STONE CARVING. Many as are the kinds, there is a character that properly belongs to all good stone carving, whether in relief (high relief or low) or in the round. The first constituent of this character is the quality called plasticity; it is the quality of solidity, of being in three dimensions. The beauty of stone carving is dependent upon this quality. Modelling in clay is a business wherein one starts from nothing, or perhaps a wire only (the "armature") and builds up a thing in three dimensions. But in a stone carving one does not start from nothing and build up; one starts from a solid thing and proceeds by subtraction instead of addition and, apart from the sensuous enjoyment which some people have in using tools and materials, the natural tendency in stone carving is to subtract as little as possible, as in modelling it is to add as little as possible. The result is that whereas a certain spareness and tensity of form is characteristic of modelling, the character most noticeable in stone carving is fullness and roundness of form—solidity, mass, weight. Moreover, by the use of wire or iron armatures it is possible to give a clay model any required freedom and detachment of parts—if it be an image of a man, the arms and legs may stand out freely from the body, fingers may be separate, and hair may even stand on end. In stone, on the other hand, freedom or detachment of parts is un natural and difficult. The custom of many sculptors, ancient and modern, to work exclusively in clay and to leave the business of carving to hired mechanicians is responsible for the lack of the proper character of stone carving in their works. Trained mechanics are clever enough to do anything; whether the thing done be worth doing is not their affair.
In a stone carving done according to the natural character of stone, there is no detachment of parts ; everything is solidly joined to everything else. If there be any separation between one thing and another the space between is in the nature of a hole—a piercing—as in the characteristic Byzantine foliage carv ing or in mediaeval window tracery. Stone is a brittle and very heavy material; it will stand enormous crushing strains but will hardly bend. These differing characters of materials render them suitable for different services—iron or wood for a girder sub jected to a bending strain, stone for a pier or pillar, bronze for a gate, stone for a gate-post. And as each material renders its characteristic service, so each has its characteristic beauty. To imitate the characteristic beauty of flesh and blood in a material so different as stone is absurd in proportion to the success with which it is achieved ; and it is as wasteful as it is ridiculous. The stick-beetle has excellent reasons for wishing to remain anony mous ; that a stone carver should desire to produce illusions is folly. Moreover, it cannot be done, and the dust and dirt which collect in the veins and dimples of a realistic sculpture very soon betray it. The imitation of one material in another is wasteful because it is throwing away the special beauty of the material used. There is great beauty in the sculpture of Michelangelo, but it is not the beauty of stone.
The movement of the human mind which is called the Renais sance ushered in an entirely new attitude on the part of artists. Men who had formerly been part of the ordinary gang of builders, who made buildings or sculptures in stone or bronze as one makes boots or books in leather or skins, now ceased to be makers and became critics. They ceased to be, as they formerly were, men
imitating nature by working as she works (Ars imitetur naturam in sua operatione. St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theol. I., 9. 117, a. they became men imitating nature by reproducing her ap pearance. The sculptor became a critic of nature, pro or con, and his works represented his view of the matter; they reflected nature and they reflected the artist and this not by accident, as hitherto, but of set purpose and to the applause of beholders. The results, admirable as we may think them and admirable as many of them are, have the characteristic beauty of human thought but not that of stone. The state of things which we call pre-Renaissance is the normal state of things in the world and is still the prevalent state in all places not affected by humanism. In mediaeval Europe, as in India or Japan, the idea of verisimili tude was either unknown or despised. Portraiture was non existent, drawing from nature was not done at all or was confined to the merest "studies." In fact, pre-Renaissance work was "natural" precisely as a tree is natural or as an unornamented elec trical switch-board is natural. The only difference between a tree and a stone carving was that the tree was the immediate product of unconscious natural causes whereas the stone carving was the product of a conscious and deliberating mind. Neither in the one case nor the other was there any more criticism or imitation of nature than is displayed in an electrical switch-board. It is only in the paucity of language that a sculptor would speak of carving a man or a flower. The likeness to nature is an accident of such works, not the substance. A crucifix of the 12th century, for in stance, or a Buddha of the same date in India is not substantively a life-like imitation of a man as seen in flesh and blood. The sub stance of such things is their philosophical or religious significance.
That being so, the artist was free to use or exploit the aesthetic possibilities of the material used to the fullest extent. Thus it is that for the study of stone carvings as works of art we are com pelled to look to the past or to foreign and distant countries.
There is no question whether modern European stone or marble carvings are good or bad things. The statue of Gladstone in West minster Abbey is probably an excellent portrait ; it would simply be wrong to judge it as stone carving. On the other hand, the sculptures of Egypt, India and China, like those of early mediaeval Europe, are primarily stone carvings ; it would be wrong to judge Them as portraits or as imitations of nature. After about 1350 the desire for verisimilitude became the ruling motive.
Generally, we may say a good stone carving is one which will not break (Michelangelo is said to have enunciated, but perhaps not followed, the dictum that the test of a good sculpture was that you could roll it down hill without breaking it) ; that stands firmly and well balanced ; that is free from naturalistic modelling and undercutting ; and in general we may say, para phrasing the saying of Maurice Denis, "What we ask of stone carving is that it shall look like stone." (See also SCULPTURE; ARTS AND CRAFTS; WOOD-CARVING; IVORY CARVING; BRONZE AND BRASS ORNAMENTAL WORK.) BIBLIOGRAPHY.-EriC Gill, Sculpture (Ditchling, n.d. about 1923) ; J. Maritain, Art et Scolastique (1927) ; A. Coomaraswamy, Visvakarma (1914). For illustrations: Decorative Sculpture, edited by August Koster (1927) ; C. Glaser, Ostasiatische Plastik. (E. GI.)