Page 39 - Studio International - January 1971
P. 39

ture in its presentation, its relation with the
                                                                                              earth, as well as in its internal articulation.
                                                                                              There has been some discussion of Smith
                                                                                              experiencing a 'problem' of how to deal with
                                                                                              the base; but in this respect he seems to me to
                                                                                              be more akin to Matisse, who virtually ignored
                                                                                              the problem, than to Brancusi, who was clearly
                                                                                              much exercised by it. The events in most of
                                                                                             Smith's work take place above the ground and
                                                                                              between the elements of the sculpture, not in
                                                                                              relation to the ground. As with Matisse's con-
                                                                                             ventional properties to keep his figures upright,
                                                                                             one can afford to disregard, or at least to half-
                                                                                             regard the various devices — pillars, legs, wheels,
                                                                                             etc. with which Smith bridges the awkward
                                                                                             gap between the sculpture and the ground. On
                                                                                              the few occasions when Smith tried to make
                                                                                             sculpture naturally structured by gravity the
                                                                                             results could be disastrously banal, as in the
                                                                                             lateral Cubi XXIII of 1964. This should be com-
                                                                                             pared with one of his most original and success-
                                                                                             ful sculptures Sentinel III of1957, where a more
                                                                                             or less gravitational piling of I-beam sections is
                                                                                             counteracted by the wilful contrast of anti-
                                                                                             gravitational lateral addition of further sections
                                                                                             of I-beam— building downward as it were.
                                                                                             The verticality of Smith's sculpture is often
                                                                                             held to be its central characteristic but I think
                                                                                              that a count of all Smith's pieces would show
                                                                                             that not so many are essentially vertical as is
                                                                                             generally assumed; though most, as I have
                                                                                             mentioned, relate to the ground at a single
                                                                                             point. However, in various groups of pieces,
                                                                                             notably the  Tank Totems and Sentinels of the
                                                                                             50s, and in many of the Voltri and Voltri-Bolton
                                                                                             sculptures, Smith was engaged in making
                                                                                             sculptures which deliberately convey the pre-
                                                                                             sence of human figures, without in any sense
                                                                                              being naturalistic, or symbolic, in terms of
                                                                                              making reference part by part to elements of
                                                                                              the body. In comparison to Picasso's Bathers for
                                                                                              example, in which almost every part or mark
         young man he had no training or experience in   less-steel surfaces of solid volumes in the Cubi   carries a reference to an element of the body, a
         sculpture as volume, in carving or modelling,   series.                              sculpture such as Tank Totem V is virtually ab-
         in effect gave him the innocence and directness   Smith's habit from the early 50s of laying out   stract; its 'humanness' consisting in its verti-
         of the primitive artist; an innocence beyond   and tacking up elements of sculptures on the   cality, its proportions, and its size. Where literal
         the reach of those European artists who had   ground relates to the use of the ground as an   figure references do occur in Smith, they are
         initially discovered in primitive art models   area for painting by Pollock, and the later   often extremely disturbing, creating a tension
         for the revival of a traditional formal structure.   extension of this idea by Morris Louis: in both   that goes to affirm the fundamentally abstract
         But the frontality of Smith's sculpture, coupled   these painters a formal tension derives from   basis of his work.
         with the directness of his constructive means,   the painting being made horizontally and pre-  Indeed it is often through his mistakes, through
         confronts us with an entirely new concept of   sented vertically. With Smith the use of the   his ambition to compete directly with the ele-
         how sculpture might work. Its prime existence   ground as a working base means that the ele-  ments of European naturalism, the figure tra-
         is as silhouette, and instead of reading round   ments have to physically cohere as a unit   dition that survives not only in imagery, but
         it, one reads through it; modelling in Smith's   before they can be raised off the ground; the   also in the use of volume and the regard for
         sculpture is not the articulation of surfaces,   transposition of the assembled group of parts   gravity that is manifest in various forms in the
         but the degree to which the eye is allowed to   from plan to elevation can only take place if a   sculpture of Picasso, Brancusi and Matisse,
         pass through the structure; drawing and mod-  set of fundamental relations has already been   that Smith reveals his originality, the almost
         ulation in thickness of line, angling and super-  imposed on the structure; it can be modified or   total divergence of his aims from theirs. I have
         imposing of elements through an implied   elaborated when upright, but the internal   compared him to Rodin, and he is like Rodin
         plane, the rhythm of interval between joins   conditions of its existence have been estab-  in the almost wilful incompleteness of his
         and of contrast or affinity between parts,   lished. This process cannot be separated from   achievement. He is someone who starts, rather
         guide and tease the eye across, and in and   Smith's isolation of the constructive technique   than finishes; one has to take him whole; the
         out of the structure. The state of trans-  in steel, the joining of parts at points. The vast   man often looms larger than the work. Nothing
         parency in solid and resistant material, to   majority of Smith's mature sculptures relate a   could be more opposite to the contained,
         which Smith's art increasingly tended, was   base to ground at a single point also, demons-  balanced and anonymous art of Brancusi and
         eventually achieved in the reflective, stain-   trating the gravity-defying nature of the sculp-   Matisse. 	q
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