GARDEN SCULPTURE.) Wood and Ivory.—Due to the vulnerability of wood and ivory to climatic changes these materials can be successfully employed as a rule in comparatively small and compact arrangements, yet generally in Europe and in India and China, as well as with the primitive peoples, beautiful sculpture has been created in both materials. Of course, though those materials are easier to carve, the grain imposes another difficulty with which the sculptor must contend and it is in the turning of this grain to the purpose of the design and its execution that the artist must think. These sub stances lend themselves to polychromatic effects and to the appli cation of gilding to their surfaces. (See SCULPTURE TECHNIQUE: Ivory Carving and Woodcarving.) Polychromy in Sculpture.—One of the important elements in arriving at decorative effects in sculpture is the application of colour to its surface. In ancient times sculpture was generally polychromed. The savage people of practically all countries have liked to apply colour to statues of their deities, to the carvings used in connection with their religious rites, and to the masks worn in their ceremonials as well as to their architecture in gen eral. The polychromy was usually in the nature of opaque earth colours, the principal tones used depending upon the country where found and the substances available, but with red and black dominating and white, yellow and green or blue used. The colour was applied in flat tones with usually no attempt at mixing or blending, and the quality of the vivacity of the idol or mask or other object was heightened by its use and the decorative effects of the ensemble intensified.
In Egypt, colour was generally applied to sculpture, and in particular was a feature of relief work. It was rather the colour ef fect that dominated in the picture than the shadow of delineation of the carving. In fact, one is inclined to consider the relief rather as a painting in which the drawing was made permanent by the carved and rounded outline. Here, too, unmodulated colours were used and often patterns and ornamentation were picked out with the brush rather than carved with the chisel. The sculptors of Greece followed the tradition of Egyptian polychromy and until Hellenistic times used colour in their statuary. Ornamentations in architecture were also painted but it was in the great chrysele phantine statues by Phidias that the art of the use of coloured matter in sculpture reached its greatest expression. Here flesh
parts were executed in ivory while an intarsia of gold and silver and ebony made up together with other materials the rest of the statue or group. It is master craftsmanship in the hands of genius of artistic expression. Early Greek bronze statuary was often times gilded and silver was inlaid in the ornamentation of a robe or a fillet around the head of a statue. The eyes were generally done in colour of inlaid materials, giving an expression of great liveliness. With Hellenistic times in Greece and the increased tend ency towards naturalism in sculpture, painting gave way and the Romans made less use of polychromy than the Greeks, although many statues have come down to us composed of different coloured marbles. The Gothic sculptors liked to paint their statues and the interiors of churches of that period were generally rich in colour. This tendency towards painting of statuary was maintained until the time of the Renaissance. But after the finding of excavated marbles from ancient times in Rome, which were usually with out colour, and the general popularizing of collecting of antiques, sculptors gave up the practice which had formerly been usual. Chinese sculpture has always been characterized by its use of colour. One is sometimes inclined to think that they preferred to a greater extent the use of colour on their statuary than on their paintings themselves.
With the general influence on the moderns of the primitives in art it remains to be seen how and what will be the reaction. In dications are that interesting use will be made of the lessons learned and the ways indicated. And hand in hand with the most ancient of methods come those of the most modern. Chrome steel, nickel and aluminium are metals, the use of which has con siderable decorative value. New methods of applying glazes and paints are in use in the industries of to-day and new paints and enamels influence our artists. New materials are being frequently invented which find beautiful use in the automobile industry, in the making of radio apparatus, and in many fixtures and objects of utilitarian purpose. Those serving the use of artistry and in the hands of the new school of craftsmen sculptors, it is to be hoped, will give to the coming age a brilliant addition to the use of polychromy and coloured materials in our art. (P. MAN.)