CHAPTER II

METHODS OF MANUFACTURE

"For they (the image-makers) use a mould; and whatsoever clay they put into it comes out in shape like the mould."

καὶ γὰρ ἐκεῖνοι (οἱ κοροπλάθοι) τύπον τινὰ παρέχοντες ὁποῖον ἂν πηλὸν εἰς τοῦτον ἐμβάλωσιν ὅμοιον τῷ τύπῳ τὸ εἶδος ἀποτελοῦσιν.—Dio Chrys. Or, Ix. 25.

THE terracotta statuettes afford convincing proof of the high artistic level of popular taste in Greece. Their makers, the Koroplastæ,1 to give them their Greek name, occupied no distinguished position in the hierarchy of art, they were its humblest servants, and neither received nor claimed the name of artists, but neither were they mere craftsmen and their work only the product of generations of inherited mechanical skill, for it shows that sense of beauty of form which was the birthright of every Greek, and which he absorbed as insensibly as the air he breathed. The potter was not an artist whose creations appealed only to the select few, his cheap reproductions were for the many, his one aim to hit the public taste, therefore the terracottas are the surest evidence of what this taste really was. Any large collection of Greek statuettes contains some figures that are rough, some that are careless, some that offend our notions of decency, but none that are in bad artistic taste; the conception is always large, the lines harmonious. They are in very truth statuettes, statues in little, and retain the breadth and grandeur of conception of the great works by which they were inspired.

Our admiration for these statuettes is only increased by a knowledge of the simple methods used in their production. There were two ways of making them, modelling by hand and casting from a mould; the former process is the more ancient, and in later times was used only for

1 HARPOCR. 114, 27 : κοροπλάθος τοὺς ἐκ πηλοῦ πλάττοντας κόρας ἤ κόρους οὕτως ὠνόμαζον.

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very small, rough figures, made by giving a pinch here and there to a bit of clay until it assumed the rough form of a human being or of an animal. Some of these little figures (Figs. 1 and 3) are wonderfully spirited and true to nature; but the earliest human figures found are simply slabs of clay with a triangular lump at the top for a head and two fin-like appendages for arms; seated figures were made by bending the clay and placing a support beneath it, standing ones by thickening it at the base, so as to form a cone or wedge. The first improvement effected is to stamp a face on the upper part of the clay and to round off the top roughly in the form of a head; the next, to use a stamp for the whole of the front of the figure, and we thus have a solid lump of clay with the figure embossed on it. When the margin was cut away it presented a superficial likeness to some of the early moulded figures, but there is always this difference, that in the one case the clay is put into the mould, and in the other the stamp is pressed upon it.

The practice of moulding figures instead of stamping them doubtless arose from the difficulty of firing a solid lump of clay without warping it. Many of the moulds used in the manufacture of statuettes have been found; this one from Tarentum (Fig. 6) represents the upper part of a draped female figure with her hands clasped above her head. A mould necessarily presupposes the existence of an original figure which must have been in the first instance modelled by hand, but of these models nothing is said by classical authors. Pliny indeed mentions that the little clay models (proplasmata) of the sculptor Pasiteles fetched high prices among amateurs of art, and quotes a saying of his to the effect that "modelling in clay was the parent art of chasing, carving and sculpture," but the extreme cheapness of the Greek statuettes and the absolute impossibility of "patenting" a novelty, would put sculptors' models out of the reach of the koroplast, and those he employed were probably made by a rather superior class of artificer. Now-a-days such

models are built up on a wooden substructure which burns away in the firing, leaving the figure hollow, and probably the same method was used in classical times. The mould was made of clay baked very hard, and into it the workman carefully pressed a thin layer of fine moist clay,1 adding others until the requisite thickness was obtained; the mould was then set to dry, and the shrinkage produced by evaporation soon allowed of the cast being removed from it.

For the commonest class of figures a mould is used for the front only, and the back is formed by a convex mass of clay cemented to the front so as to form with it a rough cylinder: for the backs of a better class of statuette there was a second mould, giving the general outline, and sometimes sufficient sketchy detail to complete the main features of the front, and the two casts are carefully joined with a little liquid clay. There are a small number of statuettes in which the back is modelled as carefully as the front, but these are imitations of bronzes, and comparatively rare (Plate VI.).

Statuettes in which only one mould is used for the whole length of the figure are necessarily somewhat stiff and constrained in pose, and are treated rather as if they were reliefs than figures in the round; the head is joined to the shoulders either by the head-dress or the hair, and portions of the background are left wherever their absence would endanger the safety of the cast; the result is an impression of hieratic stiffness and rigidity, and for that reason this, the earliest method, was retained down to the latest times in making statuettes for temple offerings.

Many more moulds and a more complicated method of procedure are required for most of the later figures, i. e. for those which appear in and after the fourth century B.C.; for instance, a dancing girl (Fig. 31) required thirteen, three for the head and cap, two for the body from neck to knee, and two for each arm and leg; the draped lady shown in Fig. 17 five in all, two for the head, back and front, two for the draped figure, and one for the fan. All the parts

were cast separately, then very carefully fitted into one another and cemented with liquid clay, all roughnesses removed and the whole set to dry.

1 Dio. Chrys. Or. lx. 25.

It would be a mistake to suppose that because a Greek koroplast used thirteen moulds for one particular figure, he required a vast assortment of them to pursue his trade. Nothing is more characteristic of Greek art than its extreme economy of method; the sculptor, instead of inventing new types, developed and modified old ones, the koroplast, his humble follower, made half a dozen different figures out of the judicious combination of a few moulds, and that is the reason why the heads and arms are frequently too big or too small for the bodies to which they are attached.

A careful study of any large collection of figures from Boeotia, Asia Minor or Italy shows that though there is a strong family likeness between those from one locality there are hardly ever two which are exactly alike, because by selection and combination of different moulds the potter was able to produce an infinite number of variations. The two accompanying figures are a striking example of the manner in which these variations were obtained (Figs. 4, 5); the same mould. has been used in each case for the body, but the addition of different heads, wings, arms and attributes has changed not merely the type but the pose of the figures.

Sometimes these more or less haphazard combinations are not very happy, but as a rule they are, thanks to the sense of beauty of form which was, so to speak, in the air, and it is on the artistic feeling with which the Greek potter combined his moulds that he rests his claim to be something more than a mere craftsman.

After the statuette had been put together and before it was fired, it was subjected to a very delicate and skilful process of retouching; the workman went over the whole surface with a graver, sharpening outlines, smoothing roughnesses, intensifying details of feature, headdress and drapery, and giving to the whole that aspect of individuality which is the great charm of the Boeotian statuettes from the Tanagra district, and which is so characteristic of them that any specially pretty figure, whatever its provenance, is popularly known as

a

Tanagra." The value of this retouching process is shown by two figures from the same mould, representing Eros burning a butterfly (Psyché); in the one (Fig. 7) the details are barely distinguishable, and the whole is heavy and lifeless, while in the other (Fig. 8) after

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retouching, they are clear, and the whole scene is instinct with life and grace

"Oh, love, be kinder, or some day,

Alighting with thy cruel torch,

Again my singed soul to scorch,

Thou wilt not find her. She too has wings to fly away."

Translated by W. R. PATON.

The retouching process was not unaccompanied by risk and of course added to the cost of a figure, so that numbers even of the statuettes from the Tanagra district have not undergone it, and the vast majority of statuettes found in other places are left just as they came from the mould.

To avoid risk the figures were fired at a very low temperature, and for the same reason a hole was cut in the back to facilitate evaporation; it varies in shape, size and position according to the district in which the figure was made, and is entirely absent in some figures which are imitations of bronze statuettes (Plate VI.). After the firing the accessories were stuck on these, fans, hats, wreaths, birds, etc., were made and fired separately and added at the caprice of the potter. The whole figure was next coated with a white lime-wash, the object being to make a medium for the final decoration in colour. Unfortunately this lime-wash peels off and brings the colour with it, so that we do not often find a statuette in which the original tints are well preserved, but enough remains to show that the scheme of colour was a brilliant one in which red and blue predominated, as might be inferred from the words of a Greek, who in advising his friend to cultivate solid learning says, "otherwise you will be like potter's work, all blue and red outside, and all clay and rubbish inside." Common figures are roughly coloured, but the finer ones are decorated with care, red-brown being used for the hair, red for the lips, rose pink for flesh tints, pink and blue for masses of drapery, green for borders and patterns, and yellow or gold for trinkets.

In every district where these statuettes were made, and it would 1 Τὴν πυρὶ νηχομένην ψυχὴν ἄν πολλάκι καίης,

φεύξετ', Ερως· καὐτὴ σχέτλι, ἔχει πτέρυγας.-MELEAGER, Anthol. Pal. v. 57.

2 ὡς νῦν γε ἐλελήθεις σαυτὸν τοῖς ὑπὸ τῶν κοροπλάθων εἰς τὴν ἀγορὰν πλαττομένοις ἐοικώς, κεχρωσμένος μὲν τῇ μίλτῳ καὶ τῷ κυανῷ, τὸ δ ̓ ἔνδοθεν πήλινός τε καὶ εὔθρυπτος v.-LUCIAN, Lexiph. 22.