Page 41 - Studio International - May June 1975

no deep concavities; the inside and
underside of each part is hidden : the
head is unified with the shoulders, the
upper arms with the torso, the lower
arms with the folded legs which are
treated as one unit, a secondary base,
surmounting the base proper whose
softened edge presents no sharp division.
Any possible deep hollows are treated as
graphic incisions, preserving a unified
tautness of surface.
Yet I would argue for this piece a
certain transparency. Sight is not
resisted, like the maker's tools, by the
hardness of the material. The
familiarity of the human image, the
apparently simple structuring of the
pose, the expectedness and symmetry of
the thing render it open to perception.
There are no major surprises of the kind
you may find in Degas or Rodin. But our
gaze is held by an infinity of slight
surprises, in the subtlest modulation of
surface and articulation, in the treatment
of the human form, in a continuous and
just perceptible play of asymmetries.
For commonsense, transparency is the
character of space, opacity that of things.
On this basis we make our way about in
the world well enough. Of course science
tells us that the air we breathe and see
through is dense to a degree, and equally
the constituents of solid material widely
dispersed. But this kind of sub-
perceptual analysis is neither of use nor
interest to sculpture. We have stated the
polarities — the self-sufficiency, the
containment, the independence of the
thing: and an absolute transparency, an
openness to vision, perspective (literally,
seeing-through). Of course neither of
these conditions can obtain absolutely
for any one object: the thing can only
exist as separate and contained in the
light of human recognition, of perception :
and conversely, in order for an object to Constantin Brancusi Fish 1926 has often been the case that one material
be perceptible as such it must have the Bronze and wood. 5¼ x 16 3/8 in. has been strongly favoured — stone, fired
coherence, the boundary of the separate Coll: E. J. Power clay, bronze, wood, iron. It would be
thing. almost meaningless to say that the
Within this scale the Egyptian sculpture things, the ordinary things which medium of sculpture is simply material,
clearly registers as thing: much of the everyone could touch ?' any material, matter. You might suggest
sculpture being made today as This is how — beyond as Rilke puts it — that the medium of sculpture is space: or,
transparent. Yet just as the Egyptian piece giving it 'its own certain place, in which on the basis of what I was saying in our
affirms its presence to perception, so our no arbitrariness had placed it . . .' and last discussion, that it is visibility, in
own work must establish itself as thing. fitting it 'into the space that surrounded terms of the thing, or perception, in terms
To use planar, linear or transparent it, as into a niche." — Sculpture must of the onlooker's experience of sculpture.
material is in itself no guarantee that the distinguish itself from other things by It is true that by evacuating the
sculpture will stand in depth. Sculpture being more visible than they are. Its central core of sculpture and by situating
must resist, stand against, sight, as well as certainty is rooted in the experience of it on the same level on which the
extending and expanding it. To achieve depth: the sculpture is the articulation of spectator stands and moves we make
this resistance it needs the stability, the the act of perception itself. sculpture in which there is considerably
completeness which has always 8. more space than volume : in which the
characterized monolithic sculpture. We live in a world of objects and a relation to the spectator's eye, of his
But I think we have also located here a world of spaces, objects grounded in one experience of near and far, of up and
distinction between the sculpture of our object, the earth, spaces continuous down, of inside and outside, has become
own time and that of the past. Sculpture with universal space : both too large in dominant. Yet it is only by using physical
before and including Rodin and Degas themselves to be grasped physically or materials, however pared down or
strives to make itself visible, through its perceptually. Each object reflects, transparent, that we can establish the fact
particular image and material. Sculpture partakes of, the larger object — the earth — of the individual sculpture's existence
now, your sculpture, my sculpture, aims and is subject to its law, gravity: each and its limits : that we can mark off its
to make the world visible, to reify sight. space partakes of the larger space, and is space from space in general. It is only
The sculpture stands in the world and subject only to our perception. through physical material that the
images the world. The great 'Gates' of We have so far hardly touched on the sculpture is visible at all.
modern sculpture, of Brancusi and David physical constituents of sculpture and of It seems that we are forced to say that
Smith, signify this new-found access to the context of sculpture. What is the sculpture is constituted of material and
the visible. medium of sculpture, what is the space and of our perception of them. But
Here in fact is the answer to the relation of the individual sculpture to the this inclusive definition is much the same
problem which Rilke posed : if sculpture physical world ? as that with which I started in describing
is a thing which can 'exist for itself alone' No one would restrict the medium of the world in which we live; so is there
how can it 'distinguish itself from other sculpture to any one material, though it then intrinsically nothing that

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