Sculpture Magazine Art

Mosè Sculpture
by Michelangelo

Buonarroti

Sculptures
by Alexander

Calder

Barbara hepworth
Two Forms (Divided

Circle)

Vol 10, Issue 4,
summer 2022

Famous Sculptures
World wide

1Vol 10, Issue 4, summer 2022

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Content

Content 4

Editorial Letter 5

Mosè Sculpture by Michelangelo Buonarroti 6-7

Sculptures by Alexander Calder 8-9

Barbara hepworth Two Forms (Divided Circle) 10-11

Advertisement 12

The Tomb of Pope Julius II 13

Understanding Alexander Calder through 14-
15
6 Pivotal Artworks

Divided Circle 16-
17

Barbara Hepworth background 18-
19

4 Vol 10, Issue 4, summer 2022

Editor Letter

Things to know: Alberto
Giacometti

HE IS AN ERA HE CAME FROM A

DEFINING SCULPTOR CREATIVE FAMILY

wiss artist Alberto Giacometti was awarded Born in 1901, Giacometti expressed an
the grand prize for sculpture at the 1962 Ven- enthusiasm for art from an early age, cre-
ice Biennale, bringing him worldwide fame. In ating his first oil painting aged just twelve.
2010, Giacometti’s life-sized bronze sculpture of His father, Giovanni Giacometti was a
a man, L’Homme qui marche I became one of successful post-Impressionist painter, his
the most expensive sculptures to ever be sold at godfather Cuno Amiet was a Fauvist, while
auction. The same work currently appears on his brother Bruno went on to become an
the 100 Swiss Franc banknote. A tribute to the architect. His brother Diego was a designer
radical artist. and artist and Giacometti’s most important
model as well as his assistant.

HE WORKED WITH THE Giovanni shared his passion for art and
wood etchings with his son. Throughout
SURREALISTS his artistic career, Alberto experiment-
ed with a variety of printing techniques,
In 1931, Giacometti began to participate in some including etching, engraving, aquatint and
of André Breton’s surrealist group’s activities in lithography.
Paris. Although he was later expelled from the
movement due to his ’realistic’ works of mod-
els, Giacometti’s interest in surrealist forms and
themes such as sexuality and trauma continued.
Sculptures from the early 1930s which resemble
toys or games invite the viewer to interact with
the sculptures – a radical idea for the time.

5Vol 10, Issue 4, summer 2022

Mosè Sculpture by
Michelangelo Buonarroti

Michelangelo Buonarroti was Michelangelo felt “Moses” to
born in 1475 in Tuscany. He be his most life-like work, to
completed his artistic edu- the extent that, upon comple-
cation in Florence and creat- tion of the statue, Michelange-
ed wonderful art in Rome. lo is supposed to have struck
Although the extraordinary its knee exclaiming “Now,
Sistine Chapel ceiling speaks speak!”
worlds about Michelangelo
the heavenly painter, he was
primarily a sculptor. In this
splendid statue of Moses, we
can appreciate Michelangelo’s
phenomenal sculpting skills.
Moses wears a robe with deep
folds, and the fabric clings
to his legs as if it were linen
rather than marble. On his
arms and hands the tendons
and veins are visibly tense, the
strength of his muscular body
is evident, and the weight of
the stone tablets is hinted at.

6 Vol 10, Issue 4, summer 2022

The Pope The subject:
Moses

Michelangelo created his most Moses led the enslaved Jew-
famous artworks for Pope ish people out of Egypt in a
Julius II, who was known as spectacular fashion, and no
the “Warrior Pope” due to his less formidable was his later
active military policy; he even feat of giving his people the
lead troops into battle. This Ten Commandments, direct
“fearsome” Pope, however, from the hand of God. Moses
also appreciated fine arts and, took delivery of the command-
in 1505, gave Michelangelo ments on top of Mount Sinai,
the task of sculpting his tomb, but the joy of the moment was
in which Moses is the central transformewd into wrathful
figure. In the same year, he anger when he descended the
also commissioned Michelan- mount and saw that his people
gelo to paint the Sistine Chapel were worshipping false idols.
ceiling. Although Michelange- Michelangelo captures all this
lo had already spent months terrible anger in marble: Mo-
in Carrara selecting the marble ses’s face, although partly cov-
for the tomb, the latter proj- ered by his beard, shows the
ect took precedence, pushing strong emotion of the moment.
back the work on the tomb, The commandments had been
and giving rise to many rows sculpted onto stone tablets;
and disagreements between no doubt Michelangelo felt a
Pope and artist. The legendary certain affinity of craftsman-
Julius/Michelangelo arguments ship, and approved the chosen
accompanied much of the medium for delivering God’s
Sistine Chapel project. laws to his people.

7Vol 10, Issue 4, summer 2022

Sculptures
by Alexander
Calder

Calder’s Circus the circus consists of an elaborate performances could last as long
troupe of over seventy miniature as two hours. Calder’s Circus
After moving to Paris in 1926, Al- figures and animals, nearly 100 brought him renown in Paris as
exander Calder began to fabricate accessories such as nets, flags, he staged it for artist colleagues
dozens of tiny figures and props carpets, and lamps, and over and friends, including Piet Mon-
for what would become his most thirty musical instruments, pho- drian, Joan Miró, and Marcel
beloved work—titled in French nographic records, and noisemak- Duchamp. These performances
Cirque Calder, and in English ers. In Paris, Calder’s audience also introduced the kineticism
Calder’s Circus. Making use of would sit on a low bed or crates, that would become the defining
simple, available materials such munching peanuts and using the characteristic of Calder’s art from
as wire, wood, metal, cloth, cork, noisemakers while Calder choreo- the 1930s onward.
fabric, and string, he constructed graphed, directed, and performed
ingeniously articulated animals, Calder’s Circus, narrating the
clowns, and acrobats. In total, actions in English or French. Ac-
companied by music and lighting,
8 Vol 10, Issue 4, summer 2022

Flying Dragon
Sculpture

When Alexander Calder‘s
Flying Dragon sculpture
was installed at Paris’ Place
Vendôme this past October,
we unfortunately thought it
best to not recommend anyone
getting on an airplane to any-
where in Europe, with word
that a new coronavirus variant
– Omicron, of course – was on
the rise in South Africa, and
surely headed our way. Things
are still a bit tricky in terms of
traveling – but Gagosian, who
are responsible for the exhibit,
have thoughtfully extended
the installation to March 20,
allowing for the hopeful pos-
sibility of a late winter’s “art
visit” to the French capital.

The Acrobats

Alexander Calder became fasci- and expanded it over the years
nated with the circus when a job until it filled five suitcases and a
with The Police Gazette in New two-hour show. The Acrobats was
York required him to draw car- inspired by these early studies and
toons of local athletic events. He represents a brief period when
went on to study the movements Calder worked in plaster, creating
of acrobats, trapeze artists, knife mobile objects that would be cast
throwers, belly dancers and a vast in bronze.
array of animals. He began his
legendary ​“Circus” piece in Paris, 9Vol 10, Issue 4, summer 2022

Barbara hepworth Two
Forms (Divided Circle)

Barbara Hepworth made Two Forms (Divided Circle) Institute’s Experimental Film Fund (EFF). It was
at the end of a decade in which she dedicated herself founded after the BFI acquired the Telecinema,
to works that incorporated the viewer. The design of a theatre designed to screen stereoscopic cinema
Two Forms (originally a shining, reflective bronze), for the Festival of Britain in 1951. Hepworth
with its slightly asymmetrical curved windows, had also been commissioned to make sculptures
provides the viewer with a lens through which to for the festival, contributing the imposing
glimpse things anew. As Hepworth told her husband, Contrapuntal Forms, made from Irish limestone,
Ben, “So much depends, in sculpture, on what one as well as Turning Forms, a motor-driven
wants to see through a hole! …Maybe in a big work rotating sculpture.
I want to see the sun or moon. In a smaller work I
may want to lean in the whole … It is the physical
sensation of piercing and sight which I want.”

Hepworth also imagined novel ways to present
her sculptures, which were immobile and often
considered inaccessible, to wider audiences. She was
an early adopter of film and photography as a means
to exhibit and circulate her work. Hepworth had spent
the 1930s documenting her work in photographs and,
with keen focus on the impact of light and perspective,
was determined to communicate their weight and
texture in the image.

In 1953, arts documentarian Dudley Shaw Ashton
filmed her sculptures on the Cornish seaside, near her
studio. Filmed in Technicolor, Figures in a Landscape
was one of the first films produced by the British Film

10 Vol 10, Issue 4, summer 2022

Both the Festival of Britain and the EFF were circular forms and slicing angles, it may fade
invested in fostering an image of a modern and into the scenery for its daily passersby. Hep-
future-oriented postwar Britain. However, many of worth’s films provided me with a new way of
the Fund’s early films about artists focused on Brit- seeing this sculpture, and of thinking about
ish heritage, highlighting the work of such figures its relationship to the environment. Figures in
as 18th-century caricaturist Thomas Rowlandson. a Landscape was the first of many short films
Indeed, Hepworth was one of notably few modern- dedicated to her work. Through these films,
ist artists to be the subject of an EFF film. we can understand better the possibilities she
imagined for her sculptures. In Bruce Beres-
Figures in a Landscape features an unnerving ford’s documentary short Barbara Hepworth at
score by the groundbreaking South African-Brit- the Tate (1968), Hepworth insists on sculpture’s
ish composer Priaulx Rainier. It is accompanied relationship to the natural world. She tells us,
by a lyrical voiceover (written by poet Jacquetta “I have often been called puritanical, or cold, or
Hawkes, and narrated by writer Cecil Day-Lewis). geometric, but it is the significance of spiritual
It is a quintessentially modernist commentary that and human responses to life around us which
is both wary and admiring of man’s mastery over obsesses me at all times.”
nature. Its mode predates similar works by Michel-
angelo Antonioni, Alain Resnais, Ebrahim Golestan
and other auteurs of the 1960s (all of whom also
garnered state sponsorship to make austere experi-
mental documentaries). Ashton places Hepworth’s
abstract, undulating figures against the natural
landscapes that inspired them, and considers them
alongside the mysterious Neolithic stones in the re-
gion. His imaginative camerawork gives the viewer
a sense of how Hepworth’s sculptures enable new
perspectives on their environments.

Two Forms (Divided Circle) has a prominent place
on the Northwestern campus: many of us pass it
routinely, and, despite its striking combination of

– Contributed by Simran Bhalla, Block
Museum of Art Interdisciplinary Fellow
2019–2020

11Vol 10, Issue 4, summer 2022

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12 Vol 10, Issue 4, summer 2022

The Tomb of Pope Julius II

When Michelangelo finished Moses
sculpting David, it was clear that
this was quite possibly the most Moses is an imposing figure—he is
beautiful figure ever created— nearly eight feet high sitting down!
exceeding the beauty even of He has enormous muscular arms
Ancient Greek and Roman sculp- and an angry, intense look in his
tures. Word of David reached eyes. Under his arms he carries
Pope Julius II in Rome, and he the tablets of the law—the stones
asked Michelangelo to come to inscribed with the Ten Command-
Rome to work for him. The first ments that he has just received from
work Pope Julius II commis- God on Mt. Sinai. You might marvel
sioned from Michelangelo was at Moses’ horns. This comes from
a tomb for the pope. This may a mistranslation of a Hebrew word
seem a bit strange to us today, that described Moses as having rays
but great rulers throughout of light coming from his head.
history have planned fabulous
tombs for themselves while they In this story from the Old Testa-
were still alive—they hoped ment book of Exodus, Moses leaves
to ensure that they would be the Israelites, who he has just
remembered forever. delivered from slavery in Egypt, to
go to the top of Mt. Sinai. When he
When Michelangelo began returns, he finds that the Israelites
the Tomb of Pope Julius II, his have constructed a golden calf to
ideas were quite ambitious. He worship and make sacrifices to.
planned a two-story structure They have, in other words, been
decorated with more than 20 acting like the Egyptians and wor-
sculptures—each of these life shipping a pagan idol.
sized. This was more than one
person could do in a lifetime. One of the commandments Moses
received is “Thou shalt not make
Pope Julius II asked Michelangelo to any graven images,” so when Mo-
pause his work on the tomb to paint ses sees the Israelites worshipping
the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel this idol and betraying the one and
and he was never able to complete only God who has just delivered
his plan for the tomb. After expe- them from slavery, he throws down
riencing trouble with Julius’ heirs, the tablets and breaks them. Here is
Michelangelo eventually completed the passage from the Hebrew Bible:
a much scaled-down version of the
tomb, which was installed in San Pi-
etro in Vincoli (and not in St. Peter’s
Basilica as planned).

13Vol 10, Issue 4, summer 2022

Understanding Alexander Calder
through 6 Pivotal Artworks

On Christmas morning in 1909, by art critic Jed Perl in his newly In 1926, Calder moved to Paris
the parents of an 11-year-old published biography Calder: The to pursue an artistic career.
Alexander Calder unwrapped Conquest of Time: The Early Years: There, he began to sculpt a min-
their son’s handmade gifts: a 1898–1940. From wire portraits to iature circus out of wire, cork,
small dog and duck, each loving- hanging mobiles, the six works fabric, a repurposed eggbeat-
ly sculpted from sheets of brass. below represent significant shifts in er, crimped candy wrappers,
Artists themselves, Calder’s Calder’s artmaking during the first and other odd scraps. Acting
mother and father would even- four decades of his life. as ringmaster in front of an
tually lend these early creations audience, Calder would pull
to the Museum of Modern Art the strings or turn the cranks
in 1943 for their son’s first New that activated his tiny perform-
York retrospective. ers. (Occasionally, these events
served as an introduction
Calder was a pioneer of 20th-cen- to other avant-garde artists,
tury sculpture, among the first to including writer Jean Cocteau,
endow his works with a fourth painter Piet Mondrian, and
dimension: movement. Duck architect Le Corbusier.)
(1909), which rocks back and
forth on its curved underside, Cirque Calder
can be considered the artist’s first (1926–31)
kinetic sculpture. Indeed, many
of his early works foreshadow
the large-scale masterpieces for
which the artist is best known
today—a progression charted

14 Vol 10, Issue 4, summer 2022

Josephine Baker I

(c. 1926)

Calder soon began sculpting
exclusively in wire, earn-
ing him a nickname among
French critics as the “king of
wire.” Among the earliest of
these works was Josephine
Baker I, the first of five wire
portraits he created of the
African-American expatriate
celebrated for her Parisian
dance performances. (The
1926 version now survives
only in photographs.)

During this period, Calder towards pure abstraction. The argues that her family’s wealth
unsuccessfully applied for a visit “was like the baby being may have granted the artist
grant from the newly founded slapped to make his lungs the financial freedom to create
John Simon Guggenheim Me- start working,” Calder wrote more experimental work. A few
morial Foundation, writing in in the 1950s. “[It] gave me the short months after Croisière, he
the application that he wanted shock that converted me.” ventured even further—add-
“to invent the use of new and ing manually propelled and
unusual materials and meth- Croisière (French for “cruise”) motorized elements to similar
ods in sculpture.” Josephine was among his earliest abstract sculptures. It was these
Baker I was a spirited step in abstract works, shown at works that led Dadaist Mar-
that direction, eventually ex- Calder’s first exhibition of ab- cel Duchamp to coin the term
hibited and sold at a two-man stract sculpture at the Galerie “mobiles” in Calder’s Parisian
show with Emil Ganso in New Percier in Paris in 1931. The studio in the fall of 1931. “This,
York in 1928. The artist consid- preliminary title was Croisière in French, means not only
ered this the first significant dans l’espace (Cruise Through ‘movable’—but also a ‘motive,’
exhibition of his work—and Space), suggesting an arc of ‘a reason for an act,’ so I found
his mother, a painter herself, movement—perhaps that of it a very good word,” Calder
agreed. “Though it is not our the sculpture’s thicker rod wrote years later.
style, something will come of piercing the globe-like sphere
it,” Nanette Calder predicted created by two intersecting
at the opening. wire circles.

Croisière Calder had married Louisa
(1931) James a year earlier, and Perl

Although Calder’s wire sculp-
tures of the late 1920s simpli-
fied the human form, it was a
1930 trip to Mondrian’s Pari-
sian studio that pushed him

15Vol 10, Issue 4, summer 2022

DIVIDED CIRCLE

This exhibition has formed Ruthie Collins finds
in response to Barbara Hep- out more about a lo-
worth’s large-scale bronze cal exhibition featur-
sculpture Two Forms (Divid- ing work by revered
ed Circle) 1969, an edition of artist Barbara Hep-
which is on loan to Downing worth
College from the Hepworth
Estate. Visible in the College A series of stunning abstract
grounds through the Gal- sculptures by Barbara Hep-
lery windows, this sculpture worth – one of the greatest Brit-
will stand in dialogue with a ish sculptors in art history – can
Gallery display of significant be seen at Divided Circle at the
works made by Hepworth Heong Gallery, Downing Col-
during the later stages of her lege, this month until Sunday, 2
career. Hepworth’s sculptural February.
language of asymmetry, du-
alities, movement and spiritu- A prolific artist, Hepworth Forms (Divided Circle), made
ality will be explored, as well created more than 600 sculp- in 1969, an extraordinary time
as the centrality of the human tures during her life, which for Hepworth. “I at last had
form and scale to the works. can now be found all over the space and money and time to
These ideas are especially world. Cambridge is certainly work on a much bigger scale,”
meaningful when seen in the no stranger to her work, with she said of this period. “I had
context of Hepworth’s life pieces on display at the Jim Ede felt inhibited for a very long
during the late-1960s and in House at Kettle’s Yard, in the time over the scale on which
relation to the rapidly chang- garden of Churchill College, I could work… It’s so natural
ing social-political landscape and at the New Hall Art Collec- to work large – it fits one’s
of that time. By exploring tion. But this is the first time that body.”
these qualities in her work, the so many of her works have been
exhibition will suggest that exhibited together in one place
there is much to learn today in the city.
from Hepworth’s human-cen-
tred approach to sculpture. A selection of pieces made in
the last 20 years of her life, this
display demonstrates her work
today has the same appeal and
freshness as when she first
earned recognition as a standout
British sculptor within the Mod-
ernist movement.

The name of the show is in-
spired by keynote piece, Two

16 Vol 10, Issue 4, summer 2022

You can see the bronze sculp- for its iconic striped lighthouse,

ture on the grass outside the is still full of the same distinctive

gallery, on loan from the Hep- ‘witch stones’ – pebbles with

worth estate. holes caused by natural water

erosion – that fascinated Barba-

“She’s playing with our ex- ra Hepworth and Henry Moore

pectations, the shape is a circle when they stayed there with

from a distance, but the closer friends in 1931.

you get, you realise they are

two forms, they have a force

holding them together. I find

it fascinating that she called

it two forms first,” explains

curator, Dr Rachel Rose Smith.

“She’s trying to say that it’s

both, that’s ok – people will see

things differently. People and

forms can be complex, that’s

enriching.”

Many associate Barbara Hep-
worth with St Ives in Cornwall,
but it was a remarkable meet-
ing of artists here in East An-
glia – not just with each other
but with the natural landscape
– that would change the course
of British modern sculpture
forever. Happisburgh, known
to many Cambridge residents

17Vol 10, Issue 4, summer 2022

Barbara Hepworth
background

Barbara Hepworth, in full Dame tures. Purely formal elements
Jocelyn Barbara Hepworth, (born gradually gained greater
January 10, 1903, Wakefield, York- importance for her until, by
shire, England—died May 20, the early 1930s, her sculpture
1975, St. Ives, Cornwall), sculptor was entirely abstract. Works
whose works were among the such as Reclining Figure (1932)
earliest abstract sculptures pro- resemble rounded biomor-
duced in England. Her lyrical phic forms and natural stones;
forms and feeling for material they seem to be the fruit of
made her one of the most influ- long weathering instead of
ential sculptors of the mid-20th the hard work with a chisel
century. they actually represent. In
1933 Hepworth married (her
Fascinated from early childhood second husband; the first was
with natural forms and textures, the sculptor John Skeaping)
Hepworth decided at age 15 to
become a sculptor. In 1919 she
enrolled in the Leeds School of
Art, where she befriended fel-
low student Henry Moore. Their
lifelong friendship and reciprocal
influence were important factors
in the parallel development of
their careers.

Hepworth’s earliest works were
naturalistic with simplified fea-

Born: April 10, 1894 Denham Died: February 6, 1982 (aged Notable Family Members:
England 87) London England spouse Barbara Hepworth

18 Vol 10, Issue 4, summer 2022

the English abstract painter surrounding it. Her practice, in- sculptures approximately 20
Ben Nicholson, under whose creasingly frequent in her mature feet (6 metres) high. Among
influence she began to make pieces, of painting the works’ con- the more successful of her
severe, geometric pieces with cave interiors further heightened works in this gigantic format
straight edges and immaculate this effect, while she accented and is the geometric Four-Square
surfaces. defined the sculptural voids by (Walk Through) (1966).
stretching strings taut across their
As Hepworth’s sculpture openings.
matured during the late 1930s
and ’40s, she concentrated on During the 1950s Hepworth
the problem of the counter- produced an experimental series
play between mass and space. called Groups, clusters of small
Pieces such as Wave (1943–44) anthropomorphic forms in mar-
became increasingly open, ble so thin that their translucence
hollowed out, and perforat- creates a magical sense of inner
ed, so that the interior space life. In the next decade she was
is as important as the mass commissioned to do a number of

19Vol 10, Issue 4, summer 2022

“Human Allocation of
Space”

by Scott Eaton

20 Vol 10, Issue 4, summer 2022