The Sculpture Scene in Seattle

Jonathan Borofsky. Hammering Man, 1992

Modern and contemporary sculpture thrives in Seattle with anchor collections at the Chihuly Museum and the Olympic Sculpture Park.  While exploring the downtown district, one encounters works by internationally known artists such as Jonathan Borofsky and Henry Moore. Borofsky’s colossal steel figure, entitled Hammering Man, stands outside the entrance to the Seattle Art Museum. Watch for a minute as the Man’s left arm brings down the hammer.  A recent visit to Seattle inspired me to create a photographic sampling of the city’s sculpture which is linked at:

Scupture in Seattle. Jocelyn Curtis

https://youtu.be/w4nZTtxi-mU

Abstractions in Steel at the National Gallery

Oriforme, Jean Arp. 1962/1977 Washington, D.C.

     Two stainless steel sculptures in the National Gallery Washington D.C. collection provide a challenge of interpretation for every viewer. The ideas generated by Jean Arp and George Rickey are paramount and integral to their art forms. 

     Jean Arp (1886-1966) developed an interest in natural forms such as rocks, branches, roots and grass…. His observations resulted in organic abstractions in art that he referred to as “Earthly Forms.” 1  Arp often worked with paper, cardboard and wood which are impermanent materials that may also be reminders of the fragility of life.  Arp’s 1962 model for Oriforme was fabricated in stainless steel in 1977, eleven years after his death. 2

     The artistic legacy of Jean (Hans) Arp is bonded to Dada, which was an affiliation of artists, actors, and writers who reacted against the devastation of World War I. Dada began in Zurich, Switzerland and rapidly spread to major cities: Berlin; Hanover; Cologne; Paris; and New York.  Jean Arp, in his early thirties during the war, joined colleagues such as Hugo Ball and Tristan Tzara at the Cabaret Voltaire in Zurich.  Arp wrote “Despite the remote booming of the artillery, we sang, painted, pasted and wrote poetry with all our might.” 3   He intended to eliminate reminders of human personality (and control) from his work, and introduced elements of chance.

Cluster of Four Cubes, George Rickey. 1992

     George Rickey’s Cluster of Four Cubes is a geometric abstraction that includes the element of actual motion.  A patient observer will see subtly changing variations in the configuration of the cubes, but the motor is hidden.  Kinetic art is based upon philosophic ideas in response to industrialization and the machine age. Rickey wrote an essay entitled The Morphology of Movement  to articulate kinetic relationships. 4  His subjects initially pertained to the forces of nature, not mimetic representations of trees and flowers.  He stated interest in “the waving of the branches and the trembling of stems, the piling up or scuddling of clouds, the rising and setting and waxing and waning of heavenly bodies; the creeping of spilled water on the floor; the repertory of the sea – from ripple and wavelet to tide and torrent.”  5  He recognized complex relationships of motion that could be conceptualized for his sculptures. George Rickey (1907-2002) was born in South Bend, Indiana, but in 1913 moved to Scotland with his family.  He shared an artistic affinity with leading American and European artists.


Endnotes:

1. Leah Dickerman. Dada - exhibition catalog. (National Gallery of Art, DC., 2006), 461.
2. Jean Arp. 2013. The National Gallery of Art. 
    http://www.nga.gov/content/ngaweb/Collection/art-object-page.56617.html 
    (accessed December 11, 2013).
3. Dickerman, 19.
4. Jack Burnham. Beyond Modern Sculpture – The Effects of Science and Technology on the Sculpture of This
    Century. (New York: Braziller, Inc., 1969), 268.
5. Ibid., 267.

Public Art in Quebec City: Tradition Meets Popular Culture

     A realistic, bronze sculpture of Samuel de Champlain is a landmark feature within the walled gates of old Quebec City. The sculpture was created by Paul Chevré in 1898. The figure of Champlain, with plumed hat and cloak in hand, is poised in mid-stride on a high marble pedestal near the famous Frontenac Hotel.  Champlain was a French explorer who, along with thirty-two colonists, is acclaimed as a founder of Quebec City.

     Located near Place Royal, a standing figure of Champlain is also included in an exterior wall fresco that is painted in a tromp l’oeil technique (fool-the-eye-realism).  Representations of historical figures are juxtaposed on the same two-dimensional surface as depictions of contemporary figures who are engaged in the activities of everyday life. Viewers who stand next to the mural merge with the illusionistic scene. The cobblestone road under the archway in the fresco appears to lead to a horse-drawn carriage, and the staircase appears to connect two street levels. 

The mural, completed in 1999, was a collaborative project that included: Hélène Fleury; Marie-Chantal Lachance; Pierre Laforest; plus a collective group of artists from Lyons known as Cité Création.  Additional murals in Quebec City are a testimony to the popularity of this public artform.

     Since 2002, the Québécois celebrate their French ancestry with an annual summer festival that includes a parade of colossal figures referred to as Giants. The figures are built over a wooden armature, and placed on a wheeled platform so they can be easily rolled through the streets. Each of the thirteen Giants have symbolic associations, and new figures may be added. The parade, accompanied by enthusiastic drummers, evokes pride in the cultural heritage of the Quebec community.

References:

French Wall Art in the Quebec City Borough of La Cité. Encyclopedia of French       

     Cultural Heritage in North America. 2007

     http://www.ameriquefrancaise.org/en/article-

     414/Fresco_Wall_Art_in_the_Quebec_City_Borough_of_La_Cité.html 

     (accessed Nov 18)

Mr. Paul Romaine Marie Leonce Chevre. Encyclopedia Titanica 2013

     http://www.encyclopedia-titanica.org/titanic-survivor/paul-chevre.html

     (accessed Nov 21, 2013).

Samuel de Champlain. 2000. PBS-Empire of the Bay

     http://www.pbs.org/empireofthebay/profiles/dechamplain.html 

     (accessed Nov 21, 2013).

The Giants. La Fêtes de la Nouvelle-France. 2013. 

     http://www.nouvellefrance.qc.ca/index.php/en/a-bit-of-history/the-giants.html

     (accessed December 2, 2013).

The Gates of New York: A Mirage of Memory

The Gates, Christo and Jeanne-Claude.
  Central Park, New York. 2005

     During the cold and bleak wintry month of February 2005, Christo and his wife Jeanne-Claude installed thousands of saffron-color fabric panels suspended from vertical posts throughout Central Park in New York. After more than twenty years of planning, the art installation was approved for a temporary period of sixteen days.  In a press release for the project, Christo described The Gates “like a golden river appearing and disappearing through the bare branches of the trees."1 The footpaths are a permanent feature of the park, but the saffron-posts and billowing fabric accentuated those pathways.  To avoid any permanent environmental impact, Christo’s vertical posts were secured to heavily weighted bases, and not sunk into the earth.  All that remains of the installation project today, is the lasting impression of the art experience (plus drawings, photographs and videos).

     Christo has never been known to dictate the meaning of his artistic endeavors, but he does consistently use fabric on a grand scale.  His persistent use of fabric may have initially been inspired during his adolescence in Bulgaria where he made sketches in his father’s textile factory.2  He explained in an interview about The Gates, “Fabric is like a second skin, it is very related to human existence.  The fabric will move with wind, the water, with the natural elements…like breathing.”3

     Christo Javacheff’s mid-twentieth century artistic education began at the Sofia Academy in Prague and the Vienna Fine Art Academy, but his avant-garde career was launched with his arrival in Paris where he met Jeanne-Claude.4  Since 1961, Christo and Jeanne-Claude have collaborated on many large-scale art projects that include fabric wrapped buildings, bridges and islands.  All of these projects were temporary.  In the past, Christo explained that his “pigments are like all the people and things I need to put together in some fabulous chemistry for the project to come off.”5  The ephemeral quality of his installations has challenged the definition of art. The element of time is also a crucial factor.  Christo has also stated “that my artworks exists physically for only a brief span (which) makes for tremendous exclusivity because in seeing them people share in a complete uniqueness…..They (the art) will never exist again, just like our childhood…..It  is intended to remind people that we are only once in the world and shall never return again.”6  The lasting impressions of The Gates remain as a mirage in one’s memory, along with the fond memories of family, friends and colleagues.

---

Endnotes

1 Christo and Jeanne Claude. The Gates. 2005.

http://www.christojeanneclaude.net/projects/the-gates (accessed November 13, 2013).

2 Christo in Paris. VHS. A Maysles Film Production. New York, NY. 1990.

3 Jonathan Fineberg, On the Way to the Gates – Central Park, New York City, (New Haven: Yale  University Press, 2004), 53.

4 Ibid., 197.

5 Eric Shanes, “Christo and the Boundaries of Sculpture,” Apollo: Vol. CXXX no. 330 (August 1989): 110.

6 Ibid., 111.

Art and Music: An American Allegory

Orpheus, Charles Niehaus. 1922

     A colossal bronze sculpture of Orpheus standing on top of a marble base is located on the grounds of historic Fort McHenry adjacent to Baltimore’s harbor.  This classical nude figure with a lyre in hand is derived from ancient Greek mythology, since the musician Orpheus was believed to enchant wild animals in the forest with his songs.
     The sculpture by Niehaus serves as an allegory for American history during the War of 1812 against England. The twenty-four foot high figure was commissioned to commemorate the 100th Anniversary of the defense of Baltimore.  Through the allegorical figure of Orpheus, Niehaus paid tribute to American songwriter – Francis Scott Key, who wrote the lyrics to the U.S. National Anthem while on board a British ship in the harbor.  Key was actually an attorney who was part of a team negotiating the release of an American prisoner. Francis Scott Key witnessed the bombardment of Fort McHenry while he was on board the British ship. His poetic lyrics, entitled The Star Spangled Banner, were aligned to a popular tune by John Stafford Smith, and officially adopted by Congress as the National Anthem in 1931.  The marble base that supports Orpheus is carved with low relief figures that include allegorical personifications of the U.S. Army and Navy.  These figures are represented as musicians.

     The sculptor Charles Henry Niehaus (1855-1935) was born in Ohio and began his studies at the McMicken School of Design in Cincinnati.  He continued formal study at the Royal Academy in Munich, Germany and later moved to Rome where he refined his preference for classical aesthetics. One of his earliest commissions was a full-length, naturalistic sculpture of President James Abram Garfield for the Rotunda of the U.S. Capitol.  Niehaus’s career accelerated when he established a studio in New York.  He was also elected to the National Academy of Design. Three of his sculptures are in the permanent collection of the Smithsonian American Art Museum.

Orpheus, "Army" detail of marble base

Orpheus, "Navy" detail of marble base

References:

Charles H. Niehaus. Smithsonian American Art Museum and the Renwick Gallery.
     http://americanart.si.edu/collections/search/artist/?id=3549 
     (accessed October 29, 2013).

James Abram Garfield. U.S. Government Printing Office.
     http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/GPO-CDOC-107sdoc11/pdf/GPOCDOC-
     107sdoc11-2-47.pdf (accessed October 29, 2013).

Orpheus, plaque. Fort McHenry. National Park Service, 2010.

Moncrieff, A.R. Hope. A Treasury of Classical Mythology.
      New York: Barnes & Noble, Inc., 1992.

Proske, Beatrice Gilman.  Brookgreen Gardens Sculpture. South Carolina:
      Brookgreen Gardens, 1968.

Inspiration for Imagination at the Philadelphia Museum of Art

Since the prehistoric period, naturalistic depictions of animals were created based upon observational memory.  A landmark shift in the arts developed with the creation of fantasy creatures. This was indicative of an artist’s imagination.  One of these mythical creatures, inspired by  the civilization of ancient Greece, is included on top of a pediment at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. The griffin, a composite of a lion and eagle, is haunched on a corner of the museum roof.  Under its’ perch is a brightly painted entablature supported by fluted Ionic columns. The ancient Greeks sometimes placed small sculptures, referred to as acroterion, on top of their buildings.    

Pediment. Philadelphia Museum of Art

This entire façade of the museum emulates the style of ancient Greek architecture. Other figurative sculptures are included within the triangular pediment of the Philadelphia Museum as a reminder of ancient Greek aesthetics and mythology. Another entrance to this museum has Corinthian capitals in blue, green, gold and rose. The imaginary creature of the griffin has also been adopted as a symbol for the Philadelphia Museum of Art logotype.

Reference:

Stokstad, Marilyn.  Art History, A View of the West. Third edition, Volume one. 

     Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson-Prentice Hall, 2008.