CARVING is usually understood to refer exclusively to works in ivory or wood, to dis tinguish it from carving in marble or stone, which comes under the term sculpture ; or in metals, when it is called chasing. The ancients used ivory to a great extent in works of art, and its union with gold, called by the Greeks chrys-elephantine sculpture, was adopted by the greatest artists. In later times carving in ivory has been confined to smaller objects. Wood of almost every description was a fa vourite material for carving among the an cients, and, after clay, was doubtless, from the facility of cutting it, the first substance used for imitative art.
For a long period in modern times, there was a great demand for fine wood-carvings. The elaborately worked Gothic screens, choir seats, and desks, in most of our cathedrals and colleges, canopies, frames for doors and pictures, cabinets, and indeed every description of furniture, are evidences of the extent to which it was employed, and of the skill of the artists. One of the most eminent modern carvers in wood was Grinling Gibbons, a na tive of England. In London, the choir of St. Paul's may be instanced as a work of this ar tist. The German and Flemish carvers in ivory and wood were also much distinguished.
In Jordan's carving machinery, now at work at Messrs. Taylor, Williams and Jordan's establishment in the Belvedere Road, the wood has movement given to it, while the tools remain nearly stationary. A pattern of the work to be carved is first modelled by the ar tist, and afterwards copied by the machine in wood with perfect accuracy, and in such a manner that two or three copies are made si multaneously; the carving thus prepared by the machine is then sent back to the artist, who introduces by hand the finishing touches. A verylarge amount of the carving in the new Houses of Parliament has been effected by this machine. The more delicate work for the same building requiring hand-processes, is entrusted to Mr. Rogers, whose exquisite pro ductions have done much towards the revival of a taste for this art.
About five years ago Mr. Pratt patented a carving machine, which was based on another patent machine, invented by Mr. Irving, for preparing the materials for inlaying. Accord ing to a description given of it before the In stitute of British Architects, Mr. Pratt's Ma
chine combines the principle of the lathe, the drill, and the pantograph. The material on which the design is to be carved is fixed on a table which turns on a centre. The tool, acting in the manner of a centre-bit, is attached to an arm, also working on a centre, and is made to revolve with great velocity. Guided by a pat tern of cast-iron, the tool, by a double move ment of the arm and the table, can be made to pass through any combination of curves, drilling out the material as it passes over it. The lines of the design are determined by the iron pattern, and the depth and form of the sinking by the shape and position of the tool ; and if a double moulding is required, two pat terns and two tools and a double operation are necessary. The tool and its position at the end of the arm being once adapted to the sec tion of the moulding to be produced, the rest is purely mechanical ; the workman guides the tool with one hand, and the table with the other, and the design comes out with great rapidity. The tool revolves three thousand times in a minute ; and the wood is cut away in the form of very fine fragments, like saw dust, leaving a smooth surface behind it. The machine will cut stone with nearly the same facility as wood.
A kind of imitative carving was introduced a few years ago, in which a hot iron is em ployed instead of a cutting tool. An iron mould is prepared corresponding to the pat tern to be produced ; and this mould, being heated to redness, is applied with great force to the surface of a piece of damped wood ; and this process is repeated until the required form is produced, by burning away the surface of the wood. The char is then removed ; and any requisite undercutting is done by hand. When finished, the work has somewhat the appearance of old oak ; and the surface may be brought to a high polish.
The recent exhibitions of manufactures, both modern and mediaeval, have been rich in specimens of carving, showing to how high a degree of excellence this art may be carried. It is a pleasing feature in the history of taste that this art, after a long period of decline, has now again worked itself into favour.