BRONZE Artwork - Gianfranco Paulli Sculptor

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BRONZE Artwork

THE PROCESS OF THE MERGER LOST-WAX

The lost wax casting is a sculptural technique originally introduced in the Bronze Age which has seen, over the centuries, a remarkable flowering, especially in Greek, Roman and monumental sculpture. (Source Wikipedia)

BASIC TECHNIQUES

There are two ways of using this technique:

Indirect way - it Consists of creating a wax model and use it to make a clay mold. Making two holes on the mold, one on top and one on the bottom is made out by heating the wax and pouring the molten bronze into place. It yields a model identical to that of wax.

Direct Mode - It looks like the first method, but the wax model is made out of another in clay so that the final statue is hollow on the inside (or rather, contains only clay to limit the weight and the amount of metal used) .

HISTORY: THE LOST-WAX CASTING in statuary

The technique of lost-wax, for melting in large quarries bronze statues, was known since antiquity. Among the ancients the best preserved examples, made with this technique, there are the Riace Bronzes, the classical era. The technique passed into disuse during the Middle Ages, remaining alive only in the Byzantine Empire. bronze castings of small objects were always practiced, but it was still "full" works, unthinkable at large. With the Renaissance, in the context of the recovery of all aspects of classical civilization, the technique was revived. The first large statue merged with the technique of lost wax in modern times is the St. John the Baptist by Lorenzo Ghiberti (1412-1416), which was prudently done more separate pieces, assembled at a later time. The bronze technique had clear advantages over the stone, since the greater cohesion of the material allowed a pose more free space of the subjects without fear of fractures, achieving results more natural and lively.

THE TECHNIQUE

The first step was to create a sketch in scale in wax, which would serve as a guide for the job and eventually merged also a full bronze model to show the client. The next step was to model the clay statue (armed in order to prevent fractures) in the final size, which was called "soul" and that it was then cooked terracotta.Per becoming the natural shrinkage due to firing, the clay model was slightly smaller than the final result, and on this lay a wax thickness that recreated the final dimensions of the work. Modeling wax had to be especially careful in all the details, because it is from it that depended on the final appearance of the statue. All ' "soul" coated with wax therefore apply a number of various sized tubes segments, said vents, and nails as supports. On this structure "a hedgehog" is then stretches another clay layer (called "tunic" or "shirt" or "form"), from which were left tick the holes of blowholes.

The model so made was again baked in the oven over a low flame so let melt and pour forth, through the vents, all the wax. Meanwhile, the fire also turns the terracotta cassock and the presence of the support nails allows the creation of a cavity between "soul" and "habit" which will cast the molten bronze. Before proceeding to the final cast is clothed with the brick complex, creating the so-called "fusion hood", reinforced by ligatures with iron plates. The hood is lowered into a pit arranged in the mouths of the furnace from which molten bronze will be poured. The bronze, entering the cavity, form the statue, which has a thickness equal to that of the eliminated wax.

THE LEAGUE

The bronze alloy is usually made from copper and tin, whose respective percentages influenced the executive procedures and yield. Copper was easy to find, malleable and cold workable, but little fluid in the molten state. The pond was rather fragile, little malleable and extremely fluid when liquid. A higher proportion of tin made so the more fluid and less malleable alloy.

In Roman times they used usually plentiful alloys of tin, which flowed easily by filling the air spaces and faithfully reproducing the molded soft wax, without the need for cold rework. In the Renaissance the proportion of tin was generally low, for which the jets were often not very faithful to the model and defective because of the difficulty of the molten alloy sliding. For example, Lorenzo Ghiberti to rinettatura the bronze doors of the Baptistery of Florence devoted respectively 22:23 year period commencing with a group of assistants, while the cleaning of Cellini's Perseus alone took five. The end result was similar to that of gold, with sharp profiles and details engraved graphically.

Suggerisci

FINISHING

(Ex. The David di Donatello)

Place the jet, and expected cooling (one or two days), the statue is raised and released from the case and the cassock, and looks like bristling with bronze tubes (from vents) and nails. To avoid the danger of expansion, the soul clay is extracted, usually from the bottom or from the openings which then have to be filled. Any unfinished parts are thrown back and welded. After the elimination of the nails and vents the statue could appear, depending on the alloy used, even very rough, so you a long work of "rinettatura", which included the polishing of surfaces (grinding and polishing could make it necessary), the integration of the gaps and the elimination of casting defects (with the insertion of so-called anchors), finishing details (often with the burin and with the chisel) and the elimination of all imperfections.

In some cases it was intended end an operation of coating or plating, which essentially occurred by applying a thin layer of a mercury and gold amalgam. Then heating the piece the mercury evaporated, leaving the gold deposited.