Fluent Essays

write summary/response for each article, total one page.A short response describing your opinion .pdf .pdf .pdf .pdf Unformatted Attachment Preview tion he sees both the development of the masses and their capacity to signify. If the sculptor’s attitude to the relief is that of an omniscient narrator commenting upon the cause-and-effect relationship of forms in both historical and plastic space, the viewer’s corresponding attitude is spelled out by the nature of the relief itself: he assumes a parallel omniscience in his reading of the work in all its lucidity. Indeed, the nineteenth-century theorists who; wrote about sculpture demanded that all form, whether free standing in space or not, must achieve the clarity that seems to be the very essence of relief. “All details of form must unite in a more comprehensive form,” Adolf von Hildebrand writes. “All separate judgments of depth must enter into a unitary, all-inclusive judgment of depth. So that ultimately the entire richness of a figure’s form stands before us as a backward continuation of one simple plane.” And he adds, “Whenever this is not the case, the unitary pictorial effect of the figure is lost. A tendency is then felt to clarify what we cannot perceive from our present point of view, by a change of position. Thus we are driven all around the figure without ever being able to grasp it once in its entirety.”4 This, then, is the sense in which the mechanical bird, October’s golden automaton, is tied to Rude’s sculpture of La Marseillaise. The automaton is part of a proof about the order of the world. Man’s capacity to create the bird is taken to herald his capacity to understand, by analogy, the endeavors of the w orld’s Creator. His own art of contrivance is seen as giving him a conceptual foothold on the logic of a universal design. Just as the clockwork bird carries with it the aspiration to under stand, by imitation, the inner workings of nature, Rude’s relief aspires to comprehend and project the movement of historical time and man’s place within it. The narrative art of relief is Rude’s medium, which makes this work paradigmatic for all of nineteenth-century sculpture . . . except for Rodin. Yet, one might ask, why not for Rodin as well? In a sense R odin’s career is entirely defined by his efforts on a single project, the Gates of Hell, which he began in 1880 and worked on until the time of his death— a project for which almost all of his sculpture was orig14 6. R odin : Gates of Hell (architectural model), ca. 1880. Terra cotta, 39V2” x 25. Musee Rodin, Paris. (Photo, Geoffrey Clements) inally fashioned. Like La Marseillaise, the Gates of Hell (fig. 5) is a relief, the sculptural decoration for a monu mental set of doors that were to serve as the entrance for a projected museum.6 And, again like La Marseillaise, the work is tied to a narrative scheme, having been com missioned as a cycle of illustrations of Dante’s Divine Comedy. In the beginning Rodin pursued a conception of the Gates that accorded with the conventions of narrative relief. His early architectural sketches for the project divide the face of the doors into eight separate panels, each of which would carry narrative reliefs arranged sequentially. The obvious models for this format were the great Renaissance doorways, particularly Ghiberti’s Gates of Paradise, the portal for the Baptistry of the Cathedral of Florence. But by the time Rodin had finished the third architectural model in terra cotta (fig. 6), it was clear that his impluse was to dam up the flow of sequential time. In that model the divisions between the separate panels are nearly all erased, while at the same time a large, static icon has been implanted in the midst of the dramatic space. Composed of a horizontal bar and a vertical stem, topped by the looming vertical mass of The Thinker, this cruciform image has the effect of cen tralizing and flattening the space of the doors, subjecting all of the figures to its abstract presence, In its final version the Gates of Hell resists all attempts to be read as a coherent narrative. Of the myriad sets of figures, only two relate directly to the parent story of The Divine Comedy. They are the groupings of Ugolino and His Sons and Paolo and Francesca (fig. 7), both of which struggle for space on the lower half of the left door. And even the separateness and legibility of these two “scenes” are jeopardized by the fact that the figure of the dying son of Ugolino is a twin of the figure of Paolo.8 This act of repetition occurs on the other door, where at the lower right edge and halfway up the side, one sees the same male body (fig. 8), in extreme disten tion, reaching upward. In one of his appearances, the actor supports an outstretched female figure, His back is arched with the effort of his gesture, and the strain across the surface of his torso is completed in the backward thrust of his head and neck. This figure, when cast and 15 7. l e f t Rodin: Gates of Hell (detail of lower left panel). Philadelphia Museum of Art. (Photo, A. J. Wyatt, staff photographer) 8. f a r r ig h t Rodin: Gates of Hell (detail of right panel). (Photo: Farrell Grehan) 9. n e a r r ig h t Rodin: The Prodigal Son, before 1889. Bronze, 55\% x 41 \% x 27\%. Musee Rodin, Paris. (Photo, Bruno Jarret) 10. a b o v e l e f t Rodin: Fugit Amor, before 1887. Marble, 17\%” x 15 x 6\%. Musee Rodin, Paris. (Photo, Adelys) exhibited singly away from the doors, is called The Prodigal Son (fig. 9). When coupled with the female and reoriented in space in relation to her body, the male figure becomes part of a group called Fugit Amor (fig. 10) . On the surface of the right door, the Fugit Amor couple appears twice, unchanged except for the angle at which it relates to the ground plane of the work. The double appearance is extremely conspicuous, and the very persistence of that doubling cannot be read as accidental. Rather, it seems to spell the breakdown of the principle of spatio-temporal uniqueness that is a prerequisite of logical narration, for doubling tends to destroy the very possibility of a logical narrative sequence. At the top of the Gates Rodin again has recourse to this strategy of repetition. There, The Three Shades (fig. 11) are a threefold representation of the same body— three identical casts radiating away from the point at which their extended left arms converge. In this way The Three Shades act to parody the tradition of grouping triple figures that was central to neoclassical sculpture. 17 Wanting to transcend the partial information that any single aspect of a figure can convey, the neoclassical sculptor devises strategies to present the human body through multiple views. His interest in multiple vantage points comes from a conviction that he must find an ideal viewpoint, one that will contain the totality of information necessary for a conceptual grasp of the object. To say, for example, that one “knows” what a cube is, cannot simply mean that one has seen such an object, since any single view of a cube is necessarily partial and incom plete. The absolute parallelism of the six sides and twelve edges that is essential to the meaning of the cube’s geom etry can never be revealed by a single look. One’s knowl edge of the cube must be knowledge of an object that tran scends the particularities of a single perspective in which only three sides, at most, can be seen. It must be a knowl edge that, in some sense, enables one to see the object from everywhere at once, to understand the object even while “seeing” it. In classicism the transcendence of the single point of view was often explicitly dealt with by using figures in pairs and in threes, so that the front view of one figure 11. l e f t Rodin: The Three Shades, 1880. Bronze, 74\% * 71 x 30. Mitsee Rodin, Paris. 12. a b o v e Antonio Canova (1757-1882): The Three Graces, 1813. Marble. Hermitage, Leningrad. (Photo, Alinari) 18 13. l e f t Bertel Thonvaldsen (1768-1844): The Three Graces, 1821. Marble. Palazzo Brera, Milan. (Photo, Broggi) 14. RIGHT Jean-Baptiste Carpeaux (1827-75): The Dance, 1873. Terra cotta, 90 x 56. Opera, Paris. (Photo, Arch. Phot. Paris) would be available simultaneously with the back view of its mate. Without destroying the uniqueness of the indi vidual form, there arises, then, a perception of a generic ideal or type in which each separate figure is seen to participate; and from this— displayed in sequence, in a series of rotations— the meaning of the lone body is established. During the early nineteenth-century, in both Canova’s and Thorwaldsen’s neoclassical sculptures of The Three Graces (figs. 12 and 13), one finds the main tenance of this tradition along with the meaning that underlies it. The viewer sees not a single figure in rota tion but, rather, three female nudes who present the body in three different angles. As in relief, this presentation arranges the bodies along a single, frontal plane, so that it is legible at a glance. Tlie persistence of this strategy as a desideratum for sculpture occurs decades later in Carpeaux’s ensemble for the fagade of the Paris Opera. There, in The Dance (fig. 14) of 1868-69, the two nymphs that flank the central male figure perform for the viewer in much the same way as Canova’s Graces had done. Mirroring each other’s posture, the two figures rotate in counterpoint, simultaneously exposing the front and back of the body to view. With the symmetry of their movement comes a 19 Wanting to transcend the partial information that any single aspect of a figure can convey, the neoclassical sculptor devises strategies to present the human body through multiple views. His interest in multiple vantage points comes from a conviction that he must find an ideal viewpoint, one that will contain the totality of information necessary for a conceptual grasp of the object. To say, for example, that one “knows” what a cube is, cannot simply mean that one has seen such an object, since any single view of a cube is necessarily partial and incom plete. The absolute parallelism of the six sides and twelve edges that is essential to the meaning of the cube’s geom etry can never be revealed by a single look. One’s knowl edge of the cube must be knowledge of an object that tran scends the particularities of a single perspective in which only three sides, at most, can be seen. It must be a knowl edge that, in some sense, enables one to see the object from everywhere at once, to understand the object even while “seeing” it. In classicism the transcendence of the single point of view was often explicitly dealt with by using figures in pairs and in threes, so that the front view of one figure 11. l e f t Rodin: The Three Shades, 1880. Bronze, 7414 x 71 x 30. Musee Rodin, Paris. 12. a b o v e Antonio Canova (1757-1882): The Three Graces, 1813. Marble. Hermitage, Leningrad. (Photo, Alinari) 18 13. l e f t Bertel Thonvaldsen (1768-1844): The Three Graces, 1821. Marble. Palazzo Brera, Milan. (Photo, Broggi) 14. r ig h t }ean-Baptiste Carpeaux (1827-75): The Dance, 1873. Terra cotta, 90 x 56. Opera, Paris. (Photo, Arch. Phot. Paris) would be available simultaneously with the back view of its mate. Without destroying the uniqueness of the indi vidual form, there arises, then, a perception of a generic ideal or type in which each separate figure is seen to participate; and from this— displayed in sequence, in a series of rotations— the meaning of the lone body is established. During the early nineteenth-century, in both Canova’s and Thorwaldsen’s neoclassical sculptures of The Three Graces (figs. 12 and 13), one finds the main tenance of this tradition along with the meaning that underlies it. The viewer sees not a single figure in rota tion but, rather, three female nudes who present the body in three different angles. As in relief, this presentation arranges the bodies along a single, frontal plane, so that it is legible at a glance. The persistence of this strategy as a desideratum for sculpture occurs decades later in Carpeaux’s ensemble for the facade of the Paris Opera. There, in The Dance (fig. 14) of 1868-69, the two nymphs that flank the central male figure perform for the viewer in much the same way as Canova’s Graces had done. Mirroring each other’s posture, the two figures rotate in counterpoint, simultaneously exposing the front and back of the body to view. With the symmetry of their movement comes a 19 satisfaction about the wholeness of one’s perception of the form, and about the way it fuses with the notion of balance that suffuses the entire composition. Even though The Dance breaks with the surface qualities of neoclassical style, it carries on the underlying premises, and satisfies in every way H ildebrand’s dictum about the need for all sculpture to conform to the principles of relief. It is R odin’s lack of conformation to these principles that makes The Three Shades disturbing. By simply repeating the same figure three times, Rodin strips away from the group the idea of composition— the idea of rhythmic arrangement of forms, the poise and counter poise of which are intended to reveal the latent meaning 15. n e a r r ig h t Thomas Eakins (1844-1916): Spinning, ca. of the body. The act of simply lining up identical markers 1882-83. Bronze, 19 x 15. of the human form, one after the other, carries with it Philadelphia Museum, of Art. (Photo, A. J. Wyatt, staff none of the traditional meaning of composition. In place photographer) of the intended angle/reverse-angle of Canova or Car- 16. FAR r ig h t Adolf von peaux, Rodin imposes an unyielding, mute, bluntness on Hildebrand (1847-1921): Archery Lesson, 1888. Stone, his Shades. This he does in the artless, almost primitive, 50 x 44 Wallraf-Richartz placement of the three heads at the same level, or in the Museum, Cologne. strange repetition of the identical but separate pedestals on which each member of the group stands. The artful arrangements of Canova and Carpeaux had made the external views of their figures seem transparent to a sense of internal meaning. But R odin’s apparent artless ness endows his figures with a sense of opacity. The Shades do not form with each other a relationship that seems capable of signification, of creating a sign that is transparent to its meaning. Instead, the repetition of the Shades works to create a sign that is totally self-referential. In seeming to refer the viewer to nothing more than his own triple production of the same object, Rodin replaces the narrative ensemble with one that tells of nothing but the repetitive process of its own creation. The Shades, which stand as both an introduction and a climax to the space of the doors, are as hostile to a narrative impulse as the “scenes” that occur on the face of the doors themselves. The corollary to R odin’s purposeful confusion of narra tive is his handling of the actual ground of the relief. For the ground plane of the Gates is simply not conceived of as the illusionistic matrix out of which the figures emerge. Relief, as we have seen, suspends the full volume 20 of a figure halfway between its literal projection above the ground and its virtual existence within the “space” of the ground. The convention of relief requires that one not take literally the fact that a figure is only partially released from its solid surrounds. Rather, the ground of relief operates like a picture plane, and is interpreted as an open space in which the backward extension of a face or a body occurs. Throughout the nineteenth century, sculptors contin ually tried to provide the viewer with information about those unseen (and of course unseeable) sides of whole objects imbedded within the relief ground. Given the unassailable frontality of relief, information about the concealed side of the figure had to come simultaneously with the viewer’s perception of its front. One strategy for doing this we have already seen: the acting-out of the body’s rotation through several figures, as in Canova’s Three Graces. This information was also supplied, and increasingly so throughout the nineteenth century, by the intentional use of actual shadows cast onto the relief ground by the raised figurative elements. In 21 Thomas Eakins’ bronzes of contemporary genre scenes (fig. 15) or Hildebrand’s antiquarian plaques (fig. 16), there is a unifying formal impulse. Whether one looks at the work of an ardent realist of of a determined classicist, one sees that forms are marshaled so that the shadows they cast will direct the viewer’s attention to the buried and unseen sides of the figures. In a sculpture by Medardo Rosso, which is contem porary with Rodin’s early work on the Gates, the use of cast shadow operates as it does in Rude or Eakins or Hildebrand. For Rosso’s Mother and Child Sleeping (fig. 17) contains not two but three figurative elements. The first is the gently swollen circle of the infant’s head. The second is the voluptuous fabric of the side of the female face in which the concave and convex forms of forehead, cheek, and mouth are gathered into the simple contour of the profile. The third, which lies between them, is the field of shadow cast by the mother onto the 22 17i l e f t Medardo Rosso (18581928): Mother and Child Sleeping, 1883. Bronze, 13Vs. Private collection. 18. r ig h t Rodin: “Je suis belle,” 1882. Bronze, 29Vz x 15\% x ll\% .M usee Rodin, Paris. (Photo, Adelys) face of the child. What is striking about this shadow is that it does not function, as one would expect, by inject ing a quantity of open space into the clenched forms of the sculpture, nor by serving as a fulcrum of darkness on which two light-drenched volumes are balanced. In stead, the shadow produces visual testimony about the other side of the woman’s head. The exposed surfaces of the faces, which carry the continual reminder of the sculptor’s touch as he modeled them, become, because of the shadow, the most intense and poignant area of touch: the contact between the hidden cheek of the mother and the buried forehead of the child. It is as though Rosso felt it was not enough simply to excavate figures from the ground of the relief; he also supplies data about the realms of interaction so immersed within the material of the sculpture that neither the probe of his fingers nor our gaze could reach them. It is surely part of Rosso’s meaning that beyond the bril liance of his modeling, which permits light to open and penetrate his surfaces, lies an unseeable area of the form about which he is compelled to report.7 In Rodin’s Gates, on the other hand, cast shadow seems to emphasize the isolation and detachment of full-round figures from the relief ground and to enforce one’s sense of the ground as a solid object in its own right, a kind of object that will not permit the illusion that one sees through it to a space beyond. In addition, the shadow underlines the sense that the figures are intentionally fragmented and necessarily in complete, rather than only perceptually incomplete, as in Rosso. For the first time, in the Gates, a relief ground acts to segment the figures it carries, to present them as literally truncated, to disallow them the fiction of a virtual space in which they can appear to expand. The Gates are, then, simultaneously purged of both the space and time that would support the unfolding of narrative. Space in the work is congealed and arrested; temporal rela tionships are driven toward a dense unclarity. There is still another level on which Rodin worked this almost perverse vein of opacity: this is the way he related, or failed to relate, the outward appearance of the body to its inner structure. The outward gestures made by Rodin’s figures do not seem to arise from what one 23 knows of the skeletal substructure that should support the body’s movement. One has only to compare, for example, Rodin’s group called “Je s ... Purchase answer to see full attachment