Week 8 assignment: essay – interrelationships reflection apa format | Applied Sciences homework help
- Is this sculpture in the round? The viewer can walk around this work. But is The Little Fourteen-Year-Old Dancer in the round in the same way as Arp’s Growth (Figure 5-1)?
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Despite the fact that the little dancer is not dancing, we sense that she is pre- pared to move almost immediately. The subject matter on one level is the dancer herself, and the content points to her capacity to move, even though she is bronze. Her posture, leg forward, leaning back as if to spring upon the viewer, implies great energy and power. She is small, and her tutu—which differs in every museum dis- playing the work—clarifies her talent for dance. As we look at her we see her pose as only a dancer would pose. For some viewers the subject matter is not only the fourteen-year-old girl, but dance itself. It is as if Degas had somehow distilled the essence of dance in this one figure. Sculpture and arcHItecture compared Architecture is the art of separating inner from outer space so that the inner space can be used for practical purposes. Sculpture does not provide a practically usable inner space. What about the Sphinx and the Pyramid of Cheops (Figure 5-6)? They are the densest and most substantial of all works. They attract us visually and tactilely. But since there is no usable space within the Sphinx, it is sculpture. Within the Pyramid, how- ever, space was provided for the burial of the dead. There is a separation of inner from outer space for the functional use of the inner space. Yet the use of this inner space is so limited that the living often have a difficult time finding it. The inner space is functional only in a restricted sense—is this Pyramid, then, sculpture or architecture? The difficulty of the question points up an important factor to keep in mind. The distinctions between FIGURE 5-6 The Sphinx and Pyramid of Cheops, Egypt. Fourth dynasty. Circa 2850 BCE. Limestone and masonry. Base of pyramid ca. 13 acres; Sphinx 66 feet high, 172 feet wide. ©Lee A. Jacobus jac16871_ch05_091-120.indd 98 12/11/17 11:37 AM 99
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the arts that we have been and will be making are helpful in order to talk about them intelligibly, but the arts resist neat pigeonholing, and attempts at that are futile. 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 Arp’s Growth (Figure 5-1) are surrounded by radiating vectors, something like the axis lines of painting. But with sculpture, our bodies as well as our eyes are directed. Growth is like a magnet drawing us in and around. With relief sculptures, except for very high relief such as the Mithuna Couple (Figure 5-4), our bodies tend to get stabilized in one favored position. The framework of front and sides meeting at sharp angles, as in Giufà, the Moon, the Thieves, and the Guards (Figure 5-3), limits our movements to 180 degrees at most. Although we are likely to move around within this limited range for a while, our movements gradually slow down, as they do when we finally get settled in a comfortable chair. We are not Cyclops with just one eye, and so we see something of the three-dimensionality of things even when restricted to one position. But even low-relief sculpture encourages some movement of the body, because we sense that different perspectives, however slight, may bring out something we have not directly perceived, especially something more of the three-dimensionality of the materials.
When one of the authors participated with Arp’s Growth, he had this response:
I find a warm and friendly presence. I find myself reaching toward the statue rather than keeping my distance. The Arp seems not only three-dimensional but four-dimensional, because it brings in the element of time so discernibly—a cumulative drama. In addition to making equal demands upon my contemplation, at the same time, each aspect is also incomplete, en- ticing me on to the next for fulfillment. As I move, volumes and masses change, and on their surfaces points become lines, lines become curves, and curves become shapes. As each new aspect unrolls, there is a shearing of textures, especially at the lateral borders. The marble flows. The leading border uncovers a new aspect, and the textures of the old aspect change. The light flames. The trailing border wipes out the old aspect. The curving surface continuously reveals the emergence of volumes and masses in front, behind, and in depth. What is hidden behind the surfaces is still indirectly perceived, for the textures indicate a mass behind them. As I move, what I have perceived and what I will perceive stand in defined positions with what I am presently perceiving. My moving body links the aspects. A continuous metamorphosis evolves, as I remember the aspects that were and anticipate the aspects to come, the leaping and plunging lights glancing off the surface helping to blend the changing volumes, shapes, and masses. The remembered and antic- ipatory images resonate in the present perception. My perception of the Arp is alive with motion. The sounds in the museum room are caught, more or less, in the rhythm of that motion. As I return to my starting point, I find it richer, as home seems after a journey. Sculpture and tHe Human Body Sculptures generally are more or less a center—the place of most importance that 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. That is why sculpture jac16871_ch05_091-120.indd 99 12/11/17 11:37 AM 100
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in the round is more typically sculpture than is the other species. Other things being equal, sculpture in the round, because of its three-dimensional centeredness, brings out the voluminosity and density of things more certainly than does any other kind of sculpture. First, we can see and perhaps touch all sides. But, more important, our sense of density has something to do with our awareness of our bod- ies as three-dimensional centers thrusting out into our surrounding environment. Philosopher-critic Gaston Bachelard remarks that immensity is within ourselves. It is attached to a sort of expansion of being which life curbs and caution arrests, but which starts again when we are alone. As soon as we be- come motionless, we are elsewhere; we are dreaming in a world that is immense. Indeed, immensity is the movement of a motionless man.2 Lachaise’s Floating Figure (Figure 5-7), with its ballooning buoyancy emerging with lonely but powerful internal animation from a graceful ellipse, expresses not only this feeling but also something of the instinctual longing we have to be- come one with the world about us. Sculpture in the round, even when it does not FIGURE 5-7 Gaston Lachaise, Floating Figure. 1927. Bronze (cast in 1979–1980). 135 × 233 × 57 cm. National Gallery of Australia, Canberra. Purchased 1978. This massive sculpture appears to be “floating” in a reflective pool. New York’s Museum of Modern Art elevates it on a plinth in its sculpture garden. The National Gallery of Australia places its Floating Figure in a reflecting pool. Courtesy of the National Gallery of Australia, Canberra and the Lachaise Foundation 2Source: Gaston Bachelard, The Poetics of Space. Translation 1964, Orion Press. jac16871_ch05_091-120.indd 100 12/11/17 11:37 AM 101
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portray the human body, often gives us something of an objective image of our internal bodily awareness as related to its surrounding space. Furthermore, when the human body is portrayed in the round, we have the most vivid material image of our internal feelings. Sculpture In tHe round and tHe Human Body No object is more important to us than our bodies, which are always with us. Yet when something is continually present to us, we find great difficulty in focusing our attention upon it. Thus, we usually are only vaguely aware of our bodies ex- cept when we feel pain or pleasure. Nevertheless, our bodies are part of our most intimate selves—we are our bodies—and, since most of us are narcissists to some degree, most of us have a deep-down driving need to find a satisfactory material counterpoint for the mental images of our bodies. If that is the case, we are likely to be lovers of sculpture in the round. All sculpture always evokes our outward sensa- tions and sometimes our inner sensations. Sculpture in the round often evokes our inward sensations, for such sculpture often is anthropomorphic in some respect. And sculpture in the round that has the human body as its subject matter not only often evokes our inward sensations but also interprets them—as in Michelangelo’s David (Figure 5-8) and Rodin’s Danaïde (Figure 5-9). PERCEPTION KEY Exercise in Drawing and Modeling 1. Take a pencil and paper. Close your eyes. Now draw the shape of a human being but leave off the arms. 2. Take some clay or putty elastic enough to mold easily. Close your eyes. Now model your material into the shape of a human being, again leaving off the arms. 3. Analyze your two efforts. Which was easier to do? Which produced the more re- alistic result? Was your drawing process guided by any factor other than your memory images of the human body? What about your modeling process? Did any significant factors other than your memory images come into play? Was the feel of the clay or putty important in your shaping? Did the awareness of your inner bodily sensations contribute to the shaping? Did you exaggerate any of the functional parts of the body where movement originates, such as the neck muscles, shoulder bones, knees, or ankles? Could these exaggerations, if they occurred, have been a consequence of your inner bodily sensations? FIGURE 5-8 Michelangelo Buonarroti, David. 1501–1504. Marble, 13 feet high. Accademia, Florence. The heroic- size David stood as Florence’s warning to powers that might consider attacking the city-state. It represents Michelangelo’s idealization of the human form and remains a Renaissance ideal. ©Lee A. Jacobus PERCEPTION KEY David and Danaïde 1. Compare Michelangelo’s David with Rodin’s Danaïıde. How does each sculptor es- tablish the gender of his figure? Does Rodin achieve more in terms of gender identity by leaving some of the original marble unfinished?