The Sculptor's Studio

The Marble Workshop on Anapafseos Street

From its inception, marble was the medium of choice in the First Cemetery. It was plentiful and skilled artisans were gathered in the new capital.  Ioannis Kossos (Ιωάννης Κόσσος 1822-1875) one of Greece’s best 19^th century sculptors proudly had the tools of his trade emblazoned on his own tombstone in the First Cemetery.

Section 5, Number 764

Such tools seem crude to the inexperienced eye:  hammers and chisels on unyielding stone.

The How

There is the direct method where the artist using a preliminary drawing, takes a block of marble and starts chipping away. That method has obvious hazards, particularly for a large piece, and a sculptor creating a complex or large work in Athens would likely have preferred the indirect method that involves first creating a detailed clay model or plaster cast of the desired sculpture and then duplicating it in marble.

This method worked equally well for large or small pieces, for bas-reliefs or fully three dimensional sculptures.

We were curious about the process and were lucky enough be allowed to follow a work in progress at the workshop of Mr. Nikos Georgiou (Νίκος Γεωργίου) at number 30 Anapafseos Street, the wide avenue which leads to the gates of the First Cemetery. 

You can’t miss it. The entrance has completed statues to the right and left of its wide entrance.

 A peek inside always shows works in progress.

 

 Over a period of many months in 2016, we photographed the statue of a Greek freedom fighter entitled Greece Honours  the Unknown Warrior which was destined for a park in Kalamata.

The first thing we saw was the plaster cast of the statue with a block of marble roughly the same size alongside it. A crude outline in the marble was accomplished with an eagle eye, hammers and chisels:

In the background of the above picture, you can see the necessary contraption for the indirect method: the pointing machine (macchinetta di punta). This measuring device allows the artist to take exact measurements on the clay or plaster model, and then, by transferring the ‘machine’ with specific settings over to the marble block and fastening it from a preset and identical base as that of the plaster model, he can pinpoint the exact depth he must chisel out in any particular spot to duplicate the original.

It is the adjustable length of the needle, that wing nut gizmo, and a steady base that allows the accurate transfer of information. See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wPM62HDJbms  for a demonstration of how it works.

While not easy to set up, it takes the guess work out of a process that still needs nerves of steel and a steady hand. The artist marks the points in pencil where the needle indicates he needs more depth and the needle tells him on a second or third (or fourth) measurement when he has reached the correct depth. (1)

A work in progress will be covered with many such marks until the detail being worked is complete.

 

 

Slowly the details emerge from the marble.

The cost of such a large sculpture is not small, so it is not surprising that most of the recent statues in the cemetery are not as large as this. In the nineteenth century, however, particularly before the age of photography, marble was king, the rich were not overburdened by taxes, and the expense simply did not matter.  

Mr Georgiou at work with the pointing machine

Entering such a workshop requires care because chips of marble can and do whizz through the open doors if a sculptor is at work. 

The pointing machine is slowly being replaced by laser measuring devices, but not as yet on Anapafseos Street. Here the older traditions still hold sway and it is easy to imagine that the workshops of Chalepas, Broutsos or the Fytalis brothers would have looked pretty much like this one.

Footnotes

(1) Before the pointing machine several methods were used to measure and copy, including grids, plumb lines, and calipers. Laser pointing machines have the advantage that the ‘needle’ or point of light does not interfere with the carving space and, just as for a dentist doing a root canal, it gives an audible signal when the right depth is reached.

Sources

http://www.thesculptorsfuneral.com/episodes/