The textures of this sculpture are really something else. There is a richness and a feel to it that is lacking in many other similar works. The overall feeling of pained resignation and a determination to carry personal dignity right to the very end is literally leaping out of the bronze.
Tag: sculpture
Sunday
Baroque is about being over the top, but only in the most elegant possible manner. There is no way on earth that you’re going to be playing patty fingers in the holy water with this font, and that’s the point: elegance to the point of misery. Beauty and majesty to the point that you behave yourself or so help you…
Friday
This piece is painfully evocative; it hits you like a swift kick to the gut. You know immediately what it is meant to portray and why. You know why you are meant to feel the way you do when you look at it. There is no wiggle room for interpretation. And yet, in the harshness, there is a delicate beauty of form and composition, of balance… and in the darkness, a tiny glimmer of hope.
Tuesday
When you think of the sheer number of things that were destroyed in the French Revolution, then the Napoleonic Wars, then the World Wars, the fact that this not only survived, but made it out of France intact is a miracle. That it is preserved and in a public collection to be admired and appreciated for its beauty and its historical significance is also a miracle.
Wednesday
It seems odd to think that, even to the Romans, the Greeks and Egyptians were ancient and revered civilizations, worthy of being emulated in artistic stylizations. History is nothing more than a never-ending domino effect of tumbling empires, held together by the glue of art.
In this case, we have a beautifully wrought statue of a Greek goddess in marble, the flowing lines begging for the invitation of touch and reverence, of worship and devotion, of invocation and blessing, the divine and sacred brought to life on earth for those who were lucky enough to see it. The level of craftsmanship it took to produce sculptures of this type was unparalleled; the Roman Empire in the 2nd century AD laid claim to a host of the best craftsmen in the world. I can only begin to imagine what kind of a life those men would have lived.
Thursday
This is one of those pieces that I find challenging in that I have such a love-hate relationship with it as to be almost laughable. Intellectually, it trots out the ‘noble savage’ trope and throws it in your face in such a way that it smacks of historical revision, whilst at the same time being such an object of beauty and style that it makes your heart ache with longing to reach out and touch the texture of the sculpture and purr when you feel the tiny imperfections in the lines.
I love to hate it and hate to love it.
This is why art exists: to challenge us, to challenge the world around us. To make us hurt and feel things that we don’t want to feel.
Friday
This particular statue has always felt to me like someone long suffering, world-weary, on the verge of giving up everything, stopping to take stock, to take one last breath, to hold onto one last shred of hope before she gives in. It’s a reminder that none of us are infallible.
Wednesday
Sooooo, I have feelings about this piece. Intense feelings, both positive and negative. And that’s part of the point of this blog, right? To talk about art in a way that scholars don’t necessarily talk about art because they think their credibility is on the line and whatever else, and so on and so forth and I digress.
Venus Victorious does not have any of the typical feel of Renoir’s works that I have seen – even his other sculptures. The modus operandi is not similar. The compositions are completely different, alien. It may have been directed and micromanaged within an inch of its life by Renoir, but I cannot reconcile it being a Renoir in my head. It’s like if Beethoven’s 5th was rewritten as death metal, recorded backwards, and deconstructed, then released under Beethoven’s attribution: it just doesn’t work.
The sculpture itself is insanely beautiful. You can walk around all sides of it and take in all of the details, marvel at the casting and the intricacies of the craftsmanship…
But dear lord, please stop calling it a Renoir when clearly its primary attribution should be to Richard Guino.
Sunday
Today’s work was by request of my niece, Charlotte, who is a wee dancer herself, and who recently had her spring recital.
Impressionist sculpture isn’t something that you really think of as a homogenous concept – it’s either realistic or abstractionistic, but as you look at what almost looks like brush strokes within the thumbworking in the original clay-casting, you get a feel for the impressionism that Degas tried to instill in his sculptures. There’s another bronze of his at SLAM that’s similar that I’ll cover at a later date that has similar working.
What I like most about this casting is that they aren’t afraid to go with the mixed media, adding in muslin and ribbon to add to the illusion of our little dancer being just as alive and bravely stepping out onto the stage as she would have been in her lifetime.
Truly, this is one of the prized pieces in SLAM’s Impressionist galleries, and with good reason.