Page 37 - Studio International - January 1971

• and blocky mass, emphasizing the sheer weight of the environment; all these give the sculp- he was a Romantic by temperament—but
and density of the material. In several of the tures the character—so far as it is possible whereas Rodin's means precisely accorded
• group, for example numbers IV, VII and VIII, in a constructed object—of a natural pheno- with his temperament, if his sensibility was out
the sculpture is built around a huge square menon. It is this character which in the end of tune with his times, Smith was a Romantic
sheet which is firstly tilted on to a corner, then relates Smith to his great contemporaries in of a Romantic generation, but working by
at 45 degrees towards or away from the spec- painting—Pollock, Still and Rothko—whose natural inclination and ability with rational
tator and articulated by the addition of further work has at its best this kind of presence; a and constructive means that his contempora-
elements on or through this plane; all three are state of anonymity achieved through an inten- ries in painting had discarded; like Rodin, he
supported on a little trolley. The thrust of sity of feeling and of physical involvement, had an enormous mastery of his technical
• Zig IV is generated by the tilting of the plane; which makes formal criticism of the paintings means, and like Rodin he had a passion for
it is wholly abstract, but its authority must as pointless as formal criticism of a sunset on a work. One could pursue the analogy further,
relate to its evocation ofa gigantic human head, waterfall. Nothing can demonstrate more finding parallels in the sculpture itself; but it
or rather face. The quality of movement, of clearly the distinction between the rational and should suffice to indicate that the ambition,
• maintained imbalance, that characterizes optimistic art of Brancusi, the Cubists, and range and vitality of Smith's work are of a dif-
Smith's more open sculptures is here the more Matisse, and the Romanticism of the new ferent order to that of those modern artists from
remarkable in its compression in a dense and American painters. However clear and formal whom Smith intially drew his vocabulary and
▪ massive structure. Construction is given a new their means, their ends preclude a rational or relate him to a model that preceded Cubism.
meaning in the work in which Smith came intellectual response. For Smith the problem It is true also that a view of Smith's œuvre so
• closest to carving. was crucial: because of the constructional recently after its making must preclude any
Smith made a large number of sculptures in a nature of his art he could not abandon its comprehensive assessment of his achievement.
factory in Italy in 1962 and brought back to rational basis as the painters had done; he had Present and future developments in sculpture
America a quantity of old tools, machine parts, to find a means of ordering the separate ele- will find one or other aspect of his work an
• etc., as components for a new group of sculp- ments of his sculpture that would transcend inspiration and his stature will be measured
tures. These two series now known as Voltri and both their separateness and their order. accordingly. For the moment I would like to
Voltri-Bolton signify a return to the kind of Given the use of stainless steel (only tentatively discuss those aspects of Smith's work that seem
assembly the form of which is given by the used in sculpture before), Smith's ambition, to me fundamental to his achievement in
• existent character of found elements, as in the confidence and technical resource, the Cubi terms of advancing modern sculpture.
Agricola group of the early 50s. However, in conception was one that could not fail. Under In my essay on Picasso I brought forward his
contrast to the Agricola pieces, in the later series the right conditions all these sculptures are uni- idea that the cubist relief constructions had
the elements tend to retain their separateness, formly impressive; but removed from these opened up a whole new mode of possibilities
their distinctive image quality; and the kind of conditions the banality of the structure often that had previously not existed for sculpture,
tools and parts that Smith chose in Italy seem to becomes apparent: the device of the single that of construction by parts. (If in modelling
have had something florid and ornate about column supporting a block on which are bal- the process is in the addition of matter from
them that resisted integration into any but the anced an instable group of forms is reminiscent zero, and in carving the subtraction of matter
most obvious formal structures. With some of the synthetic rhetoric of Hellenistic or from a pre-existent whole, in construction a
notable exceptions (such as Voltri VIII) the Baroque sculpture. My own preference is for total is reached by the addition, ordering and
Voltri and V .B . series show an advance in con- the Gates, some of the very last sculptures Smith subtraction of pre-existent units of matter.)
fidence on earlier sculpture of the same type, made, which involve no technical virtuosity, no That this process should have found its clearest
but it was at the cost of a lack of economy and division of role within the structure to active statement in steel, the properties of which—
of the re-appearance of a kind of rhetoric that or inert elements. The unity of the total struc- notably high tensile strength of member and
was rarely apparent in the work of his previous ture, as well as the material and the character joint—are ideal for construction, now seems
decade. of the part is 'given', The use of volume, because natural, but again it needed the impetus of
The most celebrated part of Smith's late work, the elements can be joined naturally, resting Picasso to introduce the material, more than
and in view of his death generally regarded as plane against plane, no longer requires a kind ten years after he proposed the method.
his culminating achievement, are the Cubi of constructive heroic of diagonal axes and Picasso and Gonzalez's metal constructions
series. Though these pieces are not very large `impossible' joints. These sculptures are rich, differ from those of the Constructivists in that
in comparison to some of the sculpture being clear and satisfying, abstract in form, but in- they are consciously and essentially sculpture,
made today, the great weight and volumetric tensely human in proportion and articulation. rather than construction; that is to say involved
nature of the elements meant that they could in an assault on the main traditional com-
not be constructed in the same direct way—i.e. III ponent of European sculpture—the figure—
by laying out the parts themselves on a 'palette' In the course of a short summary I have found from a radically new direction, rather than
on the ground—even if the principles of con- time only for a brief and selective description proposing a wholly new art. In Gonzalez the
struction—the frontality and the precarious ofsome of Smith's major themes and sculptures. figure provides both a key to the reading of the
joining of elements at points— remained con- This is probably to misrepresent the nature of parts and a guide to their spatial disposition;
stant. Although Smith throughout his career his work, which in its range and diversity, its and while the parts are formally distinct, the
drew, and made preliminary drawings for his sheer prodigality, has no equal in modern elements are chosen and worked for echoes and
sculptures, in these last pieces the element of sculpture, unless one includes Rodin. Indeed affinities within the structure. There is a flow
planning becomes crucial. The enormous it is with Rodin that Smith increasingly appears between parts, a fully spatial continuity, which
technical achievement of these sculptures—the to me most comparable both in his response to together with a fairly precise system of abstract
fact that the visual lightness of the material and a similar historical and cultural situation, and equivalents for parts of the figure, makes Gon-
the confidence of the structure subverts one's in ambition, in expression, in the nature of his zalez's art as distinct from that of Picasso as
knowledge of its physical ponderousness—and talent. Like Rodin he was isolated in history, David Smith is distinct from either. From the
the straightforward beauty of the brushed and felt he had to re-invent sculpture for his first the frontality and shallowness of Smith's
stainless steel in the outdoor setting for which time and place; like Rodin he was the lone sculpture, together with the often violent tran-
• the sculptures were intended, taking on and contemporary of a number of painters of great sitions and the dominance of part over whole,
reflecting the general colours, but not (as importance, whose total achievement he felt relate his sculpture in character more to the
with Brancusi's polished bronzes) the forms he had to 'bridge' in his own work; like Rodin cubist wooden constructions of Picasso, than the
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