Sculpture: My Outlook and Work

Leonuru‘o, Vol. 7, pp. 239-241. Perganion Press 1474. Printed in Great Britain SCULPTURE: MY OUTLOOK AND WORK Eugen Ciuca* 1 . I believe that the surest way for portraying the essence of a subject, idea or theme in sculpture, what has been called the attainment of artistic truth, is by treating it as explicitly as possible. This is not easy to do, oftentimesrequiring a long period of study and trial. Constantin Brancusi has provided examples of this approach. For example, he developed the theme of ‘The Kiss’ in a series of sculptures beginning with a piece at the Montparnasse Cemetery in Paris, called ‘Le Baker’ (1908), and ending with ‘Portal of the Kiss’ (1936-37), which is at Targul Jiu in Roumania. During three decades he returned to the theme time and time again. Each succeeding piece was more and more simplified. In the earlier ones the heads, eyes, mouths and breasts of the embracing couple were clearly indicated. Later the two heads were reduced to a single circle divided by a single vertical line. Brancusi’s simplifying process for crystallizing a theme can be taken as a kind of dematerialization of it to arrive at a synthesis. My approach to sculpture isquite differentin that I try to materialize a theme. I start with a very simple sculptural representation . In my piece ‘The Cry’, for example, I used a shape resembling a mouth opened in a cry of pain or lament (Fig. 1). I may then vary the shape, with the intent of making it as clear and illustrative as possible. * Roumanian sculptor living at 21 Shore Lane, Bay Shore, NY 11706, U S A . (Received 4 August 1972.) Fig. 1. ‘The Cry’, bronze and wood, 190 x 80 x 45 cm., 1963. (Photo: V. Malcoci, Bucharest, Roumania.) 2. There is an aspect of figurative sculpture that I believe has not been sufficiently studied and exploited and that is the way to give artistic expression to the wide variety of human moods and responses to conflicts in life. The distress of Dante over evil in The Divine Comedy has long obsessed me as a sculptor. The sculpture I call ‘Dante Alighieri’ was guided by the following thoughts (Figs. 2 and 3). The piece is organized along the vertical in such a way as to draw the attention of a viewer to something in the sky to which Dante is pointing. T h i sevil something is approaching, causing him to turn his head away. In addition, the planes of the figure are oriented in a way that I feel convey his mood of urgency and distress. My study of examples of the works of sculptors of ancient Egypt and Greece and of Renaissance Italy has led me to use a certain orientation of planes in my works to give a feeling of various kinds of moods. The figure is mounted on a large twisted pyramidal base that is compatible with the orientation of planes of the figure. 3. Many sculptors have conveyed a feeling of motion or movement in figurative works, for example, Myron in his ‘Discobolus’, Athenodorus, 239 Eugen Ciucu 240 Fig. 2. ‘Dante Alighieri’, plaster model for a monument, 107 x 22 x 21 cm., 1952-53. Hagesander and Polydorus in their ‘Laocoon’ and Boccioni in his ‘Muscoli in Volo’. Boccioni’s piece gives the impression that it is about to fly away from its base. Such sculptures generally possess one or more of the following features: (1) The axes of major elements intersect at an oblique angle; (2) patterns of elements are repeated; (3) lines are given a sharp break and (4) the piece is made to appear off balance. Myron’s ‘Discobolus’ is an example of a sculpture that is primarily devoted to giving a feeling of motion. Relevant to the above discussion are Refs. 1, 2 and 3. The sculptures of athletes in action 1made with the Roumanian sculptor Emil Mereanu for a stadium at Bucharest incorporate the features mentioned above for giving a feeling of motion. These features may, of course, also be used in nonfigurative or abstract sculpture as can be seen in the works of Angela Gurria, Clement Meadmore, Mohamed Melehi...