separately and attached. The Laocoon group (page 265), which Pliny
expressly alleges to have been made of a single block, is in
reality made of six. Often the head was made separately from the
body, sometimes of a finer quality of marble, and then inserted
into a socket prepared for it in the neck of the figure. And very
often, when the statue was mainly of a single block, small pieces
were attached, sometimes in considerable numbers. Of course the
joining was done with extreme nicety, and would have escaped
ordinary observation.

In the production of a modern piece of marble sculpture, the
artist first makes a clay model and then a mere workman produces
from this a marble copy. In the best period of Greek art, on the
other hand, there seems to have been no mechanical copying of
finished models. Preliminary drawings or even clay models, perhaps
small, there must often have been to guide the eye; but the
sculptor, instead of copying with the help of exact measurements,
struck out freely, as genius and training inspired him. If he made
a mistake, the result was not fatal, for he could repair his error
by attaching a fresh piece of marble. Yet even so, the ability to
work in this way implies marvelous precision of eye and hand. To
this ability and this method we may ascribe something of the
freedom, the vitality, and the impulsiveness of Greek marble
sculpture--qualities which the mechanical method of production
tends to destroy. Observe too that, while pediment-groups,
metopes, friezes, and reliefs upon pedestals would often be
executed by subordinates following the design of the principal
artist, any important single statue or group in marble was in all
probability chiseled by the very hand of the master.