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The artwork covered in this lesson is from the years 1912 to 1950, as highlighted in the timeline below. Modernist sculpture artists came from all over the world.
In this lesson, you will explore sculptures from the geographical regions of:
The modernist sculptures that you will look at in this lesson are Cubist or abstract, and they are in the forms of either assemblage art or casting. Let’s take a look at some examples as we walk through modernist sculpture.
The Cubist sculpture “Bather” is an interpretation of a classical subject. It is that of a female bather either stepping into or out of the water, clutching a garment and looking back over her shoulder.
Here, Lipchitz has completely reduced the figure to its most basic and abstract elements. He then fractured those parts into geometric protrusions that move in different directions. Essentially, Lipchitz has taken a two-dimensional cubist work of art and made it in the round, or three-dimensional, as shown above.
Picasso, the co-founder of Cubism, also dabbled in sculpture. Actually, he sculpted quite a few works. Where Lipchitz’s “Bather” is an example of bronze casting, Picasso’s “Guitar” is an example of assemblage.
In this sculpture, he has taken sheet metal and metal wire and assembled it into this object. Picasso’s use of layered sheet metal gives a suggestion of greater depth to the work than actually exists, and at the same time, completely distorts the viewer’s expectation of physicality. The best example of this is the sound hole of the guitar, which protrudes from the figure. This hole essentially comes outward as opposed to receding into the guitar.
Alexander Archipenko’s “Woman Combing Her Hair” is another example of a modernist interpretation of a classical subject.
Archipenko’s bronze is a brilliant example of his skill of reducing a form to its most essential elements while at the same time not losing the central theme of the piece. Just enough pieces to tell the story are included. The simplified lower body displays a contrapposto-type stance and a realistic depiction of shifting weight. However, as you move upwards, the form continues to simplify until it is left with nothing but an arm, the suggestion perhaps of a comb, and the faint suggestion of hair. The head and left arm are completely left out, as they are nonessential to the artist’s depiction.
Compare the image of “Woman Combing Her Hair” #1 with this image just below.
This is an assemblage sculpture by Julio González. At first glance they appear very different; however, both artists have achieved the reduction of form to its most essential elements. González’s sculpture provides a scaffolding upon which the viewer’s imagination fills in the details or blanks.
British artist Henry Moore’s “Family Group” is an abstract interpretation of the traditional family posing.
Notice there is one man, one woman, and one child. Everything has been reduced to simple forms, again just enough to tell the story with a complete lack of specificity.
Moore only includes what’s necessary to differentiate forms, such as the addition of the skirt and hair to distinguish between the man and woman. He only includes one child, just enough to transform the sculpture from the depiction of a couple to that of a family.
At times, some pieces of art get overlooked by the average individual when critiquing modern art. This may be the case with the sculpture below.
The sculpture above is simple. Some think of it as a timeless look—simple, beautiful, and more visually accessible. The subject matter here is reduced down about as far as it can go without completely losing its hold on what the artist is attempting to depict. Some might see the suggestion of a bird, at least the beak, careening through space, almost lost within a cloak of wind and lines of speed, like something entering the atmosphere.
The images in this lesson have been arranged with regard to the level of abstraction rather than in chronological order. They are ordered to show the reduction of form to pure abstraction, and as the lesson has gone on, the images have become more and more abstract.
Dame Barbara Hepworth’s “Three Forms,” above, is an example of pure abstraction. There is no discernible human form or object. It’s simply three spherical and elongated shapes placed in proximity to each other. But there’s something appealing about it. Hepworth hasn’t simply just glued three rocks to a slab. The forms are carefully shaped with dimensions that are proportional to each other and situated within a triangular arrangement that is also proportional in its dimensions. Hepworth has completely removed the color. It’s a monochromatic experience of pure shape and pure form that truly exemplifies modernism as well as abstraction.
Source: THIS WORK IS ADAPTED FROM SOPHIA AUTHOR IAN MCCONNELL.