Page 22 - Studio International - July August 1973

been stuck. Each twig is vertical as it leaves the Female Figure, made in the same year as the
base. Some remain rigid while others sway Head/Objects, was a meeting point for all that
gently. Our attention is held at the point of had concerned him and all that he had learned
connection between the horizontal and the up to that time. The single unit, free-standing
vertical, for it is here that two activities meet. figure in which the upright dominates
The one of man — to plant; the other of nature — everything except the ground, he found in tribal
to grow. Coincidentally Turnbull began to make carving and the art of the pre-classical
sculpture out of the thing that had been left Mediterranean and it provided him with the
untouched by Henry Moore. The container as broad context against which he could test out
Turnbull presents it is the opposite of the what he had learned. Cycladic figures do not
volume. For him the container is not a sealed disturb space. Their limbs do not 'draw' in space
bladder or even, at this early stage, a bowl, but as do the Baroque figures of Bernini. Their
the earth. Torque Upward 1949, repeats the surfaces do not float and hover as do those of
relationship of horizontal to vertical. Two twigs Rodin and they do not metamorphose back into
grow from a thick base. One is bare but the features of landscape as do those of Moore.
other, double its height, is crossed at irregular The concept of progress would have been
intervals by twig-like sticks that echo the offensive to Turnbull at any time.
verticals and the base. Nevertheless in choosing criteria in the single
The series of masks that Turnbull made in unit free-standing figure he was repeating a
1953 offer two kinds of containment. They are choice that was unique to artists and
the horizontal 'earth' but they also imply the particularly to painters of the twentieth century.
cups of masks that can hold faces. They are Picasso and Matisse, coming soon after the
made from flat cakes of clay and will lie flush impressionists' leap (studio equipment, studio
against a flat surface. The features are mostly language and all) into the outside world, knew
empty holes made from the imprints of fingers that in making sculpture or any other form of
in the wet clay and are containers that one might art they should not be bound to the old studio
fill as one would a mouth with food. They are ways of seeing and behaving. Although the
fetishes for faces because they behave in a single unit, free-standing figure is the least
simple way as faces would behave. Minute picturesque of sculpted forms it was the
objects have been placed in the surface to form painter-sculptors, searching for values far
a crust that contrasts with the gaping holes. removed from those of studio tradition, who
The mouth of one of the masks is an oddment first recognized its formal qualities. Turnbull's
that has been left lying on the surface. The modest way of making sculpture (his smallness
lower half of the face is covered in deep of scale and use of simple materials) was the
furrows which together with the gaping eyes result of his refusal to equate traditional
contrasts the positive mouth and nodule-like studio techniques and behaviour with the
ears. The masks are earth-scapes as much as `sculptural'.
they are faces. But a mask is a covering for a Female Figure stands on a single foot that
face, or put another way, an identity for covering leaves the body like the base of a letter 'I.'.
an identity. Although we can only see one face The figure is in one piece, stands symmetrically
we know of the presence of another. Even when, and is covered with embossed corrugations
like Turnbull's masks, they are quite flat and that direct the eye evenly across the surface
therefore not intended to be worn, they project and work rhythmically against the contour of
an occupant. the body. The centre of gravity runs through
With the Head/Objects of 1955 he closed the the body, fixing it firmly to the ground, yet the
container and in so doing gave special emphasis compactness of the figure makes it seem to
to the surface. The heads are more like peach drift free.
stones than bladders, neither inflated nor deflated In 1958, three years after making Female
but simply at rest. The heads have no necks and Figure, Turnbull had it cast in bronze. Later
are completely self-contained so that our area of the same year he came across its mould at the
illusion and spatial reference is restricted to founders and without altering it had the mould
their surfaces. We do not read the 'heads' in cast in bronze. The resulting work was
terms of their relationships to arms or legs or called Source 1958. Source characterizes many
to the height of a tree or hill. Turnbull thought forms of containment and is a fetish for them
of calling them 'reclining heads' as a pun on the all. From one side it becomes a leaf, seed pod,
Moore reclining figures. They are small womb, sarcophagus or vagina and from the
enough to be held in the hands and are covered other a figure with hands, stomach and penis.
in deep grooves that become channels into It is a head and neck and it is a fish. Female
(Top)
No. r 1963 which our fingers might grip or slip. No. r is Figure grows free from the containment of the
Bronze, 84 x 17 in. only seven inches long and is ravaged with earth. Source is its opposite. It is what is left
Coll. Waddington Gallery, London grooves that run in the directions of the lines when the Female Figure has been removed. It
(Centre) that represent nose, eyes and mouth. In No. 2, has had, could still have, a material function.
Cones 1968 only an inch longer, the grooves are deeper It took a long time for Turnbull to find a
Fibreglass, 284 x 43 in.
and longer and the features of the face are way to put his paintings together. Not that there
(Bottom) almost gone. Iconography has given way to was a slow maturing over a number of years.
3 x 1 1966
(2nd version) rhythm, which transfers our attention from His search did not itself produce rich rewards.
Steel painted red, 844 x 93 x 31 in. subject to object and from volume to surface. There was always a lack of anguish in the way
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