Page 34 - Studio International - September 1970

Four sculptors neither a straightforward internal chrono-
logical treatment nor a division into various
part 3: Matisse conventional sculpture categories—heads, fi-
gures, reliefs, etc—will pull the work together
into a comprehensible sum or sequence. It is
only when the spasmodic bursts of his activity
William Tucker in sculpture are seen in relation to the great
span of his development in painting—which
after all was itself by no means systematic or
even consistent—that the work starts to come
together. Only The Back relief series of all the
I sculpture have the look of conscious master-
Matisse has been described as a painter- pieces, of public art. The sculpture is far more
sculptor, in the line of Daumier, Degas and private than the painting, and fulfilled private
Renoir, and in many respects this is true. His needs which he was unable to satisfy in
ambition was always in painting, and in painting. Both the time he could spend on a
painting he was to create his conscious master- sculpture without the danger of overworking,2
pieces. In distinction to Picasso, whom one and the immediate and often violent involve-
may fairly regard as a sculptor manqué, ment with clay, matter itself, rather than its
Matisse had to make a great effort to get used image, steadied him and as he said, enabled
to the idea of working three-dimensionally. him to put order into his feelings.
Many of Picasso's paintings, especially those But if this is so, and if his sculpture had little
from the cubist period as we have seen,1 have influence at the time it was made—virtually
the character of depicted sculptural structures. none compared with the effect of Brancusi
Conversely Matisse's sculpture, though it is and Picasso—how can his work be said to con-
never painterly in handling (in fact is far tribute significantly to a tradition of modern
more intensely felt as volume than anything sculpture ? Firstly, because of the eventual
by Picasso) —nonetheless has the aesthetic convergence of Matisse's painting and sculp-
character, the internality, the self-referential tural effort in the late cut-outs, the influence
quality, of painting. Matisse has no monu- of which has been enormous and aspects of
mental prejudice; none of the anxiety about which I intend to discuss later. Secondly,
the status of the work as an object, its relation because I believe Matisse's sculpture proper—
to reality and the spectator, that has been one not directly, but in terms of the thinking
of the characteristic obsessions of sculpture behind it, its detachment from problems of
since Rodin. It is this confidence in the facture, imagery and object-presence—may
sculpture object as an architecture, as a har- come to be regarded a paramount influence
monious relationship of parts to whole, that on the most interesting sculpture being made
enabled Matisse to bypass the temptation of today.
the arresting image that ensnared Picasso
after his cubist constructions; and which gives II
his sculpture a peculiar freedom, which flows I have written, in my article on Brancusi,3 of
from the fact that in his sculpture, as not the pervasiveness of Rodin's influence on
always in his painting, there is no desire to sculpture at the turn of the century. The
impress. However modest and undemon- magnitude of Rodin's achievement in regain-
strative, almost all of Matisse's sculpture ing for sculpture, for the first time since the
radiates calm assurance in the total necessity Renaissance, its proper status as an inde-
of its existence. pendent art, had, until about 1900, by and
Matisse himself was explicit about the role large inhibited any serious and original
that sculpture played in his art. He said: 'I exploitation of the territory he had opened
took up sculpture because what interested me up. But after 1900 a generation of artists was
in painting was a clarification of my ideas. I emerging in Paris, of whom perhaps a majority
changed my method and worked in clay in of the most talented sculptors, as Hilton
order to have a rest from painting, where I Kramer has pointed out,4 had come from
had done all I could for the time being. That abroad, who no longer identified Rodinesque
is to say it was done for the purposes oforganiza- modelling with sculptural expression; who
tion, to put order into my feelings and find a were looking for a style in sculpture that
style to suit me. When I found it in sculpture, would be ordered, economic, compact, un-
it helped me in my painting. It was always in dramatic, simple, related to modern life and
view of a complete possession of my mind, a to the increasing concreteness of painting.
sort of heirarchy of all my sensations, that I These aspirations were to be realized in the
kept working in the hope of finding an ulti- art of Brancusi and the Cubists. Compared to
mate mastery.' I return to this lucid but these sculptors, in the use of materials, in
mysterious quotation whenever I want to get subject-matter and presence—the sculpture as
some idea of the totality of Matisse's sculp- object—Matisse in his own sculpture seems at
tural effort, his motive and direction; for seen first glance to have remained well within
on its own, the sculptural ceuvre presents an Rodin's field. Consequently one finds the
image so fragmented and discontinuous that description `Rodinesque' applied to this or