St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1895-02-04
SCULPTURE METHODS.
Marble Figures Turned Out Fast
by Machinery.

IL any one wants to see sculpture
| done by the wholesale, he should go UP
| to the new congressional library
] building, where there are score of
| marble cutters at work on the fine
| marble panels and figures that are to
| aGorn the inside of the building This
| is getting to be more and more of a.
lnachine-made age, everything being
| turned out by contract in job lots, from
| municipal reforms to tailor-made girls
| Not that things are not done fairly well
| in that way.
Parkhurst has made very clean job
| of it in turning the LeXoW river
| through the Tammany stables, and the
| tabernacle girl who buys her suit at a
| bargain out of a shop window looks
! often just as well as the one who is
really cut to measure. But, none the
| less, Michael Angelo or Phidias would
| stand aghast should he drop into a
| sculpture factory these days and see a
laboring man working out statue
! with q compressed air cutter, while til =
| Venus Of Milo would doubtless turn Up
| her nose, and the majestic winged Vic
| tory Of Samothrace would blush, il
| she could only find her head to blush
| with.
Yet that is what it has come to. The
| mechanic out of marble almost as cas-
| lily as though he were carving cheese.
| The file, the slender chisel and the Ia
| borious bow drill are still US ed on some
| Of the work, but the great majority of
it and all the hard, coarse cutting are
| done with machinery.
The work done in the new library
building is hiSh-class, and compares ia
| Vcrably with that turned out by the
| older and more laborious hand process.
A very little of the carving is Gone
| after the stones have been set in place.
and nearly all of the great rrirror-likc
| panels and low relief work is polished
| after it has been set up. The figures,
| the elaborate cornices, the dozens e.
! eagles, and, most Of all, 1.-The babies"
! 2s the Workm en- Familiarity term the
| twenty or thirty figures of the infant
arts and industries, are all cut in the
| long marble hall on the 1th side of
| the building.
Here at each OF the big windows a
workman has his bench, with his block
of stone and plaster cast in front of
him. and cut all over the floor are
scattered standing blocks and low plat
forms covered with marble slabs, from
which the air chisels make the chips
fly in a cloud. The whole room is
white as -four mill, and filed with
| marble dust almost as fine as -four.
Each man has a model in plaster
from which to work, and as the pro-
duction in stone is a matter of lnathe-
NAUTICAL calculation, and not artistic
judgment, the final result in stone
really depends on the artist who first
designs the work in clay
The most interesting tool in the shop
is the compressed air chiseI 1t is a
very simple affair, and reminds one I'M
pleasantly OF the dentists drill. It has
the same unpleasant "b-b-r-r-r-r' that
amy one who had had tooth filled will
rem ember, and occa sionally checks uD
with ''t-t-s-s-s-zit," like the dentists
machine when it gets in a close corner
up by the nerve. But it is not quite so
gentle as the Doctors drill. 1t runs
under about thirty pounds pressure and
strikes blow between 1,2G0 and 1900
times a minute. There is a rubber tube
4 that supplies the air, and the workman
takes the tool in his hand, pressing it
/ against the stone and carving it off
i like cold Butter, cutting gouge three
quarters OF an inch wide and half an
inch deep, if need be, or else merely
tracing a delicate line on the stone
Some of the coarser carving is done
by sight, but the more delicate work is
all done by pointing" In this consists
the whole art of the mechanical marble
cutter. He has a surface gauge with
three sharp, pointed steel feet not I'M
like wall hat-rack turned upside
down. These three feet are connected
by telescoping arms and joints of var
ious sorts, so that they can be brought
around to rest on the three most prom
nnintS of T1a CT CT
which the cutter is working. Say it is
female bust that is to be carved. The
gauge will be set with one foot on the
tip Of the nose, another on one breast
and the third on one shoulder. Set
screws will then clamp it so that it may
be lifted On and off the plaster cast
without changing it's shape.
Then the points that will be the nose,
breast and shoulder are found in the
marble block, and tiny holes drilled to
receive the feet of the gauge. There is
an arm to the gauge like a Holsters
claw that can be moved around SO as
to touch any part of the cast. The
gauge is set on the cast and this arm
set to touch any point, say the chin or
the ear. Then the gauge is moved over
to the marble block and set on it's
three points, and the marble cut away
stone. Then the workman knows where
the ear or the chin, as the case may
be, will come.
Then the gauge is moved back to the
cast and another point taken, say on
the eye or the cheek, or the point of
the jaw. The gauge is moved back
each time to the marble block and the
stone cut away till the three feet and
extension arm all four fit in place. Each
time a point is taken on the cast it is
marked with a pencil dot, and the
whole model is gone over till the plas-
ter Venus looks like a badly freckled
summer girl, Thousands of points may
be taken on a single figure, and when
the workman has cut down to each one
on his block of stone he has his figure
done in the rough, and all it needs is
polishing.
For this finer work the workmen use
steel files, delicate pointed chisels and
the old bow drill, just the sort that the
Indians used to have to start their fires
with, it being loose bowspring
wrapped around the drill and worked
back and forth like a fiddle bow. With
this crude instrument they can produce
marvelously delicate work, and when
the machine cutter has chewed off the
rough work the artist mechanic comes
along with his hand tools and does the
rest.
There are all sorts of stone orna-
ments turned out from the library
workshop. Graceful female figures,
chubby babes at work with forge and
anvil and pen and compass, great gar
! lands of fruit and flowers, and immense
spandrels of stone covered in fragile re-
lief work of palms, ferns, birds and
serpents. The eagle, of course, is the
king of bird decoration, and appears
everywhere, though there are delicate,
long legged storks and many other
birds to keep him company.
When the cutting work is all done the
MOST of the panels and some of the
figures are polished with water and
smooth pieces of fne-grained stone
Each of the workmen has his speciality,
some being roughers, others finishers,
and others polishers. The best of
them receive 81 day for their work,
while some get as little as $1.75. The
work on the carving has been going on
almost ever since the library walls
baya haan raised and will continue till