraving rather than astatue. Significantly both copy-drawings reproduce the respective statuesin reverse, as is the norm with engraved images.The replication of drawings and engravings after antique statuary

continued to play an important role in art education in England in theeighteenth century at Sir Godfrey Kneller's Academy in Great QueenStreet, the first St Martin's Lane Academy and Sir James Thornhill's FreeAcademy. II Among the most influential teachers during this period wasthe French artist Louis Cheron, who, before his arrival in England in1695, had studied at the Academie Royale in Paris and the French

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Anonymous drawing, c. 1673, of the Apollo BelIJedere, red chalk onbuff paper, folio 311. of Dulwich College Album (sketchbook MX xv).

Dulwich College, London.

Academy in Rome. As Ilaria Bignamini has shown, Cheron's owndrawings of the human figure, which were extensively copied by artists inthe first St Martin's Lane Academy (which ran from 1720 to 1724),promoted a heroic and standardized rendering of the body, whichultimately relied on the authority of the antique - as interpreted, notably,by the Carracci and Raphael. 12 While not everyone approved of Cheron'sdrawing style (George Vertue described it as 'generally heavy'), byencouraging the replication of classical patterns of authority, he wasinstrumental in consolidating within the English academy the educationalframework established by the French in Paris and Rome the previouscentury.'3

ART VERSUS NATURE: WILLIAM HOGARTH AND THE

REPRODUCTION OF THE ANTIQUE

Cheron's standardized, heroic representation of the human form was notmerely a stylistic preference. It related ultimately to modes of patronageand the art market in Europe, where there was a demand for large-scale


historical and decorative schemes. The social, religious and economicconditions in England differed from those found in Catholic France orItaly. In England the portrait predominated; an art form which did notrequire close attention to the physical ideal enshrined in the antique. Itwas a reality recognized by William Hogarth, who took control of thereins of the second St Martin's Lane Academy in I735. Hogarth was alsothe first English artist to mount a challenge to the paradigmatic status ofthe antique, and its reproduction, within the academy.Hogarth had studied under Cheron at the first St Martin's Lane

Academy. Yet he recoiled from Cheron's promotion of Continentalmodels and patterns, and his own avowed preference for the face of a'blooming young girl of fifteen' to the 'stony features of a venus' was indirect opposition to prevailing tenets. I4 Although he was not at heart axenophobe, Hogarth distrusted the high premium placed on studying inItaly, claiming that 'going to study abroad is an errant farce and morelikely to confound a true genious [sic] than to improve him'. IS Hogarthwas also dismissive of the need to make two-dimensional reproductionsfrom original antique statuary, asserting that for practical study purposessmall-scale casts were preferable to the originals upon which they werebased:

the little casts of the gladiator the Laocoon or the venus etc if true copies - arestill better than the large as the parts are exactly the same [-] the eye [can]comprehend them with most ease and they are more handy to place and turnabout. I6

Ultimately, however, he challenged the very need to make any sort ofreproduction from antique statuary, both in his theoretical writings andin his conduct at the St Martin's Lane Academy. In the first plate of hisAnalysis of Beauty, published in I753, Hogarth depicted the statuaryyard of John Cheere, who made a good living by supplying the Englishmarket with casts after the antique. I7 Included in Hogarth's engravingwere casts of the Farnese Hercules, the Belvedere Antinous, the Venus de'Medici and the Belvedere Torso. The engraving was also an allusion tothe statuary yard of the classical sculptor Clito, where Socrates was in thehabit of expounding his ideas on beauty. I8 Around the central image is aseries of visual references to Hogarth's own theories on 'beauty', whichcumulatively demonstrate his contempt for the dry, formulaic approachto the figure of post-Renaissance treatises, which propounded propor-tional systems based on detailed analysis of antique forms. Hogarth'santipathy towards according a pedagogical role to the antique was

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extreme. Nor was he the only English artist of his time who questionedthe educational value of making reproductions from antique statuary.By the 1740S a number of those English artists who made the

pilgrimage to Italy produced their own copy-drawings of antiquestatuary, the most notable being Richard Dalton's series of red chalkdrawings of c. 1741-2, which followed the lead provided by PompeoBatoni's 'paper museum' of drawings commissioned by an Englishconnoisseur during the late 1720S.19 However, the very act of copyingclassical statues - from either full-sized figures or reduced reproductions- caused a greater awareness of their limitations as models. Giles Hussey(1710-88), who was in Italy between 1730 and 1737, made severaldrawings from the antique, including at least one of the Apollo Belvederemade with the aid of a camera obscura.20 In 1745, Hussey, who had aclose interest in academic theory, stated that he

found and discovered the Antient [sic] grecian Sculptors had no Rule or certainregular proportions for human statue, parts, nor the whole-statue, this he said hediscovered at Rome and demonstrated the fact ... The Antique statue ofHerculus - the Laocoon and his two sons, and the Gladiator tho' the mostperfect statue of all, yet he thinks faulty, in proportions and in the possition, andmuscles.21

The scepticism expressed by Hogarth and Hussey over the physicalshortcomings of the antique can be compared with the affirmativeapproach of the sculptor Michael Rysbrack, who in 1744 set out tocreate his own classical statue of Hercules for Henry Hoare's 'Templeof Hercules' at Stourhead, Wiltshire. According to Vertue, Rysbrackselected the Farnese Hercules as 'his rule of proportion - but to makehis Model standing but in a different attitude & the limbs otherwaysdisposed'. Once he had worked out the general proportions of the figureRysbrack 'had the bodies of several other men stood naked before himin order to form the body, Limbs, arms legs &c to chuse the mostbeautyfull, or the most perfect parts'.22 The process adopted byRysbrack was a conscious emulation of the practice of Zeuxis, theGreek artist who according to Pliny recreated the figure of Helen fromthe bodies of the five most beautiful women in the city of Crotona, thusproducing a concrete affirmation of Plato's abstract concept of theIdeal.Of course, Rysbrack's Hercules does not form an exact parallel with

Zeuxis' figure of Helen, since he was responsible merely for theadaptation rather than the actual creation of an ideal type. Even so, it setan important precedent in English academic circles, for although it drew

Antique Statuary in the English Academy, from Lely to Haydon 85

Michael Rysbrack, Hercules (study for the Hercules in the Stourhead Panrheon),signed and dated 'Mich. Rysbrack 1744', rerracorra.

Stourhead, Wiltshire .

inspiration from the Farnese Hercules, it was not a mere reproduction or,indeed, an imitation reliant on a superimposed series of quasi-scientificproportions. It deferred to the antique as a paradigm for heroic figurativestatuary, while at the same time giving rein to the individual creativeimpulse of the artist. It was a balance that few artists of Rysbrack'sgeneration were able to achieve. Indeed, by the end of the 1740s, with theincreasing isolation of Hogarth from his fellow members of theAcademy, the pendulum began to swing much more firmly in thedirection of the antique as artists attempted to establish a more rigorousand didactic sysrem of art education.

WILLIAM SHIPLEY AND THE DUKE OF RICHMOND'S

SCULPTURE GALLER Y

By the mid-I750S Hogarth was increasingly isolated from the member-ship of the St Martin's Lane Academy, most of whom wished to establisha full-blown academy along Conrinentallines. However, it was not fromwithin St Martin's Lane that the first initiative came, but from an obscure

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Northamptonshire drawing master named William Shipley. In 1754Shipley moved from Northampton to London, where he opened adrawing school. By the mid-eighteenth century there was a plethora ofdrawing masters educating sons and daughters of the gentry andaristocracy. There was also a host of drawing manuals offeringcorrespondence courses in drawing, including the copying of antiquestatuary.23 Shipley, however, was principally concerned with theeducation of young people who aspired to work as professionals andwho were shortly to embark on art-related apprenticeships. His con-fessed aim was not to train more artists but to train designers andcraftsmen, to assist 'such manufactures as require Fancy and Ornament,and for which the knowledge of Drawing is absolutely necessary' .24Students drew and copied from prints after the antique, after Old Masterpaintings and from sculpture, beginning with details - ears, nose, mouth- and then progressing towards the whole figure.

In addition to his own school, in 1755 Shipley also advertised the'Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce'through a competition for 'the best Drawings, by Boys and Girls, underthe age of 14 years, and Proof of their abilities, on or before the 15 Jan.1755'. The Royal Society of Arts - as it is now called - exists today,housed in the Adelphi, to which it moved in 1774. Shipley's own schoolwas closely connected to the Society of Arts, his students competing forannual prizes in drawing offered there. From the beginning, the two-dimensional reproduction of antique statuary formed the climax of thecurriculum at Shipley's School, even though resources were at firstlimited. However, in the spring of 1758, Shipley's pupils were givenaccess to the Duke of Richmond's sculpture gallery in Whitehall, wherethey were able to make copies of full-scale casts of antique statues ratherthan the reduced copies on which they had hitherto relied.The Duke of Richmond's sculpture gallery, by bringing artists face to

face with exact replicas of classical statues, played a crucial role inconfirming the reproduction of antique statuary as a key activity withinthe English academy. Here, under the tutelage of Joseph Wilton and theFlorentine decorative painter Giovanni Battista Cipriani, students weretaught to produce refined and carefully wrought drawings, which werethen submitted for premiums offered by the Society of Arts. As BenjaminRalph observed in 1759, it was hoped that 'the study of these most exactcopies from antiques may greatly contribute toward giving youngbeginners of genius an early taste and idea of beauty and proportion;which when thoroughly acquired will in time appear in their several


William Parry, Borghese Gladiator, c. 1760, black chalk on paper,premium drawing. Royal Society of Arts, London.

performances' .25 A number of prize-winning drawings from the antique,made at the Duke of Richmond's sculpture gallery during the late 1750Sand early 1760s, are preserved in the Society of Arts. They include a studyof the Borghese Gladiator by William Parry (1742-91), who was later tostudy under Sir Joshua Reynolds. Parry's drawing, which was awarded apremium in 1760, is executed in black chalk and employs a firm, c1ose-knit cross-hatching, typifying the Neo-c1assical principles adhered to inthe Duke of Richmond's sculpture gallery.

THE PHILOSOPHICAL ROLE OF REPRODUCTION IN THE ACADEMY

The reproduction of the antique figure within the academy was perceivedas a means of helping the artist to gain an understanding of the idealizedhuman physique. Reproduction of classical statuary also formed anaspect of the philosophical investigation of the antique. In 1765 JosephWright exhibited Three Persons Viewing the Gladiator by Candlelight.The painting depicts three men contemplating a reduced cast of theBorghese Gladiator, in the presence of a two-dimensional representationof the statue. David Solkin has suggested that the image may be perceivedwithin a framework of Lockean epistemology - as the light shed upon the

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Joseph Wright, Three Persons Viewing the Gladiator by Candlelight, exhibitedat the Society of Artists, r765, oil on canvas. Private collection.

object allows sight, 'and sight in its turn enables enlightenment' .2.6 TheGladiator, its reduced copy and the drawing made from it generateknowledge. Imitation, as Solkin states, 'becomes the mechanism wherebyindividuals learn to pattern themselves after models of perfection in lifeand in nature, as well as the arts'. 2.7The moral and intellectual benefits of reproducing antique statuary,

suggested by Wright's painting of 1765, were spelt out explicitly thefollowing decade by Sir Joshua Reynolds. In his third Discourse, given atthe Royal Academy of Arts in 1771, Reynolds stressed that 'mereimitation', the replication of particular specimens of antique statuary, wasnot enough. Nor was the Ideal encapsulated in anyone classical statue. 'Itis not', he stated, 'in the Hercules, nor in the Gladiator, nor in the Apollo;but in that form which is taken from them all, and which partakes equallyof the activity of the Gladiator, of the delicacy of the Apollo, and of themuscular strength of the Hercules'.2.8 In order to arrive at an under-standing of the Ideal- the abstracted 'central form' - Reynolds instructedstudents that they should make copies of a variety of classical statues,'models of that perfect form ... which an artist would prefer as supremelybeautiful, who spent his whole life in that single contemplation'. In


Wright's painting the emphasis had been on the 'pleasure' ofcontemplation.29 In Reynolds' Discourse the stress was on the paininduced by hard labour, industry and discipline. The rewards lay less inthe process than in the results of prolonged study: significantly it was thisethos that informed the routine of the Royal Academy schools.

THE REPRODUCTION OF ANTIQUE STATUARY

IN THE ROYAL ACADEMY

The Royal Academy of Arts was founded in December 1768. Strict ruleswere laid down for study in the Plaister Academy:

There shall be Weekly, set out in the Great Room, One or more Plaister Figuresby the Keeper, for the Students to draw after, and no Student shall presume tomove the said Figures out of the said Places where they have been set by theKeeper, without his leave first obtained for that Purpose.When any student hath taken possession of a Place in the Plaister Academy, he

shall not be removed out of it, till the Week in which he hath taken it is expired.The Plaister Academy, shall be open every Day (Sundays and Vacation times

excepted) from Nine in the Morning till Three in the Afternoon. 30

The Plaister Academy, like the Life Class, was an exclusively malepreserve, and although there was no rule forbidding the Academy's twofemale members (Angelica Kauffman and Mary Moser) from studyingthere, it was tacitly accepted that they would not avail themselves of theopportunity.3 I

In 1770 the Swedish artist, Elias Martin, who was then enrolled as astudent in the schools, exhibited A Picture of the Royal PlaisterAcademy, the only known representation of the Cast Room of the RoyalAcademy, in its first location - a dingy print warehouse in Pall Mal1.32 InMartin's painting a small group of young students cluster around a groupof classical casts, including Meleager, the Callipygian Venus, Mercury,the so-called Cannibal and Michelangelo's Bacchus. Standing, above andto the left, is an Academician (known as a 'Visitor') whose task it was tosupervise the quality and 'correctness' of the students' copies from thestatuary before them. Just discernible to his right, in the shadows, is anolder figure, probably the Keeper of the schools, George Michael Moser.While Moser was in overall control of the schools, it was the role of theVisitor to 'attend the schools by rotation, each a month, to set the figures,to examine the performances of the students, to advise and instruct them,to endeavour to form their taste, and turn their attention towards thatbranch of the Arts for which they shall seem to have the aptest dis-position'.33 As one would expect, the atmosphere is one of quiet industry

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Elias Martin, A Picture of the Royal Plaister Academy, signed and dated 1770, oil on canvas.Royal Academy of Fine Arcs, Stockholm.


and obedience, the aura of reverence for the casts stressed by thedramatic lighting and their attenuated form.Martin's Cast Room forms a compelling contrast with ]oseph

Wright's Academy by Lamplight (Yale Center for British Art, PaulMellon Collection), painted the previous year. In contrast with thepedagogic environment of Martin's painting, which depicts a specificlocation, Wright's imaginary Academy shows a group of young men (asopposed to boys), unrestrained and at ease, in the presence of a semi-draped, female classical statue - the Borghese Nymph with a Shell. 34 AsSolkin has remarked, 'this statue, both woman and aesthetic object, actsas an agent of refinement, as a source of pleasure which elevates andsoftens, channelling the passions of the young into love and socialfeeling'.35 In other words, the students are not there merely to copy thestatue before them or to make a correct reproduction of it, but toappreciate its intrinsic beauty.In 1769 Wright had declined to join the Royal Academy, pinning his

loyalties instead to the more broadly based and ostensibly egalitarianSociety of Artists. Indeed, according to Solkin, Wright's Academy byLamplight was a visual expression of his views on art education and ofhis ideology on social relations. And even though Hogarth would nodoubt have disapproved heartily of Wright's promotion of the antiquefigure in the Academy, both artists shared a fundamental belief in the freeassociation of artists as equals, unlike the students in the Royal Academyschools who, says Solkin, 'submit to the discipline of an authoritypersonified by the teachers and enshrined in the classical masterpiecesthat are being commended to their attention'.36 From an academicviewpoint, the image is subversive, promoting an imaginative response tothe antique, where original and imaginative production is placed beforecomplacent and obedient reproduction.The authority of the antique remained absolute during the decades

following the foundation of the Royal Academy. An anonymous paintingof c. 1780-3 (Royal Academy of Arts) shows exactly how the PlaisterAcademy was organized following the completion of William Chambers'New Somerset House in 1780.37 Here casts are illuminated by oil-lampswith large triple reflectors set on high standards. Student's easels areilluminated by individual oil lamps and reflectors, their work visible tothe Visitor who presides over the activities from a lectern situated by theentrance. A screen has been erected along the wall behind the BelvedereTorso - a practice common in Italian academies.38 J.M.W. Turner'sblack-and-red chalk drawing, executed during the mid-I790S, is typical

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].M.W. Turner, Belvedere Torso, mid-I790S, black-and-red chalk on brown paperheightened with white. Victoria and Albert Museum, London .


of the highly finished reproductions of antique casts produced bystudents in supervised sessions at the Academy. Turner, who enrolled asa student in the schools in December 1789, attended the Plaister Academyon 137 separate occasions during his studentship.39 From these sessionsonly eighteen drawings of casts are known. However, given that it couldtake at least a week to produce one drawing, the relative paucity ofstudies may relate to the painstaking manner in which they were maderather than any substantial loss or destruction of material.

ANTIQUE STATUARY VERSUS THE LIVING MODEL

Students could spend as many as seven years copying antique casts in thePlaister Academy. Inevitably it had a profound effect on the way inwhich they subsequently copied the living figure. lames Northcote,himself a student at the Royal Academy Schools during the 1770s,recalled: 'The stillness, the artificial light, the attention to what they areabout, the publicity even, draws off any idle thoughts and they regard thefigure and point out its defects or beauties precisely as if it were clay ormarble'.40 The inadequacy of a system of art education that served to usethe antique to regulate life drawing had already been articulated byChardin, a student at the Academie Royale some fifty years earlier:

We begin to draw eyes, mouths, noses and ears after patterns, then feet andhands. After having crouched over our portfolios for a long time, we're placed infront of the Hercules or the Torso . .. Then, after having spent entire days andeven nights, by lamplight, in front of an immobile, inanimate nature, we'represented with living nature, and suddenly the work of all the preceding yearsseems reduced to nothing.41

It is not surprising, perhaps, that Chardin's subsequent career wascentred on still-life and genre painting.In England, and in other European academies, the model was per-

ceived as a piece of animated antique statuary, even when the individualpalpably failed to live up to the heroic ideal. In 1787, for example, aformer model at the Dublin Academy was hanged. According to a con-temporary newspaper report, although the man was a convictedmurderer, 'the figure of this wretched culprit had been incomparable.It was between the Hercules and the Gladiator, and perhaps for size andsymmetry in all its parts little inferior to the Apollo Belvedere' .42 Themale model occasionally fell short of the antique ideal. The femalemodel, however, presented a more fundamental paradox.The Venus de' Medici was upheld by her adherents as a paradigm of

purity and female physical perfection. In 1770 ]oseph Nollekens -

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following the example set by Gerard Audran's Les proportions du corpshumain measurees sur les plus belles figures de l'antiquite of I683 - madehis own series of measured drawings of the 'real Statue of the Venus DeMedici' in Florence. The following decade, his fellow AcademicianBenjamin West produced a highly finished drawing of the living model inthe attitude of the Venus de' Medici, which was subsequently engraved asan 'Academical Study' of Eve. In 1794 West, who had succeededReynolds as President of the Royal Academy two years earlier, reaffirmedthe close links between the reproduction of classical statuary and thecopying of the human figure. 'Were the young artist', he supposed, 'torepresent the peculiar excellencies of woman would he not bestow on thefigure a general smooth, and round fullness of form, to indicate thesoftness of character; bend the head gently forward, in the commonattitude of modesty; and awaken our ideas of the slow and gracefulmovements peculiar to the sex, by limbs free from that masculine andsinewy expression which is the consequence of active exercise? - andsuch is the Venus de Medici'.43In the Royal Academy female models were often placed in the attitude

of the Venus de' Medici. In the mid-I830S Turner, then a Visitor in theschools, brought the living model and the antique statue together in thesame room, placing 'the Venus de' Medici beside a female in the firstperiod of youthful womanhood' .44 Yet, as students were acutely aware,the majority of living incarnations of Venus presented at the Academywere 'fallen' women (it being considered by both parties that theirwillingness to pose was in itself a form of prostitution).45 Only the time-honoured authority of the antique sanctioned the representation of suchwomen, whose bodies students could worship in idealized attitudes butwhose minds and morals they must consider as corrupt.Already by the I770S doubts were creeping in over the authority of the

antique in the curriculum of the Royal Academy. Among the first to voicedissent was the Academy's Professor of Anatomy, William Hunter, whoraised the issue in his lectures to the assembled body. 'In most pictures',he noted, 'there appears to me to be more composure, more inactivity, inthe figure than we see in real life'. Moreover, he criticized artists fortreating the living figure in their drawings like a classical cast:

Most of the Ancient Statues which they copy and are taught to admire are figuresin the quiet way of standing, sitting or lying down. And when they study Life orNature itself, they see it commonly in the same inactive state ... Is itunreasonable then to suppose that such easy and confined habits may introducea quiet and inactive manner in figures and composition?46


And while Hunter conceded that 'grace' and 'beauty' the very qualitiesembodied in antique statuary - were important, he stated that 'there isbesides animation, spirit, fire, force and violence, which make aconsiderable part of the most interesting scenes' While the majorityof members of the Academy continued to defer to the authority of theantique, there were moves to pursue alternatives. We can look here atjust two representative examples.

CHALLENGES TO ORTHODOX ACADEMIC PATTERNS

OF REPRODUCTION OF THE ANTIQUE

In r800 ]oseph Nollekens, a founder member of the Academy and teacherin the schools, made a clay statue of a Seated Venus. Rather than relyingupon the repertory of classical attitudes, or even attempting to reproducea piece of classical statuary, Nollekens sculpted the figure directly from hismodel as she sat in the studio putting on her clothes. 'It was the opinion ofmost artists', stated his pupil ]. T. Smith, 'that many of the parts of thisfigure could have been much improved; they thought the ankles unques-tionably too thick; and that to have given it an air of the antique, the rightthigh wanted flesh to fill up the ill-formed nature which Nollekens hadstrictly copied'.48 Nollekens' modello was admired by the Earl of Carlisle,who intended to have a marble statue made from it for display at CastleHoward, North Yorkshire. However, owing to the objections of hisfamily, it remained in Nollekens' studio until his death, when it wasbought by the Earl of Egremont.49 While the Earl of Carlisle's family hadqualms about Nollekens' indelicate departure from the antique, he wasvindicated by the Earl of Egremont, who when ordering a marble statue tobe made from the clay modello, instructed the sculptor (J. C. F. Rossi)that 'no alterations whatever, not even an improvement upon the model,should be attempted'.50

A second, more extreme, example involves William Blake. Around1780 Blake, then a student in the Royal Academy schools, made anunorthodox life drawing. The face and torso were clearly based on thefeatures and form of a male figure. Curiously, however, the buttocks andlegs were copied from the Venus de' Medici. The drawing was possiblyconceived in a spirit of rebellion against the regime imposed by the RoyalAcademy.51 At a deeper level, the drawing foreshadowed Blake's ownidiosyncratic attitude towards the antique, which surfaced moreexplicitly in 18°9, when he argued that Greek and Roman antiquesculptures were copies of lost religious art of the Old Testament. Blakesubsequently visualized his viewpoint in an engraving of The Laocoon as

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William Blake, Naked Youth, Seen from the Side,c. 1779""80, black chalk on paper.

British Museum, London.

]ehovah with Satan and Adam, which he had based on a copy of a cast hehad made in the Royal Academy.5~ It may not have been entirelycoincidental that at the very time Blake was questioning the veracity ofancient classical statuary, the arch-conservative, and future President ofthe Royal Academy, Martin Archer Shee observed that the 'general (andit is to be feared) growing disregard of that purity of form and character,of which the Greeks have supplied us with the most impressive examples,is alarming to the interests of taste'.53 Even so, it was not Blake - thenregarded as a peripheral figure - who posed the real threat to theestablished authority of antique statuary but the importation intoEngland by Lord Elgin of new and unfamiliar pieces of classical sculpturerecently removed from the Parthenon in Athens.

REPRODUCTION AND THE PARTHENON SCULPTURES

In 1807 the young Benjamin Robert Haydon expressed his concern at thedifferences he observed when making drawings from the antique cast andthe living model:

In my model I saw the back vary according to the actions of the arms. In theantique these variations were not so apparent. Was nature or the antique wrong?


Benjamin Robert Haydon, South Metope XXVlI, r809,black chalk on paper. British Museum, London

(Department of Prints and Drawings),

Why did not the difference of shape from difference of action appear so palpablyin the antique as in nature? This puzzled me to death. 54

For Haydon the puzzle was solved shortly afterwards when he began todraw intensively from the Elgin Marbles, then housed inauspiciously in ashed in Park Lane. At the time a number of connoisseurs, notablyRichard Payne Knight, dismissed the Elgin Marbles as Roman copiesfrom the time of Hadrian. 55 To his credit, Haydon was among the first toproclaim them as original Greek sculptures of the highest order. 'J felt',he recalled, 'as if a divine truth had blazed inwardly upon my mind, and Iknew that they would at last rouse the art of Europe from its slumber ofdarkness'.56 Unlike the classical statues at the Royal Academy schools,which Haydon dismissed as crude copies, the sculptures from theParthenon represented at first hand 'the most heroic style of art combinedwith all the details of actual life'Y And while his model bore littleresemblance to the outmoded classical casts he had previously studied, hepossessed, according to Haydon, 'that extraordinary character perceivedin the reclining figure [the Theseus] of the Elgin Marbles' .5 8

Haydon continued to make drawings of the Elgin Marbles over thenext few years, pasting many of the studies into two enormous

MARTIN POSTLE

scrapbooks (now preserved in the Department of Prints and Drawings,British Museum). Initially Haydon drew from the Elgin Marbles for hisown benefit. However, by 1815 they had become a key component in anintegrated system of art education which he offered until 1823 as analternative to the jaded curriculum of the Royal Academy.59 At Haydon'sschool students did not begin by making studies from the antique but byundergoing an intensive course in anatomy - including practicaldissection. From there, they progressed to life drawing. Only whenthey knew the mechanics of the human figure and could draw from theliving model were they allowed to make drawings from antique statuary.Thus, the Parthenon sculptures formed the climax of their education. In1817 Haydon's students, including the Landseer brothers and WilliamBewick, were permitted for the first time to draw from the Elgin Marbles- now housed in the British Museum. 'The astonishment of the people',stated Haydon, 'was extraordinary; they would not believe they wereEnglishmen; they continually asked if they were Italians. Their cartoons(drawn the full size) of the Fates, the Theseus and the Illissus literallymade a noise in Europe' .60 Indeed, so impressed was Goethe that heordered a set of drawings by Haydon's students for his house inWeimar.6I

Aside from Haydon, one of greatest proponents of the Parthenonsculptures was not a connoisseur or a professional artist but theanatomist Charles Bell, who was already giving instruction in anatomy toHaydon, David Wilkie and other young artists.62 Significantly, Bell, themost brilliant anatomist of his generation, was overlooked by the RoyalAcademy in 1808 when a new Professor of Anatomy was to beappointed. Instead they selected the conservative Anthony Carlisle, whohad suggested the previous year that since the Greeks had not studiedanatomy it was of limited use to contemporary artists.63

Anatomy was feared principally because it posed a threat to the statusquo, and more especially to the hegemony of the antique over the livingmodel. Already in 1804 the Academy's President, Benjamin West, hadadmonished students, informing them that proficiency was 'not to begained by rushing impatiently to the School of the Living Model;correctness of form and taste was first to be sought by an attentive studyof the Grecian figures'.64 But while the Academy upheld the authority ofthe antique and its opponents laid new emphasis upon the empiricalvalue of anatomy, few attempted to reconcile these contendingviewpoints. Among those who attempted to do so was the sculptorJohn Flaxman, who compiled (but did not publish) a treatise entitled


'Motion & Equilibrium of the Human Body'. Here Flaxman, who madecopies of the Borghese Gladiator rotated through space, used antiquestatuary not as a paradigm for the perfect human form but as a vehiclefor studying the body in motion. While accepting that classical sculptorshad not studied dissection, Flaxman believed, from the evidence ofstatues such as the Borghese Gladiator and the Wrestlers that 'they musthave made amends for that defect by a more diligent study of the livingfigure under all its forms & circumstances as adjusted by Philosophy andGeometry' .65

CODA

Despite the doubts cast on the authority of the antique during the earlyyears of the nineteenth century, the classical tradition continued to beupheld as the bedrock of academic training in England, as studentsflocked to draw from the antique in the newly built galleries of the BritishMuseum and elsewhere.66 Yet by the end of the century its influence wasundermined, the cast consigned increasingly to the lumber room, orsimply discarded as more adventurous students looked to the transientvalues of the modern world for inspiration. The Greek revival of thenineteenth century was, seen in retrospect, little more than a temporaryreprieve, as one pattern of classical authority was substituted for another.And while he did not know what lay ahead, lames Northcote realized, bythe late r820s, that the future of the antique was far from secure:

We are tired of the Antique ... The world wants something new and will have it.No matter whether it is better or worse, if there is but an infusion of new life andspirit, it will go down to posterity.67

6

Craft~ Commerce and the Contradictions ofAnti-capitalism: Reproducing the Applied

Art of Jean Baf(ier

NEIL MCWILLIAM

Some time around 1900 the Paris firm of Siot-Decauville, one of France'slargest bronze founders and retailers, offered for sale a selection ofornamental tableware by the sculptor Jean Baffier (1851-1920). Availableeither in gilded bronze or pewter, they appear at first sight unexceptional,if rather conservative, examples of the period's enthusiasm for naturalforms in the applied arts, an attraction more readily associated with thebravura organicism of Emile Galle and fin-de-siecle Art nouveau. I

Baffier's rather solid goblets, bowls and pitchers clearly announce theirindebtedness to such floral motifs as blossoms, leaves and seed pods, asource of inspiration exploited during the period by manufacturers suchas the silversmith Christofle, whose vases modelled on artichokes, celeryand thistles were exhibited at the Exposition Universelle of 1900.2-Yet the replicas marketed by Siot-Decauville derive from a far more

ambitious decorative project, which occupied Baffier for almost thirtyyears and could be considered the fullest cultural expression of a complexideological programme, which made the sculptor one of the mostnotorious artistic personalities associated with the nationalist right.Indeed, these few ornamental pieces, commercially reproduced andcirculated within a well-established network of capitalist commodityexchange, vividly expose the contradictions of a nostalgic philosophy ofcraft central to Baffier's anti-modernist myth of national tradition andnatural order. The very act of commercial multiplication, implying analienation of the labour process from the originating creative impulse,undercuts Baffier's fundamental belief in the integrity of craft, even as itholds out the only real possibility of economies of scale capable offulfilling his commitment to integrate art into everyday life.Baffier's contemporary notoriety owed much to his self-proclaimed

status as an ouvrier-sculpteur engaged in a tireless crusade to restore

Reproducing the Applied Art of Jean Baffler 101

t.l ..J tOn...

~I

Jean Baffier, Ornamental tableware advertised in rhe Siot-Decauville sales catalogue,undated but after 1900. Mediatheque Equinoxe, Chareauroux.

Jean Baffier, Elements from the table setting, undated contemporaryphotograph of plaster models. Archives du Cher, Bourges.

102 NEIL MCWILLIAM

regard for native identity within French art. His artisanal persona wasenhanced by a family background and professional training from whichsympathetic commentators embroidered a highly coloured myth,endowing Baffier with an ethnic authenticity far removed from thecosmopolitan values of the Paris art world. 3 Born in 1851 to a family ofpoor sharecroppers, Baffier grew up in a peasant community in the Berrybefore training as a mason in the local town of Nevers. Hisapprenticeship on the restoration of Nevers Cathedral in the early1870S, together with his laborious and single-minded pursuit ofindependent recognition while working as a sculptor's assistant inParis, nurtured Baffier's reputation as a maztre-imagier sustained by aninstinctive sympathy for the land. Essentially self-trained, Baffierrepudiated the protocols of the academy as inimical to France's nativeartistic temper, extolling instead a medieval craft tradition from which heclaimed to draw both creative and ideological inspiration.Within a few years of his Salon debut in 1880, Baffier had won a

significant following for a body of work, which, his supporters argued,pointed the way towards a vigorous alternative to the tested - andincreasingly tired - formulae of academic sculpture. Though he produceda series of full-sized monumental figures, commemorating nationalheroes as diverse as Louis XI and Jean-Paul Marat, it was his moredistinctive rural subjects that attracted greatest acclaim. In a series ofbusts, low reliefs and statuettes, Baffier celebrated the community inwhich he had been born, inviting critical comparisons with GustaveCourbet and Jean-Fran~oisMillet with his portrayals of demure peasantgirls and rugged farm-hands redolent of 'la vraie race fran~aise'.4

Insofar as such work has attracted historians' interest in recent years,it has been as a conspicuous instance of late nineteenth-centurysculptural naturalism, tempered by a weakness for picturesque effecttypical of portrayals of rural life in the Salons of the Third Republic. 5 Yetthis commitment to peasant themes cannot be dissociated from a militantnationalism, which not only shaped Baffier's entire sculptural practicebut also inspired his often controversial political interventions and hisvociferous support for the preservation of regional identity.6 From hisfailed attempt to assassinate a local depute in 1886 to his unsuccessfulcandidature as a nationalist for the National Assembly in 1902, Baffierwas never far from the headlines. His often provocative behaviour andviolent polemics coloured his artistic output, and encouraged him toundertake monumental commissions carrying overtly chauvinistic orfactional implications? It coloured too an aesthetic philosophy

Reproducing the Applied Art of Jean Baffier 1°3

profoundly hostile to the cultural mainstream and the capitalist economythat sustained it. Sharing a hybrid nationalist socialism with many of theleading personalities on the radical right, Baffier advocated an artisticpractice in which a revivified guild system would re-establish the sculptoras a vital servant to the community and its collective beliefs.Such a vision could scarcely have been further removed from the

market for serial sculpture, which had emerged in the second half of thenineteenth century as perhaps the most intensively capitalized area ofFrench artistic production. Since the introduction of new materials andtechnological processes in the 1830S and 1840S, demand for reproductivesculpture and decorative items had mushroomed, creating a highlycompetitive market controlled by a small number of specialist foundries. 8

Companies such as those of Barbedienne, Christofle and Siot-Decauvillehad come to dominate the manufacture and sale of reproductions,targeting a broad potential public by means of shrewd variations in scale,materials and price. Their increasingly professional marketing techniques,involving the development of a network for exhibition and retailing withprinted catalogues and advertising, had been emulated by a handful ofsculptors who had gone into business on their own account. Following theearly example of the animalier Antoine Barye, sculptors such as Carpeauxand Fremiet had determined to cut out the middleman and exploit theeconomic potential of their work to the ful1.9 Participating in events suchas industrial exhibitions and World Fairs - both regarded by Baffier asepitomizing contemporary cultural depravity - such artists operated asentrepreneurs, employing promotional assistants and tailoring their workspecifically to anticipated demand. For Baffier, such strategies demon-strated the corrupt alienation of the artist and his work in the modernworld. Though his own intervention in the decorative arts was intended insome measure to combat such trends, the commercialization of individualitems from his repertoire demonstrates the fragile basis of his enterprise.

Potential customers leafing through the Siot-Decauville sales cataloguemay well have recognized Baffier's wares as deriving from a monumentaltable setting made of pewter and copper, elements of which had regularlyfeatured in the Salon of the Societe Nationale des Beaux-Arts since 1892.In its definitive form, the setting was to comprise seventy individualpieces, displayed on a specially designed oak table sixteen metres long.Regarded by the sculptor as a domestic evocation of the natural land-scape, the setting was dominated by eight candelabra, modelled on trees,and by a series of five vases and tureens, which blended references to

1°4 NEIL MCWILLiAM

Vt.t t d'C'l'!H.1ll bl c dl!l'tltt lJll~l',La tdfi.' . 1'JI1 dlcn~, cl 16 'mCtM d~/hl1'1 ( '11 troisputies.

Sw'tout et S l.';Vi~l: /v mtttC11f' 7011iw'J l £ra!11 CI~ Caltll'fGO flll' (tf SC'l1 (.l(HIItll5 d /'h.J.t.tta mC.

Jean Baffier, Drawing of table setting, 1911. Musee Municipal Frederic Blandin, Nevers.

Jean Baffler, Partial display of table setting, undated contemporary photograph, locationunknown. Archives du Cher, Bourges.

traditional costume, natural forms and rural crafts, all drawn fromBaffier's home region on the borders of the Berry, Nievre and Bourbon-nais in central France. Smaller items, such as sugar bowls, salt cellars andjugs, were inspired by poppy flowers, broom blossoms, rose seeds andother plants, their plain, swelling forms often decorated with smallanimals, such as frogs and lizards, or with more fanciful motifs, like thewinged fairies whose thrusting heads serve as handles for a sugar bowl.


Peasant types, such as winnowers and young girls carrying baskets tomarket, populate this miniature evocation of rural France, lending theensemble what sympathetic critics regarded as a 'highly refined andsumptuous rusticity'. IOCompletion of the setting was a slow and laborious process,

exacerbated after 1900 by the state's increasing unwillingness to supportan artist whose extremist politics apparently thrived on public con-troversy. Though Paris city council had purchased a number of import-ant elements from the project between 1895 and 1903, Baffier had to relyheavily on private patrons to pursue his plans. II Petitioning the Under-secretary of State for Fine Arts for 10,000 francs to underwritecompletion of the last three elements in the setting failed in 1913, andBaffier had to wait four more years before a private client could be foundto commission the works. I2 Throughout the period, Baffier used both theSalon and exhibitions in provincial centres such as Bourges and Nevers togive a foretaste of the overall effect, I3 but met with increasing criticalindifference to a project that wore thin through overfamiliarity.Baffier's recourse to organic forms and rustic themes had excited

significant interest in the 1890S and 1900s, when a number ofcommentators singled out his fastidious naturalism as a solution towhat many saw as an impasse in the decorative arts. I4 Eclecticism,together with a deterioration in craft skills, was frequently blamed bycritics for bringing about a decline in France's former supremacy in theapplied arts. I5 The rediscovery of nature was extolled not only as aninexhaustible source of inspiration, but also as reconnecting with a nativetradition, which had reached its apogee during the Middle Ages.Nationalist critics in particular inclined to such a decorative genealogy asan effective counter to the alien influence and formal stylization of Artnouveau. I6 In contrast to the effetely attenuated sophistication of whatBaffier himself airily dismissed as 'style munichois', the stolid simplicityof his table setting was seen to possess a moral power in which form andmaterial signified the unspoilt integrity of 'la France profonde'. As thecritic Vincent Dctharc commented in 1911:

Baffier expresses wonderfully the nobility and poetry of familiar things; beneathhis celebrated fingers, simple, everyday utensils take on a radiant beauty, givingsome idea of the progress that applied art could make if the lessons of such amaster were followed. I7

Though Baffier attracted favourable notice for leading the revival ofpewter in the decorative arts, I8 the massiveness of his forms and the

106 NEIL MCWILLIAM

solidity of his materials quickly alienated critics for whom his self-conscious rusticity, rather than offering an exciting way forward, merelyrepresented an anachronistic parochialism.19 By the time of theretrospective display of decorative works mounted by the Musee Gallierafollowing the sculptor's death in 1920, his tenacious regionalism andmilitant resistance to more modern developments in the applied arts werewidely dismissed as 'ancient history'.20 Stylistically, of course, this waslargely true: the initial expectations for Baffier's naturalism had certainlynot been fulfilled in the paths pursued by French domestic design in theearly twentieth century.2I Yet on a more fundamental ideological level,too, Baffier's work and the more ambitious project of which it formedpart had been eclipsed by the profound renegotiation in understandingsof French national identity and the role of tradition that occurred in theyears around the First World War.As originally conceived, the table setting was to form the centrepiece of

a specially designed dining room in which every feature recalled nationaltradition and the apparently unchanging rhythms of rural life. Amonumental fireplace, first exhibited in its definitive form in 1898 underthe title 'Pour la tradition celtique', was to provide the focus for a low-relief frieze extending around the room in an unfolding narrative ofagrarian tasks. The fireplace itself, modelled on fifteenth-century originalsin the Palais jacques-Coeur in Bourges, mobilized autobiographicalreferences in a sequence of low reliefs centring on a scene of grapeharvesting, which sat above a portrait of the sculptor's mother embeddedin the chimney-breast, her lower limbs apparently roasting over the flamesin the hearth below. Colossal male caryatids, modelled after Baffier'sbrother Baptiste and a local quarryman, flanked the fireplace, supportingthe imposing structure, which was surmounted by a small statuette of theartist himself playing a hurdy-gurdy. Specially designed pieces offurniture, including a series of oak buffets to house the table settingand a rather bizarre coupling of a washbasin and clock, punctuated thefrieze and took up the dominant decorative motif of leaves and branchesfound on the chimney-piece.22 Finally, landscape murals by the sculptor'scolleague Louis Boucher were planned to decorate the walls. Taken as awhole, the project was presented as a virtual shrine, not only to the ritualsand rhythms of country life, but also to the racial identity of the French-or, more specifically, the Berrichon - peasantry, in whom Baffier investedan atavistic fantasy of ethnic essentialism. As the sculptor proclaimed inan elaborate explanation, which accompanied the display of a reducedversion of the project in the 1898 Salon:


Jean Baflier, 'Pour la tradition celtique', monumental fireplace, as shown at the SNBA Salon of1898, reproduced in Revue des Arts Decorati(s, XXVIII {I898}, p. 2.00.

108 NEIL MCWILLIAM

This dining room [has been] conceived and designed to exalt the dignity oflabour in its hardships, its joys and pleasures, and to glorify the worker whopiously cultivates the fields following the precepts of aryan religion and the nobletraditions of the Celts, which command respect for ancestral achievement[l'oeuvre ancestrale], family education, pride in tradition, the cult of heroes andthe careful and meditative study of the laws, forces and beauties of nature.23

From the smallest candle-holder to the vast fireplace, Baffler's wholeconception was dictated by a commitment to nature as the fundamentalprinciple of artistic and social renewal. On a social level, he proclaimedmilitant opposition to capitalist industrialization, which he vociferouslyargued was the main tool in a cosmopolitan and Semitic plot to under-mine the nation, which depended on the reassertion of apparently time-less rural values for its salvation. Aesthetically, this renewal depended onartists immersing themselves in nature, looking to the fields and hedge-rows of France as a corrective to the perverting influence of foreignstyles, which had ostensibly eclipsed the native spirit in the arts and craftssince the Renaissance. As the sculptor was to claim in r895:

To create, one must be a part of life and movement, in other words, in the midstof everything which vibrates. One must bow one's head before the great work ofGod - Nature - adore it in its infinite grandeur, embracing both heaven andearth; one must kneel before the tiny blade of grass and contemplate the smallestflower lovingly and at length. If one is touched by the splendours of creation, ifone is moved by the mysterious relationship between beings and things, one canthen attempt to produce a work of art.24

This commitment was pitted against currents in the decorative arts,particularly associated with the English Arts and Crafts Movement andthe cosmopolitanism of Art nouveau, which Baffler dismissed as a distor-tion of nature consequent on a pervasive moral corruption. Representinghimself as a lone crusader struggling to overcome foreign artiflce withnative values rooted in the land, Baffler was contemptuous of dominantfashion in the arts:

Attempting to make a pewter salt-cellar inspired by a tiny wild is acrime of intellectual treason. If, on the other hand, I had been prey to superiorintellectualism, I would have been off to the catacombs in Montrouge to fetch acartful of bones to scrub, polish, varnish and stick together to make anglo-semitic furnishings, in the style of William Morris, and I would have exhibitedthese inspiring objects at M. Bing's Art Nouveau. That way I would have beenfashionable and on the path which leads to the Pantheon.25

It was in his localism that Baffier invested claims to a moral andaesthetic integrity at odds with his competitors' geographical and tem-poral rootlessness. His aggressive xenophobia, acted out politically by his

Reproducing the Applied Art of Jean Baffler 1°9

participation in a number of nationalist and anti·Semitic organizations,fed off a fanatical devotion to his own provincial roots. This patrioticcommitment to the petit pays inspired a variety of initiatives designed topreserve local folk culture and coloured much of Baffier's artisticpractice. Decisive in the sculptor's understanding of the table setting asan essentially ethical work was its formal indebtedness to the vegetationand traditional dress of his native Berry. In practical terms, however, thefloral motifs selected are scarcely unique to the region, while elements oftraditional dress are subsumed and neutralized in the overall decorativeconception of the scheme. Nonetheless, for the closely knit circle ofBaffier's supporters, the sculptor's privileged contact with the land wascredited with redefining the language of decorative art. In the words ofEdouard Achard, one of Baffier's most faithful admirers:

He always draws his inspiration from the flowers of France, deriving new ideasfrom their sustained study which renew art. He never applies motifs to currentforms. The motif is indistinguishable from the form, deriving from it andforming a whole. Hence the superiority of his work.26

For Baffier, keeping faith with the land and keeping faith with the pastwere one and the same, both aesthetically and ideologically. In thisregard the Middle Ages represented an ideal of social order and artisticprobity from which the sculptor claimed to draw strength. Explicitlyrepudiating Gothic revivalism as a dereliction of the artist's duty tocreate for the present, Baffier nonetheless presented himself as uniquelycapable of achieving a renewal in French art by virtue of his privilegedunderstanding of the past. It was in this sense that Achard could claim ofhis work that it represented 'the art of the nineteenth century, of ourtime, borrowing nothing from previous centuries while continuing thenational tradition of a truly Gallic art'.27 Central to such a project wasthe revival of artisanal practices of cooperative labour within the arts,ostensibly restoring the creative integrity of the craftworker andconsolidating the artist's status as an integral member of society freefrom the corrosive threat of capitalist exploitation.It was in the guild system of workers' corporations, suppressed by the

Revolution in 1791, that Baffler invested his hopes not only for artisticrenewal but also for a more general rediscovery of national values, whichwould repudiate a parliamentary regime founded on Jacobin centraliza-tion. It was this ideological programme, federalist in ambition andprofoundly reactionary in intent, that distinguishes Baffier's vision oflabour from the socialist associationism of his bete noire William Morris

IIO NEIL MCWILLIAM

and aligns him more closely with the conservative disciples of the mid-nineteenth-century sociologist Frederic Le Play. In his artistic work, andin his means of organizing it, Baffier set out to challenge an increasinglypervasive consumerist economy, which he blamed for the progressiveeradication of regional tradition and for a spreading moral debilityrooted in the dilution of national identity. In the arts, as within theeconomy more generally, he maintained, creeping uniformity jeopardizedthe survival of racial purity and cultural distinctiveness:

Today, those who 'control the arts' in France, since they are of foreign origin, setout to conceal, distort and destroy the varied characteristics of our NationalGenius in order to provide a market for exotic products. And little by little weshall see the disappearance of those noble artisans and local artists whose workswill soon be nothing more than a vague memory in minds atrophied by theeducation and administrative instruction of an oligarchic State whose goal is tocreate docile and compliant slaves or parasites.28

Baffier presented his own studio practice as a response to this threat.Working with two assistants, France Briffault and Paul Orleans, thesculptor claimed to have revived the artisanal spirit of the medievalguilds. In producing the table setting, for example, Baffier himselfconcentrated on the conception of individual pieces and the productionof a plaster model, while Briffault was responsible for chasing work onthe finished object. The completed ensemble was thus conceived asuniting the moral uplift implicit in its rural inspiration with an integrityof manufacture invested in its corporate production. As the artist claimedin I909: 'Since the fall of our glorious Corporations in the arts and crafts,I am the only French sculptor who has produced within the useful arts,which are the only true arts, a series of works which share a harmonicrelationship rooted in a doctrinal base'.29

It was such a programme that inspired the sculptor's attempts to revivecorporate forms, both in Paris and in the provinces, as a catalyst for therehabilitation of craft skills. As early as I890 he sought municipalsupport for an abortive attempt to re-establish faIence production inNevers, one of its traditional centres.3D Eleven years later, Bourges andParis provided the setting for projects to establish corporations ofartisans and artworkers. The Bourges initiative quickly collapsed, thevictim - according to Baffier - of an alliance of local freemasons andJews. In Paris, however, the scheme briefly flourished, thanks in part tothe institutional support provided by one of the leading groupings on theradical right, the Ligue de la Patrie fran~aise, an organization in whichBaffier played a prominent role. The sculptor used his authority as

Reproducing the Applied Art of Jean Baffler III

President of the Ligue in the Plaisance district of Paris to establish anassociation, which brought together a range of local artworkers whoshared Baffier's nationalist outlook. Not only did the grouping organizeexhibitions under the Ligue's auspices and promote competitions fornationalist regalia, but also it played a central role in decorating theMaison commune, which Baffier masterminded as the Ligue's localheadquarters and which opened in September 1900.The Maison commune provides some indication of the ideology that

underlay the table service and the projected dining room, which Baffierconceived as its setting. Ideally, the sculptor intended the room toaccommodate a workers' corporation in a nation rejuvenated by itsrediscovery of racial purity, its repudiation of industrial capitalism andits recovery of provincial freedoms. Such a model conceived of the nationas an extended family, united organically in a decentralized federationheld together by a single, powerful leader. This anti-democratic visionplaced a premium on fraternal communion founded on rigorous racialexclusivity, mediated by regional affiliations and identity. As the sculptorproclaimed at the inaugural meeting of the Maison commune: 'A nationis an enlarged family which has undergone normal development in aterritorial area in harmony with its basic temperament'. 3 I

The Maison commune, decorated by Baffier and his fellow artworkers,provided the focus for a familial model combining political militancywith forms of sociability transplanted from the sculptor's native Berry.Family evenings, featuring folk songs, traditional dance and countrytales, alternated with political rallies at which undying hatred was swornagainst the Republic and the Jewish conspiracy accused of conniving inthe nation's ruin. The appeal to tradition used to underwrite thisxenophobic assertion of nationalist defiance nurtured a myth of racialessentialism, rooted in regional particularity, which seems particularlyincongruous in an inner-city neighbourhood near Montparnasse. Themyth of community, founded in a nostalgic appeal to a France profondealien to most of the Ligue's petit-bourgeois members, relies on anevocation of organic notions of collective identity irrevocably displacedin the complex metropolitan culture of belle epoque Paris. Baffier'sinvestment in the family, understood not only in terms of biologicalattachment but also as a metaphor for professional, ideological, regionaland racial bonds, rests upon a fragile myth of primitive equity offering areactionary evasion from history buoyed up by the systematicscapegoating of the imputed enemies of True France.In a curious way, the few trinkets offered by Siot-Decauville, the

112 NEIL MCWILLIAM

disjecta membra of Baffler's epic vision of a revitalizing alliance betweencraft and community, embody the fundamental contradiction of thesculptor's fantasy of aesthetic and political renewal. Though he railedagainst the department store and the international exhibition asharbingers of a morally debilitating mass culture, Baffler could notescape the circuits of production and consumption that they stimulatedand upon which they relied.32 For all his talk of craft revivals, of artisanalvalues salvaged from the moral fastness of the medieval guilds, of a flghtto the flnish against the factitious allure of the production line, Bafflerwas unable to square his commitment to pre-industrial working methodswith a populism intent on making the fruits of such labours available toTrue Frenchmen and women of every class. This was a paradox all tooevident to Baffler's critics, for whom his grand vision of an artisanaleconomy servicing a modern mass public encapsulated the contradictionsunderlying the broader enthusiasm for a revival of traditional decoration.As the critic Camille Mauclair trenchantly remarked in 1906:

Snobs in their town houses admire country furnishings, cretonne curtains,pitchers from New Zealand and pewter soup tureens by M. Baffler, one of themost prolix of windbags on 'social art', but these samples of 'back to basics' costa fortune, and there is nothing 'social' about this art. The tiresome expression'decorative art' had led everyone to the basic error of imitating popular stylewith materials and a workforce which were as expensive as each other.33

The substantial price demanded for the hand-crafted models from thetable setting kept them out of reach to all but a privileged minority ofaffluent patrons, upon whom the sculptor relied to sustain hisgargantuan ambition. Yet, in a twist of irony Baffler apparently preferredto ignore, it was the commercial foundry - itself practically an emblem ofthe industrialization of art so inimical to his vision of the artisanaltradition whose reproductive techniques were uniquely able to translatehis work into a form that the true artisan could even begin to afford.

7Reproduced Sculpture of German Expressionism:

Living Objects, Theatrics of Displayand Practical Options

ERICH RANFFT

Between c. 1910 and the mid-1920S the spectrum of progressive sculpturein Germany was characterized by the arts and cultures of Expressionism.One of numerous types of Expressionist sculpture was that of the wood-carving (the human figure predominating over abstract forms). This wasusually executed by 'direct carving', in which the wooden or stone objectwas produced by the artist without assistance and with no recourse tomechanical copying of a pre-existing model. In the purest approach amodel would not even have existed. Direct carving became anincreasingly esteemed aesthetic of modern sculpture internationallybetween 1900 and 1940. It was equated with authenticity and the notionof the unique, autonomous and self-referential object, and linked to theidea of an avant-garde practice imbued with these qualities. I Formalisthistories of modern sculpture stereotyped the figure directly carved inwood as the quintessential image of Expressionist sculpture in Germany.The clearest statement of this image was in the catalogue to the major

exhibition German Expressionist Sculpture, organized in 1983-4 by theLos Angeles County Museum of Art. 2 The catalogue presented works bythirty-three sculptors, revealing a diversity of sculptural media, many ofwhich involved reproductive processes. But ideologically the cataloguecentred on the painter-sculptors of the Briicke group (19°5-13), whowere represented as the leaders of a hierarchy of artists whose sculpturalproduction was judged by its degree of formal distortion and its outputof direct, roughened and painted wood-carving for emotive purposes.Heading this hierarchy was Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, a prolific producer ofmostly wood-carvings from about 1909 to the mid-1920S.3 Kirchnerepitomized the Expressionists' sometimes fetishistic preoccupation withwood-carving. In 1911 in a letter to the Hamburg collector GustavSchiefler, he wrote, 'it is a sensual pleasure when the figure grows out of

114 ERICH RANFFT

the wood step by step. In every trunk is a figure, it only has to be peeled'.4Perhaps it was no coincidence that the catalogue of a major 1992 touringexhibition in Germany, surveying modern German sculpture from 1900to 1945, featured a wood-carving by Kirchner on its front cover. 5Fuelling the Los Angeles mandate was the media-hyped, contemporary

international 'movement' known by 1980 as 'Neo-Expressionism'. Itscentral focus was on German artists who bore labels such as the'Barbarians' and 'New Wild Ones', making obvious references to thecritical reception surrounding the Briicke and other Expressionist groupsaround 1912. Particular to 'German Neo-Expressionism' was the close-knit relationship between painting and sculpture in the roughly hewn andgarishly painted wood-carvings of Georg Baselitz and ]6rg Immendorff.6

The German critical reception of the Los Angeles exhibition, upon itsshowing in Cologne in 1984, acknowledged a formal legacy between oldand new Expressionism with review headlines such as 'The SculptedScream' and 'The Wild and the Penitent Ones'.7The result has been an entrenched characterization of Expressionist

sculpture as a self-contained and autonomous, formalist 'movement',whereas in fact it was pluralistic, non-hierarchical, democratized andinterdisciplinary. The Briicke carvings themselves were at the margins ofExpressionist debates and very little critical reception was offered them,apart from an article on Kirchner's carvings, written pseudonymously bythe artist himself in 1925.8 Research is still needed into the visionary andeconomic motivations for the diversity of expressionistic sculpture andhow this diversity functioned within ideological concerns of Expression-ism, such as the socialist-utopian and mystical ideals, or theGesamtkunstwerk ('total work of art') and its manifestations as'theatrical' public and private display.9 Pivotal for an understanding ofthe social and cultural history of Expressionist sculpture is the study ofits functions within practices of reproduction in three-dimensional andtwo-dimensional media. This essay will survey various historicaldevelopments and strategies, including the decoration of architecturalsettings, the interchange between three- and two-dimensional media, andideas concerning the animation of objects to evoke 'life'. By looking atthe subject of reproduction, the issues of authenticity of wood-carvingversus traditional reproductive media may be integrated into specificideological, social and historical contexts.

Nazi destruction and the raids of Allied bombers have made it difficult toascertain the extent of the working practices of over half the hundred-

Reproduced Sculpture of German Expressionism 115

plus German sculptors who produced expressionistic works. But we canguess that practices and strategies of reproduction played a part in atleast ninety per cent of the production of Expressionist sculpture. Thereis also evidence that the majority of sculptors frequently workedsimultaneously in a variety of three-dimensional media. Throughout thetwo decades of Expressionist sculpture the predominant media were clayand plaster, which could serve as models for carving in wood and stoneor as means for casting into permanent materials such as bronze, cementand artificial -stone. Nevertheless, sculptures in plaster and clay wereoften exhibited, those in clay at times as finished works, either in theirnatural state or fired as terracottas.Casting in cement, stone and artificial stone was common by 1914; it

was especially suitable for life-sized figures and architectural decoration,and served as an inexpensive alternative to bronze right through to themid-1920S. Its popularity started in 1910 with the highly successfulCement and Concrete exhibition in Berlin and the impetus of theDeutsche Werkbund (German Union of Work), established in 1907 toengender communality between the fine and applied arts, the artist andindustry. Leading spokesmen 'entered pleas for the artistic and practicalexploitation of synthetic materials'. 10 Carving in marble, impractical bycomparison with these 'imitative' processes, was to prove an infrequentpractice. Sculptors were involved to some extent in the production ofwood-carvings, but it would seem that fewer than fifteen produced asizeable body of work in wood.II Overall, even fewer engaged in puredirect carving, as it was customary to work instead from a model or analready finished version, for example, in artificial stone, and sometimesby mechanical means using a pointing machine.Until 1915 Expressionist bronzes featured regularly in private and

public collections and in yearly survey exhibitions. The comprehensiveexhibition of contemporary sculpture at the Mannheim Kunsthalle in1914 was remarkable for its wide coverage of Expressionist bronzes, withworks by the nationally renowned sculptors Ernst Barlach, WilhelmLehmbruck and Milly Steger. 12 Bronze and other metals also featured inthe production of so-called avant-garde painter-sculptors. These includedwax animal sculptures by Franz Marc, of the Blaue Reiter group,intended to be cast into bronze for gallery sales, as two were before hisdeath in 1916. From the Briicke, there were Max Pechstein's works inbronze, three of which he exhibited in the Mannheim exhibition, andseveral of Kirchner's modelled figures cast in tin, one of which wasincluded in a Briicke showing in 1910 in Dresden (and ironically

116 ERICH RANFFT

illustrated in Kirchner's 'manifesto' of 1925 on the purity of carving).I3Additionally, there occurred a revival in the production of bronze medalsand plaques, wherein sculptors such as Karl Goetz and Ludwig Giescommunicated the events and effects of the First World War and itsaftermath in disturbing and satirical expressionistic images. 14

Before the war the Werkbund was not as successful in offeringExpressionist sculptors opportunities in the crafts as it was in generatingclose links between sculptors and architects. The Werkbund's aim ofreviving the grandeur of architecture from the past in accordance withmodernizing concepts of design was reflected in Germany's fascinationwith monumental forms of architecture and memorials, and theirinspiration from Egyptian, Assyrian and Far Eastern styles anddecorative schemes. By 1913 the excavations in Egypt by the GermanOriental Society resulted in significant finds for the Royal Prussian artcollections in Berlin; and soon thereafter Hedwig Fechheimer publishedher seminal book on Egyptian sculpture, which began by discussing thelinks between modern and Egyptian art. IS A number of projects foradorning new commercial and civic sites illustrated the extent to whichearly Expressionist sculptors played a vital role in the wave of historicistprogrammes. The sculptural decoration for these sites was predomin-antly characterized by variations in repetitive figural elements, whichechoed decorative schemes of ancient times.The most imposing of these was the Lions' Gate, a three-storey portal

structure with sculptures by Bernhard Hoetger and designed incollaboration with the architect Albin Muller as the entrance to theMathildenhohe complex of artists' craft workshops in Darmstadt,completed for its summer Exposition of 1914.16 Along the top of theportal was a row of six identical, over-life-sized male lions in cast stone,each standing on paired Ionic columns, which recalled the Avenue inKarnak lined by long rows of gigantic sphinxes illustrated in Fech-heimer's book. Spanning the bottom of the portal were ten panels insheet copper (approximately 1.3 metres square), each bearing theidentical relief of five men on horseback in profile, which echoedclassical Greek motifs, with the five reliefs on one side being the exactreverse of the five on the other side. The arrangement was thus AA AA AB

BB BB, with the left- and right~side panels meeting in the centre to makeup the doorway. Hoetger repeated this layout on the reverse of thestructure, which made twenty panels in total. 17Hoetger was the Expressionist sculptor most preoccupied by the

decorative possibilities of repetition and by the reproduction of his

Reproduced Sculpture of German Expressionism Il7

-Bernhard Hoerger and Albin Miiller, Lions' Gate, 19'4, present sire of Rosenh6he Park,

Darmsradt (since 192.6), parrially reconsrrucred: brick columns, original lions and eighr reliefpanels.

present and past work in replicas or in new variations. He was affordedthis luxury because he was virtually never without the backing of affluentpatrons. I8 Among his displays for the Mathildenh6he complex, Hoetgeradded four over-life-sized, stone-cast sculptures, which were enlarge-ments from a cycle of fifteen figurines in majolica, the Light and Shadowseries (19II-I2), which drew from Oriental and Buddhist motifs and thepractices of the della Robbia family of fifteenth-century Italiansculptors. 19 His majolica series was also exhibited at the Mathildenh6heExposition, as had other editions throughout Germany. His work in thepublic realm was unrivalled in quantity and matched only by his largerepertoire of historicizing styles.In 1916 an industrialist from Aachen, Erich Clipper, sought to create a

museum devoted to his collection of works by Hoetger. This broughtabout a storm of negative publicity: it was unthinkable to erect a museumfor a living German artist, let alone one who was 'thoroughly eclectic',whose 'experiments could be described at best as mystically perfumed'and whose 'quality is damaged by standing ten of his works side byside'.20 Implicit in the criticisms of Hoetger's seeming assembly-line

118 ERICH RANFFT

production were his strategies of reproduction. The idea of a HoetgerMuseum was soon laid to rest, as was the working relationship betweenHoetger and Ciipper. Hoetger then sought out the patronage of the biscuitmanufacturer Hermann Bahlsen, who had a long-standing fascination forEgyptian heritage. In 1916 Bahlsen commissioned Hoetger to build anddecorate in Hanover a new factory complex with a residential com-munity, the 'TET-City' (the 'TET' referring to an Egyptian hieroglyph).This project too failed to come to fruition, but from Hoetger's plans andmodels it is evident that his Egyptian- and Babylonian-inspired sculpturaldecoration would have been very expansive and repetitive - meaningmore lions and the like - and there would have been an 'honorary'location set aside for displaying Bahlsen's collection of Hoetger's works,or rather his copies from the Hoetger oeuvre.2I

So far we have considered sculptural practices intended for the publicsphere, be it for mass public display or for a private collector. Therewere, in contrast, the wood-carvings from 1909 to 1913 by Ernst LudwigKirchner and Erich Heckel, the only Briicke painter-sculptors to producesuch works during the period of the group's existence. The carvings weremeant to serve the artists' private studio environment - first in Dresdenand then in Berlin - as an integral aspect of their synthesis of high art andcraft and decoration in order to shape the studio into a livingGesamtkunstwerk. Even though some of the carvings were occasionallyshown at Briicke exhibits, this was all about demonstrating theuniformity of their subject-matter across various media. Unlike theWerkbund seeking to integrate the artist-craftsman into society, theBriicke saw itself as anti-bourgeois, its studio providing 'an antithetical"other" to the life and civilization of Germany, a realm of artisticfreedom and invention, a temporary utopian retreat and counter-reality'.22 Their working practice, according to Kirchner, involvedan uninterrupted, logical intensification, which went hand in hand with thepainterly development of the paintings and graphics and sculptures. The firstbowl that was carved, because we could not buy one that appealed to us, offeredits plastic form to the surface-oriented form of the painting, and so through thevaried techniques the personal form was kneaded thoroughly down to the laststroke. The love that the painter felt for the girlfriend, who was his companionand helper, crossed over to the carved figure, ennobled itself over thesurrounding area into the painting, and in turn conveyed the specific form ofa chair or table from the life habits of the human mode1.23

Kirchner and Heckel executed their wood-carved figures (at least twentyeach) in statuette to near-life proportions, and directly and unmediated


into unique objects. The figures, however, were not intended asautonomous or independent works of art. Like the hand-carved furnitureand like the naked human models, they were 'props' for the artists'interpretation of their communal studio life as a living Gesamtkunstwerk. Or, like the sculptor's clay or plaster model awaiting atransformation, these carvings too were transformed or reproducedinto new representations.The two artists reproduced nearly all their carvings (that we know of)

in numerous paintings, drawings and prints, sometimes repeating thecarvings in several of the media. Translations into two dimensions werenearly always in reference to narratives of studio life and largely accord-ing to traditional pictorial means. But in numerous other representationsKirchner and Heckel sought a theatrics of display that could 'break downthe barriers between life and art practice by means of a visual conceit'.24

This was usually achieved by dissolving distinctions in scale and stylisticdifferences between the carved figures and the human models in order toevoke an animated interaction between the two. As a consequence, thecarving was reproduced not only as an index of its contextual site butalso into a 'living' duplicate of its inanimate original. The artistsextended this duality by conjuring up a sense that the carving and humanmodel had switched 'identities' - becoming the 'human' carving and the'sculpted' model - to parallel the Briicke utopian praxis of art as life/lifeas art.Kirchner exploited these theatrics of display especially in his subjects

of female models in bathtubs, the low, circular tubs acting like plinths totransform the models into sculptures. In the drawing Woman in theWash Tub (1911), Kirchner accentuated this idea by involving a 'living'carving: he depicted a bathing model in front of two loosely sketchedstatuette carvings with tall plinths - a crouching figure planted on itsplinth and a standing figure off its plinth and on the studio floor. 25 Thelatter, with one leg out in front of the other, appears ready to stride outof the picture, leaving the 'sculpted' woman as a stand-in. A similar ploywas used by Heckel in his drawing The Black Cloth, which wasreproduced on the front cover of the May 1911 issue of the Expressionistjournal Der Sturm.26 Here a female model is shown seated on a lowplatform, her hands holding up behind her a black cloth, which serves totransform the model into a sculpture in relief. Her inanimate state isheightened by the small carved female figure in the background lookingon curiously, as if eagerly awaiting the chance to be part of the sculptor'sbusiness in hand.

120 ERICH RANFFT

Erich Heckel, Convalescence of a Woman, 1912.-13, triptych, oil on canvas. Busch-ReisingerMuseum, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA.

The simulation of sculpture by dancers was a pervasive contemporarypractice, which paralleled the artists' concern with the transformativestates of human models. Especially relevant were Kirchner's and Heckel'sinterest in popular dance - their girlfriends and the majority of theirfemale models were music-hall dancers_ It is quite likely that they wouldhave known of the pre-19I4 nude dances of variety performers in theform of 'plastic poses', especially those of the famed Olga Desmond, whoheld classicizing poses (in all-over white make-up) based on turn-of·the-century sculptures by Reinhold Begas and Max Klinger.2.7Both artists generally gave an air of innocence and playfulness to their

representations of carved figures in the studio setting. At times Heckelimbued his figures' 'living' qualities with a spiritual resonance, whichreflected those carvings that had obvious religious connotations, such asPraying Man (1912), yet it seems he did not reproduce these in two-dimensional representations.28 Heckel chose instead to reproduceordinary and non-referential carved figures, such as those for his richlysymbolic triptych Convalescence of a Woman (1912-13).29 In the centralpanel of this oil painting Heckel has represented his companion andfuture wife, Siddi Riha, who is seated facing the viewer. In the left panelstands a carved female figure alongside a planted sapling in bloom, andin the right panel a large bouquet of sunflowers looms over a semi-carvedcrouching figure, with the contour lines of its face and body drawn on tothe block of wood. Hecke1 imbued his triptych with the signification ofan altarpiece, which reflected both his personal love and servitude to his'convalescing' companion and a universal prayer to life. The sunflowerswere symbolic of trust in healing and the sapling was a symbol both of


beauty and also of the fragility of life. 30 The close proximity of the twosculptures to the flora suggests their role as the bearers of these symbols.In a literal sense their purpose is to watch over and care for Siddi, and ina more ecclesiastical sense they embody angels and disciples who watchover the holy incarnation, while Siddi signifies a Madonna-like figure. 3I

Consequently, the bowed head drawn on the blocklike carving depicts anact of praying. The possibility that Heckel meant this figure as a portraitof himself is suggested by the emphatic diagonal lines that move theviewer's attention up and down between Siddi's head and that of thecarving. Meanwhile, the carved standing figure on the opposite side isshown not looking at Siddi but out at the viewer. This holy attendantserves to stimulate a spiritual response in the viewer, who is thus invitedto participate in Heckel's altarpiece of personal and religious devotion. 32

Kirchner, on the other hand, was more preoccupied with reproducingcarvings in terms of their external relations by evoking movementthrough space and dynamic spatial arrangements. An important aspect ofKirchner's aesthetic was his use of photography, which seems to havebeen unique among the Briicke members. In the process of documentingmany of his carvings from about 1910 to the mid-1920S, he reproduced afew into 'living' duplicates of the original, by employing an ambiguoussense of scale and by the staging of grouped sculptures. 33 One ofKirchner's most lyrical images was a staged photograph from c. 1913 inwhich he contrasted the emotive qualities of animation between twonear-life-sized standing female figures. In the foreground he placed theFemale Dancer (1912) in a slight profile position and made the sculpturelean sideways towards the camera, so that she appears to be stridingforward and ready to thrust herself out of the picture frame. Behind herand to the side Kirchner positioned the Standing Woman (1912), whomhe carved in the act of placing one foot in front of the other.Consequently, in this photograph it is as if she is about to follow theFemale Dancer, yet her closed body stance and hunched shoulders conveyan inhibition made all the more emphatic by the contrast with herexuberant counterpart. 34 Additionally, Kirchner sometimes photo-graphed carvings next to female models in order to emphasize thehuman form as sculpture against the animation of the object. Forexample, in the image of the dancer Nina Hard in Kirchner's Davoshome (1921), a standing Hard, posing nude and applying make-up, iscontrasted with a nearly identical-looking, 63cm-high standing figure,Nude Girl (1912), which has been placed on the dressing-table, so thattheir heads are nearly at the same height. 35

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It is important to recognize that the physical and decorative nature ofone-third of Kirchner's and Heckel's carvings also emulated two-dimensional representation. Heckel's triptych figure with its face andbody drawn on to the block of wood shows how the artists sought toimbue their carvings with a pictorial flatness that would enhance theirstatus as extensions of the two-dimensional conception of the studioenvironment. Some figures were made with sections left uncarved toretain the look of the squarish or rectangular block of wood, which hadthe effect of signifying the two-dimensional frame and echoed thepictorial effects of relief sculpture. Other figures, although fully carved,had flattened frontal planes to varying degrees, and it is not difficult toread them as thick (and pliable) cut-outs. The artists made the allusionsto two-dimensional representation, especially in terms of the woodcut,all the more obvious by delineating parts of the face and body with dark-coloured paint; they even emphasized slight recesses between body partswith 'artificial' shadows.36 Their carvings were in general painted,selectively or all over, and we might refer to them all as 'sculpted'paintings; but it is in these more flattened carvings that the artists seemdeliberately to have chosen to animate the essence of two-dimensionalrepresentation. These 'carved drawings' provide another clear exampleof the interweaving of artistic practices as described by Kirchner in theBriicke concept of the living Gesamtkunstwerk.The only other artist to be as engrossed with sculptural forms moving

between three- and two-dimensional media was the multitalentedsculptor Ernst Barlach, whose prolific graphic output from 1910 to themid-1920S reflected far more interpretations than translations of hissculpture. One of his most compelling series of images was the cycle oftwenty-seven lithographs (1910-11) visualizing aspects of the first of hisseven Expressionist plays, The Dead Day (written 1907-10). Thelithographs plus the play were published in 1912 in a portfolio edition.37Here Barlach represented an interplay of rural figures, which recreatedthe stylistic forms and iconography of his sculptural oeuvre, reproducingessentially the collective sense of his sculptures two-dimensionally. Intheir graphic representation the sculptural figures were imbued with a'living' presence, as if they were reproduced as theatrical performersunfolding one of countless dramas about their existence. This playcentred around a mother's domination over her only son, whom shetraps in the earthly and unconscious world to prevent him from reachinghis father who is Spirit and God. The only character of the play to referto a specific sculpture was that of the Mother, whose three-dimensional


form was the table-top oak-carving, Troubled Woman (1910, from amodel in plaster), depicting a seated woman with a brooding facialexpression and hands clasped in her lap.38 Even though there is noevidence to indicate whether the lithograph or the sculpture came first, itseems likely that Barlach's drawn figure inspired the sculpture, becausehe would have wanted to create a physical embodiment of the Mother'semotionally and symbolically charged presence.

The height of Expressionist sculpture from 1918 to c. 1923 was the resultof new associations of Expressionist artists seeking to revitalize collectiveartistic production based on Christian socialist ideals for the spiritualregeneration of the individual and society. This was to be accomplishedby uniting sculpture, painting and the crafts with architecture into thepeople's Gesamtkunstwerk - the utopian 'cathedral', a site for worshipand communal activity.39 Bruno Taut, the leading voice among thevisionary architects, sought to channel the revolutionary and spiritualfervour of artists by calling for 'extensive employment of painters andsculptors on all buildings in order to draw them away from salon art' .40

But because of the severe post-war recession there were very few publicprojects and private commissions in which Expressionist sculptors couldparticipate. There were, nevertheless, alternatives that served theirspiritual yearnings and economic conditions. Some produced fantasticalsculptures, others worked as independent 'craftsmen', while ampleopportunities were created to exhibit 'salon art' that conveyed visionarymotivations.As sculptors continued to reproduce their three-dimensional works in

two-dimensional representations, the post-war recession gave rise to anumber of fantastical, monumental sculptures, which were conceived asdrawings or textual descriptions and reproduced in Expressionist publica-tions or by means of graphic print-runs and published portfolios.41 In1920 in Fruhlicht, the magazine dedicated to utopian architecture, Tautpublished his designs and descriptions of his envisioned House of Heaven(1919), which featured Karl Schmidt-Rottluff's drawings of two totemicstructures with bands of carved figures and heads, entitled Pillars ofSuffering and Prayer. Standing at the entrance of the House of Heaven,the Pillars 'begin at ground level in gloomy black (shading into intenseblue) and terminate above in a blaze of gold. With the exception of thegold, all the colours are shot through with flecks and stripes of bloodred'.42

In contrast, Rudolf Belling reproduced the imaginary 'original' of his

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Rudolf Belling, Triad, original 1919, second version in wood (elm).Wilhelm Lehmbruck Museum, Duisburg.

Gerhard Marcks, Horseman Candlestick, c. 1918-19, Battger stoneware.Gerhard Marcks Stiftung, Bremen.


metre-high plaster Triad (1919) as if it were already a reality. Triadpresented three abstracted dance figures projecting from a central base,which was meant to symbolize the union of the three arts, painting,sculpture and architecture. Belling sought to acknowledge the mon-umentality of this union when Triad was first shown with the work ofthe November Group at the Berlin Art Exhibition in 1920. The catalogueentry noted that the 'original' was 'six metres high, built from brick withcoloured plasterwork', and the exhibition guidebook proclaimed, 'This isreligion, this is architecture'. 43 Belling had the 'original' described againin the catalogue of his commercial gallery exhibit in Cologne of 1921,and by that year he let it be known that his sculptural 'architecture'should serve 'as a podium for an orchestra, for performances byHindemith, Schonberg and Stravinsky'.44 Nobody cared that the workdid not exist physically, what mattered more was Belling disseminatingits 'image' as a statement of Expressionist ecstatic fervour for the livingGesamtkunstwerk. Moreover, the conceptual physical evidence lay withthe plaster Triad and its published photographic reproductions - Triadwas, in effect, being replicated into the living duplicate of its giant'original'. As such, the two as one were celebrated Expressionist icons.By the mid-1920S at least half of the Expressionist sculptors had been

involved to some extent in the production of small-scale, decorativefigures and craft objects for domestic and civic purposes. Although manysculptors could not become the 'exalted craftsmen' that WaIter Gropiusenvisioned for the Bauhaus,45 this aspiration must have invariablymotivated their independent, entrepreneurial roles. Oriented towardsopportunities for reproduction, the sculptors worked primarily inceramic, stoneware and porcelain, while bronze and various metalssuch as iron, tin and copper were also given prominence. Some set uptheir own workshops - Margarete Scheel in Rostock (1920), WillLammert in Essen (1924) or Bernhard Hoetger in Worpswede (1923) andBremen (1927). These were often organized as co-operatives involvinglocally trained artists, and Hoetger's approach was characteristic. Hevalued not only the immediacy of creativity in the initial design of adecorative object but also the cooperative processes in bringing the objectinto its final state as a reproducible commodity.46

Other sculptors were sponsored by manufacturers who undertook toturn their designs into products; the Meissen porcelain factory, forexample, was particularly receptive to contemporary decorative styles.By 1927 Meissen had produced editions of expressionistic works by suchsculptors as Gerhard Marcks, Ernst Barlach, Richard Langer and Paul

12.6 ERICH RANFFT

Wilhelm Lehmbruck, Praying Woman, 1918, cast stone.Wilhelm Lehmbruck Museum, Duisburg.

Borner.47 From 19r8 to r920 Marcks designed altogether seven models,which were moulded for editions, and his Horseman Candlestick inBottger stoneware (opaque and reddish-brown in colour) was immedi-ately lauded for its 'expressionistic character', its 'exquisite' use ofmaterial to 'stimulate a highly expressive conception of form'.4 8 Hissubjects had strong Christian religious overtones, and so too hadBarlach's table-top model of a bearded God-figure, God, the FatherHovering (r92.3), which the Meissen firm reproduced in a large edition inBottger stoneware.49 In an ideological sense, these expressionisticsculptures should have served ecclesiastical functions of decoration; inBarlach's case, his should have been a remedy to his lament, 'I lack thegreat opportunity. Missing for my sculpture is the sacral space' (1920).50Yet the established Church did not, on the whole, accept Expressionistart, or when the congregation did, they could not adequately defend itfrom public protests. As a result, these editions were marketed asprecious fine-art commodities destined for the German art world, withcopies available to both private collectors and public museums.

Reproduced Sculpture of German Expressionism I27

The 'salon' sculpture of post-war Expressionism flourished amid the newvisionary fervour that compelled sculptors to animate their objects toevoke 'life'. Where before I9I4 the notion of the living statue was largelyat the fringes of discussion (and mainly in the Briicke studios), it was nowat the forefront of Expressionism's romantic yearnings. In Ernst ToIler'scelebrated play The Transfiguration (I9I9), Friedrich is working on alife-size statue and declares, 'The stone resists my efforts; my hand uponthe chisel cannot bring it to life. The chisel chips marble, dead marble;am I powerless to breathe life into it? If so I'll do no more. I will not becontent to carve a mere memorial to life ... Life intense must streamfrom my creation'.5I Moreover, the legendary Golem automaton was thesubject of three Expressionist feature films (I9I5, I9I7 and I920), whichimmortalized the Rabbi Loew who formed the human-sized clay Golemand then magically brought it to life. 52Questions arose, however, about determining the most suitable or

authentic material for expressing the spiritual and mystical animation inthe living object. While most sculptors continued to use clay and exhibitin plaster (especially in view of the post-war recession), as well as worktowards casting into more permanent materials, a strong polemicalposition asserted the authenticity of wood and direct carving. It becamefashionable to romance the wood-carving, likewise to be dismissive ofthe value of modelling in clay, wax and plasticine, and of theirsubsequent use in relation to materials integral to reproductive processes.Sculptor Philipp Harth called for a rejection of the slave-like submissionto these latter, while Alfred Kuhn, art historian and critic, comparedthese to 'a prostitute' that 'allows virtually everything to be done to it'.53Ouo Hitzberger, who taught wood-carving at the Berlin Arts and CraftsSchool, asserted that wood was 'the mother of sculpture' and testified, 'Ihave made my work completely by myself and need no one to have mymodel copied' .54 The authenticity of wood was seen in terms of itsalready existing materiality and inherent rawness, which, 'for the trueartist', serves 'the clarification of his spiritual and intellectual yearningfor elevated creativity' (Georg Biermann, art historian and publisher).55Wood was authentic because it was seen to embody the natural practicesof African and Oceanic tribal peoples and, in particular, the creation ofGothic sublimity and rapture. Critics continually offered their mostlaudatory support to Ernst Barlach who had been chiefly preoccupiedwith carving in wood since I909. Paul Westheim's praise, from as early asI9I3, epitomized this support: the Gothic 'is the same exalted rapturewhich is found in a Barlach who manipulates the carving tool, allowing

128 ERICH RANFFT

him to actualize faces out of the deep where the blood steams, andthereby he can breathe life into them in order that they may once againbecome at one with their creator'. 56Alfred Kuhn and others sought to give credence to their position by

referring back to the influential aims of the classicizing sculptor Adolfvon Hildebrand (1847-1921). In his treatise The Problem of Form in theFine Arts (1893, with ten editions by 1918), Hildebrand sought torejuvenate the process of direct carving in stone based on sculpture fromthe Greek and Italian Renaissance periods.57 He argued that modelling inclay and the like should not be practised for artistic reasons in the firstplace, because it lacked the already given pictorial structure presented bythe block. Hildebrand felt that modelling in clay had value only if it wasused as a method of study from Nature, and that the sculptor should onlytransform and not replicate the clay model into a finished carved object.In contrast, there was a wide range of working practices that challenged

the supposed authenticity of wood and direct carving. To begin with, as aresult of the support given to the highly expressive qualities in the art ofAuguste Rodin, who was Hildebrand's polar opposite in the art litera-ture,s8 many artists also accepted his strategies of exploiting traditionalreproduction techniques as practices fundamental to modern sculpture.Strange, because Rodin was widely seen to be the arch-modeller and onewho exploited traditional reproduction techniques; but for the Ex-pressionists, Rodin was above such criticisms because his work evoked akindred spirit of highly expressive emotion and symbolism. Moreover,most sculptors were more concerned with beginning their object in clayand plaster, exhibiting it as such, and subsequently planning to execute aversion in wood (almost as an afterthought). If they were aware ofBarlach's working practices, they would have known that nearly all hiscarvings derived from versions in plaster, up to one-third of these beingproduced three or even up to six years after the original. SupposedlyBarlach did not even carve directly but used a pointing machine totranslate plaster to wood. 59 His approach must have resembled productmanufacture, using a pre-existing stock of sculptural motifs as models.Every so often Barlach (and his dealer, Paul Cassirer, in Berlin) also hadbronzes produced from the originals, as in the Mannheim exhibition of1914.60

Most of the sculptors active after 1918 had little training for carving inwood, and one gets the impression that they needed to meet the demandsof the latest fashion and secure some carvings for their 'portfolio' ofworks. It would seem that part of the pressure also emanated from the


museums, whose directors were increasingly enamoured of Expressionistwood sculptures. For Rudolf Belling's retrospective exhibition in 1924,

the Berlin National Gallery ordered the purchase of a copy of Triad inbirch with mahogany base, stained and polished (see the illustration onpage 124 for a similar version).61 It is not surprising that the NationalGallery would want to acquire the Triad, since the object had acelebrated iconic status and a copy in wood afforded the museum (andBelling himself) the opportunity to have the more fashionable materialmade available for posterity.We might query whether Belling produced the copy of Triad himself.

There seems to have been a tendency among sculptors to hire someoneelse to carve (completely or partially) their wood versions. The sculptorEwald Matare lamented in his daybook that one 'can never arrive at astyle if [one] kneads in clay and then has it carved in wood, as ishappening now everywhere'.62 Determining the extent of this 'unauthen-tic' process among Expressionist sculptors is difficult given the generallack of records, but several cases have come to light: for example, theBerlin sculptors Emy Roeder and her husband, Herbert Garbe, had acertain amount of carvings (from originals in plaster and terracotta)finished off by local craftsmen in southern Bavaria.63 We know thatRoeder had visited Oberammergau by 1921 to learn to carve in wood, andher concerns were probably not educational but professional- to get helpin producing Expressionist carvings in order to diversify the range of her'portfolio'. Similarly, the Berliner Georg Kolbe, who had been producingExpressionist sculptures in bronze (probably through the support of hisgallery dealer, Cassirer), had several original models produced in wood bylocal carvers by trade.64 In effect, Kolbe's sculptures in wood were just asmuch a commodity as the bronzes.

passion for wood-carving resulted essentially in more talk thanwork (and less 'authentic' work at that). Conversely, there was a quietflorescence of working in clay and materials integral to reproductiveprocesses, which had the same ideological aspirations as carving in wood,but which did not need to authenticate its materiality. Even if a clay orplaster or bronze sculpture was seen by some as a 'violation' and an'abomination', it was still authentic because the ideal of animating theperception of a living essence in the object remained a fundamental. InPaul Rudolf Henning's 'Clay - A Manifesto', which appeared inpublications by the Werkbund and the Berlin Working Council for Artin 1919""""20, he called for the sculptors' devotion to 'the richness of the"unborn" that lies dormant in clay, waiting to be brought to life by an act

ERICH RANFFT

of deliverance of the creator' .65 Seen in relation to the Golem story, it wasno coincidence that Rudolf Belling created the Golem's Egyptianizedheaddress for all three films.66 We might concede that clay or plasterobjects had the benefit of being read more easily as 'original' andauthentic because they stood at the beginning of the reproductiveprocesses, but it was no more difficult to imbue with ideologicalsignificance the highly influential oeuvre of Wilhelm Lehmbruck (seep. 126), which was increasingly made up of sculpture cast in cement,artificial stone and bronze (he never carved in wood, hardly ever inmarble).67 What mattered to critical supporters was the resonance ofLehmbruck's figures, whosesatiated flesh is melted away by the glow of immanent life. Only the spiritappears to exist ... In the drive upwards, in Gothic fervour the soul soarsupwards, sweeping up with it its bodily form, the skin swelling in an inexorablevertical direction ... the Lehmbruck man and woman leave this coarse world ofharsh differences, sharp antitheses, merciless rationalities, in order that, alone inthe rhythm as the most powerful cosmic principle, they may lead an existence ofthe purest spirituality.

This interpretation from 1921 was by Alfred Kuhn, marking one of anumber of exceptions to his distaste for non-wooden sculptures.68 Finally,one may also argue that the dramatic events of Lehmbruck's life - hecommitted suicide in 1919 in the prime of his career (which undoubtedlyaffected Kuhn's perception) - took precedence over discussion of hisworking practices, yet Lehmbruck's figures had since 1912 beenconstantly read as embodying a spiritual animation of living form.

There are certainly more aspects to matters of reproduction (and casestudies), which could be considered in the scope of this introductorysurvey, not least fundamental issues concerning the legacy of reproducingExpressionist sculpture over the past fifty years: be it the controversies ofposthumous bronze-casting of Expressionist 'masters', or the strategiesof a Rudolf Belling ensuring that ample museums own a bronze versionof Triad (and that a copy in wood, from c. 1950 - see page 124 - existedoutside of the former East Germany), or the ramifications of havingfour Ernst Barlach museums in the unified Germany ....69 GermanExpressionist sculpture and its reproductions offer no quintessentialimages, just essential histories.

8

Truth to Material: Bronze", onthe Reproducibility of Truth

ALEXANDRA PARIGORIS

Fifteen years ago a heated debate arose between two prominent arthistorians over the status of claims to authenticity for posthumousbronze casts of works by Auguste Rodin (1840-1917), then on show inthe important Rodin Rediscovered exhibition at the National Gallery ofArt in Washington. I Rosalind Krauss used the occasion of the exhibitionto explore from a 'postmodernist perspective' the mystique of originalityin the modernist discourse when it is applied to sculptural editions and todenounce the steadfastness of the traditional evaluative categories in arthistorical discourse. Her essay 'The Originality of the Avant-Garde: APost-modernist Repetition'2 argued that Rodin's approach to hissculpture reveals an artist 'deep in the ethos of mechanical reproduction',an ethos which affected not only his castings but also his very creativeprocess. The production of multiples was not accidental. Not only wasthe concept of an original bronze cast foreign to Rodin's thinking, Kraussargued, but also his whole oeuvre was predicated on the production ofmultiples. Albert Elsen, the organizer of the exhibition, immediatelyresponded to this article in the following issue of October3 by attackingKrauss' evidence and her concept of originality, referring readers to thedocument 'A Statement on Standards for Sculptural Reproduction andPreventive Measures to Combat Unethical Casting in Bronze', which he,as President of the College Art Association, Professor of Art History atStanford University and a Rodin specialist, had helped to draft.4 Hiscondemnation extended to a recent catalogue essay written by Krauss foran exhibition of ]ulio Gonzalez, where she had argued in defence ofGonzalez's posthumous bronze casts. 5 It would be fair to say that thisexchange sorely tested the advocacy of the 'Standards' document.6

My essay will re-examine some of the issues at the centre of thisdebate, in particular the artistic and historic status of the posthumouscast and the place of intentionality when dealing with objects. It will alsoappraise bronze as a material in a period that promoted the notion of

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'truth to material' and 'working direct'. Many of the questions I raisewere first brought to light in the journal ARTnews in 1974. The relevantarticle, 'Problems in the Reproduction of Sculpture', by Sylvia Hochfieldused the pretext of reporting on a newly cast stainless-steel Cock byConstantin Brancusi (1876-1957) to explore the question of the unethicalreproduction of sculpture in the light of the recently published 'Statementon Standards'.7 Quoting from Sidney Geist, a sculptor and leadingauthority on Brancusi, Hochfield exposed some of the problems thatbeset the sculpture of not only Brancusi but also Raymond Duchamp-Villon (1896-1918), Umberto Boccioni (1882-1916) and ]ulio Gonzalez(1876-1942), among others whose work had been cast posthumously.sWe shall return to these individual cases, but for the moment it isimportant to point out that Hochfield brought out the essential problemraised by these 'Standards': the philosophical, legal and ethical questioninvolved in defining originality. The article ends: 'Ultimately, the CAAhopes, a tradition, a body of customs, will be created, which, over aperiod of time, will be recognized by the courts. In other words, commonlaw will give way to statutory law'.9As soon became apparent, Krauss was addressing this philosophical

question using the analytical tools of semiology, structuralism and post-structuralism to expose the foundations of a body of customs. Thepresent essay shares many of Krauss' concerns, without subscribing to itsstrict semiotic perspective, and will consider the valuable questions thatemerged still unexplored from this debate. Thus, rather than pursue theclaims of the legitimacy of posthumous bronze casts (as they were airedin the forum where Elsen and Krauss gathered), this essay considers thecontribution that these works make, in their own right, in the largerhistorical and critical perspective. This might at first suggest that I sidewith Elsen against Krauss, but the conventions governing the legitima-tion of posthumous casts are open to question without the need ofrecourse to a postmodernist position. Considerable light may be shed onthe status of posthumous casts by situating the various claims in theirhistorical context, be they legal, ethical or linguistic.One of the first aspects to emerge from the exchange between Rosalind

Krauss and Albert Elsen following the Rodin Rediscovered exhibition isthat the debate surrounding the posthumous casts of works by Rodinwas restricted to a rather narrow path, far narrower even than thatenvisaged by the 'Standards': the delicate question of definingauthenticity in a field that existed by means of a form of reproductiveprocess. The quarrel centred on issues of legitimacy raised, for example,

Truth to Material: Bronze, on the Reproducibility of Truth 133

by a 1980 bronze cast of a Rodin by the Musee Rodin. According to the'Standards' (and to French law), the Musee Rodin, as authorized parties,had produced an authentic Rodin since it was cast from the originalworking plaster. This 'real reproduction', to use Krauss' terms, or thiswork from an 'original edition', to use Jean Chatelain's (a delegate to theConseil d'Administration of the Musee Rodin),IO remains no less than anormative product: one that fulfils the 'Standards' for sculpturalreproduction and is legitimate only according to those standards. Butwhat if those standards were not as conclusive as their advocates maysuppose, and what other questions, as a result, might be left to explore inthis context?

It must be remembered that the debate took place in the post-structuralist atmosphere of the late 1970S when author(ity) and qualitywere questions considered long dead and buried, although the object(s)in question might still require these issues to be clarified. In particular,intentionality and audience might be explored by examining surfacefinish in works of sculpture, just as they so often are with painting. Take,for example, the difference in surface finish between two bronzes byRodin in the Musee Orsay in Paris: Age of Bronze (Age d'Airin; c. 1877)and Walking Man (L'Homme qui marche; 1907), both cast in Rodin'slifetime;II their different patinas evidence (i) specific conditions ofproduction available at the time and produced by different foundries, (ii)decision-making on the part of Rodin, as is borne out by archivalevidence - whether that decision entails his personal involvement orreferral to others does not alter the fact that he was in a position to makethat decision, and (iii) suggest that Rodin was aware of his audience andtailored his works accordingly. The Mighty Hand (or Clenched Hand; c.1855) by Rodin in the Peter Stuyvesant Foundation's collection isevidence that this decision-making process was transferred elsewhere, inthis case to the Musee Rodin. Although only the Rodin bronzes in thePeter Stuyvesant collection came from the Musee Rodin, all the works inbronze were derived from posthumous casts, some from originals instone, and all shared a uniform, dark patination. The Musee Rodincertainly lent its authority when the collection went on tour, in that aMusee Rodin curator, Monique Laurent, wrote the Introduction andentries to the catalogue. I2One might say that in a debate about the history of an object, to focus

on judgemental conclusions (who is right? or who has the right?) is besidethe point. What might an approach to the history of sculpture from amaterial standpoint achieve? It might reassert the role of evidence

134 ALEXANDRA PARIGORIS

Auguste Rodin, Jean de Fiennes nu, c. 1886, bronze (posthumous cast).Trammell Crow Centre (formerly LTV), Dallas.

provided by the object itself, evidence too often overlooked, and positionthe ensuing understanding in more secure contexts, thus dispensing withdebates that seek to displace or replace such notions as 'work of art'because of practices, and instead explore 'work of art' as situated withinthese practices. 13

In his essay 'The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction',WaIter Benjamin wrote:The authenticity of a thing is the essence of all that is transmissible from itsbeginning, ranging from its substantive duration to its testimony to the historywhich it has experienced. Since the historical testimony rests on the authenticity,the former, too, is jeopardised by reproduction when substantive duration ceasesto matter.'4

Some art historians working with this important essay have erroneouslyperceived it as a commentary on cinema and modernity. They seem tohave responded to the examples described in the essay, rather than to thephilosophy of history that was being put forward through their agency.In this light, we may be justified in questioning the testimony provided

by work such as the cast of Rodin's Jean de Fiennes nu standing in thelobby of the Trammel! Crow Centre (formerly LTV) in Dallas, though


not to the extent of throwing out its evidence altogether. The BrutonGallery, which supplied the cast, working with the Musee Rodin, hasproduced a legitimate work by Rodin within the strict confines of thelaw. Michael Le Marchant, who runs the gallery, sees his role as one thatenables 'rediscovery and diffusion' of an artist's oeuvre. IS But whataspect of an artist's oeuvre is being diffused? And are not other aspectsbeing diffused at the same time, aspects contained within the verymedium of diffusion, which could not, in principle, be the same from onegeneration to another, and, because of this, carry 'historical testimony' intheir own right? The Jean de Fiennes nu is one of seven works by Rodinnow on view in Dallas. On the one hand, the cast attests to the survivalof the technical means that enabled it to come into existence (technicalmeans of varying standards, according to Chatelain); and on the other,the cast documents all the art-historical aspects that contribute todefining notions of quality: namely, the position of Rodin in the latetwentieth century, the nature of his public in that period, and the mannerin which the taste and collecting habits of the later public are revealed inthe copies made for them. The type of corporate culture that fills its artniche with such a work can be read either as a safe or valuableinvestment (this is an authentic bronze, by a famous sculptor, a workthat can enhance our image) or as an expression of the sclerosing effectsof committee decisions on art purchases (when people opt for the securityof an object whose message is suitably sanitized, in this case divorcedfrom its narrative context and thus not threatening any more).Whichever position is taken, the Trammell Crow version of Jean deFiennes nu can and must be read for what it is: a work 'from an originaledition', yes, but one that bears testimony to the period when it wasproduced as an object, and not back to the period when it was conceived.The Musee Rodin never denied that it owed its existence and financial

upkeep to the marketing of Rodin bronzes in its collection. But Elsenclaims that this role has a pedagogical function as well. I6 The museumhas not only been responsible for diffusing the larger works of Rodinaccording to his testament, but also it has at its disposal the lore of smallworks, parts of works, etc. left in his studio. Even though it is clear thatthe small plasters are more marketable in the twentieth century, and eventhough Rodin may not have commanded the sort of audience he neededto justify casting them in his lifetime, the Musee Rodin must realize thatthey are extending their role of conservation to one of rectification, notto say manipulation, of their heritage. I7 The manipulation does not arisefrom what they are doing - 'casting Rodins' - but from the standpoint

ALEXANDRA PARIGORIS

they are taking. This is less a question of 'clinging to a culture oforiginals' as perceived by Krauss and developed in her postmodernistdiscourser8 than of clinging to the few available verifiable facts. In thiscase the circumstances in which Rodin was produced in the 1980s are anessential part of the history of these Rodins. These works are as much theproduct of Rodin's creativity as the product of an institution delivering alesson. The problem arises because, for all its rigour, the institutionresists facing its role squarely.What kind of history is being produced when the elements that should

be brought forward as evidence are being devalued by claims of fetishismor aura and thus insufficient attention is paid to the information theyprovide?Let me illustrate this point with the example of Raymond Duchamp-

Villon's The Horse of 1914. Excellent histories have been writtenconcerning the bronze casts of this work and its subsequentenlargements. It was left at the sculptor's death in 1918 in the form ofa 48-cm plaster maquette with an armature for a possible loo-cmenlargement.19 One has to agree with the opinion of Sidney Geist, quotedin Hochfield, that the posthumous castings and enlargements of TheHorse 'distort the experience of sculpture in modern times' and 'do notrepresent the sensibility of Raymond Duchamp-Villon'; indeed, in a letterto Alfred Barr (30 August 1938), Jacques Villon, Duchamp-Villon'sbrother (1875-1963), writes that he was unable to fulfil his brother'swishes of casting the enlargement in polished steel, and had to make dowith bronze.2o Does this mean that these postumous casts andenlargements represent nothing? They may not shed light on the statusof Cubist sculpture or the work of Duchamp-Villon in I9I4, but they doindicate how his work entered the history of twentieth-century sculpture.The cast of c. 1930 that was produced by Jacques Villon does, as Geistargued, distort 'an entire movement' (Cubism), but it is also,importantly, evidence of the then perception of Cubist sculpture in thepublic domain and of the form that Cubism, as a language, evolved intowhen it had gained more currency and had come to exist outside theconfines of its initial avant-garde context. Marcel Duchamp's (1887-1968) involvement further complicates the make-up and strategies of thisgroup of brothers without negating their agenda. Thus, the enlarged onemetre-high version of The Horse on view at the Art Institute of Chicago,cast in 1957 by the Galerie Louis CarnS, really belongs to a later period ofthe history of twentieth century sculpture - the period that consecratedworks first produced in studios more than twenty-five years before.


Raymond Duchamp-Villon, The Horse, 1957 version of a 1914 bronze.The An Institute of Chicago.

The correspondence between Katherine Kuh, the then Curator ofModern Painting and Sculpture, and Louis Card: is revealing. Kuh,acting on information supplied by Marcel Duchamp, wrote: 'I under-stand from Duchamp that the large Horse has an edition of only six castsand that the last cast is still available but would have to be cast,.2-]CarnS's response is even more interesting. It informed Kuh that the fifthcast of Duchamp-Villon's Le Grand Cheval had been requested byAlberto Giacometti (1901-66) for exhibition at the forthcoming MilanTriennial in the International Section .H Thus not only Duchamp (inensuring that his brother's work was diffused) but also Giacometti (inselecting the work for a major public event) were representing a view ofDuchamp-Villon that was important, for this was a period when thehistory of twentieth-century sculpture was being written or, put anotherway, when early twentieth-century sculpture was entering history (longafter the dominant modernist outlines of the history of modern paintinghad been well established and were in the process of entrenchedinstitutionalization). 2-3

ALEXANDRA PARIGORIS

We can thus say, without confusing questions of qualitative assessmentwith aesthetic judgement, that a bronze work of sculpture is necessarily atestimony to its period and bears the traces of the period when it wascast. This testimony has to be allowed an independent status in historicalanalysis. The remaining part of this essay will address the question ofbronze as a historically coded and significant material that wasrecognized as such by artists who (i) reacted against it (Picasso,Boccioni), (ii) aspired to its cachet but were not able to work with it forreasons of cost (Gonzalez) or (iii) worked with it and developed newqualities within it (Brancusi).One overriding aspect that has dominated sculpture and its

historiography in the twentieth century is the close attention paid tomaterials and materiality, a concern central to formal and iconographicinterpretations. This period has also witnessed the expansion ofsculpture into a wide range of new materials and new conceptionsworked out through such materials. New materials such as steel, plasticor aluminium, found objects or refuse came to be utilized, as concernswith time, speed and chance came to be embodied through matter. In thislight, bronze can appear ossified, a left-over from another age, an agewhen sculpture was the record of an image in a given material, ratherthan the image derived from the creative possibilities inherent to thematerial. Bronze is an alloy, composed of about 80-5 per cent copper and2-20 per cent tin (even up to 25 per cent) with slight percentages ofphosphorus, lead and zinc. Traditional bronze alloy consisted of 85 percent copper, with 5 per cent each of tin, zinc and lead.24 On their own,the component metals were not precious but some were rare enough tobe prized: copper chiefly but also tin and lead. The prestige of bronzegoes back to Pliny and to the invention of 'Corinthian brass'.25 It is oneof many materials used in sculpture throughout the centuries, but untilthe middle of this century, bronze stood out among the materialsascribed to that art by being man-made. Wood and stone were found innature, ivory was organic. Furthermore, the creation of a work in bronzehas remained a complex, time-consumming, therefore costly, process offabrication, which contributed to its aura. The fabrication of a bronzerequires the team effort of several highly skilled craftsmen. Right up tothe beginning of the twentieth century, a foundry comprised severalfunctions (metiers), of which the more specialized ones of chasers andpatinieres (specialists who applied the patina to a bronze) requiredconsiderable expertise and were separate crafts in their own right.26 Abronze's patina was highly regarded and sought after, like gilding.


Barbara Hepworth in the Morris Singer Foundry, London, in 1964 in from of her Single Form,1964, bronze. Now outside the Unired Nations Headquarters, New York.

Connoisseurs of bronzes looked for the crispness of outline and colour ofpatina, which varied according to the alloy's mix of metals and the skillof the patiniere applying acid washes. 27 It can therefore be argued thatwhat one admired in such works was the product of a workshop ratherthan of a single artist.2.8 In this light the photo of Barbara Hepworth infront of Single Form at the Morris Singer Foundry in London in 1964 isdeceptive because of the one-ta-one focus it gives of the artist and hercreation, and because it belies the existence of a workshop needed tocreate this over-life-sized bronze. The image is important as it bearswitness to what had become a conventional understanding in thetwentieth century of the sculptor working alone in close communionwith his or her material.

At the root of the controversy that accompanies attempts to legitimizeposthumous bronzes lies the only comprehensively articulated discourseon sculpture in the twentieth century: one that was supported by theeloquence of critics and the demonstration of accomplished works. This

ALEXANDRA PARIGORIS

was the debate that put forward carving rather than modelling in thepractice of sculpture. Patrick Elliott was the first to suggest theinteresting link between the rise of concern with 'direct carving' (tailledirecte) in France in the 1920S and the scandal of Rodin's posthumousstone sculptures that shook the art world at the time.2.9 Rodin'sposthumous bronzes did not share that fate, being legitimated by the law.The issue of direct carving or working direct, however, has considerablebearing on my discussion of the materiality of bronze, as it had such animpact on the critical discourse available to sculpture this century.In the English-speaking world, Henry Moore (1898-1986) has done

more than anyone to give coherence to the place of material in the field ofsculpture. Even though by the 1950S he would come to denounce this'fetish', he never failed to stress what had been, in the 1930S when hebegan to make sculptures, the 'very necessary fight for the doctrine oftruth to material and the need for direct carving'.3° Moore alsoacknowledged the impact of Roger Fry's writings on essential form,and of Ezra Pound's account of direct carving in his Gaudier-Brzeska AMemoir (1916),31 not to mention the vicinity of Adrian Stokes' writings,which evoked the emotive response to materials and elements. Moorerealized, in his words, 'the intrinsic emotional significance of shapes',exceeding that of representation, which forced him to 'recognise again theimportance of the material in which [the sculptor] works',32. so that when,in 1934, the notion of 'truth to material' appeared in his statements onsculpture, it contributed with its persuasiveness to entrench carving as theonly acceptable path in sculpture.33 The impact of these ideas on thesubsequent history of sculpture is all too apparent if we consider Moore'sown perceptive appreciation of the work of Brancusi:

Since the Gothic, European sculpture had become overgrown with moss, weeds- all sorts of surface excrescences which completely concealed shape. It has beenBrancusi's special mission to get rid of this overgrowth, and to make us oncemore shape-conscious.34

I suggest that these concerns of truth to material and working directentrenched the discourse about the subject in one exclusive direction,which privileged shape and form above all other sculptural effects. Weneed look no further than to Clement Greenberg to see the effect of thisdiscourse on the critical appreciation of sculpture: at the root of hisnotion of 'construction-sculpture' and 'the liberation from themonolithic' lies the idea of essential form, which informs his notion of'the self-sufficiency of sculpture' .35

Truth to Material: Bronze~ on the Reproducibility of Truth 141

Let us now turn to consider the consequences of these views on theunderstanding of the work of Julio Gonzalez and Constantin Brancusi.The case of Gonzalez's posthumous casts is both familiar and particular.It is familiar in that these works are produced by his heirs, allegedlyacting according to the wishes of the artist who, in their words, wouldhave cast all his works including the irons if he could have afforded it. Itsparticularity resides in the fact that the resulting bronzes are valid beforethe law as it stands only if the forged and welded metal originals areregarded as platres de travail (working plasters used for casting); in otherwords, if their status is thus altered. Rosalind Krauss, in a catalogueessay of a Gonzalez exhibition, which combined posthumous casts withoriginal sculptures in iron, sought to defend these new works. Herforceful arguments betray the limitations of a reading that ignoressurface texturality:

In ending this discussion it might be interesting to confront, straight on, one of theconclusions to be drawn from what I have been saying about Gonzalez's process,his immersion in the modalities of transcription and copying, his distance fromthe metaphoric conditions of assemblage. Although he used metal scrap and theoccasional found object as well, the exigencies of Gonzalez's process meant thatmany of his shapes had to be obtained by reworking the scrap through forgingand certainly relegating the industrial readymade parts - bolts or springs - to

minor areas of the work. Gonzalez's sculpture was not about the transformationswrung by the perceptual association on the quotidian object. Therefore theuniqueness of that object - just this colander or this bicycle seat - was irrelevantto his work. Thus many of the issues of direct-metal working that wouldtheoretically prohibit its translation into bronze are also irrelevant. 36

What does it mean to say 'although he used metal scrap and theoccasional found object as well', as though this 'although' is aconcession? And what does it mean, for someone who approaches thework of art as a semiotic system, to speak of Gonzalez as 'certainlyrelegating the industrial readymade parts - bolts or springs - to minorareas of the work?' What are 'minor areas of the work'? Are theyirrelevancies, aesthetic mistakes on the part of Gonzalez?Krauss' argument rests on a notion that because 'the uniqueness of the

object' is linked to metaphor it is not a relevant concern to Gonzalez.This is confusing enough, but her insistence on what she sees asGonzalez's characteristic mode of 'transcribing' and 'copying' is linked toa wish to close out the possibility of a Surrealist interpretation, howeverbroad, of Gonzalez's work; which results in a need to distance it fromthat of Picasso whose sculpture of the 1930S cannot avoid a Surrealistinterpretation.

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Julio Gonzalez, Harlequin, c. 192.9'""30, bronze (posrhumous cast).Scortish National Gallery of Modern Art, Edinburgh .

The metaphoric conditions of assemblage, in this passage, are those ofSurrealism, those found in such works as Bull's Head, which emergesfrom the chance encounter of a bicycle seat and handlebars. Because theaim of Krauss' essay is to explain and justify the casting of Gonzalez'swork in bronze, the solution seems to be to distance him from Surrealistconcerns, gauged in terms of metaphoric assemblage. This is a verynarrow view of what is Surrealist in Picasso's work or what might beSurrealist in a broader poetical sphere, and excludes any consideration ofwhat elements of Surrealism were parr of a wider context by the 1930S.But what is at stake is whether one simply views the final image createdby Gonzalez in a work such as Harlequin or one includes the meaningthat a low-art, even decidedly non-art, material has on the work: the ironoriginal in the Zurich Kunsthaus or the bronze version in the ScottishNational Gallery of Modern Art in Edinburgh. 37 The problem withGonzalez is that his position in the avant-garde was marginal, and theformulation of the avant-garde itself was elliptic. If we are to accept thatit is his use of materials as much as the images generated that opened upnew creative avenues, we cannot admit the posthumous cast.Krauss is reluctant to explore fully the meaning of forged metal and its

possible affiliations with concerns of the creative possibilities of ordinary

Truth to Material: Bronze~ on the Reproducibility of Truth 143

materials, just as she is little concerned with the practical modalities ofsculpture in the period, when exploration took place in the studio. Shealso positions her critique of Modernism entirely within the post-SecondWorld War orbit of Clement Greenberg. Yet before the First World War,the use of ordinary materials was of great interest to GuillaumeApollinaire's circle and one can safely say that its use was not limitedsolely to the metaphoric possibilities of assemblage as they becameentrenched under Surrealism. Ordinary, non-art materials existed outsidethe system of values represented by the academy, the museum and otherinstitutions of authority. But what is often misunderstood is that theaesthetic developed by Apollinaire and his friends involved negotiatingart with life and not divorcing art from life. 38

It is always claimed that sculpture lagged behind painting inrevolutionary breakthroughs; however, AndnS Salmon's La ]euneSculpture franraise makes clear that avant-garde sculpture, before theFirst World War, shared with painting an anti-bourgeois stance: hisdenigration of the (bourgeois) cult of the shelf belittles the 'objet d'art'fetish of the bibelot, segregating art from life. 39 In this instance Picasso'sAbsinthe Glass, a series of six differently painted (one coated with a layerof sand), as opposed to patinated, bronzes, stands out as a work in whichthe material, bronze, handled in such a way as to obfuscate its qualitylabel, had a specific set of historical connotations, which, furthermore,Salmon's criticism makes clear was a condition of cultural meaning.Probably the most famous advocates of rejection of traditional

sculpture materials were the Futurists, their stance being most notablyexpressed by Umberto Boccioni in his 1912 'Technical Manifesto ofFuturist Sculpture':

4. Destroy the literary and traditional 'dignity' of marble and bronze statues.Refuse to accept the exclusive nature of a single material in the construction ofasculptural whole. Insist that even twenty different types of materials can be usedin a single work of art in order to achieve plastic movement. To mention a fewexamples: glass, wood, cardboard, iron, cement, hair, leather, cloth, mirrors,electric lights, etc. (my emphasis)40

In spite of this disclaimer, Boccioni's surviving sculptures in plaster werecast in bronze in the late 1920S, long after his untimely death in 1916.4I

The polished bronze versions of Unique Forms of Continuity in Space onview in the Museum of Modern Art in New York and the Tate Gallery inLondon obviously do not adhere to its creator's published statements butthey evidence an important development in twentieth-century sculpture,namely, the equation between sleek, polished metal surfaces and

144 ALEXANDRA PARIGORIS

modernity, which has contributed to make Unique Forms of Continuityin Space an icon of what is truly modern in pre-Second World Warsculpture. In this it has surpassed the works that might have held a claimto that invention: Brancusi's polished bronzes, viewed by many critics inthe 1920S and 1930S as an expression of modern technologyY ForBrancusi, however, the identification of his polished works with theproducts of modernity's manufactures was not flattering and resulted in acourt case against the US Customs in 1927 over the status of his bronzeBird in Space of 1926, which had failed to satisfy Customs officials that itwas indeed a work of art and not an object of industrial manufacture.43It is Jacob Epstein's testimony, in defence of Brancusi at this trial, that

reveals to what extent the case also turned around the role of thesculptor, personally, negotiating the mechanical:

'Why is this a work of an?' the lawyer continued.'It pleases my sense of beauty [said Epstein], I find it a beautiful object.''So if we had a brass rail, highly polished and harmoniously curved, it wouldalso be a work of art?''It could become so', said Epstein.'Then a mechanic could have done this thing?' asked the lawyer triumphantly.'No; a mechanic could not have conceived it.'44

Umberto Boccioni, Unique Forms of Continuity in Space,191}, bronze (cast in 1931). Museum of

Modern Art, New York.


Constantin Brancusi, Bird in Space, 19~6,

polished bronze (unique cast) on stone and wood hase.Collection Mrs Hester Diamond, New York.

It is rarely asked, however, whether, and in what sense, the discourse ofthe celebration of modernity and technology is even applicable toBrancusi's concerns, as opposed to a Futurist philosophy. Thus onemight venture that it was indeed Boccioni and not Brancusi who held theday, when Unique Forms of Continuity in Space was cast in bronze in theearly 1930S.45 SO much more was at stake in the polished bronze surfacesthat Brancusi intentionally used.Until now, my argument has been that posthumous reproduction

informs us about the era in which the posthumous casts are made. I nowwish to move my argument to another level in relation to Brancusi, thatis, to an explicit engagement with intentionality in Brancusi's use ofpolished finish. Here my argument draws on the work of QuentinSkinner's application of J. L. Austin's speech and theory tomethodological questions in historiography.46 Accordingly, we cannotdistinguish between two apparently similar cases of finish in Boccioniand Brancusi unless we concern ourselves with the understanding offinish. Furthermore, to ask of this 'understanding' is to say somethingabout the possibilities from which the artist chooses or makes decisions;and the performance of a decision is an intentional activity. In other

ALEXANDRA PARIGORIS

words, that the finish of Boccioni and Brancusi may look the same and,even, fall within plausibly similar contexts is not sufficient to thehistorical understanding of the function performed by polished finish ineither case. That two things are similar does not mean that they fallunder the same description or that further acts of differentiation are notrequired, for clearly it is commonplace to lump together Brancusi andBoccioni as examples of modernity and finish, the machine aesthetic andthe celebration of 'l'esprit nouveau' (the New Spirit), etc. In this light,those who argue that Brancusi is no less guilty than Rodin on the issueof reproduction would point to Brancusi's (admittedly occasional andrare) employment of assistants. This is mistaken. Not only are thecontexts different, but also the understanding of what is at stake, ofwhat is being performed, is radically different. The upshot could well bethat Brancusi's work (as the transformation of certain Symbolistconcerns) is to be, in part, defined against Rodin, but not at all inrelation to Boccioni.First, significance should be accorded to a negative fact: not only did

Brancusi dispense with the work of the patini"ere to supply the patinas ofhis works, but also he dispensed with patina altogether and instead cameto produce the high polish directly from the bronze cast and in theprocess redefined the relationship of sculptor to work and process.47 Inthis manner, Brancusi realised something of the virtue of direct carving asconceptualized by Moore but without the fetishization of the process thatlurks within Moore's formulation of direct carving. Thus Brancusi statedthat

Direct cutting is the road to sculpture, but also the most dangerous for thosewho don't know how to walk. And in the end, direct or indirect, cutting meansnothing, it is the complete thing that COUlltS.48

The work of producing high polish directly from the cast is linked toanother consideration of the highest importance for Brancusi, namely,that although he avoids the fetish of direct carving while recognizing itsvalue, he practises a process of sculpture in which the bronzes are notconceived as casts from modelled objects. This opens the possibility thatthe conventional distinction of sculpture production as either carving ormodelling fails to capture what is distinctive in Brancusi's technique, inwhich illumination and the possibilities of light directly produced(reflection, distortion, absorption, intensity and many other values oflight from a surface) define not only the object but also the possiblerelations that a viewer could entertain with the object:


High polish is a necessity which certain approximately absolute forms demandof some materials. It is not always appropriate, it is even very harmful for certainforms.49

Epstein, too, recognized the importance of light in relation to materialin the new conception of sculpture emerging in this period. For him theinterpretation of this phenomenon was to do with form and vitality, aform inconceivable outside the possibilities of the material:ARNOLD L. HASKELL: I have noticed at many recent exhibitions how muchsculptors are influenced by your methods. They use the rough surface entirelywithout discretion, merely to break up the light. It gives the unpleasantimpression of skin disease or the remains of an attack of smallpox.

EPSTEIN: That is because they make the work smooth and then roughen itafterwards as an afterthought. The texture is a definite and inseparable part ofthe whole. It comes from inside so to speak; it grows with the work.5°

If to Brancusi we add Boccioni, then Epstein, we could, too, add FrankDobson in order to establish a context for this concern with highpolished finish. But what makes the statement 'high polished finish'unique to Brancusi is the role his studio came to play in providing asculptural space where his preoccupation with illumination and lightcould (i) be explored, (ii) be under his direct control and (iii) bestabilized. For this reason, the photographs of Brancusi should beunderstood as an extension of the aesthetic of the sculpture ofillumination, and his instructions to his patrons for the installation ofhis works should be understood as confirmation of the importance of thesetting, the ideal setting, in the imagination of his works.Brancusi's work and its ideology constitute an art of the studio in

terms of which the directives from the maker are indeed a means oftransfer of the maker's scheme (this was understood by John Quinn verywell, hence his instructions for the liquidation of his collection on hisdeath). Within the Futurist ideology the role of high finish is exactly thereverse of what it is for Brancusi: not precious, not a sign of spiritualillumination, nor less a sign of the absolute, and certainly not the productof a studio conception of art; Futurist works, even when they areproduced in studios, are understood to be blueprints for a transformedpublic sphere.5I

Brancusi's photographs and the works that survive with their originalbases attest to an art in which materials are organized in a hierarchicalmanner: they range from organic (wood) to mineral (stone and marble)and man-made (stainless steel and bronze), allowing also for admixturesof plaster and concrete. Though rough is often opposed to smooth we

ALEXANDRA PARIGORIS

cannot say, faced with works such as Sorceress (in the Solomon R.Guggenheim Museum) or Torso of a Young Man (at the PhiladelphiaMuseum of Art), that the roughly hewn works are only the ones inwood and that wood alone is used for bases. What we can say,however, is that polish is a quality Brancusi applied to well-definedworks, and that for him the polished bronze surface was one of utmostimportance and significance. Brancusi left an extraordinary and rarifiedoeuvre of simple yet immeasurably subtle forms, enshrining them in themost obfuscating aphorisms, designed, one feels, to ensure that we thespectators are exactly where he the artist wants us to be. Brancusi'sabsolute resides, one would think, outside his material, but hisaphorisms indicate, I believe, that the sculptor's statement lies in hisgesture, though this may appear sublimated. It is this intimate relationbetween the artist and the resulting work of art that is most importantin a work by Brancusi. He made sure that his forms were individuallypolished and finished. The works stand as testimony of the high regardand seriousness with which he held the 'bronze-sculptor's Art'. Hencethe careful instructions on the maintenance of his works once they hadleft his studio and entered the environment of the collector; an exampleof which is the letter to John Quinn dated 5 June 1918. In thisimportant document, Brancusi details the care that must be taken withhis bronze, A Muse (1917), and, in an often overlooked passage, demursfrom giving an opinion on the conservation of the Epstein bronzes inthe lawyer's collection. Brancusi writes that he cannot tell Quinn whatto do because he is not familiar with Epstein's working methods, andbecause he does not know what his intentions were.52 Theseinstructions bear witness to the attention he brought to the finish ofhis work, and more importantly to the place of intentionality in thisprocess.Noguchi's recollections of the time he acted as studio assistant in the

late 1920S confirm the importance of the sheen. The bronzes' finish andclarity were carefully thought out and brought out and not left to thehazards of the foundry patini"eres. Clarity was essential to form as claritypermitted the perception of the absolute in form. This thinking through,these acts of attention to each work, even on the rare occasions whenassistants are present, is qualitatively different from, not better than, thetraditional workshop practices characteristic of Rodin's production. Theform of attention reaches into the production of works not conceived asmultiples (for no two are identical, and never was any work conceived asa multiple) but as objects created for the solution of sculptural problems.


These objects would soon come to take on symbolic significance, asignificance that could not obtain with multiples or with posthumousproductions, since posthumous productions for the kind of processinaugurated by Brancusi would not permit us to say among whatpossibilities decisions were being made. Thus the unease felt before themany versions in different materials of, for example, Torso of a YoungMan or A Muse, and which has provoked responses ranging fromoutright denunciation of the claims that Brancusi made for his work tojustification on the part of his heirs to cast his work posthumously,demonstrates a failure to understand the significance of Brancusi's kindof production. Geist is justified in his equation of Brancusi's absolute andhis use of materials, whose sole justification is their adaptability tocertain ends. 53 This is attested by his desire to have a golden finish on theiron Column at Tirgu Jiu, Romania, whether the technical means wereavailable or not. 54Brancusi's originality resides not in the cult of uniqueness but in the

development of a conception of sculpture which, in sidestepping thecarving/modelling distinction, created a body of work that wasconfronted, unintentionally, with the issue of seriality. That he did notset out to do a series is important, and this 'not setting out to do, butending up doing', this unintentionality, is what is distinctive about hisapproach and the resulting works. This is how one must understand hiscalculated response to John Quinn's request in 1917 for a cast of themarble Muse already in Arthur B. Davies' collection, not as a disavowalof his philosophy.55 In this respect, if a psychoanalytic interpretation ofBrancusi's work were at all viable, it would have to deal with thisunconscious resistance and thus could not possibly be performed inrelation to posthumously produced works, such as The Muse in theNorton Simon Collection, for example.The bronze-casting process with its use of fire and worked matter no

doubt added to Brancusi's pose of the artist as creator (especiallysignificant here would be the emphasis he placed on the Symbolist themeof Prometheus). Bronze was a dignified medium and a meaningful one forBrancusi. It held a special place in his oeuvre, embodying soaring flightand sacredness. These are no doubt traditional positions, but the practicethat accompanied them was less so. The self-portrait photograph thatBrancusi often gave to friends and critics is deceptive: in it he appears asthough working in a forge, when in fact it is just a contrived play of lightand shadow that transforms his studio environment. The link betweenthe fire of the forge necessary to bronze-making and the light that results

ALEXANDRA PARIGORIS

Constantin Btancusi, The Muse, 1912., bronze (posthumous edition of five, cast no. I)on a limestone base. Notton Simon Museum, Pasadena, CA.

from a polished bronze is made explicit. 56 From this light stem thedivergent possibilities of Brancusi's practice.Must we conclude that bronze carried no distinctive meaning in the

twentieth century? Brancusi's self-portrait attests to an awareness of thepower and fire associated with the forge and work in metal, but I hope tohave shown that there were enough cases to prove that bronze, as amaterial, was central to sculptural work and, furthermore, though onemight denigrate the term, that aura (the golden glow) and finish have aplace in the history of sculpture along with the ideology behind the set of


values they support or seek to define. Far from needing to say thatreproducibility is the effective critique of finish, I have sought to discussthe issues surrounding reproduction in ways that secure historicity andspecificity without the contrivances of uniqueness.

9Venus a Go Go, To Go

EDWARD ALLINGTON

FIRST FLASHBACK: NEW YORK, 1987The taxi, yellow, decrepit and large, lurches over the potholes and steamvents of New York's streets. It's uncomfortable in the back where I'msitting with a strange resin object cradled on my lap. It's precious to me,this thing which for now may be allowed to pass as a sculpture, or theshadow of a sculpture. I'm out hunting in the urban manner, motorized,and guided by the yellow pages. I need a practical solution, I needreproduction, and I need it now. To me this object, which I hold in loveand hate, is a source, it is the beginning of a new sculpture. One is notenough, I want nine and I want them quickly, cheaply. And so we driveon, with me in the back filled with hope and the dread of wasted time. Toride in a taxi is to wait while in motion. Only the presence of a lovercould alleviate the tortures peculiar to this mode of transport. The choiceis between watching the cost of time accumulate on the meter or seekingdiversion. But why should I worry about the meter? After all this ride ison the gallery. Perhaps because numbers irritate me, especially in theform of minutes equals dollars.So I allow my eyes to wander and my mind to follow them. I glance at

the rear-view mirror. The reflection of his face, then at the card with hisID photograph attached to the crude protective screen of pop-rivetedplexiglass and aluminium which separates me from him. The comparisonbetween this portrait and its bellicose owner requires quite a leap of theimagination. Either he's able to believe the photograph is still areasonable reproduction of his physiognomy or he simply can't bebothered to change it. Time has had different effects on the man and hisphotographic representation. The image is pallid, rather too blue incolour, while the man himself - well, he's just got older.We go over the Brooklyn Bridge, light flickering through the web of its

supporting cables, the East River, huge, glittering, beneath us. My mindbegins to focus on the object on my lap - what it means, what itrepresents, as well as the simpler problem of finding someone who'll make

Venus a Go Go, To Go

Edward Allingcon, Roman from the Greek. in America, 1987, painted wood andplaster figures . Private collection.

a mould and then pull casts from it. I could do this myself, but I don't havethe time for that kind of indulgence.The immaculate beige Watch Tower buildings are passing on our left.

And I think of the effects of reproductive technology in our culture, ofWaiter Benjamin's famous essay, 'The Work of Art in the Age ofMechanical Reproduction'. Within the Watch Tower buildings repro-duction is the basis of a religion. Those immaculate walls conceal the hubof the ]ehovah's Witnesses' publishing empire, where religious tracts rolloff the presses, being logged and scockpiled for worldwide distribution.Copy after copy, the same message constantly updated, they call theirreligion the truth. This is evangelism founded upon the reproductivetechniques of printing. It's a black-and-white issue after all. Accept theword and the reward is everlasting life; refuse and it's death. They spreadtheir message through little magazines and books delivered co you theold-fashioned way by preachers disguised as door-co-door salesmen.They tend to be a bit evasive when it comes co discussing the importance

154 EDWARD ALLINGTON

of these buildings, though. And why not? Truth and reproduction areuncomfortable bedfellows.But the buildings are far behind us now, the meter's marking time and

dollars. The taxi's moving through the bleak edges of the city, closer tothat destination so appropriate to my quest: Coney Island, first town ofshallow dreams and fakery, opened in 1906 as an electric dreamland ofersatz forms, a world for the reproduction of fantasy. I

This thing on my knees is an object whose exact status is very hard toestablish. Roughly speaking, it can be called a sculpture - though only byproxy. You might say it's a replica: that's the word on the small factsheet that came with it, but I can't help feeling that this description ismore generous than it should be for a resin cast of the Medici Venus inimitation-marble finish.It's a female torso: no arms; no legs; no head. The body is bent forward

a little, making the curve of the belly prominent. The hips are square andfull, the buttocks smooth, the breasts slightly rounded domes like theinsides of wine glasses - let me tell you, it's pretty damn sexy. All thesetactile curves are set on a base of real stone, ideal for the coffee table ormantelpiece, its nudity presumably acceptable for the home because it hasa provenance of sorts. I paid over $300 for it at the shop in the Metro-politan Museum of Art. The fact sheet has their stamp on it to prove it.Museums are our temples to authenticity. They house the real, the

actual objects that signify our cultural truths. They employ people - allthose experts - to make sure that these treasures are, and remain,authentic. But this thing jumping about on my lap as the taxi goes overthe potholes is a fake. For sure no one is going to be fooled by it. Itcorresponds to its original only in size and shape. The materials aremodern - anyone can see it's not old. Does it contain any kind of truth,though? Is it capable of transmitting any of the awe we are asked to feelwhen in the presence of the object that formed its matrix - the objectfrom which the mould was taken to spawn so many plastic copies? Theproblem in this particular case is acute. My fact sheet clearly states thatit's a copy (in resin) of a Roman copy (in stone) of a presumed Greekoriginal (in bronze), presumed lost. In other words, a copy of a copyfrom something which doesn't exist.

CUT TO REAL TIME AND THE QUESTION:

DO PLASTIC VENUSES TELL LIES?

My Medici Venus, fake marble, and beautiful in its own peculiar way,needs its fact sheet, that small piece of paper I still keep on file. Its short

Venus a Go Go~ To Go 155

script and museum stamp frame or qualify an object that wouldotherwise be nothing but an ornament of dubious worth. The fact sheetimbues this Venus with a moral standing, with educational value. Itenables her to transmit information about art, and the institutionalknowledge of museums. Since the Enlightenment, modern Westernconcepts of artistic value have had little to do with religious patronage orthe production of icons. Even before the first public museums werecreated,2 the authority of the church was being replaced with a new,secondary code of morality based on reason, substituting for thecultivation of virtue and vice an ethic of 'doing good' and 'doing harm' towhich art had integral importance. As Diderot's Encyclopedie article,'interessant', indicates, a work of art owes its interest to its normal socialcontent and the artist must therefore be both 'philosophe et honnetehomme'. And Diderot summed up his philosophy of art in the famoussentence: 'To make virtue attractive, vice obvious, ridicule forceful: thatis the aim of every honest man who takes up the pen, the brush or thechisel' .3This moral and educative directive for art spawned divergent attitudes

to the notion of reproduction. On the one hand, by the mid-eighteenthcentury, the development of the Grand Tour as an essential prerequisite tothe education of a gentleman or man of taste had accelerated the develop-ment of a significant trade in reproductions of antique sculpture. Inessence, this was the origin of the modern souvenir, which tourists seek soavidly and to which museum shops - with their fact sheets - still pander.On the other hand lay the complex and contradictory Neo-classical

attitude towards imitation. Hugh Honour explains it succinctly.So far from having anything of the servility of the copy, the practice of

imitation was, according to Reynolds, 'a perpetual exercise of the mind,a continual invention'. Mengs was also careful to emphasize thedistinction between copying and imitation: 'but he who effectivelystudies and observes the productions of great men, with true desire toimitate them, makes himself capable of producing works which resemblethem because he considers the reasons by which they are done and thismakes him an imitator without being a plagiarist'. Hence the contemptwith which Canova and other Neo-classical sculptors regarded thepractice of copying even the greatest of antique statues.4

Yet this strong moral directive against mere reproduction paradoxi-cally led to the manufacture of still more copies. The Neo-classicistdemanded that nature should be depicted only in its ideal, unblemishedor 'true' state. Since the antique represented precisely that ideal from

EDWARD ALLINGTON

which a new universal art would be born, students in the academies wererigorously trained to draw and model from casts taken from the greatestworks of antiquity.Just as our older art schools are still inhabited by such derelict casts, so

the legacy of these contradictory attitudes remains with us. Associatedwith tourism and kitsch, the reproduction is regarded as a debasement ofthe essential value residing in the ideal original. However, that value istransmitted largely through photographs and three-dimensional forms ofreplication, such as my Venus. Hence the casting services and shopsassociated with the great museums in Paris, London and New York.To some extent, this question of the original and its copy is more of a

problem in the case of sculpture than it is in the apparently similarinstance of painting. In earlier periods, paintings became known throughprints and many were actually produced for dissemination in this way.The obvious distinction, however, between the techniques of print-making and painting left the viewer in no doubt that the unique materialobject that was the original was not to be confused with the reproductionthat propagated its image or message. As far as sculpture is concerned,the problem was not so much that technically distinct forms ofreproduction were not available (they were), but rather that many ofthe traditional techniques of sculpture were, as they remain, inthemselves essentially reproductive. As a souvenir for the aspiranthighbrow tourist, my Venus may well be a kind of fake - but then so wasits original if the fact sheet has it right. And it's surely more: a legacyrendered solid, as it were, one that concentrates in itself complex andcontradictory histories.But where are these histories and the values associated with them

located? Within the object or somewhere else? Does a sculpture entirelyexist as a purely material thing or as a conceptually more complex entity?Richard Wollheim usefully distinguished between two commonlyopposed theories: 'the ideal theory that works of art are mental entities,and the presentational theory ... that works of art have only immediatelyperceptible properties', rejecting both of them in any undiluted form. sIris Murdoch, though hardly in agreement with Wollheim's Wittgen-steinian argument, refutes the purely presentational theory in terms moresuccinct and accessible than those used by Wollheim, usefully raising thecase of sculpture on the way.

A work of art is of course not a material object, though some works of art arebodied forth by material objects so as to seem to inhere in them. In the case of astatue, the relation between the material object and the art object seems close, in

Venus a Go Go, To Go 157

the case of a picture less so. Poems and symphonies are clearly not materialobjects. Works of art require material objects to keep them continually available(our memories fade) and some require performance by secondary artists. All artobjects are 'performed' or imagined first by the artist and then by his clients, andthese imaginative and intellectual activities or experiences may be said to be thepoint or essence of art.6

It's interesting that Murdoch should indicate that the experience ofsculpture seems more bound to the physical object than is generally thecase with other forms of art, even though, for her, the material object isnecessary mainly to body forth an experience of a distinctly separatemental object. Such a conceptual object would, of course, already beinformed by existing knowledge, by established ways of seeing. In theessay 'I Think Therefore I Art', Thomas McEvilly describes the mentalobject that constitutes the aesthetic experience as follows:

Theories, of course are things; they are what Edmund Hussel called neomanticobjects, that is, mental objects. Every thought or concept is an object, and everyobject has form and aesthetic presence (what does a centaur look like? anangel?). There is, in other words, an aesthetics of thought with its own styles andits own formalism?

The problem that besets sculpture, perhaps more than it does the otherarts, is to determine to what extent the material object can be said tobody forth the Husselian 'neomantic object'. This problem applies evento those art works that are unique material objects, for in time theysuffer, deteriorate, require restoration, they may even have decayed sobadly that in part they require to be substantially replaced. In these cases,the term 'restoration' seems too loose - it would be more accurate tospeak of refabrication. As for reproductions - replicas, copies, call themwhat you will- the problem seems endemic. With each impression, eachcast taken from the matrix or the original something, some small detail,gets lost. Today we most readily assume that which is lost must be theartist's touch.

SECOND FLASHBACK: REGINA, 1985We're deep in the Canadian plains and it's cold outside, lethally cold.The television stations issue warnings at regular intervals: don't walkoutside unless it's absolutely necessary; drive in convoys. To underlinethese messages the news is filled with stories which sound like urbanmyths. There is a couple whose car had broken down; they had not beenin a convoy. She was alive because she stayed in the car. He died; he frozeto death trying to make it from the car to the nearest house.

EDWARD ALLINGTON

It's hard to believe because it's so deceptively beautiful out there, butwith the temperature running from minus twenty to minus forty with thewind-chill factor, the danger's real. It's a world of whiteness, virtuallydevoid of life, where the snow is so white and crisp it sings snow music asyou walk on it. A world where the moisture in your nostrils freezes witha sinus crunch as you step out of the hotel, and if you start to feel warmand comfortable out there in the whiteness, you should know that thismeans your body has started to succumb to hypothermia, leaving themind - that site of sensory and aesthetic pleasure - right out of the loop.It's going to look good, and who knows, it might even feel good - butyou will be starting to die.Here in the gallery it's warm and safe, as if the imaginary divide that

separates the gallery from the world, a world within a world, has beendefined climatically rather than by a priori concepts of space. We're herewithin this art space, this safe space, a world within the world of ice,cabin fever and potential death, to install a group exhibition. It's calledSpace Invaders.My task here is relatively simple. I have a room and some works, some

material objects, to place inside it. There's a certain ritual attached tothis task: after setting the sculptures up, I walk out of the room and try toforget everything for a while before going back to see how the sculpturessit together, one piece against another, how the space between them isarticulated. The aim being to make them resonate in the space, to getthem to look as if there's simply no other place they could be, as ifthey've always been there. To achieve this I need to clear my mind, so asto be able to go back and see with clean eyes. These periodic excursionsfrom my part of the exhibition are also a good opportunity to check onwhat all the other artists are doing.On one of these walkabouts, I stop to talk to the French artist Bertrand

Lavier. Bertrand is making a new work for the show. He's standing therein the gallery, pipe in mouth, in front of two rear wings from an oldAmerican car. They're fixed, pinned to the gallery wall like a butterfly.He's holding a broad brush which he's using to apply thick, even strokesof Liquitex, which happens to be the only paint he will use. The paint ismixed so as to match exactly the actual colour of the car wings, the onlydifference being that of texture. He stops painting so we can talk for awhile. I like these works a lot and as I stand there admiring the piece;Bertrand makes a joke, one with a serious intent, but funny nonetheless.He says, 'You know, today I am painting with the touch of Van Gogh,but tomorrow? I don't know. Perhaps the touch of Gauguin'. The point

Venus a Go Go, To Go 159

Bertrand Lavier, Belvedere, 1985, Liquirex acrylic painr on sreel . Privare collecrion.

IS, he's doing his utmost to apply the paint so there's no 'touch'whatsoever.

CUT BACK TO VENUS AND HER LIES - OR OTHERWISE

My lovely plastic Venus is also totally devoid of any evidence of hermaker's hand. No touch of genius here, just the slightly warm surface ofresin impregnated with marble dust. Remember, it's a copy of a copy ofan original only 'presumed' to have existed. Making copies was integralto the methods of the Roman sculptor. The demand for replicas ofcelebrated Greek works to decorate villas and palaces makes it seemreasonable that there was once a Greek original of my plastic Venus but,in any case, practice in the traditional Roman workshop celebratedcopying. Apprentices learnt from the master; artisans used castingtechniques to turn clay models into wax and then into bronze. For a longtime it was considered that some form of pointing machine was knownto the ancient world, so closely do certain types conform to a standard.These traditional methods remained largely unchanged and untouched

even throughout the Renaissance and beyond. But the fact was obscured- or at least repictured - by the revolution in thought that accompaniedthe rise of Romanticism in the eighteenth century, transforming thestatus of the artist. Jean Chatelain puts it like this:

r60 EDWARD ALLINGTON

The revolutionary upheaval which shattered the traditional workshop systemand the advent of an individualistic philosophy, followed the rise ofRomanticism, and the development of the art market and speculation destroyedthis unity and substituted a hierarchy among the arts. All these factorscontributed to the emergence of a new concept, that of the artist as an inspired,exceptional being, endowed by providence or by nature with a gift for creating,innovating - for doing what others had not yet done - and so personal, sospontaneous, was this endowment that it could blossom only within the contextof total liberty, supporting neither guidance nor hindrance.8

As Chatelain explains, this new notion of the artist changed the way artwas seen and sold. In other words, it is to the Romantic vision that weowe the idea of inspiration rendered solid by the artist's touch. The mythis now so deeply embedded within modern notions of art that it is takenas given by most spectators as they mentally release the work of art fromthe material object which bodies it forth. It's even applied retrospectivelyto objects quite innocent of the concept of art. There are of course someworks to which it can be applied with accuracy, but normally within thedomain of sculpture, its fragility is revealed by the continuation oftraditional techniques such as bronze casting. Here, at best, it iscompromised. In the light of much contemporary sculpture, it hardlyapplies at all. Reproduction within traditional practice is represented bythe limited edition that Chatelain discusses in detail:

The basic role on which this compromise is founded is that the 'matrix' fromwhich the skilled artisans work to produce the original edition should be madeby the creating artist's own hands and that their final completion be overseen bysome agreed authority, usually, but not always, the artist. The notion of the firstedition is simply that of all the technically possible copies from the 'matrix'. Thefirst will usually be considered the most noble, beautiful and accurate, and thefirst edition will usually be small in number (under ten examples). The reason forthis is usually a balance between what is economically most advantageous to

artist, artisans, agents and buyers alike. Sometimes the 'matrix' can only sustaina certain number of copies before failing. Sometimes, however, the notion of theoriginal edition is used to fallaciously promote exclusivity which brings us to thevery opposite of the first edition, the concept of mass-produced art.9

If, in these cases, it can be said that the artist's touch has at least been'mediated' to some degree, what of the compound manifestations ofmaterials, found objects and the conceptual actions of contemporarysculptural practice, Rosalind Krauss' 'sculpture in the expanded field'?IOIf we have reservations about the romantic notion of genius' touch in theface of these phenomena, it is well to remember that the situation is notentirely new. One of Rodin's major contributions to modern sculpturelay in his revolutionary use of the then novel technique of photography to

Venus a Go Go, To Go r6r

propagate images of his work - and, paradoxically, of himself as the verytype of creative genius who gave birth to unique objects somehow frozenat the moment when they left the master's hand. The image was, ofcourse, quite false. Methods of reproduction were essential to hispractice. Rodin used casts and moulds to build a library of parts, whichwere subsequently recombined to collage new sculptures. He establishedwhat amounted to a sculpture factory, employing pointing and enlargingmachines as well as skilled stone-carvers to produce his work. What'smore, it has survived Rodin himself. Of course, many Rodins remainunique, either literally or in Chatelain's sense as a numbered cast from anauthorized edition, but thanks to the artist's legacy to the FrenchGovernment, it is still possible to obtain new, posthumous andcompletely 'authentic' bronzes issued by the Musee Rodin.But back to my Venus, a carapace of resin impregnated with marble

dust. She's a tricky little number, but maybe she contains truth after all.Not the kind of truth that is bodied forth to constitute the neomanticobject you might identify as a work of art, but a kind of truth about thenature of sculpture itself. More often than not, sculpture is dependentupon processes which by their very nature deny the artist's touch. Takethe clay model, that first rendering which is made to be immediatelydestroyed, washed from the moulds, merely one among a number offabrications, which, though under the sculptor's control, are notexecuted by the artist. The sculptor's vision is realized throughcollaborative effort. You might say that the sculptor's role may belikened to that of the cinematic 'auteur' or a composer of music. In thislight the current liking for sculptors' drawings becomes immediatelyunderstandable, for in them at least the artist's touch is guaranteed.

Perhaps, just as my Metropolitan Venus, shadow of its presumptivelylost original, product of an absent matrix, may be said to have noverifiable singular genesis, so a great deal of sculpture may be said tohave no originating centre. It issues from a type of void, not from a set ofdefinable actions akin to those made by touches of a brush on canvas. Ifyou're not hopelessly wedded to the romantic notion of the inspiredartist, to the touch of genius, you may be able to see that the beauty andwonder of sculpture as an art lies precisely in its use of reproductivetechniques, of collaborative work combining the skills of more than oneperson. If in some respects the production of sculpture may be likened tothe production of music, and admittedly this is an analogy whichcollapses if pushed too far, then it might be said that there is a matrixgenerated and to some degree controlled by the composer, but for its


realization it assumes a base in a multiply skilled community, in theexistence of reproductive techniques and performances by people otherthan the artist, or as we might say, as well as the artist. Perhaps theanalogy with music could be used to help us to see why sculpture today,sculpture in the expanded field, has, like music, become so divergent inits manifestations.From the introduction of Minimalism and, more importantly, of

Conceptual Art in the 1960s, expression no longer seems the driving forcewithin art practice. The significance of Conceptual Art relies not on anynovelty of thought (art has always involved the conceptual, as Wollheimand Murdoch recognized in their different ways), but rather on theattempt to remove value completely from the object that bodies forth thework of art. But, as McEvilly noted,

Prior to the 1960s, conceptual art already existed in a variety of forms whichwere not regarded as comprising a separate genre. Magritte and Picabia, forexample, produced conceptual drawing in the 1920S. Duchamp and Man Raypractised conceptual sculpture. It was the impasse of Formalist hegemony in theearly 1960s which had become virtually tyrannical in its exclusion of conceptualelements and of social reference that caused conceptual art to be specified as aseparate genre. II

If, within the traditional practice of sculpture, reproductive technologymay be regarded as a device which not only produced objects but alsoinvested them with value as objects, Conceptual Art employedreproductive techniques and other strategies that denied the value ofthe artist's touch to favour not the material object but the neomanticentity constituted by the idea or concept. The history of the first'conceptual sculpture', Marcel Duchamp's Bicycle Wheel, his originaland most important 'readymade', makes the differences clear, for, likemy false Venus, this is a work dependent upon reproduction; it also had a'presumed' original, now lost.This famous work, a bicycle wheel on a stool, is usually displayed in

museums or illustrated in books with the label: Bicycle Wheel I9I3~

Neuilly. In one sense, this is correct: for Duchamp, it was the conceptthat mattered, not the object. However, as an object, the title is alwaysincorrect. There have been thirteen versions of this work and there is noway to establish the form and configuration of the first one, the one madein 1913 at Neuilly. It is thought to have been discarded by Duchamp'ssister when she cleared his studio following her brother's move to NewYork. The lack of evidence to verify this first version has led tospeculation concerning its actual appearance.

Venus a Go Go~ To Go

It would be interesting to know what the original wheel was propped upon.Since there is no written description, nor photographs or eyewitnesses, we areleft with speculations. As Eke Bonk remarked to William Camfield, the tallkitchen stool seen in the 1917 photograph is a typically American piece offurniture, foreign to a European eye. It stands 29 Y2" tall as opposed to the 16%"height of the usual European stool. The closest thing that comes to mindresembling a tall stool is a three-legged sculpture easel.12

If Bernard Brunon is right, then the original was quite different from thesubsequent replicas. The second version to which Brunon refers, thatmade by Duchamp in New York in 1916, is also lost. We have only thephotographs. The first version still extant was made much later byDuchamp and Sidney Janis (Janis bringing the wheel and fork back fromFrance) for a show at the Sidney Janis Gallery in 1951. This is the versionnow on view at the New York Museum of Modern Art. The fourthversion was made for the Moderna Museet in Stockholm by UIE Lindeand P. O. Ultuedt. Another replica was made by Richard Hamilton in1963 and, finally, an edition of eight was produced under the directsupervision of Marcel Duchamp by the Galleria Schwartz, Milan, in1964. Duchamp took great pleasure in these reproductions, believing thateach new version released the concept from the tyranny of the object thatbodied it forth. In this entirely modern reconfiguration, reproductionfunctions as a means of diminishing the value of the object and with itwhat Wollheim called the presentational theory of art. In the BicycleWheel, the immediately perceptible properties of the work are undercutby the work's dubious history, its mythical origin and the subsequentreplications whose various manifestations all differ in detail but areusually accorded a single title and date, the date Duchamp gave for itsconceptual inception, but one quite inaccurate for any of the remainingmaterial objects.This history suggests a new idea. If the mental entity, the neomantic

object, is all-important and the material object that bodies it forth nomore than a cipher or analogue serving to represent or, in Murdoch'sterms, perform it, then there is no reason why a work of art cannotexist in mass-produced form as an endless edition, the sculpturalequivalent to the record or compact disc. Several artists - the GermanKaterina Fritsch, for example - have attempted something like this, butto my knowledge only one has made a thorough exploration of thismeans of propagating and marketing a truly mass-produced work of artwith the potential to achieve the objective completely. A real work ofart capable of being sold in supermarkets, this work or project is LesLevine's Disposables of 1966.

EDWARD ALLlNGTON

Les Levine, Disposables, 1966, vacuum-formed polystyrene. Courtesy Les Levine.

In a self-conscious parody of capitalist methods of mass-production anddistribution, Levine mass-produced a line of so-called Disposables fromexpandable polystyrene - better known as Styrofoam - which emerged straightfrom the factory in sixty different styles and thirty colours. Levine proceeded todistribute them in bulk packages of ten thousand units to buyers, retailing at avolume price of $3 per unit .'3

Not only did these works involve the eradication of the artist's touch.Levine simply had the idea, then 'phoned in his order to the plasticsmanufacturer. Totally undercutting the notion of exclusivity normallyassociated with the art object, the Disposables were available in bulk fora price which actually reflected the cost of their production. Levine'sposition was admirable in its thoroughness and went beyond mere


questions of production and distribution. 'Levine took the renegade rolestill further by heretically claiming that he didn't care what the objectslooked like. The point was for people to "use" his art for as long as theyfelt like, and when they grew tired of it to chuck it.'14 As he pithilyproclaimed to Rita Reif of the New York Times:

To be disposable something must be made to be destroyed as soon as the ownerwishes ... To be truly disposable a work of art must be as available as Kleenexand cheap enough to throwaway without compunction ... in a fantasy-oriented,consumer-oriented society, culture is just one more thing to be consumed. I5

Levine's Disposables established a position at the extreme end of whatWollheim called the ideal theory. Without actually disappearing, theobject was reduced to its minimal form as a means to body forth thework of art. By industrially replicating his Disposables and pegging themat such a low price, Levine implicitly questioned the actual value of otherart objects and suggested a form for a means of art production equivalentto the marketing of music records or compact discs.The plastic Disposables are a structural paradox; their production and sale as artproduce a double bind. They challenge the market mechanisms that restrict thesupply of certain works of art, making it clear that this restriction is not due torarity or scarcity, but to economic strategy. Levine thus notes that Noland'sstripe paintings could easily be manufactured like awning fabric, with stripframes to match, at virtually no decrease in quality. If this is so, then theperpetuation of high art in the midst of mass-production is nothing short ofsocial hallucination. By signing contracts with department stores for sales ofmillions of Disposables ($1.25 each), Levine is filling a niche in the ecology of arteconomics - and in the process may make as much money as Kenneth Noland.Hence Levine, as an artist, sees little use in uniqueness or pseudouniqueness, butonly in well-considered business methods, a juxtaposition of kitsch and high artwhich brings to mind the methods of Frank Zappa. I6

After this, is it possible to say that a work of art - a sculpture - containsa singular truth? Romantic thought would seem to offer the possibility ofan absolute value embodied, held captive within a solid object that sitspregnant in the gallery waiting for you, the viewer, to release it. But thereproductive methods of sculpture would seem to cast doubt on thisproposition. For the production and replication of art does not reproducean absolute value again and again. It is not a black-and-white issue likemaking icons and printing Watch Tower tracts in which the message isconstantly updated but always the same. The void at the centre of thereproductive practices of sculpture comes out of a refusal ofepistemological certainty. As McEvilly has it: 'Those who insist oncertainty of knowledge resist recognition of the aesthetic of thought since


it casts doubt on the distinction between truth and beauty ... andespecially on the category of truth in and for itself'. I7The aesthetics of thought have to do with the beauty of uncertainty,

like the uncertain experience of art. Not only do the material objects ofart change with time, but also do the neomantic objects as they aremodified by new theories and new social constructs. Sculpture is areproductive art: that is part of its beauty. And my reproduction Venus,image of the Goddess of Love, presides over the act of reproduction. Shemay not be telling the truth, but I'm pretty certain that she isn't tellinglies.

FINAL FLASHBACK: CONEY ISLAND, 1987I've arrived. I'm in the shop and the taxi driver is outside waiting. He'sjust sitting there taking a long draw on a cigarette while his reproducedself sits fading, facing an empty back seat.This place is nothing like I'd expected. It's a glass-fronted shop

overrun with children. There are tables in the centre of the shop coveredin plaster casts, each one being given a multicoloured going-over by abesmocked infant. I'm standing in the middle of this mayhem talking tothe owner. He's loquacious, he's enthusiastic, he's happy. Surprisingly,so am I. This situation is pretty useful from my point of view. It's not myidea of fun, but it's allowing me to see examples from virtually everymould he has on his shelves. His idea is, why throwaway all the dudcasts when they can provide this much fun? No doubt there is acommercial angle to it as well, but all the same ...Why am I so happy? Well, in amongst all the vivid and incomplete

casts turning technicolour before my very eyes, I've noticed someminiature versions of the Nike of Samothrace. This interests meenormously as I'm more or less certain where they originated from -God knows how many moulds ago. You see, the Louvre produces castsexactly this size, reductions of the massive antique figure in its collection.I express interest; we talk numbers, we talk money. A deal is made for ahundred-plus spares. In this Coney Island paradise I have found thematerial for a new work. Soon they will arrive in my studio, and whatwill I do with them when they get there? I will use them to body forth awork of art, of course. We move on to my Medici Venus, where again werapidly agree on the number of casts, a date for delivery and a veryagreeable price.Back into the taxi, and back towards New York, with me feeling very

happy, not only do I have my Venus to go, but also I'm pretty certain


Installation in the Diane Brown Gallery, New York, in 1987, showing Edward AlIington'sVictory Boxed, painted wood and plaster figures. Collection of the artist.

he'll make a mould for himself as well. My Medici Venus, MetropolitanMuseum beauty, resin table-top delight, reproduced and reproducedagain and again, an endless love object. Venus ad infinitum.

References

1 Miranda Marvin: Roman Sculptural Reproductions or Polykleitos: The Sequel

I Inv. no. 1801. Ancient Sculpture in the Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek, museum catalogueby Frederik Poulsen (Copenhagen, 1951), no. II3, p. 101.

2 Dr Mette Moltesen, the present Curator at the Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek, is currentlyproducing new catalogues and labels for the collection. I should like to thank her forher generous hospitality, and hope that no one in the museum will take my remarksabout their old labels as any reflection on that wonderful institution today.

3 Peter Rockwell, The Art of Stoneworking (Cambridge, 1993); Michael Pfanner,'Ober das Herstellen von Portrats', Jahrbuch des Deutschen ArchaologischenInstituts, 104 (1989), pp. 157-257; Elizabeth Bartman, Ancient Sculptural Copies inMiniature (Leiden, 1992), pp. 66-72.

4 Bartman, Ancient Sculptural Copies, pp. 13-14.5 Visitors to the J. Paul Getty Museum in Malibu can share the experiences of visitors

to the Roman 'Villa of the Papyri' in Herculaneum, restored as the home of MrGetty's collection.

6 In Frands Haskell and Nicholas Penny, Taste and the Antique (New Haven, 1981),they note that Jonathan Richardson Senior and Junior first pointed to the copies in1722 (p. 99), but that the theory was widely accepted only after Anton RaphaelMengs published it late in the century (p. 106).

7 'Historical', that is, in Roman terms. Figures such as Romulus, the founder of thecity, are considered mythical or legendary today, but to the Romans they werehistorical, and depictions of them are considered historical scenes.

8 Margarete Bieber, Ancient Copies (New York, 1977), pp. 1-9, reviews earlierliterature. See also Paul Zanker, Klassizistische Statuen (Mainz am Rhein, 1974),pp. xv-xx; Christopher Hallett, 'Kopienkritik and the Works of Polykleitos' inPolykleitos, the Doryphoros, and Tradition, ed. Warren Moon (Madison, 1995),pp. 121-60.

9 Franz Wickhoff, Roman Art: Some of its Principles and their Application to EarlyChristian Painting, ed. and trans. Eugenie Strong (London and New York, 1900),pp. 28-9·

IQ John Boardman, The Diffusion of Classical Art in Antiquity (Princeton, 1994),p.286.

II Zanker's Klassizistische Statuen separates works that echo Polykleitos into truecopies, works based on a single, specific original ('Umbildungen') and worksfabricated from two or more originals ('Neubildungen' or 'Neuschopfungen'),p. xvii. Additional literature cited in Hallett, 'Kopienkritik', note 17, p. 157.

12 E. Bartman, 'Sexy Boys' in The Roman Art of Emulation, ed. E. K. Gazda (AnnArbor, forthcoming).

13 Adolf Furtwangler, Masterpieces of Greek Sculpture, ed. and trans. Eugenie Sellers

References

[Strong] (New York, 1895), p.286; Zanker, Klassizistische Statuen, no. 28, pp.30-2.

14 e.g. Mary C. Sturgeon, 'The Corinth Amazon', American Journal of Archaeology,99 (1995), pp. 483-5°5.

IS Carol C. Mattusch, ed., The Fire of Hephaistos: Large Classical Bronzes from NorthAmerican Collections (Cambridge, MA, 1996), no. 7, pp. 198-200, figs

16 Christa Landwehr, Die antiken Gipsabgusse aus Baiae (Berlin, 1985).17 Miranda Marvin, 'Copying in Roman Sculpture: The Replica Series', Studies in the

History of Art, xx (1989), P.39.18 Amanda Claridge, the pioneer in this paradigm shift, is hard to cite since she largely

confines herself to the spoken word. It is a pleasure to thank her here for everything Jhave learnt from her.

19 Polyklet: der Bildhauer der griechischen Klassik: Ausstellung im Liebieghaus,Museum alter Plastik, Frankfurt am Main, exhibition catalogue: Liebieghaus,Frankfurt (Berlin, 1985); replica list: Detlev Kreikenbom, Bildwerke nach Polyklet:kopienkritische Untersuchungen zu den mrmnlichen statuarischen Typen nachpolykletischen Vorbildern (Mainz am Rhein, 1990); symposium on the MinneapolisDoryphoros: Warren Moon, ed., Polykleitos, the Doryphoros, and Tradition(Madison, 1995). Brunilde Ridgway, 'Paene ad Exemplum' in Polykleitos, ed. Moon,pp. 177-99, reviews the scholarship on Polykleitos up to 1994 in lucid and judiciousterms. See also Federico Rausa, L'[mmagine del Vincitore (Rome, 1994), pp. 107-08,181-7·

20 Discussed in English by Andrew Stewart, Greek Sculpture: An Exploration(New Haven, 1990), pp. 263-6, bibliography p.2.66; and Brunilde Ridgway, FifthCentury Styles in Greek Sculpture (Princeton, 1981), pp. 201-06. The differences be-tween Ridgway and Stewart illustrate the limits of certainty about Polykleitos' career.

21 Andreas Linfert, 'Die Schule des Polyklet', Polyklet, PP.240-97; chart on P.242updates the standard work on the subject; Dorothea Arnold, Die Polykletnachfolge:Untersuchungen zur Kunst von Argos und Sikyon zwischen Polyklet und Lysipp(Berlin, 1969).

2.2 Norbert Kaiser, 'Schriftquellen zu Polyklet', Polyklet, pp. 48-78. Also Gregory V.Leftwich, 'Ancient Conceptions of the Body and the Canon of Polykleitos' (diss.,Princeton, 1987).

23 Kreikenbom, no. V, 36; p. 197, pI. 306; Polyklet, no. 73, P.559.2.4 Cf. C. H. Hallett, 'The Origins of the Classical Style in Sculpture', Journal of

Hellenic Studies, 106 (1986), pp. 81-2..25 Gregory V. Leftwich, 'Polykleitos and Hippokratic Medicine' in Polykleitos, ed.

Moon, pp. 38-5I; and diss.2.6 Gregory V. Leftwich, 'Physical Analysis' in Style and Science: Examining a

Polykleitan Sculpture by Miranda Marvin and Gregory Leftwich (Wellesley, 1989),n.p.

27 Guy P. R. Metraux, Sculptors and Physicians in Fifth Century Greece (Montreal andKingston, 1996), P.46 and note 52-, pp. no-I.

28 Kaiser in Polyklet (above); J. J. Pollitt, The Art of Greece, I40D-P BC: Sources andDocuments (EngIewood Cliffs, 1965), pp. 88-92.

29 Pliny, Historia Naturalis [NH] XXXIV, 56-7. Cited in The Elder PUny's Chapters onthe History of Art, eds K. Jex-BIake and E. Sellers (New 1896), P.44-

30 J. J. Pollitt, 'The Canon of Polykleitos and Other Canons' in Polykleitos, ed. Moon,p. 19 and note 5.

31 Illustrated in Kreikenbom, type no. V, pIs 247-348.32 Kreikenbom, no. IIJ, pIs 104-2°9. Not without variations, of course. See K. J.

Hartswick, 'Head Types of the Doryphoros' in Polykleitos, ed. Moon, pp. 161-76.

References

33 Following Zanker, Kreikenbom includes, for example, the Naples Antinoos (Naplesinv. 6030; Kreikenbom no. 35) in his replica list. If such an attenuated relationshipsuffices to consider a work a 'replica', then the Prima Porta Augustus could be addedto the list ('Neuschopfung' of course). See Gotz Lahusen, 'Polyklet und Augustus' inPolyklet, pp. 393-6; John Pollini, 'The Augustus from the Prima Porta and theTransformation of the Polykleitan Heroic Ideal: The Rhetoric of Art' in Polykleitos,ed. Moon, pp. 262-72.

34 Paul Zanker, Die Bildnisse des Augustus (Munich, 1987) has clear diagrams on pp.50-I. For the function of portrait types, see Paul Zanker, The Power ofImages in theAge of Augustus, trans. Alan Shapiro (Ann Arbor, 1988), pp. 9~100, 220-1.

35 Kreikenbom no. I IS p. 147, pI. 30; no. I 45 p. 155, pi. 65; Erika Simon, 'Mercurius' inLexicon Iconographicum Mythologiae Classicae [LIMC], 7.2 (Zurich, 1995), p. SOO.

36 Kreikenbom no. I 46 pp. 155-6, pI. 67; no. 147 p. 156, pis 6~0; no. 148 p. IS7, pI.71.

37 Kreikenbom no. I I p. 143, pi I; no. I 2 p. 143, pI. 6; no. I 3 p. 144, pI. 7.38 Other ideal heads: Kreikenbom no. I 12 p. 146, pI. 26a; no. I 14 p. 147, pI. 28; no. I IS

p. 147, pI. 30; no. 128 p. IF, pI. 45. Portraits: no. I 10 p. 146, pI. 22; no. I II p. 146,pI. 23; no. I 33 p. 153, pI. 49. Torso herm: no. 127 p. IF, pI. 43.

39 Baldric: no. I 17 p. 148, pI. 31b; Neck mantle: I IS p. 147, pI. 30; no I 19 p. 148, pI. 19;Shoulder mantle: no. I 10 p. 146, pI. 22; no. I 21 p. 149, pI. 38; Mantle and baldric:no. I 32 p. 152, pI. 48; Lost attribute (spear? caduceus?) no. I 13 p. 146, pI. 26b-27a;no. I 31 p. 152, pI. 47b.

40 Sea monster: no. 17 p. pI. 18; Lyre: no. I IS p. 147, pI. 30; Dog: no. 16 pp. 144-5,pI. 16. Kreikenbom his total of forty-eight works in the Diskophoros type byincluding 'possible adaptations of the body type' and 'works associated with thebody type but of doubtful or refutable connection'.

41 See note I above. Also Zanker, Klassizistische Statuen, no. 3, p.6.42 Dogs are common with figures of hunters, Meleager, for example.43 Kreikenbom no. II 9 p. 159, pI. 184; no. 11 10 p. 159, pis 86-'7; no. II 12 p. 160, pI. 88.44 Kreikenbom no. II 8 p. IS8, pis 81-3, and no. 11 13 p. 160, pI. 89, have traces of head

coverings usually assumed to be the remains of a petasos or pilos, one of thetraveller's hats often worn by Hermes. Another head in the series has holes forattaching a metal wreath: no. 11 IS p. 160, pI. 94.

4S Kreikenbom no. 11 9 P.IS9, pI. 84. Zanker, Klassizistische Statuen, no. 40, P.40('Neubildung') .

46 Kreikenbom no. 11 17 p. 161, pis 97-100.47 Kreikenbom no. 11 IS p.160, pI. 93. Kreikenbom considers the remaining miscel-

laneous bodies attached to Hermes heads to be restorations.48 Kreikenbom no. 11 18 p. 161, pI. 101; no. 11 19 pp. 161-2, pI. 102; no. II 20 p. 162, pI.

1°3·49 Wings: Kreikenbom no. IV 13 p. 184, pI. 233b; Ribboned wreath: Kreikenbom no. IV

6 p. 182, pI. 221; no. IV 7 p. 182-3, pI. 225; no. IV 9 p. 183, pI. 227. Another hermwears a slightly different wreath: no. IV 8 p. 183, pI. 22S.

50 Kreikenbom no. IV I p. 181, pI. 210; no. IVa I p. 185, pI. 236; no. IVa 2 p. 185, pI.24°·

51 Carlo Anti, 'Monumenti Policletei', Monumenti Antichi, 26 (1920), p. 550. He notesthat the discus is modern 'except for a small segment adhering to the thigh' (p. 558).Whether enough is original to guarantee the accuracy of the restoration is debated.The Torlonia collection has been unavailable for study for a generation.

52 Peter C. Bol, 'Hermes' in Polyklet, pp. U8-20.53 Ibid., pp. 19~205·

References

54 As far as I know, this argument is never explicitly made. Ridgway in Polykleitos, ed.Moon, p. 191, calls it the 'unconscious' rationale for the attribution.

55 Ernst Berger, Antike Kunstwerke aus der Sammlung Ludwig III (Mainz and Rhein,1990), pp. 130-1. Diagrams of replicas pp. 120-21, 127.

56 Simon in LIMC, P.503.57 Ridgway in Polykleitos, ed. Moon, suggests that the Herakles may be a Roman

creation, borrowing the gesture from the Herakles Farnese, p. 191.58 Gerard Siebert, 'Hermes' in LIMC, p.288.59 Siebert in LIMC, P.384. Cf. Ridgway in Polykleitos, ed. Moon, p. 190 and note 44.60 Mercury wears such a wreath, further elaborated with a lotus-flower crown, in

bronze figurines thought to echo the Hermes Paramnon of Ptolemaic iconography.Stephanie Boucher, Bronzes romains figures du Musee des beaux-arts de Lyon(Lyon, 1973), nos. 136-8, pp. 84-7; Christiane Boube-Piccot, Les Bronzes antiques duMaroc (Rabat, 1969), nos 216-17, pIs 143-4, from Volubilis.

61 Annalis Leibundgut, 'Polykletische Elemente bei spiithellenistischen und r6mischenKleinbronzen: zur Wirkungsgeschichte Polyklets in der Kleinplastik' in Polyklet,pp. 397-427; catalogue nos 185-210.

62 Caterina Maderna-Lauter, 'Polyklet in Rom' in Polyklet, p. 351.63 Ibid., p. 500.64 Ibid., p. 507.65 Ibid., p. 506; Bernard Combet-Farnoux, Mercure romain (Rome, 1980), pp. 412-13,

423-4.66 First noted by Benjamin Rowland. See Jules David Prown, John Singleton Copley in

England (Cambridge, MA, 1966), P.273, figs 373 and 379.67 Henning Wrede, Consecratio in formam deorum: vergottlichte Privatpersonen in der

romischen Kaiserzeit (Mainz am Rhein, 1981), pp. 273-83, and Caterina Maderna[Lauter], Iuppiter Diomedes und Merkur als Vorbilder fur romische Bildnisstatuen:Untersuchungen zum romischen statuarischen Idealportrat (Heidelberg, 1988),pp. 107-10, differ on the nuances of religious meaning attached.

68 Zanker, The Power of Images, pp. 239 ff.69 The adaptation of the Doryphoros as Pan, as in the colossal marble in Copenhagen -

Kreikenbom no. III 16, pI. 141 - is thought-provoking in this context.70 See E. Bartman, note 12 above.71 Hartswick in Polykleitos, ed. Moon, has identified the use of casts 111 some

Doryphoros replicas, p. 165.72 Ridgway in Polykleitos, ed. Moon, p. 181; Dorothy Kent Hill, 'Polykleitos:

Diadoumenos, Doryphoros and Hermes', American Journal of Archaeology, n.s.74 (1970), pp. 21-4·

73 In addition to the marble 'variants' that survive (see Kreikenbom, pIs I5~3), seethe fragments of such a near-Doryphoros among the Baiae casts, Landwehr, AntikenGipsabgusse, P.I77, and a schist torso from the imperial villa at Castel Gandolfo.Paolo Liverani, CAntiquarium di Villa Barbarini a Castel Gandolfo (Vatican City,1989), no. 22, figs 22, 1-4.

74 I would like to thank M. Koortbojian for reminding me of the relevance of thispractice.

75 Leibendgut in Polyklet, P.412.76 Personal communication, 13 August 1996.77 Note the comment of Dorothy Kent Hill: 'It is permitted to raise again the question

of whether the variant Hermes figures are not mere Roman creations on aPolykleitan theme, the famous Doryphoros', 'Polykleitos', P.24.

78 Paul Zanker, 'Zur Funktion und Bedeutung griechischen Skulptur in der R6merzeit'

References

in Entretiens sur l'antiquite classique, 25 (Geneva, 1978), pp. 283-314; AdolfBorbein, 'Polyklet', Gottingische gelehrte Anzeigen, 234 (1982), pp. 191-3.

79 Hubertus Manderscheid, Die Skulpturenausstattung der kaiserzeitlichen Thermenanlagen (Berlin, 1981); Miranda Marvin, 'Free-standing Sculptures from the Bathsof Caracalla', American Journal of Archaeology, 87 (1983), pp. 347-84.

80 One school of thought holds that the Doryphoros represented Achilles. Cf. AndrewStewart, 'Notes on the Reception of the Polykleitan Style: Diomedes to Alexander' inPolykleitos, ed. Moon, pp. 247-8.

81 Gerard Siebert, 'Hermes' in LIMC, pp. 289 and 378.82 Linda lones Roccos, 'Perseus' in LIMe, 7.1 notes that Perseus ' ... seems to embody

the ephebic ideal of heroic, responsible behavior ... " pp. 347-8.83 See Arnold and Linfert, note 21 above.84 Leibendgut, Polyklet, pp. 400-02, figs 239, 240. Terracotta, cat. no. 160, pp. 630-1

(Metropolitan Museum, New York), 32.n.2.85 Tonio Holscher, Romische Bildsprache als semantisches System (Heidelberg, 1987),

pp. 55-60; Zanker, The Power of Images, pp. 245-52; Maderna-Lauter in Polyklet,pp. 37~85·

86 Leibendgut in Polyklet, P.423; cf. pIs I9~2I5. An exceptional Bacchus inPolykleitan style comes from Morocco. Boube-Piccot, Bronzes antiques du Maroc,no. 340, pp. 270-1, pI. 219.

87 In Polykleitos, ed. Moon, three authors describe the action of the Doryphorosdifferently: Leftwich, P.47; Tobin, p. 55; Hurwit, pp. n-12.

88 Cf. Polyklet, no. 201, fig. 201, p. 663, and pp. 212 ff.89 Cf. Sturgeon, 'Corinth Amazon', p. 487. Ellen Perry reminded me of the relevance of

Sturgeon's comments.90 Polyklet, p. II2.91 The repertory of small bronzes is startlingly consistent across the Empire. Compare

types from Morocco - Boube-Piccot, Bronzes antiques du Maroc - with Switzerland- Annalis Leibendgut, Die romischen Bronzen der Schweiz Il: Avenches (Mainz amRhein, 1976), nos 5-12 - or Italy - Girolamo Zampieri, Bronzetti figurati etruschi,italici, paleoveneti e romani del Museo Civico di Padova (Rome, 1986), nos 144-5.

92 Leibendgut in Polyklet, pp. 397-424, summarizes.93 In Polyklet Leibendgut offers an alternative explanation and a chart on p. 398

suggesting derivation from two Polykleitan originals.94 Boucher, Bronzes romains de Lyon, p.67; Leibendgut, Polyklet, pp. 397-8.95 e.g. Annalis Leibendgut, Die romischen Bronzen der Schweiz Ill: Westschweiz

(Mainz am Rhein, 1980), no. 14, pIs 20-1, pp. 24-6·96 Whether the industry was organized into workshops specializing in one or another

type of sculpture, or into workshops capable of all sorts, remains to be investigated.According to Kreikenbom, the replicas of the Polykleitan series date between the latesecond or early first century BC and the beginning of the third century AD. It wouldbe unwise to assume that no changes occurred in the art world during that time, orthat a single pattern of production characterized the whole Roman Empire.

97 Ellen Perry, 'Artistic Imitation and the Roman Patron' (diss. Ann Arbor, 1995).98 C. H. Hallett, 'Kopienkritik and the Works of Polykleitos' in Polykleitos, ed. Moon,

pp. 121-60; contra Elaine Gazda, 'Period Styles' in 'Truth in Advertising: LabelingGreco-Roman Sculpture', College Art Association annual meeting, Boston,24 February 1996.

99 'At present, most laboratory testing of marble entails two or three processes:petrographic analysis, stable-isotope testing and, sometimes, trace-element analysis.X-ray diffraction testing has been used for years and newer modes of evaluation,including electron spin resonance and cathodoluminescence, are gaining acceptance.'

References 173

Mary Hollinshead, 'Meaning in Marble: The Value of Attribution' (http://www.wellesley.edu/DavisMuseum/Truth/Polymarblesupp.html), 22 February 1996.

100 Most small works still come from clandestine sources, illegally dug up and illegallyexported. Any possibility of deriving historical information from them is, of course,non-existent.

2 Anthony Hughes: Authority, Authenticity and Aura: Waiter Benjamin and the Case ofMichelangelo

I WaIter Benjamin, 'The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction' inIlluminations, ed. with an introduction by Hannah Arendt, trans. Harry Zohn (NewYork, 1969); first published in French translation in Zeitschrift fur Sozialforschung,V/I (1936). The German text, 'Das Kunstwerk im ZeitaIter seiner technischenReproduzierbarkeit', appeared in Schriften (Frankfurt am Main, 1955).

2 See, for example, Andrew Benjamin, 'The Decline of Art: Benjamin's Aura', OxfordArt Journal, 9/2 (1986), pp. 30-55. Benjamin's historical thesis has been challengedin Jacquelin Baas, 'Reconsidering Waiter Benjamin. "The Age of MechanicalReproduction" in Retrospect' in The Documented Image: Visions in Art History, edsGabriel P. Weisberg and Laurinda S. Dixon (Syracuse, NY, 1987), pp. 337-47, andimplicitly in The Image Multiplied: Five Centuries of Printed Reproductions ofPaintings and Drawings, exhibition catalogue by Susan Lambert: Victoria and AlbertMuseum, London (London, 1987).

3 For the history of, and related literature on, this work see Joachim Poeschke,Michelangelo and his World (New York, 1996), pp. 103-05.

4 La Pensee, marble, Paris, Musee Rodin. For further information see CecileGoldscheider, Auguste Rodin: Catalogue raisonne de l'oeuvre sculpte (Paris, 1989).

5 Posthumous production of marbles and bronzes 'by' Rodin has caused scandal andcontroversy. On Rodin, originality and related matters see Jean Chatelain, 'AnOriginal in Sculpture' in Rodin Rediscovered, exhibition catalogue ed. Albert E.Elsen: National Gallery of Art, Washington (Washington, 1981); and the subsequentdispute between Albert Elsen and Rosalind Krauss in October, nos 18 (Fall 1981) and20 (Spring 1982). Krauss' part was republished as 'The Originality of the Avant-Garde' and 'Sincerely Yours' in The Originality of the Avant-Garde and OtherModernist Myths (Cambridge, MA and London, 1993).

6 Philip Larkin: 'Why did he think adding meant increase?/To me it was dilution.'From 'Dockery and Son', Collected Poems, ed. with an introduction by AnthonyThwaite (London and Boston, 1988), pp. 152-3. The topic is human reproduction.

7 Poeschke, Michelangelo, pp. 105-14.8 Nicholas Penny, The Materials of Sculpture (New Haven and London, 1993).9 Poeschke, Michelangelo, pp. 9~101.

IQ Giovanni Gaye, Carteggio inedito d'artisti dei secoli XIV, XV, XVI publicato edillustrato con documenti pure inediti, 2 vols (Florence, 1840) (facsimile reprint,Turin, 1968), 11, P.500. For a brilliant, definitive account of the commissioning,history and placement of Michelangelo's original Pieta see Kathleen Weil-GarrisBrandt, 'Michelangelo's Pieta for the Cappella del Re di Francia' in 'Il se rendit enItalie'. Etudes offertes a Andre Chastel (Rome and Paris, 1987), pp. 77-121.

II Giorgio Vasari, Le opere di Giorgio Vasari, ed. G. Milanesi, 9 vols (Florence, 1878-85), VII, p. 552.

12 The inscription is difficult to read and has been left deliberately incomplete. It runs'[... IO EX IMITATIONE LIPPVS STAT. FACIEBA[T]'. For the significance of theincomplete text and the employment of the imperfect tense, see Weil-Garris Brandt,'Michelangelo's Pieta'.

174 References

13 Giorgio Vasari, Le Vite de' piu eccellenti pittori, scuLtori ed architettori, ed. G.Milanesi, 9 vols (Florence, 1875-85), VII, P·152.

14 '... si scoperte in St~. Spirito una Pied, la quale la mand6 un fiorentino a dettachiesa, e si diceva che lorigine veniva dall inventor delle porcherie, salvandogli lartema non devotione, Michelangelo Buonarroto. Che tutti i moderni pittori e scultoriper imitare simili caprici luterani, altro oggi per le sante chiese non si dipinge 0

scarpella altro che figure da sotterar la fede e la devotione; ma spero che un giornoIddio mandera e sua santi a buttare per terra simile idolatre come queste'. Gaye,Carteggio inedito, p. 500.

15 Poeschke, MicheLangeLo, pp. 76-7. See also Leo Steinberg, 'The Metaphors of Loveand Birth in Michelangelo's Pieta' in Studies in Erotic Art, eds Theodore Bowie andCornelia Christenson, PP.231-335 and Romeo De Maio, MicheLangeLo e LaControriforma (Rome and Bari, 1978). Most of the commentary on the variantsbegin with the premise that Lorenzetti and Baccio deliberately introduced changes tocorrect what was deemed unacceptable in Michelangelo's original: either (Poeschkeand De Maio) the youthfulness of the Virgin or (Steinberg) the supposed eroticimplications of the sculpture. There is some indirect evidence in Condivi's life of theartist that contemporaries were perplexed by the apparent age of the Virgin. SeeAscanio Condivi, Vita di MicheLangeLo Buonarroti, ed. E. Spina Barelli (Milan, 1553,reprinted 1964; English trans. A. S. Wohl, The Life of MicheLangeLo, Baton Rouge,1976). This feature was not, however, 'corrected' even in prints that appeared afterthe final deliberations of the Council of Trent. Steinberg's theory seems the reflectionof a modern longing to find some (preferably scandalous) heterodoxy in the work ofan artist as an incontrovertible sign of genius.

16 A. J. Minnis, MedievaL Theory of Authorship: SchoLastic Literary Attitudes in theLater MiddLe Ages, 2nd edn (Aldershot, 1988).

17 Vasari, Vite, VII, p. 152.18 Ernst Steinmann, MicheLangeLo im SpiegeL seiner Zeit (Leipzig, 1930), pp. 100-01;

and Poeschke, MicheLangeLo, pp. 76, pIs 9 and 163. Vasari credited this work also toNanni di Baccio Bigio who was an assistant to Lorenzetto during the relevant period,but there is considerable uncertainty about his participation. See Rudolf Wittkower,'Nanni di Baccio Bigio and Michelangelo', Festschrift fur Ulrich MiddeLdorf (Berlin,1968).

19 Steinmann, MicheLangeLo, p. 10r.20 David Freedberg, The Power of Images: Studies in the History and Theory of

Response (Chicago and London, 1989). See especially chapter 8 and pp. 177-8.21 The diarist's characterization is likely to have been a confused recognition of the fact

that the motif of the Virgin with the dead Christ in her lap was of northernEuropean derivation, though the devotional image had, of course, a pre-Reformation origin and was reasonably well known in Florence. See Charles deTolnay, MicheLangeLo, vol. I, The Youth of MicheLangeLo (Princeton, 1947), p. 144-

22 Michelangelo, Carteggio, IV, M LIV , 8 February 1546, p. 229. The French text runs asfollows: 'Seigneur Michelangelo, pour ce que j'ay grant desir d'avoir quelquesbesognes de vostre ouvrage, j'ay donne charge al'abbe de Sainct Martin de Troyes,present porteur que j'envoye par dehl, d'en recouvrer, vous priant, si vous avezquelques choses excellentes faictes ason arrivee, les luy voulloir bailler en les vousbien payant ainsi que je ay donne charge. Et davantage voulloir estre contant, pourl'amour de moy, qu'il molle le Christ de La Minerve et la Nostre Dame de La Febre,afin que j'en piusse aorner l'une de mes chappelles, comme de chose que l'on m'aasseure estre des plus exquises et excellentes en vostre art.' The text, now in Lille,Musee de I'Art et Histoire, was composed and written out by Claude de L'Aubespineand signed by Francis.

References 175

23 Vasari, Vite, VII, p. 362: 'Ll [i.e. in Florence] ... formo di gesso tutte le figuredi marmo che did mano di Michelangnolo sono nella sagrestia nouva di SanLorenzo.'

24 Carlo Ridolfi, Maraviglie dell'arte, ouero le vite de gl'illustri pittori veneti e delloStato (Venice, 1648), vol. II. The biography of Tintoretto is translated by Catherineand Robert Enggass as The Life of Tintoretto, and of his Children Domenico andMarietta (Pennsylvania, 1984). For Tintoretto's drawing practice, see Hans Tietzeand Erica Tietze-Conrat, The Drawings of the Venetian Painters in the 15th andI6th Centuries (New York, 1944).

25 Tomb of ]ulius ll, engraving, 1554, inscribed: SEPVLCHRI MARMOREI IVLIO 11PONT. MAX. DIVINA MICH. ANGELI BONAROTI FLORENTINI MANV ROMAE INBASILICA S. PETRI AD VINCVLA FABREFACTI GRAPHICA DEFORMATIO. ANT.SALAMANCA EXC. ROMAE LIIII; Rome, Istituto Nazionale per la Grafica,Gabinetto dei Stampi. For a discussion of prints after Michelangelo see EvelinaBorea, 'Michelangelo e le nel suo tempo' in La Sistina riprodotta: gliaffreschi di Michelangelo dalle stampe del cinquecento alle campagne fotograficheAnderson, exhibition catalogue, ed. Alida Moltedo: Calcografia, Rome (Rome,1991), pp. 17-30. The Salamanca engraving is her fig. 10. On the career of the printpublisher Salamanca, see David Landau and Peter Parshall, The Renaissance Print1470-155° (New Haven and London, 1995), pp. 3°2-04· They also discuss thesignificance of this type of inscription on pp. 167-8 and treat the rise of reproductiveimagery of statuary on pp. 305-09.

26 Nicolas Beatrizet (?). Pieta, engraving, inscribed: 'MICHELANGELVS BONAROTVSFLORENT. DIVI PETRI IN VATICANO EX VNO LAPIDE MATREM AC FILIVMDIVINE FECIT. ANTONIVS SALAMANCA QVOD POTVIT IMITATVS EXCULPSIT1547'. It is unlikely that Salamanca himself engraved the plate.

27 Weil-Garris Brandt, 'Michelangelo's Pieta'.28 Gian Battista de' Cavalieri, Pieta, engraving, 1564, Rome, Istituto Nazionale per la

Grafica, Gabinetto dei Stampi. For an illustration see Borea, 'Michelangelo', fig. 17,or Steinmann, Michelangelo, pI. xxv.

29 On the nature and development of the reproductive print and the problems attachedto the terminology, see Landau and Parshall, The Renaissance Print, chapter IV,

"'''I'''''''''U<Y pp. 162-8. For the decontextualizing effect of prints and their role in thecreation of a sixteenth-century canon, see A. Hughes, 'What's the trouble with theFarnese Gallery? An Exercise in Reading Pictures', Art History, XII3 (September1988), pp. 335-48.

30 The metaphor of translation is an old one. See the characteristically sardoniccomment of William M. Ivins, How Prints Look: An Illustrated Guide, revised edn(London, 1988), p. 169.

31 See, for instance, Freedberg, The Power of Images, pp. 27-8.32 As Benjamin himself recognized.33 The case discussed is Raphael's Sistine Madonna where Benjamin accepts the

argument that the work was unsuitable as a cultic object because it had first been'exhibited' above the bier of Julius 11. The theory seems quite unfounded. For areliable account of the work see Roger Jones and Nicholas Penny, Raphael (NewHaven and London, 1983).

34 See, for example, Auguste Comte, Catechisme positiviste ou, Sommaire expositionde la religion universelle en treize entretiens systematiques entre une femme et unpretre de l'humanite, 2nd edn (Paris, 1874). It is possible that Benjamin's positivismhad a source in the highly regarded book by Sir James George Frazer, The GoldenBough: A Study in Comparative Religion (London, 1890).

35 The marble David was removed to the Accademia and the replica set up in 1873. The

References

Piazza Michelangelo was also finished in r875 in time for the celebration of thefourth centenary of Michelangelo's birth at which time the bronzes were installed.See Stefano Corsi, 'Cronaca di un centenario' in Michelangelo nel ottocento. Itcentenario del r875, exhibition catalogue: Casa Buonarotti, Florence, 1994 (Milan,1994). Cronaca also gives valuable information on the Michelangelo exhibition heldat the Accademia in 1875, which exhibited the master's sculptural works inreproduced form. For the history of the Accademia Slaves, see Poeschke,Michelangelo, pp. 103-05.

3 Marjorie Trusted: Art for the Masses: Spanish Sculpture in the Sixteenth andSeventeenth Centuries

I This article developed out of an earlier study of terracottas published in 1993 (M.Trusted, 'Three Spanish Terracottas in the Victoria and Albert Museum', Boletin delSeminario de Estudios de Arte y Arqueologia, LIX (1993), pp. 321-3°), as well as theresearch conducted in connection with the publication of the catalogue of Spanishsculpture at the Victoria and Albert Museum (Spanish Sculpture: Catalogue of thePost-Medieval Spanish Sculpture in Wood, Terracotta, Alabaster, Marble, Stone,Lead and Jet in the Victoria and Albert Museum, museum catalogue by M. Trusted,London, 1996).

2 One exception to this is Luisa Roldan, who signed a number of her works. Thepractice of signing seems to have become more common (although it was stillrelatively unusual) in the eighteenth century.

3 Review by R. Ford of E. Head, A Handbook of the History of the Spanish andFrench Schools of Painting and W. Stirling, Annals of Spanish Painters, TheQuarterly Review, LXXXIII (1848), pp. 1-2.

4 J. A. Cean Bermudez, Diccionario de los mas ilustres profesores de las Bel/as Artesen Espana, 6 vols (Madrid, 1800). This publication was also inspired by AntonioPalomino, El Parnaso Espartol (1714).

5 Studies that have approached more general themes include F. Checa Cremades,Carlos V y la imagen del heroe en el Renacimiento (Madrid, 1987), and Pedro deMena y Castilla, exhibition catalogue: Museo Nacional de Escultura (NationalMuseum of Sculpture), Valladolid (1989).

6 Inv. no. 91-1864. The measurements are: height (without frame), 30.5cm; width(without frame), 4ocm; height (with frame), 45cm; width (with frame), 55cm. SeeSpanish Sculpture, museum catalogue by Trusted, cat. no. 14.

7 '0 VOS OMNES QVI TRANSITS.lPERVIAM. ATENDITE ET VIDE ESIE sT.lDOLORSIMILIS, SICVT. DOLOR MEvs/QUINET TVAM IPSIVS ANIMAN PENERBITGLADIVS' (Is it nothing to you, all ye that pass by? Behold, and see if there beany sorrow like unto my sorrow. And why does not the sword pierce your verysoul?). The first half of the inscription is from the Book of Lamentations (1:12); thesecond from Luke (2: 35).

8 I am grateful to Richard Cook of the Sculpture Conservation Section, JosephineDarrah of the Science Conservation Section, both at the Victoria and AlbertMuseum, and Sarah Boulter, who cleaned the relief while a student in the SculptureConservation Section, for their comments on this. The terracotta has beenoverpainted at least twice, probably once in the seventeenth or eighteenth centuryand once in the nineteenth century. The conclusions about the paint layers are basedon sections of samples of paint examined by the above conservators.

9 See J. J. Martin Gonzalez, Juan de Juni: Vida y Obra (Madrid, 1974), pp. II5- I 7.10 Ibid., and Trusted, 'Three Spanish Terracottas', pp. 324-5, note 22. According to

Martin GonzaIez (Juan de Juni, p. 378), the relief in Leon measures 30cm in height

References 177

and 39cm in width. He gives the same measurements (30 x 39cm) for the one inValladolid (ibid., p. 379). These measurements are sufficiently close to those of theLondon relief to suggest the pieces are actually identical in size, and apparentdifferences are due to manual errors of measuring. However the measurements ofthe version in the Camon Aznar Collection are: height, 25cm; width, 35cm. TheCamon Aznar relief was also published in Museo Camon Aznar, Obra Social de laCaja de Ahorros de Zaragoza, Aragon y Rioja (Zaragoza, 1979), unnumbered plate.

II For Juan de Juni, see Martin Gonzalez, Juan de Juni and Spanish Sculpture, museumcatalogue by M. Trusted, cat. no. 14-

12 Martin Gonzalez, Juan de Juni, pp. II8-20, fig. 80.13 Martin Gonzalez has pointed this out. Ibid., pp. 133-42 and fig. 101.14 Ibid., p. II5. The inventory is quoted in J. Marti y Monso, Estudios historicos

arttsticos relativos principalmente a Valladolid (Valladolid, 1898-1901), p. 369.15 'En la iglesia de San Martin de dicha ciudad hay una historieta de barro cocido de

Descendimiento de la Cruz, que le han vaciado algunos escultores por ser cosa tanperegrina.' A. Palomino, El Parnaso Espaiiol [1714], in Fuentes Literarias para lahistoria del Arte Espaiiol, ed. F. J. Sanchez Canton (Madrid, 1923-41), IV, P.76.This is also cited in Martin GonzaIez, Juan de Juni, p. II5.

16 Martin Gonzalez, Juan de Juni, p. II5.17 Ibid., p. II6.r8 J. C. Robinson papers (Art Referee Reports) held at the National Art Library,

Victoria and Albert Museum.19 Unfortunately it has not been possible to carry out any thermoluminescence tests to

tryout the theory.20 Martin Gonzalez, Juan de Juni, pp. II5-17; see also note 10.21 I have been kindly informed by John Larson (personal communication), who has

examined the Valladolid and Leon examples, that the method of casting these twoversions differed: the clay used for the Valladolid relief was carefully and compactlyinserted, while the one in Leon was made in layers in a far cruder construction.

22 This is a painted terracotta relief in a wood frame (height, 22cm; width, 33.5cm);inv. no. 828; unpublished. I am grateful to Luis Luna Moreno and Manuel Arias forgiving me access to this piece.

23 For Luisa Roldan, see B. Gilman Proske, 'Luisa Roldan at Madrid' (Parts r-3), TheConnoisseur, CLV/624-6 (February-April 1964) and J. J. Martin Gonzalez,Escultura Barroca en Espaiia (Madrid, 1983), pp. 177-84. I am grateful to CatherineHall-van den Elsen for giving me the revised birth and death dates of the artist,which are given here. These have been established through archival records; see C.Hall-van den Elsen, The Life and Work of the Sevillian Sculptor Luisa Rold/m with aCatalogue Raisonne (unpublished doctoral thesis, La Trobe University, Melbourne,1992).

24 Inv. no. 250-1864. Spanish Sculpture, museum catalogue by Trusted, cat. no. 27.The group is set on a gilt-wood base, which is almost certainly original.

25 This has been suggested by C. Hall-van den Elsen, La Vida y las Obras de LuisaRoId/m (unpublished MA thesis, La Trobe University, Melbourne, 1989), p. 100.

26 See L. Reau, Iconographie de I'Art Chretien (Paris, 1958),111.1, p. 385, and E. Male,L'Art Religieux apres Le Concile de Trente (Paris, 1932), pp. 487-8.

27 J. C. Robinson papers, I, part Ill. See also Inventory of the Objects Forming the ArtCollection of the Museum at South Kensington. Supplement no. I for the Year 1864(London, 1864), p.20.

28 See Gilman Proske, Luisa Rold/m, Part 2, fig. 6.29 The dimensions of the Mystical Marriage are: height; 36.5cm; width, 45cm; depth,

29.5cm. This group lacks a base. The greater width and depth of the present piece

References

are at least partly explained by the floor area around the figures, which is muchshallower in the Mystical Marriage group. The measurements of the face of theVirgin in the London group are: height, 50mm; width, 38mm. Those of the Virgin inthe Mystical Marriage are: height, 42mm; width, 32mm. Those of the face of theangel in the London group are: height, 42mm; width, 31mm; while those of the angelin the Mystical Marriage are: height, 40mm; width, 29mm.

30 Gilman Proske, Luisa Rold/m, Part 2, fig. 7, and Part 3, fig. 16.31 I am grateful to Constancio del Alamo of the Hispanic Society for allowing me to

examine this piece.32 I am grateful for this information to Catherine Hall-van den Elsen (personal

communication), who during the course of her research on Roldan located a letterfrom Roldan to Charles II of Spain mentioning an attached list of eighty works; thelist has sadly been lost. See also note 23.

33 See Pedro de Mena y Castilla, pp. 36-9, nos 8 and 9.34 Cf. M. J. Friedlander, Dieric Bouts and Joos van Gent (Early Netherlandish Painting

III), trans. H. Norden (Leyden, 1968), pIs 74-8, and The Art of Devotion in the LateMiddle Ages in Europe T300-T500, exhibition catalogue by H. van Os and others:Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam (1994), P.46, fig. 10. A Flemish terracotta bust of theMourning Virgin dating from 1470 to 1490 (itself probably based on a painting by afollower of Rogier van der Weyden) is in the Thyssen Collection. Such pieces mayalso have been imported to Spain; see A. RadcIiffe, M. Baker and M. Maek-Gerard,The Thyssen-Bornemisza Collection: Renaissance and Later Sculpture (London,1992), pp. 418-23, cat. no. 83. I am grateful to Paul WiIliamson for drawing myattention to this.

35 For example, his two panels of Christ and the Virgin of c. 1480-5 in the Prado,Madrid; see El Mundo de los Osuna ca.q6o-ca.T540, exhibition catalogue: MuseuSant Pius V, Valencia (1994), pp. II8-23, cat. nos 6 and 7.

36 Victoria and Albert Museum, inv. no. 1284-1871; height, 48.5cm; width, I9cm;depth, 29cm. Spanish Sculpture, museum catalogue by Trusted, cat. no. 46.

37 Museum records. It had first been published as a work by Pedro de Mena in 1923,although this was not apparently widely accepted (A. L. Mayer, SpanischeBarockplastik (Munich, 1923), fig. 107), and it had not been cited in R. de Oruetay Duarte, La Vida y la Obra de Pedro de Mena y Medrano (Madrid, 1914).

38 These sculptors, apparently twins, were active in Granada in the mid-seventeenthcentury. See E. Orozco Diaz, 'Los Hermanos Garda Escultores del Ecce-Homo',Bolettn de la Universidad de Granada, VI/30 (1934), pp. 1-18, and La Escultura enAndaluda Siglos XV a XVIII, exhibition catalogue: Museo Nacional de Escultura,Valladolid (1984), pp. 92-3, where further bibliography is cited.

39 Spanish Sculpture, museum catalogue by Trusted, pp. 96-101.40 These include two in the Convent of the Descalzas Reales in Madrid, one in the

Accademia de Bellas Artes in Madrid, one in the monastery of St Joachim and StAnne in Valladolid, two in the Museo de Bellas Artes in Granada, one in CuencaCathedral, one in Malaga Cathedral, one in the Dreifaltigkeitskirche in Vienna, andone in the Iglesia de la Profesa in Mexico City. For further examples see Orueta,Pedro de Mena; D. Angulo lfiiguez, 'Dos Menas en Mejico', Archivo Espanol deArte, XI (1935), pp. 131-52; H. Aurenhammer, 'Zwei Werke des Pedro de Mena inWien', Alte und Neue Kunst, IIII2 (1954), pp. 126-7; Martin Gonzalez, EsculturaBarroca, p. 219; Pedro de Mena, pp. 34, 38, 42, 46; Pedro de Mena: 1Il Centenario desu Muerte Centenario, exhibition catalogue: Malaga Cathedral; Junta de Andaluda(April 1989), cat. nos 34-8; J. Fernandez Lopez, 'Una Nueva Dolorosa attribuible aPedro de Mena', Bolettn del Seminario de Estudios de Arte y Arqueologta, LIV(1988), pp. 428-30. Cf. also what appears to be a nineteenth-century pastiche of the

References 179

type (present whereabouts unknown) sold in 1932: Antiquitaten und Alte Gemaldeaus dem Nachlass des verstorbenen Freiherrn F. von Stumm, sale catalogue: G.Deneke, Berlin (4 October 1932), cat. no. 192.

41 Pedro de Mena, pp. 62-3, cat. no. 21.42 Ibid., pp. 5~61, cat. nos 19 and 20. Another bust perhaps by a follower of Jose de

Mora is in the Ackland Art Museum, University of North Carolina (SpanishPolychrome Sculpture I50o-I8oo in United States Collections, exhibition catalogue,ed. S. Stratton: Spanish Institute, New Yark, pp. 136-7, cat. no. 29).

43 F. Hurtado de Mendoza, Fundacion y Cronica de la Sagrada Congregacion de SanPhelipe Neri de la Ciudad de Granada (Madrid, 1689), cited in A. Gallego y Burin,Jose de Mora: su Vida y su Obra (Granada, 1925, reprinted 1988), p. 158.

44 The sixteenth-century chronicler Pedro de Ribadeneira stated that Nicholas IVwitnessed the miracle (Ribadeneira cited in text below, and see also note 46); othersources say Nicholas V (Reau, lconographie, p. 530, and W. Braunfels, ed., Lexikonder Christlichen Ikonographie, 8 vols (Freiburg im Bresgau, 1974), VI, p. 311).

45 Seen in an engraving of about 1610 by Jean Le Clerc (Braunfels, Lexicon). The scenewas also depicted in Thomas de Leu's Vida de San Francisco, published in about1600; see J. J. Martin Gonzalez, El Escultor Gregorio Fern/mdez (Madrid, 1980),P.249, and Pedro de Mena, p.22. I have been unable to see a copy of eitherpublication. St Francis was of course depicted in numerous paintings prior to thepopularity of this specific legend, notably in the work of El Greco (1541-1614).

46 A second part appeared in 1601. I have been able to see a copy of the 1643 editiononly, but I am grateful to M.!! Rosario Fernandez for the details of the earlier dates ofpublication.

47 Height, 104cm. See Martin Gonz:ilez, Gregorio Fern/mdez, P.249, and Pedro deMena, pp. 22-3, cat. no. I. An eighteenth-century variant after Gregorio Fernandezis illustrated in ibid., pp. 84-5, cat. no. 32.

48 Martin Gonzalez, Gregorio Fernandez, pp. 24~50. The paintings are in the Museedes Beaux-Arts, Lyons, the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, and the Museo de BellasArtes de Cataluna, Barcelona, respectively. See M. Gregori, L'Opera Completa diZurbaran (Milan, 1973), nos 36~70 (bis), and J. Brown, Francisco de Zurbaran(New York, 1973), p. 134, pI. 38.

49 The autograph versions are described and illustrated in Orueta, Pedro de Mena,p.128, fig. 21, and pp. 163 ff. and fig. 54, and in M. E. Gomez-Moreno, ArsHispaniae, XVI: Escultura del Siglo XVII (Madrid, 1963), pp. 245-6, figs 221 and223·

50 For example the figure by Fernando Ortiz in the National Museum of Sculpture atValladolid, dating from 1738. See Pedro de Mena y Castilla, pp. 64-5·

51 Examples are located in the Church of St Martin in Segovia (height, 84cm; Pedro deMena, pp. 50-I, cat. no. 15); the Municipal Museum, Antequera (height, lOocm; M.E. G6mez-Moreno, 'Un San Francisco de Mena en Antequera', Archivo Espaiiol deArte y Castilla, XLVII (1974), pp. 68-70; see also Pedro de Mena y Castilla, p. 10);the Ny Carlsberg Glyptothek, Copenhagen (height, 87cm; Orueta, Pedro de Mena,P.170, fig. 57); one formerly in the K.K. Osterreichisches Museum, Vienna (J. vonFalke, Holzschnitzereien: eine Auswahl aus der Sammlung des K.K. Osterreich.Museums (Vienna, 1893), pI. XXXVII, 2); the Meadows Museum and Gallery,Southern Methodist University, Dallas (height, 74.lcm; Stratton, Spanish Polychrome Sculpture, pp. 76 and 124-5, cat. no. 23); one recently acquired by theLouvre, Paris (height, 87cm; Musee du Louvre: Nouvelles Acquisitions duDepartement des Sculptures I988-I99I (Paris, 1992), pp. 50-3); and a variant inthe Fray Pedro Bedon Museum, Convent of Santo Domingo, Quito (G.G. Palmer,Sculpture in the Kingdom of Quito (Albuquerque, 1987), P.46 and fig. 20).

180 References

52 Pedro de Mena, pp. 64-5, cat. no. 22.53 Ibid., pp. 86-7, cat. no. 33.54 Pedro de Mena, pp. 92-3, cat. no. 36 (version attributed to Esteban de Agreda (1759"""""

1842) and dated to after 1814), and Musee du Louvre: Nouvelles Acquisitions, p. 50(marble version made in 1872 by Zacharie Astruc, exhibited in Madrid in 1877). Seealso Orueta, Pedro de Mena, P.163. Cf. one sold in the F. von Stumm sale, lot 49(Antiquitaten, pI. XI), which also appears to be nineteenth-century.

55 Inv. no. 331-1866. Height, 50.5cm; Spanish Sculpture, museum catalogue byTrusted, cat. no. 24.

56 Museum records held at the National Art Library, Victoria and Albert Museum: J.e. Robinson papers, V, part Ill, minute of 5 February 1867.

4 Malcolm Baker: The Ivory Multiplied: Small-scale Sculpture and its Reproductions inthe Eighteenth Century

In my work on Bossuit and ivory-carving I am especially grateful for the interest andencouragement of Christian Theurkauff whose many publications about ivories andKleinplastik form the basis for the study of this subject.

I Francis Haskell and Nicholas Penny, Taste and the Antique: The Lure of ClassicalSculpture 1500-1900 (New Haven and London, 1980). ,

2. Examples include Klaus Lankheit, Die Modelisammlung der PorzellanmanufakturDoccia (Munich, 1992.) and the introductory essays on 'Originals, Versions,Multiples and Casts' in The Thyssen-Bornemisza Collection: Renaissance andLater Sculpture, by Anthony Radcliffe, Malcolm Baker and MichaeI Maek-Gerard(London, 1992).

3 For a discussion of these issues see Rosalind Krauss, 'Retaining the Original? TheState of the Question' in Retaining the Original: Multiple Originals, Copies, andReproductions, symposium papers: National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC,Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts, VII (Hanover and London, 1989),pp. 1-12.

4 For changing uses of bronzes and different constructions of the 'small bronze' as adiscrete category of sculpture, see Malcolm Baker, 'Collecting, Classifying andViewing Bronzes 17°0-185°' in Von alien Seiten schon. Nachtrage, ed. Volker Krahn(Cologne, 1996), pp. lII-23.

5 Nicholas Penny, Catalogue of European Sculpture in the Ashmolean Museum 1540to the Present Day (Oxford, 1992), I, cat. nos 35, 40, 63, 159"""""61.

6 For this see Lankheit, Die Modellsammlung der Porzellanmanufaktur Doccia.7 For these 'cabinets of curiosities' see (from a rapidly growing literature) Julius von

Schlosser, Die Kunst- und Wunderkammern der Spatrenaissance (Braunschweig,1978) and Oliver Impey and Arthur MacGregor, eds, The Origins of Museums(Oxford, 1985).

8 K. Aschengreen-Piacenti, 1/ Museo degli Argenti a Firenze (Milan, 1968).9 For Kern's relationship with collectors, noble owners of Wunderkammern and art

dealers see Johannes Zalten, 'Bemerkungen zu Kunstproduktion und Sammlungs-wesen im 17. Jahrhundert, angeregt durch die Kleinplastiken Leonhard Kerns' inLeonhard Kern [1588-1662J, exhibition catalogue, ed. H. Sidebenmorgen (Schwa-bisch Hall, 1988), pp. 35-5°· Franz von Stampart and Anton von Prenner'sPodromus seu preambulare lumen ... (Vienna, 1735) is discussed in ibid., cat. no. 37.

10 The imagery and the relationship between poem and tankard are discussed in thecatalogue entry by Johanna Hecht in Liechtenstein, the Princely Collections,exhibition catalogue: Metropolitan Museum, New York (New York, 1985), cat. no.67·

References r8r

II For Jaillot see Christian Theueurkauff, 'Kleinplastik des Barock, Werke von JeanGaulette, Michel Mollart and anderen franzasischen Zeitgenossen', Kunst undAntiquitaten, I (1985), p. 30.

12 Nicolas Guerin, Description de l'Academie Royale des arts de peinture et sculpture(Paris, 1715). I am grateful to Andrew McClellan for drawing my attention to thisbook.

13 For Dobbermann's work and career see Christian Theuerkauff, 'Jacob Dobbermannund Joachim Henne - Anmerkungen zu einigen Kleinbildwerken', Alte und moderneKunst, 24 (1979), pp. 16ff.

14 For Henne' career see ibid. and Jarg Rasmussen, 'Joachim Henne, ein hafisherKleinmeister des Barock', Jahrbuch der Hamburger Kunstsammlungen, 23 (1978).

15 Most notably in John Brewer and Roy Porter, eds, Consumption and the World ofGoods (London, 1993) and Ann Bermingham and John Brewer, The Consumptionof Culture 1600-1800 (London, 1995).

16 For Permoser and Fiirstenberg see Siegfried Asche, Balthasar Permoser (Berlin,1976), pp. 106-09· About twenty years earlier these same ivories had beenreproduced in porcelain by Doccia and, as Asche shows, Permoser's figurescontinued to be used by various porcelain factories throughout the eighteenthcentury.

17 Charles Avery, David Le Marchand 1674-1726 (London, 1996), pp. 27, 86-9.18 Pierre-Jean Grosley, A Tour to London (London, 1772), p.69.19 Leonhard Kern, exhibition catalogue, cat. no. 92.20 This process was itself made available in multiple form by the terracottas of

Clodion.21 Matthys Pool, Beeldsnijders Kunstkabinet (Amsterdam, 1727).22 For a thorough and detailed discussion, on which all later work must be based, see

Christian Theuerkauff, 'Zu Francis van Bossuit (1635-1692), "Beeldsnyder inyvoor"', Wallraf-Richartz-Jahrbuch, 37 (1975), pp. II~82.

23 For a more detailed analysis of the relationship between these different versions, onwhich the account here is based, see Malcolm Baker, 'Francis van Bossuit, Battgerstoneware and the Judith reliefs' in Festchrift Alfred Schadler, eds R. Kahsnitz andP. Yolk (Munich, forthcoming).

24 For Heermann see Christian Theuerkauff, Elfenbein. Sammlung Reiner Winkler(Munich, 1984), pp. 56-9.

25 For the Battger reliefs (with references to the earlier literature) see Stefan Bursche,Meissen. Steinzeug und Porzellan des 18. Jahrhunderts Kunstgewerbemuseum Berlin(Berlin, 1980).

26 This discussion is based on a longer study I am preparing of Pool's book, thecircumstances in which it was produced and its place in both the history of theAmsterdam book trade and art historiography.

27 This will be discussed in my forthcoming study of Pool's book but some of therelevant information, particularly about the sale of Anthony Grill in 1728, was madeavailable for entries in De Wereld binnen Handbereik, exhibition catalogue by Wimde Bell and Jaap van der Veen: Historisch Museum, Amsterdam (1992).

28 Walpole's own detailed account of both cabinet and contents is given in ADescription of the Vilia ofHorace Walpole ... at Strawberry-Hill (Strawberry Hill,1774), pp. 77-8. For the cabinet's significance see Clive Wainwright, The RomanticInterior (New Haven and London, 1982), PP.74-6; A Grand Design, exhibitioncatalogue, eds Malcolm Baker and Brenda Richardson (New York, 1997), cat. no.IH·

29 On this see Krauss, 'Retaining the Original?', pp.lQ-II, and Jeffrey M. Muller,

182 References

'Measures of Authenticity: the Detection of Copies in the Early Literature onConnoisseurship' in Retaining the Original, pp. 141-50.

30 Krauss, 'Retaining the Original?', p. 10.31 For Tassie see Avery, David Le Marchand, pp. 86-7; Holloway, lames Tassie

I735-I799 (Edinburgh, 1986).32 His name still occurs occasionally, however, in some late eighteenth-century Dutch

sale catalogues and he is mentioned in the inventory of Ploos van Amstel's artcollection. For Houbraken see Peter Hecht, 'Browsing in Houbraken' in Ten Essaysfor a Friend: E. de ]ongh 65, Simiolus, 24 (1996), pp. 157/2; for van Gool see Lycklede Vries, 'Jan van Gool als geschiedschrijver', Oud Holland, 99 (1985), pp. 165-90.

5 Martin Postle: Naked Authority? Reproducing Antique Statuary in the EnglishAcademy, from Lely to Haydon

1 See Frands Haskell and Nicholas Penny, Taste and the Antique: The Lure ofClassical Sculpture 15°0-19°0 (New Haven and London, 1981), pp. 16-37 and 7')'-98.

2 For a survey of the role of the antique in academic training see Carl Goldstein,Teaching Art: Academies and Schools from Vasari to Albers (Cambridge, 1996),pp. 137-58.

3 Giovanni Battista Armenini, De' veri precetti della pittura (Ravenna, 1587), pp. 61-3, quoted in Haskell and Penny, Taste and the Antique, p. 16. For a survey of thedevelopment of academies in Italy in the sixteenth century see Nikolaus Pevsner,Academies of Art Past and Present, 2nd edn (New York, pp. 25-66.

4 See Andre Felibien, Conferences de l'Academie Royale de peinture et de sculpturependant l'annee r667 (Paris, 1668); Andre Fontaine, Conferences inedites del'Academie Royale de peinture et de sculpture (Paris, 1903).See Gerard Audran, Les proportions du corps humain mesurees sur les plus bellesfigures de l'antiquite (Paris, 1683); Sebastien Bourdon, 'Les proportions de la figurehumaine, explique sur l'antique', 5 July 1670 (Paris, Ecole Nationale Superieure desBeaux-Arts, MS. 143); Jennifer Montagu, The Expression of the Passions: TheOrigin and Influence of Charles Le Brun's 'Conference sur l'expression generale etparticuliere' (New Haven and London, 1994), pp. 73f.

6 Goldstein, Teaching Art, p. Ip.7 Haskell and Penny, Taste and the Antique, pp. 17-22.8 See, for example, Jaap Bolten, Method and Practice, Dutch and Flemish Drawing

Books 1600-175° (Landau Pfaiz, 1985), pp. 257-9·9 See M. Kirby Talley Jr, Portrait Painting in England: Studies in the Technical

Literature before 1700 (London, 1981), pp. 308-09; Ilaria Bignamini, 'The Artist'sModel from Lely to Hogarth' in The Artist's Model: Its Role in British Art from Lelyto Etty, exhibition catalogue by Ilaria Bignamini and Martin Postle: University ArtGallery, Nottingham, and the Iveagh Bequest, Kenwood (Nottingham, 1991), p. 8.

10 Haskell and Penny, Taste and the Antique, P.148; Phyllis Pray Bober and RuthRubenstein, Renaissance Artists and Antique Sculpture (Oxford, 1986), pp. 71- 2;Bignamini, 'The Artist's Model from Lely to Hogarth', p.8.

II Ilaria Bignamini, 'George Vertue, Art Historian, and Art Institutions in London,168')'-1768: A Study of Clubs and Academies', Walpole Society, LIV (1988), pp. 2-148.

12. Bignamini, 'The Artist's Model from Lely to Hogarth', pp. 12-13.13 For Vertue see George Vertue, 'Notebooks nI', Walpole Society, XXII (1933-4),

p.2.2 and Bignamini, 'The Artist's Model from to Hogarth', p. 12.

References

14 Michael Kitson, 'Hogarth's "Apology for Painters"', Walpole Society, XLI (1966-9), p.86.

15 Ibid., pp. 85-6· Hogarth singled out William Kent as a prime example of theworthlessness of study in Italy: 'Mr Kent won the prize of Rome and never was therea more wretched dauber'.

16 Ibid., p. 86.17 For Cheere see The Man at Hyde Park Corner: Sculpture by John Cheere 17°9-1787,

exhibition catalogue by Terry Friedman and Timothy Clifford: Stable CourtExhibition Galleries, Temple Newsam, Leeds; Marble Hill House, Twickenham(Leeds, 1974), passim.

18 See Ronald Paulson, Hogarth: His Life, Art, and Times, 2 vols (New Haven andLondon, 1971),11, p. 168; The Artist's Model, exhibition catalogue by Bignamini andPostle, cat. no. 37, p.62.

19 See Hugh MacAndrew, 'A Group of Batoni Drawings at Eton College, and someEighteenth-Century Copyists of Classical Sculpture', Master Drawings (1978),pp. 131-5°; The Artist's Model, exhibition catalogue by Bignamini and Postle, cat.no. 23, p. 54. Eight of Dalton's drawings were published in 1770 by John Boydell aspart of A Collection of Twenty Antique Statues Drawn after the Originals in Italy byRichard Dalton Esq.

20 The Artist's Model, exhibition catalogue by Bignamini and Postle, cat. no. 22, p. 53.21 Vertue, 'Notebook Ill', pp. 127-8. See also The Artist's Model, exhibition catalogue

by Bignamini and Postle, cat. no. 22, p. 53.22 Vertue, 'Notebook Ill', pp. 121-2. See also Michael Rysbrack, Sculptor 1694-1770,

exhibition catalogue by Katherine Eustace: City of Bristol Museum and Art Gallery(Bristol, 1982), pp. 160-2.

23 Kim Sloan, 'Drawing - A "Polite Recreation" in Eighteenth-Century England' inStudies in Eighteenth-Century Culture, ed. Harry C. Payne (Wisconsin, 1982), 11,pp. 217-4°.

24 D. G. C. Allan, William Shipley. Founder of the Royal Society of Arts. A Biographywith Documents, 2nd edn (London, 1979), p.80.

25 Benjamin Ralph, The School of Raphael; or the student's guide to expression inhistorical painting (London, 1759), p. B.

26 David H. Solkin, Painting for Money: The Visual Arts and the Public Sphere inEighteenth-Century England (New Haven and London, 1993), P.217.

27 Ibid., p.220.28 Sir Joshua Reynolds, Discourses on Art, ed. Robert R. Wark (New Haven and

London, 1975), P·47·29 For the suggested association between the 'Pleasures of the Imagination', as

expounded by Joseph Addison, and Wright's image, see Solkin, Painting for Money,pp. 217-18.

30 Royal Academy, Council Minutes, 2 January 1769, I, pp. 4-6· Quoted in Sidney C.Hutchison, The History of The Royal Academy 1768-1986, 2nd edn (London, 1986),P·3 L

31 Early in the nineteenth century a female art student was allowed by Henry Fuseli(1741-1825) into the Antique Academy during the Christmas vacation as a specialdispensation. However, as the room was not heated, she found that her hand wastoo cold to hold her pencil. See William T. Whitley, Art in England, 1800-1820(Cambridge, 1928), pp. 83-5.

32 The schools moved to Old Somerset House in the Strand in 1771. See Hutchison,The History of the Royal Academy, p. 33.

33 Ibid., P·27·34 Haskell and Penny, Taste and the Antique, cat. no. 67, pp. 281-2.

References

35 Solkin, Painting for Money, P.242.36 Ibid., pp. 245-6·37 There is no evidence to support the attribution of this painting to Zoffany. See Lady

Victoria Manners and G. C. Williamson, Zoffany, R.A. His Life and Works(London, 1924), pp. 33-4.

38 See The Artist's Model, exhibition catalogue by Bignamini and Postle, cat. no. 7,p. 43. The same room, viewed from the opposite end, appears in Edward FrancescoBurney's wash drawing of 1780, The Antique Room, New Somerset House (RoyalAcademy of Arts).

39 A. J. Finberg, A Complete Inventory of the Drawings of the Turner Bequest, 2 vols(London, 1909), I, P.7.

40 William Hazlitt, Conversations of James Northcote, Esq., R.A. (London, 1830),p.102.

41 Diderot on Art -I. The Salon of 1765 and Notes on Painting, trans. John Goodman,Introduction Thomas Crow (New Haven and London, 1995), P.4.

42 Dublin Chronicle, 3 December 1787.43 John Gait, The Life, Studies and Works of Benjamin West, Esq., 2 vols (London,

1820), 11, p. 10r.44 See Richard and Samuel Redgrave, A Century of British Painters (Oxford, 1947),

p. 256; The Artist's Model, exhibition catalogue by Bignamini and Postle, pp. 58-60.45 James Northcote stated that the prostitutes who sat in the Royal Academy Schools

were distrustful of the students' motives, regarding the activity as 'an additionaldisgrace to what their profession imposed upon them, and as somethng unnatural,one even wearing a mask'. Hazlitt, Conversations of James Northcote, p. 103.

46 Martin Kemp, ed., Dr William Hunter at the Royal Academy of Arts (Glasgow,1975), P·43·

47 Ibid.48 John Thomas Smith, Nollekens and his Times, 2 vols (London, 1828), 11, p.64.49 Christie's, 5 July 1823, lot 2.1, 'Cast of a sitting Venus'.50 Smith, Nollekens and his Times, II, p.64.51 See The Artist's Model, exhibition catalogue by Bignamini and Postle, cat. no. 27,

pp. 56/.52 See William Blake, exhibition catalogue by Martin Butlin: Tate Gallery (London,

1978), cat. no. 315, pp. 145-6.53 Martin Archer Shee, Elements of Art, A Poem: in Six Cantos, with Notes and

Preface, including Strictures on the State of the Arts, Criticism, Patronage, andPublic Taste (London, 1809), p. 63.

54 Malcolm Elwin, ed., The Autobiography and Journals of Benjamin Robert Haydon(London, 1950), p. 75.

55 Andrew Ballantyne, 'Knight, Haydon and the Elgin Marbles', Apollo Magazine,CXXVIII (September 1988), pp. 155-9·

56 Elwin, Autobiography and Journals of Benjamin Robert Haydon, P.78.57 Ibid., P·77.58 Ibid., p.168.59 Frederick Cummings, 'B. R. Haydon and his School', journal of the Warburg and

Courtauld Institutes, XXXVI (1963), pp. 367-80.60 Elwin, Autobiography and journals of Benjamin Robert Haydon, p. 311.61 Cummings, 'B. R. Haydon and his School', p. 372 and note 23.62 See Martin Postle, 'The Artist's Model from Reynolds to Etty' in The Artist's Model,

exhibition catalogue by Bignamini and Postle, P.23.63 See Joseph Farington, 21 July 1807, in The Diary of joseph Farington, ed. Kathryn

References 185

Cave (New Haven and London, 1982), VIII, p. 3094. Carlisle had first published hisremarks in an article in The Artist on 4 July 1807.

64 Prince Hoare, Academic Annals of Painting (London, 1805), p. 182.65 John Flaxman, 'Motion & Equilibrium of the Human Body', p. 14. The unpublished

manuscript of Flaxman's treatise is in the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge. See alsoThe Artist's Model, exhibition catalogue by Bignamini and Postle, cat. no. 88, p. 94.

66 For a survey of the role played in art education by the antiquities in the BritishMuseum in the nineteenth century see Ian Jenkins, Archaeologists and Aesthetes inthe Sculpture Galleries of the British Museum 1800-1939 (London, 1992), pp. 30-40.

67 Hazlitt, Conversations of James Northcote, P.41.

6 Neil McWilliam: Craft, Commerce and the Contradictions of Anti-capitalism:Reproducing the Applied Art of Jean Baffier

I Debora L. Silverman, Art Nouveau in Fin-de-si'ecle France: Politics, Psychology andStyle (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1989), pp. 22~42.

2 Henri Bouilhet, L'Orfevrerie franfaise au XVIIle et XIXe siecles (Paris, 1912), Ill,pp. 320-1, and Gustave Soulier, 'La Plante et ses applications ornementales', Revuedes arts decoratifs, xx (March 1900), pp. 93-6·

3 Among the numerous contemporary biographies of the artist, see in particularEdouard Achard, Jean Baffier (Paris, 1887); Charles Achard, Le Sculpteur berrichonJean Baffier (Montrouge, 19I1); and Jean Desthieux, L'Enfant des cathedrales (JeanBaffier) (Paris, 1933). For more recent studies, see Gilbert Perroy, 'Nos Artistes: JeanBaffier, sculpteur-statuaire (1851-1920)', Revue d'histoire du quatorzieme arrondissement de Paris, XXV (1980-1), pp. 74-85; Oeuvres de Jean Baffier au Museemunicipal de Nevers, exhibition catalogue by B. Bringuier (Nevers, 1981); andGerard Coulon, 'Jean Baffier, tailleur d'images', Berry. Une Terre Cl decouvrir, I(Spring 1987), pp. 42-5°.

4 Charles Baussan, 'Un Maitre imagier. Jean Baffier', Le Mois litteraire et pittoresque,XX/Il9 (November 1908), p. 543. On analogies with Millet, see, for example, LouisPerie, 'Quelques Notes sur Jean Baffier', Le Limousin de Paris, 9 May 1920.

5 See, for example, Philippe Durey, 'Le Realisme' in La Sculpture franfaise au XIXesiecle, exhibition catalogue by Anne Pingeot and others: Grand Palais (Paris, 1986),pp. 365-6.

6 See Christian-E. Roth, 'Jean Baffier et le regionalisme en Berry-Bourbonnais-Nivernais (I885-I9Il)', Federation des Societes savantes du Centre de la France.Actes du 5Ie congres, Il7-I8 (July-December 1990, January-June 1991), pp. I5~77,and Yannick Guilloux, Ethnographes et folkloristes dans le Cher (1852-1914). PetiteHistoire locale des chercheurs de traditions populaires, de l'enquete Fortoul Cl lamission Brunot, Maitrise des lettres modernes, Universite Franf:rois Rabelais (Tours,1987).

7 For an instance of this, see the discussion of Baffier's monument to the Spanishdoctor and theologian Michael Servetus in Neil McWilliam, 'Monuments,Martyrdom and the Politics of Religion in the French Third Republic', Art Bulletin,LXXVIII2 (June 1995), pp. 186-206. This discusses the anti-Protestant polemicunderlying Baffier's work and its relationship with French nationalist anti-Protestantism more generally.

8 The best general discussion of the market remains Jacques de Caso, 'Serial Sculpturein Nineteenth-Century France' in Metamorphoses in Nineteenth-Century Sculpture,exhibition catalogue by J. Wasserman: Fogg Art Museum (Harvard, 1979), pp. 1-27.

9 On Carpeaux's commercialization of reproductive sculpture, see, for example, AnneMiddleton Wagner, Jean-Baptiste Carpeaux: Sculptor of the Second Empire (New

186 References

Haven and London, 1986), pp. 175-207. On Fremiet, see Emmanuel Fremiet: LaMain et le multiple, exhibition catalogue by Catherine Chevillot: Musee des Beaux-Arts (Dijon, 1988).

10 Louis de Fourcaud, 'Les Arts decoratifs au Salon de 1899. Les Objets d'art. 11: LaSociete nationale', Revue des arts decoratifs, XIX (October 1899), P.332.

II See the Jean Baffier dossier in the Archives de Paris 10624/72II17. The councilpurchased nine pieces in all, which were deposited at the Musee Galliera beforebeing transferred to the collection of the Petit Palais. Baffier received a total of20,000 francs for these purchases.

12 See the correspondence between Baffier and Henri Jacquier, Under-secretary of Statefor Fine Arts, in Archives nationales F2.I 4287, which also contains letters in supportof Baffier's request from a number of influential public figures, such as the Carde dessceaux, Antony Ratier. In 1917, Baffier's long-standing patron Jacques Marianioffered to pay for the work's completion; see Archives departementales du Cher,Bourges, 23 F 5,640-41, undated letter [February 1917].

13 See, for example, Anonymous, 'La Troisieme Exposition d'art au palais du due Jean.L'lnauguration', Journal du Cher (24-5 October 1910), reporting a speech by Baffierin which he described his decorative work and its inspiration.

14 See, for example, Pierre Roche, Exposition de rart du fer forge, du cuivre et deretain au Musee CalUera (mai-septembre I90S). Rapport general presente au nomdu jury (Paris, 1905), where the elements from the table setting are extolled as 'desoeuvres irreductibles, profondement originales et dedaigneuses de toute concession'(p. 9). Roche goes on to point to.the benefits to be gained within the decorative artsfrom the example of rural craft traditions, though he explicitly repudiates nationalistexploitation of such sources (p. 20).

15 The theme is conveyed particularly forcefully by Marius Vachon in a series ofpamphlets and enquiries such as Pour la defense de nos industries d'art.L'Instruction artistique des ouvriers en France, en Angleterre et en Autriche(Paris, 1899). On Vachon's campaign, see Stephane Laurent, 'Marius Vachon, unmilitant pour les "industries d'art"', Histoire de rart, 2~30 (May 1995), pp. 71-8.

16 On nature as a source of inspiration, see Gustave Soulier, 'La Plante et sesapplications ornementales', Revue des arts decoratifs, XX (1900), pp. 93-6; on therejection of Art nouveau, see Charles Genuys, 'A propos de l'Art nouveau. SoyonsFran~ais!', ibid., XVII (1897), pp. 1-6.

17 Vincent Dethare, 'Les Artistes berrichons au Salon d'automne', Journal du Cher (1617 October I9II).

18 Emile Molinier, 'Notes sur I'etain', Art et decoration, I (October 1897), p. 102.19 See, for example, Andre Salmon, 'La Semaine artistique [ ... JArt et regionalisme',

L'Europe nouvelle (3 May 1919), p.867.20 Henri Clouzot, 'L'Art decoratif de Jean Baffier', La Renaissance de l'art franfais et

des industries du luxe, IV11 (January 1921), p.18.21 See Nancy J. Troy, Modernism and the Decorative Arts in France: Art Nouveau to

Le Corbusier (London and New Haven, 1991).22 For the decorative and symbolic importance of tree imagery in the fireplace and

accompanying furniture, see Etienne Charles, 'A l'atelier de Jean Baffier', Journal duCher (28 November I909). Baffier's involvement in regionally inspired furnituredesign can be understood as part of a broader interest in traditional forms aroundthe turn of the century: see Denise Gli.ick, 'Meuble regional et modernite' in LeMeuble regional en France, exhibition catalogue by Denise Gllick and others: Museenational des arts et traditions populaires (Paris, 1990), pp. 170-1.

23 Catalogue of the 1898 Salon of the Societe Nationale des Beaux-Arts, no. 216:'Maquette au quart d'execution definitive, mur de fond d'une salle cl manger.'

References

24 Jean Baffler, Les Marges d'un cahier d'ouvrier. Objections aGustave Geffroy sur leMusee du soir et la force creatrice (Chateauroux, 189S), p. IS.

25 Jean Baffler, 'Lettre ouverte a M. Henry Hamel, Directeur du "Journal desartistes"', Journal des artistes, 18th year, 44 (S November 1899), P.2898. See alsoJean Baffler to Auguste Rodin, letter dated 23 December 1901, in which he attacks'cet art de pacotille, qui s'intitule Art Nouveau, art issu d'un brocantage industrielehonte, qui remplace a l'heure actuelle les belles conceptions issues de notre artancestral, si precieusement et si pieusement conserve au sein des corporations'.Dossier Jean Baffler, Archives du Musee Rodin, Paris.

26 Edouard Achard, 'Les Nivernais aux deux Salons', Revue du Nivernais (June 1901),P·236.

27 Edouard Achard, 'L'Art d'epoque', Le Reveil de la Gaule, 40 (January 1892), p.282.28 Jean Baffler, Manifeste du groupe corporatif des ouvriers d'art de Bourges fonde

sous la direction de Jean Baffier, ouvrier sculpteur, pour le relevement de la dignitedu travail national et la moralite de tart franrais (Chateauroux, 1901), pp. 7-8.

29 Jean Baffler, 'Petition aM. le President du Conseil municipal de Paris au sujet de mesoeuvres sabotees honteusement au Musee Galliera', supplement to Reveil de laGaule (March 1909), p. 394.

30 Baffler, Les Marges d'un cahier d'ouvrier, pp. 46, 48.31 Speech recorded in Ligue de la patrie franraise, section du X/Ye arrondissement.

Comite de Plaisance. Proces-verbaux des assemblees, no. 18, record of 6 October1900, n.p., Archives departementales du Cher, 23 F 9.

32 On the department store, see Jean Baffler, 'Le Bazar de la Charitf', Le Reveil de laGaule, 3rd series, 8-u (March-July 1897), p. II3: 'le bazar, importe d'Orient par lesagioteurs juifs, est le mauvais lieu Oll est en train de sombrer la dignite du travail ettoutes les vertus de l'art fram;ais, pour ne pas dire le caractere de notre race'.

33 Camille Mauclair, 'La Crise des arts decoratifs' in Trois Crises de l'art actuel (Paris,1906), p. 167.

7 Erich Ranf{t: Reproduced Sculpture of German Expressionism: Living Objects,Theatrics of Display and Practical Options

I See, for example, Gauguin to Moore: Primitivism in Modern Sculpture, exhibitioncatalogue by Alan Wilkinson: Art Gallery of Ontario (Toronto, 1981); PatrickElliott, 'Sculpture in France 1918-1939' (PhD dissertation, Courtauld Institute ofArt, University of London, 1991), especially chapter IV, 'Direct Carving'; Sculptureen taille directe en France de I900 aI950, exhibition catalogue by Patrick Elliott:Foundation de Coubertin (Saint-Remy-Ies-Chevreuse, 1988); and AlexandraParigoris' essay in this volume.

2 German Expressionist Sculpture, exhibition catalogue by Stephanie Barron: LosAngeles County Museum of Art; Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden,Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC; Josef-Haubrich Kunsthalle, Cologne (LosAngeles and Chicago, 1983; trans., revised and expanded as Skulptur desExpressionismus, Munich, 1984).

3 The other Brucke painter-sculptors were Erich Heckel, Karl Schmidt-Rottluff, MaxPechstein and Emil Nolde, while the Los Angeles project also included in this'category' of sculptors Kirchner's followers in Switzerland: the painter-sculptorAlbert Muller and the sculptor Hermann Scherer, from 1923 to 1927; see GermanExpressionist Sculpture, ibid., for essays and catalogue entries on each of theabovenamed. Undoubtedly inspiring the Los Angeles project was the major touringretrospective, Ernst Ludwig Kirchner I88o-I938 (Berlin, Munich, Cologne andZurich, 1979/80; organized by [former West-] Berlin Nationalgalerie, 1979),

188 References

including fifteen sculptures. For the most relevant study to date on Brucke art andsculptures, see Jill Lloyd, German Expressionism: Primitivism and Modernity (NewHaven and London, 1991).

4 Quoted in Rose-Carol Washton Long, ed., German Expressionism: Documents fromthe End of the Wilhelmine Empire to the Rise of National Socialism (New York,1993), p.26 (the quote uses 'peeled out' but this is awkward).

5 Deutsche Bildhauer 19°0-1945 Entartet, exhibition catalogue ed. Christian Tumpel:two venues in the Netherlands, 1991; then Gerhard Marcks-Haus, Bremen;Westfalisches Landesmuseum, Munster; Wilhelm Lehmbruck Museum, Duisburg;Stadtische Kunsthalle, Mannheim {Zwolle, 1992}. This features Kirchner's StandingWoman (1912, Nationalgalerie, Berlin); see cat. no. 34, pp. 140-1. This cataloguealso featured as its frontispiece a wood-carving by Expressionist sculptor MillySteger (c. 1919); see cat. no. 29, p. 136.

6 See Andreas Franzke, Skulpturen und Objekte von Malern des 20. Jahrhunderts(Cologne, 1982); and for a timely survey, including sculptures: Expressions: New Artfrom Germany, exhibition catalogue ed. Jack Cowart: The Saint Louis Art Museum;Long Island City, NY; Philadelphia, Cincinnati, Chicago, Newport Beach,Washington, DC (Saint Louis and Munich, 1983).

7 Petra Kipphoff, 'Der skulptierte Schrei', Die Zeit, no. 31 (27 July 1984), p. 33; andEduard Beaucamp, 'Wilde und Biiger', Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, no. IH (17July 1984), P.23. For a later study incorporating Baselitz into research onExpressionist sculpted heads, see Angela Ziesche, Der neue Mensch. Kopfe undBusten deutscher Expressionisten (PhD dissertation, published Frankfurt am Main,1993)·

8 L. de Marsalle [E. L. Kirchner], 'Uber die plastischen Arbeiten E. L. Kirchners', DerCicerone, XVII/q (1925), pp. 695~01; translation in German ExpressionistSculpture, exhibition catalogue by Barron, PP.43-6 (with illustrations of worksfrom article) and Washton Long, ed., German Expressionism: Documents, pp. II~21 (excerpted).

9 For introductory contextualizations of Expressionist sculpture see: German Expressionism 1915-1925: The Second Generation, exhibition catalogue ed. StephanieBarron, Los Angeles County Museum of Art; Fort Worth Art Museum, Texas;Kunstmuseum Diisseldorf; Staatliche Galerie Moritzburg, Halle (Munich, 1988);Magdalena Bushart, Der Geist der Gotik und die expressionistische Kunst (Munich,1990), pp. 145~6; and Erich Ranfft, 'Expressionist Sculpture c. 1910-30 and theSignificance of its Dual Architectural/Ideological Frame' in ExpressionismReassessed, eds S. Behr, D. Fanning and D. Jarman (Manchester and New York,1993), pp. 65-79·

10 Joan Campbell, The German Werkbund: The Politics ofReform in the Applied Arts(Princeton, 1978), P.50, note 63; see also Alan Windsor, Peter Behrens (London,1981), pp. 137-8.

II Mainly Erich Heckel, Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, Karl Schmidt-Rottluff, MaxPechstein, Ernst Barlach, Gerhard Marcks, Ludwig Gies, Christoph Voll, KarlKnappe, Otto Hitzberger, Milly Steger and Karl Opfermann (all but Gies,Hitzberger and Opfermann were included in German Expressionist Sculpture,though the coverage of Marcks was superficial).

12 ll. Ausstellung von Zeichnungen und Plastiken neuzeitlicher Bildhauer, exhibitioncatalogue by W. F. Storck: Kunsthalle Mannheim (Mannheim, 19I4); list of worksreprinted in Hommage a Lehmbruck - Lehmbruck in seiner Zeit, exhibitioncatalogue by Siegfried Salzmann and Karl-Egon Vester: Wilhelm-Lehmbruck-Museum (Duisburg, 1981), pp. 148~.

13 See Cornelia Wieg, 'Animalisierung. Zu Plastiken von Franz Marc' in Expressionist

References

Sculpture, exhibition catalogue by Rintaro Terakado and others: Aichi PrefecturalMuseum of Art, Nagoya; Niigata Prefectural Museum of Modern Art (Nagoya andNiigata, 1995), pp. 181-6; and Hans Friedeberger, 'Plastiken und neue Zeichnungenvon Max Pechstein bei Gurlitt', Der Cicerone, V (1913), pp. 760-2.

14 See The Dance of Death: Medallic Art of the First World War, exhibition catalogueby Mark Jones: British Museum (London, 1979); and Bernd Ernsting, 'Ludwig Gies.The Munich Years', The Medal, no. 13 (Autumn 1988), pp. 58-72.

15 Hedwig Fechheimer, Die Plastik der Agypter (Berlin, 1913), especially pp. 1-8; by1919 its 4th edition contained further examples of findings from Egypt.

16 Other projects by Expressionist sculptors included Milly Steger for the Hagen CityTheatre (19II/12); Steger and Will Lammert for the Hagen City Hall (1913/14); PaulHenning for the Prachtel business headquarters in Berlin (1912); and BernhardHoetger for the Berne Community Centre (1912).

17 On the Lions' Gate and Hoetger's sculptural decorations for the Mathildenhohe, seeDieter Tino Wehner, Bernhard Hoetger: Das Bildwerk 1905 bis I9I4 und dasGesamtwerk Platanenhain (Alfter, 1993), pp. 93-197 and accompanying catalogue ofworks.

18 See Peter van der Coelen, 'War der Kunde Konig? Bernhard Hoetger, ein deutscherKiinstler und seine Auftraggeber 19°0-1945' in Deutsche Bildhauer, exhibitioncatalogue by Tiimpel, pp. 71- 82.

19 See Wehner, Bernhard Hoetger, pp.III-13, 122-8; and Licht und Schatten.Bernhard Hoetger. Majoliken 1910-1912, exhibition catalogue by Uta Bernsmeier:Bremer Landesmuseum fiir Kunst und Kulturgeschichte (Bremen, 1993).

20 Robert Breuer, 'Treuhander', Das Kunstblatt, III (1917), PP.27-8 (see also thecomplete 'Umschau' section on these pages).

21 See Ranfft, 'Expressionist Sculpture', pp.67-8; van der Coelen, 'War der KundeKonig', PP.72-3; and Frauke Engel, 'Bernhard Hoetger und der KerksfabrikantHermann Bahlsen' in Bernhard Hoetger, Bildwerke 1902-1936, ed. H. Grape-Albers(Hanover, 1994), pp. 35-55·

22 Reinhold HelIer, 'Bridge to Utopia: The Briicke as Utopian Experiment' inExpressionist Utopias: Paradise, Metropolis, Architectural Fantasy, exhibitioncatalogue by Timothy Benson: Los Angeles County Museum of Art (Los Angelesand Seattle, 1993), pp. 62-83, especially P.71.

23 Entry from 1923 in Lothar Grisebach, E. L. Kirchners Davoser Tagebuch (Cologne,1968), P·78.

24 Lloyd, German Expressionism, p. II9 (in reference to Kirchner; her study fails totreat the extent of Heckel's practices); for general coverage see pp. 21-49, II~23.

25 Drawing: pencil, watercolour and gouache, Buchheim Sammlung; illustrated in ibid.,p.122.

26 'Das schwarze Tuch', Der Sturm, no. 63 (25 May 19II); also illustrated in NellWalden and Lothar Schreyer, eds, Der Sturm: Ein Erinnerungsbuch (Baden-Baden,1954), p.20.

27 See Claudia Rieger, '''Lebende Bilder" und "Bewegte Plastik'" in Ausdruckstanz,ed. G. Oberzaucher-Schiiller (Wilhelmshaven, 1992), pp. 367-76; and Ulrich Linse,'Zeitbild Jahrhundertwende' in 'Wir sind nackt und nennen uns Du' ... EineGeschichte der Freikorperkultur, eds M. Andritzky and T. Rautenberg (Gie~en,

1989), pp. 10-50, especially PP.25, 32.28 Praying Man (destroyed in 1944) and Draped Woman (1912, Briicke-Museum,

Berlin), illustrated in German Expressionist Sculpture, exhibition catalogue byBarron, figs 2 and 6 respectively, pp. 94-5.

29 For a colour illustration see Erich Heckel 1883-1970, exhibition catalogue ed.

References

Zdenek Felix: Museum Folkwang, Essen; Haus der Kunst, Munich (Munich, 1983),cat. no. 33, pp. no-n.

30 Katharina Hegewitsch, 'Einst ein Kommender vor Kommenden - Erich Heckel inseiner Zeit' in ibid., p. 34.

31 It is not surprising that Heckel wanted to convey Siddi in terms of a religious icon,for this mirrors his paintings and drawings of Madonnas and figures with halos donein 1912-16.

32 Such a relationship to the spectator was also explored in 1912 when Heckel andKirchner created a 'Madonna Chapel' for the Sonderbund exhibition in Cologne; seeLloyd, German Expressionism, pp. 5~1.

33 See German Expressionist Sculpture, exhibition catalogue by Barron, pp. 43-6, n3-29·

34 Photograph entitled Two Sculptures with Background of Paintings, illustrated inibid., fig. 5, p. 121.

35 Photograph entitled The Dancer Nina Hard in Kirchner's 'Haus in den L(jrchen' inDavos, 1921, illustrated in ibid., fig. 7, p.122.

36 An idea of these structural and painterly variations can be gleaned from ibid., pp. 45,94-5, and Lloyd, German Expressionism, pp. 67-74·

37 Published by Barlach's dealer, Paul Cassirer, Berlin; lithographs illustrated, forexample, in Un sculpteur-ecrivain: Ernst Barlach, exhibition catalogue by CatherineKrahmer: Musee d'Orsay (Paris, 1988), pp. 34-8.

38 In the collection of the Ernst BarIach Haus, Hamburg; illustrated, along withcorresponding lithograph, in Naomi Jackson Groves, Ernst Barlach: Life in Work(Konigstein im Taunus, 1972), pp. 46-7.

39 On this period see sources in note 9.40 From Bruno Taut, 'Ein Architektur-Programm', 1918, trans. in The Weimar

Republic Sourcebook, eds Amon Kaes and others (Berkeley, 1994), pp. 432-4.41 See Stark Impressions: Graphic Production in Germany, 1918-1933, exhibition

catalogue by Reinhold HelIer: Mary and Leigh Block Gallery, NorthwesternUniversity, Evanston; Hood Museum of Art, Hanover; Archer M. Huntington ArtGallery, Austin (Evanston, 1993); and The German Print Portfolio 1890-1930:Serials for a Private Sphere, exhibition catalogue by Robin Reisenfeld: DetroitInstitute of Arts; Tampa Museum of Art; Katonah Museum of Art; David andAlfred Smart Museum of Art, Chicago (Chicago and London, 1992).

42 Bruno Taut, 'Haus des Himmels', Fruhlicht, 1/7 (April 1920), pp. 10~I2 (the Pillarsare illustrated on p. 112), quoted in Expressionist Utopias, exhibition catalogue byBenson, P.285 (with full translation PP.283-5); and reprinted in Bruno Taut:Fruhlicht 1920-1922, ed. Ulrich Conrads, (Berlin, 1963), pp. 33-6. One of the Pillarsis illustrated in Wolfgang Pehnt, Expressionist Architecture (London, 1973), fig. 260,p.l14·

43 See Winfried Nerdinger, Rudolf Belling und die Kunststromungen in Berlin 19181923 (Berlin, 1981), pp. 24-6; and Ranfft, 'Expressionist Sculpture', pp. 70-3, for itsarchitectural-ideological context.

44 Quoted in Nerdinger, Rudolf Belling, P.24.45 From WaIter Gropius, 'Programm des Staatlichen Bauhauses', 1919, trans. in Kaes

and others, Weimar Republic Sourcebook, pp. 435-8.46 See logo Kerls, 'Worpsweder Kunsthiitten und die Werkstatt "Zu den 7 Faulen'" in

Bernhard Hoetger: Sein Werk in der Bottcherstrape Bremen, eds A. Drees-Hiittemann and B. Kiister (Worpswede, 1994), pp. 96- 123.

47 See Caren Marusch-Krohn, Meissener Porzellan 1918-1933: die Pfeifferzeit (Leipzig,1993), especially pp. n2-18, 121-4.

48 Carl Georg Heise, 'Zu einer Leuchterfigur von Gerhard Marcks', Genius, Vh (1920),

References

pp. 252-4; see also Rop und Reiter in der Skulptur des XX. Jahrhunderts, exhibitioncatalogue by Martina Rudloff and Albrecht Seufert: Gerhard Marcks-Haus (Bremen,1991), pp. 3~40, 90-1.

49 Illustrated in German Expressionist Sculpture, exhibition catalogue by Barron, cat.no. 18, p.67.

50 Quoted in Bushart, Der Geist der Gotik, p. 179, note 151.51 From Md Gordon, ed., Expressionist Texts (New York, 1986), p. 183 (entire trans.

of play pp. 155-2°7).52 See Golem! Danger, Deliverance and Art, exhibition catalogue by Emily D. Bilski:

Jewish Museum (New York, 1988).53 Philipp Harth, 'Ober Plastik und Holzplastik', Das Kunstblatt, VIII (1924), pp. 164-

76, on p. 164; Alfred Kuhn, Die neuere Plastik (Munich, 1921), p. 15.54 Otto Hitzberger, 'Aus der Werkstatt eines Holzbildhauers', Die Kunst, Lll (October

1923), pp. II-19, especially pp. 13, 19.55 Georg Biermann, 'Der Bildhauer Herbert Garbe', Der Cicerone, XIIho (1920),

pp. 737-47, especially P·742.56 Paul Westheim, 'Neue Malerei?', Sozialistische Monatshefte, XIX/3 (1913), pp. 170-

73, on p. 172.57 Adolf von Hildebrand, Das Problem der Form in der bildenden Kunst (Strasbourg,

1893), with the 3rd revised and expanded edn (1901) as the final and 'modern'version, which was translated into English (abridged, New York, 1907) and French(Paris, 1903). For a full translation of the 1893 edition, see Harry Francis Mallgraveand Eleftherios Ikonomou, Empathy, Form, and Space: Problems in GermanAesthetics, r873-r893 (Santa Monica, 1994), pp. 227-79·

58 See Rudolf Wittkower, Sculpture: Processes and Principles (Harmondsworth, 1986),pp. 231-49; and Erich Ranfft, 'Adolf von Hildebrand's "Problem der Form" and His"Front" Against Auguste Rodin' (Master's thesis, Ann Arbor, Michigan, 1992).

59 According to Liesbeth Jans, 'Ernst Barlach' in Deutsche Bildhauer, exhibitioncatalogue by Tumpel, p.201.

60 Also: Moderne Plastik, exhibition catalogue by Galerie Ernst Arnold (Dresden,1919), cat. no. 33; and in 1930, by then without the patronage of Cassirer, Barlachwas persuaded by the dealer Alfred Flechtheim to allow bronzes to be cast from anumber of plaster models - see Isa Lohmann-Siems, 'Zum Problem des Materials beiErnst Barlach' in Ernst Barlach: Plastik, Zeichnungen, Druckgraphik, exhibitioncatalogue by Manfred Schneckenburger: Kunsthalle (Cologne, 1975), pp. 23-32.

61 See Anita Beloubek-Hammer, 'Rudolf Belling' in Roland Marz, Kunst in Deutschland 1905-r937 (Berlin, 1992), pp. 104-06.

62 Ewald Matare, Tagebucher, eds H. Matare and F. Muller (Cologne, 1973), p. 32 (2August 1923).

63 According to Bushart, Der Geist der Gotik, p. 151, note 59; which works and howmany remain unknown.

64 See Ursel Berger, Georg Kolbe - Leben und Werk, 2nd edn (Berlin, 1994), cat. nos 53(pp. 260-2) and 57 (pp. 264-5).

65 Paul Rudolf Henning, 'Ton - Ein Aufruf', Mitteilungen des Deutschen Werkbundes,no. 5 (191~20), p. 144; first published in 1917 by the Kunsthaus Zurich. For a partialtranslation of the manifesto, see German Expressionist Sculpture, exhibitioncatalogue by Barron, pp. 41- 2; but for a complete reprint of the Werkbundpublication, see Barron, Skulptur des Expressionismus, pp. 214-5.

66 Emily D. Bilski, 'The Art of the Golem' in Golem!, exhibition catalogue by Bilski,pp. 51-2 .

67 For the most in-depth and current study on Lehmbruck, see Dietrich Schubert, DieKunst Lehmbrucks, 2nd revised and expanded edn (Dresden, 1990).

References

68 Kuhn, Die neuere Plastik, pp. Iq-IS; see also Kuhn's favourable comments on MillySteger's use of artificial stone, p. 104, and on works by Belling, pp. 126-8.

69 See, for example, Siegfried Salzmann, 'Jedes abgeschlagene Bein wandert seelischfort. Lehmbrucks Plastik und das Problem der Giisse', Frankfurter AllgemeineZeitung, no. 206 (5 September 1991), P.35; and Ursel Berger, 'Zum Problem der"Originalbronzen". Deutsche Bronzeplastiken im 19. und 20. Jahrhundert',Pantheon, III (1982), pp. 184-95. Belling had nine bronze versions of Triad castbetween 1949 and 1972 - see Nerdinger, Rudolf Belling, cat. no. 20, p.229, for thelocations of seven of these; the 1924 version in wood remained in relative obscurityin the collection of the Alte Nationalgalerie in the former East Berlin (I am gratefulto Dr Gottlieb Leinz of the Wilhelm Lehmbruck Museum, Duisburg, for bringing tomy attention Belling's motives for the second, wooden Triad). The Barlach museumsare located in Hamburg, Giistrow, Wedel and Ratzeburg.

8 Alexandra Parigoris: Truth to Material: Bronze, on the Reproducibility of Truth

I am indebted to the editors, Erich Ranfft and Anthony Hughes, for their careful andcritical reading of this essay. I would also like to thank Michael Stone-Richards andJonathan Wood for their useful comments on the early drafts.

I Rodin Rediscovered, exhibition catalogue ed. Albert E. Elsen: National Gallery ofArt (Washington, 1981).

2 Rosalind E. Krauss, 'The Originality of the Avant-Garde: A PostmodernistRepetition', October, no. 18 (Fall 1981), pp. 47-66. The essay was reprinted in herThe Originality of the Avant-Garde and Other Modernist Myths (Cambridge, MA,and London, 1985), pp. 151-70.

3 Albert E. Elsen, 'On the Question of Originality: A Letter', October, no. 20 (Spring1982), pp. IQ7-o9·

4 See Art Journal, XXXIV/r (Fall 1974), pp. 44-5°·5 Julio Gonzalez: Sculptures and Drawings, exhibition catalogue by Rosalind Krauss:

Pace Gallery (New York, 1981). The essay was reprinted as 'This New Art: To Drawin Space' in Krauss, The Originality of the Avant-Garde, pp. II~3I.

6 Krauss had the final word in an article that followed Elsen's letter, where shemaintained her position in extending her critique to the essays published in thecatalogue Rodin Rediscovered. The object of her discussion was less the works ofRodin than a critique of the conventions used to define and valorize these works. SeeRosalind E. Krauss, 'Sincerely Yours', October, no. 20 (Spring 1982), pp. Ill-30. Allthe articles were subsequently gathered in The Originality of the Avant-Garde.

7 Sylvia Hochfield, 'Problems in the Reproduction of Sculpture', ARTnews (NewYork), LXXIII/9 (November 1974), pp. 21-9·

8 See also the exchange of letters between Alexandre Istrati and Sidney Geist inARTnews (New York), LXXIV/IQ (December 1975), pp. 24-8.

9 Hochfield, 'Problems in the Reproduction of Sculpture', P.29. For the most recentenquiry into the market of posthumous casts see Judd Tully, 'The Messiest SubjectAlive', ARTnews (New York), XCIV/ro (December 1995), pp. 112-18.

10 Jean Chatelain, 'An Original in Sculpture' in Rodin Rediscovered, exhibitioncatalogue by Elsen, pp. 275-82.

II This version of Age of Bronze was cast by the firm Thii:bault fr(:res, and acquired bythe French State in 1880 after its exhibition at the Paris Salon. Walking Man was castby the firm Alexis Rudier, and given to the French State in I9II by a group of artenthusiasts.

12 See the catalogue to the travelling exhibition Rodin and his Contemporaries, seen by

References 193

the author in its venue at the London department store Selfridges, from 28 March to21 April 1990.

13 This was the of Rudolf Wittkower's Slade lectures in 1971, published asSculpture, Processes and Principles (London, 1977).

14 WaIter Benjamin, 'The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction'reprinted in Illuminations, trans. H. Zorn, 4th impression (London 1982), p.223.

15 Michael Le Marchant, 'Le Role du marchand: redecouvrir et diffuser' in Rencontresde l'Ecole du Louvre, La Sculpture du XIXe siecle, Une Memoire retrouvee. LesFonds de sculpture (Paris, 1986), pp. 255-61.

16 Elsen, in his exhibition catalogue Rodin Rediscovered, p. 15, wrote: 'Whether or notone prefers a lifetime cast to an authorised posthumous cast on historical or ethicalgrounds, there is no question but that the latter casts do perform an importanteducational function'.

17 See Monique Laurent, 'Vie posthume d'un fonds d'atelier: les editions de bronzes duMusee Rodin' in La Sculpture du XIXe siecle, Une Memoire retrouvee, pp. 245-55·

18 I refer the reader to Paul Wood's review, 'Howl of Minerva', Art History, IX/r(March 1986), pp. II~31.

19 See, for example, the entry for Raymond Duchamp-Villon, The Horse, 1914, inAngelica Zander Rudenstine, Peggy Guggenheim Collection, Venice (New York,1985), pp. 270-81.

20 Letter in French quoted in ibid., P.273.21 Katherine Kuh to Louis Carre, Chicago, 19 April 1957. Unpublished correspondence

from the Raymond Ducham-Villon Artist File of the Art Institute of Chicago. I amgrateful to Daniel Schulman, Assistant Curator in the Department of TwentiethCentury Painting and Sculpture, for making this information available to me.

22 Louis Carre to Katherine Kuh, Paris, 9 May 1957, ibid.23 This important note on the historiography of avant-garde sculpture was argued

convincingly by Patrick Elliott in 'Sculpture in France 1918-1939' (unpublished PhDthesis, University of London, 1991), chapter V. The very detailed label thataccompanies Horse, 1955-57 version of a 1914 work. Bronze (from an edition of7),in the galleries of the Art Institute of Chicago lists the various versions and historiesof production, but in the final analysis maintains the title Horse for the work, ratherthan Large Horse used by Duchamp and Carre to designate this work, thus stressing1914 over 1957.

24 Oliver Andrews, Living Materials, A Sculptors Handbook (Berkeley, Los Angelesand London, 1983), p.182.

25 I wish to thank Anthony Hughes for clarifying this aspect.26 Renaissance sculptors often left accounts of their work in this material to

commemorate the retrieval and mastery of a technique that had a time-honouredtradition, stretching back to ancient civilizations. See the account of this literature inRichard E. Stone, 'Antico and the Development of Bronze Casting in Italy at the Endof the Quattrocento', Metropolitan Museum Journal, 16 (1982). I wish to thank DrIan Wardropper, Eloise W. Martin Curator of European Decorative Arts andSculpture and Classical Art at the Art Institute of Chicago, for his advice on thisquestion and for referring me to this article.

27 Louis Slobodkin, Sculpture, Principles and Practices (1949; reprinted New York,1973), offers the most accessible account of the process to the layman, pp. 161-9. It issignificant that although most accounts of bronze fashioning acknowledge theartistry of the patiniere, these crafts remain anoymous. A singular exception is madeby 'Pere and Jean Limet', who worked for Rodin and others in this century. SeeMalvina Hoffman, Heads and Tales in Many Lands (New York and London, 1937),P·91.

194 References

28 Though the make-up of a foundry has altered little since the days the workshop wasrecorded in illustrative prints in such manuals as Diderot, or d'Alembert,Encyclopaedia of Trades and Industries (c. 1751-65) or Carradori, IstruzioneElementare per gli Studiosi della Scultura (1802), the number of specialized artisanshas diminished.

29 Patrick Elliott, La Sculpture en taille directe en France de I900 aI950 (Saint-Remy-les-Chevreuse, 1988); idem, Sculpture in France I9I8-I939, chapter IV.

30 See the statement in the catalogue of the Henry Moore exhibition at the TateGallery, Arts Council of Great Britain, 1951. Reprinted in Philip lames, ed., HenryMoore on Sculpture (London and New York, 1966; New York, 1992), p. 113.

31 Furthermore, the publication of H. S. Ede, Savage Messiah (London, 1931) andHorace Brodzky, Henri Gaudier-Brzeska I89I-I9I5 (London, 1933) must havecontributed to reviving interest in the earlier sculptor's work. I wish to thanklonathan Wood for this point.

32 Henry Moore, 'A View of Sculpture', Architectural Association Journal (May 1930).Reprinted in lames, Henry Moore on Sculpture, pp. 62-8.

33 First published, untitled, in Unit One, ed. Herbert Read (London, 1934), pp. 2~30,reprinted in lames, Henry Moore on Sculpture, pp. 6~72: 'Truth to material. Everymaterial has its own individual qualities. It is only when the sculptor works direct,when there is an active relationship with his material, that the material can take itspart in the shaping of an idea. Stone, for example, is hard and concentrated andshould not be falsified to look like soft flesh - it should not be forced beyond itsconstructive build to a point of weakness. It should keep its hard tense stoniness.'

34 Henry Moore, 'The Sculptor Speaks', The Listener, XVIII/449 (18 August 1937).Reprinted in lames, Henry Moore on Sculpture, pp. 62-8.

35 Clement Greenberg's 'The New Sculpture' was first published in 1948 and revised in1958 for inclusion in Art and Culture (London, 1961; reprinted 1973), pp. 13~45.For an excellent and fair critique of Greenberg's ideas on art, mainly painting, see T.J. Clark, 'Clement Greenberg's Theory of Art' in Francis Frascina, ed., Pollock andAfter: The Critical Debate (London, 1985), pp. 47-63· The limiting effect ofGreenberg's view of sculpture for Gonzalez is explored in my essay, 'Gonzalez in theContext of Surrealism: Plutot la vie' in the 1995 Gonzalez Symposium papers(Valencia, forthcoming).

36 Rosalind Krauss, 'This New Art: To Draw in Space' in The Originality of the AvantGarde, p.128. The essay first appeared in the catalogue of the Pace Galleryexhibition Julio Gonzalez: Sculptures and Drawings in 1981.

37 The Edinburgh Harlequin (posthumous cast) was acquired in 1972 from the Galeriede France in Paris. It is, apparently, one of four posthumous casts done by Valsuani.I wish to thank Patrick Elliott, Assistant Keeper of European Painting and Sculptureat the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, for providing me with thisinformation.

38 Andre Billy's 'Comment je suis devenu poete (pour Guillaume Apollinaire)',advocated the new sources of inspiration for the modern poet to be found inadvertising texts, in Les Soirees de Paris, no. 9 (October 1912), P.276. Apollinairehimself praised the plurality of the technical means available to painters, in thesection devoted to Picasso; see Guillaume Apollinaire, Meditations esthetiques: LesPeintres cubistes, eds L. C. Breunig and J.-Cl. Chevalier (Paris, 1980), p. 80.

39 Andre Salmon, La Jeune Sculpture fran~aise (Paris, 1919), pp. 25-6. Salmon states inthe preface that his manuscript was ready for publication before the war. Thisimportant text is the first to comment on Picasso's Cubist constructions' assault onthe hierarchy of art categories, p. 104- See also my essay, 'Les Constructions cubistes

References 195

dans Les Soirees de Paris - Apollinaire, Picasso et les cliches Kahnweiler', Revue de[,Art, no. 82 (1988), pp. 61-75.

40 From Futurist Manifestoes, ed. Umbro Apollonio (London, 1973), p.65.41 For the best discussion of the casting of Unique Forms ofContinuity in Space of 1913

see Ronald Alley, Catalogue of the Tate Gallery's Collection of Modern Art otherthan Works by British Artists (London, 1980), entry T. 1589 compiled with the helpof Judith Cousins, pp. 60-1.

42 Anna C. Chave, in Constantin Brancusi: Shifting the Bases of Art (New Haven andLondon, 1993), gathers all these statements to strengthen her contention thatBrancusi's polish was perceived as an expression of modern technologies. See alsoJack Burnham, Beyond Modern Sculpture (New York, 1966).

43 Brancusi won his case when it was decided in his favour that Bird in Space was an'original production by a professional sculptor' and thus qualified as a work of art.A facsimile of the minutes of the US Customs Court trial of Constantin Brancusi vs.the United States 1927-8 is available in the Museum of Modern Art Library.Commentaries on this trial abound: Aline B. Saarinen, 'The Strange Story ofBrancusi', New York Times Magazine (23 October 1955); Edward Steichen,'Brancusi vs. United States', Art in America, no. I (1962); Thierry de Duve, 'Reponsea cote de la question "Qu'est-ce que la sculpture moderne?'" in Qu'est-ce que lasculpture moderne?, exhibition catalogue: Musee National d'Art Moderne, CentreGeorges Pompidou (Paris, 1986), pp. 274-92; Thomas L. Hartshorne, 'Modernismon Trial: C. Brancusi v. United States (1928)', Journal of American Studies, XXII(1986), pp. 93-1°4. The most recent account that provides the most extracts from thecourt case and contemporary press reports is Chave, Constantin Brancusi: Shiftingthe Bases of Art, pp. 198-223.

44 So central was this issue to the production of bronze sculpture that it is notsurprising that Epstein included his testimony at the Brancusi trial in hisautobiography, Let There Be Sculpture (New York, 1940), pp. 123-7.

45 Of Boccioni's Unique Forms of Continuity in Space, Sidney Geist in a letter to theauthor writes: 'Unique Forms was cast in bronze, then filed down, then polished.The ex-Malbin cast (in New York) shows modelling which was erased in the Tatecopy. This erasure tells us about a lot of things, but not about Boccioni' (Letterdated 5 September 1996).

46 Quentin Skinner, 'Meaning and Understanding in the History of Ideas' in Meaningand Context, Quentin Skinner and his Critics, ed. James Tully (Princeton, 1989),p.61.

47 This is why Athena T. Spear's analysis is still so useful: Brancusi's Birds (New York,1969), pp. 17-27.

48 Brancusi statements in the Brummer exhibition catalogue (New York, 1926). Thesestatements had appeared in French the previous year; Constantin Brancusi,'Reponses de Brancusi sur la taille directe, le poli et la simplicite dans l'art.Quelques-uns de ses aphorismes a Irene Codreane', This Quarter, no. I (1925).

49 Brancusi, ibid.50 Jacob Epstein, The Sculptor Speaks: Jacob Epstein to Arnold L. Haskell, A Series of

Conversations on Art (London, 1931), p. 78.51 This conclusion is indebted to discussions with Michael Stone-Richards about the

divergent aims and ambitions of the Futurist artist.52 Letter from Constantin Brancusi to John Quinn, 5 June 1918, in the John Quinn

Memorial Collection, New York Public Library.53 Sidney Geist, Brancusi, A Study of the Sculpture (New York, 1967, 2nd edn 1983),

P·159·54 'The metalization must be yellow' ('11 faut que la metallisation soit jaune'), he wired

References

Stefan Georgescu-Gorjan, the engineer working on the site in the fall of 1937. SeeStefan Georgescu-Gorjan, 'The Genesis of the Column without End', RevueRoumaine d'Histoire de ['Art, Ih (1964), p. 290.

55 In this sense, I read the correspondence and exchange of works with Quinn from anentirely opposite perspective to that taken by Chave. See Chave, Brancusi, Shiftingthe Bases of Art, p.206. See also the important contributions to this question madeby Friedrich Teja Bach, Brancusi, Photo Reflexion (Paris, 1991) and JacquesLeenhardt, 'Au-dela de la matiere: Brancusi et la photographie' in SculpterPhotographier, Photographie-Sculpture, eds Michel Frizot and Dominique Paini(Paris, 1993), pp. 33-9·

56 No. 27, captioned Brancusi au travail dans l'atelier, in Brancusi Photographe,exhibition catalogue by Marielle Tabart and Isabelle Monod-Fontaine: MuseeNational d'Art Moderne, Centre Georges Pompidou (Paris, 1979). It survives withdedications to Petre Comanerscu and Stefan Georgesco-Gorjan among others.Margherita Andreotti reads this photograph in terms of a self-portrayal as 'mythiccreator - a kind of modern Vulcan of the studio' in her 'Brancusi's Golden Bird: ANew Species of Modern Sculpture', The Art Institute of Chicago Museum Studies(1993), pp. 135-52 and 198- 203.

9 Edward Allington: Venus a Go Go, To Go

1 Dan Graham, Rock my Religion: Writing and Art Projects I965-I990, ed. BrianWallis (Cambridge, MA, and London, 1993), p. 293: 'Around 1900, Freud's theory ofthe "unconscious", the cinema, and Coney Island appeared almost simultaneously'.In his Delirious New York (New York, 1978), the Dutch architect Rem Koolhaasdiscusses the development of Coney Island as an unconscious dreamland set amidthe waking, rational world of New York City.

2 The first museum to be built in Europe, commencing in 1769, was the LandgraveFrederick in Cassel, known as the Fredericianium.

3 Hugh Honour, Neo-classicism (London, 1968), p. 80.4 Ibid., p. 107.5 Richard Wollheim, Art and its Objects (Harmondsworth, 1978), p. 12.6 Iris Murdock, Metaphysics as a Guide to Morals (London, 1993), p. 2.7 Thomas McEvilly, 'I Think Therefore I Art', Art Forum (Summer 1985), p. 76.8 Jean Chatelain, 'An Original in Sculpture' in Rodin Rediscovered, ed. Albert E.

Elsen: National Gallery of Art, Washington; New York Graphic Society, Boston(1981), p. 275·

9 Ibid., p. 276.10 Rosalind E. Krauss The Originality of the Avant-Garde and other Modernist Myths

(Cambridge, MA, and London, 1985), p. 276.II McEvilly, 'I Think Therefore I Art', p. 74.12 Bernard Brunon, The Status of Sculpture: Sezanne, Lyon: Espace Lyonnais d'art

contemporain, Ville de Lyon (1990 ), p. 13.13 Stephen Fenichell, Plastic - The Making of a Synthetic Century (New York, 1996),

p.228.14 Ibid.15 Les Levine, New York Times.16 Jack Burnham, Great Western Salt Works: Essays on the Meaning of Post-Formalist

Art (New York, 1974), p. 74.17 McEvilly 'I Think Therefore I Art', p. 76.

Select Bibliography

This bibliography comprises selected works cited in this volume and additional referenceshighlighting the wide-ranging parameters of sculpture and its reproductions.

Allington, Ed, 'Introduction' in Reproduction in Sculpture: Dilution or Increase?,exhibition catalogue: Centre for the Study of Sculpture, Henry Moore Institute, Leeds(1994), pp. 1-5·

Andrews, Oliver, Living Materials: A Sculptor's Handbook (Berkeley, Los Angeles andLondon, 1983).

Baas, Jacquelynn, 'Reconsidering WaIter Benjamin. "The Age of Mechanical Reproduc-tion" in Retrospect' in The Documented Image: Visions in Art History, eds Gabriel P.Weisberg and Laurinda S. Dixon (Syracuse, 1987), pp. 337-47.

Benjamin, WaIter, 'The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction' in WaIterBenjamin: Illuminations, ed. Hannah Arendt (London, 1970; revised edn 1992), pp.2II-44·

Berger, Ursel, 'Zum Problem der "Originalbronzen". Deutsche Bronzeplastiken im 19.und 20. Jahrhundert', Pantheon, III (1982), pp. 184-95.

Bober, Phyllis Pray and Rubinstein, Ruth, Renaissance Artists and Antique Sculpture: AHandbook of Sources (London, 1986).

Bode, Wilhelm [von], Die italienischen Bronzestatuetten der Renaissance, 3 vols (Berlin,1907-12); trans. as The Italian Bronze Statuettes of the Renaissance, 3 vols (Berlin,1908-12); revised and ed. by James D. Draper, I vol. (New York, 1980).

Buchholz, Daniel and Magnani, Gregorio, International Index of Multiples FromDuchamp to the Present (Cologne, 1992).

Burnham, Jack, Beyond Modern Sculpture (New York and London, 1968).--, Great Western Salt Works: Essays on the Meaning of Post-Formalist Art (New

York, 1974).Chatelain, Jean, 'An Original in Sculpture' in Rodin Rediscovered, exhibition catalogueed. Albert E. Elsen: National Gallery of Art, Washinton, DC (1981), pp. 275-82.

Crum, Robert, 'Degas Bronzes?', Art Journal, LIVII (Spring 1995), pp. 93-8 (exhibitionreview).

Damaged Goods: Desire and the Economy of the Object, exhibition catalogue eds BrianWallis and Marcia Landsman: The New Museum of Contemporary Art, New York(1986).

Dhaliwal, Ben, 'Catalogue of the Exhibition' in Reproduction in Sculpture: Dilution orIncrease?, exhibition catalogue: Centre for the Study of Sculpture, Henry MooreInsititute, Leeds (1994), pp. 6-16.

Edward Allington, exhibition catalogue by Annelie Pohlen: Bonner Kunsrverein, Bonn,and Cornerhouse, Manchester (1992).

Select Bibliography

Edward Allington: The Pictured Bronzes, exhibition catalogue by Shin Ichi Nakazawaand James Roberts: Kohji Ogura Gallery, Nagoya (1991).

Elsen, Albert E. and others, 'Standards for Sculptural Reproduction and PreventiveMeasures to Combat Unethical Casting', Art Journal, XXXIVII (Fall 1974), pp. 44-50.

'On the Question of Originality: A Letter', October, no. 20 (Spring 1982), pp. I07-09·

Fake? The Art of Deception, exhibition catalogue ed. Mark Jones with Paul Craddockand Nicolas Barker: British Museum (London, 1990).

Fenichell, Stephen, Plastic - The Making of a Synthetic Century (New York, 1996).Gauricus, Pomponius, De sculptura (Florence, 1504); ed. and trans. into French by AndreChastel and Robert Klein (Paris and Geneva, 1969).

Geist, Sidney, Brancusi: A Study of the Sculpture (New York, 1967; revised and expaned1983).

German Expressionist Sculpture, exhibition catalogue by Stephanie Barron: Los AngelesCounty Museum of Art (1983); revised German edn as Skulptur des Expressionismus(Munich, 1984).

Goldsten, Carl, Teaching Art: Academies and Schools from Vasari to Albers (Cambridge,1996). '

Haskell, Francis and Penny, Nicholas, Taste and the Antique: The Lure of ClassicalSculpture, 15°0-19°0 (New Haven and London, 1981).

Hildebrand, Adolf von, Das Problem der Form in den bildenden Kunst (Strasbourg, 1893);ed., introduced and trans. in Harry Francis Mallgrave and Eleftherios Ikonomou,Empathy, Form, and Space: Problems in German Aesthetics, 1873-r893 (Santa Monica,1994)·

Hochfield, Sylivia, 'Problems in the Reproduction of Sculpture', ARTnews, LXXIII/9(November 1974), pp. 20-9; with 'Letters' in response: LXXIVII (January 1975), p. 22,and LXXIVIro (December 1975), pp. 24-8.

Hulten, Pontus, Dumitresco, Natalia and Istrati, Alexandre, Brancusi (Paris 1986);English trans. (New York, 1986).

Ivins Jr, William, Prints and Visual Communication (Cambridge, MA, and London, 1953;revised edn 1969).

James, Philip, ed., Henry Moore on Sculpture (London and New York, 1966; New York,1992).

Jenkins, lan, Archaeologists and Aesthetes in the Sculpture Galleries of the BritishMuseum 1800-1939 (London, 1992).

Jones, Mark, ed., Why Fakes Matter: Essays on Problems ofAuthenticity (London, 1992).Krauss, Rosalind E., Passages in Modern Sculpture (Cambridge, MA, and London, 1977;revised edn 1993).--, 'The Originality of the Avant-Garde: A Postmodernist Repetition', October, no. 18

(Fall 1981), pp. 47-66; reprinted in R. E. Krauss, The Originality of the Avant-Gardeand Other Modernist Myths (Cambridge, MA, and London, 1985), pp. 151-70.--, 'This New Art: To Draw in Space' (1981), in R. E. Krauss, The Originality of the

Avant-Garde and Other Modernist Myths (1985), pp. II~29.--, 'Sincerely Yours', October, no. 20 (Spring 1982), pp. Ill-30; reprinted, with'Introductory Note', in R. E. Krauss, The Originality of the Avant-Garde and OtherModernist Myths (1985), pp. 171-94.--, 'Retaining the Original? The State of the Question', in Retaining the Original:

Multiple Originals, Copies, and Reproductions, ed. Kathleen Preciado. XX of Studiesin the History of Art (Washington, 1989), pp. 7-Il.

Landau, David and Parshall, Peter W., The Renaissance Print 1470-155° (New Haven andLondon, 1994).

Larsson, Lars Olof, Von allen Seiten gleich schon. Studien zum Begriff der

Select Bibliography 199

Vielansichtigkeit in der europaischen Plastik von der Renaissance biz zum Klassizismus.Acta Universitatis Stockholmiensis (Stockholm, 1974).

Laurent, Monique, 'Vie posthume d'un fonds d'atelier: les editions de bronzes du MuseeRodin' in Rencontres de l'Ecole du Louvre, La Sculpture du XIXe siecle. Une Memoireretrouvee: Les fonds de sculpture (Paris, 1986), pp. 245-55.

Le Marchant, Michael, 'Le Role du marchand: redecouvrir et diffuser' in Rencontres del'Ecole du Louvre, La Sculpture du XIXe siecle. Une Memoire retrouvee: Les fonds desculpture (Paris, 1986), pp. 255-6r.

Marvin, Miranda, 'Copying in Roman Sculpture: The Replica Series' in Retaining theOriginal: Multiple Originals, Copies, and Reproductions, ed. Kathleen Preciado. XX ofStudies in the History of Art (Washington, 1989), pp. 2~45.

Mattusch, Carol c., 'Two Bronze Herms. Questions of Mass Production in Antiquity',Art Journal, LIVh (Summer 1995), pp. 53-9.

Metamorphoses in Nineteenth-Century Sculpture, exhibition catalogue ed. JeanneWasserman: Fogg Art Museum, Harvard University (1979).

Montagu, jennifer, Bronzes (London, 1963).--, Alessandro Algardi (New Haven and London, 1985).--, Roman Baroque Sculpture: The Industry of Art (New Haven and London, 1989).--, Gold, Silver and Bronze: Metal Sculpture of the Roman Baroque (New Haven andLondon, 1996).

Owens, Craig, 'Alan McCollum: Repetition and Difference', Art in America, LXXII8(September 1983), pp. 130-2.

Penny, Nicholas, The Materials of Sculpture (New Haven and London, 1993).Raddiffe, Anthony, European Bronze Statuettes (London, 1966).Ranfft, Erich, Adolf von Hildebrand's 'Problem der Form' and his Front against Auguste

Rodin (Master's thesis, Ann Arbor, 1992).Renaissance Master Bronzes from the Collection of the Kunsthistorisches Museum

Vienna, exhibition catalogue by Manfred Leithe-Jasper: Smithsonian Institution,Washington, DC (1986).

Ridgway, Brunilde S., Roman Copies of Greek Sculptures: The Problem of the Originals(Ann Arbor, 1984).--, 'The State of Research on Ancient Art', Art Bulletin, LXVIII/l (March 1986), pp. 7-23·--, 'Defining the Issue: The Greek Period' in Retaining the Original: Multiple

Originals, Copies, and Reproductions, ed. Kathleen Preciado. XX of Studies in theHistory of Art (Washington, 1989), pp. 13-26.

Rodin Rediscovered, exhibition catalogue ed. Albert E. Elsen: National Gallery of Art,Washington, DC (1981).

The Romantics to Rodin: French Nineteenth-Century Sculpture from North AmericanCollections, exhibition catalogue eds Peter Fusco and H. W. Janson: Los AngelesCounty Musuem of Art (New York, 1980).

Salvioni, Daniela, 'Die Oberschreitungen der Sherrie Levine/The Transgressions ofSherrie Levine', Parkett, no. 32 (June 1992), pp. 76-87.

Schulz, Paul Otto and Baatz, Ulrich, Bronze Giesserei Noack (Ravensburg, 1993).Sculpture en taille directe en France de 1900 a1950, exhibition catalogue by Patrick D.Elliott: Fondation de Coubertin, Saint-Remy-Ies-Chevreuse (1988).

Spanish Sculpture: A Catalogue of the Collection in the Victoria and Albert Museum,museum catalogue by Marjorie Trusted (London, 1996).

Stone, Richard E., 'Antico and the Development of Bronze Casting in Italy at the End ofthe Quattrocento', Metropolitan Museum Journal, XVI (1982), pp. 87-II6.

Wagner, Anne M., 'Learning to Sculpt in the Nineteenth Century. An Introduction' inThe Romantics to Rodin: French Nineteenth-Century Sculpture from North American

200 Select Bibliography

Collections, exhibition catalogue eds Peter Fusco and H. W. Janson (New York, 1980),pp. ~20.--, ]ean-Baptiste Carpeaux: Sculptor of the Second Empire (New Haven and London,

1986).Wittkower, Rudolf, Sculpture, Processes and Principles (Harmondsworth 1977; revisededn 1986).

Wollheim, Richard, Art and its Objects (Cambridge, 1968; 2nd edn with sixsupplementary essays, 1980 and 1996).

Index

Abundance, ivory figure of, Vienna 68Academie Royale de Peinture et de

Sculpture, Paris 64, 80, 81conferences 80

Achard, Edouard 109Allington, Edward

Roman from the Greek in AmericaI53

Victory Boxed I67anatomy 13-14, 79, 94, 98-9Anti, Carlo 18'Antinous', the 83Apollinaire, Guillaume 143Apollo Belvedere 60, 80, 81, 82, 84, 93applied arts 4, lOo-I2Arcos, Luis Antonio de los 52Aretino, Pietro 32Armenini, Giovanni Battista 80Art Institute of Chicago 136Art nouveau 100, 105, 108ARTnews 132Arts and Crafts Movement 108Audran, Gerard

Les proportions du corps humainmeasurees sur les plus belles figuresde I'antiquite 94

Augustus, Emperor, portraits of ISAugustus the Strong of Saxony 67aura 29, 30, 41-5, 136, IFAustin, J. L. 145

Baffier, Baptiste 106Baffier, Jean 4, lOo-I2ornamental tableware 100, IOI

'Pour la tradition celtique' (monumentalfireplace) 106, I07, 108

table settings 103-9, I04, IIIBahlsen, Hermann 1I8Baiae plaster fragments II

BarcelonaMuseo Frederic Mares 48

Barlach, Ernst lIS, 122-3, 126, 128, 130The Dead Day 122-3

God the Father Hovering I26Troubled Woman 123

Bartman, Elizabeth lOBarye, Antoine 103Baselitz, Georg 114baths, sculpture appropriate to 27Batoni, Pompeo 84'paper museum' 84

Bauhaus I25Begas, Reinhold I20Bell, Charles 98Belling, Rudolf, I25, I29, 130

Triad I24, I25, I29, 130Belvedere Torso 80, 83, 92 , 93Benjamin, Waiter, I, 2~30, 40-5'The Work of Art in the Age of

Mechanical Reproduction' I, 29,134, 153

Berger, Ernst 18Berlin 1I8Art Exhibition (1920) I25Arts and Crafts School 127Cement and Concrete exhibition (I9lO)

lISNational Gallery 129Royal Prussian Art Collections 1I6Working Council for Art 130

Bermudez, Cean 47Berry (France) 102, 104, 109, IIIpeasantry of 106

Bewick, William 98Biermann, Georg I27Bigio, Nanni di Baccio (Giovanni di Lepo)

33Pieta after Michelangelo 33-6, 37

202 Index

biscuit ware 4Blake, William 95-6

]ehovah with Satan and Adam 96Naked Youth seen from the Side 95, 96

Blaue Reiter, der II5Boardman, John 10, 21Boccioni, Umberto 3, 132, 138, 146, 147'Technical Manifesto of Futurist

Sculpture' 143Unique Forms of Continuity in Space

143-5, 144Bol, Peter 18, 25Bonk, Eke 163Borghese Nymph with a Shell 91Borghese Gladiator, the 20, 83, 84, 87, 88,

93,99B6rner, Paul 126Bossuit, Francis van 5,64, 68-9, 72-4, 78figure engraved after 74]udith with the Head of Holofernes

(Edinburgh) 69, 70, 74]udith with the Head of Holofernes,

copies of 6<)-72, 70, 73,74, 75B6ttger, Johann Friedrich 67B6ttger stoneware 71, 126

Horseman Candlestick after GerhardMarcks 124, 126

]udith with the Head of Holofernes afterBossuit 70, 71

Boucher, Louis 106Bourges 105, IIOPalais Jacques-Coeur 106

Bouts, Albert 55Bouts, Dieric 55Brancusi, Constantin 132, 138, 140, 141,

144, 146, 147-51Bird in Space 144, 145Cock 132Column 149A Muse 148, 149The Muse (posthumous cast) 149, 150Sorceress 148Torso of a Young Man 148, 149

Briffault, Frances IIObronze foundries 103Barbedienne 103Christofle 103Morris-Singer 139Siot-Decauville 100, 103, 1II-12

Briicke, Die II3, II4, II5, II9, 122, 127Brunon, Bernard 163Bruton Gallery 135

CAA see College Art Associationcabinet of curiosities 64, 74Callypigian Venus, the 89camera obscura 84Camfield, William 163'Cannibal', the 89Cano, Alonso 55, 58, 59Canova, Antonio 155

Italian Venus 63Capodimonte porcelain factory 67Carlisle, Anthony 98Carlisle, Earl of 95Carpeaux, Jean Baptiste 103Carracci, the 82Carrara 8Carre, Louis (Galerie Louis Carre) 136-7Cassirer, Paul 128, 129Castle Howard 95Castro, Gutierre de 48casts 10,21, 37, 38,45,66,68,71-2,80,81,

86,87,89,91,93,94,99,115,152-3,154, 156, 157, 159, 161, 166-7

Cavalieri, Giovanni Battista de' 40Antiquae Statuae Urbis Romae 81

Chambers, William 91Chardin, Jean Baptiste Simeon 93Chatelain, Jean 133, 135, 160, 161Cheere, John 83Cheron, Louis 81-2, 83Christ as the Man of Sorrows 55Christofle 100Cipriani, Giovanni Battista 86Clito 83College Art Association (CAA) 131, 132'A Statement on Standards for Sculptural

Reproduction and Preventivemeasures to Combat UnethicalCasting in Bronze' 131, 132

Cologne 114, 125Comte, Auguste 44conceptual art 162consumer culture 67CopenhagenNy Carlsberg Glyptotek 7-8, 9

Copley, John SingletonWatson and the Shark 20, 21

Courbet, Gustave 102Cubism 136Ciipper, Erich II7-18

Dallas, Trammel Crow Centre 134-5Dante Alghieri 35

Index 203

DarmstadtMatildenhohe workshops lI6, lI7

Davies, Arthur B. 149Degas, Edgar Hilaire Germain 3DelIa Robbia family II7Delos 20Desmond, Olga 120Dethare, Vincent 105Deutsche Werkbund II5, lI6, II8, 130Diderot, Denis 155Dieppe 65Diadoumenos 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17,22,23,

24Diadumenus, Tiberius Octavius, 13, 14, 16direct carving II3, II5, 140, 146Diskophoros 7, 8,12,13-14,15,16-17,18-

19, 22, 24,25, 26Dobberman, Jacob 65, 68Dobson, Frank 147Doccia factory 63Dolton, Richard 84donne famosi 69Doryphoros 12, 13-14, 15, 16, 17, 22,23,

24,25Dresden II5, lI8Dublin Academy 93Duchamp, Marcel 4, 136, 137, 162Bicycle Wheel readymade 4, 162-3replicas of 162-3

Bottle Rack readymade 4Snow Shovel readymade 4Urinal readymade 4

Duchamp-Villon, Raymond 132, 136The Horse (Le Grand Cheval) 136;,

Duke Richmond's Sculpture Gallery86;

Dusquenoy, Franlj:ois 76

Egremont, Earl of 95Egypt n6Elgin, Lord 96'Elgin Marbles' see Parthenon sculpturesEliot, T. S. 32Elliott, Patrick 140Elsen, Albert 3, 131, 132, 135Epstein, Jacob 144, 147, 148excavation history 27Exposition Universelle 1900, 100Expressionism II3

Farnese Hercules 80, 81, 83, 84, 93'Fates', the 98

Fechheimer, Hedwig lI6Fernandez, Gregorio 57

St Francis 57-8, 59, 60Fitzwilliam Coin Cabinet 62, 77Flaxman, John 98-9'Motion; Equilibrium in the Human

Body' 99Florence 44-5Boboli Gardens 17, 18, 45Medici Chapel 32 , 39Palazzo Pitti 64Palazzo Vecchio 45Piazza Michelangelo 45Sto Spirito 33

Florentine Academy in Rome 68~Florentine diarist 35, 36, 38Ford, Richard 46Francis of Assisi 46, 47,58, 60resurrected corpse of 57-60

Fran~ois I (of France) 38, 45Free Academy (London) 81Fremiet, Emmanuel 103Fritsch, Katerina 163-4Fruhlicht 123

Fry, Roger 140Fiirstenburg porcelain factory 66Fiirtwangler, Adolf 10Futurism 147

Galerie Louis Carre 136Galle, Emile lOO

Galleria Schwartz (Milan) 163Garbe, Herbert 129Garda, Jeronimo Francisco 55Garda, Miguel Jeronimo 55E>"", .......,u", sculpture appropriate to 27Gauguin, Paul 159Geist, Sidney 132, 136, 149German Expressionist sculpture II3-30German Neo-Expressionism 114German Oriental Society n6Gesamtkunstwerk II4, nS, n9, 122, 123,

125Giacometti, Alberto 137Giambologna (Jean Boulogne) 61, 62, 63,

64Architecture 62Mercury 61

Giambologna, afterVenus 62-3, 62, 77

Gibbon, Edward 2

Gibbons, Grinling 76

204 Index

'Heriodas with the Head of the Baptist'76

Gies, Ludwig I16glass paste 77Goethe, ]ohann Wolfgang von 98Goetz, Karl I16Gogh, Vincent van 159Golem, the 127, 130Gonzales, ]ulio 3, 131, 132, 138, 141- 2Harlequin I42

Gool, ] an Van 78Graat, Barent 73, 78Grand Tour 155Greenberg, Clement 140, 143Gropius, WaIter 125Guerin, Nicolas 64gymnasia, sculpture appropriate to 23-4,

27

Hadrian, Emperor 97Hallett, Christopher 26-7Hamilton, Richard 163HanoverTET city I18

Hard, Nina 122Harth, Philipp 127Haskell, Arnold 147Haskell, Francis and Nicholas Penny

Taste and the Antique 6I

Haydon, Benjamin Robert 79, 96-8Copy of South Metope XXVII from the

Parthenon 97school of 97

Heckel, Erich I18-22The Black Cloth I1~20

Convalescence of a Woman I20, 120-1Praying Man 120

Heermann, Paul 6~0]udith with the Head of Holofernes after

Bossuit 70, 71, 72Henne, ]oachim 65, 68Henning, Paul Rudolf 130Hepworth, Barbara I39Herakles see HerculesHercules 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 21, 24, 26,

80, 81, 83, 84, 85, 93Hermanos Garda, the 55HermesI4,I5,I~I7,I8,I9,2I,23,24,26

Hessen, Karl von 65Hildebrand, Adolf von 128

The Problem of Form in the Fine Arts128

Hill, Dorothy Kent 22Hindemith, Paul 125Hitzberger, Otto 127Hoare, Henry 84Hochfield, Sylvia 133, 136Hoetger, Bernhard I16-I8, 125Hoetger Museum 117-18Light and Shadow series 117Lions' Gate (with Albin Muller) I16, n7

Hogarth, William 79, 82, 83, 85, 91Analysis of Beauty 83

Holbein, Hans 76Honour, Hugh 155Houbraken, Arnold 78Hunter, William 94-5Husserl, Edmund 157Hussey, Giles 84

Idealplastik 9 see also Sculpture, Romanideal

'Idolino', the 10, n

'Illissus', the 98imitation 33, 35-6, 38Immendorf, ]org 114intention 145-6Ivins, William I, 42

Prints and Visual Communications I

] aillot, Pierre Simon 64]anis, Sidney 163Jehovah's Witnesses 153]oigny, Burgundy 48]ones, Inigo 76]uni, Isaac de 50Juni, Juan de 47-8, 50-I, 60

Pieta (Leon) 47, 50-IPieta (London) 47-8, 48, 50-IPieta (Salamanca) 48, 49, 50-IPieta (Valladolid, Cathedral Museum)

47, 50-IPieta (Valladolid, National Museum of

Sculpture) 51-2Pieta (Zaragoza) 47, 50-I

Karnak I16Kauffman, Angelica 89Kent, William 76Kern, Leonhard 64, 68Kirchner, Ernst Ludwig I13-14, I15-I6,

118-20, 121-2Female Dancer 121

Index 205

Nude Girl 122Standing Woman 121

Woman in the Wash Tub II9Kleinplastik see also sculpture, small scale

4,64,78Klinger, Max 120Kneller, Godfrey 65Academy of 65, SI

Knight, Richard Payne 97Kolbe, Georg 129Koortbojian, Michael 23Krauss, Rosalind 3, 77, 131, 132, 133, 136,

141-3'The Originality of the Avant-Garde: A

Post-Modernist Repetition' 131'Sculpture in the Expanded Field' 160

Kreigenbom, Detlev 13, 14, 16, 17, ISKuh, Katherine 137Kuhn, Alfred 127, 128, 130Kunstkammer 64

Lagraulas, cardinal 41, 43Lairesse, Gerard de 73Lammert, Will 125Landseer brothers 98Langer, Richard 126Laocoon 80, 83, 84, 95Laurent, Monique 133Lavier, Bertrand 158-9

Belvedere 159Le Brun, Charles 64Le Marchand, David 65, 66, 77Le Marchant, Michael 135Le Play, Frederic lIO

Leftwich, Gregory 13-14Lehmbruck, Wilhe1m I 15, 130

Praying Woman u6Leibendgut, Annalis 23Le1y, Sir Peter 79, 81Leocadio, PaoIo da San 55Leoni, Antonio 64Lessing, Gotthold Ephraim 2

Levine, Les 164-5Disposables 164, 164-5

Ligue de la patrie fran~aise lIo-lI

Maison commune I I I

limited edition, concept of 160Linde, Ulf 163Locke, John 87-8Lohenstein, Daniel Caspar von 64LondonNew Somerset House 91

Victoria and Albert MuseumSt Francis 59

Lorenzetto (Lorenzo di Giovanni diLodovico) 36, 37

Los Angeles County Museum of Art II3German Expressionist Sculpture

exhibition I 13-14Louis IX (of France) 102Lysippos 18, 21

McEvilly, Thomas'I Think Therefore I Art' 157, 162, 166

Magritte, Rene 162Mana, Pedro de 55Mander, Care! van 78Mannheim Kunsthalle II5, 128Marat, Jean-Paul 102Marc, Franz lISMarcks, Gerhard 126

Horseman Candlestick 124, 126Martin, Elias 89

The Cast Room at the Royal Academy8~91, 90

Martinez, Juana 50Matare, Ewald 129Mauclair, Camille 112Medici, Ferdinando de' 64Medici Venus 80, 83,93, 154-5, 156, 159,

161-2, 166-7comparison with the living model

93-4Meissen porcelain factory 67, 126Meleager, the 89Mena, Pedro de 47, 55-6, 57, 60

St Francis (M,Haga) 59St Francis (Toledo) 58, 59,60

Mengs, Anton Raffael 155Mercury 16, 1~20, 24, 61, 89Metraux, Guy 14Michelangelo Buonarroti 30, 32 , 35, 36, 37,

38, 39, 44, 45, 63Atlas Slave 30-1, ]I, 42

David 45Leah 37Pieta 33, 34, 35, 36, 38, 40, 41 , 43, 45Rachel37Risen Christ 32-3, 3SSt Damien, clay model for 32Times of Day 45Slaves 45Tomb of ]ulius II 37, 40

Milan Triennial Exhibition 137

206 Index

Millet, Jean-Fran~ois 102Minimalism 162Minnis, A. J. 35Modernism 3-4, 143-5Montafies, Juan Martines 55Montelupo, Raffaelo da

St Cosmas 32Montorsoli, Giovanni AngioIo 81

St Damien 32Montrouge catacombs 108Moore, Henry 140, 146Mora, Jose de 56

Christ 56Virgen de la Soledad (Granada) 57Virgin (Salamanca) 56The Virgin of Sorrows (London) 56

Morris, William 108, 109Moser, George Michael 89Moser, Mary 89moulds 21, 47,54,60,65,71-2,152-3,161,

167Muller, AIbin JI6; see also

Bernhardmultiples 9, 30, 32-3, 50-2, 65, 67, 68, 71,

72 , 73, 77, 131 , 148-9, 163-5Murdoch, Iris 156-7, 162, 163Musee Galliera 106Musee Rodin 133, 135-6

Neo-classicism 155-6Neo-Expressionism Iqneomantic object IS7, 163'nerviosidad' 48Nevers 102, 105, IIONew Wild Ones II4New York 152Brooklyn Bridge 152Coney Island 154East River 152Metropolitan Museum of Art 10, 154,

167Museum of Modern Art 163

New Zealand JI2

Nicholas V (Pope) 57Nike of Samothrace 166and replicas 166-7

'Nile', the 80Noguchi 148Noland, Kenneth 165Nollekins, ]oseph 93-4

Seated Venus 95Northcote, James 93, 99

Oberammergau I29October 131Oliver, Isaac 76Orleans, Paul 110Ortiz, Fernando

St Francis 59

palaestra, sculpture appropriate to 24Palladio (Andrea Pietro della Gondola)

76Palomino, Antonio 50Parian ware 4Paris 102, 105, lIO, IIIParry, William 87copy of the Borghese Warrior 87

Parthenon sculptures ('Elgin Marbles') 79,96- 8

patina 138-9, 146patinieres 138, 148Payne Knight, Richard see Knight, Richard

PaynePechstein, Max I I 5Peirce, Charles S. 43Penny, Nicholas 61Permoser, Balthasar 64, 68, 71

Seasons, the 66Permoser, Balthasar, after

Summer 66Perseus 17, 23Petrarch (Francesco Petrarca) 35photography 1-2, 29, 40-3, 147, 14~50,

161Picabia, Francis 162Picasso, Pablo 138, 141

Absinthe Glass 143Bull's Head 142

Pieta (Juan de Juni) 47,48, 49, 50, SI, 52,60

Pieta (Michaelangelo) 3, 34, 35, 36, 38,40 ,

41,43,45Pieta (copy after Michelangelo) 33-6, 37,

38-9,39Pieta (engraving by Salamanca) 39,40plaster 64platres de travail 141Pliny the Elder 13, 14, 84, 138Polykleitos 7, 9, 13-21

presumed copies after and works in themanner of

Diadoumenos (Athens) 12

Diadoumenos series, 13-16,22, 23, 24Dionysos 17

Index 207

Diskophoros (Berlin) I6Diskophoros (Copenhagen) 7, 8, 26Diskophoros (Wellesley) I2, 13, 16Diskophoros series 13, 14-16, 17, 18, 22,

24, 25, 26Doryphoros (Minneapolis) I2

Doryphoros series 13-15, 22-3, 25Herakles 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 21, 26Hermes 14, 15, I6, 17, 18, 19, 21, 26Perseus 17Theseus 18

pointing machines 8, II5, 128, 159Pool, Matthys 68, 73

Beelsnijders Kunstcabinet (Art'sCabinet) 68, 69, 72-4, 74, 78

portrait sculpture 9, 15, 23Poulsen, Frederik 17Pound, Ezra

Gaudier-Brzeska: A Memoir 140Pozzo 76Praxiteles 17, 21Prenner, Anton von 64Primaticcio, Francesco 38Prometheus 149printmaking I; see also reproduction of

sculpture in prints

quarry sites 27Quinn, John 147, 148, 149

Rabbi Loew 127Ralph, Benjamin 86Raphael (Raffaello Sanzio) 82Rauchmiller, Matthiastankard with a Rape of the Sabines

64Rauschner, C.B.

Judith with the Head ofHolofernes afterBossuit 70, 72

Ray, Man 162Regina, Alberta 157-8Reif, Rita 165Reni, Guido 69replica series 9reproductionof antique sculpture 1-2, 61, 76, 77, 7f:T

99, 154-6, 161, 166-7and authorship 66, 72, 74, 76, 77and the canon 35-6, 38, 40, 63, 78of devotional sculpture 5, If:T20, 24-6,

37-8,46-60ethics of 3, 131-2, 140

of Greek by 'Roman' sculptors 2-3, 7-28, 159

of lithography in sculpture 122-3of sculpturein cameos 80in drawings 39, 80-4, 86-7, 8f:T94,96- 8

in paintings II8-22in photographs 2, 42-3, 147, 161in porcelain 4, 65-8, 12-16posthumously 3, 131-7, 13~40, 141-5, 149

in prints 40, 45, 72-4, 80, 81, 83in reduced replicas 24, 32-3, 38-9,61,62-3, 84, 87

terminology of 30Reynolds, Sir Joshua 87, 88-9, 94, 155

Discourses 88-9Riace Bronzes 3Ribadeneira, Pedro de 57

Flos Sanctorum 0 Libro de las Vidas delos Santos 57

Riccio, Luigi del 33Ridgeway, Brunilde 22Ridolfi, Carlo 39Riha, Sidda 120-1Risuefio, Jose 55, 56Robinson, John Charles 50, 59Rodin, Auguste 3, 30, 32, 128, 131, 132-3,

134-5, 136, 140, 146, 148, 161Age of Bronze 133Jean de Fiennes nu I34, 134-5Mighty Hand 133La pensee 30-1Walking Man (L'Homme qui marche)

133Roeder, Emy 129Roldan, Luisa 47, 52-4, 60

Mystical Marriage of St Catherine 52-4,

53Rest on the Flight to Egypt (New York)

54Rest on the Flight to Egypt (San

Sebastian) 54Virgin and Child Appearing to St Diego

of Alcala 52, 53Roldan, Pedro 52RomeFrench Academy 81-2San Andrea della Valle 37San Petronilla 40

Rossi, Gregorio de' 37

208 Index

Rossi, John C.F. 95Royal Academy of Arts 79, 88, 91, 94, 95,

96,97Plaister Academy 89, 91, 93

Royal Academy Schools 89, 91, 93-5, 97Royal Society of Arts 86--'7Rubens, Peter Paul 76Rysbrack, Michael 76, 84

Hercules 84-5Study for Stourhead Hercules 85

Saint Cloud porcelain factory 67St Martin's Lane Academy 81; second

academy 83, 85Salamanca (Cathedral) 48Salamanca, Antonio 39, 40Salas, Xavier de 55Salmon, AndnS

La jeune sculpture franfaise 143Sansovino, Jacopo

Baccchus 89Scheel, Margarete 125Schiefler, Gustav II3Schmidt-Rottluff, Karl 123-5

Pillars of Suffering and Prayer 123~5

Schoenberg, Arnold 125Schubert, Carl Gottlieb

Summer 66Schiitz, Johann 35sculptureantique 1-2., 7-2.8, 38, 45, 61, 76and architecture 2.3-4, 2.7, u6-rS, 125boxwood 64, 65, 73bronze 7, 9, 13, 19,2.3,2.4,2.5,2.6, 30, 32,

37, 38, 61-2, 80, II5-16, 130, 131-SI, 154, 159

cast stone II6, 130cement II5, 130, 143day 30, 32, 39, lIS, 12~30Cubist 136German Expressionist 3, II3-30and Greek medicine 13-14ivory 61, 64--'78and the living model 83, 93~, II8-22,

127-30

marble 7,8,10,22,23,26,27,37,62.,64,115, 130, 148, 154, 161

materials of 47, 54, 63-8, 71 - 2, 80, 115,n6, 125, 142., 80, 127-3°, 138, 143,154, 161, 164

and religion 5, 1~20, 24--6, 37-8,41,43-4,45,46--60,126-7

restoration of 27-8Roman historical 9Roman ideal ~10, II, 27plaster II, 21, 30, 80, !I5, 123, 128, 136and politics 4-5, 20scrap-metal 141-3signatures on 8, 13,2.1,27, 33,35,46,59,

6~71, 72small-scale 20, 24--6, 32, 38~, 61-78terracotta 20, 32, 47, 52, 60, 64, 68, 73,

IISwax 21, 32,66, 69, 72, 74, 115, 159wood 55--60, II3-14, II4, II8-2.2, 127-

8, 12~30, 143, 148serial production 21-2, 103Shee, Martin Archer 96Shipley, William 86drawing school 86

Simon, Erika 20Skinner, Quentin 145Smith, John 65Smith, John Thomas 95Societe Nationale des Beaux-Arts 103Society of Artists 91Socrates 83Soldani, Massimiliano 62, 63Solkin, David 87-8, 91Space Invaders (exhibition) 158Stampart, Franz von, and Anton von

PrennerPodromus 64, 68

Steger, Milly II5Stockholm (Moderna Museet) 163Stokes, Adrian 140Stourhead 84Stravinsky, Igor 125Strawberry Hill 76Strozzi Chapel (Rome) 37Strozzi, Gian Battista 33-5, 36studio practice, see workshop practiceSturm, Der II9'style munichoise' see Art nouveauSurrealism 141- 2, 143

taille directe see direct carvingTalos Painter, the 18T assie, James 77Taut, Bruno 123

House of Heaven 123temples, sculpture appropriate to 27TET hieroglyph II8

'Theseus', the 97, 98

Index 209

Thornhill, Sir James 81Tintoretto (Jacopo Robusti) 39, 45

Jiu (Romania) I49Ernst

The Transfiguration I27Tonnemans, Jerome 73Torso Belvedere 80, 83,92,93tourism H, 44-5'truth to materials' 3, I40Turner, J.M.W. 93, 94

Drawing of the Belvedere Torso 91-3, 92

Ulteudt, P. O. 163United States Customs 144

Valladolid 50Cathedral 50Medina de Rioseco (Convent of Poor

Clares) 57St Francis 59

St Martin 50Vari de' Porcari, MeteIlo 33,45Vasari, Giorgio 33, 36,47Venus de' Medici see Medici VenusVerskovis 76Vertue, George 82Villon, jacques 136Virgen de la Soledad 56Virgen Dolorosa 55Virgin of Sorrows 46, 47, 55-'7Voltaire (Fran~ois-Marie Arouet) 2

Volterra, Daniele da (Daniele Ricciarelli)39

Walpole, Horace 74Anecdotes of Painting in England 76

Walpole Cabinet 74-'7, 75Washington National Gallery of Art

Rodin Rediscovered exhibition 131Wedgwood, josiah 4, 66, 77Werkbund, see Deutsches WerkbundWest, Benjamin 94, 98

'Academical study' of Eve 94Westheim, Paul 128Wickhoff, Franz 10, 26Wilkie, David 98Wilton, Joseph 86Winckelmann, Johann joachim 2, 9

History of Ancient Art among theGreeks 2

Wollheim, Richard 156, 162, 163workshop practice 8, 21-2, 31-2, 26, 42,

46, 54, 60, Ho-H, 146, 159'"""62,161-2

Worpswede I25'Wrestlers', the 99Wright, Joseph 87, 91

Academy by Lamplight 91Three Persons Viewing the Gladiator by

Candlelight 87, 88Wunderkammer 64,68,73,77

Zappa, Frank 165Zeuxis 84Zoffoli, Giovanni 62Zurbaran, Francisco de 58

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