DOI Heft:
Nr. 335 (April 1925)
DOI Artikel:Agard, Walter Raymond: The sculptural portrait
DOI Seite / Zitierlink:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.19985#0025
mceRnAcioriAL
men and beasts and enchain them in bronze."
But the best Greek portraits, such as the well-
known head of Pericles by Phidias, or Lysippus'
"Agias," sacrifice individuality to a satisfactory
"form," which inevitably makes a less popular
but more enduring appeal. In the same spirit
the best modern portraiture is being done.
Rodin was the iconoclast here, as in so many
respects. He saw beauty chiefly in emotional
rather than intellectual terms, in the play of
light and shade, in merging and contrasting
tones, in what may be called color values of
sculpture. Examine his delightful bronze head
of Legros. This is technically of Rodin's favorite
"lump and depression" technique, built up of a
pellet of clay here, a scratch there, broad, broken
masses of hair, all of which is designed primarily
to break the light into a multitude of cross-
currents and set it off on a delicious game of
hide-and-seek. Sometimes, chiefly in the hair,
the shafts are hard, as if the light struck quartz;
but more often the bronze has the quality of its
molten state, with light glowing in and out upon
it, softened to the luminous radiance of old blue
glass. The Legros is a portrait—make no mis-
take about that; in the brooding, almost canny
face, the narrowed eyes and contracted brow, the
"bust of pericles" by phidias
In the Metropolitan Museum
"head of legros" by rodin
tossed-back hair, the full, sensuous lips, are
revealed the painter's nature. But using that as
a skeleton, Rodin created upon it the warm flesh
and blood of living art.
The charm of exploring color values in various
media has appealed strongly of late to continental
sculptors. Bernhard Hoetger and Herman Haller
have had the courage to bring to the salons what
many a sculptor has secretly admired in the studio
—clay, with the virtues of its own vitality, before
the death in plaster and resurrection in marble,
clay with its rough surfaces and homely texture.
The Russians, notably Seraphim Sudbinin, have
found special delight in the smooth tones of golden
bronze and polished wood.
But the greatest of living portraitists have
gone farther than this in esthetic values, concen-
trating upon intellectual as well as emotional con-
tent, upon form more than color. No better
example of modern esthetic construction can be
found than Bourdelle's "Koeberle." This, too, is
a portrait; it reveals the famous surgeon in that
thin, sensitive, conscientious face, those piercing
eyes and tired cheeks. But this is more than a
person; it is a design, almost as severe and sub-
stantial as that of a bridge. It is seen most obvi-
ously in the hair, where the broad sure sweep of
April 1925
twenty-jive
men and beasts and enchain them in bronze."
But the best Greek portraits, such as the well-
known head of Pericles by Phidias, or Lysippus'
"Agias," sacrifice individuality to a satisfactory
"form," which inevitably makes a less popular
but more enduring appeal. In the same spirit
the best modern portraiture is being done.
Rodin was the iconoclast here, as in so many
respects. He saw beauty chiefly in emotional
rather than intellectual terms, in the play of
light and shade, in merging and contrasting
tones, in what may be called color values of
sculpture. Examine his delightful bronze head
of Legros. This is technically of Rodin's favorite
"lump and depression" technique, built up of a
pellet of clay here, a scratch there, broad, broken
masses of hair, all of which is designed primarily
to break the light into a multitude of cross-
currents and set it off on a delicious game of
hide-and-seek. Sometimes, chiefly in the hair,
the shafts are hard, as if the light struck quartz;
but more often the bronze has the quality of its
molten state, with light glowing in and out upon
it, softened to the luminous radiance of old blue
glass. The Legros is a portrait—make no mis-
take about that; in the brooding, almost canny
face, the narrowed eyes and contracted brow, the
"bust of pericles" by phidias
In the Metropolitan Museum
"head of legros" by rodin
tossed-back hair, the full, sensuous lips, are
revealed the painter's nature. But using that as
a skeleton, Rodin created upon it the warm flesh
and blood of living art.
The charm of exploring color values in various
media has appealed strongly of late to continental
sculptors. Bernhard Hoetger and Herman Haller
have had the courage to bring to the salons what
many a sculptor has secretly admired in the studio
—clay, with the virtues of its own vitality, before
the death in plaster and resurrection in marble,
clay with its rough surfaces and homely texture.
The Russians, notably Seraphim Sudbinin, have
found special delight in the smooth tones of golden
bronze and polished wood.
But the greatest of living portraitists have
gone farther than this in esthetic values, concen-
trating upon intellectual as well as emotional con-
tent, upon form more than color. No better
example of modern esthetic construction can be
found than Bourdelle's "Koeberle." This, too, is
a portrait; it reveals the famous surgeon in that
thin, sensitive, conscientious face, those piercing
eyes and tired cheeks. But this is more than a
person; it is a design, almost as severe and sub-
stantial as that of a bridge. It is seen most obvi-
ously in the hair, where the broad sure sweep of
April 1925
twenty-jive