Sculptors work in three basic ways. They carve (take material away from stone, wood or ivory), model (build up a soft material such as clay or wax), or cast (pour liquid metal into a mold). Carving is called subtractive: once a piece is cut off, it is gone. Modeling is additive: you can keep adding.
Sculpture also comes in two kinds of space. Sculpture in the round stands free, and you can walk around it. Relief stays attached to a background, like a carving on a wall. Low relief barely rises from the surface; high relief stands far out.
Key idea
Why it works
Looking closely: The Charioteer of Delphi. A young man stands very straight in a long robe that falls in deep, regular folds like the flutes of a column. He once held the reins of a four-horse chariot that is now mostly lost. His eyes are inlaid glass and stone, and his lips and eyelashes were copper, so he once looked startlingly alive. The statue was cast in separate pieces by the lost-wax process and joined. A ruler of Gela in Sicily dedicated it to Apollo for a chariot victory.
The Stele of Hammurabi shows relief: two figures carved at the top of a tall stone, still part of it, with the laws cut into the stone below.
Worked example: Name the process
- Bronze is a metal. Metal sculpture is shaped by melting and pouring: casting.
- Marble is stone. Stone is shaped by cutting away: carving.
- Shang bronze casters used molds made in sections, a different casting method from lost wax, but it is still casting.
Answer: The bronze vessel was cast; the marble statue was carved.
Common mistake