Carving

About

Carving is subtractive: the maker removes material from a block of stone, wood, bone, ivory or jade until only the form remains, and a slip cannot be undone. Tools and surfaces vary with the material. Marble is roughed out with a point, refined with toothed claw chisels and rasps, then polished; wood is cut with gouges that can leave crisp, faceted marks.

Around 1500 Tilman Riemenschneider was among the first to leave limewood figures unpainted, so the cutting itself would show. In Kamakura-period Japan, workshops led by Unkei assembled large Buddhist figures from separately carved blocks. Gian Lorenzo Bernini made marble seem to turn into leaves and hair in Apollo and Daphne (1622–25). By the 19th century many marbles were copied from plaster models by assistants with pointing machines, which provoked a reaction: Constantin Brâncuși, Barbara Hepworth and Henry Moore championed direct carving, letting grain and stone guide the shape.