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As movements go, neoclassicism has usually been seen as an academic foray into technically skilled but lifeless work, comparable to Greece and Rome’s golden ages in intention and finish but not in inspiration. Playing with Fire: European Terracotta Models, 1740-1840, currently at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, gives us a good long look at a century’s worth of terracotta sketches and models in a medium that was used to flaunt extravagant effects and traditional mythology.

The French first became interested in using terracotta, the term for fired clay, in the late 1730s; terracotta’s ability to give a sketch permanence received accolades from no less a critic than Johann Joachim Winckelmann, who saw it as a warmer alternative to stone and once wrote that “modeling in clay is to the sculptor what drawing on paper is to the painter….[In] the soft material, and on paper, the genius of the artist is seen in its utmost purity and truth; whilst, on the contrary, it is concealed beneath the industry and polish required in a finished painting” (quoted from Playing with Fire, the exhibition catalogue, p. 3). The idea of making sketches permanent by executing them in hardened clay was a way of recognizing the material’s ability to contain artistic passion; Diderot commented, on sculptured sketches, “The artist throws his fire into the clay, but boredom and coldness take over when he gets to stone” (Ibid., p. 3). In fact, it seems that the modeling was viewed as a way of getting at esthetic immediacy, the divine fire the exhibit’s title suggests.

It may well be time for a reassessment of such work as is on display in this exhibit. The evocative reach and multitudinal recognitions of legend and classical narrative are, by themselves, powerful topics addressed by these sculptures. Yet, for contemporary viewers, many not educated enough in classical myth to understand immediately what any given sculpture might reference, the show’s intentions and broad historical scope may seem didactic. In more than a few instances, usually with the lesser works, the warmth of the material unsuccessfully vies with the cool restraint of the work’s spirit: the fire is hard to see. Even so, however, the medium’s ardor usually comes through in ways that makes these mostly smallish, tabletop works passionately eloquent about form and classical storytelling. French author Pierre-Jean Mariette asserts the achievement of such works, even in comparison with finished sculptures:

There is no need to insist on the excellence of terracotta models. Not everyone is able to see or appreciate their hidden beauty in the same way. But this does not prevent the fact that, for those who deserve to be called true connoisseurs, these pieces may have more appeal than even the most finished of sculptures. It is much like a discerning and enlightened eye discovering the whole spirit of the master in a single drawing, that creative spirit, that flashing divine fire that emanates from the soul [my stress] and that can so easily be distinguished and annihilated by an instant of reflection. (Ibid., p. 4)

These works, then, were to be distinguished by the force of their expression, the sense of movement and excitement caught up in the fired clay. As a show, Playing with Fire goes a long way to proving the inspiration of a large group of European artists, ranging from Jean-Antoine Houdon, Clodion, and Joseph Chinard in France, to Johann Heinrich Dannecker and Johann Gottfried Schadow in Germany and Antonio Canova and Camillo Pacetti in Italy, and even to Johan Tobias Sergel in Sweden and Johann Valentin Sonnenschein in Switzerland. Yet, to a contemporary audience, there is the danger that — in formal terms, and despite the allegiance to classicism — their manufacture seems overwrought. But this perception, like so many issues in art, is a matter of taste, based upon the sensibility of viewers who may be hard put to place these remarkable sketches within a modern sensibility.

The show is divided into five categories: “Sculptors and Their Methods,” “The Sculptor’s Training,” “Typologies,” “Subjects from Fable and Myth,” and “Some Leading Preoccupations.” The division gives organization to a large show, whose many instances of terracotta might otherwise overwhelm the viewer. In “Sculptors and Their Methods,” the point is made that models were generally created in wax; however, given wax’s sensitivity to temperature, it was safer to fire a clay model in the kiln, which resulted in a less frangible work of art (Ibid., p. 17). Despite the durability of the pieces, the terracotta sculptures were essentially seen as drawings, enlivened by many kinds of technical strategies. William Shakespeare (1757), by Louis-François Roubiliac, is, according to the catalogue, “the definitive model for…Roubiliac’s marble Shakespeare, now in the British Museum” (Ibid., p. 22). The work is a bit cloying: the great bard rests against a tall desk, pen in one hand as the other cups his chin in an attitude of contemplation. The forced pose of Shakespeare is contrasted by Canova’s two versions of the Lamentation Over the Dead Abel (no date), in which Abel’s wife and father mourn a reclining figure. Quickly but forcefully modeled, the works give a sense of clay’s inherently expressive quality, its ability to suggest spontaneous action and emotion.

“The Sculptor’s Training” shows how important working with clay was to a young sculptor’s education. This was a standard practice at the Académie in Paris, and schools throughout Europe copied the Académie. A powerful terracotta bust by academician Jean-Baptiste Stouf, entitled Young Girl in Affliction, is most likely the work Stouf showed at his first salon in 1785, the same year he gained entrance to the Académie Royale. His study of a young girl seemingly overwhelmed by emotion, her mouth open, corresponds closely to the artist’s 1789 marble Affliction, now housed in the Louvre. But the model itself is a remarkable study in detail, the clay giving the young girl’s hair and skin genuine expressiveness. As pointed out in the catalogue, her right arm, cut off at the bottom of the sculpture, “adds to the dynamism of the whole” (Ibid., p. 78). Another work, a very strong version of Perseus Delivering Andromeda — likely French and executed in the last quarter of the eighteenth century — was originally attributed to Chinard, although that attribution is no longer thought to be true. Whoever the artist, the work is remarkable, with Perseus energetically gripping a restrained, bashful Andromeda. The detail of the pair makes for astonishing realism: the sword and clothing folds are powerfully rendered, and the rocks supporting the couple are sculpted as a series of horizontal layers.

“The Typologies” section considers three themes: the monument and its pedestal; relief, especially in connection with architecture; and complex figure groupings, including centaurs. Of the works in this grouping, the small model by Laurent Delvaux, for the 1770 marble Hercules (according to the text, one of the most important sculptures created in seventeenth-century Brussels [Ibid., p. 126]), is a strong treatment of the mythical figure, who stands naked, leaning on a club, his left forearm covered with a lion-skin, a Hesperidean apple in his right hand. While small — only a bit over two feet in height — the sculpture’s sense of physical power and moral grandeur is beautifully expressed in the clay model. There is also a wonderful treatment, by the eighteenth-century Italian sculptor Antonio Trentanove, of Venus and Adonis: Venus, stretched out along a long, low couch, beseeches her intimate, Adonis, not to hunt the wild boar. While the sculpture is a relief, its modeling and particulars are spectacular: Venus, an elongated figure, contrasts sharply with the verticals of Adonis’ upright stance and long pole. One has the sense of a powerful moment stopped in time; and the relief’s suggestion of physical intimacy is understated but nonetheless present, with Venus’ robes clinging to her full body.

“Subjects from Fable and Myth” summarizes the deep influence of classical themes and their interpretation during the eighteenth century. The notion of virtue or the good was, in that era, linked to the notion of the beautiful — art was supposed to ennoble and edify, as well as seduce, with its beauty. Biblical anecdotes, by nature uplifting, were popular, as were episodes from Virgil’s Aeneid and Ovid’s Metamorphoses. Homer was embraced for his directness of sentiment and his style. That art must be morally bracing as well as seductive was central to the esthetic of the artists in this exhibit. A case in point is Pacetti’s small version of Orpheus and Eurydice. In the story, Orpheus convinces Hades to allow him to retrieve his wife, Eurydice, from hell, on condition that he will not look at her before leaving the underworld — otherwise, she will be lost to him forever. Sadly, Orpheus does not keep his promise, and in this striking model he is shown with his face averted, his mouth open in effort, as he bears his wife toward the world of the living. It is a moving sculpture, revealing both physical beauty and a tragic recognition of Orpheus’ frailties.

“Some Leading Preoccupations,” the exhibit’s last category, is a bit of a grab-bag: themes include “Great Men,” “Genre Sculpture,” “Funerary Sculpture,” and “Religious Art.” Jean-Antoine Houdon’s Voltaire Seated (1778) is representative of the “Great Man” genre. Thin, smiling, dressed in long robes, Voltaire sits in an armchair, in a position of powerful ease. The funerary sculptures consist of a number of mourners, notably by Clodion and Etienne d’Antoine, as well as much more complicated group-figure projects; but there is an extraordinary work attributed to Sonnenschein, a funerary monument in which a mother and child break apart the top of a tomb to offer themselves to God. According to the catalogue, the work “is a copy of the most celebrated sculpture in Switzerland: the funerary monument of Frau Langhans and her child, executed by Johann August Nahl in 1751” (Ibid., p. 262). This small copy is extraordinary, matching in every way the tragic power of the large sandstone original. Genre sculptures include such set pieces as a portrait of a poet and a woman frightened by a thunderclap. Finally, the subjects in “Religious Art” predictably concern piètas, angels, the Virgin Mary, and Christ. Canova’s version of the Virgin Mary is an exercise in simple piety; the figure’s features look downward in humility, and the general effect is one of exquisite tenderness.

Playing with Fire documents an indubitable esthetic that, however distant it might seem to us, possesses an idealism and physical craft that compels admiration. It is, of course, unfair to compare the eighteenth century to our own — and thereby do justice to neither — but some of neoclassicism’s attributes call to mind a sense of duty and propriety that contrasts favorably with our contemporary esthetic, in which anything goes. The kind of sculpture we see in this exhibit, embodied in the Biblical and mythological allusions so seminal to the art, may be seen as an advantage in the area of subject or theme. Unfortunately, we are, as contemporaries, too often constrained by issues of personal identity; we don’t trust the shared appreciation of classical culture today, in large part because, particularly in America, our own (multi)culture is so varied. With so many differences among us, it is difficult to make assumptions of shared experience, and harder yet to appreciate an art based on such experience. In the long run, Playing with Fire teaches us that a shared cultural heritage can prove marvelously creative when approached with verve and skill, as these eighteenth-century artists demonstrate. Theirs was an art of scholarship and confidence, and the results of their esthetic remain brilliant, even deeply moving.