DOI issue:
Nr. 333 (February 1925)
DOI article:Ackerman, Phyllis: The east meets the west
DOI Page / Citation link:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.19984#0118
mceRnACionAL
THE TWO FRIENDS BY BENT AMINO BUFANO
politan Museum of Art has just bought, the pretations. The Christ, a young Christ, is on the
"Honeymoon Couple." They stand together, cross. But he is not hung by the cruel spikes. He
aloof yet intimate, charming persons but some- is suspended almost without weight, rising by his
thing more than that, the essence of the high own spiritual exaltation, comes not within the
principled domesticity that Confucius enjoins and compass of earthly things, though he is God's Son
the Chinese poets have for two thousand years in the flesh, but is slightly disengaged with a
and more descriptively extolled. They are, more- detachment that at once expresses his transcend-
over, not two persons but genuinely a group, ance of corporeality and also creates the esthetic
unified by the relations of masses and the flow of isolation from the world of natural things which
draperies. And they are covered with fresh and is so difficult and so important in sculpture. And
lustrous glazes that have a moist translucency. he is a young Christ not only because Jesus him-
The Chinese pieces are fine decoration and, self was young but because He was the voice of
what is more important, they are truly sculptural unsmirched youth in the world. "Suffer the little
decoration, but some of the things Bufano has children to come unto Me, and forbid them not:
done since his return are sculpturally more impor- for of such is the kingdom of Heaven." And there
tant. There is a portrait head of Colonel Wood, are the little children, lovely solemn children in a
the head of a rugged lofty prophet, the portrait row at the base of the cross. And all about the
of an idea. There is a group of a mother and two cross are fruit blossoms and singing birds, the
children, charming but serious, the three forming springtime of the year and the renewal of life. All
a closely knitted mass that is unobtrusively sym- this, moreover, is in color, colored bronze in the
bolic of the interdependence of the relation. There one instance, stained red and copper green and
is a "Man of Sorrows," a small figure glazed in touched with gold, and colored glazes in the
brilliant deep red but with the majesty of human example that is to be shown in the Arden Studios
tragedy in the few inches. in New York, the colors of spring and new life.
But the most important thing Bufano has done Thus even the most solemn and profoundly
is a "Crucifixion" in two slightly different inter- expressive thing Bufano has done is decorative.
three seventy-eight
FEBRUARY I 9 2 j
THE TWO FRIENDS BY BENT AMINO BUFANO
politan Museum of Art has just bought, the pretations. The Christ, a young Christ, is on the
"Honeymoon Couple." They stand together, cross. But he is not hung by the cruel spikes. He
aloof yet intimate, charming persons but some- is suspended almost without weight, rising by his
thing more than that, the essence of the high own spiritual exaltation, comes not within the
principled domesticity that Confucius enjoins and compass of earthly things, though he is God's Son
the Chinese poets have for two thousand years in the flesh, but is slightly disengaged with a
and more descriptively extolled. They are, more- detachment that at once expresses his transcend-
over, not two persons but genuinely a group, ance of corporeality and also creates the esthetic
unified by the relations of masses and the flow of isolation from the world of natural things which
draperies. And they are covered with fresh and is so difficult and so important in sculpture. And
lustrous glazes that have a moist translucency. he is a young Christ not only because Jesus him-
The Chinese pieces are fine decoration and, self was young but because He was the voice of
what is more important, they are truly sculptural unsmirched youth in the world. "Suffer the little
decoration, but some of the things Bufano has children to come unto Me, and forbid them not:
done since his return are sculpturally more impor- for of such is the kingdom of Heaven." And there
tant. There is a portrait head of Colonel Wood, are the little children, lovely solemn children in a
the head of a rugged lofty prophet, the portrait row at the base of the cross. And all about the
of an idea. There is a group of a mother and two cross are fruit blossoms and singing birds, the
children, charming but serious, the three forming springtime of the year and the renewal of life. All
a closely knitted mass that is unobtrusively sym- this, moreover, is in color, colored bronze in the
bolic of the interdependence of the relation. There one instance, stained red and copper green and
is a "Man of Sorrows," a small figure glazed in touched with gold, and colored glazes in the
brilliant deep red but with the majesty of human example that is to be shown in the Arden Studios
tragedy in the few inches. in New York, the colors of spring and new life.
But the most important thing Bufano has done Thus even the most solemn and profoundly
is a "Crucifixion" in two slightly different inter- expressive thing Bufano has done is decorative.
three seventy-eight
FEBRUARY I 9 2 j