Material Origin and Qualities
Marble is a metamorphic rock derived from limestone, composed mostly of calcite (a crystalline form of calcium carbonate, CaCO3). The original source of the parent limestone is the seabed deposition calcium carbonate in the form of microscopic animal skeletons or similar materials. Marble is formed when the limestone is transformed by heat and pressure after being overlain by other materials. The finest marbles for sculpture have no or few stains (some natural stain can be seen in the sculpture shown at left, which the sculptor has skillfully incorporated into the sculpture).
Read more about this topic: Marble Sculpture
Famous quotes containing the words material, origin and/or qualities:
“Measured by any standard known to science—by horse-power, calories, volts, mass in any shape,—the tension and vibration and volume and so-called progression of society were full a thousand times greater in 1900 than in 1800;Mthe force had doubled ten times over, and the speed, when measured by electrical standards as in telegraphy, approached infinity, and had annihilated both space and time. No law of material movement applied to it.”
—Henry Brooks Adams (1838–1918)
“The origin of storms is not in clouds,
our lightning strikes when the earth rises,
spillways free authentic power:
dead John Brown’s body walking from a tunnel
to break the armored and concluded mind.”
—Muriel Rukeyser (1913–1980)
“Pedants make a great rout about criticism, as if it were a science of great depth, and required much pains and knowledge—criticism however is only the result of good sense, taste and judgment—three qualities that indeed seldom are found together, and extremely seldom in a pedant, which most critics are.”
—Horace Walpole (1717–1797)