Montoya Sculpture & Supply eNewsletter sculpture quotes
submitted by readers.
When asked about doing so many mothers and children, Henry Moore said
"I'm glad that I decided on the form early on, as that left me free to be
creative."
Thoreau once said "It is not what you do to the stone, but what
the stone does to you."
Question by admirer of "David" statue: "How do you take a
rough stone and make such beauty from it?"
Answer by Michelangelo Buonarotti: "I just carve away anything that
isn't art." [also attributed to other artists; possibly apochryphal]
I have a sculptor's quote for you. I found it while touring the
Andy Goldsworthy exhibit at the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego in
La Jolla a couple months ago. In one room were hung a series of photos and
journal entries related to his Three Cairns project. Here is one entry:
Jan. 23, 2003
"Fear always accompanies the making of art and is generated by the shock
of seeing an idea take form - a sculpture in the mind is safe and secure -
a work rarely behaves as I intend, uncertainty and unpredictability are
always present - even in a work as familiar as this one. Whatever the
result, it is my responsibility which I take seriously - it has to be
right, whatever right means."
Sculpture consists of concrete material bounded by forms, intentionally
built up by mankind in three dimensional space.
Naum Gabo (1937)
"The sculptor does not work for the anatomist,
but for the common observer of life and nature."
- Bayard Ruskin, True and Beautiful—Sculpture
"How long did it take you to make that?"
"In the Face of Art, Time is meaningless"!
Sculpture and painting have the effect of teaching us manners and abolishing hurry.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
"Painting consumes labour not disproportionate to its effect; but a fellow will hack half a year at a block of marble to make something in stone that hardly resembles a man. The value of statuary is owing to its difficulty. You would not value the finest head cut upon a carrot." Boswell: Life
Sculpture is the best comment that a painter can make on painting. Pablo Picasso
"Sculpture consists of concrete material bounded by forms, intentionally built up by mankind in three dimensional space." Naum Gabo (1937)
"When sculpture departs from nature, it becomes architecture. When sculpture abandons the portrait, it becomes nothing more than a decorative technique." Duchamp-Villon
A sculptor wields the chisel, and the stricken marble grows To beauty.
- William Cullen Bryant, The Flood of Years
Sculpture is more divine, and more like Nature,
That fashions all her works in high relief,
And that is Sculpture. This vast ball, the Earth,
Was moulded out of clay, and baked in fire;
Men, women, and all animals that breathe
Are statues, and not paintings.
- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Michael Angelo (pt. III, 5)
The stone unhewn and cold
Becomes a living mould,
The more the marble wastes
The more the statue grows.
- Michelangelo Buonarotti, Sonnet, (Mrs. Henry Roscoe's translation)
The sculptor does not work for the anatomist, but for the common observer of life and nature.
- Bayard Ruskin, True and Beautiful--Sculpture
"Besides...you cannot make what you want to make, but what the material permits you to make. You cannot make out of marble what you would make out of wood, or out of wood what you would make out of stone...Each material has its own life,
and one cannot without punishment destroy a living material to make a dumb senseless thing. That is, we must not try to make materials speak our language, we must go with them to the point where others will understand their language."
-Constantin Brancusi, 1927
"Direct Carving is the true Path to sculpture, but also the most dangerous for those who do not know how to walk". Constantine Brancusi
Renoir, in a letter to a friend:
"...to look for the sun, which I've found more or less.....I'm in love with the sun and with the reflections in the water, and to paint them I would go around the world. But whem I'm at it, I realize my powerlessness.... Why look for the sun, since everything I do is not even a caricature of it ....[a museum] is nothing compared to nature, those great masters are dark and sad. Much as I may look for the light, I'll be dark like them, always dark. Sculptors are the lucky ones, their statues are in the sun and when they are of pure form, they are part of the light, they exist in nature like a tree, but for us, we are reduced to the indoors at the risk of existing for only a few days like withered flowers. Why did I become a painter since I'm reduced to admiring without ever imitating, except from so far, so far? [I will bring back] "for information" a study in which I've piled chrome yellow on top of bright yellow. You'll see how bad it is. "
I would prefer to be a starving artist, than, artistically starved.
John Jay 2003
The jargon of these sculptors is beyond me. I do not know precisely why I admire a green granite female, apparently pregant monster with one eye going around a square corner. Ezra Pound
Don't look for obscure formulas or mystery in my work. It is pure joy that I offer you. Look at my sculptures until you see them. Those closest to God have seen them. Constantine Brancusi
Create like a god, command like a king, work like a slave. Constanine Brancusi
What is real is not the external form, but the essence of things . . .
it is impossible for anyone to express anything essentially real by imitating its exterior surface. Constantine Brancusi
If people knew how hard I worked to get my mastery, it wouldn't seem so wonderful at all. Michelangelo
Lord, grant that I may always desire more than I can accomplish. Michelangelo
To be an artist is to believe in life. Henry Moore
A sculptor is a person who is interested in the shape of things, a poet in words, a musician by sounds. Henry Moore
I see no reason why I should tickle stones or waste time on polishing bronze. Louise Nevelson
I choose a block of marble and chop off whatever I don't need. Auguste Rodin
The marble not yet carved can hold the form of every thought the greatest artist has.
Michelangelo
"My interest in phenomena, both in my sources and in the way that I work…. is what compels me to make sculpture."
John Ruppert |
