Week 13

LECTURE V. THE TWO GREAT SCULPTORS - WATER AND ICE.

In our last lecture we saw that water can exist in three forms:--
1st, as an invisible vapour; 2nd, as liquid water; 3rd, as solid
snow and ice.

To-day we are going to take the two last of these
forms, water and ice, and speak of them as sculptors.

To understand why they deserve this name we must first consider
what the work of a sculptor is. If you go into a statuary yard
you will find there large blocks of granite, marble, and other
kinds of stone, hewn roughly into different shapes; but if you
pass into the studio, where the sculptor himself is at work you
will find beautiful statues, more or less finished; and you will
see that out of rough blocks of stone he has been able to cut
images which look like living forms. You can even see by their
faces whether they are intended to be sad, or thoughtful, or
gay, and by their attitude whether they are writhing in pain,
or dancing with joy, or resting peacefully. How has all this
history been worked out from the shapeless stone? It has been
done by the sculptor's chisel. A piece chipped off here, a
wrinkle cut there, a smooth surface rounded off in another place,
so as to give a gentle curve; all these touches gradually shape
the figure and mould it out of the rough stone, first into a
rude shape and afterwards, by delicate strokes, into the form of
a living being.