The world of XX century sculpture has two separate histories: the accepted and promoted one of Modern art and figurative continuation of Western tradition. Even the greatest of their masters are not to be found in art history books surveying XX century art. They were guilty of grievous transgressions, they looked at and studied human form and found beauty there, they searched for meaning and made sculptures imbued with allegories and metaphors. Those artists continued Egyptian, Greek and Roman tradition of realistic sculpture that is capable of evoking feelings in viewers. Regrettably- it was all condemning them to banishment by the severe judgment of new dictators of artistic values.
Let us take a small sampling of the XX century figurative sculpture and make an independent judgment over their artistic merits. What you will find admittedly lacks primitivism, silliness, shock or stupefaction so greatly lauded by the dictators of Modern art but do suspend your disappointment for these shortcomings. Allow to assume a set of long forgotten aesthetic expectations of art evoking physical beauty, of refinement, of nobility, of subtlety or charm, of inner strength or tenderness. Indeed, a vast array of emotions has been emphatically expressed in those sculptures from care-free joy and passionate abandon to gravity and sepulchral grief and loss. The world of human emotions is elevated, ennobilized and rhapsodized to tell us that our civilization, our aspirations, ideals and our deeds as reflected in those marbles and bronzes are triumphs of human spirit reaching for ascension.
Cecil Howard
Daniel Chester French
Daniel Chester French
Alexander Stirling Calder
Alexander Stirling Calder
Albin Polasek
Albin Polasek
Albin Polasek
Lorado Taft
Lorado Taft
Lorado Taft
Harriet Frishmuth
The above sampling is of American sculptors. A sampling of European figurative sculpture will follow. Soon.
