Modelling and Sculpting Animals

Rating:
Summary: A valuable historical perspective but of limited use today
Review: This book presents an interesting dichotomy: on the one hand it is a seminal publication on sculpting and animal anatomy, on the other is is hopelessly out of date rendering some of the information within of questionable value.

Originally published in 1911 (!) Lanteri was a teacher to Rodin, amongst others, and there is a touching letter from him reproduced at the start. I think one should remember reading this the perspective of the writer - a sculptor of the French 19th century style, moreover a sculptor of monuments from this period - which almost by definition demand a fairly clinical approach. The resulting pieces are of undoubted skill, and I personally am a great admirer of this school of representation, but many will find them a bit sterile I suspect.

The book is subdivided into 18 chapters, beginning with introductory remarks on the symbolism of sculptural representations of animals in disparate cultures. The second chapter is over eight pages of text discussing the horse, mentioning breeds, characteristics and other points with comment on form and movement. Chapter III is on the sculpting of a quarter-scale model of a horse, with supporting diagrams and sequential photos. The next chapter is short, concerning proportions and the next is even shorter, on refinement of the model. Chapter VI is titled "Some Special Points" and here we get to the meat (literally!) with over 30 pages of clear anatomical diagrams showing the muscles and skeleton of the horse in plan and side views. Chapter VII is on general principles with quotes from a number of "men of great artistic value" and includes four views of a sculpted anatomical study of the horse showing stunning mastery of form and detail. The next five chapters essentially deal with scaling up the model to full size using a laborious but obviously workable technique called pointing and chapter XIII is on pointing a relief. Chapter XIV discusses sculptural representation of other animals and XV through XVIII deal with sculpting the lion and then the bull, again with detailed anatomical drawings. The final three-part section, on casting in plaster, rounds out the book and here it really shows its age as I believe that modern materials like casting rubbers and alginates have almost completely done away with destructive casting methods (where the original and then the mould are both destroyed to make the final plaster).

The bulk of the information contained within this books is in the text and herein lies another problem: this is a translation from French into English (and Edwardian English to boot) and the text although it has a certain charm can come across as dry, even aloof. Even when the information is of value, and there is a great deal of importance here, it will be difficult in this day and age for the casual reader to sift through and I have a suspicion that without some formal art training, or at least a fair knowledge of anatomy and/or sculpting techniques, it will prove impenetrable.

In summary, for the serious student interested in monumental sculpture, particularly in this historical context, this is a must-have but for the casual reader and those seeking a how-to on sculpting animals I'd give this a skip. For those interested there is a companion book on sculpting the human figure.