Page 28 - Studio International - October 1972

just-vertical central rectangle of space to the granted; the 'classical' theme, the enormous redefinition of the image given the initial (and
more emphatic horizontal rectangle of the scale, have been tested and re-achieved with a wholly original) concept of the repeated
external profile, is crucial to the effect of total innocence and a naïve cunning. It invariable unit. Those qualities of random
lightness mentioned above. implicitly challenges Rodin's Gate of Hell, articulation, of density, of illusion, achieved
The emphasis and proportions of the incised opposing the incoherence and physical through the relatively complex structure and
Kiss motif on the columns and lintel have become impassibility of that unfinished project with its handling of all his other sculpture, could only be
quite abstract and generalized, and the design is formal simplicity, its warmth and serenity and achieved on the larger scale by perspective. The
not immediately appreciable as depicted figures. precise physical realization. It is a beautiful enormous dimensions of the Turgu Jiu column
Their function is to articulate, to carry the load sculpture. are the necessary condition of the sculpture's
of the sculpture : the drawing is most deeply The Endless Column is better still. The sole primarily optical existence. The module is
incised, even modelled, in the centre of each theme in Brancusi's oeuvre to have been virtually the height of a man : but from there on,
column; the repeat motif carries the eye easily abstract from its inception, it retrospectively its relation to human proportion has no
across the lintel, with its precisely etched seems destined for its final scale and location at significance. It is the relation to the human eye
incision; and at the top of the lintel, just under Turgu Jiu. Earlier essays such as the fragments which is all important, and from a few paces
the coping, the drawing of the eyes and hair is in the Brancusi studio in the Musée d'Art away, one's eye level corresponds to the junction
just perceptible, (as is the vertical line between Moderne in Paris, now appear in recollection of the incomplete base element with the first
the embracing lovers). The drawing thus tends incomplete and unachieved — and also too real, complete element above it.
to become lighter as the eye moves up the too graspable. The Endless Column motif first The sculpture starts at eye level; because of this
sculpture, and from the centre to the corners of appears in Brancusi's oeuvre as a base. Whereas fundamental principle no two elements can
the columns. This effect is heightened by the the table motif also served as a base for several ever read as exactly identical, and to this fact
slightest of projections of the lintel over the of the larger horizontal sculptures of the eos, too the sculpture owes its peculiar presence,
columns, and the coping stone over the lintel — the Column early achieved an independent appearing to be suspended as if hovering
just enough to counteract the inward lean existence as sculpture (1918) and as outdoor between earth and sky, seeming merely to touch
induced by perspective as the sculpture moves sculpture—the piece in Steichen's garden (1920). the ground at the base.
upward from eye level. The first try exists now only in the remarkable Brancusi precisely calculated the nature and
Unlike the Table, the Gate has no longer to be photograph : in which however the problem of quantity of the viewing space for each piece at
read as a use object. It is the true successor to how to suggest the 'endless' within the structure Turgu Jiu. The clear area on all sides of the
Brancusi's first authentically modern sculpture, of the sculpture is evaded by obscuring both Endless Column is large, a rectangle with a side of
the conclusion to 3o years' continuous ends of the piece. While the success of this perhaps 30o yards, allowing a long view and a
exploration of the rectangular block as the sculpture will forever remain uncertain, long approach to the sculpture. Because of this,
appropriate form for coarse stone; the Brancusi continued to make versions of it, and because there are no other features by
fundamental predictability, the obviousness, of testing its scale, modelling and proportions, which one can readily estimate its size, and
the structure is balanced by the simultaneous until the time came for its definitive realization. because the proportions of the whole sculpture
awkwardness and subtlety of the proportion Unlike the Kiss, the Birds, or other major are light and slender, the actual size of the piece
and drawing. Nothing has been taken for themes, there is no progressive refinement or remains continually in question. It comes as a
shock to see a man standing at the base,
registering the real size of the sculpture, which
otherwise reads as having no size, neither large
nor small, simply as though a specific size was
not one of its physical attributes. This is a major
aspect of the sculpture's opticality : it is too large
to be grasped, or measured against human scale,
yet it can be seen from a distance which
considerably diminishes it — indeed, in order to
be taken in totally, without moving the field of
vision, it has to be seen from this distance.
The Column comprises fifteen complete
and identical elements with a two/third element
at the base, and a half element at the top. The
lowest element is so shaped that there is no
return taper after the widest point is reached
about two feet above ground-level; the effect is
physically and visually to lock and stabilize the
sculpture as it meets the ground. Strangely, it is
hard at first to recognize the difference between
the lowest element and the remainder. How the
sculpture starts and finishes is plainly crucial to
its success : here a lesser artist might have
betrayed a magnificent conception, but
Brancusi's attention over the years to the
dynamics of this particular structure enabled
him to lay hold of exactly the right solution here,

Base for Leda 192o
Prototype of the Turgu Jiu Table