The Language of Sculpture

Notes on Brancusi's method of working and philosophy behind sculpture that can inform the designing of the typographic sculptures.

“Brancusi saw in carving the means to the definitive and unique final form for each sculpture” (Tucker, 2005, p.43)

“Brancusi realised carving as the opposite mode: private, individual, separate, concentrated and quiet. Carving is reductive from a given limit, but seeks to affirm the given qualities of that limit. The spectator is visually and intellectually drawn in to the illusion area between the potential of the block, the untouched wood or stone, and the actuality of the sculpture-object.” (Tucker, 2005, p.44)

“He clearly preferred to work within given limits, with a clear and simple division and articulation of forms, and a taut and crisp overall treatment of surface.” (Tucker, 2005, p.44)

“Brancusi’s definitive form for marble was first arrived at with The Sleeping Muse of 1910: the protrait head removed from its neck and shoulders; the features in process of absorption into the continuous surface; the orientation of the form, its relation to gravity, starting to determine its internal proportions.” (Tucker, 2005, p.49)

“It was not until The Sorceress (1916) that Brancusi found the ideal solution: an articulation into parts not imposed by style or decoration, or by an emphatic use of tools, but inherent in the material itself. That is to say, an already articulated, naturally forked piece of timber replaces the conventional block, and in effect becomes the motif of the sculpture.” (Tucker, 2005, p.53)

“They are tense and dramatic, but wholly without rhetoric.” (Tucker, 2005, p.53) 
“The base in sculpture is the support as well as the visual setting: it not only mediates between the objects and the world, but, coming between the object and the ground, represents the world in terms of its gravitational pull in immediate contiguity to the object. The role of the base is at once physical, in terms of support; visual, in terms of presenting the object at proper level; and symbolic, in terms of the object’s relation with the world.” (Tucker, 2005, p.53)

Brancusi aimed ‘to concentrate what is there, to use the section to articulate the central solid.” (Tucker, 2005, p.110)
Tucker, W. (2005). The Language of sculpture. New York: Thames and Hudson.