Nature and Art, Making and Knowing: Reconstructing Sixteenth-Century Life-Casting Techniques

Almost everyKunstkammerin sixteenth-century Europe contained small reptiles or plants cast from life in a variety of media. This widespread technique, which used small, recently killed animals as a pattern to create lifelike sculptures, was often prized more highly than works sculpted with the hand....

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published inRenaissance quarterly Vol. 63; no. 1; pp. 128 - 179
Main Authors Smith, Pamela H, Beentjes, Tonny
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Cambridge The Renaissance Society of America 01.03.2010
Cambridge University Press
Subjects
16th century
Academic discourse
Animals
Casting
Cellini, Benvenuto (1500-1571)
French language
Goldsmithing
Historical text analysis
Language history
Lead
Lizards
Materials
Molding
Molds & molding
Plants
Plasters
Silver
Snakes
Studies
Waxes
Europe
Online AccessGet full text

Cover

More Information
Summary:Almost everyKunstkammerin sixteenth-century Europe contained small reptiles or plants cast from life in a variety of media. This widespread technique, which used small, recently killed animals as a pattern to create lifelike sculptures, was often prized more highly than works sculpted with the hand. An unstudied, late sixteenth-century French technical manuscript records a practitioner's experiments in casting from life, among many other subjects. This article investigates both the techniques and the significance of life-casting on the basis of this treatise, incorporating the examination of surviving sixteenth-century European life casts and the reconstruction of the manuscript's recipes and technical instructions, arguing that life-casting in the sixteenth century was viewed in part as a means to the knowledge of nature.
ISSN:0034-4338
1935-0236
DOI:10.1086/652535