The Necessity of Sculpture

Eric Gibson

• Publisher: Criterion Books
• Year: 2020
• eBook ISBN: 9781641771092
• Topic: Art
• Subtopic: Art General

The Necessity of Sculpture brings together a selection of articles on sculpture and sculptors from Eric Gibson's nearly four-decade career as an art critic. It covers subjects as diverse as Mesopotamian cylinder seals, war memorials, and the art of the American West; stylistic periods such as the Hellenistic in Ancient Greece and Kamakura in medieval Japan; Michelangelo, Gian Lorenzo Bernini, Augustus Saint-Gaudens, and other historical figures; modernists like Auguste Rodin, Pablo Picasso, and Alberto Giacometti; and contemporary artists including Richard Serra, Rachel Whiteread, and Jeff Koons. Organized chronologically by artist and period, this collection is as much a synoptic history of sculpture as it is an art chronicle. At the same time, it is an illuminating introduction to the subject for anyone coming to it for the first time.

CONTENTS

Preface and Acknowledgments

Mesopotamian Cylinder Seals: Epics in miniature

Hellenistic Bronzes: A revolution in sculpture

Netherlandish Boxwood Rosary Beads: Medieval marvels

The Kamakura Period: A renaissance in Asia

Bertoldo di Giovanni: The missing link

Michelangelo: Is it or isn’t it?

Gian Lorenzo Bernini: Fingers moving at the speed of thought

Jean-Antoine Houdon: The prehensile eye

Franz Xaver Messerschmidt: About face

Jean-Baptiste Carpeaux: Pressuring the old order

Auguste Rodin: The indispensable man

Edgar Degas: The “Little Dancer” – An impression indelible in wax

Medardo Rosso: Fugitive figures

Augustus Saint-Gaudens: Reinventing the American monument

Frederic Remington et al.: A cast of the American character

Constantin Brancusi I: Rethinking the figure

Constantin Brancusi II: Material matters

Jacob Epstein et al.: Bright-eyed British moderns

Charles Sargeant Jagger: An unblinking view of war

Naum Gabo: Utopian visions

Pablo Picasso I: “Bull’s Head” (1942) – A magical metamorphosis of the ordinary

Pablo Picasso II: Shuttling between dimensions

Julio González: Modern art’s bright flame

Alberto Giacometti: An artist renewed

Henry Moore I: The artist as critic

Henry Moore II: Shelter scenes and other drawings

Anne Truitt: Minimal form, maximum feeling

Richard Serra I: Paper weight

Richard Serra II: Sculpture in the active voice

H. C. Westermann: The absurdity of the absurd

Mark di Suvero: Playground populist

William Tucker: Speaking “the language of sculpture”

Martin Puryear: The meticulous and the magical

Jack Whitten: Ritual objects

Rachel Whiteread: Where memories dwell

Jeff Koons: Avatar of a new order

Prayer Bead with the Adoration of the Magi and the Crucifixion (early 16th century), Netherlandish.

The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. Gift of J. Pierpont Morgan, 1917.

Standing Shōtoku Taishi at Age Two (Namubutsu Taishi) (late 13th–14th century), Kamakura period.

Larry Ellison Collection.

Gian Lorenzo Bernini, Modello for the Fountain of the Moor (1653).

Kimbell Art Museum, Fort Worth, Texas.

Jean-Antoine Houdon, Armand-Thomas Hue, Marquis de Miromesnil (1777).

Copyright The Frick Collection.

Jean-Baptiste Carpeaux, Ugolino and His Sons (1865–67).

The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. Purchase, Josephine Bay Paul and C. Michael Paul Foundation Inc. Gift, Charles Ulrick and Josephine Bay Foundation Inc. Gift, and Fletcher Fund, 1967.

Augustus Saint-Gaudens, Robert Gould Shaw Memorial (1900), patinated plaster cast.

U.S. Department of the Interior, National Park Service,...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• Dedication
• Preface and Acknowledgments
• Mesopotamian Cylinder Seals: Epics in miniature
• Hellenistic Bronzes: A revolution in sculpture
• Netherlandish Boxwood Rosary Beads: Medieval marvels
• The Kamakura Period: A renaissance in Asia
• Bertoldo di Giovanni: The missing link
• Michelangelo: Is it or isn’t it?
• Gian Lorenzo Bernini: Fingers moving at the speed of thought
• Jean-Antoine Houdon: The prehensile eye
• Franz Xaver Messerschmidt: About face
• Jean-Baptiste Carpeaux: Pressuring the old order
• Auguste Rodin: The indispensable man
• Edgar Degas: The “Little Dancer” – An impression indelible in wax
• Medardo Rosso: Fugitive figures
• Augustus Saint-Gaudens: Reinventing the American monument
• Frederic Remington et al.: A cast of the American character
• Constantin Brancusi I: Rethinking the figure
• Constantin Brancusi II: Material matters
• Jacob Epstein et al.: Bright-eyed British moderns
• Charles Sargeant Jagger: An unblinking view of war
• Naum Gabo: Utopian visions
• Pablo Picasso I: “Bull’s Head” (1942) – A magical metamorphosis of the ordinary
• Pablo Picasso II: Shuttling between dimensions
• Julio González: Modern art’s bright flame
• Alberto Giacometti: An artist renewed
• Henry Moore I: The artist as critic
• Henry Moore II: Shelter scenes and other drawings
• Anne Truitt: Minimal form, maximum feeling
• Richard Serra I: Paper weight
• Richard Serra II:Sculpture in the active voice
• H. C. Westermann: The absurdity of the absurd
• Mark di Suvero: Playground populist
• William Tucker: Speaking “the language of sculpture”
• Martin Puryear: The meticulous and the magical
• Jack Whitten: Ritual objects
• Rachel Whiteread:Where memories dwell
• Jeff Koons: Avatar of a new order
• A Note on the Type