Page 18 - Studio International - March 1965

The Phenomenon of British Sculpture

1 by Charles S. Spencer

The Contemporary Art Society has followed up its submissive to inspire sculpture. Sculpture calls for
recent survey of British painting with a double exhibi­ greater attack and vitality than has been common in
tion British Sculpture in the Sixties at the Tate and the English artistic temperament.
Whitechapel Galleries. This article is not a review of the There is also what might be termed the socio-religious
work displayed. but an assessment of the phenomenon problem. All art in its origins had a religious, magical
and quality of modern British sculpture. base, the role of interpreting, or at least representing.
There can be no denying the extraordinary fact that the unknown and supernatural, providing tactile
after centuries of sculptural desert. without a single contact with these mysteries. In ancient and primitive
figure to compare with Hogarth, Gainsborough, Con­ societies the visual arts usually reached their highest
stable or Turner, or the giants of English literature, we intensity in providing symbols of religious mysteries.
have in the last forty years produced a body of sculpture And sculpture, by making a 'thing', a three-dimensional
and a group of artists of wide renown. That in itself is form. both interpreted the unknown and provided the
worth a fanfare. Headed by the distinguished figure of focus for worship.
Henry Moore, with Barbara Hepworth in attendance, This tradition was not lost in Europe. largely through
and a court of younger talents, contemporary British the Catholic Church, which employed and nurtured
sculpture outshines painting. Ben Nicholson is equal native schools of sculpture, in Italy, France and Spain.
to Moore in stature, and Pasmore, Alan Davie and Thus the ancient craft of idol-making was maintained.
Francis Bacon enjoy global status, but in the inter­ In Protestant countries the continuity was broken.
national stakes our sculptors are well ahead. -he ancient Hebraic commandment against image­
1 The whole situation is an intriguing mystery. How, making and worship was invoked in a new iconoclasm.
Henry Moore
Three piece Reclining Figure suddenly, with no apparent lineage, was a school of Without this traditional outlet it was impossible to train
1961 /62 British sculpture born. Being a more 'real', three­ , nd develop native talent. It is interesting to speculate
Bronze 59 x 114 in.
2 dimensional art form, concerned with the making of (In the possible influence on each other of terrain and
Geoffrey Clarke
Recent Sculpture 'things'-in the sense that shapes and colours on flat 1 '1e spiritual needs of society, and on the English
Cast alum;nium surfaces are not 'things'-sculpture must relate to forms 1,mperament. Puritanism has certainly affected the
Redfern Gallery
3 around us. With a notorious predilection for ugliness in I ind of art we produce and may well have delayed the
Barbara Hepworth the post-industrial period, the English are unconcerned ! mergence of a school of sculpture.
Pierced form
Pentelicon marble about their surroundings, whilst the English countryside Modern sculpture is still idol-making. but in our
Height 50 in.
Tate Gallery which inspired schools of painters is too gentle and ;,narchistic, fragmented. faithless world, the idols are
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