Page 47 - Studio International - September 1966

William Pye : the figure in landscape

by Charles S. Spencer

'An architectural form that is static, evoking a timeless
atmosphere of asceticism and permanence, acts as an
environment for an organic form that is opposite to all
its implications. This form is seductive and sensual,
vibrating with growth and life. It is the mystery generated
by the juxtaposition of these contradictory concepts,
sometimes harmonious, sometimes surrealist, that absorbs
me.'
Thus Pye accurately and sensitively defines the aim and
effect of his sculpture. In one sense—and for myself a
praiseworthy sense—he could be described as an old-
fashioned sculptor, since he is concerned with the age-
old problem of the figure in landscape, of dynamic form
in static environment, which was as relevant to the Greek
sculptor-architect or the designer of a Buddhist temple
as it is to Henry Moore. But not to the makers of the
new linear, open, calligraphic sculpture which now
dominates the British scene.
It was Brancusi whose genius led Western sculpture
back to its fundamental origins. His greatness lay not
merely in the skill and courage to shed irrelevances of
decorative or emotional detail, but that in doing so he
reactivated the numinous element in sculpture, so vital to
a tradition stretching from primitive societies to Greece
and the Renaissance. His ruthless refusal to conform to
domestic, boudoir standards opened a whole new vista.
Significantly he saw his sculptures as projects for en-
larged forms in the open-air, regarding architecture as a
kind of inhabited sculpture. Only the Greeks have fully
succeeded in treating architectural space as sculptural
space; perhaps modern attempts to regain this simple
majestic wholeness are doomed by the demands and
vulgarity of our civilization. Pye, who has visited Greece
five times, understood the relevance of this problem.
Brancusi's influence has often proved disastrous.
Recently we have seen in London exhibitions by Hep-
worth and McWilliam which might be regarded as proof.
After visiting Brancusi in 1932, Barbara Hepworth
recorded 'the miraculous feeling of eternity . . . the
living joy of spontaneous, active and elementary forms
of sculpture.' But unlike Brancusi's earthy involvement
with the human form, Miss Hepworth side-stepped the
issue by imitating inanimate nature. The essential vitality
which Moore (among others), under similar influence,
was able to infuse in his figures is thus missing in Hep-

Untitled 1966
Chromium plated bronze and steel
Height 31 in. Width 14 in.