BA (Hons) Art
(Practice and History)
BA (Hons) Art
History (and combined)
BA (Hons)
Modern Visual Culture
Paul
Shakeshaft
Lectures and Seminars - preparation
Weekly Outline of lectures and
Seminars
The module complements in a number of
respects SAB1007/2002 Introduction to
European Painting: the SAB1013/2013 Framing Modernism and also supports the
practical module SAB2048 Sculpture.
If you are taking
this module for 20 credits, you should aim by the end to be able to:
1. Distinguish
between some of the different forms of classification used to categorise figurative sculpture
2. Recognise
examples of sculpture from these categories
3. Demonstrate an
understanding of some of the ideas on which modern sculptors have drawn
4. Relate the
history of modern sculpture to some broader historical themes
5. Construct an
informed analysis of individual examples of sculpture
6. Communicate in
an appropriate language, both orally and in written form, the results of your
inquiries
If you are taking this module for 10
credits, you should be aiming to achieve aims 1, 3 and 6 as well as being able
to demonstrate an understanding of spatial concepts in the analysis of 20th
century sculpture.
These learning outcomes will be used to
inform the marking criteria for your assessed work. Remember, also, that the generic assessment criteria listed on
the Study of Art coversheet (there should be an example in our student guide).
The module is devoted to studying the
representation in sculpture of the human figure.
We need to recognise that the
representation of the human figure is highly contentious. In some monotheistic cultures, such as
Islam, Judaism and Orthodox Christianity, the sculpted figure is virtually
unknown, as it is associated with idolatry.
However, the primary
purpose of sculpture in many societies at most times has been to depict the
human figure. The sculpted body is
central to the traditional western histories of art, which connect the figures
of ancient Sumeria to those of Egypt, Greece, Rome and Christian Europe. It is possible to find instances of the
representation of other subjects, for instance the cat and frog in Egypt and
the horse in Rome, but these are relatively rare. The vast majority of sculpted objects that have come down to us
have represented the human figure. This is true also of many of the cultures of
central and east Asia (Hinduism and Buddhism), of Oceania, Africa and central
America. The sculpted figure is the
embodiment of the beliefs societies have about the nature and significance of
both human beings and of their divinities.
We shall try to use a
consistent method in our approach to the analysis of the figures we encounter,
from whichever culture and time. We
shall need to ask questions about the following:
·
Materials, method and finish
·
Maker
·
Original location and function
·
Identity of figure
·
Inscriptions
·
Signs of rank, age and gender
·
Scale, posture, proportion
·
Anatomy
·
Activity
·
Position of figure in space
·
Relationship to other figures and to
spectator
·
Clothing and accessories
·
Mental and moral attributes
The module is divided
into two unequal parts.
In the first part of the module,
from weeks 1 to 4, we shall be taking a very long view of the history of
the figure, examining in a series of case studies, the very different ways in
which the figure has been represented in earlier traditions. Using the museums of Cambridge (The Fitzwilliam Museum, the Museum of
Archaeology and Anthropology, and the Museum of Classical Archaeology) we
shall look at examples of figures from the Egyptian, Greco-Roman, Christian
European, sub-Saharan African and Oceanic traditions.
The purpose of this preliminary part of
the module is to introduce you to the collections of Cambridge, to ask
fundamental questions about the purposes of figurative sculpture in human
culture, to construct a fragmentary history of the type and to provide
reference points for the study of modern sculpture.
In the second part of the module,
from weeks 5 to 12, the focus will be upon the modern sculpted figure. We shall be concentrating on the figure in
the century between the 1880s and the 1980s. (Objects in Space does not go on to look at contemporary sculpture,
as that will be covered in the module SAD1043/2043
Art Now at level D).
The claim that the concern for the
human figure waned in the 20th century is hardly sustainable. Modernist and Post-Modernist sculptors were
as interested as their predecessors in the making of images of the body. What is so remarkable about sculptors of the
past century, is the novel ways in which they re-imagined the figure, often to
the point at which it is not easy to recognise.
In this second part of the module, we
shall be studying the ways in which the human figure was represented in a
number of movements. By the end
of the module, you should be reasonably familiar with the approach sculptors
working within the following movements represented the body:
Academic
Sculpture, Cubism, Expressionism, Constructivism, Productivism, Surrealism and
Biomorphism, The New Sculpture, Pop Art, Minimalism, Arte Povera, Performance
Art, Earth Art as well as Modernism and Post-Modernism.
The study of the figure in modern art
will also be shaped by certain themes, which might best be expressed as
antitheses. These will criss-cross the
module. The ones which will recur most
frequently, and which you will be expected to develop an understanding of, are:
object and
space, the arrested and moving human figure, matter and consciousness, public
and private sculpture, the industrial and natural object, the built and natural
environments, scientific rationalism and mysticism, the enclosed and disclosed,
metamorphosis and stability, wholeness and fragmentation, high art and popular
culture, life and death.
Finally, in the later section of the
module, you will be encountering the work of many individual sculptors
who took as their primary subject the human figure. The ones who will figure
most prominently in our course, are:
Auguste Rodin,
Paul Gauguin, Henri Matisse, Aristide Maillol, Ernst Barlach, Constantin
Brancusi, Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, Pablo Picasso, Marcel Duchamp, Jean Arp,
Gerrit Rietveld, Vladimir Tatlin, Naum Gabo, Laszlo Moholy-Nagy, Henry Moore,
Barbara Hepworth, Hans Belmer, Salvador Dali, Kurt Schwitters, Alberto
Giacometti, Marino Marini, David Smith, Reg Butler, Piero Manzoni, Jasper
Johns, Robert Rauschenberg, Claes Oldenburg, Jean Tinguely, George Segal,
Anthony Caro, Carl Andre, Eva Hesse, Joseph Beuys, Gilbert and George, Rebecca
Horn, Robert Smithson, Richard Long.
This list, as you may gather, is highly
selective; another tutor could devise a list which might look unlike this one
in significant respects.
There is no one book
which adequately deals with the topics covered in the first part of the module.
The second part of
the module, however, which centres upon modern sculpture, will be supported by
the close study of two books, which you ought to purchase. They both belong to the Oxford History of Art series and cost £9.99.
Why place this burden
on you? The two books, flawed as they inevitably are in certain respects, are
probably the best in print at present.
They offer us a dense and demanding up-to-date text which is
well-illustrated. Given the numbers of
student taking the module, the library cannot hope to offer us all the copies
we need. Besides, there is an
advantage, especially at the beginning of a degree course, in working from a
common text in seminars, so that we are all able to understand the shared
references.
When using these
books, it is important to keep the following in mind:
·
You are not expected to recall
everything you read; it is more important that you understand the general
argument of the authors. Both Curtis
and Causey are academic writers working to a restrictive publisher’s brief,
which requires them to pack a great deal in, even at the expense of
readability.
·
Don’t treat these books as
authoritative (though that’s what they appear to be). The authors have been selective in what they have chosen to
include and exclude and in how they have arranged their material; they have
their points-of-view and their hobby-horses (just as our module has). Keep an open and critical mind when reading
them.
·
A good test of whether you are making
sense of what the authors are saying is to start with the illustrations: study
a group of images closely, seeing what you make of them and then read the text
and see whether it enlightens you in any way.
You may find that this a much better way of making intelligible notes
than simply reading the text and trying to abbreviate it.
·
One of the important study skills at
this stage of your degree is building up an appropriate vocabulary; it would be
useful to compile in your notes a list of familiar and unfamiliar words and
expressions from the text, which might come in handy as you improve your
fluency
Though we shall be relying on Curtis
and Causey, your reading should extend further.
A supplementary
bibliography is given at the end of each week’s programme. All of the books are in the APU library,
some of them in multiple copies.
Unfortunately, if you are to be given the chance to borrow these books,
not all of them can be made available to everyone in the group, on demand. However, if you are unable to read a
recommended book when the classes on the topic are taking place, you should aim
to get your hands on it sometime later on in the module.
Other recommended
general books on modern sculpture, of which we have multiple copies in the
library, are:
Read, H. (1964), Modern Sculpture: A Concise History, London:
Thames and Hudson.
Krauss, R. (1998), Passages in Modern Sculpture, Cambridge:
MIT Press.
Elsen, A. (1974), Origins of Modern Sculpture: Pioneers and
Premises, New York: George Braziller
Elsen, A. (1979), Unknown Beings and Other Realities, New
York, George Braziller.
Each week there will
be a 50-minute lecture on Tuesdays. The
lectures are intended to give you an introduction to the week’s topic,
presenting the leading individual sculptors and their work, formulating some of
the questions we should be asking and suggesting some of the possible answers
we might offer. The primary form of
evidence we shall be using is projected images (slides) and you may want to
give priority to looking and listening before writing.
The seminars explore
the themes introduced in the week’s lecture.
Seminars are sessions where we meet as groups for discussion. Various forms of activity will take
place. The tutor may put questions to
the whole class or to individuals.
Members of the class can put questions to the tutor or to each
other. There may be class-wide
discussions, when the tutor acts as a kind of chairman; there may be small
group discussions, when students argue amongst themselves in groups of four or
five about particular issues. There will
also be presentations, when pairs of students introduce the others in the
seminar group to a piece of sculpture using a projected image (see below).
How should you
prepare for the week’s seminar? For
each seminar, after week 4, you will be expected:
·
to have completed the set reading for the week, from Curtis
or Causey, which will form the basis of one part of the seminar discussions
·
from weeks 5 to 12, to be prepared to explain what you
understand to be the meaning of the leading quotations for each week (see the
weekly programme)
·
to be ready, if called on in the seminar, to analyse with a
partner:
the
illustrations in the book related to the week’s reading
or images from
the lecture of that week
or (in certain
weeks) pieces of sculpture seen on visits.
You should try to answer some or all of
the questions listed above (in the section on the structure of the course).
·
avoid reading from notes, head down; it’s much better to
speak freely and openly to the group
·
don’t give a long introduction about the artist; address the
image directly from the start, getting the class to look at it closely
This week, we shall be asking the most
fundamental questions about the origins of figurative representation in
sculpture, drawing on examples in the Fitzwilliam Museum. What are the earliest examples and what is
known about them? How far can we get in understanding these figures, applying
the key analytical questions in the list above (see ‘Structure of the Module,
page 1)?
Independent visit
You will need visit the Fitzwilliam
Museum , in your own time, to
find the very rare neolithic and Syrian figures of the 5th
millennium b.c. and the Sumerian and Cylcadic figures in the lower galleries.
Idol - Naked
Fat Woman 5th-3rd millennium b.c. (neolithic)
Woman on a
birth throne 5th millenium
b.c. (Syrian)
Cycladic
figures 2500-2000 b.c. (Cyclades
islands)
Large-eyed
idols 3200-3100 b.c. (Tell Brak,
Sumeria)
Deity or Hero
grappling with monsters 8th
century b.c. (Luristan)
In the seminar, we shall
examine the figurative sculpture of the Old and Middle Kingdoms of Egypt,
dating from 2465 b.c. to 1425 b.c. The
common view is that Egyptian sculpture is highly conventional and largely
unchanging, over long periods. There is
some truth in this. What are the
conventions which govern this sculpture and what could have been their purpose? However, Egyptian sculpture is more various,
and often more naturalistic, than you might at first suppose. What evidence can you find to support this
view? When do variations from the norm
occur?
Group of Hety
and his sister Henwek V-V1
Dynasty 2465-2150 b.c.
The chieftain
Ankhwedjes V-V1 Dynasty 2465-2150
b.c.
An Old Kingdom
Official V- V1 Dynasty 2465-2150 b.c.
The Stele of
Amenemhat Nebuy X11 Dynasty 1843-1786
b.c.
King
Amenemhat X11 Dynasty 1843-1798 b.c.
A Middle
Kingdom Official X11 Dynasty 1963-1866
b.c.
The Burial of
Khety early X11 Dynasty 1963-1862 b.c.
Fertility
Figures XV111 Dynasty 1550-1425 b.c.
Naos of King
Tuthmosis 111 XV111 Dynasty 1478-1425
b.c.
The seminars this
week will be taught in the Fitzwilliam Museum itself. We shall have to divide into four groups in order for the museum
to cope (their rule is a maximum of 15 students at a time). There will be seminars between 2 and 3 and 3
and 4 on both Tuesdays and Thursdays.
Make sure that you are in the correct group, so that numbers do not
become uneven. You should assemble in
the entrance hall by the correct time to sign the class register and then we
shall proceed to the Egyptian collection downstairs. The museum only allows pencils to be used – so no pens please and
definitely no cameras!
Week
2 The figure in classical Greece
and Rome
The literature on
early modern sculpture frequently refers its complex relationship with the
Greco-Roman and Renaissance tradition of sculpture. This week, we shall try to establish the central concerns of the
Greco-Roman figurative tradition and some of the more significant
mutations. This is a vast subject, so
we shall go straight to its source, the sculpture of Greece and Rome, which can
be studied in exceptional detail in Cambridge, thanks to the collections of the
Fitzwilliam Museum and the Museum of Classical Archaelology.
Independent visit
The Pashley
Sarcophagus 150-180 a.d.
River God first century a.d.
Male
torso 150-175 b.c.
Torso of
Eros second century b.c..
Try to apply as many
of the questions listed above (‘Structure of the Module’ page 2) to these
sculptures, as we did in the first week.
In the seminar, we
shall be studying in the Museum of Classical Archaeology. To find this museum,
cross the River Cam at Silver Street Bridge and continue on to Sidgwick
Avenue. About 200 metres on the right,
on the so-called Sidgwick Site, you will see the Faculty of Classics of the
University of Cambridge; the museum is there, on the first floor. We shall
again divide into four groups and be assisted by Vivien Perutz. The groups will go into the museum in this
order:
Group 2 2.30
Group 4 3.30
The museum displays a remarkable
collection of casts and replicas of the most celebrated pieces of Greek and
Roman sculpture. It is difficult to
choose from these riches but you should take note especially of:
Peplos Kore (34a)
Munich Kouros (33)
West Pediment of the Corfu Temple (12)
Kritian Boy (81)
East and West Pediments of the Temple
of Zeus at Olympia (99)
Cape Artemisium God (103)
Caryatids from the Erechtheum (161)
East Pediment of the Parthenon (143)
Apollo Belvedere (352)
Nereid from the Grave Monument at
Xanthos (212)
Apoxyomenos (259)
The Dying Gaul (377)
Laocoon (386)
Sleeping Aphrodite (355)
Week
3 The figure in Christian
traditions
This week we shall be
taking examples from a number of movements from within European Christian culture. We must begin by noting that the
representation of the sacred body has been a highly contentious issue in
Christian culture.
For many Christians,
to create a physical replica of God, or his saints, was tantamount to idolatry
and in breach of the Second Commandment’s warning about the making of graven
images. Not only Jews, but Orthodox
Christians, reformed orders such as the Cistercians, heretics such as the
Cathars and Lollards and Protestants of all descriptions took this view.
However, for most
Christians who owed their allegiance to the Roman church, imaging the body was,
for over a thousand years, one of the principal ways in which their beliefs
were expressed. Christ, after all, was
the word made flesh, the incarnation of God.
His mother, Mary, was not a spirit but a corporeal human. Christians had powerful imperatives to
co-opt the realism, as well as the idealism, of classical sculpture for their
own ends.
This is undoubtedly a
vast topic but better we take some sort of measure of it than overlook it. It is impossible to construct a history of
modern sculpture without having a sense of how that history relates to the
dominant traditions of representation of the culture out of which modernism grew.
This week we shall
look at case studies from the 12th century (sometimes described as
the ‘Romanesque’), the 14th century (often referred to as the
‘Gothic’), the 15th century (‘early Renaissance’), the 16th
(‘Mannerism’) and the 17th (‘Baroque). (All of these terms are disputed by some historians, by the way).
We shall also need to
look at the ways in which, after the Reformation, Protestant believers
substituted memorial sculpture for the icon sculpture of the Catholic
tradition.
Ideally, we should be
working with objects from Fitzwilliam collection but the Medieval collection
will be closed until 2004 and so, this week, the seminar will take place on
campus.
Week
4 West African and Pacific Oceanic
sculpture
Early in the 20th century,
Modernist sculptors drew extensively on the sculpted objects of West Africa and
the cultures of the Pacific, especially those of Papua New Guinea, New Zealand,
New Ireland and Fiji.
This week we shall be
taking a preliminary look at figurative sculpture in some of these cultures,
using the collection of the Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology. The museum is situated half way down Downing Street (which runs between St
Andrew’s Street and Trumpington Street) on the left-hand side. (open 2 – 4.30,
Tues. – Sat.).
Most of the Western
research into this sculpture has been undertaken by anthropologists; it is
significant that the Cambridge collection is not related to Fitzwilliam Museum,
being considered outside its compass of art interests (the Fitzwilliam houses
extensive collections of non-European art, but not of this sort). How are we to approach such art? Can we usefully apply the list of analytical
questions used in this module? Can we
apply western aesthetic categories, such as ‘beauty’, ‘grace’, ‘emotive
expression’, ‘style’? Is it even possible
or appropriate to describe these objects as ‘art’ in any way which is
meaningful within western discourses?
What approaches do the anthropologists adopt and what insights do they
provide for the student of ‘art’? Is a
true understanding only available to those from within the culture? Are those of us from outside the culture
open to accusations of cultural imperialism and appropriation?
.
Lecture
Trying to understand
the figures of other cultures
Seminar
This week, we shall
be working in the Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology (first
floor). Each seminar groups will divide
into two, so the schedule will be:
Tuesday Group 1
2-3 pm
Group 2 3-4 pm
Thursday Group 3
2-3 pm
Group 4 3-4 pm
The main aim of the
seminars will be to look at the systems of proportions in the figures in the
collections from West Africa, Nigeria (including Benin), Melanesia (New
Ireland), Fiji, Papua New Guinea
(Also, on the ground
floor, don’t miss the little figures in the collections from Central and South
America (Olmec, Toltec, Inca, Maya, Nicoya, Chiriqui).
Vogel, S. ed. (1994) Africa
Explores, New York: Center for
African Art
Schmalenbach, W. ed. (1988) African
Art, Munich: Prestel-Verlag
This week, we shall be trying to
identify some of the main tendencies in French and English figurative sculpture
between 1870 and 1905.
Sculptors of this time were well
informed about both classical and medieval images and we ought to be able to
reference what we are studying to those earlier forms.
Other questions we may want to pursue
include: Who was represented in sculpture?
What role did public sculpture play in the representation of the figure? In what ways did the debates about
Classicism, Realism, Impressionism and Symbolism shape the appearances of the
sculpted figure? What materials and processes were used and what forms did the
sculpture take? What were the most
important contemporary debates about sculpture? Can the history of sculpture at this time be connected to wider
economic, social, political and cultural developments?
Auguste Rodin and the refashioned body
This will take place in the Fitzwilliam
Museum, where we shall be studying examples of the work of J-P
Carpeaux, Auguste Rodin, Aimee Jules Dalou, Edgar Degas and Aristide Maillol
(in the left and right rooms at the top of the staircase).
We shall need to visit the museum in
four groups so the schedule will be:
Group 1 Tuesday 2-3
Group 2 Tuesday 3-4
Group 3 Thursday 2-3
Group 4 Thursday 3-4
As before, please
assemble in the entrance hall on the hour.
Try to establish the main points in the argument. Look closely at pages 31-34, on Rodin’s ‘The Gates of Hell’ and Vigeland’s ‘Frognerpark’.
Again, establish the main points and read closely the passages on Rodin, pages 50-52 and 66-69.
Quotations (from
Curtis):
‘From
the mid-nineteenth century onward, sculpture was increasingly allied to the
aims and ideals of the bourgeois state.’ (p.6)
‘Sculpture
was rendered anonymous in different ways: in terms of its ‘ownership’, its
function, its physical position, and the collective nature of its fabrication.’
(p12)
‘One
way of being ‘modern’ in the decades at the turn of the century was to be
interested in collaboration, necessarily putting individual pre-eminence to one
side.’ (p.19)
‘Artists
who had not embarked upon the academic ladder – those from different and in
particular artisanal backgrounds – were freer to find other ways of making
sculpture.’ (p.29)
‘Significant
as the ‘Gates’ project is within any account of Rodin’s career, it is of wider
significance in understanding what was happening in sculpture in the early
years of the century.’ (p.32)
‘We forget now how, judged by the criteria of
an age attuned to monument-making, Rodin was not successful.’ (p.50)
Lampert, C. (1986) Rodin: Sculpture and
Drawing, London
There will be a visit to Tate Modern
and the British Museum on the Tuesday of visits’ week. Normally, we leave by coach at 9.30 and
return to Cambridge between 6 and 7.
There will be a charge of about £3 – details to be posted nearer the
date.
The main purpose of
visiting the Museum is to study the African collection in the Sainsbuty Galleries. For those of you taking the Framing
Modernism module, the display of the collection should make an interesting
contrast with that of the Sainsbury Centre at U.E.A.
The collection is displayed at present
under four headings; all of the themes contain examples of figurative
sculpture.
History/Memory/Society
Still-Life/Object/Real-Life
Nude/Action/Body
Landscape/Matter/Environment
Below are the pieces of sculpture which
I’d like you to track down, listed under the four headings. Some sculptors appear in two or more
sections. Included in the list are
works by artists we have looked at in class, works by artists we haven’t
discussed but whose sculpture relates to the artists we have considered and,
finally, the work of artists we shall encounter later in the module.
Those of you taking the module at 20
credits should now be thinking about how to tackle the essay question. A number of the listed pieces deal with the
human figure and ought to offer ideas for your essay.
Gabo, Naum, Head No 2, 1916, Cor-ten steel
Boccioni, Umberto, Unique Forms of Continuity in Space, 1913 (cast 1972), bronze
Barlach, Ernst, The Avenger, 1914, bronze
Gabo, Naum, Constructions (you will
find a whole room devoted entirely to them – look for figurative connotations)
Vantongerloo, Georges, Interrelation of Volumes, 1919,
sandstone
Oldenburg, Claes, Giant 3-Way Plug Scale 2/3, 1970. Wood
Duchamp, Marcel, Fountain, 1917 (replica 1964)
________ Fresh Window, 1920
(replica 1964)
________ The Box in a Valise, 1943
________ Why Not Sneeze Rose Selavy, 1921 (replica 1964)
________ The Bride Stripped Bare by her Batchelors, Even, 1915-23 (replica
1964)
Agar, Eileen, Angel of Anarchy, 1936-40,
textiles over plaster and mixed media
Dali, Salvador, Lobster Telephone, 1936,
plastic, painted plaster, mixed media
Manzoni, Piero, Artist’s Breath, 1960
Belmer, Hans, The Doll, 1936/65, painted
aluminium on brass base
Belmer, Hans, The Doll, 1937/8
Oldenburg, Claes, Soft Drainpipe – Blue Version, 1967, acrylic on canvas and steel
Rodin, Auguste, The Kiss, 1901-4, Pentelican marble
Rodin, Auguste, Crouching Woman, 1891, bronze
Brancusi, Constantin, Maiastra, 1911, bronze and stone
Epstein, Jacob, Female Figure in Flenite,
1913, serpentine
Gaudier-Brzeska, Henri, The Imp, 1914, alabaster
Giacometti, Alberto, Spoon Woman, 1926-7, bronze
Modigliani, Amadeo, Head, 1911-12, limestone
Schmidt-Rottluff. Karl, Male Head, 1917, wood
Moore, Henry, Reclining Figure, 1951,
plaster and string
Hesse, Eva, Addendum, 1967, papier mache, wood and card
Giacometti, Alberto - there is a whole
room dedicated to his figures
Long, Richard, England, 1968
Beuys, Joseph - there is a whole room dedicated to him –
look for figurative associations
Giacometti, Alberto, Hour of Traces, 1930,
painted plaster, wood, steel
Smith, David, Agricola, 1952, bronze, steel
_______ The Five Spring, 1956, steel
_______ Wagon 11, 1964, steel
This week, we shall
be looking at the ways in which the example of pre-Classical and non-European
sculpture inspired European sculptors after 1890 to rethink the representation
of the human figure. You ought to be in
a position to make interesting connections between this week’s study and the
work we undertook in weeks 1 and 3.
How did these great
shifts in representation come about? What interested western sculptors in this
unfamiliar art? What connections did
they make between pre-Classical and non-European sculpture? What did they take
from these forms of sculpture? What did
they leave behind? What part did native folk art play in their work? Can ‘primitivism’ as a European art movement
be regarded as essentially a form of colonialist exploitation and
appropriation?
If you haven’t
visited Kettle’s Yard (corner of Northampton Street and Castle Hill, open 2-4
except Monday) in connection with Framing
Modernism, you should do so in preparation for this week’s class. Study, especially, the works of Brancusi,
Gaudier-Brzeska, Hepworth and Moore.
You could also visit the garden of Memorial Court, Clare College
(halfway along Queens’ Road to see an outdoor work by Hepworth.
Lecture
The figures of
Constantin Brancusi
Seminar
An analysis of examples of direct
carving by E. Kirchner, Amadeo Modigliani, Jacob Epstein and Henry Moore.
Readings
Quotations:
‘Carving
could be promoted as honest in every way.
As a result, clay assumed somewhat ‘decadent; associations.’ (p.77)
‘In
this binary history the lineage of stone carving, as represented in Egyptian
and Assyrian relief-work, Cambodian, archaic Greek, and medieval French
carving, represented the only true path.’ (p.78)
‘Carving
has indigenous traditions; its rootedness gives it an ‘anonymous’ or generic
quality which some artists have relished, and they have similarly played on its
‘essentialist’ character.’ (p.83)
‘African,
Oceanic, Indian, Assyrian, Egyptian or Mexican carvings showed a holistic
treatment in which image and material depended on each other, and a power
derived very much from the original block’.
(p.83)
‘In England writers such as John Ruskin
and William Morris had already called for a return to pre-industrial working
methods as a way of avoiding the alienation of the worker from his product.’
(p.73)
‘the stone block (is) female, the
plastic figures that emerge from it are her children, the proof of the carver’s
love for the stone’ (p.87)
‘The wood was very hard but it was
wonderful to come up against resistance and also have to bring all one’s
physical strength into play’ (p.88)
‘The
sites and class associations of direct carving combined to give it a somewhat
anti-metropolitan flavour.’ (p.94)
Additional reading
Shanes, E. (1989) Brancusi,, London
Teja Bach, F. (1995) Constantin Brancusi 1876-1957, MIT
Barron, S. (ed) (1984) German Expressionist Sculpture, Los
Angeles
Silber, E. (1986) The Sculpture of Epstein, London
Philip, J. (1986) Henry Moore on Sculpture, London
Hammacher, A.M.
(1966) Barbara Hepworth, London
Gale, M. &
Stephens, C. (1967) Barbara Hepworth:
Works in the Tate Gallery Collection and the Barbara Hepworth Museum, St Ives,
London: Tate Gallery
The claim is
increasingly voiced that Picasso’s contribution to modern art was as
significant in sculpture as in painting.
In a series of constructed sculptures, made between 1912 and 1917,
Picasso completely rethought the nature of western sculpture and, some would
argue, the representation of the human figure.
How did he do this and what were his motivations? What impact did his example make upon his
contemporaries, especially those in Germany and the Soviet Union?
The most significant piece of
constructivist sculpture by far in Cambridge is the very large Hepworth Four-Piece (Walkthrough) in the grounds
of Churchill College (north-west Cambridge; take the Madingley Road and turn
right at Storey’s way; Churchill College is on the left; walk straight down the
wide covered corridor towards the dining-hall and continue to the outside – the
Hepworth is in front of you)
Picasso’s constructions
Henri Laurens, Alexander Archipenko,
Juan Gonzalez, Naum Gabo, Alexander Calder
Reading
Curtis: chapter 4, The Private Arena; The Possibilities of Painting,
Pictorialism, and the Spatial
Environment, pp.106-139
Quotations:
‘Sheet metal and wire
gave sculptors ready-formed planes and lines with which they could ‘draw’.
(p.97)
‘The sculptor can use
twenty different materials, or even more, in a single work, provided that the
plastic emotion requires it.’ (Boccioni) (p.100)
‘Understanding Rodin
involved seeing him invent and reinvent, form and reform.’ (p.108)
‘Sculpture was
enjoying a new range of possibilities; the public stage promoted private
experimentation.’ (p.109)
‘Rosso’s criticism of
Rodin was that he was still ‘doing the statue.’ (p.116)
‘Cubist painting is
an almost sculptural translation of the external world; its associated
sculpture translates Cubist painting back into a semi-reality.’ (p.118)
‘To make an object in
sculpture was, in itself, quite radical.’
(p.121)
‘Collage was
recognized to pose the most fundamental questions about the unity of the
picture’s surface, the nature of artifice and illusion , and the artist’s role
in ordering them.’ (p.122)
‘Indeed composition,
something we much more readily associate with painting, becomes increasingly
central to modernist sculpture in the inter-war years, and is carried through
by means of diverse and discrete components.’ (p.127)
‘….’sculpture is the
path both from material-volume to virtual-volume, and from tactile-grasp to
visual grasp. Sculpture is the path to
the freeing of a material from its weight; from mass to motion.’ (p.137)
Additional reading
The Tate Gallery, (1994) Picasso, Sculptor and Painter, London
Withers, J.(1978)
Julio Gonzalez,, New York
Calder, A. (1967) Calder:
an, S. (1987) Autobiography with
Pictures, London: Allen Lane
Nash Naum Gabo, New York
The Dadaists and
Surrealists developed a sculptural approach which seems, in most respects, to
be diametrically opposed to that of Constructivism. Their central interest was in the object. What did they mean by ‘object’? What forms did their ‘objects’ take? What notion of ‘reality’ did they
develop? What subversive purposes did
they have? In what ways did their
‘objects’ relate to the rethinking of the representation of human nature?
In the 1950s and 1960s, the Dadaist and
Surrealist interest in the strangeness of the familiar object was renewed
within the context of a burgeoning culture of popular consumerism and
materialism. How was ‘popular culture’
defined for the purposes of ‘Pop Art’?
What did this art appropriate from Surrealism? To what extent can this art be regarded as critical of
contemporary culture? In what ways did
it take on a political aspect?
Dadaist and Surrealist figures
The figure in Pop Art
Reading
Quotations:
(Curtis)
‘The
choice of ready-made is always based on visual indifference and, at the same
time, on the total absence of good or bad taste.’ (p.143-144)
‘Duchamp’s
objects need the viewer – and the viewer’s imagined involvement – to be
activated. They suggest a corollary
action, and, as a result of our being involved with them, they lead us
somewhere else.’ (pp. 144-145)
‘The
personal nature of the object, its particular relationship with its maker or
owner, as introduced by Surrealism, has been of fundamental importance to the
potential of sculpture.’ (p.154)
‘Though
the unconscious was so rich a part of Surrealism, few artists brought sculpture
and material form into any kind of working association with the unconscious
urge to form.’ (p.160)
‘But
at the very time the Surrealist Object was entering the world of the museum,
where it would be preserved, the dynamic of Surrealist sculpture was taking it
onto a wider, if more temporary, stage.’ (p.162)
‘But
some sculptors, working from the same Surrealist framework, looked instead to
defining a concentrated space by opening their sculptures within their own
frame.’ (p.169)
(Causey)
‘…with
the social change that accompanies industrialisation the experimental and
flexible values of mass arts reflect culture better than the static and
self-perpetuating values of high culture.’ (p.86)
‘The pedestal was the sign of the sculpture’s
privilege, the primary sign of its difference from other things.’ (p.87)
‘In introducing theatre to sculpture the Pop
Art installation changed the status of the viewer….’ (p.102)
‘The
vitality of Oldenburg’s work and its endorsement of sensuality and excess marks
the extreme in the art of this movement opposed to the cool irony of Johns.’
(p.104)
‘Multi-coding
is central to its meaning.’ (p.107)
Ades, D. (1978) Dada
and Surrealism Reviewed, London: Westerham Press
Bonnefoy, Y. (1991), Giacometti, Paris.
Madoff, S. (1997) Pop
Art: a Critical History, London: Un. of California Press.
Lippard, L. (1970) Pop
Art, London: Penguin.
van der Marck, J. (1978), George Segal, New York: Harry H. Abrams.
MOMA (1969), Claes Oldenberg, New York: Harry H. Abrams.
This week we shall
look at sculpture against the background of the European crises of the 1930s,
40s and 50s – the rise of totalitarianism, the Second World War and the
beginnings of the Cold War. How did the
fascist and communist states view sculpture? Why was the human body again the main subject of sculpture in
these decades? How did sculptors view
the body amid the carnage of war? What
impact did the Cold War have on western European sculpture?
Cambridge has a very significant example
of a public war monument, the War Memorial of 1922 by H. Tait Mackenzie. You should go to see it for yourselves at
the junction of Hills Road and Station Road (busy junction; enthusiasts! don’t
get yourself knocked down). Consider it
in relation to Curtis’s arguments.
To see what a
‘Geometry of Fear’ sculpture looks like, look at ‘Talos’ by Michael Ayrton
(opposite the Guildhall, at the Market Square end of Petty Cury). Also visit the sculpture gallery of the
Fitzwilliam Museum
.
Sculpture and the Second World War
Marino Marini, Alberto Giacometti,
Henry Moore, Reg Butler
Reading
Causey: chapter 1, European Sculpture after 1945, pp.15-60
Quotations
‘This conundrum provoked the use of a
figural type sufficiently established in itself to allow sculptors to
concentrate on nuances of internal and formal variation rather than on dramatic
profile or narrative thrust.’ (p.219)
‘The
‘gravitas’ inherent in the heavily-limbed figure is often borne by a nominally
‘innocent’ subject: the child, the girl, the peasant.’ (p.220)
‘A
rejection of virtuosity meant a rejection of the possibly random or spontaneous
traits of the hand.’ (p.224)
‘The
classical tradition is one of appropriation, multivalency and revision.’
(p.234)
‘The
climate of the 1930s and the ensuing war, both invigorated and desecrated the
tradition of the figurative ideal.’ (p.249)
‘One
thing that can be said with some certainty is that the first fifteen post-war
years constitute a ‘period’ .’ (p.16)
‘It
was a problem to which no solution was found.’ (p.20)
‘My
aim is to render palpable the last stage in the dissolution of a myth.’ (p.29)
‘The
theory of ‘placelessness’ became an important constituent of Modernism.’ (p.39)
Cowling, E., Golding, J. (1994) Picasso:
Sculptor/Painter, London: Tate Gallery
Elsen, A. (1979) Unknown
Beings and Other Realities, New York: George Brazillier. (chapter 6)
Bonnefoy, Y. (1991) Giacometti,
Paris
On the face of it,
the formalist and minimalist movements do not seem to be about the human figure
at all. However, a good case can be
made for the argument that that is precisely what they were concerned with.
The view that the
search for ‘autonomous’ forms is the true purpose of sculpture enjoyed a
revival in the 1950s and 1960s, contradicting Pop Art’s obsession with popular
culture. What ideas lay behind this
revival? Why were they so powerful for
a time in America? Can they be linked
to the wider cultural and social history in any way? What forms did this type of sculpture take? Why did formalist sculpture move towards an
increasingly severe minimalism?
Independent visit
You can see good
examples of Anthony Caro’s Lap sculpture in the Fitzwilliam Museum.
David Smith, Anthony Caro and the ideas
of Clement Greenberg
Donald Judd, Sol LeWitt, Robert Morris,
Carl Andre, William Tucker
Reading
Quotations:
‘Smith’s problem at this stage was
refining an art of baroque complexity and maintaining the power of his
inspiration without losing himself in a confusion of images.’ (p.64)
‘Industrialism,
(Greenberg) said, “exacerbates and drives us to extreme positions where we
write poetry but are unable to calm ourselves and live long enough to fix
abiding plastic representations.” ‘ (p.68)
‘Some
of the most effective metaphors in post-war sculpture were archaelogical.’ (p.74)
‘Berger’s
objections were to the point: the sculptors were working to an anodyne
specification and most produced anodyne results.’ (p.80)
‘Modernism’s
turning away from life and inward on itself was the prime cause, because it cut
the discipline off from replenishment and inspiration from outside.’ (p.83)
‘The human body is no longer postulated as
the agent of space.’ (p.109)
‘Caro’s
sculptures work as sequences of statements or gestures following from one
another empirically, without prescription or closure.’ (p.110)
‘David
Smith was the established sculptor who most successfully remade an existing
reputation in terms of new priorities.’ (p.119)
‘The Minimalist debate had far-reaching
implications because the idea of the theatrical and the greater role permitted
to the viewer revealed a way beyond the self-containedness of Modernism.…’
(p.129)
‘Significance
was no longer necessarily vested solely in the finished object; value might be
placed on the provisional, and on procedures and processes….’ (p.131)
Merkert, J. (1986), David
Smith: Sculpture and Drawings, Munich: Prestel Verlag
Waldeman, D. (1982), Anthony
Caro, New York, Abbeville
MOMA (1986), Richard Serra, New
York: Museum of Modern Art
Williams, R. (1985), After Modern Sculpture: Art in the US and
Europe 1965-70, New York.
Perhaps unexpectedly,
the grip of constructivism and pop art was broken in the 1970s and 80s and new
forms of representing the human body emerged.
What relationship did the new bodily forms have to the older traditions
of sculpture? In what ways did this art
deal with surface and interior? What
was the spatial context of such art?
What impact did feminism have upon the portrayal of the body?
Independent visit
To Jesus College,
where you can see two Barry Flanagan pieces, Horse (in the first court) and Cricketer
(opposite the cricket pavilion).
Contrasted approaches to the body -
Joseph Beuys and Richard Long
(1) Duane
Hanson, Barry Flanagan, Eva Hesse, Anthony Gormley, Gilbert and George, Rebecca
Horn, Bill Woodrow, Tony Cragg
(2) Preparing
for the final assignment
Quotations:
‘The
body as sculpture had a history in the work of Klein and Manzoni and in
performance art and happenings from around 1958.’ (p.132)
‘…it
meant using the body in a way that would give the artist a new critical focus
on space and social context and architecture.’ (p.133)
‘In
all of this (Hesse) was unlike the Minimalists, and the kind of clarity she
achieved was not the result of industrially manufactured hard materials, but
one reached through the revelation of process.’ (p.138)
‘Beuys’s
work is about transformation….for restitution and healing’ (p.141)
‘The
switch from authorship to discourse….. was alien to Beuys’ )p.143)
‘Arte Povera is
anti-Modernist in its permissiveness and engagement with human experience,
feelings, and instincts.’ (p.147)
‘A
second distinction, which carries the argument beyond what is usually accepted
as Body Art, distinguishes crucially between the body of the artist used as art
and what the artist does to the bodies of the viewers.’ (p.156)
‘The
work of Rebecca Horn….maps the human body and locates it in relation to the
world.’ (p.164)
“We
have become aware of the millions of stories we did not allow ourselves to tell
over the last years because of our suspicions of the conditions of
expression. Now we know we can express
without being expressionistic.’ (p.252)
‘One
of the changes that enable the debate to get under way was the virtual
elimination of the worn-out subject of the human figure as a subject for
sculpture.’ (p.259)
‘Temporality
emerged in Earth art in different ways…’ (p.179)
‘…he
(Smithson) was interested in the process of change and felt that present art
was a form of intervention as much as it was a thing.’ (p.181)
‘Long’s
arrangements are Minimalist.’ (p.182)
Goldberg, R. (1987), Performance
Art, London: Allen Lane
Guggenheim Museum (1993), Rebecca
Horn, New York: Guggenheim Museum.
Varndoe, K. (1985), Duane
Hanson, New York, Harry H. Abrams.
Beardsley, J. (1998) Earthworks
and Beyond, New York: Cross River Press.
Kastner J. & Wallis, B.
(1996), Land and Environmental Art, London: Phaidon
If you are taking the
module for 20-credits, you complete the following three assignments:
1.
Short essay
(1)
Discuss,
using examples taken from the first four weeks of the module, four ways in
which sculptors proportioned the human figure (the only stipulation about your
choice of examples is that you must include an African figure).
If
you want to write a decent essay, you will need:
·
to illustrate diverse approaches to the problem of
proportion; the more extreme the contrasts between the examples, the better.
·
to analyse your
examples perceptively and to describe them lucidly and evocatively
·
to find a fluent way
of linking your examples so that the choices do not seem arbitrary and the
connections you make appear significant and illuminating
·
to explain, in however a preliminary way, what ideas might
have motivated the sculptors
·
(most important!) to give proper references throughout, both
to books/articles/websites and to your chosen pieces of sculpture; your work
should conform to the advice set out in Vivien Perutz’s Writing
Essays (which you should all have); you will also need to add a
bibliography.
Maximum
1200 words
2.
Short Essay
(2)
Write an analysis of
any sculpted figure in Tate Modern from after 1930. Take into account, though
not necessarily in this order:
·
Size, materials and processes of making
·
Mass, form, surfaces and colour
·
The position of the sculpture in space
·
What the artist’s intentions might have been
·
How the work relates to other works by the artist and to
works by other artists
·
What ideas about art and society could be said to inform the
sculpture
·
What the sculpture represents
·
Where it might originally have been meant to be seen and how
it is displayed now
·
What Tate Modern (and any other commentators) have to say
about the work and whether you agree
Again, this will need to be a properly
referenced essay.
3.
The Longer
Essay
Your old art teacher has asked you to
give a talk to sixth-form Art students on “the human figure in 20th
century sculpture”.
She has asked you to base your talk on
examples which show the diversity of approaches to the figure in 20th
century sculpture. However, she wants
you to limit yourself to no more than ten illustrations so that there can be a
really focused discussion afterwards.
She’s also keen that you explain to the students something of the
background to each example. Copies will
be circulated to the students, so you will need to recommend some reading to
them.
to write a good essay, you will need:
·
to use varied examples from different times in the century
·
to make clear distinctions between your various examples
·
to make sure that your discussion draws the students’
attention to the visual evidence
·
to keep in mind that you are not writing an orthodox essay;
this is the script for a talk and it ought to be lively and uplifting, as well
as informative
·
to demonstrate an understanding of the relationship between
the sculpture and the times in which it was made
·
to reference your
work correctly, when you are quoting or referring to your pieces of sculpture
·
to include a
recommended reading list for the students
Discuss,
using examples taken from the first four weeks of the module, three ways in
which sculptors proportioned the human figure (one of the examples must be an
African figure). (1000 words)
If
you want to write a decent essay, you will need:
·
to illustrate diverse approaches to the problem of
proportion; the more extreme the contrasts between the examples, the better.
·
to analyse your
examples perceptively and to describe them lucidly and evocatively
·
to find a fluent way
of linking your examples so that the choices do not seem arbitrary and the
connections you make appear significant and illuminating
·
to explain, in however a preliminary way, what ideas
motivated the sculptors
·
(most important!) to give proper references throughout, both
to books/articles/websites and to your chosen pieces of sculpture; your work
should conform to the advice set out in Vivien Perutz’s Writing
Essays (which you should all have); you will also need to add a
bibliography.
The
assessment date for the Short Essay (1) is 1 pm, Friday, 8 November
and
the Short Essay (2) (1000 words)
The
assessment date for the Short Essay (2) is
1 pm Tuesday, 7 January