Sculpture, a three-dimensional art form, can be made from a variety of materials, including metal, bronze, clay, wood and marble. Marble is possibly the most unforgiving material, requiring a great deal of skill and experience to obtain good results. With a long and distinguished history beginning in pre-historic times, marble sculpture is still practiced by many artists today, although some of the tools have changed. Various types of marble suitable for making sculptures can be found worldwide.
Marble sculpting is a subtractive process, meaning that artist normally uses a mallet and a chisel to chip away at a block of marble. A wrong swing could easily damage the marble irreparably, or at the very least force the sculptor to rethink his or her plan for the final outcome. When compared to a clay sculpture, which is both an additive and subtractive process, the challenges of a marble sculpture become more clear. Since clay is malleable substance that can be pushed and formed with the hands, mistakes can be more easily corrected by adding and subtracting clay.
People have created stone sculptures for thousands of years. During the Paleolithic period people made portable stone sculptures they could carry with them as they traveled in search of food and shelter. The Greeks used marble to depict the human body.
During the Renaissance, Michelangelo Buonarroti brought the art of marble sculpture to new heights. Michelangelo reportedly claimed that he could see the human form inside a block of marble and that his mission was to free it. Interestingly, some of Michelangelo’s most amazing works were the Slaves, a series of sculptures in which some of the figures were left unfinished. His unfinished Slaves seem to be struggling to free themselves from the blocks of marble.
Some of the more traditional tools used to make marble sculptures include a mallet and a pitching tool, which is utilized to remove large amounts of stone. Other tools like a toothed chisel, a rasp and a riffler are better for finer details. The marble sculpture is eventually polished to smooth the stone and make it shinier. Not surprisingly, some modern day marble artists use power tools to carve marble.
Marble is a type of rock, which is formed from limestone that has been altered in the earth by high temperatures and compression. Available in many parts of the world, marble can be found in the US, Europe, Asia and the Middle East. Pure white marble, which is usually the most prized for sculpture, can still be found in Greece. White marble can also be found in the US, India, Spain and Pakistan.