Chapter
9—Sculpture
Introduction: Various
approaches to making three-dimensional art, or sculpture, and types of materials used,
are the topics of chapter 9. The end of the chapter draws your attention to
more recent, less conventional sculptural interpretations. As you read Chapter
9, you will find quotations from Henry Moore, Michelangelo, George Segal, Pablo
Picasso, and Louise Nevelson, and J.Carter Brown; mention of a famous story, Pygmalion, about a sculptor whose
creation comes to life; A Closer Look – Storm King Art Center,
focuses your attention on sculptural “installations” in the landscape.
Chapter 9 – Why Read It? Unlike most paintings,
drawings, prints, and photographs, sculpture can be found in a variety of
locations: outdoors, in fountains, or even carved out of ice at a winter festival in the mountains. In some cases, a
sculpture may be one of the first features one sees when entering a building or
a stadium—for example, the Wild Broncos that welcome patrons of football
into Denver’s Invesco Field, or the ancient obelisk from Egypt and the two
fountains one encounters in the center of the piazza in front of the Basilica Church of St. Peter in Rome.
Your ability to enjoy or
appreciate a sculptural work of art will most likely be enhanced by knowledge of the
processes and materials sculptors use.
Sculpture is often a consideration for those
serving on a committee, board, or town council, which might consider whether a
sculpture should be commissioned or purchased
to be placed in a specific public site for the commemoration of an event. Your knowledge
of aesthetic principles, processes, and materials may help you in deciding
important expenditures for your community or your business.
Intentionality and the
adept combination of form and function all come together in the creation of a sculpture.
There is the choice of material: Is it
suited to its subject matter and its future permanent location? Will it
withstand the elements it will be exposed to over time? Will it be a liability
if people try to climb or play on it?
Beyond these pragmatic considerations, there are
the questions of what the artist’s intent was in the creation of the object. Is
its scale right for the subject or the space? Are the proportions, balance, and
unity of the sculpture successfully pulled into a visually meaningful work?
Perhaps at some point you
may be able to visit a bronze foundry, a woodcarver’s studio, a welder’s shop,
or an installation of interactive sculptural works, where you become part of the creation
yourself, such as Lucas Samaras’ Mirror Corridor, where you can see your
image reflected over and over into infinity wherever you look—up, down,
sideways, behind you, or in front of you—as you walk through. Can a readymade
object or a found object (what is mostly called junk) be proclaimed as a work
of art? The Dada artists seemed to enjoy teasing aesthetes with appropriated
objects such as bottle racks and porcelain urinals!
Why read this chapter? You will feel more
three-dimensional in your understanding of what,
where, and how sculpture is created, and most of it doesn’t have to be put up
on a pedestal!
Understanding Concepts: Knowledge of a
sculptural medium and its qualities and limitations
is important in both producing (as a creator) and understanding (as an active viewer)
a sculptural work of art. As you look through the sections of the chapter, take
note of what materials are used for
specific processes. For example, a quarried block of stone is pretty
much limited to the method of carving, a subtractive process.
1. Observe the differing qualities and
properties of the materials used:
• Find
and note one work that uses one of the subtractive sculptural processes.
Title:
Materials and properties:
• List
one work that uses additive sculptural processes.
Title:
Materials and properties:
• Examine
a work that uses sculptural processes that take advantage of readymade
forms. What might have influenced the artist's choice of materials?
Title:
Materials and properties:
• Find a
work using sculptural processes that are dynamic, or with parts that move.
Title:
Materials and properties:
• List a
work that extends sculptural processes into the environment.
Title:
Materials and properties:
2. Compare and Apply Key Terms: Look through
other chapters of the book, and examine two
sculptural works more closely. These can be works you have already studied
in class or ones you will be studying later.
•
Take particular note of materials. Is it made from
stone, wood, plaster, clay, or metal?
•
Compare some of the processes involved to get a good
idea of what it took to produce
this particular work. (Is it carved, cast, constructed, or molded?)
•
Apply some of the key terms in order to describe these
processes. Place them into some of the categories provided for you in Chapter
9. For example, is the sculpture
high relief, bas-relief, or freestanding? Does it have some kind of surface
treatment or patina?
•
Is the material from which it is made revealed or
concealed? Choose one of the following examples to get started, then complete two more:
Example A: Laurie Simmons'
Red Library #2 (image 1-21) or Alexander Calder's The Brass Family (image 2-8) compared to George
Segal’s Three Figures and Four Benches (image 9-6).
Description:
Materials used:
Processes of creation:
Comparison:
Key terms linked to these works:
Example B: Marisol’s Women
and Dog (image 21-25) compared to Picasso's Mandolin and Clarinet (image 9-11).
Description:
Materials used:
Processes of creation:
Comparison:
Key terms linked to these works:
Your
Choice C: Title/Artist: compared to
Title/Artist:
Description:
Materials used:
Processes of creation:
Comparison:
Key terms linked to these works:
Your
Choice D: Title/Artist: compared to Title/Artist:
Description:
Materials used:
Processes of creation:
Comparison:
Key terms linked to these works:
By now you should be able
to put together a sense of material and process. How did the artist use the
material to express his or her artistic idea? Do you feel the combination of material and process was
successful in expression of the final work?
3. Select one work from this chapter, and
imagine what it would look like if it were rendered
in another medium. For example, if Michelangelo's Cross-Legged Captive were
to have been carved in wood or cast in bronze? What if it were rendered
in vinyl and kapok like Claes Oldenburg's Soft Toilet (image 9-12)? Description:
Making Connections:
The following exercises based upon people quoted from
Chapter 9 and on the Compare and Contrast and A Closer Look sections
and are designed to help
you understand the people who make sculpture and their ideas and processes.
1. Find out more about Simon Rodia and
Louise Nevelson, both considered major sculptors
of the 20th century. Books have been written about them and both are included in
major art websites for American and English sculptors (Nevelson was
Russian-American and Rodia was Italian/American). Notes:
• Louise
Nevelson:
• Simon Rodia:
A Closer Look – Storm King Art Center: Have you ever
visited a sculpture garden? Storm King
Art Center is such a place, combining not only restored landscape that
once again looks like it did in the 18th Century, along with
sculptures by noteworthy artists that can endure being outside. Visitors can
wander through this landscape and experience it and the sculptures as they
become part of the land and the weather. Not only is this site a tribute to
nature and to art, it will be a valuable archive for the future. Perhaps you
will visit someday, with your children or grandchildren. Visit its online site
and see if you can pick out works by sculptors featured in the text.
Taking Notes: Chapter
9 introduces the making of three-dimensional works of art. It has 25 images and over 30
key vocabulary words. Considering the vast combinations of material and
technique possible in creating sculpture, it will be worth your time to prepare for taking good notes while this chapter
is discussed in class. Notice that the chapter divides itself into
categories, including types of materials, types of sculpture, and recent
sculpture.
1. Using your own paper or SlideGuide pages as you did for the chapters on two-dimensional
art, design your note-taking
template, so you can encompass the variety of works, materials, and types of
sculpture you encounter.
• List all the images in this chapter by title and image number,
leaving enough space for notes on other works, since your instructor will
probably include other examples besides
those in Chapter 9. They may come from other chapters of the text (for
example, the section of Chapter 21 that discusses contemporary figurative and
non-figurative sculpture) or from outside sources.
2.
Most
of the vocabulary terms refer to sculptural processes. By taking time to review
each term, you will develop an effective vocabulary for understanding and discussing three-dimensional sculptural processes
used in direct relationship to specific materials. For example, what
kinds of materials can be forged or stamped? What materials are commonly
extruded or carved? What is the difference between bas-relief and high-relief
sculpture? How is a patina achieved in a wood or marble sculpture? In a metal
sculpture?
3.
As with two-dimensional works and art historical topics,
quick sketching as a note-taking aid will come in handy in case you need to
recognize works or understand forming techniques such as lost-wax casting, carving, or use
of a ready-made. For example, Michelangelo’s The Cross-Legged Captive:
[insert UNF-p.68-1
here]
Preparing for Tests: In order to prepare for
test questions about Chapter 9, you will need to have a strong grasp of the
underlying principles of how sculpture is made and what materials are used for various forms. Imagine if you are asked to
describe and discuss in an essay question the process for carving stone
or lost-wax casting. Be sure to refer to Chapter 13 (“The Art of the Ancients”)
to understand how ancient Mesolithic, Assyrian, and Egyptian works were
sculpted to create suitably impressive monuments and figures long before the
invention of power tools. Study Chapters 14 through 17 to see how carving or casting
techniques were refined over time by the Greeks
and their artistic heirs. See Chapter 18 for examples of sculpture in bronze,
wood, stone, and ceramic from other major world cultures. There are many
examples of sculpture throughout your text to do more in-depth research in
order to write a good essay. Following is a sample essay question to try out:
• Using
one well-described visual example from the text, examine how sculpture has
served a unique public role in art. [Extended Essay Assignment: 2 pages minimum,
double-spaced, 12-point font. Cite research sources in current bibliographic
form.]
Imagine some of the possible ways your
instructor might create multiple-choice questions about the artist of a
particular work of art, or what method of sculpting that artist used. Even the
title of an artwork or the material(s) from which it is comprised will be sufficient to create a question testing your
knowledge from reading the text and taking notes in class. Refer to the Understanding
Art website (www.cengage.com/art/fichner-rathus9e),
the Student Test Packet, the ArtExperience Online, for Understanding Art for
many good test question examples on sculpture.
Enhancing Your
Observational Powers: Think like an artist thinks in order
to see the world
as an artist sees:
1. Look around, selecting any object on your desk or table
at home, then imagine what it would be like to turn that object into a
sculpture 45-feet high or long, as Claes Oldenburg did. See Chapter 3
(image 3-33) for an example of his large work based on an ordinary object.
•
What
materials would you make your object from?
•
What
kind of tools would you need?
•
Would
you need to collaborate with others?
•
Would
you want it to look like an exact replica or would you change something?
•
How
and where would you place it in the environment?
•
What
would you expect people’s responses to be?
2. Visit a local site where sculpture is displayed: a
sculpture garden or park in your city, a memorial or architectural entrance that has a
sculpture in it, or a museum or gallery featuring sculpture. Select a sculpture
you feel you would like to spend more time looking at—maybe five to ten
minutes. Observe it, and take notes here:
•
From
what material is the sculpture made?
•
Is
the artist a local person or someone known nationally?
•
What
is its scale to you? Is it larger than life-size, life-size, smaller?
•
Is
it figurative or abstract in its design?
• List
three features about this work of art, referring to your list of visual
elements and principles of design from Chapters 1 through 4 that you
feel are the defining elements of this piece.
A.
B.
C.
•
Take
note of how it is displayed—can you walk all the way around it?
•
Is
it on a prominent pedestal made from different material from the sculpture?
•
Can the sculpture be lit with artificial lights at
night, or does it rely upon daylight?
Observe the sculpture from
the standpoint of its subject matter, overall appearance and other qualities that
attracted you to this sculpture. Try your sketching skills again making a more detailed rendering of this sculpture,
diagramming and listing terms describing its overall shape, directional forces,
compositional components, and surface qualities.
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For More
Understanding: Your text contains many examples of sculpture throughout
other
chapters, especially Chapters 13 through 21, and Chapters 1, 2, 3, and 4.
Examining and studying these readily available examples will enhance your
understanding of how sculpture has been created to fulfill various purposes by
artists through changing time periods and styles.
ArtExperience Online for Understanding Art:
Check out the video demonstration on
sculpture and plaster casting under In The Studio and answer any
follow-up questions.
Learn more about the
information and artwork presented in the A Closer Look section.
Many of the works from
Chapter 9 as well as images of sculpture from other chapters can be found in the
flashcard database to create a study set.
Notes and Links to Remember: