But among Modern and contemporary artists, Carrara’s marble fell out of favor, the translucent, gray-veined stone becoming more the stuff of bathroom floors, kitchen counters and funerary monuments. Mr. Massari said that many artists had dismissed marble as a medium because of the months or even years it took to complete a single statue by hand. At a warehouse down the mountain, where technicians were testing a gigantic new robot, Mr. Massari pointed at a reproduction of “Psyche Revived by Cupid’s Kiss,” a masterpiece of neo-Classical sculpture. “Canova took five years to make this,” he said, “we took 270 hours.”Mr. Massari and his partner initially bought their robots from local technology companies. “I think our robots are a work of art,” he said.

Source: International New York Times July 11, 2021 20:03 UTC