Dance in My Sculpture

Leonardo,Vol. 3, pp. 185-187. Pergamon Press 1970. Printed in Great Britain DANCE IN MY SCULPTURE Peter Lipman-Wult* Fig. 1. ‘TheDancing Couple’,ebony, height 5 ft 6 in., 1951. (Collectionof WhitneyMuseum of AmericanArt, New York.) (Photo: F. Stein,New York.) The movementsof the bodiesof dancersresult from disciplined and trained muscular energy. Seeing their display of elemental strength brings to my mind Nietzsche’s words: ‘. ...One must still have chaosin oneselfto givebirth to a dancingstar’ [l]. Sequences of dance movements are.sometimes arrested at their climax in a frozen gesture. Such a moment clearlyrevealsthe intimatelinkbetweenthe dance and my sculpture [2]. As a sculptor, I try to capture one of these countless moments, whether of one, a pair or a group of dancers. The complexityof the dance with its rhythms and designs in space, the ornamental lines of arms and * Artist Living at 361 Bleecker Street, New York, N.Y. 10014, U.S.A. (Received22 October 1969.) legs and the gesturesof hands and fingershave gripped my imagination since early childhood. I have tried to capture in my sculpturean intimateattitude, to recreate the bending of a body in motion with its tilt towards another body which holds, braces or repels it (cf. Figs. 1, 2 and 3). Can one believe with Nietzsche that chaos is ultimately at the origin of the dance? I would say that chaos is the enemy of both the dance and of sculpture, for they are the result of study and premeditation. Internal chaos or unbound energy, however, is their sourceof inspiration. As is well known, the representationof the dance in sculpture dates back to antiquity. Dancers can be found in Egyptian reliefs and on Greek vases. In the Renaissance,Luca della Robbia glorified the 185 186 Peter Lipman- Wulf Fig. 2. ‘Danceof Veils’, bronze (lost wax process), height 24 in., 1964. (Harbor Gallery, Cold Spring Harbor, N. I‘.; (Photo: F. Stein,New York.) Dionysian joy of the dance in the chancel of the cathedral of Florence [3]. Many of Rodin’s sculptures remind me of dance gestures and postures [4]. I admire the exultation to music captured in the group of dancers by Carpeaux in front of the Opera in Paris [5] and the bronze figures of dancers executed by Degas as an aid for his paintings and drawings [6]. Artist-craftsmen have produced many sculptures to record the various stylesof dancing, ranging from folk and classical dance to modern ballet and discoteque dancing. I have been less interested in being a recorder than in capturing the essence of dancing. If one compares my dance sculptures with those made by creative artists of the past, it is evident that I have not portrayed ballet in the traditional or classical sense. My main interest has always been to use the theme of the dance in the context of my sculptural style, that is, the means of expression I apply in my work. The‘Dancing Couple’ (cf. Fig. l), dating back to 1951,uses a technique of flat wooden boards which arejoined with wooden dowels. These boards of ebony are interwoven and givethe illusion of movement through their stylized silhouettes. There isvery littlesurfacemodulation ofthepolished ebony boards, so that the light can play on their different inclinations and juxtapositions, producing a variety of three-dimensional effects. In ‘The Dance of Veils’ (cf. Fig. 2), created 13 years later, the bronze material is used in a more 186 Peter Lipman- Wulf Fig. 2. ‘Danceof Veils’, bronze (lost wax process), height 24 in., 1964. (Harbor Gallery, Cold Spring Harbor, N. I‘.; (Photo: F. Stein,New York.) Dionysian joy of the dance in the chancel of the cathedral of Florence [3]. Many of Rodin’s sculptures remind me of dance gestures and postures [4]. I admire the exultation to music captured in the group of dancers by Carpeaux in front of the Opera in Paris [5] and the bronze figures of dancers executed by Degas as an aid for his paintings and drawings [6]. Artist-craftsmen have produced many sculptures to record the various stylesof dancing, ranging from folk and classical dance to modern ballet and discoteque dancing. I have been less interested in being a recorder than in capturing the essence...