Sculpture is not properly speaking the "plastic art," as is often understood. The real meaning of sculpture is work which is cut into form, whereas plastic art is work that is moulded or cast into form. Terra cotta, which is afterwards baked, is plastic; and yet becomes hard; thus a Tanagra figurine is an example of plastic art, while a Florentine marble statuette is a product of sculpture. The two are often confounded. We shall allude to them under different heads, taking for our consideration now only such sculpture as is the result of cutting in the stone. The work of Luca Della Robbia will not be treated as sculpture in this book. Luca Della Robbia is a worker in plastic art, while Adam Kraft, hewing directly at the stone, is a sculptor.

We have no occasion to study the art of the sculptor who produces actual statues; only so far as sculpture is a companion to architecture, and a decorative art, does it come within the scope of the Arts and crafts. Figure sculpture, then, is only considered when strictly of a monumental character.

In attacking such a subject as sculpture in the Middle Ages it is impossible to do more than indicate the general tendencies in different countries. But there are certain defined characteristics an observance of which will make clear to any reader various fundamental principles by which it is easy to determine the approximate age and style of works.

In the first place, the great general rule of treatment of stone in the North and in the South is to be mentioned. In the Northern countries, France, Germany, and England, the stone which was employed for buildings and their decorations was obtainable in large blocks and masses; it was what, for our purposes, we will call ordinary stone, and could be used in the solid; therefore it was possible for carving in the North to be rendered as deeply and as roundly as the sculptor desired. In Southern countries, however, and chiefly in Italy, the stone used for building was not ordinary, but semi-precious stone. Marble, porphyry, and alabaster were available; and the use of such material led to a different ideal in architecture and decoration,—that of incrustation instead of solid piling. These valuable stones of Italy could not be used, generally speaking, in vast blocks, into which the chisel was at liberty to plough as it pleased; when a mass of marble or alabaster was obtained, the æsthetic soul of the Italian craftsman revolted against shutting up all that beauty of veining and texture in the confines of a solid square, of which only the two sides should ever be visible, and often only one. So he cut his precious block into slices: made slabs and shallow surfaces of it, and these he laid, as an outward adornment to his building, upon a substructure of brick or rubble.

It is easy to perceive, then, the difference of the problem of the sculptors of the North and the South. The plain, solid Northern building was capable of unlimited enrichment by carving; this carving, when deeply cut, with forcible projection, acted as a noble embellishment in which the principal feature was a varied play of light and shade; the stone having little charm of colour or texture in itself, depended for its beauty entirely upon its bold relief, its rounded statuary, and its well shaped chiselled ornament. The shallow surface, already beautiful, both in colour and texture, in the Southern building material, called only for enrichment in low relief: ornament only slightly raised from the level or simply perforating the thin slab of glowing stone on which it was used was the more usual choice of the Italian craftsman.

This statement applies, of course, only to general principles of the art of sculpture; there is some flat bas-relief in the North, and some rounded sculpture in the South; but as a rule the tendencies are as they have just been outlined.

Another difference between sculpture in the North and South is due to the fact that in Italy the work was individual, as a rule, and in France it was the labour of a Guild or company. In Italy it is usually known who was the author of any striking piece of sculpture, while in France it is the exception when a work is signed, or the names of artisans recorded. In Italy, then, each piece was made more with a view to its own display, than as a part of a building, while in France statuary was regarded as an integral part of the architecture, and rows of figures were used as commonly as rows of columns in Italy. It is tragic to think of the personal skill and brilliancy of all these great French craftsmen being absorbed in one general reputation, while there were undoubtedly among them great art personalities who would have stood equally with the Pisani if they had been recognized.

A good deal of flat carving, especially in the interlace and acanthus of Ravenna, was accomplished by commencing with a series of drilled holes, which were afterwards channelled into each other and formed patterns. When the subsequent finish is not particularly delicate, it is quite easy to detect these symmetrical holes, but the effect, under the circumstances, is not objectionable.

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