DOI Heft:
No. 172 (July, 1907)
DOI Artikel:Studio-talk
DOI Seite / Zitierlink:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.20775#0189
Studio-Talk
"girl tying her hair" by w. sintenis
abroad to various of the numerous [exhibitions
now open throughout Germany.
The supple figure of the girl tying her hair, is
one of Mr. Sintenis' earliest works, and was perhaps
the first to draw general attention to him. The
sureness of delineation displays uncommon talent;
and the keen, conscientious modelling speaks of
excellent powers of observation. As is to be
expected in an early work, the fidelity to nature is
rather too insistent, and the work smacks too much
of the model. This stricture—if it be accepted as
one—is one to which Mr. Sintenis ceased to expose
himself at an unusually early period in his career.
It cannot be applied even to the over life-size
statue of the Negro, although in this case the
ethnological interests involved were apt to lead
an artist to cling to the model more than at other
times. This bronze statue, about eight feet high,
was bespoken by the great Hamburg shipping firm
of Woermann, who have extensive factories, etc.,
in our African colonies, and who set it up at the
entrance of their new Hamburg offices.
Mr. Sintenis' faculty of seeing the forms of nature
in a large way, of simplifying them and imbuing
them with grandeur, is strongly in evidence both
as to the admirable Beauty, the Conqueror, and the
Emilia. A black-and-white reproduction of the
Beauty makes the impression of its being a large
statue, whereas the capital little bronze is only about
twelve inches high. The pose, indicative of a sort
of merciless, haughty pride in one's bodily perfec-
tion is excellently in keeping with the expression
and type of the face : a Juno rather than a Venus.
That a certain rigidity and grandeur of style is not
at all incompatible with charm and grace is amply
proven by the Emilia to the very tyro. The treat-
ment of the hair is based upon far-reaching simplifica-
tion, which puts as wide a gap between nature and
the work of art as our imagination can be made to
bridge over. But the simplification of treatment,
as regards the face, though not as plainly recog-
nisable, is almost as great. Here too all accidentals,
all that is ephemeral in nature, is eliminated after
the same fashion.
statue in woermann's colonial offices,
hamburg by w. sintenis
iS9
"girl tying her hair" by w. sintenis
abroad to various of the numerous [exhibitions
now open throughout Germany.
The supple figure of the girl tying her hair, is
one of Mr. Sintenis' earliest works, and was perhaps
the first to draw general attention to him. The
sureness of delineation displays uncommon talent;
and the keen, conscientious modelling speaks of
excellent powers of observation. As is to be
expected in an early work, the fidelity to nature is
rather too insistent, and the work smacks too much
of the model. This stricture—if it be accepted as
one—is one to which Mr. Sintenis ceased to expose
himself at an unusually early period in his career.
It cannot be applied even to the over life-size
statue of the Negro, although in this case the
ethnological interests involved were apt to lead
an artist to cling to the model more than at other
times. This bronze statue, about eight feet high,
was bespoken by the great Hamburg shipping firm
of Woermann, who have extensive factories, etc.,
in our African colonies, and who set it up at the
entrance of their new Hamburg offices.
Mr. Sintenis' faculty of seeing the forms of nature
in a large way, of simplifying them and imbuing
them with grandeur, is strongly in evidence both
as to the admirable Beauty, the Conqueror, and the
Emilia. A black-and-white reproduction of the
Beauty makes the impression of its being a large
statue, whereas the capital little bronze is only about
twelve inches high. The pose, indicative of a sort
of merciless, haughty pride in one's bodily perfec-
tion is excellently in keeping with the expression
and type of the face : a Juno rather than a Venus.
That a certain rigidity and grandeur of style is not
at all incompatible with charm and grace is amply
proven by the Emilia to the very tyro. The treat-
ment of the hair is based upon far-reaching simplifica-
tion, which puts as wide a gap between nature and
the work of art as our imagination can be made to
bridge over. But the simplification of treatment,
as regards the face, though not as plainly recog-
nisable, is almost as great. Here too all accidentals,
all that is ephemeral in nature, is eliminated after
the same fashion.
statue in woermann's colonial offices,
hamburg by w. sintenis
iS9