SCULPTURE

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SCULPTURE

• Introduction to Humanities

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SCULPTURE AND TOUCH

• Sculpture along with painting and architecture is
  classified as one of the visual arts.
• This classification suggest that the eye is the
  chief sense organ involved in our participation
  with sculpture.
• Yet...some kinds of sculpture invite us to
  explore and caress them with our hands, even to
  pick them up if not too large or heavy.
• Tactile sense pulls us to touch a sculpture.

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SCULPTURE AND DENSITY

• Sculpture engages our senses differently than
  painting does.
• This is because sculpture occupies space as a
  three-dimensional mass, whereas painting is
  essentially a two-dimensional surface that can
  only represent three - dimensionality.
• Painting can suggest density but sculpture is
  dense.

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SENSORY INTERCONNECTIONS

• Generally no clear separation is made in
  experience between the faculties of sight and
  touch.
• The sensa of touch, are normally joined with
  other sensa visual, aural, oral, and olfactory.
• Even if only one kind of sensum initiates a
  perception, a chain reaction triggers off other
  sensations, either by sensory and motor
  connections or by memory associations.

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SCULPTURE AND PAINTING COMPARED

• Rothkos Earth Green (figure 4-1) and Arps
  Growth (figure 5-1) both works are abstract, for
  neither has as its primary subject matter
  specific objects or events.
• Arps sculpture has something to do with growth
  as confirmed by the title. But is it human,
  animal or vegetable growth?
• Rothko has abstracted sensa, especially colors,
  from objects or things..

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Contd

• Abstract painters generally emphasize the
  surfaces of sensa, as in Earth Greens.
• The interest is in the vast ranges of color
  qualities and the play of light to bring ut the
  textural nuances.
• Where as abstract painters are shepherds of
  surface sensa, abstract sculptors are shepherds
  of depth sensa.

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SUNKEN-RELIEF SCULPTUREfig. 5-2

• We usually think of sculpture as dense and
  projecting out into space.
• Yet in the Egyptian work there is no projection
  whatsoever.
• Carving grooves of various depths into the
  surface plane of the stone to outline each
  object, is called sunken relief.

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SURFACE-RELIEF SCULPTUREfig. 5-3

• There are clearly noticeable projections out into
  space
• There are no background starting points that
  function as the bases for the planar
  organizations.
• The surface planes of the panels function as the
  basic organizing planes hence the expression
  surface relief.

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LOW-RELIEF SCULPTURE

• Relief sculpture projects from a background
  plane such as a wall or column.
• Low-relief sculpture projects relatively slightly
  from its background plane,
• and so its depth dimension is very limited.
• Medium and high relief sculpture project further
  from their backgrounds,

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Low relief contd

• And so their depth dimensions are expanded.
• Relief sculpture allows its materials to stand
  out from a background plane.
• Thus relief sculpture in at least one way reveals
  its materials simply by showing us directly-their
  surface and something of their depth.

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HIGH RELIEF SCULPTUREfig 5-7

• High relief stands out from the wall.

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SCULPTURE IN THE ROUNDfig 5-8

• Michelangelos Pieta
• Intended it to be placed in a niche so it would
  be seen from the front.
• It is a transition piece between high-relief
  sculpture, such as the Dancing Asparas
• and unqualified sculpture in the round, such as
  growth.

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SCULPTURE AND ARCHITECTURE COMPARED

• Architecture is the art of separating inner from
  outer space in such a way that the inner space
  can be used for practical purposes.
• With Sculpture there is no inner space.
• Fig 5-9 is clearly sculpture because there is no
  inner space.

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SENSORY SPACE

• The space around a sculpture is sensory rather
  than empty.
• Despite its invisibility, sensory space - like
  the wind - is felt.
• Sculptures such as Growth are like magnets from
  which radiating vectors flow.
• As we focus on such sculptures we find ourselves
  being drawn in and around by these invisible but
  perceptible radiating forces.

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SCULPTURE AND THE HUMAN BODY

• Sculptures generally are more or less a center
  the place of most importance which organizes the
  places around it of actual three-dimensional
  space more in the case of sculpture in the
  round, less in the case of low relief.

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SCULPTURE IN THE ROUND AND THE HUMAN BODY

• No object is more important to us than our body,
  and it is always with us.
• Sculpture in the round often evokes our inward
  sensations
• When we participate with sculpture such as
  Aphrodite, we find some thing of our bodily
  selves confronting us.
• Art is always a transformation of reality, never
  a duplication.

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Contd

• Thus the absence of head and arms in the
  Aphrodite does not shock us as it would if we
  were confronting a real woman.
• Nor does their absence ruin our perception of the
  beauty of this statue.
• Even before the damage, the work was only a
  partial image of a female.
• The Aphrodite is substantial because the female
  shape, texture, grace, sensuality, sexuality, and
  beauty are interpreted by form.

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TECHNIQUES OF SCULPTURE

• Sculpture in relief and in the round generally is
  made either by modeling or carving.
• Space sculpture, such as Calders Gates of
  Spoleto fig 5-16 generally is made by assembling
  preformed pieces of material.
• The modeler starts with some plastic or malleable
  material such as clay, wax, or plaster and
  builds the sculpture.

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Contd

• If the design is complex or involves long or thin
  extensions, the modeler probably will have to use
  and internal wooden or metal support (armature)
  that functions something like a skeleton.
• The sculptor in bronze begins with clay or some
  similar material and builds up a model to a more
  or less high degree of finish.

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TACTILITY, MASS, AND SPACE

• Space sculpture never completely loses its ties
  to the materiality of its materials.
• The materials of Antennae with Red and Blue Dots
  and The Gates of Spoleto (fig 5-15 5-16)
  despite their thinness, appear heavy.
• The Spiral Theme fig 5-17 planes of plastic
  divide space with multidirectional movement, no
  visual barriers develop.

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CONTEMPORARY SCULPTURE

• Developments in sculpture are emerging and
  changing so quickly that no attempt can be made
  here even to begin to classify them.
• These developments fall into the species of low,
  medium, and high relief, sculpture in the round,
  space sculpture, earth sculpture, and some
  hybrids of these.

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TRUTH TO MATERIALS

• There is fairly pervasive respect for the
  material used in sculpture.
• In contemporary sculpture respect for materials
  has come back and is called truth to materials.
• The Maternity Group fig 5-21 is notable in its
  respect for materials.

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PROTEST AGAINST TECHNOLOGY

• Explicit social protest is part of the subject
  matter of all these works by Trova, Segal, and
  Giacometti, Wheel Man fig 5-22 protest directed
  at technology.
• The Bus Driver fig 5-23 is environmental
  sculpture.
• There is no center in this city square fig 5-24
  or any exit, nor can we imagine any communication
  among these citizens.

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ACCOMMODATION WITH TECHNOLOGY

• Sculpture today far more than painting can take
  advantage of some of the most sophisticated
  advances of technology.
• Many sculptors today interpret the positive
  rather than the negative aspects of technology.
• This respect for technology is expressed by 1)
  truth to its materials or 2) care for its
  products or 3) showing forth it methodology.

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MACHINE SCULPTURE

• Some avant-garde sculptors are interested not so
  much in the materials and products of technology
  but rather in the machine and its powers their
  works are known as machine sculpture
• Tinguely is dedicated to humanizing the machine
  (Homage to New York) fig 5-30.

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EARTH SCULPTURE

• Another avant-garde sculpture earth sculpture
  goes so far as to make the earth itself the
  medium, site, and the subject matter. Fig 5-33
• The proper spatial selection becomes absolutely
  essential, for the earth usually must be taken
  where it is found.
• Traced in plains, meadows, sand, snow, ect.,
  called form site

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SCULPTURE IN THE OPEN FIELD COMPLEX

• Sculpture in open spaces is by no means a new
  idea, but the modern practice of placing
  monumental steel constructions in open natural
  settings is owning to David Smiths (Cubi X) fig
  5-25
• City on the High Mountain fig 5-34 permits the
  viewer to walk completely around the work,
  observing the play of light and shadow.

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SCULPTURE IN PUBLIC PLACES

• Sculpture has traditionally shared its location
  with major buildings, sometimes acting as
  decoration on the building, as in many churches,
  or acting as a center point of interest.
• Many public sculptures commemorate war or other
  important events.
• One of the most successful (fig. 5-38) public
  sculptures by Maya Ying Lin (Vietnam Veteran
  Memorial) in Washington, D.C..