To Henry Moore, Art was Sculpture, prepared by
drawing, with reference to the heyday of Modern
Writers and Artists, Moore was fearful of being
type-cast
by the Pavlovian re-iteration of 'past' Britain. All
elements of interest started with Ancient
Civilisations to be redrawn with the Modern
Thinkers to reason.
As a Master of Materials, with a new genesis, and
treatment of local materials. The making of work,
cast and re-formed in bronze and/or wood. The
Elmwood
grooves match the contours. In plaster, he
scratched the form the way he had drawn the
Underground figures, as the Official War Artist. The
surface
reflecting the light off stone, all worked with
moulding, indeed some would say re-iterated the
sexuality by shine, smooth, subtle, hollowed, posed
female
body.
What came from the study of Human Form was
remarkable. The echoes and ruminations of the
body and mind were all clearly thought out and
adopted as a
reference to the Abstraction of Form, material and
subject matter. The shaper by carving a cutting
away to the scarred
minds underneath; war torn and poverty stricken, to
sculptural icons. The head, the most indomitable
symbol of intellect, was treated with disdain. The
cold and
expressionless faces, high brow and with unseeing
eyes and curved chin. Often twisted, as if in a
traumatised yawn; the nostrils with the smell of
war or... The
Head reduced to male thoughts of first aural bumps
to breast like references. 'Life is Sex' was taken to a
new meaning.
The effects of war, a vertabrae, like a shield, the
frontal assault of our very beings. In the clasp of
hands, a religious procrastination quite unaware of
the
sexual invitation of poses; legs sometimes open to
viewer in
posture and inviting, to ponder to what thoughts.
His personal journey childless, from marriage held
up a
theme, for all to understand and live through. Here,
too, was a disfigured form of the human condition.
Bird like heads chime, and hurt our human
sensibilities as a scarred nation not knowing our
real form to each other after the levelling of human
spirit. Seeping cynicism of our human nature torn
between
fear and insecurity and a clear nervousness to the
human condition.
Henry Moore was clearly referencing his world of
figures, to the phychoanalysis towards maternity,
and the Pandora's box beyond. Our peering often
mixed
with ambiguity and doubt, the very being, an
acknowledgement. The shaking of the faith of old,
certainties.
Clear references to paganism through Christianity;
such as
the Stone Henge spiritualism of monoliths. Our very
resource weathered like the hollowing of holes like
the sea against rocks. Unmistakable a link once to
Jelly
fish - eddying erosion were pointed jokes to his
makings. The throwing of clay stung, was the
throwing of an idea, a link, an influence which was
posthumous.
Artists of his era: Giacametti the stick-like recalling
of son from mother. Paul Klee's striation of line in
swathes of hair or a process of making by line, the
stone made to carving. Ben Nicholson, a reminder
of a line within a sculptured design. The melting
form of Salvador Dali in flimsy skeletal brittleness
of
the family embrace, the cradle - a source of
longing.
Inner bodies to the inner soul to the
outer body. The harmony of strings in a Harp tense
in
music against the mass and moulding of stone.
Sometimes, tiring in the physical process of
sculpturing, a simple play on words was enough for
another
monumental message in sculpture. There was the
baulk of heavily formed limbs, and body which was
unmistakable.
To be protected by the mother for the future of
family, it was a man's responsibility to preserve the
primal protection of motherhood, the new
generation
must be protected however it can. For Moore, it
was sculptured reminder of his responsibility, the
cycle of fertility, reproduction was within his grasp.
What Moore displayed was overall shape over
emotion to date, the contours part of the
environment, the history of landcapes archaic
compared with the curves,
the method of
space and
fundamental shape. The Physical bondage to
material, us a
human in shaping, a landscaped form through a
thorough
examination of carving. A healing
acknowledgement of aged shape to a largess icon
and form; sensing
sculpture.
The final form making the end of a message,
closeting to the mind of suggestive form to the
body.
Shaping and moving to his predicament?! and
timely, Ours; a carving in words to his time here.
Art critic: E. Waller
The Henry Moore at
the Tate Britain 24 Feb-8 Aug 2010.
