Page 51 - Studio International - March April 1975

measurement, proportion. Indeed the
original model must have been more like
a gorilla than a man. It is paradoxically
because of its unlikeness from the normal
or ideal in physical build and stance that
we are so impressed by the "reality" of
this figure.
Moreover, so much is sacrificed to the
illusion of life, that the sculpture will not
stand comparison as sculpture with
Rodin's best work. I meant to steer clear
of judgements of quality in these
discussions, but here the case is
instructive. By applying a talent of the
highest order to the creation of an illusion
of a living person. Rodin demonstrates
the difference between the living model
and its representation in sculpture, and
between the aims of sculpture and those
of imitation. On the one hand it is clearly
not a matter of life-casting: the intrinsic
resources and skills of modelling are
needed to create and hold the illusion:
but once gained the illusion is sustained
in such a way as to undermine the
independent and contained existence of
the sculpture as a thing-in-itself. The
sculpture and the figure (real or illusioned
in sculpture) stand differently, take their
place differently, in the world. The total
presence of either, within the same object,
is exclusive. You see the figure as a figure,
on the understanding that it is a figure, or
as a sculpture. The sculpture may happen
to be a figure or the figure may happen to
be a sculpture, but it can make itself
present to us in one mode only.
Of course, you may well feel these
laborious distinctions between sculpture
and living beings are like the proverbial
difference between the elephant and the
letterbox. The whole discussion has
arisen because sculpture has confused
what is natural to itself — the fact that it
is absolutely still, located in one place —
with what is unnatural to a living being.
It requires a considerable mental and
physical effort for a person to remain as
still as a thing for more than a few
seconds. If I labour the distinction it is
because I want to make it clear that a
sculpture is a thing, absolutely and
unconditionally, and in no sense can it
be a person. If it makes itself known as a
person, even a concealed person, it is at
the cost of its independence, its
authenticity as a thing. I'm now thinking
not of illusionism in traditional sculpture,
but of the identity of most of the
celebrated sculpture of this century,
abstract or figurative. If we say, before
responding to the individual piece,
"that's a Giacometti (or a Moore or a
Calder or an Arp)", we reveal a
consciousness of the artist as a craftsman,
producing work within the boundary of
an immediately apprehended style. The
fact that he himself may have, as a matter
of history, initiated the style, is beside the
point. The individual sculpture is forced
to assume the generic identity, the
presence of the human maker, in a way
that is as unnatural to its separate
character as a unique thing, as to stand
rigidly immobile for any time is to the
separate identity of the human individual.
This kind of sculpture is in fact an
object, a product rather than a thing, in
common with the enormous quantity of
Donatello David c. 1435. Bronze. National Museum, Florence mass-produced objects among which and
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