On the Making of a Sculpture

Leonarab, Vol. 4, pp. 255-256. Pergamon Press 1971. Printed in Great Britain NOTES In thissection of Leonard0textsnotexceedingabout2000wordrwillbepublished. Notes will not be accompanied by abstracts and,generally, only threeblack and white illustrations will be allowed. Accepted Notes will be published more quickly than longer texts. ON THE MAKING OF A SCULPTURE Martin Blaszko* In 1955,I made the sculpture ‘Constellation,I’ (cf. Fig. l), whichwasthe resultofaneffortto harmonize strong horizontalsand verticalsand to combinetwo major bipolar elements. The objectivesof my work have been described elsewhere [l-31. Now I shall outlinethestagesin theconstructionof my sculpture ‘Constellation, II’, which I made fifteen years later (cf. Fig. 2). The motif of bipolarity is the samein both pieces, however, the second one is more complex and the surfaces are rough instead of smooth. Whereas the piece of 1955was in the constructivisttradition, the later one can be classified as expressionist. I began ‘Constellation, 11’ by positioning three U-shaped Artist living at Guido 1536, Buenos Aires, Argentina. Hg. 1. ‘Constellation, r, ma(luette, painted wood, (Received 18 November 1970.) 55 x 79 x 48 cm, 1955. Fig. 2. ‘Constellation,II’,plasticine, 49 x 78 x 45 cm, 1970. (Photo:G. Stern,BuenosAires). 255 256 Martin Blaszko columns on a horizontal plane (cf. Fig. 3(a)). The increasing width to the top of each column makes their stability weak and, thereby, a feelingof movement is introduced. The U-shape was chosen for the interesting inner shadows produced. I wonder why the channelcross-sectionis not employedmore often by sculptors to obtain changinglight patterns as the observeror the light sourcechangesposition. In fact, Rodin’s views on the role of shadows and highlightsseemstobelittleheeded. JanZachappears to be one who does, as he explained in his recent article‘Imagery,Lightand Motion in my Sculpture’ in Leonardo [4]. The architect, L e Corbusier, took effective advantage of the play of light and shadow on the masses of his buildings. The second stage of building up the sculpture consisted of adding vertical surfaces with openings in them (cf. Fig. 3(b)). I placed them in such a way that theirilluminatedsidescontrastwiththeshadows in the channelsof the columnsand that they serveas 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. (4 Fig. 3. (a) ‘Constellation,ZZ’, stage 1, wood,December, 1968. (b)‘Constellation,ZZ’, stage 2, woodandcardboard, January,1969. (c) ‘Constellation,ZZ’, stage 3, wood,cardboard andplasticine, May, 1969. connectinglinks in the space between the columns. In order not to detract from the dominance of the circular opening in the larger surface, I made the opening in the smaller one with essentiallystraight sides. The basic armature of the sculpture is now ready for modeling with plasticine (cf. Fig. 3(c)). As can be seenin Fig. 2, the massesbuilt around the columns were given curved sides and additional connectionsweremadebetweenthe columnsandthe verticalsurfacesin sucha waythat thefinalsculpture consistsof two major elementsto meet my obsession with the principle of bipolarity. I was muchinterestedby the experimentsmadeby Richard G. Coss on the preference of subjects for two circular forms when placed in the position corresponding to the eyes of animals [5] and the results of the survey made recently in Toronto, Canada that showed a sample of the general public preferredhorizontalformats [6]. My ‘Constellation, 11’,in addition to echoingthe resultsof thesestudies, includesmy convictionof the importanceof the play of light and shadow in sculpture, in spite of Brancusi’s statement: ‘I have eliminated holes, whichcauseshadows’ [7]. Itis quiteevidentthat the empirical approach artists used to the problems of aestheticsis at this stage of development of art very confusing. Althoughtherehavebeengreatadvances in human physiology and psychology during the past few decades, I have the feeling that the Greek sculptors of antiquity better understood aesthetics than sculptors of our time. REFERENCES M. Blaszko, Sculptureand the Principleof Bipolarity,Leonardo2,223 (1969). F. Barraclough, Sculpturein Argentina: Martin Blaszko, Sculpture International 2, 26 (1968). M. Blaszko, Naceuna escultura,Sculpture International3,28 (1970). Jan Zach, Imagery, Light and Motion in my Sculptures,Leonardo 3,285 (1970). R. G. Coss, The EthologicalCommand in Art, Leonardo 1,273 (1968). PublicAttitudesToward ModemArt,Museum 22,127 (1970). S. Geist, Brancusi(New York: Grossman, 1968) p. 157. ...