Sculpture Twentieth Century (catalogue essay)

If one were to characterize the sculpture of the 20th century in one word, that word might be diversity. For in the past sixty-five years, sculptors have explored more directions in style, form and technique than at any other time in history. Stimulated either by established traditions or by radically new aesthetics, they have produced work of tremendous variety in subject, appearance, and ultimately, meaning. Seizing on every technological innovation, they have built sculpture that would have been impossible in an earlier age, that demands almost more engineering than artistic skills. They have used materials unknown before the present day and have as often given new form to the traditional stone, wood and bronze of past epochs. In short, the sculpture of our time has been virtually without limits in its scope.

Within such a wide-ranging field, however, some lines of development can be traced and it is the ultimate purpose of an exhibition such as this to sort out and identify some of the major trends. Almost by definition, this is a selective process and, as such, is essentially subjective. With art that is as close to us as the work of the present day, it is even more difficult to find the major threads and to avoid that which is only novel, incidental or superficial. And, in a time which searches consistently for a new and meaningful aesthetic, judgments made by one set of values are often completely inappropriate to an art form based on radically different theories. In spite of these obstacles, however, the main lines of development of sculpture through the past half century can be recognized and in the great diversity of forms some pattern can be found.

In its extremes, 20th-century sculpture is either representational or abstract. For example,the portraiture of Despiau or Kollwitz, or the figure studies of Maillol or Kotbe could not find greater contrast in subject, form or meaning than the constructions of Gabo and Pevsner or the ultra-refined geometry of Max Bill, Gabriel Kohn or David Smith. The former, based on an esthetic of naturalism, sought to express through an accuracy of likeness and a correctness of form something of the character, personality, the inner spirit of man. The latter, working from an aesthetic which perhaps is best identified as rationalism, are concerned with an expression of proportion and balance through wholly abstract and essentially geometric forms. Most often, they choose materials that lend themselves easily to hard edges and flat planes, finding in the wire, plastics, and steel of the 20th century a bold new means of expression. Instead of modeling in clay or wax and then casting in bronze or carving in stone as figurative sculptors have done for centuries, these abstract artists construct their sculpture with the electric drill, the band saw, the welding torch.

Between these two extremes lie many other avenues of development. The dominant ones are those which have combined to some degree the humanistic values of representational sculpture with the freedom and vitality of form inherent in abstract, non-representational art. The sculpture of Brancusi, Arp, Matisse, or Moore has its roots in the natural world but expresses itself in forms that are semi-abstract. Nature, in their work, is condensed and distilled and from the multitudinous details is extracted the essence of organic form. Often approaching pure abstraction, their work nevertheless maintains in its curving contours and anthropomorphic references a close touch with the natural world. Similarly, the cubist and semicubist sculpture of Lipchitz, Gonzalez, Picasso or Laurens might distort the figure almost beyond belief in its attention to planes and the relationship of line and mass, but in each case enough of nature is retained to be identifiable and meaningful.

The search for the essence of natural form and the analysis of the geometric relationships of forms in nature have been perhaps the more important developments of 20th-century sculpture. But of almost equal concern has been the understanding and expression of man's inner life and his spiritual place in the world. Ernst Barlach and Leonard Baskin have expressed their feelings with dramatic force, while Max Ernst, Giacometti, Marini and Richier have used subtler and more abstruse means. Through distortion and exaggeration of the human figure, these sculptors have tried to probe man's fears and emotions, his anxieties and frailties and to give them visual representation. Often mysterious in their delineation, the images created are always compelling and stimulate a direct emotional response in the viewer. In the same vein, and either more or less closely related to the human figure, are the works of such sculptors as Chadwick, Armitage, and Butler, Cesar, Manzu and Roszak. All share an absorbing interest in the human condition and express their attitudes in distinctive terms that have their basis in the natural world.

The younger and more contemporary sculptors are occupied with related but obviously different problems. To Segal, Trova, and Marisol, man and his relation to the mechanistic life of the present day is of vital concern and each expresses his apprehension with imagination and perceptiveness. Marisol's boxlike wooden figures, or the plaster creations of Segal and metallic, mechanical forms of Trova stimulate strong tactile responses that carry much of the emotional impact of the sculpture. ln a wholly abstract way, similar means are used by Nevelson, Stankiewicz, Chamberlain and Bontecou who make their constructions from the junk, the broken and cast-off pieces of the modern world.

For the sculptor the representation of movement has always been a major challenge. The development of cubism offered a new means of suggesting the movement of a form in space and this is seen in this exhibition in the work of such sculptors as Archipenko and Weber. But while these sculptors used sharply intersecting planes to imply motion, Alexander Calder and more recently George Rickey construct sculpture whose parts actually move and, in their motion, define form in space. Abstract in shape, their slow movement has a vitality that suggests an organic reference.

Other abstract sculptors who use more static forms are also concerned with the suggestion of organic growth. The flower-like forms of Bertoia or Hajdu and the eroded, gouged surfaces of Consagra have a clear reference to nature as do the delicate textural constructions of Kemeny, or the forceful growth patterns of Penalba. Less directly related to natural forms but no less vital in surface and contour, these sculptures create images that are outside the natural world but are possessed of a tremendous exuberance and living force.

There are certainly other threads within the fabric of 20th-century sculpture. These few seem to be the main ones, however, and from a study of them one can find the predominant characteristics of the work so far produced. One of the foremost of these, besides variety, is the sheer quantity of sculpture made in the past sixty-five years. With the increasing use of new materials, the modern sculptor can produce much more work than if he were required to cut each piece from stone. He can also construct forms that are large and massive or delicate and attenuated and need no longer limit his vision to that which can be realized only in the classic materials.

Not only can he produce more sculpture more quickly than his predecessors, but the modern sculptor has virtually complete freedom in choice of subject and means of expression. He can retain naturalistic references or not as he chooses, concern himself with man or ignore the physical world completely, make his sculpture representational or wholly abstract. The only requirements he must meet are formal requirements, the requirements that make a piece of sculpture a work of art.

Much of modern sculpture is devoted to just this problem, to the definition of those requirements and the discovery of the essence of sculpture itself. This exhibition presents a cross-section of the major work done thus far in this century and it is to be hoped that among these many efforts can be found some sense of the nature of sculpture in our time.

Merrill C. Rueppel, "Introduction," in Sculpture Twentieth Century, exhibition pamphlet (Dallas, TX: Dallas Museum of Fine Arts, 1965), 2-3.

apply to objects where date_begin gte 1900 and date_end lte 1965 

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