Page 38 - Studio International - January 1971

metal constructions of Picasso and Gonzalez
from which he derives in material and tech-
nique. Gonzalez had only a few years before
his death, during which he was restricted by
sheer poverty and his own wavering confi-
dence, in which to develop and enrich the
possibilities Picasso had presented to him; and
although he achieved much in that time his
achievement is essentially backward-looking,
as if he were remaking an old idiom in a new
material. Smith matured as an artist in metal
construction, and had a lifetime in which to
extend the idiom in its own terms to a range
and ambition, that in his own work alone gives
steel a richness and potential equal to or
greater than that of bronze, wood or stone. But
in a sense the physical and technical achieve-
ment, enormous though it is, is irrelevant;
what matters most is that he kept alive the
principle of construction in sculpture, which is
fundamental to all that is most vital in sculp-
ture now, regardless of material. Smith wrote,
`Rarely the Grand Conception, but a pre-
occupation with parts. I start with one part,
then a unit of parts, until a whole appears . .
That is to say the part precedes the whole, forms
it and conditions it. Smith's use of found ele-
ments which have at once a separate formal
character and history and are an indissoluble
part of a larger structure, was and remains an
invention of great importance, distinguishing
him from a host of lesser artists who used found
elements simply for their image quality. From
the 50s on the distinction between found and
made, specific and general, stock and designed
parts is gradually broken down. The invention
created an external vocabulary of forms and
objects that renews and transforms his own
vocabulary of feeling.
The essential distinction in method between
Smith and his predecessor is that Smith was
primarily a welder, a worker in steel, whereas
Gonzalez was a metal craftsman, a smith, to times at a point, sometimes along an edge, 13
Gate III (Cubi XXVIII) 1965
whom welding was one of many possible sometimes surface to surface. The strength of Stainless steel
techniques and steel one of several metals. the welded joint, which Smith isolated and 14
Every element in Gonzalez's sculpture is which is central to his art, defies gravity more Sentinel III 1957
Steel
worked; even the most given of forms are re- simply and effectively than anything else in Height 83;1 in.
vealed on close inspection to have been rolled, modern sculpture. Estate of the Artist
forged or drawn by hand. By contrast Smith, The commonest criticism made of Smith's work 15
Tank Totem V 1956
although he developed and indulged on oc- is that it is pictorial in form, and over-influenced Steel
casion the most various and inventive use of by painting in both articulation and imagery. Height 96 in.
Coll. Howard & Jean Lipman, Connecticut
steel, from the 50s came to realize that steel It is true that Smith drew heavily at various
16
worked most simply and powerfully in forms times on the imagery of contemporaries in Pablo Picasso
that are proper to it in industrial and mech- painting; but his sculpture is rarely—only at its Bathers 1956
Bronze (from wood)
anical use; and that the simple tack, the joint most illustrative and banal—about its imagery. Max. height 104 in.
at a smaller point than could be accomplished Usually the image serves as a vehicle for a
in any other material, also served to demon- wholly abstract expression, much as the parti-
strate the aesthetic strength of the part. Instead cular function of found parts is relevant only to
of trying to model, to imitate bronze, Smith their form-giving potential in a total structure.
showed what could, and could only be done in The typical flatness of Smith's sculpture,
steel. The Cubi series is the climax of this en- noticeable even in the earliest pieces, has noth-
deavour; and the components of these sculp- ing to do with the flatness of painting; it is
tures represent a wholly new experience of rather a condition of frontality, in its most econo-
volume; a volume that, as a closed box in a mic form, in the material Smith favoured. And
reflective material, is neither solid nor hollow, frontality is the common and dominant factor
light nor heavy; and its mysterious and subtle in almost all archaic and primitive sculpture.
nature is enhanced by the articulation some- Smith's cultural isolation, the fact that as a