Page 34 - Studio International - February 1973

Michelangelo's unfinished Slaves. Brancusi's very necessary stimulus for Brancusi, the artist
purpose in employing this device was as plastic has had to animate the sculpture, to give it the
as Rodin's was literary. The rough marble presence of one of his family of animals and
around the head, suspending gravity, at once children : the translation of the cup from reality
`explains' its horizontal axis, and referring back into sculpture has a kind of folklorish humour, a
to Michelangelo, makes the head's presence in certain sentimentality. Brancusi's Cup series, his
the stone reasonable, in that there is a fair one conscious attempt to make an object as
chance of its escape : the whole might fairly be sculpture, must owe something to that general
seen as a work in progress. Indeed it was an concern with the object which emerged from
early statement of Brancusi's 'egg' theme, whose cubist collage. Here again, in a far more public
most beautiful realization is the bronze Sleeping and dramatic form than in Brancusi's prolonged
Muse of 191o. The Beginning of the World may and isolated quest, the subject (still-life), the
be the most extreme, most celebrated, statement means of representation (elements of the real
of this type of object. But though its proportions world) and the formal vehicle (the surface and
and highly polished surface are far from boundary of the painting) were converging at
mechanical, considered against the earlier such a rate that it seemed obvious to many of the
statement, the achievement of objectness seems followers, though not to the authors of Cubism,
too easy, too complete. The 1910 Sleeping Muse that if this pressure and this direction were to be
is exactly poised between its condition as 'head' sustained, both painting and representation were
and its condition as 'object' : in comparison to doomed, leaving the real world, or some aspect
Rodin's Head of Iris, which one has to identify as of it, as simultaneously subject and object for the
a head, one knows the Sleeping Muse is a head. artist. The period after the Russian Revolution
So much is given, one does not question it. and the ending of the World War was one of
Thereafter one reads the features, the hair, the almost hysterical optimism for the avant garde,
ears, their character and disposition in their as if the whole world had been presented to them
graphic shape on the surface, and in their varied for reconstruction on the principles of Cubism.
but shallow articulation of the surface, as A Utopian vision of reality in effect replaced the
affirming and echoing the total and detached conventional subject-matter of previous art. And
horizontal ovoid, the abstract form. Moreover on the pretext of a reconstruction of reality,
the modelling of the form, its delicate but and the declared rejection of all the familiar
perceptible asymmetry, derives neither from its elements of traditional painting and sculpture,
original condition as 'head', nor from the ideal the range and vocabulary of sculpture was
egg-form to which it tends, but from its actual enormously enriched : for the objects produced
condition as 'object-head'; its horizontality being by Duchamp, Tatlin, Rietveld and others,
its prime character, affecting the gravitational whatever their own beliefs as to the significance
distribution of mass within. The half-polished of what they were doing, can now be seen to
but still imperfect surface, the residual features belong to modern sculpture, as they themselves
and neck contribute to its utter naturalness, its were embedded in and formed by the traditions
poise both as object and as image; neither aspect they variously repudiated. The process of
dominates. One feels that in later versions of the reclaiming their work for sculpture has been
type, as the state of objectness became more protracted, and as the career of Giacometti
accessible, Brancusi sought to rarefy the theme, shows, the premature exploitation of their
to remove it from the everyday world of objects discoveries resulted in an ingenious but
— to which of course the egg image familiarly essentially sterile academicism. It is only in the
belongs — by the immaculate surface and high last few years, when the proscription of all
reflective polish. The Beginning of the World has materials except wood, stone and bronze has
a theatrical presence which cannot replace the finally been relaxed and sculpture has recovered
tension between the real and the invented that a natural scale relationship with the human
gives the Sleeping Muse its singular beauty. figure, that the potential of Gestalt, scale,
The three Cups which Brancusi made in the structure and material implicit in the work of
years 1917-2o are the only sculptures in his these artists could be appreciated and used.
oeuvre which take an object rather than a I have previously described Duchamp's
human or animal as subject.1 They are thus ready-mades as elements of cubist still-life
quite distinct from the useful objects, bases, released from the medium of painting. There
studio furniture, and so forth which were made are inevitable difficulties with these pieces,
by Brancusi with the same tools and the same such as the problem of being unable to see the
vocabulary of form, but which were clearly not ready-mades except in photographs or in the
intended for the same apprehension and inferior multiple copies that Duchamp released
scrutiny as the sculpture. The Cup is carved in at the end of his life. Certainly Duchamp's
(From top to bottom) wood and is much larger than its model in proclaimed attitude towards these works, at the
Brancusi reality; it is solid, no longer a container, and the time and subsequently, the uninspired character
The Beginning of the World 5924? handle also is filled in; its underside is now a of most of his subsequent work, and the use to
Bronze, 28.6 cm high
complete hemisphere, so that the top surface is which the ready-mades have been put,
Brancusi tipped from the horizontal and tends to read as justifying a flood of feeble imitations, must all
Sleeping Muse 1910
Bronze, 27.2 cm high the sculpture's 'face'. It is an appealing object, add up to a pretty strong case against taking
with strong and simple proportions. To replace the originals seriously.
Duchamp
Bottle Rack 1914 the living model, which seems to have been a Yet I was enormously affected by the image of
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