S is for Sculpture
Cupid and Psyche, Antonio Canova, 1796Sculpture is one of my favorite art forms. There's just something so powerful about a figure carved out of stone. Looking at a sculpture is very different from looking at a painting, obviously. I prefer painted portraits because I love to study the use of color, or the face of the subject, to look into their eyes and wonder what their life was like. But with sculpture, it's all about shape, form, proportion and pure wonder at the skill and time required to produce such an object.
While I was studying in London, I took a trip one day to the Victoria & Albert Museum. I didn't know much about it, and, truthfully, wasn't really all that interested in the collections they had on display. Until I sauntered down to the lower level and came upon the Cast Court.
Basically, it's a huge room with very high ceilings, filled to the brim (and seemingly very disorganized) with a cast of almost every single famous sculpture in all of Europe. It was so unexpected when I walked in, it was really breathtaking. Michelangelo's David, the Gates of Paradise from some baptistery in Florence, plaster casts of effigies of Queen Elizabeth I and Richard I (we're talking 13th century here), architectural pieces from all over Europe, etc. Most everything is just kind of jumbled in there, like some big storage space for incredibly famous art. But since they're only casts of the real art, you get to see them all at once. You could honestly spend hours in that room.
I really prefer ancient Greek and Roman art, since all this other stuff is based on their forms and esthetic anyway. But this is another one of my favorites, found in the Tate Britain. It's a very powerful piece in real life. Pictures just don't do it justice, unfortunately.
An Athlete Wrestling with a Python, 1877, Frederic, Lord Leighton(Who was mostly a painter. This was a study he did. Not bad.)
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7 comments:
don't you just LOVE the humanities?! I loved reading this entry - brought back so many memories! My letter S is shaping up to be a big one, too - so many things that start with S!
My favorite too. Love to look at sculpture. However, some of the contemporary things are very hard to figure out and they do not inspire me. Like the human form.
Love and Hugs
Grammy
s is a great letter.
"Cupid and Psyche" is quite possibly my favorite sculpture. Every time I went to the Louvre (which was a lot--I had a student pass when I lived there) I had to see it before I could leave.
Good choices! When Elliott and I go to England there is one grand house I want to visit that supposedly has an amazing sculpture room.. I'm with you... I prefer them to paintings!
i haven't seen many sculptures, but you make them sound pretty exciting. maybe one day . . .
I've been in that very Cast room at the V&A and you're right there really isn't anything like it. You're like, HOLY COW are those Ghiberti's Gates of Paradise!? It's pretty awesome. (also pretty awesome that I remembered "Ghiberti's Gates of Paradise" 10 years after getting my humanities degree!)
I love the pieces you chose. Leighton's Python one always freaks me out ... I hate snakes. Same as that one of Laocoon and His Sons. Awesome art, but icky snakes.
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