Form is a three dimensional response to volume.

When one talks about the form of an

object, that person is referring to the fullness, the three-dimensionality of that object.

Thinking in terms of drawing, form is the translation of the characteristics of what is

happening between the lines: The inside of an object, the positive spaces, and the
negative spaces. Drawing can be broad; it has many things it has to deal with- line,
composition, figure/ground relationships, focal point, color, etc. The line work of
drawings can be either objective, revealing the physical nature of the object; subjective,
revealing the personal attitudes and emotions of the artist, or a combination of the two.
Think how personally we know the emotional intensity of Vincent Van Gogh through his
treatment of such a mundane object as a little wicker chair.

Sculpture too exists on these levels. By nature, sculpture is very specific. It’s very much
about forming an object, having three dimensions, existing in space, but, of course, it will
also take on the personality and the thoughts of the artist who is crafting the piece.

Leonardo Da Vinci attempted to establish that art is a mental activity and a science,
searching for objective reality. On the other hand, we know that art is an expressive act,
relating directly to the subjective experiences of the artist, springing from an “inner
necessity” as Kandinsky pointed out. Searching for the structural form of an object is an
intellectual part of the objective processes of seeing. Feeling the emotional form of that
object is also an important part of artmaking.

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The sculptors represented here at the Norton Simon Museum all have real thought behind
their life-long work. Art is never accidental and arbitrary- the great artist is always
purposeful and focused.

There are undoubtedly two ways of drawing visible things- by using outlines to define
them precisely, or by treating the planes and curved surfaces as masses through surface
directional lines, values, and tones.

The lines are either drawn on a flat plane, as a drawing, or in a three dimensional space,
as a sculpture. The way the artist thinks of the object in relation to the space around it is a
key decider on his approach to the work. Frank Gehry, the architect for Disney Hall, used
sculptural principles when designing this building. Just as any good sculpture, this
building activates the space around it

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Form and space stand in a complimentary relationship to each other. It is necessary to be
aware of the space around an object in order to fully understand and see the object itself.
For instance, with a piece of furniture the ins and outs of space-- the negative areas
(between the legs, through the arms, etc.) contribute quite strongly to the design sense of
the object, something every designer must think about.

The same is true with both drawing and sculpture. The negative space around the form is
just as important in many cases to the object itself as it is to the composition of the work.

Barbara Hepworth is a sculptor who is as concerned as much about the space around the
sculpture as about the sculpture itself. The space can activate the sculpture and visa versa.
Isamu Noguchi the same way.

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 Richard Diebenkorn’s painting of Berkely#24 has also
merged the figure/ground relationship. Here you can see
that his creative interest in the spatial environment was
almost as great as his analytical and inventive attitude
toward the objects within his landscape.

If you look at your outstretched hand and stare at your fingers, you will see the intervals
of empty space between them. Those shapes of empty space are only visible because your
fingers are allowing them to exist. As your fingers move, they change shape as well. The
awareness of the visibility of empty space also expands the awareness of the surface of
the forms and their relationship to the negative areas around them.

Henry Moore is a master of

presenting to the world a
human figure that is as
conscious of the space that
surrounds it as the figure is
of itself.

His works deal with the

negative spaces equally as
much as the positive
spaces.

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If you look at Henry Moore’s drawings, you will see that he is not thinking about human
form as being realistic, but rather he is thinking about shapes morphing into a figure by
virtue of the “essentialness” of the figure and its relationships with its surrounding space.
Negative areas between the legs, for instance, become just as fascinating an area as the
shape of the legs themselves.

In Pablo Picasso’s drawing series of “The Bull”, he

starts with the idea of the bull as a tangible mass,
heavy and real in form and function. He finally
progresses to the essential elements of the bull,
drawn linearly and designed as its minimal essential
lines.

Imagining his last bull drawing as a sculpture, helps

us understand the artists’ deliberate creation of
space to define mass. From the first drawing to the
last, Picasso eliminates more and more of the
formal, physical, properties of the bull, until he
ultimately comes to lines that signify surface and
mass and weight.

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 In much the same way Brancusi with his “Bird in
Space” sculpture kept the essentialness of the flight
of a bird, eliminating all the extra things that would
slow the speed of the sculpture down…

Bird in Space embodies Brancusi’s belief that “What

is real is not the external form, but the essence of
things,” Bird in Space represents the essence of
flight. It is the essence of a pure, simple, and perfect
linear form.

Of course, always included in an artist’s working

method is the life he/she imparts on the work. A line
can be lyrical, quiet, forceful, and angry. Form also can be emotionally removed, or
absolutely loaded with emotion.

In the case of Rodin, his work in the

early 20th century took a different path
than his academic predecessors- the
more academic, impersonal sculptures
of the late 18th and 19th century Europe.
Rodin’s work cannot be viewed without
feeling the internal emotion of his
subjects, an idea that opened the way for
art to grow and change away from the
conventional. His sculptures are
contorted, the poses more extreme, the
emotions raw. His sculptures are quite forceful and have an interior life of their own.

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 Compare Clodion’s sculpture of “A Bacchante Supported
by Bacchus” to Rodin’s “Burghers of Calais”. Clodion’s
work is an anatomical masterpiece, yet nowhere in the
gesture of the bodies or in the faces do we get an
emotional sense of the characters. Rodin’s work is all
about emotional content. From his use of gesture and
modeling we feel a very strong sense of emotion in every
one of Rodin’s sculptures.

Degas, as well, had a real sense of presence about his

work. His sculptures were not meant as a means to
themselves, but rather for him, they were three
dimensional studies of his subjects he intended to paint.
For Degas, gesture and the fullness of form were what he
searched for in his sculptures. Rodin took his work a step
further in imbuing each work with a life of its own. He
would talk about how he would try to catch the pose to be
“between” poses, having both of sense of the movement
prior and the movement after.

In terms of organic form, Rodin said “when you carve, never see the form in length , but
always in thickness. Never consider a surface except as the extremity of a volume, as the
point, more or less large, which it directs toward you.”

An example of this principle is related when Rodin was watching another sculptor model
foliage. He told the sculptor that all his leaves are seen flat, which is why they didn’t look
real. Instead, he said, to make some with the tips pointed toward you, so that, in seeing
them, one has the sensation of depth.

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Rodin said about his figures, “… instead of imagining the different parts of a body as
surfaces more or less flat, represent them as projectures of interior volumes. He said “I
forced myself to express in each swelling of the torso or of the limbs the efflorescence of
a muscle or of a bone which lay deep beneath the skin. And so the truth of my figures,
instead of being merely superficial, seems to blossom from within to the outside, like life
itself.”

Wilhelm Lehmbruck was an admirer of Rodin and eventually developed a sculptural style
his own about the same time as the art deco era was coming into fashion. The inclined
Head of “The Kneeling Woman” shows influence of both Rodin and the stylistic
influences of the elongated Art Deco style.

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 Aristide Maillol’s sculpture
“Standing Bather with Raised Arms”
and “River” still have the influence of
conventional form, but diverge into a
more linear translation of the body.
His work, compared to Rodin’s is
more graphic and designed; more of
an intellectual form than Rodin’s pure
emotional form.

Looking at Marino Marini’s drawings show an easy

translation into his sculptures. His drawings of the horse and rider are linear and without
volume. He wasn’t concerned about the realistic nature of the human form- it would have
distracted from the overall feel of his work. Instead his sculptures are essentially his line
drawings filled in. Notice how Marini’s “Horseman” has a quiet, reflective nature. It
presents a unified overall calmness undistracted by detail. Each line, continuous and
unbroken, shapes both space and form into specific, delineated elements which are still
and unmonumental in nature.

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 Speaking of economy of line and form, Alberto Giacometti sculpture “Tall
Figure IV” is misleadingly simple. With its tall frailness and it’s bumpy,
roughly textured heavy bronze he embodies both the frailness of the human
body and its solidity. Alberto Giacometti is, both because of the nature of
his work and because of his close friendship with the philosopher Jean-Paul
Sartre, the artist most closely identified with the Existentialist movement.
Part of his art-historical importance springs from his defense of figuration
at a time when the advantage was with abstract art. His work is a curious
combination of flat linear form and three-dimensional organic form

Jacques Lipchitz was the sculptor of the Cubism Movement; an

art movement which took place in the early 20th century and was
led by the Spanish artist Pablo Picasso and the French artist
Georges Braque. A nonobjective school of painting and sculpture
developed in Paris in the early 20th century, characterized by the
reduction and fragmentation of natural forms into abstract, often
geometric structures usually rendered as a set of discrete planes.

In his sculpture “The Figure”, Lipchitz takes his flat linear form
into the third dimension of sculpture.

One can think about sculpture in the very classic art sense of it being an extension of
drawing. Whether it has the linear qualities of a pencil line or the volumetric space of a
tonal drawing, it exists in space. One can look at it as an artwork that is contained with
lines and edges or a work that is growing from its core. Regardless of its linear and/or
organic qualities, it always interacts with us, the public, in a very tangible way. Because ,
unlike drawing and painting, it exists in the same space we occupy, it changes our
environment and the way the art relates to us on a personal level.

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Sculpture almost stands in between two diametrics, drawing and architecture.

Around 1900 famous art historian August Schmarsow made this distinction: sculpture is
the "shaper of bodies" and architecture the “shaper of space". Soon though, Architecture
began to be more plastic and sculptural, and sculpture began to be less about the body
and more about the space it creates. Thus, spurred on by Cubism, in 1912 Alexander
Archipenko in cutting a hole in his Walking Woman attempted to fuse mass, volume, and
empty space. Sculpture became more constructive and tectonic, establishing a connection
with the geometric designs of the International Style represented by such architects as
Vantongerloo and Mies van der Rohe. At the same time, architecture was becoming more
sculptural. The opposite poles of hard geometric modernism--early Le Corbusier and
Mies van der Rohe--and soft, organic biomorphic expressiveness create a dialogue
between Expressionist and rationalistic architecture. The contrast between organic and
geometric and between body and space is one in which sculpture, drawing, and
architecture blur.

"Why, it is my studio!" exclaimed Constantin Brancusi upon first seeing the Manhattan
skyline from a ship in 1926. The agglomeration of cubical skyscrapers reminded him of

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the geometric pedestals with their luminous bronze figures that the Romanian sculptor
kept in his studio in Paris.

Says Brancussi, “Real architecture is sculpture.”

And I might add “Real sculpture is architecture and drawing combined.”

Cindy Jackson

www.cjacksonsculpture.com

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