The project USINE : Uses of Sculpture and Industrialization : New Evolvements aims at studying the consequences of the industrial revolutions on the techniques and practices of sculpture since the end of the 18th century. Methodologically, USINE aims at setting up an innovative investigation method based on the 3D digital survey of sculpture by photogrammetry and the use of a platform (hypertext link) for the annotation and the interpretation of technological markers.
From the years 1850-1860 onwards, stimulated by the industrial revolutions, sculpture underwent a profound change, both in its processes and in its practices. Practitioners’ workshops became specialized; foundries became real industries where mechanization and division of labour were applied; workshops diversified and welcomed specialized workers; they also opened up to women who, unable to enroll at the Academy, sought training places; some of them, like Camille Claudel, durably modified the codes of expression, others, like Hélène Bertaux, the institutions.
As a result, historical practices of sculpture have been profoundly modified. From the middle of the century, public statuary provided important contracts that sculptors sought to capture. The industrialization of foundries, in particular, made it possible to generate major projects that revived the market as much as they monopolized artists. On the other hand, from 1860 onwards, the rise of “small statuary” led to the spread of sculpture through reductions, editions or counter-mouldings, in a range of materials, biscuits, sandstone, painted plaster, galvanoplasty, which popularised the sculpted image and advantageously diversified the sculpture market by introducing it into the sphere of the middle class. As a result, the profession of sculptor changed. The artist had to organize the work of practitioners who performed technical tasks, among others, casting. The casting of bronzes was delegated to industrial foundries. The cutting of marbles was also entrusted to the specialized workers, who reproduced the models with the technique of setting. Artists, on the other hand, concentrated on modelling, but several testimonies suggest that inventio was sometimes also delegated. Besides this, the industrialization of the craft nourished the fantasy of the invention of a “sculpting machine”. Pantographs made it possible to reduce or enlarge the works without the sculptor’s hand being required, and the “mise-aux-points” made it possible to authentically reproduce the original models with formidable precision.
These profound mutations have left their mark on the material. Through the traces of tools, fingers, hands, or “new machines”, sculpture carries, under the figurative forms, the palimpsest of a technical discourse that archaeology seeks to document and study. Properly interpreted, these technical traces document the evolution of sculpture practices in the industrial age, while at the same time providing art historians with objective keys to identification, authentication, and interpretation.
The objective of the project is to carry out a technological study of the changes in the practices of sculpture during the industrial era through three perspectives: 1. the evolution of the sculptor’s profession 2. the industrialization of the processes of sculpture, including its mechanization 3. the changes in workshop practices, including the gender issue.