Casting: Are we talking the movies, fishing, polyester resin or plaster?

Looking at these tourists, what state would you guess that they are visiting? Would you say that they are waiting for a “walk” sign, watching an express train go by, looking at a hot air balloon, or just taking a quiet moment of day dreaming to regain their stamina?

Actually, if you saw them in “person”, you would do a double-take. 

Duane Hanson’s people are astonishingly REAL. 

In one sense, these seem like everyday Americans. Looking more closely, we see a response to the socio-economic tensions of class and perhaps hardship. They are weighted down by their possessions. They make a social statement that artists today would probably avoid.

Yet Hanson’s insight into his cliché’ of Florida tourists is not void of empathy and compassion.

His models are usually older people who have more distinct physical traits and are full of history. 

The clothes that he uses are usually those of his models who are sometimes over dressed and over prepared.

His pieces are not portraits but types that otherwise might remain invisible or ordinary.

As for his technique, usually his models are covered in light oil or Vasoline and wrapped in Saran wrap, then covered in plaster of Paris. Straws are placed in the nostrils for breathing. When the plaster mold has hardened it is separated and the body filler that might be fiberglass, resin, polyvinyl, etc. is poured in the mould. When hardened, the plaster mould is removed. The buffing, coloring and fine detailing are then added.

Duane Hanson was a graduate in sculpture form Cranbrook Academy of Art. He taught art for 10 years in American schools and in Germany where he learned the materials of polyester resin and fiberglass, spending years perfecting it after returning to America. His pieces take several months to complete.

He died in 1996 of cancer from the toxic plasticized materials. 

Now looking at ancient metal casting, in comparison, and particularly the “lost wax” process, referred to sometimes as “hollow casting”, one of the oldest pieces going back to the Akkadian period, 2250-2200BCE is of Sargon the Great.

The method of casting for Sargon was the direct lost wax process. Initially the sculptor made a model of the figure in wax. It was then covered in clay or plaster to form a mold. The wax was melted out and left a hollow form into which was poured copper or another alloy. The image would be solid and very heavy and very expensive, even at 12″.

Later the Greeks developed the indirect lost wax process where they could pour a hollow form, usually bronze at this period. This process was lighter in weight and less expensive, less prone to cracks and bubbles. Body parts were cast separately and soldered together.

This is a complicated process that has continued over the centuries with a few variations, refinements and many steps. The first step is a clay or plaster model (Rodin and Daniel Chester French preferred plaster), the likeness of the finished form. A plaster mould with a seam was formed around the likeness and separated when hardened. A thin layer of wax was then poured into this re-secured plaster mould (sometimes several for different sections of the body). The wax result would be an exact likeness of the original clay as it filled the mould but would be hollow.  When the wax hardened, plaster was poured into the hollow wax likeness to secure the form. Cleaning and corrective detailing could be done at this point. The first plaster mould was then thrown away.

A second plaster mould is formed around the corrected wax. When it hardens the form is heated and the wax vaporizes. The mould is then buried in sawdust or sand and molten bronze is poured into the thin chamber left by the wax. After the bronze hardens, the exterior mould is removed and the plaster interior is beaten out so that the likeness becomes hollow. This is a less expensive product with less weight than solid bronze. If the likeness/figure was cast in separate body parts (in the case of extended limbs), they were then welded together, buffed, and details were refined. Features such as eyes, teeth, lips, fingernails, clothes, jewelry etc. were added.

And now we look at Balzac.

Auguste Rodin is considered the first of the modern sculptors. His work has elements of the Expressionism and Impressionism of the late 19th century. His surfaces are gestural, rough, tactile, fluid, agitated, and sometimes disturbed.

The sculpture of Balzac was rejected by the French association that commissioned when it was unveiled in 1898. It was later praised and recast by Alexis Rudier for the Rodin Museum in 1935. There are a number of additions at other sites and museums.

If you look carefully, there is an air to Balzac – confident, perhaps arrogant, a man who lives in his head – a thinker, a writer, a philosopher, living an inner existence of psychological depth. And yet his body in monk’s habit is simplified, columnar, weighty, tightly covered. What does this say? Is he protecting himself? reserving inner strength, stating a stubbornness or immovable position? Or maybe he writes this way. We could also see an intimacy here.

Rodin moved away from the idealized and well-proportioned athletic standards in classical sculpture.

Rodin was a “modeler” – working primarily in clay and plaster. Although a great admirer of Michelangelo, he was not a carver. His works were cast in a professional foundry.

Another method of casting was used in Pompeii to recover “facsimiles” of men, women, children and animals whose postures had been preserved by volcanic ash. 

The volcano of Mt. Vesuvius erupted in 79AD causing the destruction of the entire city of Pompeii. A silent testimony of the victims was preserved in the calcified ash as they crawled, ran or rolled in their attempt to flee the encompassing lava. Remains were found in homes, the fish market, the Stabian Thermal baths, the granary, the tavern, the fruit orchard and the surrounding paths to the water – but buried under 30” of debris, mud and ash.

Most of those died of asphyxiation from the poisonous gas emitted by the volcano.

Pompeii was not discovered until around 1594 when Domenico Fontand dug an underground water channel to divert a river through Pompeii and unearthed parts of the city, including frescos and inscriptions. In 1709 excavations were continued under King Charles III of Spain (Pompeii being under the rule of the Kingdom of Naples). By the 1860s the director of excavations for Pompeii, Giuseppe Fiorelli, devised a method of pouring liquid plaster into the cavities left by the decomposed bodies 1700 years after being buried.

Once the plaster was poured and pumped into the cavities and had solidified, the surrounding soil and ash was removed.

It is estimated that around 2000 of the approximate 20,000 inhabitants died in the eruption. Around 1,150 bodies have been discovered. About 18,000 fled.

103 casts were made.

Here are some of the images. A daunting reminder of nature’s destruction.