Bronze sculpture

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Image:Jeté - Statue by Enzo Plazzotta - Millbank - Westminster - London - 240404.jpg

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History

Bronze casting was developed at the beginning of historical times. All of the great civilizations of the old world worked in bronze for art, more or less from the introduction of bronze for edged weapons. The Greeks were the first to scale the figures up to lifesize. Very few examples exist in good condition of these cast works. The seawater-preserved bronze, now called "The Victorious Athlete" is a fine example. Painstaking efforts were required to bring it to its present state for museum display. Far more Roman bronze statues have survived. Over the long creative period of egyptian dynastic art, small lost wax bronze figurines were made in the many thousands. Several thousand egyptian figurines have been conserved in museum collections, world-wide. From these beginnings, bronze art has continue to flourish up to the present.

Bronze is the most popular metal for cast metal sculptures; a cast-metal sculpture of bronze is often called a bronze. Common bronze alloys often have the unusual and very desirable property of expanding slightly just before they set, thus filling the finest details of a mold.

The strength and lack of brittleness (ductility) of the material is an advantage when figures in action are to be created, especially when compared to various stone materials (see marble sculpture for an example). The value of the bronze for other uses is disadvantageous to the preservation of bronze scuptures; few large ancient bronzes have survived as during wartime many were remelted periodically to make weapons or to create new sculptures commemorating the victors, while a far larger portion of contemporary stone and ceramic sculptures have survived, even if only in fragments subsequently reassembled.

The manufacture of bronzes is highly skilled work, and a number of distinct casting processes may be employed, including lost-wax casting (and its modern-day spin-off ceramic shell casting), sandcasting and centrifugal casting. In the lost-wax casting method, the artist starts with a full-sized model of the sculpture, most often a clay model. A mold is made from the clay pattern; a wax is then cast from the mold. The wax is then invested in another kind of mold or shell, which is heated in a kiln until the wax runs out. The investment is then filled with molten bronze.

Another form of sculptural metal art to use bronze is ormolou. Ormolou is a finely cast soft bronze that is then gilded (coated with gold) which results in a matt gold finish. Ormolou was popularised in the 18th century in france and is typicaly found in such forms as wall sconces (wall mounted candle holders), inkstands, clocks and garnitures. Ormolou wares can be identified by their matt gold finish and clear ring when tapped, this indicating the underlying bronze as opposed to a cheaper metal alloy such as spelter or pewter.

Bronzes on Wikipedia pages include:

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