Sculpture was the more important art form of early civilizations, but from the Renaissance on it declined and painting was held in higher regard.
Throughout the 19th century the antique and Renaissance example was the unchallenged form of the art academies, but it was an insipid and decadent thing as sculptors squeezed the last drops of life from the Greco-Roman original.
To add to the depth to which sculpture had sunk was the notion that it was beneath the artist's dignity to do the work of a stone mason or foundry worker. As all sculpture must be carved or cast, in metal from a clay original (clay is impermanent even when fired) the finished work would not have even been touched by it's "creator". In many cases the original was not even the same size as the finished work, the workmen having scaled it up or down as required.
Auguste Rodin (1840 to 1917) A contemporary of Ce'zanne, Rodin did not lay the foundations for a profound change as Ce'zanne did in painting. He did however restore integrity to sculpture lost since Michelangelo.
He used basic sculptural values of volume, mass, and the interplay of bumps and hollows. Although Rodin had workmen produce his sculptures he personally supervised production and insisted on doing the finished touches.
In so doing, he revived interest in the materials and techniques of his craft. Rodin was not strictly "modern" as there is nothing in common with the works of Bra Cusi, More or Arp, but his robust realistic style and qualities of momentary visual experience suggest the impressionistic sculpture to follow.
Honore' Daumier (1808 to 1897) Although not in the modern period, the sculptures of Daumier had a bold down to earth realism. He chose subjects from everyday personalities among the poverty and ugliness of industrial towns and treated them in a broken impressionist manner - the antithesis of the high ideals and smoothly finished forms of neoclassicism.
Medaro Rosso (Italian 1858 to 1928) Developed a unique and original impressionist style. His work was like Rodin's but he used a fragmented accidental looking technique which caught light in a dynamic way - the Futurist hailed this dynamic quality and Bocciori in particular was influenced by Rosso.
Edgar Degas (1834 to 1917) was primarily a painter who used sculpture to explore problems of form and movement. His bronze dancers and horses are part of his study and his "Little Dancer of fourteen years", a wax model dressed in clothes, comes as near as art can to maximum impact of momentary impression.
Eric Gill (1882 to 1940) wood engraver and type designer was a survivor of the English artcraft movement of William Morris. He kept alive the craft of direct carving in stone.
Jacob Epstien (1880 to 1940) was an English sculptor whose work was not accepted in a country which had little tradition in this medium. His work was often massive and expressionistic but he, like Gill, helped keep alive sculptural awareness.
Artstide Maillol (1861 to 1944) Rodin's somewhat aggressive and emotional style brought a reaction in favour of classical serenity and calm. Maillol was most exclusively concerned with the female figure which he presented in simplified rounded masses arranging in compact sculptural rhythms. (c/f best of Greek and Egyptian sculpture).
Henry Matisse (1869 to 1954) Like Maillol, Matisse was almost exclusively concerned with the female form. His small output of work was an extension of his painting in which he explored the simplification of form.
Wilhelm Lehmbruk (German, 1881 to 1919) worked in the expressionist tradition. Solemn melancholy and sometimes grief show in his slender elongated forms.
Antone Bourdelle (French, 1861 to 1929) returned to classical idealism in reaction to impressionism.
Constan Brancusi (Roumanian, 1876 to 1957) Born the son of a peasant, Brancusi was unable to read or write until age of 18. In 1904 he arrived in Paris to study sculpture and came under the influence of Rodin. He worked alone for several years destroying everything he made and came to the conclusion that he must reject the western tradition in sculpture - he wrote " it is not the outward form that is real but the essence of things ... it is impossible to express anything real by imitating the outer surface of things". Brancusi was searching for a spiritual significance best summed up by his "Maistra" - a bird from Roumanian folklore which guides a lover to an imprisoned princess - a symbol of spiritual liberation. In sculpture, such a work which is abstracted but not abstract.
Brancusi's efforts towards simplification owe much to Rodin's truncations of the figure - "Torso of young man", "Torso of young girl", Mlle Rogany (1913). A move into animal forms gave "Bird in Space" (1919). In 1926 to 1928 Brancusi was involved in a law suit with the U.S Customs service which refused to admit "Bird in Space" duty free as a work of art. They insisted that it was a taxable bit of metal, the official view demanding it should have head, feathers, legs and beak.
Brancusi was influenced by Eastern religious philosophies - "Spirit of Buddha" or "King of Kings" (1918) is like a primitive idol, its unseeing eyes giving a spiritual mysticism. Like a Mondrain and Klee, Brancusi developed through a systematic course to a purity of meaning and economy of means.
Cubist Sculpture
Cubism took inspiration from primitive forms - Negro, Mayan, Inca, all of which had geometric tendencies. In sculpture it was not a systematic movement and artists experimented with line, space, volume and flat surfaces.
Jacques Lipchitz (Lithuanis 1891 to ) was apart from Picasso, the most important cubist sculptor. Dancer (1913), Man with Guitar (1915), Circus Scene (1927) are representative.
Ossip Zadkine (Russia 1890 to ) was not a follower of any one style and used Cubism for greater expressive power. Monument Commemorating the Destruction of Rotterdam" uses cubist planes to show violence and destruction.
Alexander Archipenko (Russia 1887 to ) used cubist techniques of planes and lines to gain rhythm in his sculptural composition.
Constructivism
Conscious use of geometric forms first appeared in 20th century art with Ce'zanne's "treat nature as the cylinder, the sphere, the cone". This provided the origins of Cubism which in turn impressed the Russians Vladimir Tatlin and Alexander Rodchenko who use the terms "Constructivism" and "Neo-Objectivism" in 1913. Their belief was that industrial techniques and materials should be used to interpret the world of science in artistic form.
In Moscow in 1920, Naum Gabo published what became "The Constructivist Manifesto" in which he affirmed that the future needed an entirely new art form - one that rejected volume and mass in sculpture in favour of space and movement. The constriction as conceived by Gabo is a classical art form in that it depends on rational and logical use of balance, proportion and movement and is free of personal associations. Others involved in Constructivist sculpture were Anton Peusner and Laslo Moholy Nagy who joined the Bauhaus in 1923. The constructivist sought to create in terms of space, enclosing it by the use of transparent planes of plastic and glass. This concept of enclosing space is the revolutionary development in 20th century sculpture.
Futurism
William Morris loathed the values of industrial 19th Century England and did his best to encourage good design in the hope of improving man by improving his environment. As a result, English design was famous throughout Europe and a generation of designer/craftsmen revived the arts and crafts. However, Morris rejected the machine.
In 1896 a representative of the Prussianian Board of Trade went to London to report on the success of British designers. He returned to Germany with new standards of design but was convinced of the potentiality of the machine production. In 1907 Peter Brehrens established the Deutcher Werkbund with the aim to unite artists, craftsmen, experts and management to improve production through the collaboration of the art and industry - first establishment of the design profession. It was this development which inspired the Italian Futurists.
Tired of the museums, antiques and historic remains abounding in Italy, the Futurists looked to movement, speed, and dynamism as the emerging field of design - motor cars, airplanes trains etc.
In 1910 Umberto Broccioni published the "Manifesto of Futurist Sculpture" in which the central theme was the extension of an object into the space around. This was an absolutely original concept for it placed the spectator at a central point of experience in simulated movement and time. This led to studies of light, movement, optics and sound. The manifesto also stated that the sculptor should "work with many materials at once - string, cloth, glass, iron, electric light etc." This is still being followed today - the cinema being the most universal.
Barlarch (German 1870 to 1938) lived in Germany but flatly rejected the new movements. He also ignored the classical tradition and used expressionist sculptural forms. His work was illustrative in that each figure, through posture and gesture, told a story. Barlarch said " my artistic language is the human figure, what arrests my attention are the suffering and endurance of human beings". Barlarch was one of the last important artists to produce easily recognizable images. Wood best suited his rustic personality and he used a chip carving method which gave a vitality through the broad planes and sharp edges.
Hans Arp (Germany 1886 to 1966) Arp lived in Paris and then Switzerland. He knew Gauguin, Matisse, Picasso and Kandinsky and exhibited with the German "Blan Reiter" group. In 1916 he became involved in the Dada movement and exhibited in the first surrealist exhibition of 1925. Arp referred to his sculptures as "concretions" - the natural growing of form as in the environment. His first works were relief's and cutout shapes, moving to sculpture in around the pre-war years.
Marino Marini (Italy 1901 to ) Marini knew the work of Rodin and Brancusi but there is scarcely a single point of comparison in their styles. Something very new came from his sculptural experiences which are characterized by an unconquerable existential energy and tragic element. A major theme is the horse and rider which relates back to the Roman forms and is a symbol from eh past - giving a sense of human tragedy in a world in which all the old values are crumbling.
Pablo Picasso (Spain 1881 to 1973) Picasso's first true Cubist sculpture was"Head of a Woman" (1909 -10) which was a direct development of methods already involved in painting with"Demoiselle's d' Avignon" (1907). By the outbreak of war in 1914, Picasso an Barque had abandoned Cubism and became involved with"assemblage" or construction using ready made materials - pasted paper, wood string, linoleum etc. "Glass of Absinthe", a bronze casting using a real spoon dates from this period. Picasso next turned to sculpture in the mid-twenties with a new type of construction, iron and wire started by fellow Spaniard Julio Gonzalez (1876 to 1942). Where the Constructivists were deliberately abstract, Picasso and Gonzalez always include a reference to natural forms ("Construction", 1930, "Head of a Woman", 1931) were used in an inventive, clever sometimes humorous way ("Head of a Bull", 1943, "Scooter and Feather", 1942, "Baboon and Young", 1951)
Henry Moore (1898 to ) By the twenties and thirties sculpture had gone in so many different directions that some found themselves in a sculptural dead-end. A reappraisal of the nature of sculpture became necessary and, in 1934, Henry Moore published a statement called "The Sculptors Aims" in which he sought to define important qualities. Among these was truth to material - "every material has its individual quality and should not be falsified to look like something else." He also emphasized the importance of observation of natural objects to discover principles of form and rhythm. Although abstract qualities of design are important to his work, there is always a strong human element, a statement of faith in humanity.
In his reclining figures are created some kind of mysterious and primitive god or goddess, the form and rhythm undulating like a great landscape. The reclining mother and child is reduced to a strange bony structure , the form of the child sheltered in one of the hollows. In later works, Moore carved great cave-like apertures with prehistoric and pre-natural associations, further evidence of the search by modern man for a new sense of harmony, serenity and unity with nature.
Barbara Hepworth (1903 to ) Hepworth's sculptural forms have a cool mathematical purity in which the qualities of the carved wood or stone are developed. A human element is always discernible as her intention is to use abstract forms to show the quality of human relationships. "Menhirs" (1955), "Curved form" (1955), "Three forms in Echelon" (1964).
Albert Giacometti (Switz 1901 to ) Giacometti abandoned work form nature to rely on memory and imagination. In the 1930's he produced works of a surrealist nature using wood, glass wire and string ("Palace at 4am" 1932). He then abandoned experimentation and returned to the human figure. In the 1940's Giacometti began to place the figure in empty space, standing straight and detached. The figures became longer and longer and smaller and smaller until they gave the feeling of being totally unreachable and in complete isolation and solitude. This pessimistic and lonely view continued in his groups of figures which became thin skeletal mirages of man standing in company but alone.
Alexander Calder (U.S.A 1898 to ) Calder met Miro and Arp in Paris. The Constructivist and Dadaist had already experimented with sculpture operated by hand and driven by motor, but Calder was unhappy with their repetitive movement. He hit on the idea of sculpture in which shapes were constantly changing their relationships. Unfortunately the "mobile" became a household word in America and now through commercialization has been reduced to the level of a gimmick.
Germain Richier (France 1904) Richier shaped her forms according to the dreams and fancies, never trying to make an idea or thing of beauty. She worked in a variety of materials used indiscriminately and unplanned to make vegetable and animal forms - insect,bat, spider - superimposed on humanlike figures in an expression of ugliness, revulsion and terror.
Post War Vitalism
In 1934 Henry Moore stated that sculpture should have an inner vitality and power of expression and as Brancusi had also stated, it should penetrate appearances to express the significance of life. But a strong note of personal anxiety had been sounded by Giametti and Richier, something never found in Brancusi and Moore. Among the majority of young sculptors in eh post-war period came to wish to create a symbol of the artists inner feelings and sensations with the impending danger of becoming so completely personal as to be of little significance to others.
Kenneth Armitage, Reg Butler and Lyn Chadwich of the U.K produced wrought and welded metal sculptures in which technical and experimation and spatial concepts were explored.
Edvardo Paolozzi (1924 to ) represents a swing to an anti-rational approach relating to Dada in his bizarre inventions and assemblages of mechanical and machine made units.
Anthony Caro (1924 to ) is one of a number of young sculptors who oppose the formalism applied by a chosen subject and seek to express themselves through the handling of materials and techniques. The subject emerges through an accident of production.
David Smith (U.S.A 1906 to ) Smith began as a painter, then attached materials to the canvas in raised levels and in the 1930's produced constructivist assemblages of wood and metal. One New York critic said he " could see no earthly reason for their existence". He saw the works of Picasso and Gonzalez and welded his first iron sculpture in 1935. After the war, Smith developed free from European influence, his work becoming open abstract line drawing sculptures (Royal Bird, 1948). These were followed by assemblages of agricultural machinery and junk, towers and structures of steel beams and plates. He now works exclusively in steel which can be cast, drawn, spun, forged, cut, welded, chiseled, ground, filed, polished, and plated. Steel is robust and upright in character, but is brutal and deadly by implication.
Minimal Sculpture
Minimal Art has been given attention lately as replacing Op and Pop as the latest style. The intention is to use forms that everyone can understand and makes only small intellectual demands - it may be truly democratic in this sense. The term "minimal" is a useless one for it gives no indication of characteristics, only type. The objects chosen for minimal sculpture have a low degree of artistic content independent on the artist himself and maybe used for non-artistic reasons like an accident of nature, or process of manufacture. There are no indications of skills or effort of creation - in many cases unknown factory workers made the objects - and so there is no individuality or uniqueness.
Between 1911 and 1913 Malevitch in Moscow and Duchamp in Paris exhausted analytical cubism and took the logical next step in the process of reduction. Malevitch placed a black square on a white background in 1913. In 1914 Duchamp exhibited a metal bottle rack as a work of art. Malevitch had renounced the idea that art need be technically skillful. Duchamp renounced the idea that an art object was different from a common object. Although minimal sculpture revitalizes formal qualities through an awareness of shape and space, it is cold, empty and anti-human.