Expressionism & Sculpture

Expressionism is a much less important current in sculpture than in painting, since the ethnographic sculpture by the Fauves might have evoked a strong response among sculptors. Only one important sculptor shared in this rediscovery. Brancusi, a Rumanian, moved to Paris to study advanced art around 1904. But he was more interested in the formal simplicity and coherence of primitive carvings than in their savage expressiveness; this is evidenced in The Kiss which was executed in 1909. Brancusi had a 'genius of ommission' - to Brancusi a monument is an upright slab, symmetrical and immobile - a permanent marker like the styles of the ancients and he disturbed the basic shape as little as possible. The Embracing Lovers are more primeval than primitive. They are a timeless symbol of generations - innocent and anonoymous. Brancusi's 'primevalism' was the starting point of a sculptural tradition that continues today.
Until now, African pottery, wooden carvings, and textiles had been viewed essentially as handicraft because, it was argued, the religious, military, sexual, or decorative functions of the works suggested that they had not been created as art, to be appreciated for their own sake It was the magical and mystical quality of the "Primitive" African art that inspired Brancusi; and the quality that counted most.
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Around 1910 Brancusi started to concentrate on two basic forms of such uncompromising simplicity the Newborn or The Beginning of the World; and soaring vertical 'bird' motif, ie Bird in Space He was fascinated by the antithesis of life as potential and as kinetic energy. Brancusi's early works were influenced by Rodin and by the impressionists, but after 1908 he rapidly evolved his characteristic personal style. With the basic intention of laying bare the underlying nature of an image, he abandoned the use of live models and adapted a simplified, streamlined style In describing the evolution of his art, he said: "One arrives at simplicity as one approaches the real meaning of things." Two simple organic shapes predominate in his work: the egg and the elongated cylinder. An example of the former is Sleeping Muse, in which the figure is represented simply as a stylized ovoid head Bird in Space is a long, graceful cylinder of polished metal, its lines reminiscent of the curve of a bird's wing. Here Brancusi refined the organic form to the point where it became almost totally abstract, a conceptual rather than an actual representation. The artist also worked in shapes that are more geometric. By concentrating on pure form, Brancusi freed sculpture from its 19th-century pictorialism and prepared the way for 20th-century abstract sculptors