WAX-MODELLING. Wax has beeu in all ages an important agent in the art of statuary ; and in the formative art generally, whether as a fine art, or for the purposes of science. In statuary it is used in making the models for the metal cast, but more formerly than at present, for now clay is frequently substituted in its place : it is, however, still used by silversmiths in casting cups and other cylindrical or spherical objects, especially such as are required to be kept free from the markings of joints, to avoid injury to the design or embossed work. In fine art it is used in forming images, and iconic portraits, small busts, and bassi-rilievi; and it is also very usefully and largely applied in the preparation of anatomical models, especially in patho logy, and in the preparation of fruit, flowers, and many objects of natural history. Wax.modelling, when applied as above described, as a fine art, is frequently termed the Ceroplastie art (KnpoirAcurnid ; from snp4s, wax, and iraitcrroci, the art of fashioning into forms).
Wax was formerly indispensable in metal-casting, though when and bow it was first used is wholly unknown. It may have been used for the models of solid casts even in the earliest periods, but was almost certainly used in hollow casting, which was a later invention, and which will presently be described; though of an art so entirely practical, no description can convey more than a general idea.
Different writers of different ages give various directions for the pre paration of the wax to be used. Vasari, who doubtless mentions that used in his own time, recommends the admixture of a little tallow, turpentine, and pitch, with the common yellow wax, but be does not specify any particular quantities. The tallow renders it more soluble and fluid, the turpentine more adhesive, and the pitch colours it, and assists it in hardening after the operation is complete : it may also be coloured with a little red ochre in powder, which must be mixed with , the wax in its liquid state. It may be made any other colour in the same way. A French mixture is—to one hundred pounds of yellow wax, teu pound's of turpentine, ten of pitch, and ten of hogs'-lard, which probably would be similar in its properties to the mixture de scribed by Vasari. ' When the wax is melted, great care must, be taken that it does not boil, or it cannot be repaired when cold. M. Fiquet, in his 'Art du Mouleur en Platre,' gives the following compound for founder 'e wax—to four of wax, mix one of tallow and two of Burgundy pitch (poke de Bourgogne), which when melted together are fluid and manageable. This was probably the composition used by J. B. Keller and Girardon in preparing the mould for Girardon's equestrian statue of Louis XIV., which was cast entire, or in whole getto. Several other mixtures were and are probably employed by different 'sculptors; the above, however, were those employed in France and Italy iu the great ages of founding, when the wax method was generally in use. We may now proceed to describe the methods of its application.
Andrea Verrocchio, a celebrated sculptor of the 15th century, is said by Vasari to have been one of the first among the moderns to introduce casting from moulds taken from life, or, in Vasari's words, to bring the practice into general use—" che fu de' primi che cominciasse a metterlo in use " (ed. 1568). These casts he made in wax and in plaster ; and
some writers have spoken of him as the inventor of moulding from the human figure, and others even as the inventor of casting in plaster; neither of which is said nor could have been intended to be eouveyed by Vasari. Many arts have been known, and occasionally practised, before they have been applied to the ordinary uses to which they were well adapted. There is in Florence still preserved in the cathedral a cast thus formed from the head of Brunelleschi, which, as Bottari has remarked, must have been taken when Verrocehio was only fourteen years of age. And with regard to casting in plaster, if metal casts were made long before the time of Verrocchio, it is more than probable that plaster casts were also made. The first distinguished Italian founder of modern times was Andrea Pisano, who modelled the gates of the Baptistery of St. John at Florence, which were cast by some Venetian founders in 1330. The same sculptor had previously sent by Giotto a present of a bronze crucifix to Pope Clement V. (1305-1314) at Avignon, which must have been about 120 years before Verrochio was born. This crucifix is represented as having been of excellent workmanship ; it must have been fashioned consequently by an artist or artists well acquainted both with mould-making and with casting, and the idea, therefore, that either art can have been ever first practised at so late a period as Verrocchio is quite untenable. The fact of bringing artists from Venice to cast the gates of the Baptistery of St. John does not so much show that Florence was without good metal-founders, as that Venice had obtained celebrity for its artists of this class. William Austen, a celebrated English founder, was anterior to Ver rocchio. [AusrEN, Witssear, iu thou. Div.] However, at whatever period and by whatever process the early Italians first prepared their moulds for metal-casting, they most probably in all works of con sequence used wax in the preparation of the model for the casting. The ancient Greeks and Romans also most probably used wax for the same purposes. There are few ancient bronzes of a large size now extant ; the principal of them is the equestrian statue of Marcus Aurelius before the Capitol at Rome. This monument is hollow, and was cast in two parts; and probably the ancient method was not very different from that described by Vasari ; some ancient works were cast solid. The ancients were also in the habit of making plaster moulds of objects; in fact the Greeks and Romans were more or less familiar with almost every method and contrivance known to the modern statuary. (Midler, 'Ilaudhuch der Archaologie der Kuria,' §f 305, 6.) It is generally allowed that the triumph of casting in modern times was Oirardon's colossal statue of Louis XIV., cast by J. B. Keller ; it stood on the Place Vendlime at Parisi until 1792, when it was destroyed by the French populace. The weight of the monument is said to have been 60,000 lbs., and its height, including the bronze pedestal, 21 feet.