Constantin Brancusi
Class 6: Abstraction and the Search for the Spiritual, Cont. Brancusi; and sculptural Abstraction in the inter War years February 10th, 2014
Constantin Brancusi his sculptures unleashed a battle between models of high art and industrial production assistant for France’s most famous sculptor, Auguste Rodin, for four weeks in 1907 he was exposed to antithetical phenomena • Aesthetic “original” wrought be assembly line production • Experienced the other side of the master’s practice in which Rodin caught the most ephemeral gestures of a troupe of dancers weaving before him, suggesting the delicacy of their movements out of clay, which contained what Walter Benjamin called “aura” (the uniqueness of something captured at a particular moment and in a particular place, the nevertoberepeated quality resonates in the uniqueness of the medium, it’s the personal touch), substitutes or copies would be powerless Rodin’s dancers could be said to be the supreme example of this desire. His marbles and bronze multiple copies point instead to the type of art INDUSTRY The Birth of the World flees Rodin’s studio after a month to approach sculpture that was the exact opposite if industrialization; he would use wood or stone that he could salvage and carved directly into it responds to the specific nature of the materials, immediate response ruled out the production of multiples rural wood carving traditions of native land were a reinforcement to his antiestablishment merely following the rest of the Parisian avantgarde adamant that he stood outside the historical drive of modernism, so focused was he on the presumed timelessness and universality of his work search for the historically unmediated underlies the course of Brancusi’s art as it pursued forms of increasing simplification and purity Ezra Pound said he has the “masterkeys to the world of form” high finishes he applied to work, meticulous and arduous hand polishing brings the surface to a mirror like shine, only reinforce this sense of perfection Bird in Space rendered in sleek marble in 1923 and then in highly polished bronze in 1924 (to be repeated in bronze in 1927, 1931, and 1941) like the master he needed his own band of assistants to rub the marbles and bronzes into a perfect polish. He was in the habit of issuing many of his pieces in small “editions” could easily slip over into a family resemblance with Art Deco far from being timeless and universal, Brancusi’s work participated in the historical stylistic change and, more degradingly known as fashion—a version of the ‘art industry’ undertook commission of large version of Bird in Space for the garden of his entirely ArtDeco 1923 mansion for the Victome de Noailles • On the surface the only difference is one is silver and one is gold • By allowing his “idea” to be submitted to industrialization he produced a retroactive critique of his own aesthetic posture • as he set the restricted number of his themes on their paths toward even greater formal reduction, he worked serially Edward Steichen tried to bring his purchased version in NY but the US customs classified it as a kitchen utensil, requiring import duty rather than being classified as art and being duty free headline “Brancusi’s Art Is Not Art, Federal Customs Men Rule” made form page in 1927, and the case was taken to trial in October 1927—decision overturned, court’s admitted something had changed in art to make Brancusi’s eligible for duty free status, judge accepted the idea his work was redeemed by its abstraction and purity Brancusi met Duchamp at an aeronautics fair in Paris, 1912—Duchamp asked his friend if he could do better Duchamp led him to present Bicycle Wheel as the first readymade, while Brancusi’s response was not only bird in space, but also the whole ambivalence of his work’s development
two also connected via a shared ambiguity between pure and impure at the level of carnality Duchamp’s marriage between the industrially impersonal and the erotic is echoed in Brancusi’s mystic union b/n the abstract and the libidinal—Princesse X, 19151916 was censored from the 1920 Salon des Independants on the grounds of obscenity • Brancusi denied any such connection but he continued to photograph the work from the angle that underscored this association • Increasing takes on the character of sexual origin, particularly true of his series of elegantly simplified male torsos (19171924); general phallic shape, since the body itself doesn’t have a penis is with all purposes female • Bigendering so prominent that it us read by such an interpretive strategy involving the circumvention of the female body in 1924 John Quinn was one of Brancusi’s enthusiastic American collectors died, so to save Brancusi’s work from catastrophe of having too much dumped on the market at one time Duchamp and a friend bought 29 pieces from the collection at $8500 for the lot. Duchamp had acquired such a huge body of work of another artist that the sales of he would be able to leave Duchamp was the perfect amateur “dealer” with just one artist in his collection, and Brancusi was perfectly content with the situation; the unconscious of art presented as pure commerce
Barbara Hepworth (19031975) ‘Sculpture’
Hepworth invited to join the Association AbstractionCreation in 1931 she developed an individual form of ‘pure’ carved sculpture in the mid 1930s I full sculptural expression is spatial—threedimensional realization of an idea for the imaginative idea to be fully projected into stone, wood or plastic substance, a complete sensibility to material is required When we say that a sculpture has vision, power, scale, poise, form or beauty, we are not speaking of physical attributes—it is spiritual inner life One of the most profound qualities of sculpture is scale—it can only be perceived intuitively because it is entirely a thought and vision it doesn’t matter whether a sculpture is asymmetrical or symmetrical—it does not gain or lose power either the fact that a plastic projection of thought can only live by it inner power and not by physical content, means that the range for its choice of form is free and unlimited scale isn’t physical size, though often very large sculptures achieve good scale because the artist approaches their conception with a greater seriousness and thought II in the physical world can discover endless variations of the same form, the simplified form demonstrates power and robustness—the form is clear and every part of it in precise unity with the whole the regular irregularity is the perfect sequence that gives the maximum expression of individual life (no formula can reveal the sequence) the perfection of these differences, imperfections, and perfections helps us to understand the language the sculptor uses to convey the whole feeling and thought of his experience sculpture is a vehicle for projecting our sensibility to the whole of existence III ideas are born through a perfect balance of our conscious and unconscious life and they are realized through this same fashion and equilibrium ‘Abstract’ is a word which is now most frequently used to express only the type of the outer form of a work of art; this makes it difficult to use it in relation to the spiritual vitality or inner life which is the real sculpture contemporary constructive work moves us profoundly because it represents the whole of artist’s experience and vision
the language of colour and form is universal and not one for a special class (though this may have been in the past) —it is a thought which gives the same life, the same expression, the same universal freedom to everyone the artist rebels against the world as he finds it because his sensibility reveals to him the vision of a world that could be possible a constructive work is an embodiment of freedom itself and is unconsciously perceived even by those who are consciously against it
Constantin Brancusi his sculptures unleashed a battle between models of high art and industrial production assistant for France’s most famous sculptor, Auguste Rodin, for four weeks in 1907 he was exposed to antithetical phenomena • Aesthetic “original” wrought be assembly line production • Experienced the other side of the master’s practice in which Rodin caught the most ephemeral gestures of a troupe of dancers weaving before him, suggesting the delicacy of their movements out of clay, which contained what Walter Benjamin called “aura” (the uniqueness of something captured at a particular moment and in a particular place, the nevertoberepeated quality resonates in the uniqueness of the medium, it’s the personal touch), substitutes or copies would be powerless Rodin’s dancers could be said to be the supreme example of this desire. His marbles and bronze multiple copies point instead to the type of art INDUSTRY The Birth of the World flees Rodin’s studio after a month to approach sculpture that was the exact opposite if industrialization; he would use wood or stone that he could salvage and carved directly into it responds to the specific nature of the materials, immediate response ruled out the production of multiples rural wood carving traditions of native land were a reinforcement to his antiestablishment merely following the rest of the Parisian avantgarde adamant that he stood outside the historical drive of modernism, so focused was he on the presumed timelessness and universality of his work search for the historically unmediated underlies the course of Brancusi’s art as it pursued forms of increasing simplification and purity Ezra Pound said he has the “masterkeys to the world of form” high finishes he applied to work, meticulous and arduous hand polishing brings the surface to a mirror like shine, only reinforce this sense of perfection Bird in Space rendered in sleek marble in 1923 and then in highly polished bronze in 1924 (to be repeated in bronze in 1927, 1931, and 1941) like the master he needed his own band of assistants to rub the marbles and bronzes into a perfect polish. He was in the habit of issuing many of his pieces in small “editions” could easily slip over into a family resemblance with Art Deco far from being timeless and universal, Brancusi’s work participated in the historical stylistic change and, more degradingly known as fashion—a version of the ‘art industry’ undertook commission of large version of Bird in Space for the garden of his entirely ArtDeco 1923 mansion for the Victome de Noailles • On the surface the only difference is one is silver and one is gold • By allowing his “idea” to be submitted to industrialization he produced a retroactive critique of his own aesthetic posture • as he set the restricted number of his themes on their paths toward even greater formal reduction, he worked serially Edward Steichen tried to bring his purchased version in NY but the US customs classified it as a kitchen utensil, requiring import duty rather than being classified as art and being duty free headline “Brancusi’s Art Is Not Art, Federal Customs Men Rule” made form page in 1927, and the case was taken to trial in October 1927—decision overturned, court’s admitted something had changed in art to make Brancusi’s eligible for duty free status, judge accepted the idea his work was redeemed by its abstraction and purity Brancusi met Duchamp at an aeronautics fair in Paris, 1912—Duchamp asked his friend if he could do better Duchamp led him to present Bicycle Wheel as the first readymade, while Brancusi’s response was not only bird in space, but also the whole ambivalence of his work’s development
two also connected via a shared ambiguity between pure and impure at the level of carnality Duchamp’s marriage between the industrially impersonal and the erotic is echoed in Brancusi’s mystic union b/n the abstract and the libidinal—Princesse X, 19151916 was censored from the 1920 Salon des Independants on the grounds of obscenity • Brancusi denied any such connection but he continued to photograph the work from the angle that underscored this association • Increasing takes on the character of sexual origin, particularly true of his series of elegantly simplified male torsos (19171924); general phallic shape, since the body itself doesn’t have a penis is with all purposes female • Bigendering so prominent that it us read by such an interpretive strategy involving the circumvention of the female body in 1924 John Quinn was one of Brancusi’s enthusiastic American collectors died, so to save Brancusi’s work from catastrophe of having too much dumped on the market at one time Duchamp and a friend bought 29 pieces from the collection at $8500 for the lot. Duchamp had acquired such a huge body of work of another artist that the sales of he would be able to leave Duchamp was the perfect amateur “dealer” with just one artist in his collection, and Brancusi was perfectly content with the situation; the unconscious of art presented as pure commerce
Barbara Hepworth (19031975) ‘Sculpture’
Hepworth invited to join the Association AbstractionCreation in 1931 she developed an individual form of ‘pure’ carved sculpture in the mid 1930s I full sculptural expression is spatial—threedimensional realization of an idea for the imaginative idea to be fully projected into stone, wood or plastic substance, a complete sensibility to material is required When we say that a sculpture has vision, power, scale, poise, form or beauty, we are not speaking of physical attributes—it is spiritual inner life One of the most profound qualities of sculpture is scale—it can only be perceived intuitively because it is entirely a thought and vision it doesn’t matter whether a sculpture is asymmetrical or symmetrical—it does not gain or lose power either the fact that a plastic projection of thought can only live by it inner power and not by physical content, means that the range for its choice of form is free and unlimited scale isn’t physical size, though often very large sculptures achieve good scale because the artist approaches their conception with a greater seriousness and thought II in the physical world can discover endless variations of the same form, the simplified form demonstrates power and robustness—the form is clear and every part of it in precise unity with the whole the regular irregularity is the perfect sequence that gives the maximum expression of individual life (no formula can reveal the sequence) the perfection of these differences, imperfections, and perfections helps us to understand the language the sculptor uses to convey the whole feeling and thought of his experience sculpture is a vehicle for projecting our sensibility to the whole of existence III ideas are born through a perfect balance of our conscious and unconscious life and they are realized through this same fashion and equilibrium ‘Abstract’ is a word which is now most frequently used to express only the type of the outer form of a work of art; this makes it difficult to use it in relation to the spiritual vitality or inner life which is the real sculpture contemporary constructive work moves us profoundly because it represents the whole of artist’s experience and vision
the language of colour and form is universal and not one for a special class (though this may have been in the past) —it is a thought which gives the same life, the same expression, the same universal freedom to everyone the artist rebels against the world as he finds it because his sensibility reveals to him the vision of a world that could be possible a constructive work is an embodiment of freedom itself and is unconsciously perceived even by those who are consciously against it
