The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1884-10-26
ART PRACTICALLY REGARDED.

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a New York paper in which was indicated the
opinion that it would always be difficult to
procure living models for artists in this coun-
try. The reason is apparent enough without
discussion. Modest women won't endure the
situation, and the other kind are never good
models. In Italy, however there is class of
women-not bad or abandoned at all-who
make posing for artists their occupation.
They are paid in Rome 'pane," about ten
cents, an hour, and easily earn 80 to 10 cents
day, which in that country is comfort if not
affiuence They appear at any studio that en-
cages them, remain as long as they are needed
maintain any posture or retain any drapery,
that is required, as long as required, and are
dismissed to their homes just as they would
be if they had spent the same length of time
behind a counter or at typewriter. 1t is a
business. The artists look on the model
just as they would on a plaster cast
of the "Venus de MedicI or the
''Niobe" Those in the city OF
Rome make their headquarters about the
''Pope's Stairway" up the Pincian Hill, and
the artists go there to engage them. Not
unfrequently they are peasant girls-conta-
dina-who are needed for some special point
of developments foot, or arm, or bust,
with no reference to general superiority of
form 1t is said that occasionally respectable
ladies, who value themselves on some point
of beauty, will appear as models masked,
in private studios OF the rooms of the students
of st. Luke's Academy.
Sculptors usually have more need of good
models than painters, because their work is
wholly one of form, while painters depend as
much on color as drawing for the success Of
their work. Not unfrequently it takes the
good points of half dozen of the best models
to make a good ife-size statue, more or
less undraped. Rogers required some
ten Or twelve for his blind
girl of Pompeii, 'Nydia," and
Hazeltine had four for his categorical group Of
''Spring" and Summer" Canovas celebrated
reclining statue of ''Venus Victrix' the god
dess appears in a recumbent attitude on a
couch, after the decision of Paris in her favor
as ''the fairest" of the divinities, with the
! golden apple held between her thumb and two
or three fingers of her left hand-was modelled
from the nude form of Pauline, Princess Bor-
ghese, the youngest and favorite sister of the
great Napoleon Some English ladies speak
of the work-of course, referring to the I'M
pleasantness of so immodest condition-she
naivelY misunderstood them to refer to the
discomfort of what Tom Moore's Fudge Pa
pers" calls ''such very thin clothing and but
! little of it." and replied that "there was al
ways fire in the room"
1t may not be uninteresting to some of the
Journal readers to suggest briefly the way
that a sculptor's work is transferred to mar
BILE The artist rarely takes a chisel in his
hand. Powers did frequently, and usually
finished his own work in the stone but he
was an exception. The sculptors work ends
with the completion of the model in potter's
clay, kept moistened during the night, to pre-
vent drying and cracking, by damp cloths
hung about it. This is covered with semi
liquid plaster of paris, by men who make that
their business A very thin hair-like wire
passes over the clay model from front to back,
and this is pulled out through the toughening
plaster, and the clay model is split into halves.
When completely hardened, as it is in few
hours the original clay is scooped out of the
plaster matrix, which is washed as clean as
water will do it. Then the two hollow halves
are fastened together perfectly and filed with
plaster batter and left to harden. That
model appears perfectly reproduced in dura-
BILE plaster.
Now the marble-cutter takes the plaster
model, sets it on block by his side, cuts
away suitable mass of marble-Carrara used
to cost four scudi cubic palm" about nine
inches-till it bears rude resemblance to a
human figure. Then he measures in the
"callipers" all about the head and face of the
model, making the corresponding points on
his marble, and drills hole at each point just
deep enough to fit the measure of his callipers
around the model. Having bored his marble
rough and full of these little holes, he takes
d chisel and cuts away the stone to the bot
toms of them Thus he brings out very
close resemblance in marble to. the plaster
slightly pitted all over as if it had gone through
an unvaccinated attack of smallpox. The
finishing follows, the last of the work being
usually done by skilled artists graduates of