SachsSculptureStudio

shsachs@smcm.edu

Project 5- Self Designed
ARTIST RESEARCH

Brancusi spent his life searching for pure essence and perfection in forms. He preferred solitude and simplicity and once said “Simplicity is not a goal, but one arrives at simplicity in spite of oneself, as one approaches the real meaning of things” (Jianou, 41).

His sculptures hold their meaning in their shapes. He wanted his objects to hold permanent universal meaning, not just to suggest topical, exterior meanings. He rejected accurate representation in his search for ideal form. He avoided resemblance because he knew that reality could not possibly reside in the appearance of things.
“They are fools, who call my work abstract. What they think to be abstract is the most realistic, because what is real is not the outer form, but the idea, the essence of things.” (Geist, 146)

Like many other ‘abstract’ artists of his time, such as Mondrian, Kandinsky, and Malevich, Brancusi had to defend his work from being accused of nothing more than decorative. He defended his work and used philosophy to justify its ‘abstraction’. He was very influenced by eastern philosophy and religion, and said that his art was directed towards the attainment of Nirvana: the state of spiritual enlightenment beyond the self, (beyond earthly form).

He was also motivated by the ancient Greek philosophy of Plato, who said “all worldly objects and beings are imperfect imitations of their perfect models, or ideas, which exist only in the mind of God” (Stokstad, 1072).
Brancusi was able to express his ideas of vitality and harmony through reduction and simplicity, without having to sacrifice any of the form’s complexity. He also really respected and understood the nature of his materials and used them to his benefit. He was concerned with the balance of volumes, proportions, strength and structure. His intimate knowledge of structure and material enabled him to achieve perfect harmony between form and content.

His sculptures were not just about shape and structure though, they were also intended to simply make viewers happy.
“A well made sculpture should have the power to heal the beholder. It must be lovely to touch, friendly to live with, not only well made.” (Jianou, 17)
This is where I, personally, draw the most inspiration from Brancusi. I am very inspired by his search for pure essence and ideal form, but I wouldn’t say that I apply these ideas to my own art. He was so offended when people referred to his art as “abstract”, but I on the other hand, have no problem with that label.
ab·stract (b-strkt, bstrkt)
adj.
1. Considered apart from concrete existence.

My art is definitely abstract. I am still working out where the abstractions are all coming from, (the subconscious, nature, etc.) but I do know that no matter where the source of my shapes comes from, I want my sculptures to be pleasing to viewers and to myself.
Brancusi entitled one of his marble pieces “Sculpture for the Blind” to stress the fact that it could be loved without being seen, solely through the contact of its polished surfaces which maintain a life of their own (Jianou, 17). I also want to create pieces that draw viewers towards it/ that people want to feel/handle, be around.

“Balanced forms and proportions are the great ‘Yes’; through them we can get to know ourselves.” The invention of new forms had an inner significance and enabled the artist to discover his own universe and his place within it (Jinaou, 48). This great ‘yes’ that Brancusi speaks of must be that unexplainable feeling that one might get when experiencing his pieces. Last summer I got to experience the great ‘Yes’ at the Guggenheim while sharing a space with his pieces. It wasn’t anything deeply profound; just this instinctive “Yes, that form makes perfect sense. That form is just exactly how it should be!” Every once in a while, when I’m lucky, I will come across one of these moments with my own art. After working on a piece for a while I either come to the ‘yes’ or I don’t, and if I don’t then I shouldn’t stop working on it until I do.
To Brancusi the ‘yes’ stemmed from forms and proportions and he used it to try and find the inner essence of things. I want to continue to sculpt to get to understand this great ‘yes’ and what it means to me, and figure out how I can apply it to my life and my own work.

Bibliography
Geist, Sidney. Brancusi A study of the Sculpture. Hacker Art Books. New York. 1983.
Jianou, Ionel. Brancusi. Tudor Publishing Company. New York. 1963.
Read, Herbert. The Art of Sculpture. The A.W. Mellon Lectures in the Fine Arts. Princeton University Press. 1954.
Stokstad, Marilyn. Art History Second Edition. Prentice Hall Inc. New York. 2002.

What I respect most about Arp is how he viewed and experienced the world and channeled his excitement and his very unique and wonderful ideas through his art and writings.
“To open my eyes, to see, to look, to contemplate the world, to watch clouds and trees, to behold cities and buildings, to look works of art in the eye, to look men in the eye, to see, to look – ever since my childhood this has been my greatest joy.” (Soby, 12)

To really understand where Arp was coming from I had to spend some time reading about the dada movement. I read from many different sources but the most relevant interpretations that I found were written by Arp himself.
“Dada was against the mechanization of the world… a protest against the rationalization of man. My gouaches, reliefs, plastics were an attempt to teach man what he had forgotten – to dream with his eyes open.” (Soby, 13)
“Dada is a moral revolution. Dada is for nonsense. Which does not mean bunk. Dada is as senseless as nature and life. Dada is for nature and against art. Dada is direct like nature and like nature wants to give its essential place to each thing.” (Motherwell, 223)

I am including so many of his quotes because, well I love them, but also because I feel that his ideas and writings are just as important as his actual art, (if not more important). His writings are inspiring my art even more than his pieces, and that is why I am spending so much time focusing on them for my final.
How he talks about nature reminds me a lot of Brancusi. He has such a profound respect for nature and does not believe that he or his art is about nature or could ever begin to replace nature. While he believes that art is a part of nature, (as people are a part of nature) he feels that we need to think more about our relationship with it and how our art fits into/can influence the big picture.
“Works of art should remain anonymous in nature’s great studio – like the clouds, the ocean, the animals, man. Yes, man must re-enter nature.” (Giedion, 110)
“I love nature but not its substitute.” “Dada wanted to destroy the rationalist swindle for man and incorporate him again humbly in nature.” (Motherwell, 222)

Like Brancusi, Arp found inspiration in nature but never tried to necessarily recreate it or replicate it. He used patterns from nature and found motivation from them. Unlike many artists, Arp and Brancusi did not feel that they were above nature. They respected it and, in my opinion, never tried to play God. I think that a profound respect for, and fascination with, nature comes through in their work and especially from reading Arp’s poetry it becomes all the more clear how humbled he was by it.

Arp started with reliefs and made his way from there to sculpture. His earlier works are arranged by “the laws of chance”. Objects take on human forms, human forms become objects. Later he turned his attention to the great processes of nature. Growth and change… His sculptures are condensations of nature and its processes. (Giedion. 110)
He would sometimes experiment with collages by letting pieces of paper fall to the ground and then pasting them together in the order they had chosen themselves. (Solby, 18)

My process seems similar to Arp’s in that I also am intrigued by chance and spontaneity, but I am interested in the ‘spontaneity’ of the mind more than ‘spontaneity’ of nature or chance. I want my art, like Arp’s, to reflect my respect for and fascination with nature, but I don’t want to focus on the laws of chance or the great whys and hows of it. I am much more interested in how our minds remember/ process how we experience nature. I cannot, and would never want to, try and understand the great “laws of chance” and mysteries of the universe. I’ll leave those things to whoever’s up there and spend my time down here admiring and studying the structures and patterns of the formations surrounding us.
“Art is a fruit which is born of man, just as a fruit grows on a tree, or an embryo in the mother’s womb. But whereas all fruits have forms intrinsically their own, the human fruit we call art nearly always embodies a ridiculous resemblance to something else…” (Giedion, 117)
“Concretion signifies the natural process of condensation, hardening, coagulating, thickening, growing together… Concretion designates solidification, the mass of stone, the plant, the animal, the man. Concretion is something that has grown.” (Solby 15)

“We must go back to the essentials. The artist of today must let his work create itself directly. We are no longer concerned with subtleties. My reliefs and sculptures merge of themselves into nature. But if observed more closely, they reveal the work of a human hand. “ (Giedion, 111)
I really like this quote because he acknowledges that he plays a part in the art. It isn’t all up to chance, his hand creates the physical pieces. The art could not exist without his hand’s intervention. The concretions and constellations and experiments of chance would be nothing without his physical intervention.

Arp. Edited by James Thrall Soby. Doubleday and Company, Inc. New York. 1958.
Arp, Jean. Arp on Arp: Poems, Essays, Memories. The Viking Press. New York. 1969.
Giedion-Welcker, Carola. Contemporary Sculpture – An evolution in Volume and Space. Ceorge Wittenborn, Inc. New York. 1960.
The Dada Painters and Poets: An Anthology. Edited by Robert Motherwell. Wittenborn, Schultz, Inc. 1951.