Casting

Act of casting or throwing. - The taking casts or impre ions of figures, busts, medals, leaves, . -The act of a igning parts to players, or of contriving anything. -The proce by which some animals throw off their skins, horns, . (Arch.) A term to expre the bending of the surfaces of a piece of wood from their natural state, caused either by the gravity of the material, or by its being subject to unequal temperature, or by the inequalities of texture of the material. (Sometimes called Warp ing.) (Naut.) The act of allowing the ship's head, previously pointing to the wind, to fall off so as to bring the wind on the ve el's side. Casting of draperies. ( Painting .) By this term is implied the distribution of the folds, and draperies are said to be well cast when the folds are distributed in such a manner as to appear rather the result of mere chance than of art, study, or labor. Carlo Maratti thought that the disposition of drapery was a more difficult art than even that of drawing the human figure, and that a student might be more easily taught the latter than the former. Inferior painters enter into the minute discriminations of quality in drapery; but, as Sir Joshua Reynolds has well observed in his Fourth Discourse , with the historical painter "the clothing is neither woollen nor linen, nor silk, satin, nor velvet; it is drapery ; it is nothing more." The figures of Rafaelle, in his paintings, are generally draped; those of Michael Angelo commonly nude.