Page 36 - Studio International - April 1970

Four sculptors

Part I: Brancusi

William Tucker

In this and three following essays I plan to bigger artist than his use in this way would
discuss aspects of the sculpture of Brancusi, allow : certainly the greatest sculptor, possibly
Picasso, Matisse, and David Smith. I have the greatest artist of the first half of this cen-
chosen to write about these four, not to tury.
establish an exclusive heirarchy of modern I would like in this essay to try to locate Bran-
sculpture : but because they present for me cusi in terms of the development of the
most clearly the problems of the emergence of `internal' tradition of sculpture— that is to say,
sculpture in our time as an on-going and the concern of sculptors with the primary and
independent art with a character and a abstract components of their art, with material
tradition of its own, separate, but partly out- and process, with the nature and presence of
growing from the central and progressive the finished artifact: those factors that are
stream of European painting since the uniquely proper to sculpture, that distinguish
Renaissance. Only Brancusi, of these four it from painting or architecture— as opposed
artists, was trained in the academic and craft to the 'external' tradition : the contribution
tradition of sculpture; but Picasso, in the of modern painters whose own rich inheritance
space of two or three years, decisively changed provided a freedom of action in importing
the course of modern sculpture, and Matisse's into sculpture new possibilities of subject-
influence is still directly at work. Smith, matter, material and structure.
though he started as a painter, demonstrates In the nineteenth century sculpture touched
the appearance of a new and complex an absolute low as an independent art. The
sensibility in sculpture. All four, by reaction cost of materials, the time involved in working
or emulation, show in various ways a strong them, the difficulty of displaying, handling,
awareness of tradition: and in considering storing or disposing of sculpture, in effect all
their work I want in turn to bring out common those negative aspects of its sheer physicality,
and developing themes which seem to me to that it takes up space uselessly, in a way no
form elements of a tradition of sculpture that other art does, tended to make the sculptor
is being worked out today. dependent on the patron to a degree un-
known in other fields. When one considers
I the standard of patronage in France and else-
Brancusi's central achievement in modern where it is not surprising that sculpture was
sculpture is surely no longer in question : so debased and attracted so little talent or
moreover the development of his work has intelligence. It was this situation of utter
recently been definitively described by Sidney mediocrity that confronted Rodin : to him
Geist,' clearing a path through the miasma of must be credited not only an incredibly
myth and fable encouraged by the sculptor powerful talent but the sheer will-power
himself, and swallowed whole by his first needed to give his gifts any public scope. I
interpreters. Initially Brancusi's total oeuvre think it is true that Rodin needed this kind of
presents a completeness, a closed-off quality, resistance against which to extend himself:
that tends to detach it alike from predecessors, and much of what we would now consider
contemporaries and successors : Brancusi's irrelevant or rhetorical in his work, was in
posture is the inversion of that of Rodin— the fact fundamental to his drive to make sculp-
sculptor as Promethean hero is replaced by ture : this is an indication that his achieve-
the sculptor as saint or hermit. Yet I feel ment was as much cultural as aesthetic. His
Brancusi grows in stature as one recognizes more enlightened contemporaries credited
the extent of his debt to Rodin,2 and of those him with the recreation of the art of sculpture :
aspects of his work which are still open, still which is culturally a fact but in terms of the
operative. The nature of his sculpture has subsequent history of sculpture has resulted
lent itself to interpretations of a specific kind, in an almost mythic status being given to his
Ecorché, 1902 in justification of the aims of other artists own conception of his achievement, which I
Plaster
Height 69½ in. whose ambition was more narrow than his: believe to have been mistaken. I will return
he has been variously hailed as the John the to this later: my point is, that when Brancusi
2
The Prayer, 1907 Baptist of direct carving, of the sculpture-as- first arrived in Paris in 1904, sculpture was
Bronze
Height 43i in. object, of modular sculpture. He is a much Rodin: he was the only standard against