Constanin Brancusi

Reading up on the ideas of Noguchi's earliest mentors, Brancusi on abstraction will help provide context and understanding towards creating abstraction through the typographic sculptures. Abstraction was a quality that was seen throughout Noguchi's sculptural work. 

"They are imbeciles who call my work abstract; that which they call abstract is the most realistic, because what is real is not the exterior form but the idea, the essence of things." - Brancusi

"The traits that constitute his dualist, even duelist, identity as a creator: he was an artist trapped at the crossroads of two eras, two worlds, two cultures, two ways of seeing and (in his transition from modelling to carving) two artistic methods and styles." (Gale and Giménez, 2004, p.14)

"For both, modernism existed by only by measuring itself against the classical heritage and not simply as a forward without any reference to the past." (Gale and Giménez, 2004, p.15)

"The fragility of material was for Brancusi central to its identity, but also a dramatic image of existence, a reinvention of the old tension between the body and soul of things." (Gale and Giménez, 2004, p.19)

"Among the traits that can be said to determine the nature of a work of art – composition, sensibility and memory – the last bears the closest relationship to the soul of things and, therefore, to their fragility." (Gale and Giménez, 2004, p.19)

"His achievement lies in an ability to balance the demands of innovation and memory in order to achieve an epic beauty." (Gale and Giménez, 2004, p.19)

"He was convinced that while art changes it does not progress in a determined, preconceived, linear direction." (Gale and Giménez, 2004, p.19)

"Materially and spiritually, Brancusi knew how to combine the fragility of the memorable, something compact, with the living tension of the contemporary, something for which elasticity is absolutely essential. Both fragile and elastic, his sculpture extends like an unending melodic line, where material and form are treated with such refined, aerodynamic purity." (Gale and Giménez, 2004, p.19)

"The new art was to provide a catalyst for thought and experience, in a form that reflected the subjective nature of this experience." (Parigoris cited in Gale and Giménez, 2004, p.51)

"The figures of Brancusi and Derian, which were carved by the artists themselves, were more 'honest', even if the results were less sophisticated." (Parigoris cited in Gale and Giménez, 2004, p.51)

"Many contemporary accounts of his work, as for example in his description of his large marble Fish (1930) in 1937. He reportedly told Malvina Haoffman: 'When you see a fish, you do not think of its scales, do you? You think of its speed, its floating, flashing body seen through water . . . I want just the flash of its spirit." (Parigoris cited in Gale and Giménez, 2004, p.54)

- For this experience to be communicated effectively, Brancusi resorted to highly polished surfaces for Fish, whether marble or bronze.

Polish becomes an expressive sculptural feature in Brancusi's work.

"High polish is a necessity which certain approximately absolute forms demand of some materials. It is not always appropriate, it is even very harmful for certain other forms."

Polish is both a mark of his technical skill and a means in underlining what he feels is important in a work that has attained a form of completion in his thinking. 

Titles are also important as they "carry residual traces of genres that are meant to bridge form and meaning: portrait, torso, animal." (Parigoris cited in Gale and Giménez, 2004, p.55)

- They are not literary, though they function as suggestive clues and, when accompanied by adjectives – 'young', 'in space', 'without end' – describe a state of being without falling into narrative.

- Maybe the typographic sculptures should have names to give the reader context and clues to what is being achieved through form.

"His interest lay less in abstraction per se than in the process of thinking out an idea in terms of sculptural solutions that ended up as abstracted form. At no point did Brancusi admit the validity of working purely from abstract shapes devoid of connotative associations. What was at stake was removing any sense of narrative in order to privilege the experience." (Parigoris cited in Gale and Giménez, 2004, p.57)

"By eliminating the evidence of the sculptor's touch, Brancusi invited the viewer to experience the finished product, not to imagine its making." (Parigoris cited in Gale and Giménez, 2004, p.57)

(Gale and Giménez, 2004)

Gale, M. and Giménez, C. (2004). Constantin Brancusi: The Essence of Things. London: Tate.

Important points to take away from Brancusi 

• Brancusi's modernist approach to move sculpture forward was based on an appreciation and comparison to the past
• The application of ones memory into his sculptures was an important aspect of his work. This help imbue his sculptures with emotion and create the 'fragility' in his sculptures. 
• Brancusi was a firm supporter of 'direct-carving' which means the sculptor him/herself carves the sculpture and not through a team of studio assistants. Brancusi has said that 'direct-carving is the true way to sculpture'.
• Brancusi's Fish is an example of his ideology behind his sculptures.
• Titles are important in providing context for the reader about the work's intent.
• Abstraction is not the end goal for Brancusi, abstraction is a by product of refining an idea until its desired form.