But as the
light and shade is produced by actual forms which are yet quite unlike
the true forms of nature, it follows that the artist in relief can never
imitate either the shape or the depth of the shadow he sees in nature.
His art becomes one of suggestions and equivalents--an art which can
give neither the literal truth of form nor the literal truth of
aspect--an art at the farthest remove from direct representation. And
success in it becomes, therefore, one of the best tests of a sculptor's
artistry--of his ability to produce essential beauty by the treatment of
his material, rather than to imitate successfully external fact.
As the degree of relief varies, also, from the lowest possible to that
highest relief which, nearly approaches sculpture in the round, the
problems involved constantly vary. At each stage there is a new
compromise to be made, a new adjustment to find, between fact and
illusion, between the real form and the desired appearance. And there
may be a number of different degrees of relief in the same work, even in
different parts of the same figure, so that the art of relief becomes
one of the most complicated and difficult of arts. It has not, indeed,
the added complication of color, but neither has it the resources of
color, success in which will more or less compensate for failure
elsewhere.
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