Page 30 - Studio International - December 1970

form the basis for many of Gonzalez's sculp- imagery, those elements of Gonzalez's sculp- that Gonzalez's reputation is not enhanced by
tures are all consciously and wilfully crafted ture that simply and actively extend the the circulation of these casts made after the
often to the point of concealing their funda- fundamental and original contribution of artist's death, whose exactness must be ques-
mental geometry. Brancusi and Picasso were forgotten, except tionable, and which in any case negate the
It is often assumed that Gonzalez belongs to insofar as they reappeared in the work of essence of his contribution to modern sculp-
the European naturalistic and volumetric David Smith. Other works in the present ture).
tradition in sculpture, which he and Picasso exhibition give some indication of a wealth of The exhibition attracted extensive critical
are held to have extended, not literally, but possibilities for sculpture Gonzalez opened up comment, almost all respectful in tone and
with sign and schema. That is to say, the con- but failed to develop. The Harlequin (11) unadventurous in content. It is possibly too
ception is considered to be 3-dimensional and uniquely sets a 3-dimensional complexity much to hope that the increasing amount of
figurative, even if the execution is linear and against a formal clarity, a strangeness of articu- space devoted to art in the London press—as
abstracted. This view seems to me to miscon- lation against an implied conventional 'block' ; in the present instance a full page in the
ceive the nature of the original contribution the Small Venus (75) uses short lengths of middlebrow Evening Standard—should be mat-
of both Gonzalez and Smith. The flatness of round and square bar welded end-to-end to ched by a corresponding improvement in the
conception, the frontality and sign quality of create a singular effect of mass on the minia- quality of criticism; but the response to the
Smith's sculpture is anticipated in many of ture scale; and Hair (21) and Head with Mirror Gonzalez show, as indeed the fact that the
Gonzalez's sculptures, though admittedly in (53) are constructions of such economy and Tate put it on at all, is a hopeful sign that the
the more ambitious pieces there is sufficient compression that reference to the human officially sponsored and wholly insular mytho-
3-dimensionality of articulation—for example figure gives place almost completely to an logy of modern sculpture is coming apart at
the imaged (and classical) twist of the 'hips' object-invention which parallels that of Bran- the seams.
in the Large Standing Figure (45) —for the cusi. If, in the final reckoning, Gonzalez's Unfortunately, the muted presence of Gon-
sculpture to remain legible 'in the round' achievement will not stand comparison with zalez's work at the Tate was unlikely to shake
rather than function simply and unequivocally that of Rodin, Brancusi or David Smith, the a persistent complacency (as a comprehensive
as silhouette. The fundamental distinction recent exhibition should have done something— Brancusi show for example, might have). The
between Gonzalez and Smith is one of con- however belatedly—for the recognition of facts of Gonzalez's biography—his early train-
fidence and ambition; the physical and formal Gonzalez at first hand. q ing in metalwork and aspirations as a painter,
differences flow from this. Gonzalez's sculpture the death of his elder brother and the sub-
is modest, made by and for the hand, and in sequent 'period of silence', the collaboration
feeling deeply pessimistic. Smith's work, cert- with Picasso and the final fruitful decade—are
ainly from 1950, is extrovert, optimistic and Julio Gonzalez has finally and belatedly— clear enough, if no doubt oversimplified; but
positive; relating to the body rather than some 28 years after his death and a decade many difficulties and ambiguities linger about
the hand, large in feeling as well as physical after the waning of his influence on British the sculpture itself, even the work of the early
presence. sculpture—achieved a full-scale public show- 30s, the real climax of his career. There is
What most obscures at the present time the ing in this country. The Tate replaced with such inconsistency in style, quality and con-
originality and variety of Gonzalez's work is the original constructions in iron several of the cept: most obviously in the contrast between
the way in which the most accessible and bronze casts from the dealers' show which has the virtually abstract linear constructions and
superficial aspects of his style were absorbed been touring the United States and Europe, the banal naturalism of the Montserrat series;
by the great wave of textured and expressive and from which the Tate exhibition was but even within the single sculpture there
sculpture, both constructed and modelled, drawn; if the show bore notable marks of its occur conflicting intentions which undermine
figurative and abstract, that dominated taste origin, such as paper labels left conspicuously an expressive unity— as for example in The
in the post-war period. At a time when the affixed to the casts, nonetheless there was a Tunnel head (1933-5) where the-effect of the
idea of construction was revived to give life to sufficient selection of Gonzalez's oeuvre to give marvellously original and economical concept
a dying tradition of modelling, when form a good indication of his range and development in front view is destroyed by the disproportion
was sacrificed to texture and autonomy of and on which to base a considered assessment of the profile and the clumsy sealing-off of the
structure to a cheap and melodramatic of his achievement. (In passing, one must note back of the form.