Teaching classical sculpture with the help of Scan the World open source 3D models
Scan the World met Min Zheng, sculpture teacher who shared his experience in the importance of digitisation of cultural heritage for educational purposes. Touching on the topic of how the pandemic avoided his students having access to classical sculpture in museums, he stresses the importance of Scan the World’s work for his teaching.
I would like to talk about the teaching of sculpture art thanks to open source classic sculpture models, as well as the new possibilities brought by the inheritance of sculpture art. In particular, the epidemic has prevented people from going to museums and art galleries to directly see these masterpieces. Through the sharing of open source digital models from Scan the World, people can observe them remotely, and thus can spread the seeds of civilization more widely.
There is a saying in China: 泥菩萨过河自身难保 “It is impossible for a mud bodhisattva to cross the river to protect himself.”
Statues made of mud may not be preserved for a long time, and statues made of stone will be preserved longer, but they cannot escape the fate of material annihilation; and digitising sculptures may be able to exceed the preservation period of ordinary materials, but I think the art of sculpture only when it is truly passed down from generation to generation, engraved in everyone’s mind can exist forever. My students and I are currently studying ancient Greek carvings made two or three thousand years ago through STW’s digital models.
How did you come across STW?
In 2019, I went to Europe for a study tour. I visited RMN，a plaster sculpture workshop in France . There are many plaster replicas in the Louvre. I wanted to buy some as teaching aids, but they are too expensive. So I tried to search to see if there were any 3D models of these classic statues on the Internet, and then I searched for the earliest scan models of the SMK released by STW, including the Venus de Milo, Diskobólos and other models, and I found a treasure!
You said that during the pandemic, the digital archives helped you and your students to have accessible materials for education. How do you think this will help future generations?
In any case, the world will inevitably become more open, and the perseverance of people around the world to acquire knowledge will inevitably break through all spatial or immaterial barriers.
Just like these digital models shared by STW, these excellent works can be viewed by enthusiasts and art students in all directions, from all angles, and without distance restrictions. The convenience of learning even surpasses that in art museums.
In addition, copying is especially important for sculpture learners. In the past, Michelangelo mastered the know-how of classicism by copying ancient Greek sculptures in his youth.
In Rodin’s time, young people who received a Rome scholarship could go to Italy to directly face ancient masterpieces. This is not only an honour, but also a shortcut to become a new master. Rodin made good use of this opportunity. Many of his sketches during his visit to Rome and his imitation of classic sculptures gave him a lot of confidence. And digital models of these classic statues like those shared by STW, far more than what Michelangelo and Rodin have got , are freely available to anyone anywhere in the world, can be printed, can be touched, and accessible . I would like to say that this is an extremely great undertaking for human beings to learn and inherit the art of sculpture.
Apart from accessibility, you mentioned the importance of preservation. How do you see the future of preserving cultural artefacts?
As I mentioned already, matter will always annihilate over time.I think digitization is a medium that can not only record the shape of cultural artefacts, but also help us in a long time (thousands of years) protect cultural artefacts, such as many cases in recent years; more importantly, with the development of the metaverse, the excuse of the human brain and data will be realized sooner or later, and these digital models of the real world will constitute our future as the base image of mankind’s civilization.
Some of Min Zheng’s students gave us their point of view
The school I work for is the Guangzhou Academy of Fine Arts, a national art academy established in 1953, located in the beautiful city of Guangzhou in southern China. The sculpture major of Guangzhou Academy of Fine Arts is the largest of its dozens of majors. The curriculum system is derived from the Italian classical academic teaching system. The teaching concept is deeply influenced by the French romantic sculpture trend of the 19th century, such as Rodin, Francois Rude , Calpo, full of classical and romantic academic atmosphere.
This is how we train our students
First, copy classic works. In the lower grades, compulsory courses are arranged to guide students to copy the works of ancient sculptors with clay sculptures (usually select some popular works, classic human statues of the Roman and ancient Greek periods), master the basic working methods of clay sculptures and understand sculpture through copying basic modelling principles, familiar with the structure of the human body; in senior grades, we encourage students to copy the masterpieces of the ancient masters of their choice, such as Michelangelo’s David, Moses, Rodin’s Bronze Age, etc.
Understand the secrets of the sculpture’s modelling language, and at the same time combine with their own preferences, start their own exploration of personalised sculpture styles, and pave the way for their artistic creations.
In addition, we arranged 8 clay sculpting classes, from head to bust to human body. We also arrange courses in various sculptural materials, such as wood carving, pottery, casting, stone carving, etc. In addition, we are one of the earliest schools in China to offer digital sculpture courses. As early as 2004, we opened digital sculpture courses. At that time, I was still a student here. My teachers believed that digital technology would definitely bring a new dimension to sculpture art.
I often tell Jon that STW’s work has helped us a lot, and that’s not a polite thing to say. Before we came into contact with STW, the plaster reproductions of our classic statues were extremely limited. In recent years, we have collected some through various channels, but the quality is not high. We had to use photos of classic sculptures obtained from the Internet to copy them. Photos are flat after all, and cannot achieve the purpose of cultivating three-dimensional spatial awareness in sculpture teaching. When I went to Europe in 2019, one of my students studying in Germany told me that there is such a team in the world digitising ancient classic sculptures, so I was fortunate to have access to STW and its outstanding results. STW provides free 3D model download of classic sculpture works, which enriches our classic sculpture teaching aids at once, especially the data of hundreds of ancient plaster statues in Statens Museum for Kunst, which is accurate to the original work, rich in details and complete in structure. In the past two years, we have printed some of them and used them in teaching. The students are treasured, and their love for these masterpieces has greatly increased their motivation to study, which is extremely helpful to our teaching.
Of course, inheriting traditions is only part of the purpose of learning. In addition to imitating classic sculptures from the West, we also imitate ancient Chinese sculptures. We imitate clay sculptures and digital sculpture software. These copying, as I said earlier, the ultimate purpose is to find their own artistic style.
Through copying, students have dialogues with outstanding masters in this industry across time and space. In this dialogue, they think about the relationship between themselves as an individual and the entire art history, the relationship between China and globalisation, and the relationship between art and the times. These reflections The orientation must not be the Re-Made of ancient art, but a brand-new individual rooted in human civilization. Cai Yujie, in my opinion, is an outstanding representative of the students.
