What is the role of the British Museum in the history of modern sculpture in Britain - Essay Example

? What is the role of the British Museum in the history of modern sculpture in Britain? Submission Located on the Great Russell Street in London, the British Museum is committed to human history and culture since it was established way back in 1753. The British museum’s permanent collection of over 8 million works is perhaps the most comprehensive of its kind and certainly amongst the largest collections all over the world. Its collection of great art and antiquities has been collected from around the globe and is an excellent portrayal of all the continents. This collection documents and illustrates in great detail the story of human culture from the very beginning till the present day, encompassing 2 million years of human history (British Museum, n.d.). The British Museum’s establishment was based on the belief that a collection based on human history should be accessible to the general public for free. Another idea behind the Museum was that the different human cultures can understand each other through mutual engagement regardless of any differences between them. The purpose behind the Museum was to have a place where human cross-cultural investigation could take place (British Museum, n.d.). The Museum was established with the aim of reaching a broad and global audience. The reason behind this is the fact that the collections in the Museum represent cultures and territories that tell great stories of civilizations all over the world (British Museum, n.d.). Henry Spencer Moore was an English sculptor and artist. He is best known for his sculptures, semi-abstract monumental bronze located around the world. Born in Castleford, Moore’s first profession was that of a teacher. His teaching career was halted when he fought for England in France during the First World War. After returning from war, Henry Moore wanted more from life than just teaching, hence he began attending the Leeds School of Art and consequently the Royal College of Art in London. Moore’s early works in the 1920 were influenced of Central American pre-Columbian art, and the Italian Renaissance, Michaelangelo's work in particular. However with time, his works became more and more abstract and began consisting of simplified and rounded carved pieces from wood, and had numerous indentations and holes which were often covered with veils of thin metal wires. The main topic that Moore worked on included fallen warriors, the mother-and-child and family groups as well as most the reclining human figure (Mark Barrow Fine Art, 2005). After much criticism of his early work, Henry Moore finally received the International Prize for Sculpture which helped his worldwide reputation to increase and grow. Moore also became well known for his sketches which depicted people of London sheltering underground during the Second World War. His sketches of working miners also gained a lot of popularity (Mark Barrow Fine Art, 2005). It was in 1921, when Henry Moore was attending the Royal College of Art in London, that the young artist began visiting the British Museum (Phelan, 2001). In his own words ‘the Museum was a revelation to me. I went at least twice a week for two or three hours and one room or another caught my enthusiasm. The wonderful thing about the British Museum is that everything is stretched out before you and you are free to make your own discoveries’ (Finn, 1981) Moore worked his way through the different many departments of the British Museum. The galleries housing the Antiquities of Africa, Asia, Egypt, Greece, Prehistoric and Roman-Britain, Rome and the Orient were a great favorite of the artist. In the time of Moore, the Ethnographic Galleries which housed the artifacts of Oceania was also located within the British Museum (Phelan, 2001). As an aspirant modernist sculptor, Moore had always been a fan of Roger Fry's ‘Vision and Design,, a collection of essays. This book is considered the most prominent and significant work of art criticism that was written in England before World War Two. The book contained amazing revisionist essays on African and other non-Western individual’s works of art. ‘Vision and Design’ argued the superiority of "primitive" sculpture over any other work of art that was produced in the West (Phelan, 2001). Fry's enthusiasms and arguments were of huge significance to the seriously talented and ambitious Moore, who simply could not ignore what Fry had to say. As Moore had seen the declining character of 19th century British sculpture and could compare it with paintings of the Cubists and post impressionists, and had seen copies of Greek and Roman works that were used as models in different art schools, Moore simply could not ignore the arguments given by fry in his books (Phelan, 2001). Hence, the artist in Moore had himself a task. He set out to eliminate Greek spectacles from the eyes of his contemporaries. He advocated the abandoning of the late Greek classical and Hellenistic sculpture’s debauched standards and wanted them substituted with the liveliness and uniqueness of non-Western work. It was at the British Museum that Moore could study these works. He used to make numerous detailed notes and drawings of his favorite works of art and used to store in his mind the images, shapes and ideas for his own pieces (Phelan, 2001). Later on in his career, Moore went on to attribute his success to the British Museum in the following words: "Nine tenths of my understanding and learning about sculpture came from the British Museum" (Finn, 1981). 35 pieces of Moore’s art are displayed at the British museum. Some of the renowned works include the Parthenon Marbles and the Egyptian sculptures. Moore was affirm believer of the fact that the sculptures need to be slightly obscure and ambiguous so that it makes people think; Moore believed that a sculpture should never be so easy to read that it tells the audience all about itself at the first glance.. He knew that one of the most difficult arts to appreciate was that of the sculptures, because it is three dimensions which were somewhat difficult to perceive. Moore made sure that his sculptures were truthful to the materials that were used. He preferred carving while sculpting because the physical effort that was involved; Moore found it enjoyable (National Museums Liverpool, 2012). He said "to overcome the resistance of the material by sheer determination and hard work." The surface of "The Falling Warrior" sculpture is pitted with marks and grooves which are smooth and broken just like a eroded rock surface. ’The falling Warrior’ is the 7th of eleven casts that were made from the original plaster maquette (National Museums Liverpool, 2012). Jacob Epstein was born in America and moved to Europe in 1902 and made his name famous as a monuments and portraits sculptor. He was also painter as well as illustrator occasionally. During his lifetime, he mastered several different of the concepts that are central to the modernist sculpture, like the direct carving, 'truth to material', primitive art. All of these concepts became an essential part of the twentieth-century practice. Jacob Epstien began studying sculpting under the tutelage of George Grey Bernard. Jacob Epstien was a rebel and instead of the pretty art, he was famous for making bold, harsh and massive sculptures of bronze or stone. His work often shocked the audience because of their explicit sexual content and a clear deviation from classical Greek sculpture that were much favored by the academic sculptors in Europe. When Jacob Epstien was chosen to design sculptures that evoked ideas about life and death, he greatly stressed upon the realities such as old age and pregnancy of the human body, in such a way that was completed novel to the public. His work was often criticized for explicit portrayal of human body (Oxford University Press, 2010). In fact his design of wilde’s tomb was heavily criticized as being improper. The restoration in the 1920s and 30s of the Parthenon Sculptures is perhaps the most notorious episodes to have ever occurred in the history of the British Museum. From 1921 to 1939, Epstein actively participated in the protest against the British Museum‘s pronouncement to restore the Parthenon sculptures along with other ancient Greek sculptures that the museum contained. Epstein protest against the cleaning and restoration policies of the British Museum. He was particularly worried about the restoration of ‘Demeter of Cnidus’. No evidence suggest that Epstein raised the issue directly with the British Museum and he chose a widely public and well read forum to make himself heard. It is argued that the restoration policies were not the main issue and Epstien was also concerned with his public image. In a constant war against the British Museum, Epstien experienced some successes but his relationship with the British museum can be best described as tricky. The reasons and motives behind Epstien’s attitude however remain unclear (Cronshaw, 2010). Epstein greatly appreciated the Parthenon Sculptures perhaps because he saw in these sculptures, the power of an uneven and unnatural surface that produced huge emotive effects upon the audience. In fact, it was his emotions for the Parthenon Sculptures that got him involved with the British Museum in the first place. His need to uphold the integrity of the original form of the ancient sculptures can be viewed as protection of integrity of his personal work, and as a defense of the integrity of the science of sculpture in general (Cronshaw, 2010). The strong aesthetic links between the Parthenon Sculptures and Epstein‘s carvings is found in a few examples. The clothing of the figure in Maternity and the chisel marks and roughness of its surface in contrast to the smooth curves of the figure are a prime example of the link. Another reason behind Epstein’s protest against restoration of the sculptures was perhaps this sculpture’s strong representation of the British cultural history and their victory against Napoleon and French archaeologist against whose wishes the sculptures were brought to England (Cronshaw, 2010). Henri Gaudier-Brzeska originally named Henri Gaudier was born in 1891. He was a French artist and one of the earliest abstract sculptors and an supporter of the Vorticist movement. Henri Gaudier-Brzeska played a vital role in the introduction of modern art to England during the early part of the 20th century (Brittanica Encyclopedia, 2013). He was initially a business student before he took up sculpture in 1910. His early work was influenced by the figurative sculptures of Auguste Rodin. In 1910 moved to London, where he found a young poet named Ezra Pound to be his patron and propagandist (Brittanica Encyclopedia, 2013). Gaudier-Brzeska work’s looks to be emotional. The particular shape of an object or any part of the human body e.g. the arm or the eyebrows were meaningless to Gaudier-Brzeska. He felt that his work had to be the abstraction of intense feelings. It was a meeting with Jacob Epstein, when the tomb of Oscar Wilde was still at Epstien’s studio that reinforced Gaudier-Brzeska’s resolve to chase a experimental direction. Ezra Pound backed the financially poor Gaudier-Brzeska by purchasing him carvings along with a block of marble for a commissioned portrait of himself. Gaudier-Brzeska had never worked on this large a project ever before and he readied himself for the job by creating a bold series of ink drawings outlining Pound’s features with a brush. Gaudier-Brzeska’s principal motivation for the commission seems to be the great Easter Island figure Hoa-Haka-Nana-Ia and the completed carving exudes placed in the British. Gaudier-Brzeska immensely enjoyed pitting himself against the various different cultures that he saw and greatly admired during his visits to the British Museum. His work ranges from careful carved Classical torsos to deliberately barbaric painted masks in an attempt to thwart what he saw in the British museum. This fascination of Gaudier-Brzeska with the selective features of tradition gave his work uniqueness, a mystifying diversity. However, underneath the surface lay an economical and firm grasp of line which is clearly exemplified by the many swift and decisive drawings of animals and figures. By 1913, his acquaintance with T. E Hulme, Ezra Pound and Epstein urged him in a direction of greater bareness and a proto-geometrical simplification. The great dunderlying difference between his ‘Dancer’ and the ‘Red Stone Dancer’ clearly shows the change in Gaudier-Brzeska’s work within a short span of mere months. His work shifted from the graceful distinction on the Rodin tradition towards a staggering alternative. The ‘Red Stone Dancer’ is brazenly aggressive in its impact because of geometrical forms on her breasts and a triangle imposed on her featureless face. The entire sculpture is a defiance of the anatomical convention of a human body for it twists and bends in impossible directions (Cork, 2009). From the above research, it can be concluded that the British Museum had an important role to play in the history of modern Sculpture in Britain. Conventionally, the British museum helped sculpturers by providing them with innovation and ideas simply by doing the job it was established for, by showing different works of art which helped inspire artists. In some cases, it was the museums policies that helped inspired artists. Regardless of how the impact was made, the British Museum had an extremely vital role in influencing modern artists and hence modern sculpture Bibliography British Museum, n.d. About us. [Online] Available at: http://www.britishmuseum.org/about_us/management/about_us.aspx [Accessed 6 January 2012]. Brittanica Encyclopedia, 2013. Henri Gaudier-Brzeska. [Online] Available at: http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/226997/Henri-Gaudier-Brzeska [Accessed 6 january 2013]. Causey, A., 1998. Sculpture Since 1945. New York: Oxford University Press. Cork, R., 2009. Henri Gaudier-Brzeska. [Online] Available at: http://www.moma.org/collection/artist.php?artist_id=2097 [Accessed 7 january 2013]. Cronshaw, J. L., 2010. Carving a Legacy: The Identity of Jacob Epstein (1880-1959) , s.l.: The University of Leeds. Curtis, P. & Wilson, K., 2011. Modern British Sculpture. London: The Lutterworth Press. Finn, D., 1981. Henry Moore at the British Museum. London: British Museum Press. Mark Barrow Fine Art, 2005. Henry Moore. [Online] Available at: http://www.markbarrowfineart.com/moore_biog.htm [Accessed 6 january 2013]. National Museums Liverpool, 2012. 'The Falling Warrior', 1956-59, by Henry Moore (1898-1986). [Online] Available at: http://www.liverpoolmuseums.org.uk/picture-of-month/displaypicture.asp?venue=2&id=34 [Accessed 7 january 2013]. Oxford University Press, 2010. Jacob Epstein. [Online] Available at: http://www.moma.org/collection/artist.php?artist_id=1741 [Accessed 7 January 2013]. Phelan, J., 2001. Henry Moore and the British Museum:The Great Conversation. [Online] Available at: http://www.artcyclopedia.com/feature-2001-01.html [Accessed 6 january 2013]. Read, H., 2001. Modern Sculpture: A Concise History. Newyork: s.n. White, N., 2011. Modern British Sculpture Catalogue. Royal Academy of Arts Read More