Casting
Early Chinese bronze vessels were cast using the piece-mold process. This process involved the artist forming the mold in pieces from clay, then connecting them to make one overall vessel form. With this method, the decoration on a vessel's surface had to be incised into the clay in reverse and negative. This means that images that would be raised on the surface of the metal would have to become depressions in the clay mold. The void inside the mold is then filled with molten metal, creating the positive. In contrast, the process of lost-wax casting allows an artisan to create a wax model of the desired object. The molten metal takes the place of the wax when cast. Frequently it was necessary in the casting of large vessels to cast the main portion, include it in the construction of another mold, and then cast protrusions-- such as the guang's handle-- onto that piece.
guang (觥)vessel.
Read more about this topic: Guang (vessel)
Famous quotes containing the word casting:
“For the gods, though slow to see, see well, whenever a man casting aside worship turns folly.”
—Sophocles (497–406/5 B.C.)
“Reason sits firm and holds the reins, and she will not let the feelings burst away and hurry her to wild chasms. The passions may rage furiously, like true heathens, as they are; and the desires may imagine all sorts of vain things: but judgement shall still have the last word in every argument, and the casting vote in every decision.”
—Charlotte Brontë (1816–1855)
“All we know
Is that we are a little early, that
Today has that special, lapidary
Todayness that the sunlight reproduces
Faithfully in casting twig-shadows on blithe
Sidewalks. No previous day would have been like this.”
—John Ashbery (b. 1927)