Student Reflection on Working with the Casts

Sitting in a dark art history classroom watching slides, you cannot fully recognize the size, shape, form, and beauty of the art. The cast collection here at Fairfield has expanded my appreciation for art, while cleaning and restoring the casts have changed my view of sculpture and art. The casts have helped me to better understand techniques and styles, which cannot be seen from just looking at a slide. The casts are educational tools that have allowed us as students to further our understanding of art.

The cast collection enriches both the campus and the students. Many of the casts represent sculpture from the large Parthenon program and they bring a little piece of Greece to Fairfield University. Slides of the frieze, metopes, or pediments do not do justice to the sculptures. By looking at these plaster casts one can see the delicate folds of the drapery or the tense muscle of a centaur. The entire student body can gain a new perspective on the work we study in history and art history classes. Many of us may not get the chance to see the original sculpture, thus these casts offer us something that we may otherwise never see. The casts are not the same as the original ancient Greek sculpture, but they have spurred curiosity in me and now I am excited to see the real thing. I have found a new reason why I want to travel all over the world. If the casts are so beautiful, I cannot even imagine what the real sculptures look like.

Working on the casts has opened my eyes to the world of restoration. It was amazing to see what a little water or erasers can do to clean the surfaces. The eraser took years of dirt and grime off of the casts within hours, and there was a visible transformation over the semester that made me proud. Over the decades these casts were abandoned, left in the warehouse where dust, dirt, and growths accumulated on them. It was so gratifying to see my hard work restore something that had been abandoned, and to bring it back to its former beauty. Due to our work on these casts, future generations of Fairfield students will be able to see the beauty and historical importance of these pieces.

A.V.