Go Back Blog: New Website Hyper Zoom Facility
Louis Wald
13/05/2012

These images are screen shots made using the new hyper zoom facility on this web site. They are based on 8000 pixel wide versions of the photos taken by Jac De Villiers. I produced them by clicking on the "hyper zoom" image to the right of the normal image, then exploring the zoom facility and finally saving the screen using shift command 4 on my Apple computer. I invite anyone interested to create their own views of the works and post them to the Herman Wald Facebook page www.facebook.com/HermanWaldSculptor or email them to me on info@hermanwaldexhibition.com

Instructions

As for alll blogs on this site hovering the mouse over an image produces either the magnifier cursor  or the go to work details cursor  

Once the image is magnified it can be closed by pressing the escape key or clicking the close button on the navigate icons  . Alternatively the next previous arrows can be used to cycle through all the images on the page enlarged in slide show fashion.

Alternatively the details cursor can be used in this case to navigate to the detail page for the sculpture shown. The zoom facility can be launched and experimented with from here.

Abstract Forms

The first images illustrate two things: firstly the zoom capability of being able to create images that can be viewed as abstract forms in their own right and secondly, the infinite variety of surface textures and colours that can be created with bronze.

Birth of an Idea was cast into bronze for the first time in late 2011. Making something that is mostly copper look silver is a challenge but patina expert Gert Kershoff managed beautifully. It took 9 applications of a Silver Nitrate patina solution to get the patina this light.

La Femme was cast in 2011 by Mike Cañadas of Loop Foundry in White River South Africa. The dark patina was made using the classical combination of a liver of sulphur base and a hot applied ferrous nitrate finish. Embrace was cast in a similar fashion but with more highlights.

Moses Head is a traditional Italian bronze - typically 88% copper and 12% tin. The Cupric Nitrate patina naturally produces this well known deep green colour with Italian bronze. Much more effort is required to get this colour with silicon bronze (typically 95% copper, 4% silicon and 1% manganese) which many foundries use today.

Peasant Girl is one of only 2 works by Herman Wald in marble. Why this is the case can only be speculated about. The zoom tool enables one to appreciate how the marble colour and texture is used to enhance the overall composition.

Facial Details

The zoom facility magnifies the faces to typically 4 times their actual size. These details of Head of a Girl and Eskapa Bay Girl are instructive in simply showing how the sculptor forms eyes, noses and mouths. In addition the Kiaat Wood medium illustrates the concept of Direct Carving that was very prevalent in the early 1900s - sculptors were concerned with utilising the particular features of the block of marble or wood they were carving rather than mechanically reproducing a maquette. The porous nature Plaster of Paris plus its tendency to suffer damage easily is also demonstrated.

This horrific theme Gassed was tackled before the outbreak of World War II, probably as a warning. The face, pointing upwards, the throat and thumb form the focal area of the work.

Herman Wald could make a whole portrait in a head 5cm high. The zoom tool illustrates this in the Chassidic Dance Detail. Also revealed is the child like mouth shape in Zero Hour. This was applied on my insistence (as a 10 year old child) that the man had to have a face.

Body Details

The brown stain on the plaster of Paris The Parting is shellack, a release agent used to ease the removal of a mould. I remember seeing innumerable original plaster casts with this finish stored haphazardly at the foundry of Renzo Vignali which I visited many times with my mother and father. Chain of Life was cast at Loop Foundry in 2011. The silicon bronze has a Citric Nitrate patina applied with a brush to create the mottled effect.

The Unknown Miner and Man and his Soul both around 3m high were installed within 100m of each other at the university of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg in late 2011. By pure coincidence the works illustrate the expressive range of Herman Wald - from the figurative to the abstract. The Miner's chest's muscular detail is captivating when viewed in "the flesh" while the smooth lines of the abstracted figures in Man and his Soul flow effortlessly. When both works were being cast at the Loop foundry the comment was often heard "Its unlikely that the guy who made Man and his Soul could have done so without being able to have made something like the Unknown Miner.

Both works are silicon bronze with a patina made with a liver of sulphur base and a ferric nitrate overlay.

Monument Details

Hundreds of photos have been published and thousands taken of Herman Wald's best known monuments over the years. See then main web site entries The Impala Fountain and Memorial to the Six Million. The zoom facility enables new ways of viewing these works.