Constantin Brancusi Is a Famous Sculptor - Essay Example

"In your way, you walk besides a Gate of Kiss, and you stop at a Table of Silence, and your steps make for an Endless Column to uplift Constantin Brancusi is a famous sculptor who was born in Hobita, Romania, but his talent propelled him outside the borders of his country, so he became the greatest sculptor of the 20th century, being considered the pioneer of the modern path in this field. He succeeded to link the traditional style with the modern one, but his biggest innovation were the novelties as regards form. He used a geometrical shape, and he saw form different as of the sculptors before him. Many said that his sculpture was abstract , but he didn't like this term: "The people who call my work abstract are imbeciles, what they call abstract is in fact the purest realism, the reality of which is not presented by external form , by the idea behind it, the essence of the work"2 .What was abstract for others, he saw as realistic, and this came from the fact that he perceived the interior form, not the exterior one. On the other hand his sculpture was influenced by the traditional Romanian motifs, so the past was not totally vanished. Born in a small village from Romania, a country not yet so developed in many fields, Brancusi enjoyed a peaceful life, in the middle of nature. In the past and even nowadays the Romanian peasants decorated their houses with traditional signs, motifs, that later appeared in Brancusi's works next to the avant-gardist ones. At the same time each of his sculpture has a theme or several ideas. So, the redefinition of the form begins with the transformation of antic in something modern, of an easy work into something more difficult to understand. Brancusi's originality lays in the inner strength of his sculptures, in the geometrical and simple forms. These came from his country values: simplicity and love for nature. Constantin Brancusi was not so well received by the contemporaries because his sculptures were not facile, and could not be understood by everybody. In Romania, his natal country, his genius was recognized only after 1964 when the authorities started to arrange and to take care of the monumental assembly(containing The endless Column, The silent Muse, The gate of Kiss, etc) from Targu-Jiu. In spite of some unfavorable critics, in 1912 he received his first prize at the Bucharest Drawing-Room, and a year later his works were presented in many exhibition in New York, Paris, Chicago, Bucharest, Munchen, London, so it can be said that his recognition came during his life, but it was not according to his real value. In time this thing changed, the proof is that he is considered nowadays the greatest sculptor of all times and that one of his sculptures from Bird of Space collection was sold in 2005 for $27.5 million, being the highest sold sculpture ever. His country influenced him very much but the abroad studies were also very important. After studying at the Beautiful Arts School from Bucharest he studied in Paris, being for a period an apprentice in Rodin's workshop. He didn't stay here so long, because he was aware of his capacity and that a real sculptor could not develop under the mentorship of another great sculptor: "nothing can grow at the shadow of the big trees(at the shadow of an oak tree cannot grow any other tree)"3. Constantin Brancusi was aware of the fact that he saw life and art differently and did not want to undertake somebody else opinions, forms and experience because he knew that in this way he would not be able to grow, creatively speaking. This doesn't mean that Rodin didn't inspire him, but he knew when to stop and when to put his own print. He believed that a creator should work with his three coordinates: his divine side, his royal side, but , at the same time he should commit himself totally to the work. Constantin Brancusi's forerunners over loaded the sculptures, using obscure forms and mysteries, thinking that in these lay their value. They couldn't use their innovative spirit and they couldn't believe they can create through simple forms and curves. This was exactly what Brancusi showed that it was possible. Maybe the originality in his aestheticism was that looking such a geometrical and simple sculpture that blended traditional with avant-gardes figures could arouse different emotions, ideas in the viewers mind. This bridge between the public and the forms could be associated with divinity. For the sculptor the simplicity was not a purpose that he had from the very beginning, but he got near this when he discovered the real meaning of things. As he himself said: "The simplicity itself is a complexity and you have to feed with the essence to be able to understand its value"4. Simple forms and curves did not mean a simple and invaluable work, but a complex vision that oblige you to see the essence and not the surface. As Henry Moore said "Brancusi was the one who set free the sculpture by everything that was useless and he gave back to us the conscious of the pure form"5. In his sculptures Brancusi presented the natural cicle, the connection between the nature, peasant and his aspirations. In his work we meet primary causes carved in abstract forms. But, while his predecessors shaped a mechanical imitation of nature, Brancusi was the adept of a more natural one. Brancusi lived a part of his life in the countryside and this helped him to understand life very differently. In the countryside, in the villages where people still have preserved the customs and the "fear for God" the simplicity , the reality had a sacred coordinate. This world can be parallelized with the ancient Greek or Egyptian worlds , where existed gods and mortals (in time it was discovered that Brancusi's curves and motifs were to be found also in Greek, Egyptian, Indo-European mythologies). Apart from the simple style, which he took from the peasant living style, he used myths and traditions in his workings, and he gave them a magical function. When he said his sculptures should be felt and understood with the heart and the conscious , and that not every one is capable to see the inner message, he did not want to say that only elevated people can perceive his style. The connection between art and viewer is not intelligence, or social status or education, but the gift. It is like religion. Everyone who is capable to see much farther of the rules and proofs, and who can believe in legends and in saints means he has a gift, he has a gift of being closer to God. This thing happens here too. Anyone who is capable to see beyond those fragile, but firm curves, to imagine stories or to understand their message has a gift of being closer to the artist and art. A very much appreciated series of works were Birds in Space . Once again, in this collection Brancusi introduced abstract and primitive forms. Maiastra, Danaide, were vertical, implying a transcendental coordinate of aspiration. This motif was in fact a metaphor for his desire or of the Romanian people aspirations who needed to free itself, to transform itself from a horizontal bird to a vertical, free, independent one. His aim as a sculptor was to achieve perfection, to construct a symmetrical work of art. That is why he used so many materials as base for his sculptures: marble, limestone, bronze, wood. He used them in a sensitive and simple way, but he also exploited the sophisticated forms of the avant-gardism. Brancusi wanted to find the true creative path for him, and according to many he succeeded : "Brancusi appears to have found the source of Romanian inspiration, only after encountering certain primitive and archaic artistic creations-a fact which seemed paradoxical to several art historians"6. If his collection of birds had a very precise significance and certain rules of carving, his sculptures containing heads has also some conventions and messages. Pride is the portrait of a young child and the creator wants to transmit the child's innocence and perfection through a symmetrical sculpture. Bust of a Child has in its center the same idea of innocence sculptured after clearly axes. Brancusi sees in portraits a challenge, an analyses of intersection of angles. The Torment was released in double copy , but the latter was shorter than the latter. What for uninitiated seemed the same piece of marble, for Brancusi expressed the concentration of the sufferance, which had to be rendered by measurement and position. The same thing happened with The Prayer which had a simple but tragic form, expressed by the shape and position of the head. In The Sleeping Muse Brancusi used delicate forms , wanting to outline the face of a sleeping woman which head almost touched the ground. By this position he wanted to imply the existence of another world, parallel with ours. He sculptured many heads, without their bodies, and most of them had a specific position: bent, almost parallel with the ground. This inclination could suggest that not the body is important, but the head, the mind is the one that individualize us. The inclination of the head is present in many of Brancusi's sculptures :Torment(where is another way of showing the suffering, wanting in this way to integrate in the cosmic rhythm, being known the fact that even flowers, trees and other nature parts bent when they have to endure the wind etc), in Prometheus, the head is the most important, its position and form are essential because the body does not exist and even the face lines did not appear. This thing happens because, when sculpturing this model, Brancusi thought at the Greek Prometheus , created by Zeus from mud and water. From this sculpture it can be understood that Prometheus represents the normal man. Mademoiselle Pogany is also a woman face that presses the hands against her cheek. The sculpture inspires fragility, delicacy. Like in many other face sculptures the eyes are very important .They can be enormous like in this sculpture or closed. This is a proof that, even if the Romanian sculptor shapes face with not so many details Brancusi uses beauty in his pieces of art. But he does not do that concisely, but only through his desire to outline a feminine mysterious look. Once again his portraits resemble with the Ancient ones. The body in Brancusi's sculptures is not so well represented , seaming that the body and the bed-plate are the same. The bead-plate is very important for the Romanian sculptor because it represents the link between the creator and his piece of art or it is the connection between the mortal world , represented by the human beings and the immortal world, represented by the creation. The fact that Brancusi uses so much face as a form does not mean he rejects beauty , but he wants to emphasize the fact that the human being is not characterized by the aspect , but by the essence. When he carves a face he wants to find only the essential elements that define it, he does not want that face to be necessarily beautiful. It is very strange, because the Romanian creator resembles a great mathematician in all these measurements , but he is also an artist through the finite work that seems to be alive, or to transmit something. When shaping heads, faces , Brancusi uses the ovoid form , expressing the fact that the whole thing reduces to the primordial cause and source, and in everything and in everyone lays the perfect form. As Ezra Pound said, in Brancusi, 1921 "In the case of ovoid we have to withhold the fact that Brancusi was about to accomplish the pure form, releasing it by any terrestrial gravity, a such a free form in its own life like that of an analytical geometry. And the proof that he succeeded this experience is that by any part we would watch, the ovoid seems alive and ready to raise in space."7 The ovoid theme is to be found in Prometheus, Newborn, The beginning of the World, Sculpture for a blind man etc. In the sculptures Kiss and Gate of the Kiss the Romanian sculpture searches again the essence, using perfect geometrical forms, showing the ephemeral of this feeling. In the latter sculpture he unites two perfect halves, forming in the end a perfect circle. In this way, Brancusi presents a story, a feeling, maybe the most important phenomena of our lives: love, trough forms and curves. In The Wisdom of the Earth and Kiss the stone used loses its inanimate characteristic under Brancusi's genius. The sculpture wants to express the idea that power comes from the mineral structures. These pieces of art were also compared with the Egyptian and Asian objects. One of the most appreciated sculptures is The Endless column that is inspired from the Romanian traditions , and where he uses symmetrical forms . This work expresses the desire of elevation, of a better world of art and of the Romanian people. Even in the present this sculpture represents the Romanians and their aspirations. In his work Brancusi uses animals too , but they don't have the same status as in any other pieces of arts. In his work every person, animal , detail has the same position, it is the inhabitant of his unreal world and has the same rights. The importance of animals is to be found again in the Romanian traditions. This people has in its folk patrimony many legends, fairy-tales, myths that puts animals on an important place. Many times the people and animals could change their places, or transform into animals and that is why , when presenting animals Brancusi is careful to use graceful curbs. In the Flying turtle the Romanian sculpture uses a stylization of the bird, and the rhythm is the one that helps him: the zigzag of the plan forms an angle with the zigzag of the cock's crest. Being a bird too, the cock has also a transcendental image. The animals are part of nature, but also are part of the Romanian tradition. As David Lewis said the connection between Romanian peasant-nature was present in Brancusi's work too: "Brancusi recognized in the wood that he polished, in its burly forms, in the scars made by the ice axe or by the storms, the natural cycle, which the peasant shared with the trees, with the stones, with the birds, with their growth and death."8 The table of Silence is a work created at the end of his career and the way in which it is carved and its message imply professional maturity. Its form is round. This shape expresses a finished and accomplished circle. The Table of Silence, which is now at Targu-Jiu in Romania, is a very important monument symbolizing many different things: it is a headstone dedicated to the memory of war heroes, it has many elements similar to the Dacian Sanctuary of Sarmisegetuza . This table of silence implies perfection(a completed mission, maybe the artist's mission), history(silence after heroes' deeds), elevation(this piece of art comes after a period of great creation), wisdom(the silence is the answer of the one that lived and experienced many things), and tradition(symbolizing the quite and simple peasant dinner after a long and hard day). Contantin Brancusi influenced many other sculptors and painters and some of his characteristics are to be found in other creators ' work. He was not a rigid teacher, and even if some overtook from his elements, this word "teacher" does not suit him. When Modigliani went to his workshop, the Romanian artist did not gave him any indication or advice, remembering maybe the period when he himself went to Rodin. Modigliani learnt what geometry really was, and he took over the extension of the figures. Wilhelm Lehmhuck was impressed by the retrenchment of the anatomy details(seen in the Prayer) and by extension of the figures. He used these elements in his well known sculpture The kneeler woman. Etienne Hajdu liked the curbs lines, the curly planes, and the light-shadow effect. Gibeli perceived art as Brancusi, and he created having in mind the fact that art is a path to spiritual elevation and humanness . Brancusi's method of teaching was productive because many of those who observed his work and took over some elements did not stop to imitations. Thus, Jeap Arp used the ovoid too, but he was the first one that destroyed its perfection. Brancusi is the most important sculptor of all times and even artists nowadays inspire from his art. Our most important heritage from him are the pure form, the simplification of art and life ,the redefinition of the form and the creation , the settling, synthesizing, the transition from the figurative representation of the reality to the essence of things. Thus, he made a clear difference between appearance and essence. Constantin Brancusi left his workshop and all the patrimony to France, but some of his works are still in Romania, at Targu-Jiu. Even if the sculptor distinguished himself and tried to succeed in another country too, his childhood and roots are the ones that developed his genius. Bibliography Constantin Brancusi web-site http://brancusi.ro Artchieve, Constantin Brancusi http://artchieve.com.artchieve/B/brancusihtml Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, Constantin Brancusi, 29 November 2006 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constantin_Brancusi The Art of Constantin Brancusi http://www.dntist.ro/romania/mr/romanian_images/sculptors/brancusi Tate Modern, Past Exhibitions, Constantin Brancusi 23 May 2004 http://www.tate.org.uk/modern/exhibitions/brancusi/ Read More