•Sculpture in the early 20th century was
marked by Modern Classicism, as well as the early beginnings of art deco.
•The early 20th century was marked by
rapid industrial, economic, social and cultural change, which greatly
influenced art during this time
•Twentieth Century Sculpture explores the
shift of sculpture from a durable art form of the past, which was primarily
linked with architecture to a new fragile form of sculpture in the twentieth
century.
•Sculptures by
Picasso, Lipchitz, Duchamp, and Matisse
•With
the
outbreak of World War I in 1914, art became heavily influenced by the desire
to abstract life and escape the horrific possibilities of
the human condition. Artists began to question and play around with themes
of reality, perspective, space and
time.
•The early twentieth century saw huge
changes in the modes and meanings of artistic production, as many movements and
countries re-evaluated aesthetics, technique, colour,
media, meaning, and many other aspects of art
•The Rodin exhibit at the 1900
Paris Exposition Universelle (“world’s
fair”) is widely believed to be the precise beginning of the modern sculptural
movement.
•Sculptural movements that developed as a
result of Modernism include: Art Nouveau, Cubism, Geometric
Abstraction, De Stijl, Suprematism, Constructivism,
Dadaism, Surrealism, Futurism, Formalism, Abstract
Expressionism, Pop-Art and Minimalism among others.
•The Thinker
•The Thinker is a bronze sculpture on
marble pedestal by Auguste
Rodin, whose first cast, of 1902
•Rodin
was predominantly a naturalist and therefore concerned himself with character
and emotion over monumental expression. He is known for turning away from the
idealized traditions of the Greeks and decorative beauty of the Baroque and
Neo-Baroque movements, thereby departing with centuries of tradition.
•In
the early 20th century, Pablo Picasso revolutionized the
art of sculpture when he began combining disparate objects and
materials into one constructed piece of sculpture.
•The advent of Surrealism led
to objects being described as "sculpture" that would not have been so
previously, like "coulage"
and other forms of "involuntary sculpture".
•In
revolt against the naturalism of Rodin and his late-19th-century
contemporaries, Constantin
Brâncuşi distilled
subjects down to their essences.
•Pablo Picasso
(1881 – 1973) a Spanish painter, sculptor, printmaker, ceramicist, and stage
designer who spent
most of his adult life in France. As one of the greatest and
most influential artists of the 20th
century, he is widely known for
co-founding the Cubist movement and the invention of constructed
sculpture.
•Constantin
Brâncuşi
(1876 – 1957) a Romanian-born sculptor who made his career in France. Brâncuși
is called the
patriarch of modern sculpture.
•Henry Moore
(1898 – 1986) an English sculptor and artist. He was best known for his
semi-abstract monumental
bronze sculptures which are located around the
world as public works of art.
•In later years, Picasso became a
prolific potter, leading a revival in ceramic art with other notables
including
George E. Ohr,
Peter Voulkos,
Kenneth Price, and Robert Arneson.
•Marcel Duchamp
originated use of the "found object" (French: objet trouvé)
or "readymade" with
such pieces as Fountain (1917). Duchamp's
appropriation of a urinal as a piece of art challenged the
prevailing
definition of sculpture.
•Brâncuşi's impact,
through his vocabulary of reduction and abstraction, is seen throughout the
1930s and 1940s, exemplified by artists including Gaston Lachaise (Figure 1),
Sir Jacob
Epstein, Henry Moore, Alberto
Giacometti, Joan Miró, Julio González, Pablo Serrano,
and Jacques
Lipchitz. By the 1940s, abstract sculpture was impacted and
expanded by Kinetic art pioneers
Alexander Calder, Len Lye, Jean Tinguely,
and Frederick Kiesler.
