personality by sculpture

7/28/2019 Personality by Sculpture

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Personality by Sculpture

Annastacia Smith

English 11

April 4, 2013

Stamford Central School



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Sir Herbert Read once said, “Sculpture is an art of palpation — an art that gives

satisfaction in the touching and handling of objects” (Ashton 5). To analyze a painting, one has

to look with only their eyes; no touching is involved. With sculpture, an analyst can walk around

the piece to see what it consists of and feel the texture of the work (Valentiner 11). He or she can

understand the artist who made the art and begin to know them. A person can feel what the artist

was feeling when he or she made the work.

Artists try to grab their audience to tell them who he or she, the artist, really is.

Sometimes a person can understand an artist completely because of past experiences they both

have encountered. Others have trouble reading into the artist’s pieces. They walk two totally

different paths of life. The audience members who do not understand at once may never fully

appreciate the artist’s works. Artists show their personalities through the pieces they make, the

materials and techniques they use, and the purpose behind their work. To understand art, you

need to make a connection to it (Greenberg 62).

Art isn’t about entertainment (Greenberg 62). If it were all about entertainment, there

would be no sad pieces, and artists wouldn’t get so tied up in making their work the best way to

tell the message they are trying to say. Modern sculpture is the expression of an artist’s beliefs

and emotions (Casson 1). Valentiner said, “Sculpture is formed with the hands” (3). Being made

with the hands of one who has suffered, the pain can be better portrayed. If one tried to create a

piece that says they have suffered and they hadn’t, the piece wouldn’t be as meaningful.

Sculptors reflect themselves in their work (Elsen 39). Symbolism is often used (Elsen

12). Jacob Epstein is known for displaying sculptural metaphors (Elsen 36). They put their

experiences and what they have seen in life into their artwork (Elsen 12). Every sculpture has its

own unique emotion (Ashton 6). Sculpture is a way for artists to share their personal stories



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(Greenberg 54). Memories are made into documents (Greenberg 27). Sculpture is a form of

record keeping for history. It can show how people in the past lived and developed over the years

(“The Importance of Sculpture” 288). Thoughts and feelings are communicated (“The

Importance of Sculpture 229; Greenberg 62).

Auguste Rodin said, “Sculpture is an art of hollows and projections” (Modern). It is all

about using combined shapes and creating something beautiful (Hammacher 111). Everything

has its own shape. With combined shapes, pieces can either be thought of as complex or boring.

“Sculpture is a three-dimensional artwork in real space, not space that is drawn or painted”

(Greenberg 68). Baudelaire believes that sculpture is a secondary art because there is no single

point of view as there is with a painting (Ashton 5). To be considered sculpture, the piece has to

be three-dimensional. It can’t be in a space the artist has made f or him or herself. There isn’t

only one way to look at sculpture; a person can look at it from one side while another person

looks at the other. Both are looking for the beauty and purpose behind the piece.

The original purpose of sculpture was to give art more dimensions (Ashton 46). Painters

began sculpting because they wanted a three-dimensional art form (Hammacher 83). Sculpture is

a tangible form of art (Ashton 48). Modern sculpture captures what cannot be captured in a

photograph (Heckenbach). Photographs are only two-dimensional. A sculpture can give the

viewer so much more to look at, feel emotionally, and touch physically.

Architecture, woodworkings (Ashton 45), robotics (Nathanson), jewelry (Rosolowski),

commemorative, traditional, and free-standing sculptures are some of the many forms of

sculpture. Architecture is the art of designing and constructing buildings. A commemorative

sculpture is a piece that lasts a long time and is used for monuments and memorials (The

Importance of Sculpture 229). Traditional sculptures are durable (Ward 20). “Free-standing



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sculpture is the most familiar kind of sculpture” (Sculpture as 230). When sculptures stand and

touch a building, they are no longer just free-standing sculptures; they are architecture

(Michalska). Soft sculptures hang, glitter, drip, and ooze (Ward 23). Most soft sculptures have

accidental shapes and forms. These shapes are odd for one to look at because a person may have

seen a similar shape before and never realized that it could be reconstructed.

Michelangelo achieved many forms of art including poetry, sculpture, painting, and

architecture (Holm). He is famous for many of these art forms. He could make someone viewing

one of his pieces feel the physical pain he had once felt. Many emotions and a lot of heart were

put into every piece he made. He didn’t like when people were around him while he was working

on his pieces (Valentiner 2). This may have been why he had so many unfinished pieces (Liebert

47). He is said to have been a very emotional man. Something may have happened in his life to

make him this way, or he may just have had that kind of personality.

Artist who are very emotional create exaggerated sculptures and paintings (Valentiner 3).

Michelangelo was very judgmental and a perfectionist. He was never happy with anything

(Liebert 47). When something was irreversibly flawed on a piece Michelangelo was working on,

he considered it sculpturally unacceptable (Liebert 49, 50). He would have to reconstruct that

part of the piece before he would be even slightly satisfied.

He made Pietà (see Appendix A) as a tomb for when he died (Liebert 50). Michelangelo

tried to destroy Pietà (Liebert 47) because his servant, Urbino, nagged him to finish it every day

(Liebert 48).

Matthew Placzek made a sculpture for the children’s hospital in Omaha. The sculpture is

said to give hope to both the children and their families (Omaha 114). Placzek created the piece

to lift the childrens’ spirits so they could get better and go home as soon as possible.



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Marjorie Schick constructs objects that people can wear (Rosolowski). Jewelry can be

passed down from generation to generation. In a way, her work could possibly never die. It may

still be worn hundreds of years from when she first created it. In this form of sculpture, Marjorie

can make anything she wants and someone along the line will think it is beautiful, even if the

person before thought it was the weirdest thing they had ever seen. Artists give themselves

licenses to make something absurd (Scott).

Different sculptors like to use their own preference of materials for the pieces they work

on or create. The element of newness is not within the materials themselves but in the new

shapes the artist makes with them (Hammacher 315). If a sculptor does not like a certain material

at all, he or she probably will avoid using it as much as possible. Anything can be used to make a

sculpture, including perishable items (Ashton 45).

Sculptures made with certain materials determine what kind of sculpture it is. A sculpture

made with clay and glaze is a ceramic sculpture (De Brukyner 71). Carving materials include

stone, wood, bone, and plastics. Carvers use hammers, chisels, drills, gauges, and saws for tools

(“Sculpture: Techniques and Materials”). Stone and marble are traditionally used for sculptures

of the nude (Elsen 121). James Rosati makes heads out of marble (Hammacher 354). Black

stones (Casson 12) and harder stones like granite and basalt are not used often (Casson 10).

Plastic sculptures are everywhere (Ward 20). To be made, a liquid plastic is poured into a mold.

Plastic sculptures are the totes you keep things in under your bed or the containers you keep your

leftovers in.

Materials used for soft sculptures are cloth, fur, rope, rubber, paper, leather, and vinyl

(Ward 20). In some cases, latex and fiberglass are also used (Ward 23). Soft sculptures are weird

to look at. Some seem as if they could be a drop of water dripping out of a sink faucet, while



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others could be a fake piece of cake that you wish was real just so you could have a taste of the

icing.

In other forms of sculpture steel, plexiglass, epoxy, compressed wood, rubber (Ashton

10), wax (“Sculpture: Techniques and Materials”), plaster (Valentiner 3), wire (Ashton 26), and

half-burnt wood (Hammacher 354) are used. Sculptors use both junk and new materials

(Hammacher 315). For example, Stankiewicz used any material he could find. He used pieces of

rusting pipes, boilers, nuts, bolts, and chunks of iron and other metals (Ashton 38). Some

sculptors go looking around streets to see if anything people have littered is something they can

use for one of their pieces of art.

Works have been made with the combination of iron wires, cardboard planes, clothing

and tissue paper (Elsen 63). Others, a combination of wires, cotton, wool, silk, colored glass,

tissue paper, celluloid, metal netting, and highly colored materials (Elsen 128). These two

examples of material combination pieces are polychrome. Polychrome is the use of varied

materials. German sculptor Adolf Hildebrand, known as Archipenko was the first to use many

different materials like glass, metal, wood, and terra-cotta in one piece (Ashton 15). Many

sculptors, including Barrias, Dapt, and Klinger have used this technique (Elsen 102).

Sarah Sze also used the polychrome technique by joining ladders, levels, winches,

extension cords, Q-tips, pushpins, birthday candles, and aspirin tablets together. When she

started she used loose change, pen caps, pebbles, matchbooks, and paper disks hole-punched

from pictures of sunsets, seascapes, and skies (Scott). Some materials are used because the artist

can’t afford to use another (Ashton 10).

Some materials are used depending on what the artist wants to create. Many sculptors try

to preserve the real identity of the materials they use (Ashton 50). They find a kind of energy in



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the materials (Hammacher 354). They have different attitudes toward each material. A sculptor

could like using clay and hate working with metal or enjoy working with plaster and dislike

using cloth. Sculptors don’t usually like to limit themselves to only one kind of material

(Hammacher 350). But if they have used one material and didn’t like it, they may never use that

material again.

Flanagan feels that there is an eternal nature in the stones he uses (Ashton 15). He has

carved many sculptures of simplified animals (Ashton 15; Valentiner 145). He once said, “I

would like my sculpture to appear as rocks, left quite untouched and natural” (Ashton 16). He

didn’t change the textures of the stones he found and used (Ashton 15). Flanagan’s quest is to

make a poetry out of his sculptures (James). Like Flanagan, Aeschbacher never wanted to ruin

the original nature of the stone he used (Hammacher 347).

When made of metal or stone, sculptures can last a long time (The 229). Architects use

red sandstone for its beauty (Casson 9). Some materials are used together because they make the

contrast between light and dark more intense (Hammacher 91). Porcelain is sometimes used

because the artist thinks it is like a black and white photograph. It also picks up a lot of detail

(Donehoe). Ceramic sculptures can be looked at from different perspectives and become a totally

different work of art (During). Rubber and plaster have been used together for their contrast

between soft and hard (Ashton 50). Wood is used often because there are many ways that it can

be shaped and directly carved from (Hammacher 86). Even though there are many reasons to use

the materials listed, it is up to the artist to determine which material is best for his or her piece

(Hammacher 91).

Many techniques are used to display the elements of sculpture. The elements used in

sculpture are space, mass, volume, line, movement, light and shadow, texture, and color



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(Sculpture as an Art Form 230). Some techniques to display these elements are modeling,

carving, casting, and construction (Sculpture: Techniques and Materials). Nakashima most

commonly uses porcelain, white glaze, and a dot pattern. Her technique is called an in-glaze

decoration (De Brukyner 72).

Sculptors use texture to create a complex look for their viewers (Elsen 59). A piece has

the most effect on the viewer when the sculptor goes beyond the sense of the eye and uses

texture to allow the viewer to feel the art as well (Ashton 6).

Some sculptors look at the environment and interpret it in their own ways and shift

spaces as they wish creating something new and interesting (Ashton 9). Ferber had a theory that

a sculpted animal didn’t have to be in an environment (Ashton 30). This technique is shown in

Annastacia Smith’s clay sculpture, Skunk (see Appendix B) (Smith, Annastacia. Skunk ). The

skunk is free-standing with no environment created for it. To generate texture, Smith pushed

lines into the clay’s smooth surface (Smith, Annastacia. Skunk ). These lines are also

incorporating line into the sculpture. Glaze was then used to produce a glass-like coating (Smith,

Annastacia. Skunk ).

Archipenko was also the first to combine sculpture and painting as one art form (Ashton

15). Painting the work adds detail and complexity (Elsen 104). Strong primary colors are used by

some artists to show their power over the art and making new realities (Elsen 109). Smith’s

Skunk in Habitat (see Appendix C) was painted with acrylic paint to form something that looked

like a miniature real-life situation (Smith, Annastacia. Skunk in Habitat ).

In early modern sculpture, self-portraits were made very often. They are no longer

sculpted quite as frequently (Elsen 39). Between the 1920s and 1940s, sculptors had an interest



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in direct carving, usually in stone (Ashton 15). There are still significant interests in this. Some

techniques and interests never get old.

Jeremy Hatch uses a popular technique of making molds for his sculptures. He pours a

clay mixture into his plaster molds (Donahoe). Smith’s most recent piece, Levitating Triangle

(see Appendix D), is an example of this technique. It was molded in a thick paper or cardboard

mold (Smith, Annastacia. Levitating Triangle). The assignment given to Smith was to draw a

geometrical shape with a negative space or hole and then draw a design to carve into the

sculpture later (Smith, Annastacia. Levitating Triangle). After she drew her shape, she

constructed the mold of cardboard and masking tape (Smith, Annastacia. Levitating Triangle).

Smith was given plaster to use as her pouring material (Smith, Annastacia. Levitating Triangle).

After the plaster mixture was mixed, poured into the mold, then dried and sanded smooth, Smith

drew her line design on all sides of the molded triangle (Smith, Annastacia. Levitating Triangle).

When the design was carved on the triangle, the decision was made to paint it with a metallic

paint. The different sections of the design were painted different metallic colors to differentiate

between the lines (Smith, Annastacia. Levitating Triangle). Smith sprayed the triangle with

patina and purple tint sprays to make her piece different (Smith, Annastacia. Levitating

Triangle). To build the base, Smith asked a fellow student at the time, Rachel Voorhees to help

(Smith, Annastacia. Levitating Triangle). When everything was finished, Smith named the piece

Levitating Triangle.

Personalities of the artists are shown through the decisions they make. Each artist makes

decisions about what materials they want to use, the techniques they want to use and the story

they want to reveal. Sculpture is more than just entertainment. It is an art form, document, and

history. Most of all, it is a story capable of being touched again and again. A sculptor thinks as if



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everything has a double meaning, the outer meaning that everyone can see and understand and

then the inner significance which is only seen by a few (Ashton 10, 12). If you are not one who

can see the inner significance in art, you need to make a connection with it. To truly understand

the meaning of the piece or the personality of the creator, you must have experiences of your

own to bring to the table. Know yourself and your experiences so you can someday understand

the art and artists as well.



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Works Cited

Ashton, Dore. Modern American Sculpture. New York: Harry N. Abrams, Inc. 1967. Print.

Buonarroti, Michelangelo. Pietà. N.d. Partnership for Sustainable Development. Web. 15 Mar.

2013. <http://www.rome.info/pictures/art/michelangelo.>

Casson, Stanley. Some Modern Sculpture. New York: Books For Libraries Press, Inc., 1967.

Print.

De Brukyner, Tania. “Harumi Nakashima: Sculpture and the Plastic Arts.” Ceramics 49. (2002):

71-73. EBSCOhost . Web. 10 Jan. 2013.

Donahoe, Emily. “CLAY: On The Boundary.” Ceramics Monthly 60.2 (2012): 46 MasterFILE

Premier . Web. 22 Feb. 2013.

During, Nesrin. “Ribbons Of Colour.” Ceramic Review 242 (2010): 54-57. Omnifile Full Text

Select (H.W. Wilson). Web. 22 Feb. 2013.

Elsen, Albert E. Origins of Modern Sculpture: Pioneers and Premises. New York: George

Braziller, Inc. 1974. Print.

Greenberg, Jan, and Sandra Jordan. Runaway Girl : The Artist Louise Bourgeouis. New York:

2003. Print.

Hammacher, Abraham Marie. The Evolution of Modern Sculpture: Tradition and Innovation.

New York: Harry N. Abrams, Inc. 1969. Print.

Heckenbach, Monika. “Something Different from a Photograph.” Art By Mona. N.p. 2013. Web.

22 Feb. 2013. <http://www.artbymona.com/Modern-Art-information.php.>

Holm, Alvin. “Architecture and Sculpture: A Traditional Collaboration Yearning to be

Restored.” Sculpture Review 59.2 (2010): 30-37. OmniFile Full Text Select (H.W.

Wilson). Web. 22 Feb. 2013.



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James, John. “The Poet of Life and Sculpture.” Tate Ect 23 (2011): 4. OmniFile Full Text Select

(H.W. Wilson). Web. 22 Feb. 2013.

Liebert, Robert S. “Michelangelo’s Mutilation of the Florence Pietà: A Psychoanalytic Inquiry.”

Art Bulletin 59.1 (1977): 47. Academic Search Complete. Web. 14 Mar.2013.

Michalska, Julia. “The Man Who Built a Village f or His Sculpture.” Art Newspaper 277 (2011):

44. OmniFile Full Text Select (H.W. Wilson). Web. 22 Feb. 2013.

“Modern Sculpture: Your Source for Contemporary Art.” Modern Sculpture. N.p. 2013.Web. 22

Feb. 2013. <http://www.modernsculpture.com/sculpture.htm>.

Nathanson, Jeff. “A Quiet Revolution.” Sculpture 20.5 (2001): N.p. EBSCOhost. Web.10 Jan.

2013.

“Omaha Sculpture Brightens Children’s Hospital Visits.” Nebraska Life 15.3 (2011): 114-115.

MasterFILE Premier . Web. 22 Feb. 2013.

Rosolowski, Tracey A. “Sculpture For The Body. (Cover Story).” Craft Arts International 72

(2008): 39. MasterFile Premier . Web. 22 Feb. 2013.

Scott, Andrea K. “A Million Little Pieces.” New Yorker 88.13 (2012): 60. MasterFILE Premier.

Web. 22 Feb. 2013.

“Sculpture as an Art Form.” World Book S-Sn 17 . 2010. Print.

“Sculpture: Techniques and Materials.” Infoplease. N.p. 2011.Web. 22 Feb. 2013.

<http://www.infoplease.com/encyclopedia/entertainment/sculpture-techniques-

materials.html>.

Smith, Annastacia. Levitating Triangle. 2012. Plaster, metallic paint, patina and purple tint prays,

cherry wood base. Artist’s personal collection. Sculpture. (Primary Source).

--. Skunk . 2012. Clay and glaze. Artist’s personal collection. Sculpture. (Primary Source).



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--. Skunk in Habitat . 2011. Clay and acrylic paint. Artist’s personal collection. Sculpture.

(Primary Source).

“The importance of Sculpture.” World Book 17. 2010. Print.

Valentiner, Wilhelm Reinhold. Origins of Modern Sculpture. New York: Wittenborn and

Company, 1946. Print.

Ward, Lucina. “Soft Sculpture: Don’t Touch, Lick, or Smell.” Exhibition Galleries 57. 1323-

4552 (2009): 20-27. EBSCOhost . Web. 10 Jan. 2013.



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Appendix A

Pietà by Michelangelo Buonarroti (Buonarroti)



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Appendix B

Skunk by Annastacia Smith (Smith, Annastacia. Skunk )



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Appendix C

Skunk in Habitat by Annastacia Smith (Smith, Annastacia. Skunk in Habitat )



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Appendix D

Levitating Triangle by Annastacia Smith (Smith, Annastacia. Levitating Triangle)

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